All of Us Strangers plus Short Takes on some various other cinematic topics

“I [, too,] see dead people.”

(modified quote from The Sixth Sense [M. Night Shyamalan, 1999])

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 song’s name)

5/22/2024—Before this week’s review, though, I'll announce Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark takes a break next week while Nina and I celebrate our annual 3-day marathon of the Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola [1972, 1974, 1990]) as she gets a break from meal preparation (I do my best to manage spinach salad, spaghetti, and chianti), we both get to revisit the Corleone family.  I should be back with you on June 5, 2024, though, likely with comments on a new documentary about the Beach Boys, coming to Disney+ on May 24 (for subscribers to that platform).

                          All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)

                                         rated R   107 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: On the outskirts of contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) is a screenwriter for movies and TV, lives in what seems to be a nearly-empty high-rise apartment building, is very isolated and lonely (somber opening shots show the emotional emptiness of his world), not so much because he’s gay but more so as he’s had a morose life since he was 12 when his parents were killed in a car accident, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother.  One night he gets a surprise knock on his front door from a downstairs neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), who says he’s seen Adam watching him from his high-up window, wonders if he’d like some company.  Adam’s reluctant, sends Harry away. Next, as Adam’s trying to write a script about his parents he leafs through an old family album, gets on a train out to the suburb where he grew up, finds his old family home, now unoccupied, then meets a man (Jamie Bell) he seems to know, leaving us to believe it’s some sort of hook-up.  Instead, we’re now back at the family home where it becomes clear this man is Adam’s father, with his mother (Claire Foy) also inside the house encouraging her son to come in.

 The parents are the same age as when they died—35 years ago—so now Adam’s older than them, but despite this strangeness he seems comfortable with them, all engage in easy conversation.  Back at his apt. building, Adam again runs into Harry; this time he’s much more accommodating, invites Harry up to his place where they talk (Harry prefers “queer” rather than “gay,” Adam seems more comfortable with the latter), then kiss, then it’s passionate sex (heated, not graphic; this is just an R film, after all).  Adam continues to visit his parents who seem to know nothing about their son or the world in general since the time they died, so at one point Adam tells Mom about his sexual orientation; she accepts, concerned not so much about his identity but more about how he’s not sharing his life with anyone.  As for Dad, Adam tells him how it hurt when he didn’t come to his son’s room to offer comfort when the kid was crying due to bullying at school; Dad admits his failure as the 2 men reconcile.  When Adam’s not with his parents he’s with Harry, having more sex, then going to clubs, but one day he wakes up back in the suburbs, sharing Christmas decorating with the parents, then climbing into bed with them that night, unable to sleep (as he did when he was a small child).* 

*During this Christmas-themed scene the soundtrack plays the Pet Shot Boys’ "Always on My Mind". (On their 1987 It Couldn’t Happen Here album; written by Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher, Mark James, first recorded by Brenda Lee then Elvis Presley in 1972, became a huge hit for Willie Nelson in 1982.  Given its lyrics it could easily have been the Musical Metaphor I use at the end of these reviews, but I decided on something else so you decide if I made the right choice.)

 Soon, Adam’s coming back to consciousness again, this time on a train where he sees his young self screaming in a window reflection, then wakes up distraught with Harry in the apt. after Harry brought him home due to a panic attack.  Adam tells Harry the details of his parents’ deaths, with Dad dying at once, Mom wasting away in the hospital for a few days, Grandma keeping Adam from seeing her because of her horrid condition (he even says he found one of her eyes on the side of the road).  Adam finally gets Harry to accompany him to visit the parents, but when they get there the house is empty; however, as they leave Adam sees Mom in a reflection of the front door glass which he pounds until the glass breaks.  ⇒The next morning, Adam wakes up with his parents who tell him Harry went home, that he needs to let them go so he can work on building a relationship with Harry.  They then go to his favorite childhood restaurant where they ask about their deaths; Adam lies, saying they both died instantly, a relief to Mom, after which they vanish.  Returning to his building, Adam goes to Harry’s place, finds the door unlocked but an awful stench inside which Adam traces to Harry’s dead body, followed by Harry’s ghost appearing, distraught Adam saw his corpse, telling his friend he died (suicide?) on that long-ago night of Adam’s first rejection.  Adam takes upset ghost-Harry upstairs., comforts him as they spoon in bed, as the image fades away into the night.⇐

So What? All of Us Strangers is adapted from Taichi Yamada’s novel, Strangers (1987), which I know about only through reading a brief summary, but the essential aspects of the film’s plot are there regarding how the protagonist (not gay) is lonely due to divorce and estrangement from his teenage son, then he meets a couple who remind him of his parents, who turn out to be ghosts but of a more menacing type than the ones we encounter in the film.  And, for that matter, what are these entities that Adam encounters: ghosts, hallucinations, the projections of some sort of fantasy he’s concocting?  Ultimately, that will be up to us to decide because director Haigh doesn’t want to provide a definitive answer, as he notes in his commentary to one of those analysis-of-a-scene videos you’ll find connected to Alissa Wilkinson’s extremely-supportive review farther below in the Bottom Line Final Comments section of this posting.  If Adam’s encounters are hallucinations—in one of the club scenes Adam and Harry are taking ketamine (used medically for anesthesia, recreationally for relief from depression and pain), maybe just about everything we see here after the opening, quiet shots is all in Adam’s mind; if not, these ghosts he may be encountering seem to have physical substance so they certainly aren’t pale spirits, but we’ll never know for sure, although the possibilities of what’s going on here certainly make for extended, animated post-viewing discussions.

 Even if all we see is simply generated in Adam’s mind, this well-received film is a marvelous exploration into the consciousness of a person whose justifiable-traumas have set him on a course of despair, something we can usefully learn from if we’ve been lucky enough to not having gone to those psychological depths (yet) ourselves or can (hopefully) appreciate as a valid reflection of such emotional loss if we’ve ever been burdened with such emptiness.  In regard to my borrowed title for this review, though, All of Us Strangers takes a different twist on the events of The Sixth Sense because in that famous film the kid, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), is a young child who sees ghosts still hanging around in our environment because they haven’t been able to move on yet, telling his story to child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), although in a shocking revelation—no, I’m not going to do my Spoiler alert dance for something that came out a quarter of a century ago—we find out Crowe actually died in a scene early in the film, became a ghost (so he was able to interact with Cole), but denied it to himself until he had to come to grips with the truth.  In … Strangers the ghosts—or hallucinations?—only come about due to Adam’s need for comfort/ interpersonal connection so once we find out Harry’s full story—OK, now I do have to move again into Spoiler territory—⇒it may well be that everything we see in this film after Adam initially turns Harry away is just Adam’s projections of what he needs/desires, so none of the depicted events have actually occurred; otherwise, these ghosts in his life have a seemingly-tangible physical existence, but it’s not clear how Harry’s presence (?) is ultimately going to benefit Adam, if at all.⇐ Yet, Adam has come to such a desperate point in his life that however he’s able to share himself with these manifestations, he must have rationalized (like most of us do, at some point[s] in our lives) that this is what he needed, yet where will it take him?  But, speaking of rationalizations …

Bottom Line Final Comments: In my previous posting, reviewing the renovated version of The Beatles in their Let It Be documentary (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1970), with lots of footage shot near the end of their group-career, I made the point that my intentions for the rest of this year are to focus only on 2024 releases rather than slipping back into those from 2023 now that the Oscars for last year are notably behind us.  However, I rationalized that it was acceptable under my own self-restrictions to review Let It Be because Peter Jackson had used the same enhancement technology he’d employed on his own multi-hour Fab Four doc, The Beatles: Get Back (2021), so this revised version of Let It Be (simply improved imagery and sound, not re-editing) seemed proper to me as a re-release available for review just as I had reviewed the truly new re-release (same footage, but new editing, some scenes rearranged) of The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990/2020) in our December 17, 2020 posting.  Well, this time I’m having to stretch farther in my rationalization of All of Us Strangers as a 2024 release because I normally make that determination based on when something debuts in the domestic market (U.S.-Canada), but in this case that happened in just 4 U.S. theaters on December 22, 2023, then expanded a bit in the weeks after that, first to 42 venues in the first weekend of January, 2024, finally getting up to 275 by the end of that month, almost disappearing during February, then coming back to life again in 205 theaters in early March before completely disappearing (this film seems sort of like a ghost itself) the week after that, having taken in a mere $4 million at the box-office ($20.2 million worldwide).  Rationalization valid?

 Well, even though this film isn’t as purely a 2024 release as I’d prefer, I’m going with it anyway.  Nevertheless, if you want to see it now you’ll need to turn to streaming where you can get it for free on Hulu (if, like me, you take the cheaper subscription, you’ll have to tolerate commercials) or you can pay $5.99 to rent it on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc.  The CCAL certainly joins me in encouraging such action as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are a whopping 97% (no misprint, based on 258 reviews), while the usually-lower Metacritic average score is a huge 90%.

 As an example of those positives here’s a review from Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times (this got a 100 score from the MC score-keepers so they obviously find it flawless):  “ ‘All of Us Strangers’ acts as a prism through which loneliness and its manifestations are refracted, like colorful light onto a wall. Adam is alone physically, emotionally, mentally and artistically, a man untethered from most everyone. But perhaps his greatest sense of loneliness comes from encounters and experiences that could have happened, but didn’t: the trip he and his parents didn’t take, the Christmas trees they didn’t trim, the conversations they didn’t have about his sexuality, the comfort his father never gave him when he was a boy crying alone in his room. […] We live our lives surrounded by ghosts. […] We are, we know, strangers in our families and in our lives and our cities and our own bodies, and our life’s work is to move from the strange to something approaching the familiar. All, I think, of us.”  Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time (although it did to take some effort for me to find negative reactions), so here’s a rejection from the unimpressed Gary M. Kramer of the Philadelphia Gay News: “Out gay writer/director Andrew Haigh’s uneven metaphysical romance addresses themes of love, grief, loneliness, trauma and memory, but the film provides more ambiguity than insight. Despite a suitably elegiac mood, this film feels undercooked — when it isn’t too on the nose. […] Haigh provides many clues, but too few answers. ‘All of Us Strangers’ is a slow, contemplative drama that invites viewers to puzzle out the truth. But it is also easy to resist the magical realism, as Adam is frequently waking from sleep, blurring his fantasy and reality. […] ‘All of Us Strangers’ will have its admirers, but the film is more ambitious than good. Despite some strong elements, it lacks the emotional power it strives for. The tone is all heartache and loss, but the melancholy and longing somehow feels too muted and subdued.”  Not a fan, huh?

 I can’t speak from any direct knowledge in my life as to how well All of Us Strangers addresses a gay man’s longings in particular, but such estrangement as Adam suffers through is a heartbreak anyone probably has felt, can surely relate to as a universal human challenge, presented here in a unique, intriguing set of circumstances I think you’d find fascinating to watch, then puzzle over later.

 To close out, I’ll finally get to that official Musical Metaphor I hinted at many a lengthy-paragraph ago, a song called “On My Own” by a likely mostly-unknown Texas musician, B.W. Stevenson* (born a couple of years after me in 1949, died way too early in 1988, saw him once at a concert in Austin—terrific), on the 1972 album named for him at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qo56vm 7XSE.  While these lyrics are specifically about a romantic breakup, I think you could metaphorically see such lines as “If I don’t see you before I go / Remember what you’ve seen and what you know […] I want to be on my own / It’s a long way home / I feel like a baby boy just being born” and others could apply to what Adam experiences with his parents and Harry, just as “Get outside your shell / Those things don’t make you well / You’re a broken part of a living fairy tale” could easily be Adam talking to himself.  Also, this song brings back melancholy feelings for me given associations it has to my long-ago failed first marriage (fortunately, the current one to Nina works so much better), so any sadness it might generate for any listener is right in line with what we'd come to know here of Adam.

*Decades ago my grandmother married a man named Stevenson (distant cousin of the 1950s Presidential candidate).  B.W. was from Dallas, my grandfather was from west Texas near Abilene; I can’t help but wonder if there was any family connection, but no one’s alive now who could help me.

               

SHORT TAKES

              

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

(1) Coppola's Megalopolis debuts at Cannes; (2) Theatrical releases to stream/rent at home.

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Let It Be plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Get Back Up On the Roof … Nostalgia Time Again

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 song’s name)

                              Let It Be (Michael Lindsay-Hogg

                                       [Peter Jackson], 1970)

                                        rated TV-MA   87 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.)

 (No Spoiler warnings this time because everything in this film is extremely [maybe sadly too] well-known.)  I’ll start by admitting there are a couple of new releases in my local theaters I’d consider to see now rather than wait for their streaming appearances (along with another one I can easily hold off for a long time), but, sorry, Challengers (Luca Guadagnino; starring Zendaya and a couple of guys I don’t know anything about; 88% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) and The Fall Guy (David Leitch; staring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt; RT 82%), there’s a new COVID variant sneaking around my San Francisco Bay area so I’m being more vigilant about protecting my 76-year-old body—I think I’ll also protect my aesthetic sensibilities while I’m at it, so, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball; RT 81%), despite your huge box-office hauls after just 1 week of $56.6 million domestically (U.S.-Canada), $129 million worldwide, I’ll likely be long-gone in some other cinematic direction when you've entered the streaming realm (I think I've had enough simian warfare for now).  

 Yet, still being in streaming mode this week, what I really wanted to review came out just about this time 54 years ago, making it difficult to adhere to my intentions of not going back past the current year unless it’s for a re-release of some classic (as I’ve done a very few times; consult the Summary of Two Guys Film Reviews considerably farther down in this posting in the Related Links section).

 But, then, any re-release—even one below my 4½-5 stars ratings—could be considered viable if I embrace a useful rationalization (and who doesn’t do that?), so here I am with comments on this documentary about roughly a month in the lives of The Beatles in January, 1969.  As I had been a loyal fan from the time I first heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on the radio in 1964, of course I saw this movie upon first release, yet it then disappeared from availability (unless you stumble onto an old VHS in a thrift store somewhere), a victim of technical shortcomings in its production processes (shot in 16mm, blown up to 35mm for distribution so the image quality wasn’t that great, plus it’s in the old 4x3 format rather than what we’re used to in widescreen) and the sadness that accompanied seeing this world-renowned band at the close of their storied-career—or at least it seemed that way at the time given the May 1970 appearance of this movie, which we’d have to understand later wasn’t accurate because after the famous rooftop "concert" (more of a public rehearsal, really, when you see it in full context in Peter Jackson’s 8-hour documentary, The Beatles: Get Back [2021; as with this new version of Let It Be, available to subscribers to Disney+ streaming, edited—and greatly enhanced technically—from the same 56 hours of footage shot under Lindsay-Hogg’s direction back in 1969; this new Let It Be even begins with a short conversation between Jackson and Lindsay-Hogg; also, the latter man talks here about his long-ago movie in redemptive terms]).

   After what we’d see in … Get Back, The Beatles then went on to complete the now-highly-praised Abbey Road album, the release of which in September, 1969 coincided with John Lennon leaving the group, a shock kept quiet so as not to interfere with the record’s sales; by April 1970 Paul McCartney publically quit as well, so with the miserable knowledge that what we’d see in this movie and hear in its accompanying Let It Be album would be the last we’d likely experience of the Fab Four together, it was impossible for me not to attend these final releases from the group (although there’d be individual albums from each of them, around that time or later, some of which featured a few guest appearances from some of the others, followed years later after Lennon’s death with the massive Anthology [1995-’96, 2000] project and the production of 3 Lennon songs on tape provided to the others resulting in the final  Beatles’ songs: “Free As a Bird,” Real Love,” “Now And Then”).  If you’ve seen …Get Back you know that Jackson's lengthy cut provides enriched context for the relatively-brief capturing of this now-important month in the ongoing-evolution of The Beatles that we see in Let It Be.  (I’ve listed Jackson as unofficial co-director of the renovated Let It Be as his team used the same enhancing-technology he had done previously to greatly improve the audiovisual quality of this re-release, a statement I’ll have to make based on other sources because there’s no way I can remember how it looked/sounded in 1970 and, more importantly, despite my sorrow in knowing when I saw it that this great group's time was at an end, I was still mesmerized to see my musical heroes on the big screen, so I likely wasn’t very critical of filmic quality in what I witnessed).

 One crucial element from … Get Back not included in Let It Be is how George Harrison became disgusted with the situation the band put themselves in (mostly due to McCartney’s insistence) that they’d have roughly a month to isolate themselves on a vast soundstage in the Twickenham Film Studios where they could be filmed in the process of writing/finalizing new songs for a planned live performance to also be filmed, put into context with the rehearsal footage, eventually resulting in a documentary—in some ways this all happened but not as planned in the negotiations to get George back: no concert was to happen (the ensuing rooftop event was near-spontaneous), the songwriting process was to be moved to their more-intimate Apple Studio basement, and the filming seemingly came to an end after the rooftop event.  Although we do see some friction between Paul and George at one point, yet generally in Let It Be there’s a decent sense of cooperative-harmony in this group.

 Yoko’s there but isn't a distraction—she and John even sweetly dance around while George plays “I Me Mine”; too, in one scene Linda McCartney and little daughter Heather also visit the sessions—and there’s certainly some exuberance as the group, at times with keyboardist Billy Preston (asked by George to join them after the useful move to Apple), just messes around with tunes like “Bésame Mucho,” “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll, “Kansas City,” and “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.”  Truncated versions of tunes that ultimately made it onto the album (which John [I guess he still had clout at Apple even if he wasn’t in the band anymore] and George turned over to producer Phil Spector to “enhance” resulted in added instrumentation/vocal backgrounds that incensed Paul so much he finally replied in 2003 with his version of the album, Let It Be… Naked, that stripped all of that out) include “Across the Universe” and “For You Blue”; incomplete versions of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Oh! Darling,” and “Octopus’s Garden” end up a few months later on Abbey Road.

 Complete studio songs in this movie are “Two of Us,” “Let It Be,” and “The Long and Winding Road.”  What probably, for Beatlemaniacs like me and younger viewers who know little of this 1960s cultural phenomenon, is the most important part of Let It Be is the unauthorized rooftop “concert” which, in its full form in … Get Back runs about 40 min. because 2 of the 5 songs get 2 or 3 takes as the band’s still rehearsing as much as performing (especially in cold, rainy conditions) so in Let It Be we get the rooftop takes of “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” (which Spector left off of the album, McCartney restored it to … Naked), “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “One After 909,” and “Dig a Pony” (these versions of “… Feeling,” “… 909,” “… Pony” made it onto the album), with this “concert” version running about 20 min. as the crowds in the street below and on neighboring rooftops gathered to witness an unexpected miracle (The Beatles hadn’t played live since the final stop of their U.S. tour in San Francisco on August 29, 1966), until the police shut them down during a repeat of “Get Back” for disturbing the peace, which ends Let It Be as John says “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”  Well, now that I’ve provided all of the background info that any sane person could want (but if you’re as insane as I am about The Beatles you could also explore this site, or this one, or even this one), the crucial question is why does all of this cinema vérité of a band broken up decades ago deserve a 4 stars-rating? Is it just nostalgia?

 Admittedly, if this were a doc about the remaining Quarrymen from Liverpool (minus Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison), I’d have had marginal interest in it, might not have even watched it all the way through; however, that’s not the case as Let It Be is about the ex-Quarrymen (plus Ringo Starr) who became a global sensation, continue to be my favorite band even after all the intervening decades.  Besides, documentaries are not often lauded for their innovative visuals, soundtracks, and editing structures (except, in my opinion, something like Woodstock [Michael Wadleigh, 1970] about the famous 1969 music festival) but more so for the content of what they’re exploring about a person (or persons), an event, or an era, so the content here does make a big difference in terms of being part of an invaluable record (so to speak) of 4 fabulously-famous musicians as we witness their creative process along with their final live performance as a group (along with help from Preston), so for me this is a crucial cluster of celluloid—and one that gets to the essence of Jackson’s mammoth … Get Back without requiring a full day of your time to watch it—conclusively earning my big 4 stars.

 On another personal note, it’s both still exhilarating and now melancholy to watch Let It Be because I still “have memories longer than the road that stretches out of here” of the month of this film’s release because it coincided with my BFA graduation at the U. of Texas at Austin, a time when I was like Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967) in being “just a little worried about my future,” because my degree in Art Education didn’t seem like it would lead to a career (my semester of practice teaching showed me I could get along well with high-school students but probably not the other faculty), my love-life was deteriorating (got worse 5 years later with a divorce from my first marriage), my decision to continue on into grad school in another field (Radio-TV-Film) wasn’t clear about what that might lead to (ultimately, a Ph.D. in Communication, many decades of college teaching, and this blog—along with a successful second marriage—all of which have proven to be right choices), and watching this doc when it first came out with the knowledge that The Beatles were to be no more once that rooftop event was done left me feeling lost for a bit although life went on as spring warmed into summer (which, in Texas, meant walking around all day in your personal pool of sweat).  Consequently, all these years later it’s ultimately enjoyable to see Let It Be again for the first time since 1970, a negotiated-joy that I hope can be shared not only by folks as old as me but also those young enough to barely know why it mattered so much to us oldies when John and George died (at least I’ve been able to attend Paul & Ringo [separately] a couple of times live).

 The CCAL, with lots of critics younger than me based on photos I see in Rotten Tomatoes, seems to be in agreement with the RT positive reviews at 80% (49 total, most from 2024 but a few as far back as 2002, based on a re-release in home media of the original version of Let It Be), the Metacritic average score at 72% (only 13 reviews, though; 5 from 2024, a couple from 1970, the oldest from Variety, 12/31/1969 [? Did they somehow get a look at it months before it was released in the U.S. and U.K.?]).  While I could give you the whole rooftop "concert" (starts with “Get Back,” then just let it play through 4 more, 2 repeats, ends on truncated “Get Back” as the cops arrive) as my wrap-it-up Musical Metaphor, but that gets a bit tedious, especially because it’s all just audio, so to highlight the long collaborations of Paul and John (amply-enhanced by George and Ringo) I’ll just offer you this take, from the film, of “I’ve Got a Feeling” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiove5D_ZU4 (where you get the extra added attraction of subtitles in Portuguese; if you really want to enhance your bi-linguality but can’t keep up with the images you can also go here where it’s all written out for you, so you can be assured you’ll know how to say “wet dream” properly next time you’re in Brazil), or if you don’t want the additional verbiage, here’s another version, seemingly from Jackson's … Get Back, based on the editing.  You know, for such a short film this has turned into quite a long review, so, like John, I hope I’ve also passed the audition; if so, I’ll see you again soon.

           

SHORT TAKES

              

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for your consideration: (1) 2024 festival films you need to know about (includes the next item here); (2) Francis Ford Coppola's controversial Megalopolis to premiere at Cannes Film Festival; (3) Motion Picture Academy launches $500 million global outreach initiative.

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 there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged 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 13,651 (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):

The Idea of You plus Short Takes on Unfrosted along with some other cinematic topics

“Your Mother Should Know” and 

"‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster"

(First part of this title's from a Beatles song [1967 Magical Mystery Tour album],

second part’s from a Simon & Garfunkel song we’ll get to in awhile.)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

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 song’s name)

                          The Idea of You (Michael Showalter)

                                             rated R   108 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: Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) is a woman about to turn 40, owns an art gallery in Silver Lake, CA (a north L.A. neighborhood), is divorced from Daniel (Reid Scott), has a 16-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), with hopes to spend a weekend by herself on a camping trip.  Her plans change when her lawyer ex and his new wife, Eva (Perry Mattfeld)—also a lawyer in his firm—are called away for an important client meeting in Houston so Solène must fill in as the chaperone for Izzy and a few of her friends who’re on their way to the Coachella music festival out in the desert of southern CA because Daniel’s already bought tickets for them, plus a pricey Meet-and-Greet with famous (fictional) British boy band August Moon, fronted by 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicolas Galitzine).  While in the backstage area Solène needs a restroom, goes into a trailer she thinks is for that purpose but quickly realizes it’s Hayes’ trailer.  They chat for a bit, he finds her interesting, she tries to keep a distance, then learns Izzy thinks the band's now too "7th grade” for her, yet in the actual concert Hayes goes off schedule by adding the song, “Closer,” which he dedicates to Solène, which does impress her.   When she’s back home, Hayes suddenly shows up at her gallery one day, buys everything in the place for his London flat, then goes with her to a storage place to see even more art.  Being hungry, they go to her home for lunch due to her concern that being in a public restaurant would invite too much fan and press attention; while there they talk about their lives, it’s clear he’s quite attracted to her, but she resists, saying she’s too old for him.  Rebuffed but not upset, he departs but quietly leaves his watch behind, giving him an excuse to see her again (I’ll be referencing Seinfeld later: George Costanza once used a similar object-left-behind tactic, somewhat successfully, at least for a little while).  Hayes is persistent with lots of texts; he invites Solène to join him in NYC, which she finally decides to do, given that Izzy’s away at a summer camp.

 She comes to his hotel, steamy sex easily happens, then he invites her to join him on the band’s European tour, which she accepts but doesn’t tell Izzy the truth about why she’s headed across the Atlantic.  After a few stops, the group’s taking a short break in the south of France where the other (younger) women traveling with the guys tell her that the “sudden dedication” tactic is a regular ploy for Hayes who’s had other affairs with older women.  Solène feels hurt by this, tells Hayes she wants to leave; he arranges a flight back to L.A. for her, yet doesn’t want her to go.  Back home she meets with Daniel, denies anything about Hayes (gossip items have popped up), also learns secretly from Eva she’s soon to leave Daniel.  Solène finds out she can’t keep her time with Hayes a secret, though, due to paparazzi photos and social media posts which generate a lot of hostility toward her as August Moon fans can’t understand why Hayes would want this older woman.  ⇒Things get worse when she picks up Izzy at the camp, really angry at Mom for being lied to, although they soon reconcile.  It’s not so easy for Izzy, though, because at school she starts getting all sorts of lewd comments and requests from friends (including a guy she’s attracted to), so despite having tried to just go public with the affair after Hayes comes to L.A. for a solo recording session (she visits him, they reconnect), Solène again breaks it off for Izzy’s sake, although Hayes tells her he intends to start up with her again in 5 years after Izzy’s off at college.  Sure enough, 5 years later he’s apparently successful with a solo acoustic career, appears on British TV (actual The Graham Norton Show) in an interview where he says he’s off to L.A. to see an old friend (studio audience applauds, indicating the scandal’s resolved), shows up at her gallery again, she’s tearfully-happy to see him.⇐

So What? I’ve often found this movie described as a romcom, yet I find it to generally be more “rom” than “com,” despite a few funny circumstances; from what I’ve glanced over in a few other reviews I know it’s based on a very successful novel of the same name by Robinne Lee (2017), an actor with a fairly-extensive career already, but this is her first literary excursion, which, based on those review comments, seems to have been a bit more serious in tone than how it was transferred to the screen by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt, you I can’t offer anything more definitive about that.  Certainly this cinematic product challenges the often-condemning attitude toward “cougars”—older women who see younger men as desirable “prey,” often because of their peak-years sexual prowess in contrast to what these women find in many men of their own age group—in that Solène is frequently bothered by her 16-year seniority over Hayes, breaks the relationship off more than once due to the complications it generates because of his fame, with fan/media expectations about how he should be spending his private time, although older male celebrities seem to get more of a pass on that topic when they link up with notably younger women, for example 79-year-old Michael Douglas with 54-year-old Catherine Zeta-Jones, although their parallel successful careers would seem to negate any charges of gold-digging on her part, trophy-hunting on his, unlike the young woman in The Eagles' "Lyin' Eyes" (on their 1975 One of These Nights album) who’ll “dress up all in lace and go in style [… even though] it breaks her heart to think her love is only / Given to a man with hands as cold as ice [… face it, crass manipulator] You’re still the same old girl you used to be.”

 This is definitely not a reverse-situation with Solène and Hayes as he’s the one constantly pushing on her to connect, seems to truly be invested in her despite having had previous encounters with older women.  Where the interest is real—not monetary—I have no complaints about any couple who truly care about each other, no matter what their age difference is, though for me I’ve never been in a situation where a woman 16 years my senior was romantically attractive (friendship, respect, yes; romance, no) especially when I was 24 (somewhat because I was married at the time [not successfully]) as a woman of 40 would have likely seemed to me to be more in the realm of my 51-year-old mother, but Hayes says Solène isn’t his mother (his parents divorced when he was young) so he’s sincerely followed a different path than I have yet to conceive of (and, at 76, I doubt I’d be charmed by any 92-year-old, unless it’s Nina [who was, like Solène, approaching 40 when we married, but I was 42] when we’re both nonagenarians, assuming we’d be still coherently-alive then).

 Another question regarding society’s attitudes toward age differences leads me to concerns about Hayes’ proposition that all they have to do is wait 5 years until Izzy’s out of high school, then none of them will face such ostracization.  So, our social-media influencers will be more tolerant of a 29-year-old pop star involved with a 45-year-old woman while Izzy’s new friends will be more mature just because she’ll be a college junior rather than a high-school sophomore?  Maybe so, yet I wouldn’t bet on it, but obviously this movie wants to treat us to a rosier future than the main characters are experiencing in the present, so it’s all fiction after all, especially when the intention is to leave us satisfied, not disappointed.  Now, one more item about age differences: In case you missed the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last month (April 12-14, 19-21) you can now at least get a sense of it from The Idea … with August Moon, but if you were there you wouldn’t have seen them anyway because they only exist in this movie.  Further, you probably won’t be surprised to learn I’ve never been to this Coachella shindig, as the acts there are generally a few decades too young for my tastes (most of whom I’ve never even heard of, except a few like Doja Cat and Lana Del Rey, although even there I have little awareness of their music), but I—along with Nina—have been to this venue at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA (near Palm Springs/Palm Desert); we went there in October 2016 to see acts more appropriate to our way-past-65 ages at the 3-day Desert Trip Festival for Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones (Friday, just after Dylan got the Nobel Prize in Literature, although he never mentioned it; Mick Jagger did), Neil Young, Paul McCartney (Saturday), The Who, Roger Waters in full Pink Floyd-mode (Sunday), so I do have a sense of what it’s like to be in their massive outdoor arena with a huge crowd (fortunately, there were buses to get us back and forth to our hotel; Solène just seemed to know where she was going the whole time—except for that crucial restroom).

Bottom Line Final Comments: If you’d like to watch The Idea of You you’ll have to turn to streaming where it’s available only on Amazon Prime Video (but, even if you’re not a subscriber, you can see it for free under their 30-day trial policy), which you’d get a general sense of support from the CCAL to do so because the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 83%, although the Metacritic average score is considerably lower at 67%.  As an example of the supporters we have Peter Debruge of Variety who says: “For all its fantastical qualities, the movie is realistic in the way it anticipates social media and real media (the online tabloids, at least) reacting to the news of Solène and Hayes’ being together. It’s a sad truth that, as Solène tells art-world bestie Tracy (Annie Mumolo), the world doesn’t want her to be happy. Technically, the fans don’t want Hayes to be happy either, preferring to think of him as single and searching for them to fill that empty space in his heart.”  Not everyone was so impressed, though; witness Avi Offer of The NYC Movie Guru who emphatically states (scroll down a bit, if necessary): “The Idea of You has little to nothing to say about love, divorce, heartbreak, motherhood or loneliness. How introspective are Solène and Hayes? What have they learned from their mistakes? The answers to those questions aren't clear because the film barely even explores them. Perhaps the screenplay's systemic problems come from the source material, but that's no excuse for how it tries to sugar-coat Solène's toxic relationship with Hayes and remains unafraid to be emotionally unflinching. The third act doesn't earn its uplift with an eye-rolling, fairytale ending that's not even remotely believable […] At an overlong running time of 1 hour and 55 minutes, The Idea of You is a cheesy, contrived and vapid romantic dramedy.”  You'd have to see the movie to know what you'd think, but these types of responses might help you decide.

 While you consider any inner-debates about seeing this movie or not (and, if for no other reason, Oscar-winner Hathaway is quite in command of her role while her supporting cast never distracts from the plot’s flow), maybe you’d like to ruminate while listening to my usual review-wrap-up of a Musical Metaphor which could have been "Closer" in that it does speak to the essential points of the movie, at least from Hayes’ perspective (along with this video providing images from it as well)—although if he’s used this tactic before on other women it’s not as pure as he claimed it to be with Solène—but I can’t help also thinking about the negative aspects of this current romance (as do many others as well as Solène at times) which brings me to the most famous March-August (I don’t think Hayes and Solène really qualify as May-December, nor do the couple I’m about to reference) affair I can think of, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) in The Graduate (Mike Nichols [winner of that year’s Best Director Oscar], 1967), so even though the affair in our current movie is not just “a little secret” and it’s certainly not possible to “hide it from the kids,” I do think this famous Simon & Garfunkel song fits a bit of what’s going on in The Idea of You, even though it’s intended to be more ironic and cynical than what we see on screen in this new release (certainly, though, the Internet trolls [plus Izzy’s classmates] do fit what’s being implied in this song).

 So, here from me is the hit record version of “Mrs. Robinson” (from the S&G 1968 Bookends album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkXyreJV604 (also with images from the film, like with the “Closer” link just above) as we allude to a solid sense of the possible-pitfalls of an age-extended relationship (the version of this song used in The Graduate’s soundtrack is incomplete compared to this '68 album version).  One final thought about controversies that come up with this song is the reference to how Joe DiMaggio has “left and gone away,” which Joe took as an odd insult back then until Paul explained it was intended as a tribute to how his time of universally-accepted heroism had seemed gone from the troubled sociopolitical world of the late ‘60s (a compliment which DiMaggio accepted), so just to warp all of this up here’s one more version of the song by Simon, sung live at Yankee Stadium on a Joe DiMaggio tribute day to a rousing reception from the crowd.  With that, all of the parallels conclude, for I doubt Hayes will be running off with Izzy on a city bus anytime soon.

              

SHORT TAKES

  

     Unfrosted (Jerry Seinfeld)   rated PG-13   96 min.

Here’s the trailer:

 Believe it or not, I’m actually going to provide you with a short (!) review of a silly Netflix movie that marks the directorial debut of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, which for me—as a long-time devotee of both NBC TV’s Seinfeld sitcom (1989-‘98) and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s HBO/Max sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-2024)—I found its goofy humor to be consistently witty even though the OCCU would try their best to steer you away from it, with the Rotten Tomatoes positives at 39%, the Metacritic average score at (slightly higher than RT for a change) 43%, so if you’re a Netflix subscriber you can choose for yourself, if not it doesn’t matter anyway.  The story is about a fierce competition in Battle Creek, MI in 1963 between Kellogg’s and Post to come up with a successful breakfast alternative to cereal and milk, with lots of parodies of ‘60s culture thrown in including the NASA moon mission, Nikita Khrushchev, JFK, Chef Boy Ardee, Jack LaLanne, and much more, with a cast that includes (along with many others) Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, Peter Dinklage, Tony Hale, and Cedric the Entertainer.  For me, though, the highlight is a scene where AMC TV's Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and John Slattery pitch Kellogg’s with a name for their product which ultimately becomes Pop-Tarts due to a small mistake by Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan).  There’s no significance here, just a funny diversion from the traumas of our day.  As for a Musical Metaphor, once again I’ll return to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends album for “Punky’s Dilemma” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3svf3___E, a similarly-silly song like the movie, with the most obvious connections to Unfrosted in the first 2 verses, but the final one gets more serious regarding conscription/refusal for the Vietnam War, reflective of weighty issues bubbling around in the early ’60s which Unfrosted consciously avoids.  (When trying to remember the name of Unfrosted I kept coming up with Defrosted, but that would have to be about trying to salvage the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers from the freezer which could well be Seinfeld’s or David’s next project).

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

(1) A restored version of Let It Be is still sad to watch for Beatles fans (2) What's new on Netflix in May 2024; (3) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in May 2024; (4) What's new on Hulu in May 2024; (5) What's new on DIsney+ in May 2024; (6) What's new on Max in May 2024.

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 there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged 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 13,661 (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):