Never Underestimate the Power of the Past
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) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Now that I’ve pleasantly taken a little time away from Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark (with me as still the only Guy as my intended-partner, Pat Craig, seems to have disappeared into the Witness Protection Program) to share our annual indulgence in the Godfather trilogy with my wonderful wife, Nina, and to get better acquainted with our newest cat, sweet little Mindy (pictured above, getting more comfortable with us every day), I’m back in business with using my Short Takes procedure to explore 3 very different aspects of cinema that I’ve also had the time to watch over the last couple of weeks (presented here in the order in which I saw them). The Guilty is an intense drama as court-facing-cop Jake Gyllenhaal is put on 911 call-center night duty where he gets a frantic cry for help from a woman who says she’s being abducted but we learn as the story goes the situation is much more complicated than that; this one builds a terrific sense of tension as it uses its shot-during-the-pandemic-reality to put all of the action in one location, almost all it carried quite effectively by our main actor. In The Many Saints of Newark we get a prequel to the highly-regarded HBO series, The Sopranos, as we see the forces that helped shaped future mob boss Tony Soprano although the focus here is on his “uncle,” Dickie Moltisanti, with many younger versions of the TV cast in attendance. Finally, I’ll explore the movie that got me (and Nina) back into a theater after many months of abstinence, the final James Bond episode starring Daniel Craig, No Time to Die, as agent 007 once again faces horrific situations in his almost-solo-attempt to save the world from imminent disaster (with the COVID Delta disaster kept at bay for us through the combination of booster shots and not that many patrons at an early-afternoon-screening). Also as part of Short Takes I’ll offer suggestions for some choices on the Turner Classic Movies channel (but too much extra text for line-justified-layout like you see here [Related Links stuff at each posting’s end is similarly-ragged], at least to be done by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, ye tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.
SHORT TAKES (more or less … mostly more)
(skippable-plot-spoilers embedded in each review)
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.
The Guilty (Antoine Fuqua) rated R 91 min.
Joe Baylor's (Jake Gyllenhaal) an L.A. cop awaiting a crucial court hearing next morning; tonight he’s on 911 shift when a woman calls saying she’s being abducted in a van; however, due to a massive L.A. fire he can’t get much help in finding her nor getting clear what’s happening with her and her family. Great drama, remade from a Danish film.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
Retool of a Danish cinematic story (same name [originally Den skyldige]; Gustav Möller, 2018; see JustWatch for free/cheap streaming options), which I guess I never saw despite its potential intrigue (or, if I did watch I didn’t review and have completely forgotten about it by now), following closely the plot of the original (based on a summary I read) about an L.A. cop, Joe Baylor (Jake Gyllenhaal), on night duty at a 911 call center, off active duty due to a major court hearing the next day about some circumstance we’re not privy to (yet)—although a local San Francisco-area critic notes that in CA this wouldn’t happen (does it in Denmark?) because he’d be on full administrative leave plus being a 911 operator requires a good deal of rigorous training so you’re not just plopped into the job (the fact the stress of all this activates his asthma’s not in question, though, along with the Alka Seltzer he takes for heartburn). Those considerations aside, what transpires is a riveting drama where a Los Angeles Times reporter keeps bothering Baylor about the hearing but his true trauma is a call from Emily Lighton (voice of Riley Keough; we see few other actors on screen than Gyllenhaal, although there’s a lengthy-voice-cast) who says she’s being abducted, yet has to frame her call as if she’s talking to her young daughter to allay suspicion from her captor. When she’s cut off Joe tries to get help in locating her (all he knows at first is she’s in a white van heading east on the I-10 freeway); however, due to a raging fire in the area (an all-too-accurate-reality all over much of CA right now) there are scant resources available to help him, except his former-partner, Rick (Eli Goree), offering some aid.
Using every info-avenue he can find, Joe’s able to locate Emily’s home so he calls to have a brief conversation with her scared 6-year-old-daughter Abby (Christiana Montoya), learning Emily left that night with ex-husband/kid's-father Henry Fisher (Peter Sarsgaard), a guy with a criminal record (Joe’s been separated from his wife and daughter for some months also, adding to his tension over the situation); a later call from the girl about cops arriving leads to them finding her younger brother, Oliver, in critical condition. Joe manages to tell Emily to hit Henry with a brick to escape which she does but only after telling Joe she took snakes out of Oliver’s stomach that night; with Emily gone from the van, Joe talks with Henry, confirms Emily’s actually been in a psychiatric treatment facility, has recently been off her meds because they couldn’t afford them, he was taking her to a hospital when he frantically thought she’d killed their son. ⇒Emily calls Joe again from a freeway overpass she’s about to jump off of; as a means of keeping her talking, as well as sharing his own troubled life, he admits he killed a guy out of revenge while on duty (the reason for the upcoming hearing) before she cuts off. However, CHP officers call Joe to say they’re got Emily, then another call confirms Oliver’s still alive but in the ICU. Our story ends as Joe calls Rick, asks him to tell the truth, not the planned cover-up story, at the hearing where Joe has intentions to plead guilty to manslaughter.⇐
While not literally a one-person-film (we briefly see a few others at the 911 center), the burden’s clearly on Gyllenhaal to maintain our interest in a situation he has very limited control over as events keep shifting on him, his tension mounting as all he has to work with are verbal exchanges to try to prevent more chaos than apparently already has happened (we have to mentally fill in those details too as mostly what we see is his tortured face, not the actions at the various locations at the other end of his phone line). For me, this is a tautly-effective-mystery-drama, using a limited running time to great impact, allowing us to empathize with Joe’s building sense of agony as there’s so little he can do about events physically beyond his control. Nevertheless, the CCAL’s not as impressed as I am, with Rotten Tomatoes critics offering 71% positive reviews, those at Metacritic giving it a 63% average score; in my attempt to further understand this discrepancy, I’ll cite K. Austin Collins of Rolling Stone who says: “Speaking of fires: It’s all a smoke show, all flash-bang complexity with no soul. As titles go, The Guilty — curt, descriptive, accurate — couldn’t be more appropriate. Like the movie that it adorns, it seems to tell you most everything you need to know. And almost gets away with saying not much at all.” OK, I guess, if you see it that way, but I’m more in line with the San Francisco Chronicle’s G. Allen Johnson (the guy I briefly referenced above) who says: “[… once you] get used to Gyllenhaal’s high-energy approach to the character, ‘The Guilty’ is efficiently tense. [… The] direction is crisp, Gyllenhaal’s performance grows on you, and Riley Keough (‘Zola’) as the voice of the woman who is abducted, is terrific.” For me, the whole thing’s pretty terrific; take a look.
To conclude, I’ll offer you the Musical Metaphor of Jackson Brown’s “Running on Empty” (from his 1977 album of the same name) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNmIbSre7Tw (a live 1979 performance) because that’s how Joe Baylor comes across here as is also the case with Emily and Henry, desperate souls on this night these are people who know you “Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive […] People need some reason to believe I don’t know about anyone but me.” This film was shot in a mere 11 days in Nov. 2020 during strict COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, an ideal topic for something facing production restraints that hampered much of what was intended to be made last year. While (oddly enough) there’s no mention of it in Box Office Mojo I know it’s been playing in my area for a couple of weeks (yours too?), but it is likely more easily available (no extra charge) for Netflix streaming subscribers.
A prequel to the hit HBO series, The Sopranos, where we go back several decades from the TV episodes to see aspects of the younger years, then teenage life of Tony Soprano, but the true focus here is on his “uncle,” Dickie Moltisanti (surname means “many saints,” only religious aspect of this movie); lots of familiar characters from the TV show, but hard to care for if you’re not already a fan.
Here’s the trailer:
Either I’m the worst person (not counting my personal life) or the perfect one to review The Many Saints of Newark, worse because I saw only 1 episode of the famous HBO series, The Sopranos (1999-2007), so I know next to nothing about all the crucial events that this current film serves as a prequel for* or I might be perfect because of my lack of familiarity with the subsequent … Sopranos events (although aired chronologically long before … Newark) so I make a good test-case as to whether others also unfamiliar with the TV show can enjoy this as essentially a stand-alone-narrative without needing the context of what later becomes of these NJ gangsters in this flashback-memoir.**
*At the time, for budgetary purposes, I wasn’t paying for HBO so when students in my Seminar in Media Criticism class at Mills College (Oakland, CA) chose an episode of The Sopranos to critique one of them had to record it, lend me the tape; I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw, the class verifying this particular episode, by chance, was one of the series’ least interesting offerings. Another story about this show, though, is that when Susan Young, former TV critic for the Oakland Tribune (now the East Bay Times) came to lecture to my class about her profession she admitted when she first got a critic’s tape of something called The Sopranos she thought it was a rip-off of The Three Tenors, tossed it in the trash until she saw a press release about this new (potentially-blockbuster) show, quickly retrieved that tape, got caught up (as did so many) with the tales of Tony.
**If, like me, you don’t truly know enough about The Sopranos to fully understand The Many Saints of Newark, here are some resources for you: (1) facts to know about the TV series; (2) a rapid recap (9:21) of the entire series (I’d advise using the little Closed Captions button at the bottom right of the video screen as the narration’s almost too fast to comprehend); (3) Spoiler questions and answers (lots of useful plot details connecting the entire Sopranos narrative); (4) a quick notation on all of the major characters; (5) an even-quicker-video (2:00) showing who plays whom in this movie vs. who was the same character in the later-set-TV series. Finally, for more depth, there’s this anatomy of a scene (2:22) where director Taylor explores Dickie trying to mentor teenage Tony.
Well, after watching … Newark, I’ll have to say director Taylor (also helmed some episodes of the TV show), co-screenwriter (with Lawrence Konner, who also wrote some … Sopranos scripts) David Chase (originator, producer, main writer of the TV series), and anyone else associated with the TV version and/or this prequel won’t be able to count me in as intrigued, enthralled, or even much interested in … Newark, although maybe if I were more familiar with the later exploits of the Soprano family/familia or if I hadn’t gotten around to writing this until just after my annual indulgence of re-watching The Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola; 1972, 1974, 1990)—which includes cooking spaghetti, pouring Chianti for 3 nights to give marvelous Nina a break from her regular (well-appreciated) cooking chores—I might have been more engaged with these … Saints …; without those qualifiers I can’t say I cared too much about who was whacking whom or why, nor did I learn a whole lot about Tony's motivations in his turn to crime (neither did Variety’s Owen Gleiberman so it’s not just me being dense, although I’ve read rumors of a … Many Saints … sequel [as another … Sopranos prequel, of course] so maybe this story’s just a prelude to further upcoming character development about young Tony Soprano [played as a boy in 1967 by William Ludwig, as a 1971 teenager by Michael Gandolfini, son of James G., star of the TV series, a brilliant choice of casting]).
We do see the crime-dominated-environment Tony grew up in, though (along with the Newark race riots of 1967, giving us a chance to see the context of this social unrest on the main Black character of this movie, Harold McBrayer [Leslie Odom Jr.], a numbers-collector for the mob until he decides to start his own gang in frustration with the carnage) where Tony’s father, Johnny Soprano (Joe Bernthal), and uncle, “Junior” Soprano (Corey Stoll), are in jail; his mother, Livia (Vera Farmiga), generally makes everyone’s life miserable; and the focus of this story’s really on a major player in Newark’s DiMeo crime family, Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola)—the surname means “many saints,” hence the movie’s title. Slightly older Dickie serves as a bit of a father figure to Tony while Dad’s up the river, although things aren’t good in the Moltisanti family either as Dickie’s father, “Hollywood” Dick M. (Ray Liotta) has just returned from Italy with a new, notably-younger wife, Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi), whom he verbally and physically abuses, leading to father and son arguing in a car at night, Dickie eventually slamming Dick’s head into the steering wheel to kill him, drags his body into a nearby building, then sets the place on fire as if it were destroyed in those riots.
Like father, like son, though, Dickie then takes over the bedroom chores with Giuseppina (despite being married to Joanne [Gabriella Piazza]) ⇒until he kills his Stepmom too because she also had an affair with Harold. Another Moltisanti in this story is Dickie’s baby, Christopher, who begins this whole tale by talking to us years later from the grave (voice of Michael Imperioli; Tony killed him during the run of the TV series). Dickie’s taken down as well, right at the end of … Newark at the order of Junior Soprano in retaliation for once laughing at the somewhat-older-man for slipping, falling down.⇐ If you need more plot details, go here, but my comments convey enough of what I cared to follow; the CCAL’s a bit more generous than me, however, with RT positive reviews at 73% (Richard Roeper speaks for the supporters: “It’s a sharply honed, darkly funny, ultra-violent and wildly entertaining late 1960s period piece”; on the other hand, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times better connects with me: “[…this] busy, unnecessary, disappointingly ordinary origin story, doesn’t work.”) while the MC folks are in harmony with my 3 stars (of 5, 60%) as they’ve also produced a 60% average score. I don’t mean to say The Many Saints of Newark is boring: there’s constant action with the swirl of characters (too many for me, but I know fans of the TV show want to see as many as can fit in, including Silvio Dante [John Magaro], Paulie “Walnuts” [Billy Magnussen], and “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero [Samson Moeakiola]); it’s fun to see Ray Liotta also play Dick’s twin brother, incarcerated Salvatore “Sally” Moltisanti, advising Dickie to steer Tony away from their crime world; it’s easy to catch on HBO Max if you’re a subscriber and don’t want to venture into a theater (where it opened at 3,181 domestic [U.S.-Canada] venues for a domestic take of $7.4 million [$10.3 million worldwide] so far), but find it soon via streaming as these WB releases are only on HBO Max for 31 days following their theatrical debuts, so The Many Saints of Newark leaves Max after Oct. 31.
I don’t remember if my Musical Metaphor, Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” (1979 Slow Train Coming album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzyBv4yOPU (a live performance at the 1980 Grammy Awards where he won Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for the song) was in the movie’s soundtrack or I just noticed it while watching the trailer, but it fits the situation here quite well with lyrics such as “You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief […] Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody” as all of these mobsters in … Newark offer either compliance or resistance to the local “family” bosses, setting themselves up for gain (which might be temporary) or retaliation as their lives lurch from one situation to the next. However, these NJ goombahs had better never cross into NYC to make trouble with the entrenched-Corleone family or they will never know what hit them.
Daniel Craig in his 5th but last time as secret agent (retired then pulled back into action) James Bond as his ongoing nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, steals a super-secret/super-deadly weapon but then even Blofeld and his SPECTRE organization are undone by an even-more-horrid villain with the fate of the world (as usual) up to Bond to preserve as time is running out (also as usual). A "shaken" 007.
Here’s the trailer:
While No Time to Die is the 25th official entry in the James Bond franchise (not counting the non-canonical-titles, the first Casino Royale [a 1967 satire with 5 directors doing different segments: John Huston, Ken Hughes, Robert Parrish, Joe McGrath, Val Guest] and Never Say Never Again [Irvin Kershner, 1983] with Sean Connery slipping back into the role after years away in a variation of the much-earlier Thunderball [Terence Young, 1965]), it’s more fitting to focus on it as the finale of Daniel Craig’s 5 starring roles in what must be seen as a reboot of the series in that unlike the earlier 20 movies where a few main characters (the British MI6 spy agency’s Bond, M, Q, Moneypenny; their sometimes-antagonist, Ernst Blofeld; frequent appearances by CIA agent Felix Leiter) normally or often repeat each time but plot details usually don’t reference earlier events (just as the Bond actor changes several times over the decades even as the character seems to have ongoing-continuity, even though the narratives usually have little to do with any original Ian Fleming novels except borrowing the titles), in the Craig Bonds (Casino Royale [Martin Campbell, 2006], Quantum of Solace [Marc Forster, 2008], Skyfall [Sam Mendes, 2012], Spectre [Mendes, 2015], No Time to Die [Fukunaga, 2021]) 007 has just earned that “license to kill” designation in Casino Royale, then we follow a clear continuity from movie to movie in terms of how earlier characters/events impact on more-recent-stories (even as a notable-role shifts: Judi Dench as M in Craig’s first 3, followed by Ralph Fiennes in the last 2 [but that change is justified in that Dench’s M dies at the end of Skyfall]).
So, given it’s well-known this is Craig’s last appearance as Bond, the screenwriters (Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fukunaga) have notably wrapped up aspects of this new-Bond-timeline (with that most-significant-departure from the earlier stories concerning Bond and Blofeld, now as antagonistic-foster-brothers, verifying the franchise’s continuity starting over in the Eon films-produced Casino Royale [2006]); even though the final graphic in these latest credits states the usual “James Bond will return,” any further entries in this series will either have to reboot again or find a way to come to terms with the challenging decisions put forth here. However, if you need a refresher on what’s come before in these 5 versions of the Bond legend as embodied by Craig, you can consult this video (7:45) for the useful context of Vesper Lynd, Madeleine Swann, and Mr. White (Madeleine’s father), along with those ongoing presences of M, Q, Blofeld, and Leiter.
Whatever may have intrigued you about previous entries in this franchise you’ll likely find some of it in this latest installment: scenic locations of Norway, Italy, London, Jamaica—all shot with 65mm IMAX cameras instead of the more-common-modern-method of video; amazing chase sequences where Bond’s on foot at times pursued by shooters in cars/motorcycles, or he’s in a car but dueling many other vehicles, with a marvelous shout-out to earlier episodes where his Aston-Martin’s surrounded by his adversaries until he shifts his headlights into machine-gun-mode to free himself from the trap; the presence of attractive women, although this time they’re quite independent, physically capable of hand-to-hand-combat, as now-retired Bond meets his 007 replacement, Nomi (Lashana Lynch)—a crucial combatant in the final showdown—as well as working with rookie CIA agent Paloma (Ana de Armas) to defeat SPECTRE agents at a party for Blofeld in Cuba, but even Bond’s romantic-partner, Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), shows ambition in working with Bond’s ultimate nemesis here, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), even though as a child she almost killed him to save herself after Safin assassinated her mother (his real target was her hitman-father, Mr. White, responsible for killing Safin’s family, but he wasn’t home at the time); and, of course, a desperate need to save us all from a nefarious plot of world-domination, this time a biological weapon, Heracles, which inserts tiny virus-like nanobots into a target’s skin, killing only someone with specific DNA, no collateral-casualties (Blofeld attempts to control this device with the aid of treacherous Russian scientist Valdo Obruchev [David Dencik], but the latter’s a double-crosser working for Safin, enemy of both Bond and Blofeld because the latter once sent Mr. White to terminate Safin’s family).
If you want more plot details, you can find them here so I’ll just move on to the Spoilers for those who can’t (won’t) get theatrical access to … Die, yet don’t want to wait for it to finally appear on streaming. ⇒Despite beginning this movie with Bond and Swann in hot romance he comes to think she’s betrayed him to SPECTRE so he sends her away until we meet her again as the psychiatrist to London-imprisoned Blofeld; Madeleine’s actually innocent of any plot against Bond (in fact, he’s the father of her now-5-year-old-daughter, Mathide [Lisa-Dorah Sonnet]), but she’s now working with Safin to kill Blofeld in his cell which she second-handedly does by accidently touching Bond as they’re both at the prison so Bond (now carrying the deadly weapon but with no impact on him) becomes the instrument of Blofeld’s death; CIA agent Leiter (Jeffery Wright), badly wounded, also dies on a sinking boat due to Safin’s henchman, Logan Ash (Bily Magnussen), posing as Leiter’s partner. The most unanticipated death, though, is Bond himself, who, after dispatching Safin, doesn’t have time to escape this killer’s island-Heracles-lab before it’s destroyed by British missiles, prior to this weapon being used worldwide, leaving us with no other conclusion than Bond is gone, despite the standard end-of-credits-reminder: “James Bond will return.” Not the new 007; Bond?⇐
At least many of the CCAL is in league with me on the marvelous merits of No Time to Die in that critics surveyed by RT give it a solidly-supportive-84% positive reviews (as with Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service: “Cary Joji Fukunaga has delivered the goods for Daniel Craig’s farewell tour: exciting locales, jaw-dropping stunts, a beguiling Bond girl, a ridiculous villain, and of course, some romance”), although the often-restrained-snobs at MC are consistent in their less-generous-mode for all 3 offerings I've presented in this posting with a 68% average score (yet, that’s based on 42 positives, 20 mixed, just 1 negative so actually they’re more supportive than the RT results, but modified by how the MC staffers calculate/attach scores to each review even when such numbers don’t exist in those reviews as published) so I’ll cite some of that negativity even as I don’t agree with it (from A.O. Scott of The New York Times: “weepy, wheezy cliché-mongering […] it isn’t a tragedy. It’s a mistake”). Such dismissal notwithstanding, however, the naysayers hasn’t impacted audiences much as the weekend domestic haul (from 4,407 theaters) as I go to "press" is $62.1 million (worldwide $321.32million) so even after 59 years of this franchise viewers don’t seem to have tired of this character (generically noted as a spy—or, more diplomatically, a secret agent—although there’s seems to be little secret about Bond in the underworld, but, given his family connection to Blofeld, that’s understandable). I have no idea what’s to become of this series in the future, but I have consistently enjoyed it over the decades (even the less-stellar-plotted-entries were marvelous to look at in terms of locations, chase choreography, and [certainly] the female costars), so whatever direction it may take from here, I’ll definitely continue to give it consideration, although increased diversity—as with Lynch as the future 007 (?)—would be welcome as explored by Eric Deggans, a Black critic at NPR who admits that even he suffers at times from “White Guy Infatuation Syndrome.”
As I round out the reviews in this posting I had an easy time choosing a Musical Metaphor for No Time to Die, simply using the movie’s theme song (same name) as sung (in a live performance) by Billie Eilish at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I1ZU5g1QNo where lyrics such as “I should have known I’d leave alone Just goes to show That the blood you bleed Is just the blood you owe […] You’re no longer my concern Faces from my past return Another lesson yet to learn” speak directly to this plot’s situations, not metaphorically I admit, so I’ll add something else more in line with my original intentions for this wrap-up-device, “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme song from The Spy Who Loved Me (Lewis Gilbert, 1977)—that movie title worked into the lyrics rather than the movie title also being the song title as is usually the case—sung by Carly Simon at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=isAUOa50wdA, where the lines: “Nobody does it better Makes me feel sad for the rest Nobody does it half as good as you Baby, you’re the best” clearly echo my feelings about Daniel Craig’s retooling of the Bond persona in these last 5 episodes (although the same could be said about Sean Connery in the franchise’s foundational stories), just as the entire Bond series (with all due respect to the filmmakers and actors of the Mission: Impossible franchise)* is “what keeps me from runnin’ But just keep it comin,” although if you might think you have a more-favorite-song from the full group (“Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles-band, Wings [from that-same-titled-movie, directed by Guy Hamilton, 1973], is a strong contender for me) you might want to explore these theme song excerpts (6:19), then search for whatever else you’d want to listen to.**
*As far as all-time worldwide grosses for these 2 franchises go, the Bond movies are #6 with about $7.4 billion in receipts whereas the … Impossible ones are at #16 with about $3.6 billion (the Marvel Cinematic Universe far-outpaces everything else at about $23.4 billion—although in this tabulation I don’t know why a few Avengers movies are listed as a separate #4 on the list when each of the titles in that small group are also in the MCU collection; but, however you tally, they raked in big-time $$).
**While we’re on the topic of collages from the entire Bond series you might be interested in this collection of gun barrel openings (10:27), all of them from Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962) through Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015); regular-series-stuntman-Bob Simmons portrayed Bond in the first 3 movies’ opening bits, after which the male star of each one did these opening “shots.” Then, for true closure on all things Bond here’s director Fukunaga’s anatomy of a scene (1:55) from No Time ... .
Suggestions for TCM cablecasts
At least until the pandemic subsides Two Guys also want to encourage you to consider movies you might be interested in that don’t require subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, similar Internet platforms (we may well be stuck inside for longer than those 30-day-free-initial-offers), or premium-tier-cable-TV-fees. While there are a good number of video networks offering movies of various sorts (mostly broken up by commercials), one dependable source of fine cinematic programming is Turner Classic Movies (available in lots of basic-cable-packages) so I’ll be offering suggestions of possible choices for you running from Thursday afternoon of the current week (I usually get this blog posted by early Thursday mornings) on through Thursday morning of the following week. All times are for U.S. Pacific zone so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed. These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.
I’ll bet if you checked that entire schedule link just above you’d find other options of interest, but these are the only ones grabbing my attention at present. Please dig in further for other possibilities.
Thursday October 14, 2021
8:00 AM M (Fritz Lang, 1931) One of the last great examples of true German Expressionism, by one of the great masters of cinema, his first sound film with a complex soundtrack often used cleverly in the editing process between parallel stories, one about a tormented child murderer (Peter Lorre), one about the police attempting to find him, one about the criminal underworld also on his trail. The final scene, the killer “tried” by the underworld, is powerful drama but also thoughtful about insanity.
Friday October 15, 2021
6:30 PM Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) Still my All-Time #1 (even though Sight and Sound’s poll dethroned it in 2012 in favor of Hitchcock’s Vertigo [1958] after 50 years on top); a triumph of script, acting, cinematography, editing, sound design, art direction, special effects, score, with Welles as director, star actor portraying Charles Foster Kane, an enormously wealthy (by chance as a kid) newspaperman (patterned on William Randolph Hearst) whose early progressive ideals succumb to pragmatics destroying marriages to 2 wives (Ruth Warrick, Dorothy Comingore) and a long-time-friend (Joseph Cotton), retaining loyalty only from his business manager (Everett Sloane). Except for the eye-of-God beginning & end told in flashbacks, 5 narrators imparting subjective accounts (hard for us to know what’s true). Won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz [granddad of noted TCM host Ben Mankiewicz]); scripting process the subject of Mank.
8:45 PM All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) One of the truly great cinematic ensembles about Margo Channing (Bette Davis) as an aging Broadway star who hires a fawning assistant, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) who connives her way into replacing her mentor although she’ll become the hunted as well later on. Nominated for 14 Oscars, won 6: Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (George Sanders), Adapted Screenplay (Mankiewicz), Costume Design-Black & White (Edith Head, Charles LeMaire), Sound Recording (Thomas T. Moulton); has the distinction of 4 female nominees—Baxter and Davis for Best Actress, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter for Best Supporting Actress. By the way, Joe M. is also the younger brother of Herman M. of Citizen Kane script fame.
Thursday October 21, 2021
This cluster doesn’t contain classics as such, but if you’re a fan of Hammer Films revivals of a couple of classic monsters you might be interested in these: 4:45 AM Dracula—Prince of Darkness (Terence Fisher, 1965), 6:30 AM Frankenstein Created Woman (Terence Fisher, 1967), 8:15 AM Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (Freddie Francis, 1969), 10:00 AM Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (Terence Fisher, 1970), 11:45 Taste the Blood of Dracula (Peter Sasdy, 1970). What a way to start your day!
If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: In quick fashion, here are some extra items you might like: (1) New on Netflix in October 2021; (2) New on Amazon Prime Video in October 2021; (3) New on Hulu in October 2021; (4) New on Disney+ in October 2021 (5) New on HBO/HBO Max in October 2021; (6) IATSE union (60,000 members) sets tentative film/TV production strike date for October 18, 2021. As usual for now I’ll close out this section with Joni Mitchell’s "Big Yellow Taxi" (from her 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)—because “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone”—and a reminder that you can search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
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Here’s more information about The Guilty:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81345983
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeq6QGE2ob4 (6:41 interview with director Antoine Fuqua and actor Jake Gyllenhaal)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_guilty_2021
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-guilty-2021
Here’s more information about The Many Saints of Newark:
https://www.themanysaintsofnewarkmovie.com (click on the 3 bars in the upper left corner for more information)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byGjO9a6aGM (7:47 interview with co-screenwriter David Chase [producer of the TV series]—with Lawrence Konner and actors Michael Gandolfini, Alessandro Nivola)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_many_saints_of_newark
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-many-saints-of-newark
Here’s more information about No Time to Die:
https://www.mgm.com/movies/no-time-to-die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8jl_kMkwXc (8:19 exploration of James Bond “rules” broken in this latest installment in the franchise; borderline spoilers)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/no_time_to_die_2021
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/no-time-to-die
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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)
If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.
By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact). Ken
P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest,
a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand"
(19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this good).
But, while I’m at it, I should also include another of my top favorites, from the night before
at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song always “just a shot
away” in my memory (along with my memory of the great drummer, Charlie Watts; RIP).
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