Valley Guys and Gals
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 in a positive mood or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) if they go negative.
(2/24/2022) With my first posting back in 2021 (January 7) I had to admit it was damn difficult to go forward with such trivia as movie reviews when the United States Capitol the day before had been ransacked by violent insurrectionists. (“Legitimate political discourse” my ass, Republican National Committee; you need to get your heads out of your own asses if that’s what you believe. And, readers, if you don’t care for my comments, no one’s forcing you to read this blog, so go lose yourself in the swamp of Fox News if that’s the best you can do to contemplate “truth.”) Well, here we are again with Vladimir Putin’s attempt to carve out a couple more chunks of Ukraine to add to his illegitimate sphere of influence, so God only knows what situations the world will be in by the time I get these comments posted or you get around to reading them. Once again, chatting about movies when an unabashed dictator is throwing his military weight around by declaring (How the hell does he have any authority to do so?) that Russian-sympathizers in areas of far-east-Ukraine are now living in independent countries so he can send Russian troops into for “peacekeeping purposes,” all so much bullshit that the stink can be smelled throughout our world. In hopes this latest Russian intrusion into former Soviet “republics” and/or Eastern European nations that were once closed off from independence by the U.S.S.R.’s “Iron Curtain” doesn’t escalate into a horrid hot war, I’ll try to just shut up for now and get back to my meaningless-business-at-hand, but in the meantime you might want to view or re-watch Munich – The Edge of War (Christian Schwochow; review in our January 27, 2022 posting) if you subscribe to Netflix streaming to get a sense of what happened when the West failed to stop another tyrant, Adolph Hitler, as he first was granted a chunk of Czechoslovakia supposedly to prevent further aggression in Europe, which proved to be useless as he moved quickly to conquer everything he could (including an invasion of Russia) despite written agreements to not do so. Anyone who thinks Putin in our time will be less intimidating (or more honest) ought to further explore their own anus-perspectives, as I just hope desperately some actions by some refuse-to-be-bullied-countries will unravel this latest Putin power/territory grab, but that may just be hopeless optimism as with Neville Chamberlain's 1938 plan. Truthfully, I’m worried.
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021)
rated R 133 min.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): OK, enough diatribing on the world at large by a guy who’s supposed to be doing film reviews, not op-eds, so if you need something quirky-but-ultimately-sweet to help distract you at least for a couple of hours from ever-harmful-world-events then Licorice Pizza might be helpful as it transports us back to the early 1970s (as if there wasn’t trouble enough then with the still-building-Watergate-crisis [not noted at all in Licorice …] and the Arab Oil Embargo [which does play a crucial role in … Pizza], but at least those troubling aspects of the time are mostly in the background of what’s consistently a comedy/love story), which is the first thing I’ve seen in a theatre since long ago in mid-December with Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021; review in our January 6, 2022 posting) as the COVID-Omicron variant seems to finally be losing its impact so my wife, Nina, and I (along with one of our long-time-viewing-companions, also eager to get back out in public again) finally returned to one of our locations-of-many-years, the Shattuck Cinemas in downtown Berkeley, CA for a marvelous evening of film, drinks at the elegant Shattuck Hotel bar afterward, then dinner at Saul’s Jewish delicatessen (the pastrami’s still utterly-delicious); what I’ll see next out in public vs. streaming options may well depend just on quality of offerings for the near future, but for last weekend it was a marvelous time out, beginning with an unpredictable-in-places, odd-at-times (what else would you expect from this director?), ultimately-engaging-presentation that manages to capture a time period perfectly even with several characters (including the primary ones) you can’t say are consistently endearing (even though they will rise to a few of their best moments).
This film, then, is Licorice Pizza, a story taken not from the famed-director’s direct experience (despite his childhood spent where this story takes place) but actively informed by people (some of whom are well-known) and events in 1973 from the L.A. area’s San Fernando Valley (much of it long ago brought into southern California’s principal city, as wickedly-shown in nefarious ways in the fabulous Chinatown [Roman Polanski, 1974]). It’s enhanced fiction to be sure—especially with the depiction of Barbra Streisand’s one-time-significant-other, Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper)—but the whole experience is charming to watch (as long as you’re willing to go out to a theater to see this multiple-Oscar-nominated-film), especially because of the big-screen-debuts of the young-romantic-pair of Cooper Hoffman (Phillip Seymour H.’s son) and Alana Haim (of the Haim music trio with her sisters). Also, in the Short Takes section 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 that standard dollop of industry-related-trivia.
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.)
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 aren’t that tech-savvy)—to help any of you who’d like 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: (As I present this [probably much longer than needed] plot synopsis, I’ll note a few aspects of it that remain a mystery to me; if you’re more insightful than I am—no contest, in many cases—you’re welcome to explain what I’m missing in the Comments box way down below [careful: you might get carpal tunnel syndrome from all of the scrolling required to get there, but try].)
Time: 1973. Location: San Fernando Valley (just north of downtown L.A., across the Hollywood Hills). Connection: Where the director grew up so he knows the area well. Alana Kane's (Alana Haim) a 25-year-old-woman working as a photographer's assistant shooting yearbook pictures at a local high school; for some reason (I’ve yet to figure out) she’s walking along a breezeway past students carrying a mirror in her hand, but the only one who stops to pay attention to her is Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a 15-year-old who tells her he’s a child actor (she's dubious, though it’s true) who keeps pushing her for a date. She claims non-interest (also denies she says everything twice, although at first she does), yet she shows up at the restaurant he invited her to, they talk, later he eventually gets her number but she keeps insisting she’s not his girlfriend, their age difference one of her considerations (good thing; technically, he's illegal for her to do much more than talk with).
Gary’s been in a movie with a bunch of younger kids and star Lucy Doolittle (Christine Ebersole) but won’t be able to go to NYC for a press junket to promote it because his busy press-agent-Mom Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) can’t get away to chaperone him. (We first meet her in her office where she’s working with Jerry Frick [John Michael Higgins], apparently a fictionalized version of the real guy who opened the Valley’s first Japanese restaurant, the Mikado, in 1963; Jerry’s a bonafide asshole, speaking English with a clumsy Japanese accent to his wife, Mioko [Yumi Mizui], then we learn later when he’s with his second wife, Kimiko [Megumi Anjo], that he doesn’t even speak Japanese so he basically has no idea what these women are saying. It’s easy to laugh at his stupidity, although the Media Action Network for Asian Americans isn’t amused, despite Anderson's claim of these scenes simply reflecting the racism of the time [not that it’s much better now, given the violent attacks on Asians/Asian-Americans in recent times, possibly in response to the “China virus” slurs from former-President {now the object of civil and criminal lawsuit investigations} Donald Trump]. Anderson also notes he has a Japanese mother-in-law, Kimiko Kasai, to whom non-Japanese people often talk with such silly accents, probably not even aware that they’re evoking such insanity.)
Gary gets to go to NYC anyway, though, because Alana agrees to be his chaperone; however, on the plane she’s approached by one of Gary’s (slightly-older) co-stars, Lance (Skyler Gisondo), a smooth talker whom she starts dating when they all get back to CA (Gary further undermines his own hopes with impressing Alana by showing off his naïve adolescence in making a crude joke when interviewed at the NYC showcase, earning immediate backstage-wrath from famous Ms. Doolittle). Lance strikes out as well with Alana’s Dad, Moti (Moti Haim), when he’s invited to dinner but tells the family he may have been born Jewish (as they all are) but now is an atheist. Gary continues to be interested in Alana, she continues to put him off but then comes to work for him when he opens a waterbed showroom (seemingly he has money from his earlier acting work, but as he’s getting older he’s not so easily grabbed up at auditions anymore [Maya Rudolph has a bit part in one of these]); during the grand opening, though, he starts paying attention to Sue (Isabelle Kusman), a classmate, which stirs up some jealousy in Alana, although sales are hopping with the waterbeds, despite a crazy episode where Gary has a booth for his product at an expo, then is suddenly arrested as a murder suspect due to mistaken identity resulting in a quick release, although Alana rushes to the police station to help, not yet even knowing what this crisis situation is all about.
Next, she decides she wants to try acting so Gary hooks her up with his agent, Mary Grady (Harriet Sandom Harris), who sends her to audition for famed actor Jack Holden (Sean Penn). He takes her to dinner, Gary and Sue come to the same restaurant so jealousies again flare all over the place until director Rex Blau (Tom Waits) shows up, convinces drunken Jack to come to the nearby golf course where he’ll recreate a motorcycle jump over a fire; Alana tries to ride with him but falls off when he zooms away with Gary then running to make sure she’s OK (she is). The following situation in this increasingly-episodic-tale is crisis for the waterbed company because of the Arab Oil Embargo which not only deprives Angelinos of their gasoline but also is essential to the plastic bags that are the beds so Gary, Alana, and a couple of his teenage friends pack up the now-defunct-store into a huge truck, make one last delivery to famed producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) who threatens them all with violence if they mess up his house while installing the bed after Peters goes out for the evening.
Gary responds by tossing the garden hose for filling the bed onto the bedroom floor, then they all scoot away in the truck only to find Peters walking back to the house because he’s run out of gas; however, he just goes into the garage to get a gas can, seemingly doesn’t know anything about the upstairs flood, insists they drive him down to a gas station which they do, but, after leaving him to butt in front of a long line, they drive back to his car where Gary smashes out his windshield. Yikes! The truck’s out of gas too so they dangerously roll back down the long hill, Alana steering, until the road flattens out. Next morning the boys head off with gas cans, Alana sits on the sidewalk when Peters walks by, smashes out a store window, walks on (as if he doesn’t even see her?—because by now he should have some awareness of the damage to his home and car, shouldn’t he?). ⇒Trying to move on from Gary, Alana volunteers to work on the actual Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie) mayoral campaign (rattled somewhat by a mysterious stalker [Jon Beavers] watching from across the street) while Gary, enthused that pinball parlors are now to be legal again, invests in that, prepares for another big opening. On the publicized-night, though, Joel calls Alana at campaign headquarters, invites her to meet him at a restaurant for a drink, but it’s all a ruse as Joel’s gay, is there with his lover, Matthew (Joseph Cross), wants Alana to pretend to be Matthew‘s girlfriend because the stalker’s there too, probably a spy from another campaign or a tabloid reporter, with Joel feeling a need in those somewhat-more-overtly-homophobic-days to hide his true self (didn’t matter; Tom Bradley won with 35.39% of the vote, actual Wachs got 3.77%). After walking Matthew home, Alana goes to the pinball place to look for Gary, Gary’s gone to the campaign HQ to look for her, they ultimately connect, with love now seeming as a mutually-declared-decision (he’s still 15, though!)⇐
So What? In James Berardinelli's highly-supportive-review of Licorice Pizza (although I must disagree with him when he says The Master [2012; review in our September 27, 2012 posting] isn’t on the same level as Anderson’s early work whereas for me it’s one of the 11 films I’ve been willing to give 4½ stars to in the slightly-over-10 years I’ve been writing reviews for this blog), he notes Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000) as something you could easily connect with … Pizza, in that Crowe’s main character, William Miller (Patrick Fugit), is 15 in 1973 as he works his way into being a rock journalist with much of what we see there being fictionalized versions of Crowe’s own experiences writing (mostly for Rolling Stone) about rock bands early in his life (Crowe was also 15 in 1973) before becoming a director (… Famous won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) just as much of what we see in … Pizza is a fictionalized version of young Gary Goetzman, a child actor who grew up to be quite a TV and film producer—often working with Tom Hanks—winner of 5 Prime-Time Emmys (most noted is probably Band of Brothers [2001]), was an executive producer for Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) but, oddly, isn’t listed among the Oscar-winning Best Picture producers. Goetzman did, in fact, get involved with selling waterbeds (including one to Jon Peters) and running a pinball parlor, was 1 of the 18 kids of Lucille Ball (inspiration for Lucy Doolittle) and Henry Fonda in 1968's Yours, Mine and Ours (Melville Shavelson), while other fictionalizations of reality include actor Jack Holden based on William Holden, director Rex Blau based on Mark Robson, agent Mary Grady as a version of an actual child talent agent of that name, while, obviously, producer Jon Peters is also real, comically-exaggerated here with the real Peters’ permission—and, if it’s not already clear enough from the names, Alana Haim’s actual sisters, Danielle and Este (her bandmates in their musical lives as the group, Hiam), play the Kane sisters while her parents, Donna and Moti Haim are the Kane parents. Even Licorice Pizza is real, named after a former chain of record stores in southern California, with the cleverly-concocted-name implying vinyl record albums.
While no other mention of this has been made that I know of, I can’t help but see Gary as being somewhat like Brian Wilson at that awkward-teenage-stage if he’d been more interested in the movie business (and some less-than-successful-investments) rather than music, but maybe if someone wants to do a prequel to Love & Mercy (Bill Poled, 2014; review in our June 10, 2015 posting) about Brian before he corralled the other Beach Boys into the international sensation they became, then young Hoffman might be an appropriate casting decision prior to Wilson effectively characterized in that earlier film by Paul Dano about Brian’s mid-1960s-life. A final, actual, overlay of reality into … Pizza is how Anderson grew up in the San Fernando Valley but was only 3 in 1973 so everything he presents/imagines in this film comes from learned-understandings acquired at a later time in his life.
Beyond all of the reality-inferences here, you should also be aware of accolades being heaped upon 3 of the primary actors in the story, with Hiam and Hoffman (son of famed Phillip Seymour Hoffman) lauded for their big-screen-debuts (awards for Best Breakthrough Performance to both from the National Board of Review among other awards, especially for Haim), but even more of the buzz has been about Bradley Cooper’s marvelously-over-the-top rendition of Peters,* even though he failed to get an Oscar nom for his efforts. (Once I finally settle on my 2021 top picks—got a couple more I’d like to see before committing myself, easier to do now Omicron’s on the decline—I think he’d end up in my top 5 for Best Supporting Actor, but I don’t see I could fit either Haim or Hoffman into my favorites for Top Leading Roles even though I thoroughly enjoyed what they contributed to this film, which will probably also work its way into my Top 10 of 2021, but I’d like to see The Worst Person in the World [Joachim Trier, 2021] and Parallel Mothers [Pedro Almodóvar, 2021] before I make my final commitments. I really should seek out Drive My Car [Ryusuke Hamagughi, 2021] also, but its 3-hr.-running time isn’t encouraging me all that much at this point, although I’ll try to find it anyway.)
*In 1981 a friend interviewed with Peters to be his personal assistant but wasn’t hired (despite solid qualifications) because she admitted she wanted to continue working her way up in the film industry while he wanted someone whose only aspiration was to continue attending to his personal service.
Bottom Line Final Comments: From a very small opening (4 domestic [U.S.-Canada] theaters) back on November 26, 2021 Licorice Pizza expanded exponentially to 1,977 venues for the weekend before Valentine’s day, dropped back to 1,307 for the just-completed-President’s Day weekend so if you haven’t seen it yet and intended to you still likely have many opportunities; however, despite a lot of accolades—most notably Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (Anderson); noms for Best Picture from the Producers Guild of America; Best Director from the Directors Guild of America; Best Original Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America; Best Supporting Actor (Cooper) from the Screen Actors Guild; plus a wealth of other wins and nominations from various critics’ groups—the box-office hasn’t been all that great, with about $15.5 million so far domestically, $26.4 million globally, so if you do decide to look for it you likely won’t have to be too COVID-concerned about full auditoriums (there probably weren’t more than 20 others besides my group at our late afternoon showing last Friday as this film's been out for months).
You couldn’t ask for better recommendations from the CCAL, though, with the ones surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 91% set of positive reviews while the folks at Metacritic came in with an astounding 90% average score, far and away the best they’ve done for anything both they and I have reviewed this year (although they were close concerning The Tragedy of Macbeth [Joel Coen, 2021; review in our January 20, 2022 posting] at 87% and The Lost Daughter [Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021; review in our January 13, 2022 posting] at 86%, both of those verified by a few Oscar, SAG, and American Society of Cinematographers noms [more details on the results in those critics collectives, RT and MC, found far below, as with anything I review, in the Related Links section]), although The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion, 2021; review in our December 9, 2021 posting) or Belfast (Kenneth Branagh, 2021; review in our November 25, 2021 posting) at this point seem to be the ones predicted-most-likely-to-win in all of these categories noted just above, so, despite 11 previous Oscar nominations (from Boogie Nights [1997] to There Will Be Blood [2007], Inherent Vice [2014], and Phantom Thread [2017] prior to this year) for producing the Best Picture and/or being the Best Director/Original Screenplay writer it looks like this still won’t be Anderson’s Oscar-triumph-year.
At least he got to fully immerse himself in some personal stuff with Licorice Pizza, mixing fact and fiction in a most enjoyable, successful manner (without completely rewriting history from roughly the same period like Quentin Tarantino did with Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood [2019—review in our August 1, 2019 posting]). As noted above, there are a few plot aspects that leave me befuddled here but not so much as to ultimately impact my 4 stars rating. Bringing things to closure as I always do with my choice of a Musical Metaphor to give one last perspective on the subject of my review, I’ll make it easy this time with one taken directly from the soundtrack as Alana and Gary are first making some headway toward mutual attraction (before she pulls back again) with “Let Me Roll It” from Paul McCartney and Wings (on their 1973 Band on the Run album) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mcAmPfwal8E (a live performance from their 1976 North America tour) where Greg’s the one saying in many variations throughout this film, “I can’t tell you how I feel / My heart is like a wheel / Let me roll it / Let me roll it to you,” in hopes she’d finally accept it “wholeheartedly.” Given the repeated lyrics/chorus, it’s basically a very simple (yet infectious) song, just as the foundational plot of this film is simple—Greg and Alana are attracted but can’t seem to make a connection beyond friendship/business partner—yet it resolves, just like the song, in a manner that feels basically comfortable. (While avoiding any statutory rape considerations, given his legally-tenuous-situation of pursuing this significantly-older-woman while in his mid-teenage-years where the single-decade-difference can seem to all concerned [as it clearly does to her] as being a monumental gap whereas several more revolutions of the Earth around the sun could land them in much-less-controversial-territory, although she might then be considered on the cusp of “cougarhood,” so maybe Anderson will revisit this situation with them [as Richard Linklater did with Jesse {Ethan Hawke} and Céline {Julie Delpy} in his Before Sunrise {1995}, Before Sunset {2004}, Before Midnight {2013} trilogy] just before the big A.I revolution in roughly 2050 will make all of our human concerns irrelevant anyway.)
SHORT TAKES
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.
(Yes, I know, I get more carried away with some of these descriptions than I do with others but, trust me, they’re all well worth your consideration, for those various reasons that I’ve noted or elaborated.)
Thursday February 24, 2022
5:00 PM 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Sci-fi spectacular, on my All-Time Top 10 list, lots of mysterious, difficult interpretations back then (since clarified with a novel and sequel) about a powerful object enhancing human evolution; astronauts to Jupiter aided/thwarted by super-computer HAL 9000 as the lone human fights for survival, encounters a transformation. “Star Gate” scene at the end visually-groundbreaking, still impressive; Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects.
7:45 PM Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) Oscar winner as Best Picture, Best Director (and 5 more) in this history-based-version of Brit T.E. Lawrence working with desert-dwelling Arabs against Ottoman Empire Turks in WW I, starring Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, many others; monumental visuals calling for a decent-size widescreen format to see it on (no cell phones!) as well as time to spare because it runs for about 3½ hours.
Saturday February 26, 2022 (Wow! What a day!)
9:00 AM Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) Brought the genre up to a more adult level with themes of East vs. West values, letter vs. spirit of the law, a story elevating John Wayne to the realm of major star (but Claire Trevor, as Dallas the prostitute, got top billing). Wayne’s an escaped (framed) jailbird out to avenge dishonor to his family (Indians aren’t treated well here either). Also stars Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell (Oscar, Best Supporting Actor); Oscar for Best Music Scoring.
10:45 AM Giant (George Stevens, 1956) An epic story of the West (3 hrs. 21 min.) but presented in a contemporary plot where the owner of a huge west Texas ranch (Rock Hudson) goes East to buy a horse, ends up also with a wife (Elizabeth Taylor) who has more supportive attitudes toward their Mexican workers. His older sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge) dies, leaves a small plot to a local rounder (James Dean) who finds oil on his land, gets quickly rich, continues over the years to bedevil the main family. Oscar for Best Director (plus 9 more nominations), Dean’s last role before his car-crash death. For the time and location, a surprising ongoing theme of emerging social tolerance.
5:00 PM Blood Simple (Joel Coen, 1984) A great debut, for the Coens as directors-screenwriters and Frances McDormand's celebrated career. A detective (E. Emmet Walsh) gathers evidence of a woman (McDormand) having an affair with her husband’s (Dan Hedaya) bartender (John Getz). Lots of double-crossing, murder, suspense, and the most fantastic roadside burial scene you’ll ever see, plus Walsh’s great, so-true line: “What I know about is Texas, and down here, you’re on your own.”
6:45 PM Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996) When this was released in early spring 1996 Gene Siskel said “You won’t see a better film this year”; he was right. The Coen brothers have done so very many marvelous films it’s hard to pick just one as their best, but this would certainly be a contender as
car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) plots with 2 second-rate-hoods (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so he can get a fat ransom from his detested father-in-law, but
all goes wrong with the plan, many die; meanwhile, a local police chief (Francis McDormand) is on the trail of the several crimes committed throughout this always-intriguing plot. Given how gruesome some scenes are it might seem strange to call this a comedy, but overall it’s hilarious (“You betcha!”). Oscars for Best Actress (McDormand), Original Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen), also nominated for 5 more including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Macy), Cinematography, Film Editing.
Sunday February 27, 2022
12:45 PM Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) Marvelous; big hit then now ranked as one of the best, if not the actual top comedy of all time, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis disguised as women in a nightclub band in Florida trying to escape gangsters after they witness the brutal St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago; also stars Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Pat O’Brien (Oscar for Best B&W Costume Design). Joe E. Brown’s final line was terrific for its time, now it’s immortal.
5:00 PM Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992) Docudrama of inspirational/dangerous (depending on your viewpoint) 1960s civil rights crusader who shifted from small crime to devout Muslim determined for Blacks to resist further White oppression but ultimately breaks from Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, to promote tolerance rather than segregation, resulting in Malcolm’s assassination. Long film (201 min.) but well worth it. Denzel Washington deserved Best Actor Oscar but denied.
Monday February 28, 2022
1:00 PM An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951) All-time great musical about a painter in Paris (Gene Kelley), his neighbor (Oscar Levant), and the woman he loves (Leslie Caron), ends with a spectacular ballet set to Gershwin’s An American in Paris. Nominated for 8 Oscars, won for Best Picture, Story and Screenplay, Art Direction-Color, Cinematography-Color, Costume Design-Color, Scoring of a Musical Picture, plus an Honorary Oscar to Kelly for cinematic versatility, multi-talents.
Tuesday March 1, 2022
3:00 PM Key Largo (John Huston, 1948) Here’s another crucial gangster story, more in the film noir realm as exiled top hood Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson, alluding to his earlier Rico role in Little Caesar [1931]) is smuggled back into the country during a Florida hurricane where he and his gang take hotel occupants Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore hostage. Claire Trevor as Rocco’s desperate-for-a-drink-moll, Gaye Dawn, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
Wednesday March 2, 2022
3:00 PM La Strada (Federico Fellini, 1954) Cinema masterpiece, shows Fellini’s roots in Neorealism as he moves toward the realm of Lyrical Realism (before his full shift into Modernism). Story of a brutish strongman circus performer (Anthony Quinn) who buys a woman (Giulietta Masina) from a poor family to be his assistant, treats her badly, is violent toward a funny tightrope walker (Richard Basehart) who tries to befriend her. Superb acting. Won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Thursday March 3, 2022
2:45 AM Limelight (Charles Chaplin, 1952) The last of Chaplin’s notable films (although he did direct a couple of later ones) in which he revisits his own career as a stage clown in a story set in London, 1914, just before WW II. At this point in his life the once-famous entertainer is now an alcoholic has-been but he saves a young dancer from suicide, then steps aside from her admiration so she can pursue romance with a more-appropriate, younger partner. The finale features the only on-screen appearance of Chaplin and Buster Keaton as they perform a marvelously-choreographed routine.
If you’d like your own PDF of the rating/summary of this week's review, 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: Extra items you might like: (1) Variety's latest Oscar-winner predictions (scroll down past main article for all category predictions); (2) Lin-Manual Miranda defends not submitting "We Don't Talk About Bruno" song for Oscar consideration; (3) Why are movies so long now?; (4) 8 Oscar category winners won't be announced live during the broadcast. 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.
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AND … at least until the Oscars for 2020’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 27, 2022 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they’ve never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the
Oscar nominees for 2021 films.
Here’s more information about Licorice Pizza:
https://www.licoricepizzamovie.ca/ (click on the 3 little bars in the upper left corner for more info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnOZPQWL0Hg (27:13 interview with director Paul Thomas Anderson, actors Bradley Cooper, Cooper Hoffman, Alana Haim, costume designer Mark Bridges [won 2 Oscars, for Phantom Thread {Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017—review in our July 25, 2018 posting}, The Artist {Michel Hazanavicius, 2011; review in our January 4, 2012—with a generally-less-horrid-layout than most of my reviews from those early days of this world-renowned-blog}])
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/licorice_pizza
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/licorice-pizza
Please 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 connect
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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, but maybe while there you’ll get a chance to meet Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, RIP). 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 (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/ wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s a 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/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 well). But, while I’m at it, I'll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johanna."
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