Shirley plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Against All Odds

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

3/28/2024 FAIR WARNING! My computer’s behaved itself recently, but there’s another reason why I might not be posting next week: logistics.  With the Golden State Warriors basketballers fighting to make the postseaon, the Oakland Athletics baseballers opening night on Thursday, a play to see in Berkeley on Saturday, and Easter visit/dinner with some of the in-laws on Sunday I’m not sure what opportunity I might have to watch something and report on it next week.  If not, I'll be back.

              Shirley (John Ridley)  rated PG-13  118 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

For this review, I'll present no Spoiler alert warnings because everything being depicted here (except, I assume, most of the dialogue, which probably has been hypothesized/improvised) about Ms. Chisholm can be found in various biographies, so there’s nothing for me to partly-hide from you.

What Happens: This biopic (see Related Links below for recommendations of others of this type of cinema) of Shirley Chisholm is focused only on a few months of her life, but likely the ones she’ll most be remembered for, or, if she’s not immediately recognizable to you, this will help present a sense of one of the most impressive (but grueling) chapters in all of U.S. politics.  Chisholm (Oscar-winner [for If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins, 2028; review in our January 2, 2019 posting] Regina King) became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress (November, 1968) with this docudrama beginning in January 1969 as she comes from her district in Brooklyn, NYC to Washington, D.C. to be sworn in, only to find she’s been assigned to the Agricultural Committee which she feels has no relevance for her constituents (after complaining to fellow-Democrat, House Speaker John W. McCormack [Ken Strunk], she was later re-assigned); however, the full focus here begins at Christmas-time 1971 when she decides to run for President in the coming spring, despite strong objections from her closest advisors, Wesley McDonald “Mac” Holder (Lance Reddick) and Arthur Hardwick Jr. (Terrence Howard), a White college kid she recruited to help her with the youth vote, Robert Gottlieb (Lucas Hedges), and her husband, Conrad Chisholm (Michael Cherrie), who acts as security head and photographer for her campaign, as they all see no chance of her success.

 As if her home-resistance isn’t enough of a problem, there’s also the racism (and patriarchy) dogging her, but she gives a strong speech at Mills College in Oakland, CA (where I worked for 26 years, but long after she was there) where she meets young single-mother Barbara Lee (Christina Jackson) with no interest in the uselessness of politics until Shirley convinces her to join the campaign, becoming a prominent figure in the organization, then later went on to a long career in Congress herself (just now finishing her final term).  As the primary season progresses, Shirley gets support from noted feminists Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, and Gloria Steinem, but she passes on the New Hampshire primary due to the mostly-White electorate there, puts her energy into Florida; however, she secures only 3.5% of the vote and almost gets stabbed by a knife-wielding-assailant, leading to some tense talk with Conrad.  Next are national TV debates on ABC, CBS, and NBC, but she’s not invited due to her slim primary results; she counters with a successful lawsuit invoking the Equal Time FCC requirement, gets her some needed TV time; still, she keeps butting heads with campaign manager Stan Townsend (Brian Stokes Mitchell) who quits/is fired, due somewhat to her insistence to keep nuance in her answers to press questions rather than trying to be more concise.

 She’s also having problems with her sister, Muriel (Reina King [Regina's sister, also one of the several producers, along with Regina), who thinks Shirley was always Daddy’s favorite, is embarrassing the family now.  Further tension comes with Conrad when she needs $36K to keep the campaign going, can only raise it using her Congressional salary, their sole source of income.  An ironic problem then comes when famous segregationist/former Alabama governor George Wallace (W. Earl Brown), running a Third Party-campaign, is shot, with Shirley defying all opposition to see him in the hospital (loss of use of lower limbs), pray for him.  Shirley manages to pick up some support, though, as TV star Diane Carroll (Amirah Vann) arranges a meeting between Chisholm and Oakland Black Panther honcho Huey P. Newton (Brad James).  As the Miami Beach convention rolls around in July she also finds some help from the Hubert Humphrey and Edward Muskie teams, recruiting her to join them in challenging CA’s winner-take-all primary, instead wanting delegates proportional to the votes, but this fails with harsh opposition from George McGovern-backer Willie Brown (not in the cast list, might be documentary footage).  A final failure for Chisholm comes from candidate Walter Fauntroy (André Holland) who’d earlier agreed to release his delegates to Shirley but instead sends them to McGovern, aiding in his first-ballot-victory (Shirley ended up with 152 first-ballot-delegates), with nothing for Chisholm except needed-reconciliation with Muriel.  At the end, a brief testimonial’s given by actual Congresswoman/recent Senate candidate Barbara Lee; pre-credits graphics tell us that Shirley and Conrad divorced in 1977, with her afterward marrying Arthur.

So What? I’m now trying to focus on 2024 releases (though I did make a correction on how Bella got from Paris to London in my review of Poor Things [Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023], as well as add a video to my review of The Iron Claw [Sean Durkin, 2023] where the director and 3 of the “Von Erich brothers” discuss aspects of that movie [last sentence of the So What? section])—but I’m finding the pickings slim, so I wasn’t sure what I’d see this week until I stumbled across Shirley which took me back decades to personal memories, just as The Iron Claw.  However, what I most remember about the 1972 Presidential campaign tends sharply to the negative as I had some minor clashes with my father who was disturbed anyone had the free time to be showing up at the political conventions to protest rather than working 9 to 5 five days a week like he had to (in his case, fixing broken cash registers for NCR), then faced existential trauma when Democrat George McGovern, whose party platform contained so many elements I embraced, lost in a horrific landslide in the re-election of Republican Richard Nixon, whose not-so-Silent Majority led him to victory in all but 1 state, completely dashing my naïve beliefs that the American public was ready to move noticeably in the directions of change, fairness, acceptance of those whose needs had been too long denied, etc.

 Since then, I’ve been generally cynical about what can be expected of most politicians no what they claim to advocate, with some hope restored to me in aspects of the Presidential terms of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, countered by the years I’ve endured with Ronald Reagan, the father-son Bush boys, and—most terrifyingly—the Orange Goon whose name I’ll avoid for now, with growing fear his manipulation of law, truth, and the gullible-swath of the electorate might bring this fascist/racist/self-absorbed fool back into power.  All that combo of hope and dismay is returned powerfully to me in portions of Shirley as this determined woman continued to fight for what she believed in—mainly, politics belongs to the people, not those rich/powerful enough to manipulate the system for their own benefit—even against incredible odds (embodying the hope I desperately want to see with this country run fairly and legally, from local school boards all the way up to the ultimate D.C. Deciders, including the Supreme Court), yet there's the dismay about the way political decisions are so often made not by principles and agreements but by expediency as in the case of Fauntroy releasing his delegates to McGovern before the first ballot was taken instead of waiting to release them to Chisholm as he’d promised to do, then some other Black delegates being shuffled over to McGovern as well (even as Chisholm’s forces tried to challenge the winner-take-all instead of proportional distribution of delegates based on a state’s primary voting) by men I’ve come to admire in my time in CA since 1984, Ron Dellums (Dorian Missick in this movie) and Willie Brown.

 I know politics is a dirty business with the Constitution often used as a rhetorical device or a crafty strategy to achieve a dubious goal, but I keep hoping—deep in my barren soul—there would be, on a regular basis, more leaders of governments (local, state, national) who truly want to make life better for their constituents rather than simply finding methods of re-election.  Shirley stirs up the hope that there have been/are/will be such leaders of principle rather than self-aggrandizement, but it also shows how the pragmatics of winning (even when the cause appears to be noble) can often leave principles in the dust.  I also have to say that back in 1972 I was completely in support of McGovern, as I finally had the opportunity to vote.  I’d missed the 1968 election by less than 2 months of being 21 then, as did a lot of people my age who might have been able to prevent Nixon from even a first term, but that’s all speculation; in 1972 Chisholm and her supporters were in hopes 18-year-olds being allowed to vote for the first time might have made a difference (I’m sure the McGovern team thought the same), but that hope faded, just as I fear it might in 2024 as many young potential voters (and vocal pro-Palestinians) seem inclined to support some alternative to Trump and Biden or just not vote at all, which I fear may benefit Trump in the all-important Electoral College tally (or truly lead to riots in the streets if the Mar-A-Lago Dark Lord should lose once again).

 Back in 1972 I appreciated what Shirley Chisholm stood for but was all-in with McGovern, simply because I thought he had a legitimate chance to win in a country where any female candidate (just ask Hilary Clinton or my wife, Nina) has a horribly-difficult task in being elected President (rather the better odds they face of becoming Senators from Blue states), especially a woman who’s Black in a country still more racist than many will admit (except those who conveniently raise the specter of President Kamala Harris as a reason not to vote for age-challenged Joe Biden again).  Chisholm faced that seemingly-insurmountable-challenge head-on, possibly in a more stubborn fashion than was pragmatically-advisable, as least as depicted in this movie—San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle says the actual Chisholm was more flexible than she’s shown to be here—so if you’d like to know more about her than just these few months presented on screen I encourage you to look into biographies such as this one.  Whether you choose to see the movie or not may depend upon what you know already, what you don’t care to know more about, or whether such content has interest for you.  If you decide to see it, though, at the very least I think you’ll be highly impressed by King’s acting prowess and this version of Shirley Chisholm as a dedicated warrior for just causes, no matter the popularity of her position.  (Sorry if I got too strung-out on me rather than Shirley, but this is the type of personally-focused-story that calls for a personal response from its viewers—including me.)

Bottom Line Final Comments: Netflix is the distributor here so even with a limited domestic (U.S.-Canada) theatrical release on March 15, 2024 you’re not going to get any box-office information on its big-screen presence (nor will you be likely to find it in most areas) because the true focus is on getting you to watch it on Netflix streaming, free if you’re a subscriber to the platform.  Like LaSalle, the CCAL’s restrained in encouraging your attention as it’s gotten only 71% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, a considerably-lower 57% Metacritic average score, so you may factor that in to your decision although whatever you choose to do I encourage you to either see this movie or turn to other resources to learn more about Ms. Chisholm, the first Black to vie for the U.S. Presidency in a major political party (also first Democrat woman in such a race), making more of an impact in that quest than almost any except her ardent supporters ever thought she would (followed by a career into the next decade in Congress, then in academia), so for my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor I’ll turn to Gloria Gaynor’s big hit, “I Will Survive” (written by Freddie Perren, Dino Fekaris [both formerly with Motown Records], on Gaynor’s 1978 Love Tracks album) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=6dYWe1c3OyU, even though the song is specifically about a woman spurned by a lover who then wants her back, yet she’s through with his antics, rejects his overtures.

 Given that when Gaynor recorded this song she was in a back brace following a 6-month-hospital-recovery from a bad fall on stage resulting in a broken spine there’s connective feeling from the singer in these lyrics just as I find connection with Chisholm in lines like “Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die? / Oh no, not I, I will survive / Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll stay alive / I’ve got all my life to live, and I’ve got all my love to give / And I’ll survive, I will survive.”  This is a woman who bucked considerable hostility, even from her fans after she visited George Wallace when he was shot in 1972, demonstrating her Christian faith in forgiveness and caring for others was stronger than her political ideologies, showing an inner strength to survive all that confronted her, even if this movie presents her as always being right, at least in how she saw what decisions she felt she had to make, even causing alienation from her closest friends and family.

             

SHORT TAKES

              

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for your consideration: (1) IMDb favorite films directed by women; (2) The New Yorker's best bio-pics ever made (I thank my friend Barry Caine for passing this info on to me).

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The Iron Claw plus Short Takes on Frida [2024] and a few other cinematic topics

Overcoming Misery

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

3/20/24!—Here’s a warning about a possible breakdown in postings from your enthusiastic critic at Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark because my trusty computer’s acting funky again (almost died this week); if need be, I'll go dark for awhile for necessary repairs, but—if so—I’ll be back soon.

                             The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin, 2023)

                                              rated R   132 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: In this “Inspired by a True Story” biopic (but not one that's as “bomb”bastic as Oppenheimer [Christopher Nolan, 2023; review in our August 17, 2023 posting]), we begin briefly in the 1960s where pro wrestler Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany)—actual name was Jack Barton Adkisson; he and his wrestler sons used Von Erich as stage names, although it does come from Jack’s mother’s heritage, with the concern among Fritz’s sons their family’s cursed because of this decision due to Grandma’s family suffering frequent tragedies (although I admit wrestlers would have a hard time establishing any sort of persona with a name like Jack Adkisson when something like Ric Flair is much more effective [his real name: Richard Morgan Fliehr]); Kevin (Zac Efron) is especially concerned about this curse due to the early death of his oldest brother, Jack Jr., as a mere little kid.

 After the early scene of Fritz we're in 1979 where he’s retired (script seems to fudge a bit on that) but runs a Dallas-based, Texas-wide franchise called World Class Championship Wrestling (that operates in some conjunction with the larger, more-nationwide National Wrestling Alliance [back when I saw matches televised from Houston the basic tactic seemed to be the NWA would have a villain champion brought in to fight a local hero, with the hero never winning the title, at least that’s how I experienced it; there was also the holdover attitude from WW II about certain bad guys so Von Erich evoked the Nazis, Duke Keomuka evoked Imperial Japan]) that developed its popularity with 3 of Fritz’s sons—in order of birth—Kevin, David (Harris Dickinson), and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White)—I never saw the first 2 in action but had some exposure to Kerry when he went over to Vince McMahon’s WWF (now WWE) enterprise.  I’m sure championships were mandated by corporate decisions providing for frustration from those who were never allowed to rise to the top, as with Fritz fuming about never being NWA honcho so he puts his hopes on Kevin, the current WCCW Texas Heavyweight Champion, when given a match against NWA champ Harley Race (Kevin Anton).  Kevin wins, but by disqualification, so the title doesn’t change hands, although the rematch is set.

 However, Fritz decides David should get the rematch, frustrating Kevin who does find solace with his new girlfriend, Pam (Lily James), soon after marries her, before long she's pregnant.  Kerry then joins his brothers in the ring after his hopes for competing in discus at the 1980 Summer Olympics are dashed by the USA boycotting the games after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.  In 1983 the 3 Von Erich brothers defeat the Fabulous Freebirds to win a Six-Man Tag Team Championship (with seemingly all 6 in the ring at the same time, or maybe that was just in one quick assault; we don’t see this in the movie but these 2 teams frequently traded for this title until it was retired in 1988), but next-in-line Mike (Stanley Simons), who hoped rather to be a musician, replaced David after his 1984 death in Japan from enteritis (inflammation of the small intestine), so by coin toss Kerry gets the NWA championship match, but now it’ll be against Ric Flair (Aaron Dean Eisenberg), which Kerry loses, after which he has a motorcycle accident, must amputate his right foot (then gets a prosthetic one, goes over to WWF for awhile).  Kevin ends up in a rematch with Flair, seems to have him beat by applying his father’s famous submission hold, the Iron Claw (a furious squeeze of the opponent’s head) but refuses to break the hold so the referee disqualifies him.  Things continue to get complicated as Mike goes into a coma after surgery, comes out with physical and mental problems, finally succumbs to suicide even as Kevin takes over WCCW from Fritz; Kerry also kills himself with a gun he gave to Fritz as a Christmas present, which throws Kevin into a fit of rage against Fritz. ⇒Later, in a somber mood Kevin has a vision of his departed brothers, even Jack Jr.  Kevin then sells WCCW against Fritz’s wishes, finds solace again with his young sons who say they’ll be like brothers to him.  Doris, however, divorces Fritz, returns to her former love of painting.  Graphics before the final credits note the Von Erichs were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009, with Kevin, Pam, their children and grandchildren now living on a ranch in Hawaii.⇐

(Fritz and Doris at Kevin's wedding.)

So What? After my recent postings I thought I was done with reviewing 2023 releases, but this one continued to intrigue me because back in the mid-1960s I watched pro wresting on TV from Houston (I lived 50 miles away in Galveston) and saw the great villain Fritz Von Eric torture his opponents with that face claw, then in the late 1970s while living in Dallas I wasn’t watching wrestling anymore (although I started again in the late 1980s, continuing on until retirement in 2013 as it proved to be a great release of work-related-tensions when the heroes would clobber the nasty villains, although toward the end in watching WWE pay-per-views the villains often won out, so my tactic wasn’t as successful; fortunately, retirement took away most of the bad vibes anyway [except computer breakdowns]), but the Dallas newspapers covered some aspects of the local-hero-Von Erichs (somehow the family's elder statesman had evolved into a crowd-favorite) so I was aware of Fritz’s “final” match against King Kong Bundy in 1982 (ended in a draw due to a double-count out while they fought outside the ring, though I now find he had another “final” in 1986 [after I’d moved to CA] where he beat Abdullah the Butcher via disqualification [I guess none of these guys who are continuing on in the ring want a clear loss on their record to a local icon who’s leaving these public conflicts]).  Fritz died in 1997 at age 68—his 6^th son, Chris (not part of this movie) died in 1991, just short of his 22^nd birthday, so maybe the curse has some substance after all, as Kevin’s the only one of that immediate family (along with Pam and their children) still alive today (Doris died too, in 2015).

 If you want some explorations of actual fact vs. fiction in The Iron Claw here’s a source, where you find unseen, less physically-commanding-than-his-brothers-Chris shot himself (in 1991), just like Kerry (1993).  For those who assume pro-wresting is all choreographed, this movie sort of affirms, yet leaves open the idea spontaneous happenings do occur, as when Kevin says Race wasn’t supposed to throw him out of the ring, then suplex him onto the concrete floor, leaving him slow to return due to the pain, even though Fritz tells his son to fight through the difficulties to verify his predominance in the sport (maybe we should say “physical spectacle,” just as the World Wrestling Federation changed its WWF name to World Wrestling Entertainment after a legal challenge from the World Wildlife Fund).  For those not interested in wrestling’s violence, you can still watch this movie and not be too put-off by it because the in-ring-scenes are sparse, there’s no blood from open wounds, nobody gets hit with a metal chair, and the referees seem to be aware of everything going on, enforcing “rules,” such as they are.  It’s truly a drama (with a marvelous performance by bulked-up-Efron) about a hard-working-family (maybe too hard at times, trying to match Fritz’s aspirations for the honor he’s accorded to the Von Erichs), where tragedy just keeps striking sibling after sibling.

Bottom Line Final Comments: The Iron Claw opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on December 22, 2023, taking in $35 million at the box office ($42.7 million worldwide), but if you want to see it now you’ll probably need streaming where last weekend I had to buy it for $19.99 on Apple TV+ (also for sale then on Amazon Prime Video, a couple of others), although now you can rent it from Amazon Prime for a mere $5.99 (4K version, also HD) or a few others for up to $7.99, yet the only purchase available now is just from Apple (?)—I’m getting a little tired of these options shifting from buy only to rental a few days after I make my purchase, though I can’t wait until into the next week to watch just to see if a bargain emerges because Friday and Saturday nights are my best choices to spend time on cinematic narratives (given other things to do/watch on other nights during the week). If you’re interested in the ... Claw you’ll find a supportive CCAC with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 89%, the Metacritic average score at 73% (they’re usually lower than RT)—the Oscar predictor at Variety even said certain aspects of it deserved Oscar nominations to replace others in those final fives: Film Editing, Makeup & Hair Styling, Original Song. Even more concretely, the National Board of Review included The Iron Claw among their Top 10 of 2023 along with awarding it for Best Ensemble (other critic groups also gave it various nominations).

 Or, maybe you’d just prefer my standard trope of closing out a review with a Musical Metaphor, which in this case I’ll give you a few (in case I disappear for a bit), although I’ll pass on the Variety guy’s interest in "Live That Way Forever" (written by Richard Reed Parry, Laurel Sprengelmeyer; sung in the movie by Mike Von Eric, also used during the final credits) instead of another song from the soundtrack, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult (on their 1976 Agents of Fortune album [yeah, I know: "More cowbell!"]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8L325a-e8k with its pleas to not be afraid even in the face of tragedy: “All our times have come / Here, but now they’re gone […] The door was open and the wind appeared / The candles blew and then disappeared [… but] Don’t fear the Reaper.”  Now, for your further edification I just came across another song that also seems to fit well (or maybe I think it's so because I heard it on the radio while in the sauna so my mind might have been baked at that point), from the Staple Singers, “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me)” (on their 1973 album Be What You Are) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx_Vq6t-3vI (terrible video, good sound) which alludes to when Kevin has that vision of his brothers, giving him a sense of how tragedy may eventually resolve itself within comfort (as his later life seems to indicate) as the song encourages us: “No hatred (come go with me) / Will be tolerated (come go with me) […] Love is the only transportation / To where there’s total communication.”  Or, maybe in these increasingly-harsh-political-times I’m just encouraged by an upbeat song rejecting disaster, wars, economical exploitation, political domination, genocide, backstabbing with the encouragement to be “just movin’ on.”  At least in this movie we get the hope Kevin Von Erich was able to find such peace despite all he had to endure; if so, this story offers hope we might be able to do the same ourselves.

             

SHORT TAKES

          

In order for these postings to not run on too long (for both your sanity and mine) I promised myself (and my ever-tolerant, “Good night, see you in the morning”-wife, Nina) to do 1 review each week, but I keep coming across others I’d like to also take note of so I’m trying an experiment of making comments in Short Takes that are actually short (!).  Here’s my first attempt at such.  Wish me luck!

        Frida [2024] (Carla Gutierrez)   rated R  87 min.

Here’s the trailer:

No spoiler warning as this film’s all based on known fact, unlike The Iron Claw which fictionalizes some actualies, although I cheated too by using the photo below from the biopic Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002) starring Salma Hayek because it's a better shot than anything I could find from this new Frida.

 This documentary about the great Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, uses her images frequently (even animates some of them), plus footage from her life along with her own words from her writings and interviews, spoken by Fernanda Echevarria del Rivero, to give us an informative, insightful, concise overview of Kahlo’s life from the time as a teenager she was injured in a trolley car accident (left her with ongoing major pain), through her career as a communist, surrealist painter (many marvelous self-portraits), affairs along the way with women and men including Russia’s Leon Trotsky, her 2 marriages to famed muralist Diego Rivera, and her distain for the high-class-capitalists necessity for supporting major art works.  This film is wonderful to see, factually-useful to watch, so I’m recommending it highly, free to Amazon Video subscribers (although it is in Spanish, so that means subtitles for many of us)—or, if you’re not within that tribe you could consult this biography and/or this collection of her paintings.  The CCAL’s generally supportive, although there’s another gap between the 90% RT positive reviews and the 74% MC average score.  For a Musical Metaphor I’m going with Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” (1965 Bringing It All Back Home album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRgk6v2o9RY, a song with many interpretations (including whom it might be about), possibly an ironic title (in that the singer doesn’t seem all that consistently supportive of this woman he's describing), yet with lyrics that speak to me about aspects of Frida: “She’s got everything she needs / She’s an artists, she don’t look back […] She’s nobody’s child /The law can’t touch her at all […] She’s a hypnotist collector / You are a walking antique.”  There’s a lot more that could be said about Frida; I highly encourage you to see/enjoy it for yourself.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

Just one option for your consideration this week: Current Top 10 movies and TV series on Netflix.

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 30,011 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Short Takes on Poor Things, The Zone of Interest, and a few other cinematic topics

Mad Science and Mad Men

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

In that I saw both films reviewed this week just before the Oscars broadcast I wasn’t able to get to them until after the fact, so I’ll try here to provide their due without belaboring details too much.  (Shocking, I know.)  Speaking of the Oscars, since they’ve been awarded for the 2023 releases you can refer to my predictions posting to see what I got right (16 of 23, 70%) and wrong, which you can also compare to the experts at Variety where they got 15 correct for 65%.  Where I didn’t predict a winner the Academy only awarded 1 of my preferences (Poor Things, Makeup and Hair Styling) while Variety also got 1 preference (The Last Repair Shop, Documentary Short Film) when predicting something else, so I've come out about even with those who seemingly know more than me, ha ha!

           

SHORT TAKES

           

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

                     Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)

                                             rated R   142 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 Clearly, Poor Things is the oddest, most extreme film of the 2024 Best Picture Oscar nominees (admittedly, even more so than the gloriously-created-world of Barbie [Greta Gerwig, 2023; review in our August 17, 2023 posting] my preference for Best Production Design), with a clear Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)-like-vibe as a mad-scientist-surgeon in what seems (mostly) to be late-19^th-century London (with a stitched-up-face reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster, the result of his father performing experiments on him), Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), finds the body of a suicidal woman, Victoria (Emma Stone)—as we learn more about her later—with her unborn child, so, in his own strange experiment, he replaces her brain with that of the fetus, then reanimates her, but she’s highly attractive with the only scar on the rear of her neck under her extremely-long-hair.  At first, with her infant brain, this young woman, now called Bella, has no memory of her previous life but sees Godwin (whom she ironically calls “God”) as a sort of father as she struggles to find speech, balance, understanding of the world around her, even as she’s increasingly-irresistible to Godwin’s assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), who proposes to her.  In the meantime, she discovers the sexual joy of masturbation, wants plenty of it, frequently, yet Max wants to save her virginity for marriage (he later learns of how she came to be), so instead she runs off to Lisbon with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a sleazy lawyer Godwin hired to draw up the marriage contract for Max.

 Bella’s brain begins to mature rapidly (It also grew to better lodge in her skull?), resulting in rejection of Duncan’s controlling-attempts so he turns to drinking and gambling, finally winning a huge sum, but she gives it to some shady crew members who promise to use it to aid the poor (as if!), leaving Duncan unable to pay for the rest of the trip; they’re dropped off in Marseille, make their way to Paris where she finds funds working in a brothel, exasperated Duncan leaving her.  ⇒As events continue, Duncan's in a London mental hospital, Godwin’s about to die, Max finds Duncan who tells him Bella's in Paris so Max contacts her; she returns to London with the wedding now on again.  However, the ceremony’s interrupted by General Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), who tells Bella she’s actually Victoria, married to him, so she goes to his home only to find out how violently-cruel he is.  He tries to force her to drink a sedative prior to being genitally-mutilated, but when she throws the liquid in his face he passes out.  Godwin dies peacefully, Bella and Max operate on Alfie, putting a goat’s brain in his skull so that he now just peacefully munches grass while they have a happy life.⇐

 The costumes, makeup and hairstyling, along with the production design are all marvelously over the top, winning Oscars in each of these 3 categories (plus 8 other noms); however, the biggest win was for Stone who, surprisingly for many predictors—me and Variety included—won the Actress in a Leading Role award over the presumptive-favorite, Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, 2023 [review in our November 9, 2023 posting]), who some say, despite her winning this award from the Screen Actors Guild, should have been competing for Supporting Actress given the amount of her on-screen-time in that lengthy film (but then she’d have been up against eventual-winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers [Alexander Payne, 2023; review in our December 13, 2023 posting], so Gladstone faced a difficult path no matter how she chose to compete for an Oscar).  Poor Things is still in 700 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters even after 14 weeks, but you can also find it streaming free on Hulu, for rent on Apple TV+ for $5.99, yet a week or so ago when I saw it the only choice was a purchase for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple TV+, etc., so I did (you can celebrate your now-more-affordable-options; I'll celebrate that I now own it when it doesn't seem to be available for sale anymore).  It’s made $34 million at the box-office (prior to the Oscars), $108.7 million worldwide, may make more now as Oscar wins should stir up some curiosity.

 It’s #8 on my 2023 Top 10 list, with the CCAL highly in support—Rotten Tomatoes 92% positive reviews, Metacritic 88% average score.  If you’d like to know more about it, this video (10:09 [ad interrupts at 5:00]) does a marvelous job of exploring inspirations, symbolism, meaning, etc. without getting into the realm of Spoilers.  I’ll close with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, which, in this case, may be as odd as the film, but what came to me in an inspiration after watching a PBS documentary about my fellow-Texan-singer/songwriter was Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” (1963 album of the same name) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Jz3VW7rYk with lyrics that could easily come from Max about his lost Bella just as they could come from her about her constantly-evolving/unresolved persona: “In dreams, I walk with you / In dreams, I talk to you/ In dreams, you’re mine all of the time / We’re together in dreams […] In beautiful dreams.”  If nothing else, the content of this song (also used for spooky-impact in another “out there” film, Blue Velvet [David Lynch,1986]) speaks to the dreamlike presence of Poor Things, a unique trip I encourage you to consider taking.

                  

                   The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

                                    rated PG-13   105 min.

Here’s the trailer:

 The Zone of Interest is a marvelously-subtle-but-ultimately-disturbing film that implies the horrors of the Holocaust during WW II without directly showing any of those atrocities.  Somewhat based on a 2014 novel by Martin Amis, a fictional story inspired by historical people and events, this adaptation (written by Glazer) is even more historically-focused on the juxtaposition of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943, in his official and family existences.  We see Höss, his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, in another fine role from last year, in addition to her wife-accused-of-murdering-her-husband in Anatomy of a Fall [Justine Triet, 2023; review in our January 24, 2024 posting], for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress in a Leading Role), and their 5 young children living in relative luxury while just over the wall of their spacious garden we know that horrors are occurring on a daily basis, which we “witness” only from the audio of screams, gunshots, and a frequent noise buried in the soundtrack which sounds to me like a burning furnace.  Höss is fully dedicated to his assignment, even approving of the design for a new crematorium which will be more efficient, accommodating a larger number of victims, yet he also comes across as a caring father who frequently takes his children to the nearby river to play.

 To his disgust, though, one day on such an outing he finds human remains in the river, gets his children home quickly, then dresses down his workers for being so careless with their operations.  Based on his success at this post, Höss is promoted to be Deputy Inspector of all the concentration camps, but this forces him to relocate to Oranienburg, near Berlin.  As a compromise with dejected Hedwig he gets permission to allow her and the children to stay in their Auschwitz home where they have become comfortable in their surroundings, although when Hedwig’s mother (Imogen Kogge) visits, she leaves after just one night, disturbed by the burning furnaces.  ⇒Eventually, Höss is sent back to Auschwitz to oversee the execution of 700,000 Hungarian Jews, which delights this man, but as he’s leaving a going-away-party, he stops on an empty staircase and vomits, implying he’s aware at some level of the atrocious murders he’s developed such success with. Then there’s a cut to the present day where janitors are cleaning the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (I’ve been there, a most sobering, revelatory experience), then we cut back to Höss continuing his staircase descent.⇐

 When I faced the difficult task of ranking my Top 10 of the 2023 releases it wasn’t easy to assign numbers (after #1 Killers of the Flower Moon, #2 Past Lives [Celine Song; review in our August 31, 2023 posting]) because all those on the list have strong aspects in their various elements, but I finally decided to rank The Zone of Interest (the title never is explicitly explained, at least not to my understanding, but it does allude to interesting possibilities) as #10, although you can easily find arguments that could rate it higher at another of those intriguing videos (12:33 [ads interrupt at 4:50, 9:40]) which explores inspiration, symbolism, meaning, etc. without getting into the Spoiler zone.  One aspect of this film not noted there is that a rundown house near the camp wall was converted to this film’s upscale Höss residence, with a garden planted too, so that much of the footage was shot at Auschwitz, given further chilling authenticity to the final product, nominated for 5 Oscars, winning for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. It’s been out for 13 weeks in domestic theaters (still in 534 of them), taking in $8.2 million so far, $24.2 million globally.  If it’s easier to stream than to find in the marketplace you’ll see it can be rented for $5.99-$7.99 at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc. (here's another one I recently bought for $19.99, now no longer an option [?]).  It’s a quiet, slowly-paced, unnerving experience with beautiful visuals, greatly lauded by the CCAL with positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes at 93%, an astonishing 92% average score from Metacritic, so you’re being actively encouraged to see it, as long as you don’t object to the (necessary for many of us) subtitles, as the dialogue’s in German, Polish, and Yiddish.

 Hopefully, you also won’t object to my choice of a Musical Metaphor (which I admit is stretching it a bit), Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” (1979 album The Wall) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AXic upcf_4 as I think lyrics such as “Hey, you, out there in the cold, getting lonely, getting old / Can you feel me? […] Hey, you, out there beyond the wall, breaking bottles in the hall / Can you help me?”  could clandestinely be coming from Höss as he’s secretly-sickened by the ongoing tragedy just beyond his stately garden wall; I don’t want to give him too much credit for being revolted by his embrace of the Holocaust, though, as the actual guy this film’s based on after the war was convicted and executed for his crimes, but I want to hope that even in the darkest corners of the darkest humans there's some decency lurking, even if it has scant chance to rising usefully to the surface.  Or, if nothing else, the riot footage in this video speaks to what happens beyond Höss’ idyllic wall, even if what’s shown here isn’t exactly the same brutality as what he was so efficiently in charge of.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

A couple of options: (1) Netflix gets just 1 Oscar, Apple gets none; (2) The 12 most shocking Oscar upsets of all time (I'd probably add Emma Stone's 2024 win, no offense to her performance).

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.goggle.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

          

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 30,011 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):