It’s Not Always a Wonderful Life
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.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
(Stadium looks empty during batting practice but about 11,000 did show up.)
I’m a bit late with posting this week because Nina (my wife of 32 marvelous years, plus 3 more together after we first met) and I have been having a bit of an extended celebration of her birthday so on Wednesday afternoon I put aside some of my usual hours of posting to attend with her the Oakland Athletics’ final baseball game of the season (couldn’t end too soon with a near-record 102 losses this year) against the clumsily-named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (good finish for the A’s, though, with a 3-game-series-sweep, walk-off victories in the bottom of the 10th inning both of the 2 night games; in ours, retiring A's catcher Stephen Vogt hit a home run in his final career at-bat, just like he did for his first major league hit). The Wednesday day game was perfect weather, the hot dogs were tasty, the beer was nicely chilled, and it was a thoroughly-enjoyable experience. Next year, though, hopefully a better record. OK, now time for your regularly-scheduled-cinematic blather. However, I've got a bad posting problem; details near the end of the ... Crawdads Sing comments.
Blonde (Andrew Dominik) rated NC-17 168 min.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Yes, my COVID-inspired-moviehouse-avoidance has kept me out of first-run-theaters for yet another week (at least 3 months now), although I don’t think I missed much with the latest horror movie, Smile (Parker Finn), although the gay-themed-romcom, Bros (Nicholas Stoller), sounds intriguing, but for now it will just have to wait for a bit (or streaming). Yet, streaming has once again brought me the opportunity to see a couple of first-run-releases, so I’m not totally unconnected from mainstream cinema. While Blonde was on a limited number of screens starting on September 16, then 9/23/2022 (yet, not enough to bring about a mention on Box Office Mojo, but maybe what income it’s made isn’t being reported), it’s just barely a true theatrical release, is most available now on Netflix streaming as this fictional biopic of Marilyn Monroe goes for an Expressionistic take on the torment Norma Jeane Mortenson constantly had to deal with as her famous persona was all just an act, causing her unrelieved misery even as her Hollywood star continued to glow until her untimely death. While there’s been considerable condemnation of Blonde, it’s based on a novel, so the complaints might be better aimed at its source material. Another novelistic-adaptation is Where the Crawdads Sing which has been in theaters since July 15, 2022, still can be found in a decent number of them, but is also widely available for cheap streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and other platforms, where this odd tale of a girl left by her family to raise herself in the marshes of North Carolina turns into a story of attempted-love-gone-wrong, then becomes a murder mystery. As you’ll see, the OCCU's brutal about my choices, yet I still find good reason to recommend both of them to you as long as you know beforehand what you’re getting into. Also, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, just go here.
Here’s the trailer for Blonde:
(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 just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: The actual subject of this fictionalized, played-for-great-drama biography of a famous American screen star had a true life as complex as her surname: born Norma Jeane Mortenson to mother Gladys Pearl Baker on June 1, 1926 (Mom filed for divorce in 1923 from abusive husband John Newton Baker [a connection to the main character in Where the Crawdads Sing, reviewed further below, just one of the semi-parallels to be found between these 2 recent releases; that they’re both adapted from celebrated novels—this one a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001—is another similarity], then married Martin Edward Mortensen in 1924 but soon separated from him, had an affair with co-worker Charles Stanley Gifford who later was proved to be Norma Jeane’s father, though she never knew him), she later took Mom’s birth name of Monroe. What we see here's inspired by Norma Jeane’s realities, yet it’s adapted from a novel of the same name (2000) by Joyce Carol Oates; much of the criticism of this film seems focused on the emphasis on sadness, indecision, neediness, occasional hysteria of the main character without seeming to fully accept the conscious Expressionistic-cinematic-attitude utilized here, so I’ll get more into that in the next section of this review; for now, we’ll follow along with happens in this film as Norma Jeane’s (who in her adult years insisted that’s the person she truly was, not the exaggerated screen persona the world knew as Marilyn Monroe) life is presented to us chronologically (not an ongoing mix of past and present as with … Crawdads …), starting with brief glimpses into her childhood where Mom Gladys (Julianne Nicholson) is shown to be mentally unstable, with proof in a dramatic scene where in 1933 the girl (Lily Fisher) is given a photo of the man Mom claims is Norma’s father, then when a fire breaks out that night in the Hollywood Hills Gladys tries to drive up to the site, claiming her estranged-lover lives there in a mansion; she’s forced to turn back by police, later lashes out at her daughter when the girl wants to know some more about Dad, then almost drowns her in the bathtub.
Norma Jeane escapes to her neighbor, Miss Flynn’s (Sara Paxton) home, then is sent to an orphanage while Mom’s admitted to a mental hospital (in later years when her daughter comes to visit, Mom seems distracted at best, catatonic at worst, not interested in her career). Then we jump to the 1940s where Norma’s now Marilyn Monroe, an attractive blonde whose photo’s on many calendars and magazine covers, but she has ambitions of being a movie actress so she meets with studio president Mr. Z (David Warshofsky)—as in the novel, many characters go by vague names, this one seemingly Twentieth Century-Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck—who gives her a contract but only after raping her on his desk. In 1951 she delivers a terrible audition for Don’t Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker, 1952), but the casting director, impressed by her displays of emotion, hires her anyway.
As her career builds she gets involved in a sexual-threesome with the sons of 2 famous actors, Charles “Cass” Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel)—the one she's most connected to—and Edward G. “Eddy” Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). She’s well-received in Niagara (Henry Hathaway, 1953), then is told by her agent to cut off being seen in public with these young men, a demand that angers her because she feels “Marilyn” is simply a fictional-screen-persona, not who she really is or behaves. However, after becoming pregnant by Cass she decides to have an abortion (scared of passing on Ma’s madness), then wants to back out on the day of the operation but is (somehow) forced to go through with it, traumatic enough for her that she breaks it off with Cass and Eddy anyway. Later, she meets Ex-Athlete (Bobby Cannavale)—clearly Joe DiMaggio—who sympathizes with her desire to leave Hollywood, go to NYC for study to become a serious actress; however, she agrees to star in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) even though she’s angry she’ll get only her $500 weekly salary ($5,000 total) while co-star Rosalyn Russell will get $100,000. During the filming she gets a letter from a man claiming to be her father, although a plan suggested for meeting someone at a hotel turns out to be the Athlete, who successfully proposes, then marries her (Nina’s late father supposedly crashed their reception in San Francisco, but we only had his tale about that, no other evidence). Cass and Eddy return, though, showing “Joe” nude pictures of his wife which enrages him, causes him to demand she not do The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, 1955); however, she does anyway, so after the famous subway-grill-scene with her dress being blown up high enough to slightly reveal her underwear, Marilyn’s husband’s violent with her that night, soon leading to divorce.
In 1955 she auditions for the Broadway play Magda, written by The Playwright (Adrien Brody)—clearly Arthur Miller—who’s initially not impressed, then comes around when she offers insights on her character. Soon, they marry, move to rural Maine where she becomes pregnant; one day with friends on the beach she trips, causes a miscarriage, is horrified, goes back to acting to take her mind off of herself/the constant failures in her life. Her next role is in Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959), but she frequently becomes unhinged on the set, fights with The Director (Ravil Isyanov), starts taking drugs (as with some other of the actual Monroe movies, we get brief scenes here from the actual product with de Armas inserted into the footage, along with Michael Masini sometimes playing Tony Curtis and Chris Lemmon [Jack’s son] sometimes as Jack Lemmon in …Hot). By 1962 she’s far too addicted to pills and booze, so when summoned for a clandestine meeting with The President (Caspar Phillipson)—John F. Kennedy—she can barely stay conscious as he lies in bed on a phone call while insisting she perform fellatio on him, then he rapes her before she vomits, whisked off by the Secret Service after that. ⇒She’s so strung out she hallucinates having another abortion, talking to the fetus inside her, then gets a call from Eddy that Cass is dead but left something for her which turns out to be the little tiger toy she found one day when they were all together and an admission from him that the letters she periodically received from “her father” were actually written by Cass (even though he really died 6 years after she did). This leads her to a fatal barbiturate overdose.⇐
So What? To paraphrase former-President Abraham Lincoln (who may not have even said it): “You can’t please all of the people all of the time,” a clear truism when referring to Blonde because while it received a 14-minute-standing ovation at the 2022 Venice Film Festival it’s been generally eviscerated by the OCCU (more about that in the next section just below), with a typical negative reaction from my local San Francisco Chronicle critic, Mick LaSalle: “[…] ‘Blonde’ is a total bomb. […] It tells Marilyn’s story as if from inside her mind. The result is an unbroken series of one-note scenes, all of them deadly slow, muted and sad. The effect is unique, but not in a good way. From start to finish, ‘Blonde’ feels as if it’s floating in the air and barely moving. [¶] Perhaps Marilyn Monroe saw herself as the movie sees her, as St. Marilyn the Victim. Yet even if that were true, to make a movie adopting that viewpoint is to commit to creating 166 minutes of pure inertia.” LaSalle’s condemnation echoes many others who object to this depiction of Monroe (not taking into account the character’s own vision of herself as basically still Norma Jeane, trying to be herself in her private life, angry her personhood has been lost to the fabricated woman up on the screen, which could easily have tainted much of her life—in front of the camera, as well as far away from it as possible).
Or, if you don’t care to read negative reviews (I’ll have more for you in that next section), you could get much of the same from this short video (7:57), in which Taylor J. Williams (whose filmic career has yet to cross my consciousness, with direction of efforts including Ketchup [2017], and the shorts Patricia [2019], Busting a Nut [2019], yet he does have 99.9K subscribers, so somebody must care what he has to say) basically talks in negative circles (“a fundamental failure”) yet doesn’t really say much of substance beyond dismissal. What such naysayers, in my opinion, seem to misinterpret is the director’s intention to take what I assume is also the negative tone of the foundational book. (No, I haven’t read it; big surprise, huh? But, yet, here’s Emily Ratajkowski—model, actress, author—who accuses this film of “fetishizing female pain,” then admits she hasn’t seen it, further cites our cultural fascination with the difficulties in lives of women such as Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Princess Diana, plus the deaths of the latter 2; she does have a point that the press [especially social media] has a morbid fascination with the troubled lives of young, attractive—mostly White—females, easily gobbled up by a hungry, vacuous audience for such stuff, but it does seem she’d be better informed in her comments if she’d actually see Blonde before making her pronouncements.)
To me, a lot of this negativity seems to come from what so many seem to see as within their sense of partial-ownership of the legendary status of Marilyn Monroe (so automatically-connected to other 1950s-early ‘60s icons: Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elvis Presley); through their own sentimental attachments to her they can’t see what’s intended in Blonde because it doesn’t support enough of a sense of Marilyn (actually Norma Jeane, as in Blonde) making whatever attempts she could to take control of her image/career/constantly-unfulfilling personal life, instead focusing on the down sides of her existence, all of which are likely true at some level, especially when put into the cinematic-realm of the heritage of German Expressionism, which this film clearly does; actually, in my understanding of filmic approaches, I’d connect much of traditional Expressionism to those plot-driven works like Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)—along with influences on later works such as Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991)—while what we get in Blonde is more from the enhanced-character-development-aspect of that era, what I call Psychological Realism as seen in older classics such as The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924) or more contemporary ones like Se7en (David Fincher, 1995). And, if Blonde doesn’t already have enough detractors, here comes Planned Parenthood (an organization I’ve supported for years, with my agreement on their help to women who want abortions, despite the reality I was born out of wedlock, then adopted, due to the difficulty of women in Texas [both then and now] getting self-chosen abortions; I’m glad I’ve had the life I’ve lived for the past 74 years, but had I never come along I’d probably have less-melancholy-feelings [at least in some metaphysical sense] about that than I do now about the time I tried to contact my birth mother, only to be turned down so as not to reveal my existence to her family), attacking Blonde as “anti-abortion propaganda,” due to Norma Jeane’s trauma over her first procedure, then the later surreal scene where another fetus within her talks to her, not wanting the same result (the director disagrees with this criticism, as do I).
Assuming you’ve seen Blonde already and aren’t condemning it (yet?) or are considering exploring it, you might be interested in how de Armas (whose name may not jump out at you, but she’s been in a good number of films you might remember, including Blade Runner 2049 [Denis Villeneuve, 2017; review in our October 12, 2017 posting], No Time to Die [Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2021; review in our October 14, 2021 posting], The Gray Man [Anthony and Joe Russo, 2022; review in our July 28, 2022 posting], and, especially, Knives Out [Rian Johnson, 2019; review in our December 5, 2019 posting], for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, along with another nom in this category for the Blade Runner sequel) went about channeling Norma Jeane/Marilyn’s personas as explored here, just as you might like to know differences between novel and film (though the 738 pp. book implies such lengthy screen time) where the primary ones are little is said on-screen about Norma Jeane’s girlhood-life nor her brief first marriage to James Dougherty (called Bucky Glazer in the book); there are no talking fetuses in the novel; but, there are even more names of implied real people. (In print Tony Curtis is C, Billy Wilder is W, whereas in the film most everyone except Norma Jeane/Marilyn, Gladys, her threesome-lovers, and Mr. Z aren’t even given pseudo-names except in the credits, but at least her references to her husbands as “Daddy” [implying a Freudian longing for her missing father] are fewer in this film, although they supposedly appear 170 times in the novel.)
Then, if you want to explore major aspects of what’s right and wrong in the film related to actual history, take a look at this video (13:31) where most of the on-screen depictions are viable, although there is no evidence of abortions for Norma Jeane, nor the threesome with Cree and Eddy, nor any actual sex (despite all the rumors) with President Kennedy (just as there’s no mention of any affair with his brother, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who some say authorized a hit on her, that her death wasn’t an accidental overdose), so at least some of the lurid tales running around about her aren’t substantiated, nor are they included in this film; however, despite her desire to be taken seriously as an actress there are also no mentions here of 2 of her best dramatic roles in Bus Stop (Joshua Logan, 1956) and her final film, The Misfits (John Huston, 1961), co-starring with Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach, where she was again a horror during the shooting schedules despite delivering solid, effective performances whenever the cameras rolled.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Blonde had a limited theatrical release on 9/23/2022, but Netflix doesn’t release info about box-office receipts so, while I know it’s still playing in a very few theaters in my San Francisco Bay Area, the main place you can find it is on Netflix streaming where it’s doing quite well since its debut on September 28, 2022 (as with all of their offerings, you don’t pay extra beyond the monthly subscription fee of $9.99-$19.99, depending on what choices you prefer; I do the $15.99 Standard plus another $10 for DVDs). If you base what you watch on positive or negative critical responses, though, you’d never see this film because those at Rotten Tomatoes are only able to rustle up 43% positive reviews while the ones over at Metacritic are surprisingly a bit higher (just as they are with … Crawdads … as you’ll soon see), yet only to the level of a 50% average score. So, what’s the big bailout about? According to Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post the problem is the film is “Reductive, ghoulish and surpassingly boring, ‘Blonde’ might have invented a new cinematic genre: necro-fiction. […] Monroe might have been damaged, but she was so much more than a trope for the kind of revelatory abasement Dominik dishes out. She certainly deserves more than a dumb ‘Blonde.’ “ (Agreed, though I don’t think that’s really the situation here.)
In the same vein, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times says: “Hollywood has always eaten its own, including its dead. […] Dominik ends up reducing Marilyn to the very image — the goddess, the sexpot, the pinup, the commodity — that he also seems to be trying to critique. There’s no there there to his Marilyn, just tears and trauma and sex, lots and lots of sex.” Still, there are some who more agree with me, as with ABC News’ Peter Travers who offers: “[…] the film also reshapes the facts of Monroe's life to get closer to her bruised psyche. Written and directed by Andrew Dominik (‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’) with a poet's eye and a forensic attention to punishing detail, "Blonde" is glamour cloaked in misery. [¶] It's also a nearly three-hour endurance test that only fitfully gets at something primal and true. But when it hits you'll be knocked for a loop. […] In the final analysis, Dominik cares too much. As Monroe's leg dangles from her deathbed in the final scene, Dominik grants the tormented Norman Jeane a peaceful stillness she and Marilyn never found in life. "Blonde" is hard to watch, but impossible to forget.” (I'm fully agreed.)
There are still plenty of negative critics of this film who’d like to forget it’s very existence, though, as explored in the second listing with the title in the Related Links section of this posting so very far below, where the commentator (another who admits not having yet seen the film he’s prattling on about) cites many condemnations of this film as another exploitative example of the Male Gaze, the voyeuristic presentation of women in standard Hollywood product over the decades (based originally on a famous essay by Laura Mulvey), where these current commenters don’t seem to understand the difference of simply shooting a movie where women’s presences are exploited by making them the object of objectification by both the camera and the (assumed primary) male viewer (in the process teaching women to accept these presentations also) and showing, as I see these images of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, illustrations of these perversions, putting them out there for contemporary audiences to see what was acceptably-lustful in many earlier decades of cinema but critiquing that exploitation rather than embracing it. Along some similar lines, there has been a bit of reverse-discrimination-complaints about the casting of de Armas, a Cuban, to portray this famous non-Hispanic, especially concerning this actor's accent; the Monroe estate's dismissed such crap.
So, if you’re willing to invest some time into exploring Blonde I think you’ll find much to be amazed by, even if the Expressionist-influenced-structure and the overall darkness of the content (not to mention the unusual uses of the old 4x3 ratio for most of the film along with some widescreen shots, plus the mixture of scenes in black & white and color implying the range of movie presentations in which we see Ms. Monroe) comes across as consistently odd. This is definitely not a standard biopic (nor is it for all audiences given its rating, primarily dealing with the JKF sex scene and various shots at times of Norma Jeane’s private parts), but I find it mostly fascinating (if a bit morbid overall), encourage you to consider watching it, and hope to further verify my opinion with my traditional use of a wrap-up Musical Metaphor to drive home what’s being explored here with (what else?) Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” (on his 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album)—which also addresses the difficulties of fame Norma Jeane faced but generally without the harsh criticism afforded this film by so many critics—at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoOhnrjdYOc, where we return to the original lyrics (rather than the rewrite to honor deceased Princess Diana) about Norma Jeane who “it seems to me you lived your life / like a candle in the wind / Never knowing who to cling to / When the rain set in […] Your candle burned out long before / Your legend ever did.” If you want a more upbeat look at Norma Jeane’s life (still with inevitable problems, uplifting overall) drop back a few years to My Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis, 2011; review in our December 15, 2011 posting [2nd one we ever did; please excuse the horrible layout]) with Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Watson, Judi Dench, a 180o shift from the ongoing-melancholy of Blonde.
(somewhat) SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
A young girl finds herself left alone living in a North Carolina swamp when the rest of her family moves out due to her abusive father, then he leaves too, so she gets by on her wits for years, finally connecting with a boyfriend who doesn’t return from college when promised so she falls for the flattery from another guy who ends up dead with her accused of murder despite very scant evidence.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
No, crawdads (or crayfish, little lobster-ish crustaceans, a staple of many Southern diets given their constant presence in the swamps/marshes so common in these states that border the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean [they live in freshwater throughout the world except India and Antarctica]) don’t sing, but they can easily live in the far-reaches of their watery environments so Catherine “Kya” Clark‘s (Jojo Regina) mother, “Ma” Junienne Clark (Ahna O’Reilly), at one point tells her child that when she needs to get away from the cruelties life offers in their home she should just take her boat out to such far-away places to get completely clear of such negative noise: “Go as far as you can—way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” (Later Kya’s friend, then almost-lover [he holds back out of respect for her], Tate Walker [Sam Anderson] uses the same phrase: “Just means far in the bush where critters are wild, still behaving like critters.”). As a teen in 1962, Kya (now played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) would love to fully embrace that advice, get completely lost in this deep-backcountry, because first she’s shunned as “The Marsh Girl” by the locals, then in 1969 she’s arrested, tried for first-degree-murder of her actual lover (although he encourages her more than she can comprehend; he even tries to rape her [another similarity to Norma Jeane's world in Blonde, as eager men just won't leave these women alone]), Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), a star-quarterback/hotshot in this everybody-knows-everything-about-everyone-else-community (Barkley Cove, NC), who pledges love for Kya who responds eagerly because Tate didn’t return from college when he promised, although he gave her a list of publishers who might be interested in her drawings and commentary; Kya becomes furious (again, deeply hurt) when she learns Chase is engaged, so during an argument she tells him to stay away from her or she’ll kill him (this is heard by a nearby-fisherman).
That’s apparently all the circumstantial evidence local law-enforcement needs when Chase’s dead body’s found on the ground below a fire tower (a high structure where you can see miles of the surrounding world to spot fires before they become too-far-ablaze) with the little shell necklace she’d given him gone, even though there were no footprints nor fingerprints at the scene (and Kya was out of town meeting with a publisher for her first book about flora and fauna in those marshes), the charge was easily brought with a death penalty demanded as we see in the quick opening scenes.
From there the film alternates between present time—where Kya’s case is voluntarily taken by lawyer Tom Milton (David Strathairn) as we move into the trial (she rejects plea bargain, claims innocence) where much of the prosecution’s case is constantly challenged by facts (or lack thereof) in this situation—and flashbacks to Kya’s upbringing where physically-abusive, often-drunk father, “Pa” Jackson Clark (Garret Dillahunt) finally drives both Ma and Kya’s older siblings to leave before he also disappears, forcing this very young girl to raise herself in a house reached only by boat, selling mussels she catches to the store run by James “Jumpin’ “ Madison (Sterling Macer Jr.) and his wife, Mabel (Michael Hyatt), until such time as Kya’s pressured to attend school (less than 1 day due to the constant laughter from her snotty classmates). As she grows into teenage years, in 1965 she makes the drawings and commentary/poetry that will later lead to a publishing career until she meets/falls in love with sympathetic Tate, who teaches her to read and write. However, in 1968 after Tate fails to return she’s then approached by seemingly-sincere-Chase who even talks of marriage, until she comes upon him in town with his fiancée so we know Chase just wants some release from the expectations of his family (using her as his "Back Street Girl"). By now, Tate’s finally returned, tries to stand up for her against Chase, so when she takes him up on his possible publishers she finds acceptance, boards the bus to Greenville to meet with one of them (gets an advance, allowing her to pay $800 in needed back taxes on her property), seemingly giving her a clear alibi regarding how Chase had fallen through an open grate atop the fire tower rather than him being pushed by her.
⇒The prosecutor (along with almost all of her assume-the-worst-about-this-social-misfit-neighbors) concocts a story (nothing to back it up) that Kya disguised herself late the night of Chase’s death, took an very-early-morning-bus back to Barkley Cove, met Chase by prearrangement at the top of the tower, pushed him through the grate opening, took the necklace from his dead body, then caught another bus back to Greenville; Tom manages to convince the jury of the absurdity of this scenario, leading to her exoneration. Kya and Tate are then free to finally couple up (after she accepts his apology for his earlier-absence as he was trying to get a career started for himself in marine biology [I think]), so they live in her marsh-house where he does his work in the local waters, she publishes more books of drawings (as well as poetry under the name of Amanda Hamilton), has visits from supportive-brother Jeremy “Jodie” Clark (Logan Macrae) and his family until she dies at age 65. In looking through her things later, though, Tate finds a little compartment in a book with the missing shell necklace, implying the prosecution’s hypothesis was accurate; Tate destroys the evidence.⇐
I guess Blogspot's finally taking revenge on me for nasty things I've said about this software over the past decade because it's suddenly refused to allow me to add any more photos (I had 2 nice ones planned for the final comments below, "temporarily" removed one to add the other, but now I find I can't use additional photos at all); so in an effort to visualize the upcoming last paragraphs I've added 2 clips (sorry, sound level's weak on both, especially #2 so crank it up!): (1) scenes where Kya finds out the truth about Chase, he tries to force himself on her, she fights back, speaks the threat that served as "evidence" in her trail (I use this one as a far-flung-metaphor over how Google Blogspot's seemingly become angry at my snide remarks about its proficiency over the years, now suddenly gets its revenge on me); (2) a much more pleasant one (just below) to go out on this week as Kya and Tate first get to know each other. I've tried every remedy I know to correct this problem, but if it continues I'll likely have to abandon this version of the blog because looking back on postings from our early years I can't bring myself to ramble on again without some visual relief (and you can't always count on availability of clips as I'm doing here), so, dedicated readers, this may be the last you see of Two Guys in the Dark in its present form if I have to start contenting myself with sparse comments illustrated by a trailer. So, see whatever you get next week? Damn! (At least I got to pontificate into the nights with this posting; may be "The Last Time", I don't know.)
As briefly noted earlier, this story’s adapted from a 2018 best-seller by Delia Owens (sold more than anything else in 2019, topped The New York Times’ Fiction Best Sellers List for 2019, 2020; by July of this year has sold over 15 million copies), with intrigue beyond the text given Owens' possible connection to the murder of a poacher in Zambia, although she’s noted as a potential witness, not as the shooter, so this author shares some of the milieu of a notable crime with her supposedly-sympathetic-character (nevertheless, there are somewhat-extenuating-circumstances that muddy the situations of the real and fictional victims as well). If you’d like to review a short video (9:58 [ads interrupt, as they do too-often-usually, at about 2:30, 7:30]) about differences between book and film you’ll find the chief changes to the screen version are interchanges between older and younger episodes in Kya’s life rather than being strictly chronological, along with 3 major events not in the film: Kya’s first period, her funeral, more overt displays of racism in this environment during this time.
And, if you’re intrigued (as I was, due to Edgar-Jones impactful acting, the well-shot-swampy-cinematography, the constant questions about Kya’s possible guilt) by this story but haven’t seen it yet (debuted in theaters on July 15, 2022, has made about $89.5 million domestically, $132 million globally since then, still in 548 theaters; now also found on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and other platforms for a $5.99 rental), here’s an enticement of watching the first 10 min., which you won’t find by consulting the OCCU where the RT positive reviews are at a terrible 34%, the MC average score not much better (but larger for a change) at 43%, considerably lower than my choice of ratings stars. If you’re more swayed by rejections (as with RogerEbert.com’s Christy Lemire: “It is so loaded with plot that it ends up feeling superficial, rendering major revelations as rushed afterthoughts. For a film about a brave woman who’s grown up in the wild, living by her own rules, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is unusually tepid and restrained.”) than my encouragement (or the few such as ReelVIews’ James Berardinelli who find something to support: “More movies today could learn from such an ‘old-fashioned’ approach.”), at least take a listen to my Musical Metaphor (more literal than usual this time), Taylor Swift’s “Carolina” (from the film’s soundtrack) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=egxyRSb_XtI where the lyrics clearly clarify Kya’s legal reality, the mood of the song marvelously equates to what you’d see in the film, with lyrics such as “Lost I was born, lonesome I came / Lonesome I’ll always stay / Carolina knows why, for year, I roam / Free as these birds, light as whispers […] It’s between me, the sand, and the sea / Carolina knows” are evocative enough just on their own but marvelously-meaningful in the context of what we’re presented with on-screen. You might find … the Crawdads Sing to be as dismissible as the OCCU reports, but I find it to be intriguing, compelling overall. If you’re still not aware of it, please give it serious consideration.
That’s all for my critical commentary this week (which usually reminds me of some parting lyrics from Pink Floyd’s "Time": “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say,” or maybe R.E.M. knows me even better [from "Losing My Religion"]: “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”), but whether you agree with any of that stuff or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Cinema-Related Extras: (1) What's new on Netflix in October 2022; (2) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in October 2022; (3) What's new on Hulu in October 2022; (4) What's new on Disney+ in October 2022; and, last one, (5) What's new on HBO/HBO Max in October 2022.
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 problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
Here’s more information about Blonde:
https://www.netflix.com/title/80174263
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSC0G-UkuQ (9:06 too much male gaze, but this guy hasn’t even seen the film, just reports the negative reactions, raises question of whether the 33% audience score seems suspect because of the comments coming in prior to the film being available to see along with the plethora of “male gaze” comments)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blonde
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/blonde
Here’s more information about Where the Crawdads Sing:
https://www.wherethecrawdadssing.movie/home/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bJkrwyjv8Q 29:36 very casual interview [morphs into a couple of rounds of Pictionary toward the end where most of them prove they’re not visual artists] with producer Reese Witherspoon, director Olivia Newman, and actors Daisy Edgar-Jones,
Taylor John Smith [ads interrupt at 2:35, 17:45, 23:35])
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/where_the_crawdads_sing
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/where-the-crawdads-sing
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
with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).
Here’s more information about your “Concise? What’s that?” Two Guys critic, Ken Burke:
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 venue) 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 be 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." However, if the day does come when Nina has to recall these above thoughts (beginning with “If we did talk”) and this music after my demise I might as well make this into an arbitrary-Top 10 of songs that mattered to me by adding The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life,"
because that chaotic-orchestral-finale sounds like what the death experience may be like, and the Beach Boys’ "Fun Fun Fun," because these memories may have gotten morbid so I’d like to sign off with something more upbeat to remember me, the Galveston non-surfer-boy.
However, before I go (whether it’s just until next week or more permanently), let’s round these songs out to an even dozen with 2 more dedicated to Nina, the most wonderful woman ever for me. I’ll start with Dylan’s "Lay, Lady, Lay" (maybe a bit personal, but we had a strong connection right from the start) and finish with the most appropriate tune of all, The Beatles again, "In My Life," because whatever I might encounter in my Earth-time, “I love you more.”
OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.
Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 18,278 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):
No comments:
Post a Comment