Juror #2 and Saturday Night, along with some Short Takes on various other cinematic topics of possible interest

Guilt and Chaos

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," Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

 As this holiday season continues to gallop along, with me now at a well-traveled 77 years and this blog at a substantial 14 (61 cinematic experiences reviewed this year; 1,208 since December 2011; 651 postings overall; about 2.4 million unique hits prior to this addition, keep 'em coming), plus various activities to attend to (thus, SHORT TAKES format this time; OK, the second one’s not so short), I’m going to take a couple of weeks’ break, join you again in early 2025 with hopes the rest of this year into next will be peaceful, prosperous, and joyful for you.  I’m also happy to be closing out 2024 with 2 of the best I’ve seen this year (although I’ve still got a good number of probable Oscar-contenders to catch up on later as COVID, bird flu, and streaming might allow in the coming weeks).

        

SHORT TAKES

              

    Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)   rated PG-13   114 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.

 Eastwood’s now 94 (suddenly, I feel much younger), this is his 40^th directorial effort with rumors it could be his last; if that’s the case, he’s gone out on a high note—not at the level of his Oscar-winning magnificence of Unforgiven (1992; easily 5 stars from me if I ever officially review it, in my opinion the finest western ever made), but right up there with his other Best Director Oscar for Million Dollar Baby (2004), although there’s no telling yet whether the Academy will deem this new one to be of such a caliber even as a contender for that award.  In this original story, written by Jonathan Abrams, we find ourselves in Savannah, GA in 2021 where Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is hopeful with his pregnant wife, Ally (Zoey Deutch), they’ll soon have a child yet fearful because of her earlier miscarriage of twins.  He was so distraught on the anniversary of their deaths a year ago he found himself at a popular roadhouse staring at a glass of whiskey, finally refusing to succumb to it (he’s in AA, been sober for a few years), even as he sees a near-violent, drunken argument between a local couple, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso)—a known ne’er-do-well—and his girlfriend, Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood [Clint's daughter]).  Justin, along with several others, watches as she walks home alone in the rain; a little bit later, as he’s driving down that same road he feels his car hit something, finds nothing in the dark, assumes it's a wounded deer who wandered off, goes on home.

 In the present, he’s summoned to jury duty where he finds himself accepted in judgment of Sythe, accused of murdering Kendall whose battered body was found in a ditch off the road both she and Justin traveled that night, with Sythe proclaiming his innocence.  When we get to jury deliberations it’s reminiscent of 12 Angry Men (Sydney Lumet, 1957) in that 11 are ready to convict while Justin, fearful he’s the true guilty party (but is advised by his AA sponsor/lawyer friend Larry Lasker [Kiefer Sutherland] to stay quiet lest he finds himself locked away for decades), tries to stall so that (he fears in his own confusion) an innocent man won’t be convicted.  To make matters worse, juror Harold Chicowski (J.K. Simmons), a retired police detective starts pursuing the idea Kendall died from a hit-and-run, even improperly gathers some evidence regarding likely vehicles from that time that needed collision repairs, until he’s removed from the jury for his inappropriate sleuthing, yet knowledge of such evidence sends determined prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) down that road as well, even questioning Ally about Justin’s car repairs (he claims he did hit a deer, but in another location).

 ⇒Ultimately, Justin goes along with the guilty verdict resulting in a harsh sentence for Sythe.  Later, Justin and Ally are happy with their new baby, but then we’re left with an unsettling, ambiguous ending when newly-elected District Attorney Killebrew comes knocking on their front door.⇐ The acting is marvelous throughout, especially by Hoult and Collette, with truth to the situation effectively hanging unresolved, even if we assume we have reason to speculate on what happened/what comes next.  Juror #2 got a limited domestic (U.S.-Canada) theatrical release on November 1, 2024, with no reported box-office nor any sense of continued presence to today, although it did make $20.1 million from various European markets.  Apparently, it’s set to debut on Max on December 20, 2024, yet I was able to rent it from Apple TV+ last weekend for $9.99 (also on Fandango at Home, $9.99), so if you want to see it (I encourage you to do so) pick your preferred streaming platform.  The CCAL encourages your attention as well, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 94%, the Metacritic average score at 72%.  I’ll exit here with my usual device of a Musical Metaphor, though I had a hard time finding an appropriate one for this film so I finally settled on The Eagles’ “Desperado” (on their song-named 1973 album; this is the 8^th time I’ve used it so I must have seen some miserable characters over the years) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiPqUjLMu A8 (grand vocals by Don Henley): Not a perfect fit, I admit, but I do find some resonance between Justin and lyrics such as “Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home / And freedom, oh freedom, well that’s just some people talkin’ / Your prison is walkin’ through this world all alone.”  Justin suffers a lot here, justifiably or not, in his dilemma worth your time to explore along with Clint.

Saturday Night (Jason Reitman)   rated R   109 min.

Here’s the trailer:

 (No Spoiler alert here as what you see is essentially all on public record.)  Back on October 11, 1975, Lorne Michaels’ (Gabriel LaBelle) network TV experiment, NBC’s Saturday Night was a stressful 90 minutes from a live broadcast (at least in the Eastern and Central time zones; it’s shown in a recorded-live-version for the westerly parts of the U.S.) as presented in this dramatization of the show’s shaky debut, which managed to finally get through some of its possible elements (the final dress rehearsal ran 3 hours, rather than the allotted hour and a half, so obviously a lot of early intentions had to go, including a short bit from Billy Crystal [Nicholas Podany]), establish itself as an ongoing broadcast presence for 50 years as we move into 2025 (3-hour anniversary special comes next February 16).  This movie uses a little more than the actual clock-tickdown, but you constantly feel the tension on Michaels and everyone else who wants the show to work (despite pressure from some NBC execs to delay it for at least a week, replaced by a rerun of Johnny Carson’s Tonight show, or just be cancelled—Carson even calls Michaels during this frantic time, with tepid support).  

 I know that at some point in the past I’ve read a book about the launching of this show, but whether it was Saturday Night Live (Anne Betts, John Head, eds., 1977), Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live (Doug Hill, Jeff Weingrad, 1986), Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years (Michael Cader, 1994), or Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By its Stars, Writers and Guests (Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller, 2002), I couldn’t tell you at this point, but from what I remember about whatever I read I’d say this new movie captures the programs's debut chaos accurately even if some of it has been fictionalized, as most docudramas are (if you’d like to know a lot about the actual program without having to go book-length, though, I’ll refer you to this site for extensive detail).  In the movie, Michaels is frantically trying to get his project under control with help from his NBC boss, Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), but he’s facing pressure from NBC exec David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) to postpone the broadcast, additional pressure coming from the presence of NBC affiliate honchos from around the country, brought in by Tebet, to watch the broadcast, offer opinions on how the show'll play in their markets.

 Along the way, in addition to lots of time with Michaels, we focus on cast members Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris [no relation]) wondering what he’s doing on a comedy sketch show when he’s got background in operatic theater; Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), oozing egotism until he’s confronted by the bigger ego of famed TV star/comedian Milton Berle* (J.K. Simmons), who quickly puts Chase in his place; wacky Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien) who seems to be everywhere; cantankerous John Belushi (Matt Wood) who hasn’t even signed his contract yet, storms out of rehearsals to go ice skating downstairs at Rockefeller Center; and beloved Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) who helps convince Belushi to get back upstairs (not featured much are the other original Not Ready for Prime Time Players Jane Curtain [Kim Matula] and Lorraine Newman [Emily Fairn]).  I’m sure somehow I’ve seen this debut show, but as presented here I’m amazed they were able to cram in all they did with an opening monologue by George Carlin (Matthew Rhys)—who had little interest in being there, refused to be in any of the skits—Andy Kaufman’s (Nicholas Braun) “Mighty Mouse” comic bit, something from Jim Henson (Braun) and his Muppets, and music from both Janis Ian (Naomi McPherson) and Billy Preston’s (Jon Batiste) band (who give Morris pot, to smooth him out).

 As rehearsals continue right up to showtime, Tebet’s finally won over by Kaufman's bit, Michaels makes a last-minute decision for Chase to do “Weekend Update” rather than Lorne himself, the show begins with Belushi and Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) doing the "Wolverines" skit with both of them collapsed at the end so Chase enters, says “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”  By what I’m sure is intended coincidence, this movie expanded (after a very limited opening 2 weeks earlier) in theaters on the same date as the TV debut, just 49 years later, on October 11, 2024.  It’s not been overwhelmingly embraced by the CCAL though, with the RT positives at 78%, the MC average score at 63%, having taken in $9.5 million domestically, $9.8 million total globally.

*I briefly met Berle once in the lobby of a big Dallas hotel when the organization I was an officer in was preparing for our awards ceremony that night when a small group of us saw Berle.  He was courteous, signed autographs, but when we asked if he'd make a quick appearance at our event for which we had $5,000 to spare he said “$5,000 won’t even get you ‘Hello’,“ ending the conversation.

 I admit I’m a long-time audience member for this show (except in the early ‘80s when I wasn’t too impressed with the initial replacements for the original cast, thereby missing the years of Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, Martin Short, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus [Damn!]), even recently when the writing (except the cold opening skits and the crass jibes in “Weekend Update”) and most musical guests tell me I’ve aged-out of being anywhere close to the target demographic, so I don’t know how interesting this look back at the crazy beginning will be, but I think the frantic absurdity will be enjoyable whether you understand the heritage of “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not!,” “Jane, you ignorant slut!,” “Never Mind!,” and “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, Pepsi, no Coke” or not—if so you’ll find it streaming on Apple TV+ for another $9.99 rental (also on Fandango at Home and Microsoft streaming, same price).  But, if not, maybe you can settle for my Musical Metaphor, Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting}” (on the 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NagnbRHdh-0 where his lyrics of “Oh, don’t give us none of your aggravation / We had it with your discipline / Saturday night’s alright for fighting / Get a little action in […] ‘Cause Saturday night’s the night I like / Saturday night’s alright, alright, alright” seem to me to fit Lorne Michael’s initial frustrations with the network’s weak support for his project coupled with his determination to successfully fight through those obstacles.  According to this site, you can watch that actual first episode via streaming on the Peacock platform if you choose to pursue it.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

(1) Red One flops in theaters, opens big on Amazon Prime Video; (2) Variety's worst movies of 2024 (fortunately, I haven’t seen them); (3) Variety's Oscar predictions for 2025, for now (I’ve seen very few of them); (4) IMDb's staff picks for 2024's best (I haven’t seen most of these either).

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 3,779—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (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 Piano Lesson, Short Takes on other cinematic topics

Heritage vs. Aspirations

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)

                  The Piano Lesson (Malcolm Washington)

                                    rated PG-13   125 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.

 For quite some time I’ve been aware of August Wilson as one of the great playwrights of 20^th century American theatre, even though, unfortunately, I’ve never seen one of his works on stage; however, I've experienced great pleasure seeing 3 of his famous American Century Cycle (or, called the Pittsburgh Cycle at times, premiering from 1982 to 2005—10 plays, each about events in a specific decade of the 20^th century [few recurring characters, though] all but one of them set in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA—adapted to the big screen, all produced by Denzel Washington as part of his intention to put all 10 on film [since 2015]).  What I’ve seen in addition to The Piano Lesson (stage premiere 1987) are Fences (Denzel Washington, 2016, one of my very rare 5-star contemporary films; stage premiere 1985, came to Broadway 1987, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 1987 Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Leading Actor in a Play [James Earl Jones], Best Featured Actress in a Play [Mary Alice], Best Direction of a Play [Lloyd Richards]; revived on Broadway in 2010 when it won Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Play, Best Leading Actor in a Play [Denzel Washington], Best Leading Actress in a Play [Viola Davis]; Washington and Davis reprised their roles in the film adaptation with her winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, 2020, another one of my precious 5-stars ratings; the only one not set in Pittsburgh but, instead, Chicago; stage premiere 1982, came to Broadway in 1984).  Regarding The Piano Lesson, like Ma Rainey’s … Denzel is only in the role of producer while his 2 sons take the lead with this time, Malcolm as director, John David as a principal actor (here’s a short video [14:12; ads interrupt at 7:55, 11:49] where they analyze a scene where the men of the story bond over an old slave song [there was a Broadway revival of … Lesson too, in 2022, with John David Washington, Samuel Jackson, Ray Fisher reprising the theatrical roles for the new film]).

 So, why you may ask (as you should), don’t I find this one to be of similar 5-stars caliber? I’ll try to explain that as I go (although I’m not fully clear on it myself; maybe I just couldn’t fully connect with it as I do the other 2 adaptations, but certainly there are others who find it to be more compelling, including those who voted to give the play the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama).  In somewhat of a defense of my response (thanks, folks), the CCAL’s a bit reserved also with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 88% while the Metacritic average score drops down to 69% (by contrast, RT has 92% for Fences, 98% for Ma Rainey’s …; the MC score for the former’s 79%, 87% for the latter).

 Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times seems to be in harmony with my response (I'll send her my promised bribe money next week once my checks stop bouncing): “This is Washington’s debut feature, and his directorial eye is not quite up to the raucous staging this requires; it turns choppy and the rhythm is off. [¶] What’s great about the movie is its performances. […] Still, as a film, ‘The Piano Lesson’ is the weakest of the Denzel Washington-produced Pittsburgh Cycle. But when you’re working with Wilson’s material, there’s an inherent richness, and the questions this film raises have never been more potent.”  Yet, others find it to be even better, as with Stephanie Zacharek of TIME:  “[…] the movie’s true anchor is a performer outside that circle of father and sons. Danielle Deadwyler lights the way through this version of The Piano Lesson; her performance is forged largely from fire and iron, but she has moments of melting vulnerability, too. […] But Berniece isn’t just a repository for her ancestors’ suffering—she’s also a vessel for their perseverance and their joy. In the film’s final moments, you see that joy radiating through her like inner sunlight. She leaves us not with a lesson, but with an invitation to live.”  High praise!

 Of course, someone had to account for the negative response, so here’s Ty Burr from The Washington Post: “Together, they wrestle August Wilson’s totemic 1987 stage play to the screen, and I regret to report that Wilson does not come out on top. […] Those problems are twofold: direction that never finds a thematic through line or harnesses a consistent energy — the result is a film that lacks shape, despite its first-time filmmaker’s efforts to ‘open it up’ with flashbacks — and a lead performance by John David Washington that’s pitched past the last row of the theater and lands somewhere in the next time zone.”  What you might have to say about this film could fall anywhere within this critical spectrum, but first you’d have to see it; you might still be able to find a theater (opened in select domestic [U.S.-Canada] ones on November 8, 2024), but your mostly likely option is streaming where it’s only on Netflix (free to subscribers or sign up for an ad-free $15.49 monthly fee).  Of course, you might be more interested if you knew what it’s about, so I'll begin a quick synopsis of a tale in 1936 Depression-era Pittsburgh where Berniece Charles (Danielle Deadwyler) lives with Uncle Doaker (Jackson) and young daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith), as custodian of a precious family heirloom with a history of their former slave family carved into an upright piano by her great-grandfather (his wife and child were sold to provide funds for slave-owner Sutter to buy the instrument for his wife; in 1911 Berniece’s father stole it for his family, was killed in a retribution).

 In the present day, Berniece’s brother, Boy Willie (John David Washington), and his buddy, Lymon (Ray Fisher), have come from Mississippi with a truckload of watermelons they’re going to sell to add to cash Boy Willie’s saved so he can buy the land where his ancestors were enslaved now that the current Sutter descendant has died after mysteriously falling into a well (did Boy Willie push him?), with the required rest of the sale price coming from Berniece selling the piano, which she refuses to do given how crucial she feels it is to the family’s heritage.  As the plot unfolds we meet Doaker’s brother, Wining Boy (Michael Potts), a failed-musician/emerging-alcoholic and Avery Brown (Corey Hawkins), an emerging preacher with romantic interest in Berniece (she’s not so sure about that, still mourning deceased husband Crawley) who also has an interest in the piano for his church.  But the most troubling presence in the Charles household is the ghost of elder James Sutter (Jay Peterson), seemingly come to avenge his descendant’s death and/or lay his own claim to the marvelous piano.

 ⇒Tensions arise within the family as various situations arise; however, the ghost is causing the worst problems so Berniece overcomes her reluctance to play the piano in an emotional scene that calls forth the spirits of her ancestors who drive away Sutter’s ghost, leaving Boy Willie now respectful of his sister’s embrace of the piano so he returns to Mississippi.⇐  If you’d like considerably more about the events of this film (with Spoilers) you can refer to the explorations in this site (which leads you to more about August Wilson and his plays).  While this is a powerful story of the clash between embracing your past and aspiring to move beyond it, the presentation here comes with a wealth of conflicting character motives and plot events that lead in differing, somewhat confusing directions that keep me from my 5-stars response to Denzel Washington’s previous August Wilson adaptations, but you may find more resonance with it than I did.  Certainly it presents the powerful impact of the history of slavery on contemporary African-Americans, enjoys marvelous acting by all concerned (despite Mr. Burr’s objections), and contains at least 2 astounding scenes: the  song all the men sing together and the dynamic conclusion with Berniece at that piano.

 I’ve rambled on enough, though, so I’ll close out this posing with my usual device of a Musical Metaphor, this time Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies“ (from his astounding 1986 Graceland album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85rr5SqrCZI, with it’s references to “This is the story of how we begin to remember / This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein / After the dream of falling and calling your name out / These are the roots of rhythm / And the roots of rhythm remain.”  In this film, that rhythm remains in Berniece (Wilson seems to have used a clever spelling of her name, linking her more to her uncles than to her brother) as she powerfully shows us within that nearly-final scene.

           

SHORT TAKES

             

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

(1) Los Angeles Film Critics 2024 awards (along with the Boston and Washington D.C.critics' awards) (I’ve barely seen any of these yet); (2) Golden Globes 2025 nominations (I haven’t seen most of these either; I’m going to have a quite busy 2025 early spring); (3) Golden Globes snubs and surprises; (4) IMDb's what's new to TV and streaming in December 2024; (5) IMDb staff picks for December 2024; (6) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 12/9/2024; (7) Variety's Top 10 of 2024 from Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge (I haven’t seen most of these as well).

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 out 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 3,779—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (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):

Beatles ‘64 plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

“Love Me Do”

(This title taken from The Beatles first UK hit [#17] in 1962, found on their 1963 UK album Please Please Me.  Became #1 in the US, early 1964, briefly was on Version One of the US 1964 Vee-Jay album Introducing… The Beatles until copyright problems forced it to be replaced on Version Two [I’ve still got a copy of that one]); can likely be found on various compilation albums but definitely on 1 [2000], which contains the 27 Beatles songs that hit #1 on the pop charts of the UK and/or the US.)

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)

       Beatles '64 (David Tedeschi)   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.)

 After putting considerably more time last Wednesday (due to some glitch with Google BlogSpot that kept me from logging in for 1½ hours during which I posted possible Two Guys farewells on Facebook and LinkedIn before the problem somehow resolved itself [leaving me a bit embarrassed], followed by the 6 hours it took to do the lengthy posting) and energy (trying my damnedest [yes, that’s how it’s spelled when I looked it up; damndest is a different word, though] to make sense of Megalopolis [Francis Ford Coppola], which took longer, more space than I’d originally hoped) into that previous Two Guys posting, I was looking forward to some relief this week.  Well, after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and visit with some of the local relatives (all Nina’s; except for a couple of cousins back in Texas all of mine are deceased), followed by a marvelous Agatha Christie mini-marathon—Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017), Death on the Nile (Branagh, 2022)—I felt rested/refreshed enough to tackle something new this week, which turned out to be short and sweet, not so new really, with this Martin Scorsese-produced look at how The Beatles made their cultural/musical impact on the USA in early 1964 (with a title akin to their US album, Beatles ’65, released in mid-December 1964, one of Capitol Records “extra” compilations taking some songs from the UK Beatles for Sale [1964] album, adding a few singles, and finding another way to milk additional cash from us American consumers).

 So, there’s no need for Spoiler alerts here, nor is there anything you might be surprised about in this new documentary except seeing some off-stage footage of the Fab Four as they came to the US in early February, 1964, appeared twice on CBS TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show (in NYC, Miami), and played concerts in NYC’s Carnegie Hall and Washington, DC.  11 hours of footage from that time, shot by documentary-legends Albert and David Maysies, are greatly trimmed down to a digestible length, then enhanced by recent interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, older footage of a George Harrison interview, and some vintage TV clips of John Lennon.  There’s also commentary from various folks about the marvelous present these musicians gave to a nation weary from the late November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy (images from that tragedy begin this doc), with the most likely well-known commentator being film director David Lynch.  Lots of Beatle songs are included, a few in full-length or from those concerts (“All My Loving,” “Roll Over Beethoven”), others as snippets behind the images (“She Loves You,” “Please Please Me,” “You Really Got a Hold on Me” [from Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, followed by them doing a version of Paul's “Yesterday”], “Long Tall Sally,” ”Baby It’s You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and on).

 For those of us old enough to have been there when all of this took place roughly 60 years ago, this is a marvelous dose of nostalgia, which you can find via streaming on Disney+ ($9.99 for a month’s subscription if you’re not already signed up), where, at the end of the credits, you’re encouraged to jump ahead to the end of The Beatles’ career with the mini-series, The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson, 2021)—you’ll also be encouraged by the CCAC to watch Beatles ’64 as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 95%, the Metacritic average score is 78% (generally high for them).  If you’re blessedly young enough not to know about this stuff directly, I think you’ll find this movie to be an inspiring introduction to the worldwide phenomenon of Beatlemania which blossomed in 1964 when the boys took America by storm, building on their British success, paving the way for their immense popularity on other continents as well.  Maybe I’m letting nostalgia factor in too much in my choice of a rating (for B&W, 4x3 format imagery no less—yet, that’s how many media images looked like back then), but while there’s nothing notably cinematic about this documentary it’s marvelously-engaging, well-constructed as a viewing event for established and would-be fans alike.  

 To wrap up this (delightfully-short [feels nice for a change]) review with my standard trope of a Musical Metaphor, I’ll bookend my opening choice of “Love Me Do” (the necessary start of a huge recording career that propelled The Beatles into their 1964 American debut)—where the simple lyrics also reflect the growing connection between these musicians and their audiences—with their first US single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (a November 1963 UK hit, debuted in the US in December 1963 to become their first American #1; found on the 1964 US album Meet The Beatles) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs (from their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance, live on 2/9/1964).  It’s representative of this movie as a whole also because it presents romance in such a discreet, wholesome manner, reflecting The Beatles’ initial image, providing the upbeat joy so needed in America in those dark days after the fatal fall of the JFK Camelot Presidency.  As one commentator notes, when The Beatles came to the US in 1964 “The light came on.”  Boy, did it ever!

         

SHORT TAKES

         

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Here are quite a few options for your consideration: (1) New York Film Critics Circle 2024 winners (I haven’t seen any of them yet); (2) National Board of Review 2024 winners (except for My Old Ass I haven’t seen any of these yet either); (3) Sean Penn slams the Oscars; (4) How Moana 2, Wicked: Part One, and Gladiator II set a Thanksgiving weekend box-office record; (5) Are sequels cannibalizing Hollywood's future?; (6) Recent theatrical releases now available for streaming; (7) What's new on Netflix in December 2024; (8) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in December 2024; (9) What's new on Hulu in December 2024; (10) What's new on Disney+ in December 2024; & (11) What's new on Max in December 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.

           

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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 3,174—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (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):