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.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Last week I noted no interest in likely (Proven correct, of course; do you ever doubt me?) in-theater-champion, Morbius (Daniel Espinosa), so I went with more esoteric fare of Windfall (Charlie McDowell) and the new Death on the Nile (Kenneth Branagh), both on streaming for me (although the latter's still in some theaters if you like); this week’s more of the same as I find no good reason to spend money on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Tom Holkenborg), especially when I can make a much-better-theatrical-investment in the weird-but-wonderful-events of Everywhere … which chronicles the trials of an ordinary woman facing problems with her husband, daughter, father, and the IRS that totally pale in comparison to the task she’s given to save the extensive realm of the multiverse from a powerful, seemingly-destructive-version of her own child, so she must learn how to channel the skills of her various parallel selves from many other universes to be able to succeed in this ultimate challenge (it’s wacky but funny as well as intriguing, not yet on streaming). 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, tedious software!) along with the standard dose of some 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: (This is an attempt at an approximation of the plot as best I can manage it because the events of this film come roaring at you so fast most of the time it was all I could do to keep a general sense of the plot-flow because details are often presented in such rapid fashion as to just give you a sense of multiple things occurring simultaneously [Cubist cinema?] rather than even expecting the audience to fully comprehend everything “all at once.”) Chinese-American Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) lives with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) in a small, cluttered apartment above the Laundromat they own. Their young-adult-daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), visits only occasionally because she invariably gets into hassles with Mom about Becky (Tallie Medel), Joy’s lover. However, just as Joy gets ongoing grief from Evelyn about being a lesbian so does Evelyn get similar grief from her just-arrived-to-visit-from-China-Dad, Gong Gong (James Hong)—“grandfather” in Cantonese; be warned, though, much of the dialogue at times is in that language (or Mandarin, although I admit I can’t tell one from the other), but it is subtitled, a reality I hope doesn’t dissuade you from seeing this most unique, ultimately-engaging-film—about most of her decisions: coming to the U.S.A., marrying Waymond, getting no farther in life than running a public laundry, etc. As our story begins Evelyn and Waymond are in the process of preparing a Lunar New Year’s party for the neighborhood, although most of her energy (leaving her about to snap most of the time) goes to sorting through an enormous pile of business receipts as they must quickly face an IRS audit. When they arrive for the interrogation, though, everything changes for Evelyn as first, in the elevator, Waymond acts oddly, writes strange notes on the back of some papers (which turn out to be divorce documents he’s nervously waiting to show to her, not necessary to split up but at least to force her into focused dialogue about their deteriorating marriage which has gotten to the point of her maybe agreeing with her father that she’d had been better off if she’s never known her husband).
As many of the submitted business expenses Evelyn submitted (for various hobbies of hers, which might imply her connections to other versions of herself in the soon-to-be-explained multiverse) are being flatly denied by no-nonsense-IRS agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis), Evelyn’s attention drifts, she looks over those odd notes about imagining herself in the janitor’s closet which she does (while still being simultaneously-IRS-interrogated) only to be confronted by another version of Waymond (from the parallel Alpha Universe; previously in the elevator he’d temporarily taken over the body of our Waymond) who explains to her about the existence of many other universes, each one created every time this Evelyn makes a choice (if there are many other multiverses spawned by everyone’s choices—here and on all those other Earths [additional occupied planets as well?]—we don’t get into that in Everything …, thank the heavens, or the astrological explanations of the multiplicity of multiverses would exceed the piles of comic books generated by DC and Marvel as their superhero characters constantly delve into this concept, as we’re about to see in their latest version with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness [Sam Raimi] when it opens on May 6, 2022). In his Alpha Waymond existence Alpha Evelyn has died, but he has access to technology that allows him to visit the other universes, even enter this Earth’s Waymond’s body which keeping his own consciousness, even bringing in aspects of other Waymonds as needed for specific skill sets, all of which he needs to share with our Evelyn so she can channel her many other Evelyns to do battle with Alpha Joy who’s become Jobu Tupaki, seemingly on a path of multiverse-destruction with a black hole-like “everything bagel” that can annihilate, uh, everything. (Got all that? I hope so.)
Evelyn then gets a taste of how all of this seeming madness is real when she re-focuses on the IRS audit where Deirdre becomes enraged, begins to stalk Evelyn (we get the sense immediately this is a parallel Deirdre, in league with Jobu to destroy our Evelyn) so Evelyn punches her in the face, seemingly restoring the previous Deirdre's persona but leading to a call to Security to arrest Evelyn at which point Alpha Waymond takes over meek Waymond’s body, lays low the Security guards (see this link [3:09] for the directors’ exploration of this scene), allowing the family to attempt an escape although various Jubo-connected-mercenaries arrive to take out Evelyn so she has to keep calling on various versions of herself and their needed combat abilities to defeat all these enraged enemies.
From there, it gets even more complex as we see different Evelyns in their contrasting existences (including one where she never married Waymond but instead became a martial arts expert/movie star, another where she’s paired up with Deirdre but everyone has raw hot dogs for fingers forcing them to use their feet for most activities), so I won’t attempt to recite all these goings-on except our Evelyn does meet up with Alpha Jobu Tupaki (who’s been somewhat responsible for occasionally inhabiting our Joy, pushing her away from Mom), learns this young woman’s not intent on destroying the multiverse but instead wants to eliminate herself as she finds no point in living through all this chaos, simply wants our Evelyn to be vaporized along with her, ⇒which almost happens until Mom’s rescued by her Waymond’s calls toward kindness. As this all comes to closure at that Lunar New Year’s party, Evelyn finds a connection with plain Deirdre, seems to lose Joy but they reconcile (Evelyn even accepts Becky), leading to a postponed IRS accounting where Deirdre’s more understanding but still has some problems with the return’s paperwork even as Evelyn continues to get messages from her other selves that she pushes aside, paying attention to her here and now.⇐*
*If you find my plot analysis insufficient for clarity (I’m not saying it completely works for me, either), I’ll give you 2 "improvement" (?) suggestions: (1) Go see Everything Everywhere ... yourself, make your own attempt at summarizing it, then share with me what you came up with to help me get a better grip on it; (2) consult this explanatory link (9:05; Spoilers of course) to see if this guy’s statements are helpful (although he gets a bit confusing visually because some of what he’s offering is illustrated with shots from the film but others use footage from several cast members doing promotional interviews, so what you see doesn’t always make enough sense with what he’s saying).
So What? My process of getting to the theater was almost as difficult as keeping a firm hold on the plot while the story unfolded. First, while driving from Hayward (CA) to Berkeley I had to slam on the brakes as traffic suddenly came to a complete standstill for as far ahead as I can see (nothing on the radio news that day or in newspapers the next about what happened, but, with Bay Area traffic the way it is, there often has to be quite a mess to even get any coverage), so we (wife Nina and I) just happened to be at the junction of another highway, allowing us to creep over to its entrance (almost getting hit in the process) to be on our way again. After settling in at the theater, though, with the show starting I found I hadn’t brought my hearing aids (not necessary at all times, yet quite helpful with movie dialogue, which turned out to be the case here because, while the subtitles easily kept me aware of what the characters were saying to each other in Chinese languages, when they switched to English I couldn’t always follow them—maybe this is just a problem with my hearing, not the soundtrack mix, but do be aware of this situation if you see this film in a public setting while it’s hot rather than waiting for streaming in the near future), nor did I (in my haste to get moving, knowing our traffic's always a consideration even in non-commute-times) bring either of my little flashlight pens which I use to take notes in the dark with minimal disruption to my fellow patrons (of whom there were only about 6 in a large auditorium that day so whatever theatrical-attendance-revival might be going on nationwide hasn’t penetrated late Friday afternoon matinees in Berkeley yet [although the cocktail bar’s open again so that provided some useful mental lubrication after straining to keep up with … All at Once]), allowing me to sit and watch (intently, for sure) for a change rather than missing at least 1/3 of what’s happening on screen as I’m trying to scribble furiously in the dark.
Watching attentively helped with the visual/conceptual-onslaught of Everything …, but I still couldn’t guarantee I caught enough to successfully convey what’s crucial here, although it’s clear there are themes of the importance of keeping families together and finding value in who you are, even when you just run a Laundromat rather than being a movie star. (In another bit of calculated irony, that version of Evelyn's watching a premiere of a film she stars in which concludes while our story’s still going on, causing us to wonder if the Daniels had totally pulled the rug out from under us with an ending as unexpected as the abrupt halt of [what we now know is just the first half of] Dune [Denis Villeneuve, 2021; review in our October 28, 2021 posting], finale to come set for October 20, 2023.)
In addition to the multiverse's “everything” we’re bombarded with in this fascinating film, we get a little bit of actor-everything here also as Yeoh in her various combat scenes brings back allusions to her martial arts mastery in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000), while it’s just nice to see Quan on screen again, now an adult far along from his childhood successes in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984) and The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985)—the latter playfully playing in our theater's comfy bar after our screening (although I still haven’ gotten the relevance of The Bride of Frankenstein [James Whale, 1935] on their other TV set, but it was nice to see that entry from my list of favorites again as well). If all you know about multiverses is how other Sony Pictures Entertainment incarnations of Peter Parker (along with appropriate earlier villains) were called in to (what we assume is our Earth) in Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts, 2021; review in our January 6, 2022 posting), then you’ll find that was a relatively-simple-trope to consider because each of those characters then existed simultaneously on 1 planet when brought together by a flawed spell from Doctor Strange (now don’t tell me you’re upset with Spoilers from a movie that’s been out since last December, although if you still want to see it you’ll find it in 1,009 domestic [U.S.-Canada] theaters where it’s made $803.8 million [$1.9 billion worldwide]); by contrast, in Everything … we get glimpses into those other universes (especially the movie-star-one, with some sense of how the Evelyn who lives there functions) just as we see a good number of rapid-fire-collages of those many Evelyns as the one who carries our story calls upon them for their various useful talents.
We see the same sort of collages of the many Joys/Jobu Tupaki (reminding me of a similar use of quick-accounts-of-a-life-passage-through-still-images-of-passerby-characters that spun off the main thread of the marvelous-experimental-German-multi-ending-narrative, Run Lola Run [Tom Tykwer, 1998]). Everything about Everything … is effectively conceived to be creatively-unexpected, its pace never drags, many of the frantic-action-scenes display great martial-arts-choreography, often the plot's circumstances are hilarious (especially the black hole-bagel), and the superb acting by the main cast (especially the many moods of Yeoh’s Evelyn, although Curtis is marvelous in her attack mode) make this a consistently-enjoyable-experience, although you should probably think carefully about the details that I and others have presented before deciding to pay for it because it’s oddity (example: a universe where a famous chef is directed from under his tall hat by a talking raccoon in a takeoff from Pixar/Disney’s Ratatouille [Brad Bird, 2007]) may just be a bit too far out there for you to be assaulted with; if you decide to delve in, though, I think you’ll be rewarded with a film that defies expectations, even as it resolves—after consistent conflicts—into harmonious closure (even within a universe where Evelyn and Joy are simply rocks that can talk to each other but still arguing).
Bottom Line Final Comments: If you need even more encouragement to consider Everything Everywhere All at Once, the CCAL’s happy to provide it with a terrific Rotten Tomatoes cluster of 96% positive reviews, an 82% average score at Metacritic (means “Must See” from these usually-stingier-evaluators—more details on both ratings-accumulation-sites in Related Links quite a ways below). In contrast, audiences have been marginally-responsive (plays only in theaters at present) with a domestic take of $8.4 million after 3 weeks in release (nothing globally at this point), so, obviously, compared with much-more-standard-fare such as the big-ticket-items I’m avoiding like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Morbius (with respective domestic/global hauls of $72.1/$142.1 million—after just 1 week in release—and $57/$126.4 million—after 2 weeks availability), Everything … may have already gotten a reputation as a bit too weird for the crowds; however, if not too strange a concept for you, I think you’ll find Everything Everywhere All at Once to be a marvelous digression from standard cinematic fare, which I hope you’ll enjoy should you choose to see it. As you might know (or will learn), I close out these reviews with a Musical Metaphor to add a final round of consideration to the commentary from the perspective of song; normally, I seek to find something with content-connectivity to what’s being analyzed, but this time I’m choosing simple tonal-resonance as I match the surreal quality of this singular film with the surreal lyrics of Bob Dylan’s (yeah, him again, but as a Nobel Laureate in Literature he’s got a lot to offer) “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” (from the masterful 1966 Blonde on Blonde album) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=3kh6K_-a0c4 (if you should get intrigued about what else is on this original 2-record-set you'll easily find the entire 14-tune-collection here, where you can listen in the order of original structure, beginning with "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"). I could probably try to sell you on some possible allusions from song to film, but it’s best to just enjoy them as separate-but-resonate-triumphs, each with their own brand of accomplishment; yet, the strange occurrences in Bob’s song do seem to be taking place in some parallel universe while Evelyn could easily be “Waiting to find out what price / You have to pay to get out of / Going through all these things twice” or, even, all at once.
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.)
Friday April 15, 2022
2:00 AM La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962) This short (27 min.) French film is the basis for the fabulous remake, 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995); this time it’s a post-WW III story with time-travel trials by scientists attempting to prevent this disaster from ever happening, but this original version consists only of still images as if we’re watching a slide show version of the narrative film. Quite fascinating.
Saturday April 16, 2022
12:15 PM The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) Some claim this started the troubled-crime-tradition of film noir: Humphrey Bogart as Dashiell Hammett’s streetwise-private-eye, Sam Spade, whose life gets complicated when the takes on Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) as a client searching for the priceless “black bird.” A fabulous cast includes Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Elisha Cook Jr. Masterful “hardboiled-detective” story with a sense of morality amongst greed.
Monday April 18, 2022
9:15 AM Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) Quintessential screwball comedy: Cary Grant as an easily-befuddled paleontologist on the verge of finishing a Brontosaurus skeleton and marrying a prim woman we know isn’t a right match especially after he meets a cute, flighty heiress (Katharine Hepburn) who gets him in increasingly-embarrassing situations even as romance develops between them. Only movie I can recall featuring 2 leopards. Somewhat remade as What’s Up Doc? (1972).
1:00 PM Wait Until Dark (Terence Young, 1967) Based on a play, this chilling thriller is about an independent blind woman, Audrey Hepburn, attacked by Alan Arkin trying to find drugs unknowingly stashed somewhere in her apartment. She rigs a terrific set of defenses, keeping us on constant edge throughout her ordeal. Marvelously staged, loses nothing in translation from its play setting.
3:00 PM The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940) A screwball romantic comedy standard (adapted from a popular play that starred Katharine Hepburn, as does this movie) with Cary Grant as Hepburn’s ex-husband; she’s set to remarry when her ex shows up along with pulp-journalist James Stewart. Potential bride is re-attracted to Grant, intrigued by Stewart as the triangle (plus the would-be groom) continues right to the end. Oscars for Best Actor (Stewart), Best Adapted Screenplay.
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 for you: (1) Will Smith banned from Oscars Academy for 10 years; (2) An opinion on more apologies needed after the "slap incident"; (3) Sam Elliot apologizes for his Power of the Dog criticisms; (4) 20 movies to stream in April (includes The Batman). 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:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts.* 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 please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problems’ been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
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 Top10 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 and winners for 2021 films (and other items from the ABC TV broadcast).
Here’s more information about Everything Everywhere All at Once:
https://a24films.com/films/everything-everywhere-all-at-once
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3trFt71LXGE (28:34 directors Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan [“Daniels’] and actors Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis in discussion)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/everything_everywhere_all_at_once
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/everything-everywhere-all-at-once
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 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/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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