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.

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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).

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

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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):

Dune: Part Two plus Short Takes on a select few other cinematic topics

Calling All Intergalactic Golfers: Sandtrap Crisis on Planet Arrakis Needs Immediate Attention

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 song’s name)

                           Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)

                                      rated PG-13   166 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: (If you don’t have a clear memory of Frank Herbert’s original novel [Dune, 1965] or the first part of this adaptation [Villeneuve, 2021], I think you’d benefit from at least a brief summary of the events leading up to … Part Two so here’s my attempt at such [if you want more details you can go to this site and/or my review of what’s also called Dune: Part One—plus, there’s a lot of clarifying info be found at yet another site, so dig in].  In the year 10,191 the universe is ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV [Christopher Walken] who plots with the current rulers of desert planet Arrakis, the House Harkonnen—led by Baron Vladimir H. [Stellan Skarsgård]—to leave this crucial site [where the invaluable “spice” is mined, allowing extreme human health/awareness as well as quick interplanetary travel] to House Atreides—led by Baron Leto A. [Oscar Isaac]—so that later the forces of the Emperor and the Harkonnens can attack Arrakis, kill the Atreides family due to the Emperor’s fear of Leto’s rising power.  The reassignment occurs, following by the planned attack during which Leto dies but his concubine, Lady Jessica [Rebecca Ferguson], a member of the mystical female Bene Gesserit, and their son, Paul [Timothée Chalamet], escape, are taken in by the desert’s indigenous Fremen, specifically a tribe led by Stilgar [Javier Bardem], due to a growing belief Paul is the prophesized messiah who will free the planet from occupation; for now, though, Paul’s more intrigued with Fremen Chani [Zandaya], whom he has seen frequently in his dreams.  You also need to know the spice mining is frequently disrupted by the huge, powerful sandworms that come bursting out of the dunes when they sense human activity.)  As we now move on to Part Two we find Lady Jessica is pregnant while back at the Emperor’s domain his daughter, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), is disturbed by how her father betrayed House Atreides.  Paul and Jessica reach the Sietch Tabr desert community where she will become their Bene Gesserit Mother Superior as the current old woman is dying, but to do so she must drink the powerful Water of Life (taken from a young sandworm) which will kill her if she’s not ready for the new position; however, she not only survives but also now has the ability to speak telepathically back and forth with her unborn daughter.

 Meanwhile, Paul’s seeming manifestation of the messiah prophecy (the savior will be “The Voice from the Outer World”) is seen by Chani as just a group-hallucination fed by false Bene Gesserit intentions as a means of instilling control over the Fremen; nevertheless, soon she falls in love with Paul as he declares he only wants to fight alongside the Fremen against their invaders, not rule them.  As Paul invests himself in Fremen knowledge and culture, he even accomplishes the tremendous task of taming/riding a sandworm, a skill that will be shared with other Fremen later in this narrative; ultimately he even takes the new name of Maud‘Dib Usual, as all of this occurs in the northern half of Arrakis, distant from Baron H’s dwelling in the city of Arrakeen where he’s disgusted with his nephew, Gloss "Beast" Rabban (Dave Bautista) because the spice mining’s been disrupted too much, cutting down on the Baron’s profits, so he instead installs Rabban’s psychotic younger brother, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), as ruler, with Bene Gesserit Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux) sent to evaluate this kid as the possible long-desired Kwisatz Haderach.  (A superbeing, male Bene Gesserit, the result of many generations of careful breeding which Jessica was supposed to contribute to with a daughter but instead she manifested Paul; Jessica’s intended-daughter was supposed to mate with Feyd-Rautha to produce the intended-messiah result, due to Jessica secretly being the daughter of Baron H., but she disrupts that plan with Paul now seen as the likely Kwisatz Haderach—got all that?  If not, you can consult this lengthy site, particularly in the “Breeding program” section about 1/3 of the way down, for more detail and clarification.)  Jessica travels to the planet’s south (mistakenly considered uninhabited by Baron H.) where the Fremen are more fundamentalist, more likely to fully accept Paul as their prophesized savior, even as he’s having disturbing visions of planetary wars in his name, but during a raid on a spice harvester he reunites with Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), Paul’s former mentor in the use of weapons and combat who shows Paul the hidden stash of atomic weapons Paul’s father had procured, soon will be put to use.

 Feyd-Rautha launches an attack on the Fremen of the north, forcing them to migrate south; when they arrive, Paul drinks the Water of Life, goes into a coma for 3 days, awakened when Jessica convinces Chani to mix her tears with the Water, apply it to Paul’s lips.  Now Paul has intense clairvoyance, sees his soon-to-be sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) as an adult on a watery Arrakis, learns the horrid truth that Baron H. is his grandfather.  Next, Paul wins over the support of the southern Fremen, declaring himself as the Lisan al Gaib (from Arabic, “Tongue of the Unseen”), issuing a challenge to the Emperor who comes to Arrakis with his army, the Sardaukar, ⇒but before they can stage any attack they’re caught off-guard by the raging Fremen who use atomic weapons and sandworms to end the hostilities (in the process, Paul kills Baron H., Gurney kills Rabban).  Before he died, though, Baron H. summoned the other Great Houses to send spaceships to Arrakis for support; however, Paul keeps them at bay by threatening to destroy the spice fields with his atomic weapons so it comes down to a direct demand by Paul to the Emperor to forfeit his throne, allow Paul to marry his daughter (to unite 3 of the Great Houses in an attempt to bring peace to the universe, despite the heartbreak for Chani), but first he must duel Feyd-Rautha to the death, which he does, after which Irulan agrees to the marriage.  However, the representatives of the Great Houses don’t accept Paul as Emperor so the Fremen attack them using the captured Sardaukar ships, starting what Paul feared as a holy war, although with his increasing power and ego he knew it was inevitable, while Chani leaves, alone, on a sandworm (easily setting us up for a sequel, which Herbert obliged with 5 more Dune novels, a tradition then carried much further by other authors).⇐

So What? As best memory serves, I think (almost assuredly) I read the original Dune novel sometime in the late 1960s/early ‘70s, yet now I remember nothing from it (I might also have read at least 1 of Herbert’s sequels, but if so that memory’s completely gone); I do know for sure I saw David Lynch’s Dune (1984)—with Kyle MacLachian as Paul—was marginally-impressed by it, despite critical distain, which somewhat came about as Lynch’s intended 3-hour version was chopped down by Universal to only 137 min., surely sacrificing clarity and complexity in the process.  Considering what Lynch went through with the truncated mess of his version (which led him to request his name be taken off any showings of that film), I can only imagine what difficulties with distributors and exhibitors a noted Mexican director would have encountered if his intended 1975 adaption had been able to find financing as his version was set to run for 14 hrs. (among the cast we might have seen: Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alaín Delon, Hervé Villechaize, Mick Jagger; details about this massive conception are found in the documentary about [Alejandro] Jodorowsky’s Dune [Frank Pavich, 2013; reviewed, our March 28, 2014 posting]).  

 So, I came to Dune, Part Two with little investment in what had come before, how well this new version would compare with Herbert’s original novel (significantly a crucial concern for many, as this book is so revered among sci-fi aficionados) even though in my review of … Part One I had to admit I had mixed feelings about it because of the seeming-repetition of familiar elements from the many Star Wars movies (evil emperor, long-awaited savior, characters with psychic connections to cosmic phenomena)—just as this new Dune … has major elements that remind me of Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) with the male protagonist joining indigenous people on a faraway-planet to wage war against heartless invaders, plus the taming of large beasts needed for warfare—even as I have to absolve Villeneuve and all connected with these new Dune adaptations because they’re just being very true to the contents of Herbert’s novel (as best I follow a current summary of it), which appeared years before Lucas and Cameron brought their stories to screen, so maybe the fault lies with them, inadvertently at best (?), borrowing from Herbert.  Still, I’m shallow enough to continue to be bothered by story elements that seem so familiar to me from other sources even though I know this is not the fault of this current cinematic team who are just trying to finally, successfully bring an acclaimed narrative to a level of filmic achievement that'll satisfy a large congregation of audiences.

 They want to simultaneously please those intimately familiar with the tales of Dune along with folks who simply want to revel in a technically-flawless exhibition of fictional conflict where moral warnings are clear about the dangers of greed (Emperor Shaddam IV, the heavies [literally, in the case of bloated Baron H.—with another allusion in my mind, to Jabba the Hutt] of House Harkonnen) and overarching-ego (Paul Atreides).  You may have seen countless manifestations of this ancient good-vs.-evil story—that’s what genre novels/plays/movies are about, with the expectation that they’ll offer some originality along with the conventions*—but in Dune, Part One and … Two the familiar is kept interesting, especially as conveyed with outstanding visuals (cinematography by Greig Fraser) and sound (Hans Zimmer), although with audiences still flocking to this new addition I still followed COVID-paranoia-caution by watching it on streaming, just as I'd turned to HBO Max for … Part One.

*If you go to this site and scroll down a bit you’ll find a lengthy-yet-accessible essay on this topic by Edward Buscombe, “The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema,” contained in Barry Keith Grant’s Film Genre Reader IV (2012, pp.12-28), a book I recommend on the larger topic of expectations and explorations in American cinema, although some of the essays are of the barely-comprehendible academic variety, yet with 36 of them to pick from I think you’d find many as quite marvelous to read.

 The answer as to whether this conclusion to the original story will be as Oscar-successful as … Part One was will have to wait almost a year for an answer, but the older one did pick up 6 trophies (Best Original Score [Zimmer], Sound, Production Design, Cinematography [Fraser], Editing, Visual Effects) and was nominated for 4 more (Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design) which bodes well for … Part Two, given its current CCAL numbers (more on that just below) are higher than for … Part One where the Rotten Tomatoes positives were notable, though, at 83%, the Metacritic average score was 74%.  But no matter how much … Part Two continues to impact audience/critical/industry consciousness over the coming months, we’re likely not through with the antics of Paul Atreides because Villeneuve seems determined to follow-up with an adaptation of Dune Messiah (Herbert, 1969), where he’s already working on a script, Zimmer’s already working on new music, with reports coming out this April that Legendary Pictures is again on board for the project (however, I doubt there'll be any more vagina-alluding sandworm popcorn buckets at the screenings the next time around).  Nevertheless, if you’re intrigued by aspects of … Part Two but just are curious to see how a lot of name actors function in these roles then I shouldn’t forget to mention Charlotte Rampling plays Reverend Mother Mohiam, who seems to lead the Bene Gesserit group (and serve as [biased] Truthsayer to the Emperor), and, if you decide to explore … Part One, you’ll find Jason Mamoa (far from Aquaman's oceans) as Duncan Idaho, swordmaster of House Atreides, who sacrifices himself to save Paul and Jessica from a hoard of Sardaukar soldiers.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Back in 2021 Villeneuve was concerned when Warner Bros. decided to simultaneously release Dune (Part One) in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters and on HBO Max (now just Max) cable (due to COVID concerns about public attendance) as he feared that would seriously impact the box-office success needed to convince the studio to greenlight … Part Two.  He didn’t have to worry, though, as it pulled in $108.9 million domestically, $407.6 million globally, easily supporting this sequel (by comparison, Lynch’s 1984 version got a mere $31 million worldwide [against a $40 million production budget], almost all of that coming from northern North America).  As this new one’s already made $280 million domestically, $705 million globally (far and away now #1 for this year in both tabulations) after having opened 2 months ago, March 1, 2024 (still playing in 1,334 theaters; would have come out in fall 2023 but for the writers’ and actors’ strikes of last year), I felt it necessary to turn my attention to it (but still waited for streaming to start on April 16, 2024, although I’m sure it looks spectacular on a large screen) after spending so much attention so far in 2024 on reviews of leftovers from 2023, some generally under-the-radar-fare, 2 documentaries, and 2 (marvelous) truly independent works volunteered to Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark.

 With little doubt, the CCAL highly supports this move on my part—as the film’s still easily available in theaters or, if you prefer, via streaming where you can rent it in 4K for $24.99 from Amazon Prime Video and AppleTV+ or drop down to HD to add a $19.99 rental from Spectrum—with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 92% (based on 418 of them so far), the  Metacritic average score is a quite-healthy (for them) 79%.  An example of those positives comes from Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times who clearly had fun as a viewer: “Even as we marvel at the stunning and immersive and Oscar-level cinematography, editing, score, visual effects, production design and sound in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune: Part Two,’ we’re reminded at every turn that this is an absolutely bat-bleep crazy story with some fantastic but also loopy and at times almost ridiculous plot elements and characters [… yet] Even when 'Dune: Part Two' gets a bit lost in the weeds, or should we say sands, of the plot, it’s an impressive and at times gloriously beautiful piece of work.”  Overall, I must agree, even as I'm also not fully overwhelmed here by the length and some of these story elements.

 Still, there are those who aren’t so impressed, such as Justin Chang of The New Yorker: “Yet if the movie is, among other things, a timely parable of Arab liberation, it’s at best a slippery and reluctant one, in which the politics of revolution feel curiously under-juiced. […] Those of us who retain a stubborn fondness for Lynch’s much maligned adaptation will sense what’s missing from Villeneuve’s: an imaginative density, a hint of psychoneurotic danger, the grotesque, teeming aliveness of a fully inhabited world. Not that it will trouble anyone’s sleep, least of all the heads that rule over House Hollywood. The only world that matters here is the one that this “Dune,” a box-office messiah, has already conquered. Power over spice is power over all.” However, to access the spice you apparently have to go to war to control its production of it, and we all know that “War What is it good for? Absolutely nothing,” or at least that’s what we learn from Edwin Starr’s 1970 hit, “War” (written by Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong at Motown, first recorded by The Temptations in 1970, then re-recorded in a more popular mode by Starr) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJRJ pbGkG4 where the lyrics tell us “War I despise / ‘Cause it means destruction of innocent lives […] War can’t give life, it can only take it away.”  No hesitation from me on any such harsh denunciation.

 Certainly disgust with war is the situation in both parts of this new Dune, yet what are the few survivors of House Atreides and the Fremen tribes supposed to do when they’re unjustly attacked through the evil plot of the Emperor?  (You could easily ask this same question of the innocent citizens of Ukraine regarding their brutal invasion by Russia, telling us there must be circumstances where war as self-defense, as many nations of the world in WW II would testify, is necessary; yet, how cruel that self-defense needs to be is a question posed from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings of 1945 to the Israeli invasion of Gaza today, a question with multiple answers depending on who you ask with scant overall satisfaction likely to emerge. There’s little doubt on screen here, though, as to who the unjust-aggressors are in this tale, with the photo above of the invading army reminiscent of the Nazis.)  Dune: Part Two is a hell of an experience (for us and Paul), even if it may seem too familiar in its particulars, too horrid in its destructions, but at least it shows how raging power, whether wielded by House Harkonnen or Paul Atreides, can become all-consuming, possibly negating whatever noble intentions may have ever been understood in the distant, or recent, past.

                 

SHORT TAKES

             

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

An option for you to remember: Beach Boys documentary coming on Disney+ on May 24, 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):