Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Short Takes on Windfall, Death on the Nile [2022], suggestions for TCM cable offerings, and some various other cinematic topics

“Murder Most Foul”

(title from a Bob Dylan song on his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways;

this long song’s about the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy but I feel it has

a sense of application in a larger context to what’s reviewed here as well)

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.

(I realize we’re getting close to Easter, but this is Jared Leto, not Jesus [for the religiously-challenged among you]. Anyone who did bother to see Morbius is welcome to tell me what you thought about it.)

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): I saw a couple of things this week worth writing about (gruesome as they are in their individual aspects), but, somehow, neither of them hit me with enough force to use one for a feature review so (maybe just out of a bout of laziness) I’ve put everything this week under my heading below of Short Takes, beginning with Windfall, which is just on Netflix streaming (for subscribers to that service), indicative of how I’ll probably be trying to keep an eye on both what’s out on various platforms (now that an exclusively-streamed-film has won Oscar’s Best Picture—Coda [Sian Heder, 2021; review in our August 19, 2021 posting]) and what’s in the theaters (with interest-filters in place for those options as well, so, sorry, Morbius [Daniel Espinosa], despite your $86 million global debut, but at least I gave you a photo just above). With Windfall we have a tightly-constructed-story (just 4 characters, 1 location), but at least there are outdoor scenes so it’s not too claustrophobic, a very-useful-strategy as tension constantly rises around a situation where an intended-burglary of a CEO’s getaway-home is interrupted when the rich couple suddenly shows up, leading to a battle of wits (and values) that might well surprise you when it wraps up. Next is my review of Death on the Nile, another remake of Agatha Christie’s famous novel, this time with Kenneth Branagh at the helm, also playing detective Hercule Poirot attempting to narrow down a boatload (literally) of suspects about a killing, then other bodies fall as well; this one you can still find in a few theaters (it’s been out since Feb. 11, 2022) but likely will be more available on HBO or HBO Max (although you must be a subscriber). You’ll find I’m a bit more generous in my ratings on both of these, though, than the CCAL, so explore further to see just whom you trust more regarding investment of your time/resources. Also, 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 old tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.

SHORT TAKES (some spoilers appear here)

Windfall (Charlie McDowell) rated R 92 min.

Nobody's (the characters don't have specific names) robbing a rich couple’s guesthouse when they unexpectedly return so he takes them captive but realizes he’s probably been caught on a security camera, demands $500,000 to help him escape, start a new life. The CEO arranges for the money to be delivered, though nothing goes as intended.

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.

A billionaire businessman (Jesse Plemons, simply called “the CEO” in the credits) and his spouse (Lily Collins, “the wife”) come to their luxurious vacation home with orange groves in the Southwest desert somewhere (filmed in Ojai, CA; looks more like Arizona to me) for a quiet getaway (only his assistant, Alice, knows their destination), only to find a thief (Jason Segel, noted in the cast list as “Nobody”) rummaging through the house, taking whatever jewelry, cash, Rolex watch he could find (apparently the place was unlocked, oddly enough, and, no, it wasn’t prepared as such by Alice as requested because the asked-for-flowers-and-provisions aren’t there, much to the CEO’s initial-irritation). Nobody acts like he has a gun (he doesn’t) so they co-operate in getting more cash for him, with their assurance they have no weapons or security cameras on the properly (possibly somewhat true, but Nobody later finds a pistol in a bedroom). He’s going to leave but first puts them in an outdoor sauna, blocking the door with pool furniture, smashing their cell phones on the way out; after he’s returned to his car parked far away, though, he sees a camera in a tree so he goes back, finds they’ve already pushed their way out of the sauna, so he gives chase when he sees them; they split up, but Nobody catches CEO so wife surrenders as well. CEO continues to claim the camera’s not part of their properly, but Nobody’s dubious, can’t take a chance his image at this location is now part of some public record so he demands cash to help him disappear into a new life.

He initially wants $150,000, yet, oddly enough, they say he needs more so he ups it to $3 million; CEO cites the difficulty of hauling that much cash around so Nobody settles for $500,000. CEO contacts Alice, has her arrange to drop the bundle of big bills off in a bag by the front gate by the next afternoon, so this uncomfortable trio has to spend the night together with Nobody insisting the couple sleep in separate small outdoor cabins. CEO encourages wife to chat up their captor, trying to gain his confidence which she does, although it’s unclear if she’s trying to activate her husband’s plan (he’s still trying to figure out a way to get control of Nobody because he doesn’t trust what the guy might do to them once he gets the money) or just wants to tell someone about her discomfort in this relationship (she was once an assistant at his firm, is now in charge of a charitable foundation—although CEO makes disparaging remarks about the people who need such help as “freeloaders,” just as he justifies himself to Nobody for saving some jobs—while many more are lost—as he takes over/merges other businesses while his current captor’s more concerned about all those who were harshly put out of work), how she wishes she had her old life back of making her own decisions (Nobody’s not sympathetic with her either; later tells the CEO she’s taking birth control pills [saw them in her purse], thwarting his plan to have a child). Other areas of tension between the couple arise the next day, especially when their gardener shows up to do some work, shows CEO a sketch of some landscaping plans which his boss appears to accept but instead scribbles “call 911” instead.

Nobody sees this attempt, forces the gardener to come inside, captive with the couple, as they all wait nervously for the cash drop. As the hours brutally tick by, though, CEO talks of himself as a (shallow) distressed-because-of-being-a-targeted-rich-White-man in today’s society, starts harassing Nobody, tells him what a loser he is and how he doesn’t really have the courage to do anything to them; in anger Nobody fires a warning shot into the wall, the gardener tries to make a run for it, trips and crashes into the glass door, impales himself on a sharp edge, cruelly dies. ⇒Later that night the money drop finally happens, wife retrieves it, Nobody ties both of them up and harangues CEO while she has a chunk of broken glass she uses to cut away her foot bonds, then sits quietly (hands tied in front) as Nobody leaves with the cash but stops to (once again) retie a loose shoelace so she sneaks up behind him, bashes him to death with a small stone sculpture, gets her hands loose, takes the gun to where CEO’s tied up, kills him too, puts the gun in Nobody’s hand, then walks out the front door as the film ends, leaving us to assume she’ll take their car and the cash, establish a new identity, leave behind all of the privilege and headaches that came with her unfulfilled position of economic power.⇐ As Segel says in an interview below in Related Links (second item connected to this film), this is one of those pandemic-projects which joined a small cast, a single location, even shot-in-chronological-sequence-scenes that allowed the claustrophobic-situation (although we do get useful outdoor relief in the orchards and poolside-patio) of such an enterprise to work well with the topic. It’s an overall-effectively-tension-building-experience to watch (reminiscent of Hitchcock, just not as fully successful as many of his triumphs) with interesting surprises as the 3 main characters continue to reveal various self-aspects as pressures build, with CEO ultimately demonstrating how he’s a lot more ruthless, self-centered than he projects himself to be, wife with ongoing misgivings but still voluntarily part of a lifestyle she’s come to hate, Nobody more ambiguous in his motives and backgrounds than we might prefer but all the more interesting because of those unspecified aspects.

This is only available to Netflix streaming subscribers, generally well worth the investment of your attention to see consistently fine acting, proper use of condensed running time. For my usual device of a Musical Metaphor to wrap this all up, I’ll go way back to The Byrds’ “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” (from their 1965 Mr. Tambourine Man album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeKGPhc SPHk because, just as the wife emerges as the primary character in this story, these lyrics clearly speak to her disgust with both the CEO and Nobody: “Baby, for a long time, you had me believe / That your love was all mine, and that’s the way it should be / But I didn’t know, that you were putting me on / […] Now I’ve got to say that it’s not like before / And I’m not gonna play your games anymore / After what you did, I can’t stay on / And I’ll probably feel a whole better / When you’re gone.” After it’s all over, we don’t know yet if she’ll truly feel better because she has a lot to leave behind, but we have enough of a start here to imagine our own sequel to all the ill winds of Windfall.

Death on the Nile [2022] (Kenneth Branagh)

Rated PG-13 127 min.

We begin in WW I to see future-detective Hercule Poirot (far right just above) in military action, then shift to 1937 where he’s aware of an upcoming wedding that goes sour when the would-be-groom shifts to the would-be-bride’s wealthy friend; soon after they marry in Egypt with the entire wedding party (including Poirot and the jilted lover) on a boat down the Nile when the new bride’s found dead.

Here’s the trailer:

While it’s been far too long since I saw the previous adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel (1937), directed by John Gillerman (1978), starring Peter Ustinov and a good number of famed co-stars (Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Jack Warden among them)—same title across the board for book and movies—for me to remember anything about it (except enjoyment), I won’t be making any comparisons, but, based on summaries I’ve read, the essential plot’s the same, although some characters (and their identities) are presented a bit differently in each version of this story. Branagh (following his previous venture with a Christie adaptation, Murder on the Orient Express [2017, which for some reason I haven’t yet seen, maybe will on Amazon Prime or other platforms for a $3.99 rental, although 61% at RT, 52% at MC aren’t calling very loudly so it may be awhile], itself a follow-up to another earlier star-studded-adaptation [Sidney Lumet, 1974; the cast included Albert Finney as the famed detective, along with Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, others—90% on RT, 63% on MC, available for streaming on several platforms also for a $3.99 rental or free in a few options; I haven’t seen that one since its debut either, probably should top my “revisit” list]) has now wandered into Egypt (well, actually stayed in England for filming [although Morocco was intended, so there’s a lot of Computer Generated Imagery here along with a recreated Temple of Abu Simbel]) for another situation of a primary murder (followed by 2 others in … Nile unlike just the 1 in … Express), with all the intricacies of plot—and intentional misdirections—you’d expect from a beloved-Christie-narrative.

What Branagh adds in this latest version of … the Nile is more background on celebrated detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh, here and in his adaptation of … Orient Express), so we begin with a Black & White segment during WW I in 1914 Belgium where as a soldier Poirot convinces his troops of a successful strategy to attack the Germans, resulting in a rout, yet calamity strikes anyway when his commander accidently touches off a bomb, killing him while also scarring Poirot’s face leading to his growth of a complex mustache, suggested by his fiancée, nurse Katherine (Susannah Fielding), who will later die in the war, leaving Poirot heartbroken, self-isolated from romance even decades later. We shift to color in 1937 London where Jackie de Bellefort (Emma Mackey) is celebrating her engagement to Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer), although his finances have been hit by the global Depression so Jackie asks long-time-wealthy-friend-Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) for help, but Linnet responds by stealing Simon away. 6 weeks later Poirot’s in Egypt where he first stumbles upon his good buddy, Bouc (Tom Bateman), traveling with his opinionated-painter-mother, Euphemia (Annette Bening), then finds himself at the wedding of Linnet and Simon, with angry Jackie lurking around, trying to cause trouble for the newlyweds. There are a good number of other characters here as part of the large wedding party, but rather than enumerate them all I’ll simply refer you to this summary.

Poirot advises the newlyweds to return home; instead, they rent the paddlewheel cruise ship Karnak for a honeymoon trip down the Nile where various animosities toward Linnet emerge as Poirot comes to know the other passengers, but his most direct observation’s about Bouc, who’s enamored with Rosalie Otterbourne (Letitia Wright), niece of noted-nightclub-singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo), a union opposed by Euphemia, seemingly because she doesn’t approve of public entertainers, not because the young woman is Black (although that does bring up an unspoken consideration). Jackie joins the voyage at Abu Simbel, Poirot knows she has a small handgun which she apparently uses to injure Simon, then the next morning Linnet’s found dead from a gunshot to the head. As Poirot’s conducting his investigation into the murder (Jackie has a solid alibi) because almost everyone aboard had a grievance of some sort with Linnet, 2 other deaths occur: Louise Bourget (Rose Leslie), Linnet’s maid; Bouc, who saw Louise’s killer, but is mysteriously shot before he can say who it was. ⇒In the inevitable showdown with the suspects Poirot unravels all of the misleading clues, finds it was Simon who killed Linnet (to gain a huge inheritance), Jackie killed the others to cover up what they knew as she and Simon had a secret plan to dispose of Linnet. As they’re trapped in their crimes (see the 2^nd item in Related Links for events and clarifications on all 3 murders), Jackie embraces Simon, shoots him in the back with the bullet killing her as well. Later, back in London, a clean-shaven, scarred Poirot watches Sophie rehearse in an empty nightclub.⇐

Given the age of this book (and its previous cinematic adaptation), it may depend on how well you already know it to provide fascination/enjoyment with this current version; as I didn’t remember who committed the crimes, I found it interesting enough to watch, although it’s hard to match the star-power of that 1978 excursion, even as I credit Branagh for seeking additions to the original to make this more intriguing for a 21^st-century-audience. The CCAL’s not overwhelmed, though, with RT’s 63% positive reviews, MC’s 52% average score (virtually identical to their responses to Branagh’s … Orient Express) so while you can still find this in 615 domestic theaters (down from its opening of 3,280; so far having made 45.4 million domestic dollars, 134.8 million worldwide ones), you can get it for free as a subscriber to HBO (check cablecast listings) or HBO Max, Hulu for streaming. I’ve leave you with another from-the-past-Musical Metaphor, The Beatles’ “What You’re Doing” (on the U.K. 1964 Beatles for Sale album, the U.S. 1965 Beatles VI) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eARQAsKBJSc (plus a lesson in Spanish translation), where I can envision versions of it sung by Simon to Jackie or her back to him (changing some gender references) as their unrequited passion leads each to wonder “Would it be too much to ask of you / What you’re doing to me? […] I’ve been waiting here for you / Wondering what you’re gonna do / Should you need a love that’s true / It’s me.” Love only took them so far, though; life—and the Nile—potentially had much farther to explore.

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 April 7, 2022

10:30 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.

Sunday April 10, 2022 (you’d think this was Bastille Day or something of that Francophile nature)

1:15 AM The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959) A foundational film of the French New Wave cinematic revolution of the 1960s, essentially a fictionalized-autobiography of the director as an adolescent, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), who gets into constant trouble with his parents, teachers, and ultimately the police leading to his ongoing attempts toward independence even

at his young age (Truffaut made 4 sequels with Léaud as the character grows into adulthood).

5:00 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.

11:00 PM Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) An early classic of the French New Wave starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a small-time hood, pattering himself after American gangster movies, involved with Jean Seberg (an American actress Kristen Stewart’s recent film, Seberg, is based on), a woman whose attempts on his behalf backfire badly; this film’s a primer in attention-grabbing jump-cutting where connective aspects of the action are left out so you have to pay attention to fill it all in.

Monday April 11, 2022

11:30 AM Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973) Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as young killers-on-the-run in a compelling, marvelously photographed story that’s part Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) and part John Mellencamp’s song, "Jack and Diane," a marvelous, truly significant—distinctly disturbing—debut film from an eccentric, extremely talented director-screenwriter, somewhat based on actual events from likewise killers-on-the-run Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958.

1:15 PM Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) Great example of American film beyond the boundaries of the old Studio System with Depression Era-outlaws played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway (Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Michael J. Pollard also in the gang). Romanticized version of history as robbers are Robin Hood-antiheros in their day, represent anti-establishment values for ‘60s audiences; shocking bloody ending. Parsons won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar; the film also got another one for Best Cinematography. Excellent use of Flatt and Scruggs music.

Tuesday April 12, 2022

6:30 PM 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.

Thursday April 14, 2022

1:00 AM Days of Wine and Roses (Blake Edwards, 1962) Tragedy of a married couple’s (Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick) descent into alcoholism, troubles in their personal lives; they try to go sober, no success as they begin to drift apart. Oscar for Best Song (Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer), noms for Best Actor (Lemmon), Actress (Remick), Art Direction, Costume Design (both for B&W films).

If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.

Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Extra items for you: (1) What's new on Netflix in April 2022; (2) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in April 2022; (3) What's new on Hulu in April 2022; (4) What's new on Disney+ in April 2022; (5) What's new on HBO/HBO Max in April 2022; (6) Will Smith resigns from the Oscars Academy; (7) How to save the Motion Picture Academy and the Oscars. 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 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 and winners for 2021 films (and other items from the ABC TV broadcast).

Here’s more information about Windfall:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81483895

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfVmeKUVMeE (9:06 interview with actors Jason Segel

[also one of the original conceptors of the story], Jesse Plemons, Lily Collins [all of them, along

with director McDowell, are among the producers of this movie])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/windfall_2022

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/windfall-2022

Here’s more information about Deal on the Nile [2022]:

https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/death-on-the-nile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzH4kQpJ9jU (4:16, the 3 deaths and their explanations

in the movie; Spoilers of course)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/death_on_the_nile_2022

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/death-on-the-nile

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with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

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 20^th 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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Thursday, March 31, 2022

The Lost City plus Short Takes on suggestions for some TCM cable offerings and other cinematic topics

Raiders of Better Movies

(and … Chris Gets Rocked at the Oscars; what Will happen next?)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): If you’re not aware of the various winners of the last weekend’s Oscars you’re welcome to visit my previous posting, originally about predictions and preferences, now updated with all who took home trophies that night. However, the biggest event at the broadcast was (eventual Best Actor Oscar winner) Will Smith, seemingly-reprising his role as “The Greatest” from Ali (Michael Mann, 2001) when he walked onto the stage following a joke from Documentary Feature-presenter Chris Rock about Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, bald now so Rock noted he looked forward to seeing her in G.I. Jane 2, in reference to the shaved head of Demi Moore in that long-ago/kick-ass-protagonist-military-movie (Ridley Scott, 1997). However, because Pinkett Smith’s baldness is the result of hair loss due to her alopecia in 2011, which she’s been public about since 2018 (seemingly, Chris wasn’t aware of that [?]), husband Will decided both that the joke was not appropriate and that it was appropriate for him to immediately walk up onto the stage (certain celebrities were able to sit at small tables right up front so he didn’t have far to go), slap Rock hard, with each of them following up with brief obscenities (which were muted during the live broadcast). Rock later declined to file an assault charge, Smith apologized to the Academy and his fellow nominees during his Oscar acceptance speech (but not to Rock that night, although he's now done so) along with lots of comments about the need for peace and love in our troubled times which seemed a bit odd for the somewhat-nervous-audience to swallow given his actions earlier that night.

Whether that helped ratings-desperate-ABC in their quest for a bigger (and younger) audience (the only explanation I can find for including a huge production number of megahit, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”—from Animated Feature-winner Encanto [Byron Howard, Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith, 2021; review in our January 6, 2022 posting] when it wasn’t even one of the Original Song nominees) is hard to say just yet, given the ongoing-discussions about the slap-down as to whether that endeared Smith to those who admired him for sticking up for his wife (even if his choice of how/when to do it raises a lot of questions) so they’ll tune in again next year hoping for more WWE-type-action (maybe Vince McMahon should run nominees-cage-matches) or turned off those appalled at a spontaneous display of personal violence (in front of a worldwide audience) as part of a ceremony which included condemnations of the sufferings of Ukrainians at the hands of the invading Russian military. (More about this Oscars brouhaha far, far below in Other Cinema-Related Stuff.)

So it might take a year of considerations, Oscar telecast policy adjustments, negotiations with future hosts and presenters to even show up in 2023 to see what happens next; I’m sure you’ll find plenty of chatter about this situation in the near future, but how it will play out over time—especially for Chris Rock and Will Smith—is hard to predict at present. At least ABC/Disney can take heart that ratings were way up this year, but in 2021 they were at an all-time-low so even that improvement needs to be seen in context (2022’s still second-lowest of all-time). But, as for the normal content of this blog, commentary on a current movie, I’ve got only 1 to offer you because I was rather busy with some other events last weekend. The Lost City won’t be competing for any awards in 2023, but it was a pleasant enough (goofy) diversion with Sandra Bullock as a bored-then-kidnapped-romance-novelist, her book-cover-model (Channing Tatum) attempting to save her with the help of a soldier-of-fortune (Brad Pitt), yet the odds are slim against the resources of an obsessive-billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe), so if you’re open to paying matinee prices (recommended) it’s mostly fun to watch (in theaters only). 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 my standard dose of some industry-related-trivia.

The Lost City (Aaron and Adam Nee)

rated PG-13 112 min.

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.)

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), a former academic (with a specialty then in lost languages), is still mourning the loss of her deceased archeologist husband while now being a bored-but-successful-romance-novelist who struggled to finish her last book, The Lost City of D, has to be pushed onto another book tour by her publicist, Beth Hatten (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), where she’s always joined by “co-star” Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), the ongoing-cover-model of her books who sees himself as her adventuresome hero, Dash McMahon, becomes the focus of their appearances as women in the audience just want him to tear his shirt off. Following a mishap that cuts short their first appearance, Loretta’s suddenly kidnapped by billionaire Abigail (yes, a guy; one of the many purposely-silly-aspects of this movie) Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) who’s obsessed with finding the legendary Crown of Fire, so much so he’s bought the remote Atlantic Ocean island where it’s supposed to be somewhere in a lost city, thinks Loretta can help because that current book seems to show an awareness of his coveted treasure so he forces her to fly with him (and his goons) to the island before it might be damaged by its active volcano. Alan’s aware of the kidnapping, works with Beth to track Loretta’s whereabouts via her Smartwatch, recruits soldier-of-fortune Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt) to help (Jack insists Alan stay in their camp, but Alan’s far too pumped to comply).

They do manage to get Loretta out of Fairfax’s compound (yet don’t have time to fully free her from the chair she’s tied to), but Jack’s shot dead by a sniper so it’s up to Loretta and Alan to get through the jungle to the other side of the island to find help. They have many adventures (including totaling their car, Alan’s backside covered in leeches when they go downriver to throw trackers off their trail, climbing a sheer cliff) and get into an argument over her low opinion of him, before reaching a village where Loretta calls Beth to send in a rescue party, but Fairfax’s henchmen show up, grab them again; by now, Loretta has an idea where the tomb with the crown might be, but to get there they have to go under the ready-to-erupt-volcano, scoot through a narrow tunnel; when they arrive at the site, they find the tomb but it’s filled with sand and the skeletons of a queen and her died-before-she-did-husband, the crown simply made of red seashells. ⇒Fairfax leaves Loretta and Alan to die in the tomb, but they escape, are rescued by determined Beth on a Coast Guard-boat where they also capture Fairfax for his crimes. Loretta writes another book after all—about the adventures with Alan/Dash, now the romantic figure in her actual life. Then, in a mid-credits-scene as Loretta and Alan are in a yoga class they find Jack there, with some gibberish about how he didn’t die after all.⇐

So What? In reference to the main title of this posting, while The Lost City has been compared by many to Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984) from years ago due to the overlaps of the main female character (Kathleen Turner) being a romance novelist who receives a mystery map, has to go to Colombia to save her kidnapped sister-in-law but after her bus crashes in the jungle she meets up with an exotic bird smuggler (Michael Douglas) as they find a precious emerald, have to ward off various violent acts among thieves, then she writes a novel based on her adventures as she stays with her new man (I got all this from the link just above; I haven’t seen this movie since it first came out, so if I’m missing crucial nuances please let me know). However, I was more attuned to ... City's borrowing from Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981; story by George Lucas and Phillip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, won 5 technical Oscars)—probably due to having seen that one a few times since its release (with some clear sense Romancing the Stone borrowed a bit from it back then) with particular attention to scenes where the protagonists are threatened by snakes in a cave-like-structure, a cryptic message is decoded from ancient symbols, the adventuring pair have known each other for a long time leading to squabbles along the way, she’s captured and tied to a chair by the story’s villain (with events prolonging her eventual escape from bondage), every time it seems our protagonists are safe the villain and some array of henchmen show up, the long-lost-treasure in a tomb with a heavy stone cover turns out to be now filled with sand (and bones of the long-ago-lovers in … City), while the final rescue comes in the form of a truly unexpected event.

So, whichever source material resonates best with you regarding what you might find in The Lost City it’s clear you’ve probably seen a lot of this before (although it’s presented in a consistently humorous manner in … City’s script), so the main attraction will likely be if you have interest in the stars of this tale, which I did so it was a pleasure to see all of them again, with Radcliffe getting the best opportunity to go off in directions we’re not used to. Don’t assume you’ll see Bullock in anything else for awhile, though, as she elaborates in an interview (second item connected to this movie far below in Related Links) as she’s decided to put her screen career on hold for an undetermined time to focus on her kids and a restaurant she’s running in her adopted home of Austin, TX (wish she’d been there when I was just to have met her, but when I left in 1977 she was just 13 while I was 30 so I doubt our paths would have crossed at all). By the time she decides to come back, we’ll likely have forgotten about The Lost City, remembering her for more-substantial-fare, including her Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side (John Lee Hancock, 2009); I imagine we’ll see plenty of Tatum, Radcliffe, and Pitt in the meantime, as their future roles will also help put this one toward the back of the shelf.

Bottom Line Final Comments: In general, the CCAL’s been reasonably supportive of The Lost City with the Rotten Tomatoes reviewers writing 75% positive reviews while those over at Metacritic are less-enthusiastic: a 60% average score (more details on both critics-accumulation-sites in the Related Links section much farther below). Audiences, though, found it to be a useful alternative to all that cash they spent on The Batman—$333.6 million so far in terms of domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office, $674.5 million globally—finally allowing something else to take the #1 slot, which The Lost City did with $32.7 million domestically, $36.4 million worldwide (probably not helped much in Hayward, CA, as our Friday-late-afternoon-screening brought in about 16 patrons), although how long it can maintain that popularity once the initial curiosity wears off will be interesting to see. If you do have enough interest in this intentionally-silly-tale (with some fun [for me, at least] academic patter from Loretta as she keeps clarifying things for Alan [womanspaining?], including how the inclusion of a comma in a statement verifies its meaning); you’ll have to find it in a theater as it’s not yet available in streaming, although I have a feeling it won’t be long before it will be on Paramount+, but that’s not yet one of the many platforms I’ve giving monthly servitude to, thus I don’t know for sure. Honestly, that’s enough to say about it (and I might well have picked something else to see in my limited time last weekend, although nothing else available looked any more interesting while I do enjoy all of these primary actors), so I’ll move on to my usual review-capper, a Musical Metaphor that somehow (sometimes vaguely, as is the case today) relates to what has been previously presented.

In this situation, given that I think there’s little defense as to how these filmmakers have borrowed liberally from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone I’m going to use a silly song that also borrows content from a more-respectable-tradition, Cajun chef/humorist Justin Wilson’s version of “The Gator Sleeps Tonight,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS8HRvui6tk (I can’t find any verification of when this record was released, but it would likely be in the very early 1960s, nor can I find any album it might be on, yet I still remember hearing it on the radio probably when I was in middle-school). It’s a takeoff on the much-more-famous "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens (from their 1961 album named after the song, written in 1939 by South African Solomon Linda, originally in Zulu, then translated/recorded by a lot of folk singers in the 1950s-‘60s before becoming the Tokens' big radio hit) but transforms the stately lion in the jungles of Africa to an alligator in the swamps of Louisiana, just as the intended-comedy of The Lost City relocates its movie-source-locations of Egypt and Colombia to this isolated Atlantic Ocean island, playing most of what we see for laughs (just as there was also well-placed-humor in Raiders … and Romancing …). Given I’m only providing one review for you this week, I’ll add a little more in the Musical Metaphor area, but this last Metaphor is basically a private joke between me and my wife, Nina, about one of those other activities last weekend which I’ll illustrate with The Bee Gees’ "Night Fever" (from the Saturday Night Fever [John Badham, 1977] soundtrack; scenes from the movie in this music video), but it could also marginally apply to … Lost City in that Loretta and Alan are ultimately “Gettin’ Jiggy wit it,” to bring us back where we started with Will Smith (but you’ll have to look that one up yourself as I’m not promoting him just yet, would still give his Oscar to Denzel Washington—however, if you [and Nina] want to see The Bee Gees in action, here they are to finish us off for the week). 'Bye for now.

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.

Thursday March 31, 2022

12:15 PM Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) Adapted from Edward Albee’s controversial play (1962), keeps story and most of the (profane) dialogue intact as a professor (Richard Burton) and his wife (Elizabeth Taylor), daughter of this small college’s president, verbally battle in front of house guests (George Segal, Sandy Dennis) as dysfunctionality reigns. Multiple-Oscar-winner: Best Actress (Taylor), Supporting Actress (Dennis), Art Direction, Costume Design, Cinematography (all 3 for B&W films), plus another 8 nominations; bitter to watch, grim masterpiece.

5:00 PM To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) Beloved adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with Gregory Peck as a fair-minded Alabama attorney in the 1930s trying to provide moral lessons for his kids during this economically-difficult (and overtly-racist) era as well as a sound defense for a Black Man wrongly accused of raping a White girl (also in the cast: Robert Duvall as elusive “Boo” Radley). Oscars for Best Actor (Peck), Adapted Screenplay (Horton Foote), Black and White Art Direction, was nominated for 5 more including Best Picture and Director. The American Film Institute named Atticus Finch (Peck) as greatest movie hero of the entire 20^th century.

Friday April 1, 2022

12:00 AM Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969) Maybe it’s just because I’m from Texas and recognize a lot about Joe Buck (Jon Voight), but this is to me is among the pantheon of the all-time-bests as wannbe-cowboy Joe leaves the Lone Star State for NYC to be a gigolo but has no luck, finally accepts friendship with hustler Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) trying together to survive in the big city while dreaming of comfortable life in Florida. Won the Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay (Waldo Salt), nominated for 4 others including Best Actor for both Voight and Hoffman (who should have shared it in my opinion but lost to “America’s cowboy,” John Wayne for True Grit); distinction of being only X-rated Best Film, though it’s rating was later changed to an R.

1:00 PM Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952) Beloved-musical (a standard for achievement in its genre) starring Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor, Jean Hagen, and Cyd Charisse about Hollywood’s clumsy transition into sound movies, plus romance between male star and female newcomer of great potential; features the fabulous “Broadway Melody” sequence, a grand MGM spectacular, along with many songs borrowed from a lot of previous MGM musicals.

8:45 PM Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1973) Many say this is the French New Wave director’s finest work but I’d have to consider that with some of his others, especially The 400 Blows (1959),

Jules and Jim (1962), Fahrenheit 451 (1966)—or others anyone might suggest; in this one, though, we have an homage to films and their actors, with Truffaut playing the director of a melodrama with all sorts of problems happening off-screen. It easily won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Saturday April 2, 2022

1:15 AM Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968) Another of my periodic suggestions based not so much on cinematic quality but on cult-status, especially because it led to several sequels (all directed by Romero) and a remake of this original (Tom Savini, 1990), as well as inspiring a seemingly-never-ending glut of zombie movies into the present. It’s grotesquely gory at times, maybe the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, but with an even more chilling sociopolitical ending.

2:45 PM The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973) In the Depression 2 con-men (Paul Newman, Robert Redford) want to avenge the death of a friend by a crime boss so they set up an elaborate scam-horse-race-betting-operation in Chicago to lure the guy in to make a huge bet. Big hit at the 1974 Oscars, winning Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (David S. Ward), Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Scoring, and nominated for Best Actor (Redford), Cinematography, Sound.

Wednesday April 6, 2022

12:30 PM Ocean’s Eleven (Lewis Milestone, 1960) Less a great film, more cult icon starring 5 of the Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop. As seen in remakes (main-starring George Clooney or Sandra Bullock at the head of extensive other notables), the plot of this original is to rob major Las Vegas casinos in one extensively-planned fell swoop. Other familiar names in this cast include Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, Henry Silva, Norman Fell.

Thursday April 7, 2022

1:00 AM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) Not as bluntly controversial as the stark Tennessee Williams play it’s adapted from, this still burns with passion, hatred, interpersonal misery as alcoholic, depressive Brick’s (Paul Newman) chastised by both his fed-up wife, Maggie “the cat” (Elizabeth Taylor), and dismissive, dying father Big Daddy (Burl Ives). Maybe if you’re from the South (I am) you’ll fully appreciate how true to some lives this more-or-less-fictional-story ultimately is.

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: In quick fashion, here are some extra items you might like: (1) Jada Pinkett Smith calls for "healing" after Oscar confrontation between Will Smith and Chris Rock; (2) Why Will Smith wasn't ejected from the Oscars; (3) Apple is the first streaming service to win Oscar's Best Picture, for CODA; (4) How the Oscar broadcast can improve in the future. 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 always search streaming/rental/purchase movie options at JustWatch.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the

Oscar nominees and winners for 2021 films.

Here’s more information about The Lost City:

https://www.thelostcity.movie/ (click the 3 little lines in the upper left for more info)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj2E6e3RIAg (8:09 interview with actor Sandra Bullock [ad interrupts at about 6:00])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lost_city

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-lost-city-2022

with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

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."

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 15,264 (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):