The Long and Short of It. Part 2.
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.
The Batman (Matt Reeves) rated PG-13 176 min.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): I used a version of this blog's current posting-title last week when providing info on the Academy-nominated-Animated Short Films of 2021 while also praising myself (well, someone has to!) for keeping my review of the nearly-3-hr. Drive My Car (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi [2021]) to a surprisingly-short 2 clusters of mini-paragraphs. This week I’m back dealing with another almost-3-hr. assault on our bladders in The Batman with the added pun of a “short” review of a love story-gone-wrong starring a short lead actor, dwarf Peter Dinklage in Cyrano. (I hope he forgives me for my words [I intend no antagonism to anyone not named Putin], but I mean him no disrespect—he’s marvelous in the role—plus I’m sure he’s endured much worse about his stature than my weak little joke; if anyone else is offended by it, though, my apologies in general or email me [address far below in Related Links] for a direct reply.) Yes, I know, I could have just used another, more innocuous title like “Stressful Childhoods Produce Damaged Adults,” but … so boring … plus I give you plenty of those anyway. But now onward to our content: the long topic this week is the latest iteration of the guardian of Gotham City, Bruce Wayne in his disguised alter-ego, the Batman, as he once again takes on the daunting task of ridding his huge city of the presence of entrenched criminals who not only operate on the wrong side of the law but also corrupt various civic officials and police, making it constantly hard to know whom to trust. The Short Takes section than leads off with my review of a story featuring another well-known-character, Cyrano de Bergerac, whose unstated-but-intense-care for Roxanne is kept secret as he feels such a beauty could never love a physical anomaly like him (this time, dwarfism rather than an obnoxiously-large-nose). Both of these offerings can still be found in theaters, although The Batman’s in thousands more than Cyrano so your best bet to see the latter is via streaming for a $19.99 rental at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and others. Also in that section I’ll offer suggestions for choices on the Turner Classic Movies channel (but too much extra text for line-justified-layout like you see here [Related Links stuff at each posting’s end is similarly-ragged], at least to be done by this burned-out-BlogSpot-drone—oh, ye tedious software!) along with my standard dose of industry-related-trivia.
Here’s the trailer for The Batman:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who aren’t that tech-savvy)—to help any of you who’d like to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Gotham City is drowning (more on that later, if you read the Spoiler aspects) in decades-long-corruption, ultimately orchestrated by a mobster, Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), resulting in undercover-underhanded-actions by Mayor Don Mitchell Jr (Rupert Penry-Jones), Police Commissioner Pete Savage (Alex Ferns), District Attorney Gil Colson (Peter Sarsgaard), and—years ago—Bruce Wayne’s father, Thomas Wayne (Luke Roberts). There’s also rotten-brotherhood in the ranks of the official criminals as sometime back Falcone slipped info to Mitchell leading to a huge drug bust, arrest of kingpin Salvatore Maroni, allowing Falcone to take over the city’s rackets. Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson), traumatized 20 years ago by the shooting death of his parents, Thomas and Martha, developed his vigilante-crimefighter-alter-ego, the Batman, a couple of years ago but still faces hostility from some of Gotham’s law-enforcement-community, although he gets cooperation from police Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) who operates the Bat Signal to call this seeker of “vengeance” into action. (Gordon doesn’t know the secret identity, though, nor does anyone else except long-time-Wayne-family-butler/surrogate-father-for-Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth [Andy Serkis].)
In the midst of Mitchell’s mayoral re-election campaign, though, he’s killed by a mysterious figure calling himself the Riddler (Paul Dano, ⇒but we don’t know that until much farther into this story as his Internet posts are always done wearing a heavy mask⇐ [see the photo just below]), who leaves encrypted clues (like the real Zodiac killer) for Batman at the scenes of his crimes, then goes on to kill Savage allowing Gordon to be appointed Commissioner, giving him better authority to bring Batman in on the hunt for the Riddler. They discover a thumb-drive left in Mitchell’s car with footage of him and a waitress, Annika Koslov (Hana Hrzic), at Falcone’s Iceberg Lounge, run by “Oz” Cobblepot, known as the Penguin (Colin Farrell [unrecognizable under the makeup {see photo just above}]); when Batman goes to investigate what this might mean he finds Annika’s not there, then follows her friend Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) home, sees Annika hiding there (but she slips away), gets minimal cooperation from Selina whom we then see change into her Catwoman costume to prowl the night streets with her own agenda. Next, the Riddler captures Colson, puts a bomb around his neck, demands to know the informant who led to Maroni’s demise, then blows him up when Colson refuses to answer (Batman’s knocked unconscious by the blast, wakes up in a police station [why no one pulled his mask off I’m not sure], with Gordon’s help escapes). Gordon and Batman think the Penguin’s the stool pigeon/rat the Riddler’s looking for so they set a trap for him at a big drug deal for Falcone, broken up as Catwoman roars in on a motorcycle, steals the cash. When questioned, Penguin denies the accusations; furious Selina finds Annika’s dead body in a car trunk.
The Riddler next goes after Bruce Wayne, spreading info that Dad Thomas, in his own run for Mayor years ago, wanted to cover up his wife’s problems with mental illness (as well as a family history of that—and murder!) about to be revealed by a reporter; T. Wayne used Falcone to put pressure on the reporter, not knowing the guy would be killed. Wayne was about to turn himself and Falcone in to the law, but suddenly he was killed, obviously a hit ordered by Falcone with Bruce witnessing his parents’ deaths. Alfred, injured in a mail bomb meant for Bruce, confirms all this, giving Batman a miserable new understanding of his supposed-saintly father. Selina tells Batman about her own miserable childhood, that she’s Falcone’s daughter but Dad had Mom killed when Selina was a young child, then offered no resistance when his daughter was taken away to foster care. In response to Annika’s death (she knew too much), Selina tries to kill Falcone, Batman and Gordon prevent it, but even as he’s arrested the Penguin shoots him down before he can be taken away (shades of Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald). Through quick circumstances, the Riddler’s captured, turns out to be an accountant, Edward Nashton, who was an orphan in an institution funded by the Waynes, but the promised improvements to the squalid place never came as the now-dead-city-officials skimmed off the money so Riddler’s been on a recent vendetta to bring all of them (including Bruce as the progeny of his father’s connection to the dead reporter) to his form of justice.
⇒When Batman confronts Riddler at Arkham State Hospital (named for Martha Arkham Wayne’s family) Nashton says he and Batman have the same objectives, which Batman angrily rejects; then, in a search of Nashton’s apartment Batman finds evidence of many car bombs set along Gotham’s seawall. They go off, flooding the city yet hundreds are unaware as they’re in a huge auditorium for new Mayor Bella Reál’s (Jayme Lawson) election-night-victory; she’s wounded by a sniper, part of a terrorist group responding to posts by the Riddler, but Batman and Catwoman manage to defeat the shooters before they can do more damage, then Batman uses a torch to lead trapped citizens to safety. As the chaos recedes (not yet the floodwaters, though) Selina gives up on Gotham City and leaves, encouraging Batman to join her, but he stays intent on shifting his desire for vengeance into an attitude of giving hope to this tortured city. As the story wraps up, however, the Riddler’s in his cell talking to a nearby-inmate as they break into evil laughter so we think the Joker (Barry Keoghan) awaits us in the sequels (or not)—if Reeves can somehow top what we’ve already seen with Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Joaquin Phoenix (the latter 2 with Oscar wins for their Joker roles).⇐
So What? Pattinson joins a long line of name-actors as the Caped Crusader (a somewhat-disingenuous-moniker in that when Batman debuted in comic-book-form in 1939 Superman, also wearing a cape [as would other superheroes in decades to come], had already been in print since 1938, but I guess DC Comics needed a reference to Batman to counter the “Man of Steel” attributed to Superman; now that all contemporary movie depictions of Batman focus on his traumas and obsessions it’s only fitting that his reference name’s settled on The Dark Knight) since the debut of Batman (Tim Burton, 1989): Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney in the original series (’89-’97), then Christian Bale in his Dark Knight movies (2005-‘12), more recently Ben Affleck in the ongoing WB/DC Justice League/Suicide Squad stories (2016-’17), although when under the cowl it’s not always that easy to tell them apart (short details on each movie exist at this site). In fact, Affleck was set to direct/star in The Batman, but, as Hollywood situations often evolve, this (new) origin story for Bruce/Batman has now landed with Reeves and Pattinson with sequels planned (although you won’t be seeing any of the Justice League characters because in this alternate universe they don’t exist—at least not yet; if you want to know more about allusions within/inspirations for this newest version of Batman you can read here [scroll down to the Development and Writing Sections] and/or watch here [26:29] for Easter Eggs and hidden references, with spoilers of course [and an ad from roughly 3:40-4:40, others start at about 9:54, 20:00, before you can skip back to the video]).
While I’ve been hesitant to rate superhero movies at the 4 stars-level (nor above that) due to their inherent genre limitations, I have been willing to note some with that honor (you can scan the Two Guys Summary of Reviews to see for yourself, a few each from Marvel and DC), but if I had been posting when The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) came out I would have gone for at least 4 stars (maybe more) so to put The Batman into that hallowed group speaks a lot about how impressed I am with what Reeves has accomplished here as I’ve given 4 stars previously to only one Batman movie (The Dark Knight Rises [Nolan, 2012; review in our August 5, 2012 posting], although I do include the re-edited version of Zack Snyder’s Justice League [2021; review in our March 25, 2021 posting] which includes Batman with his DC superhero colleagues) due to the release dates of the earlier ones, yet, except for the Nolan trilogy, I wouldn’t go that far for any of them had I been reviewing in those times. For me, The Batman is a triumphant example of what this type of fantasy-subgenre can produce at its best with solid acting appropriate to the intended seriousness of the story despite its placement in an implausible world (Pattinson’s marvelous here as a dedicated/morose man; I look forward to seeing him in those intended sequels), exquisite cinematography (evoking the best of chiaroscuro lighting but with emphasis on the “scuro” ["dark" in Italian], minimal use of the “chiaro” ["light"]), great action sequences especially the Batmobile car chase scene and the martial arts scenes where both Batman and Catwoman show expertise in defeating multiple attackers without using firearms, the overall production design and costuming (which I hope to see in 2023 Oscar considerations), and the excellent score by Michael Giacchino (Oscar-consideration-worthy also). You put all this together and it fully justifies the massive ticket money already spent to see this result.
Bottom Line Final Comments: You could hardly ask for a better financial debut for a movie than what you have with The Batman which has already racked up $245.4 million domestically (U.S.-Canada), $472.2 worldwide, after only 2 weeks in release, a mammoth debut, topped recently only by Spider-Man: No Way Home (Jon Watts [2021; review in our January 6, 2022 posting]) with its domestic opening weekend of $260.1 million (after 13 weeks now at $792.8 domestically, $1.8 billion globally). However, if you’re concerned about seeing The Batman with its “only in theaters” presence (4,417 of them domestically on opening weekend) you might be heartened by my experience where my wife, Nina, and I were 2 of about only 30 at a 4pm Saturday matinee in a large theater (would probably hold a few hundred) in a large suburb (San Leandro) of Oakland, CA, so if you’re still COVID-concerned about being in crowds you can probably go easily into a dark auditorium to share 3 hours of Bruce Wayne bashing villains if you plan your screening properly (use the Internet to explore early-seat-purchases to see if a given time at a given venue is likely to be crowded or not). The CCAL will encourage you to attend as well, as the critics at Rotten Tomatoes offer a cluster of 85% positive reviews (so don’t listen to someone like my local guru, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle: “But nothing that works here adds up to anything worth a long slog in a movie theater, watching Pattinson punching guys and knocking guns out of their hands. From start to finish, ‘The Batman’ is mostly just a collection of bad ideas.”; instead seek out the opinions of those like Ty Burr: “[…] you feel like holding on to the two or three or four characters in this movie who might remember a world outside the hellhole of Gotham City and how people treat each other there. 'The Batman' is a comic book movie for an audience finally getting ready to read something else.”) while the normally-more-restrained-folks at Metacritic come up with a 72% average score, decently-supportive given their usual lower numbers (details on these critics-accumulation-sites on anything I blog-review are in the Related Links section of this posting, much farther below).
Now, don’t get me wrong; if you don’t care much for superhero movies or if the idea of a costumed vigilante taking the law into his own hands sounds too much like an insurrection “trumpeted” by a deranged politician (as mimicked by the Riddler in setting up his minions to attack a celebratory crowd in this movie) or if sitting 3 hours in a public space watching astounding special effects is a bladder-challenge you’d rather save for streaming at ease at home in about a month, you might not care to invest time and money into The Batman; otherwise, you can immerse yourself into a grand adventure while being shown the dark side of preferring vengeance over rehabilitation. Speaking of “dark,” I’ll finish this review as always with my tactic of a Musical Metaphor, this time Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet” (from his Grammy-winning 1997 Album of the Year Time Out of Mind) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZgBhyU4IvQ (a music video with a mixture of distorted color imagery, B&W footage, inserts of scenes in blue; there are lyrics of the first 2 verses below the YouTube screen if you like, I think you can understand sometime-inarticulate-Bob on verse 3, verse 4 is just below) where Batman would seem to have easy identification with these lyrics: “I was born here and I’ll die here against my will / I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still / Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb / I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from / Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer / It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” Bruce Wayne, working to turn around the disastrous situation of his hometown, would insist that Gotham City’s “not dark yet,” especially as the movie ends in sunrise, brightening up its usual murky palette, but he fears “it’s getting there” if he can’t find a way to bring hope and renewal to this crime-infested environment, encouraged by the show of force from many cops at the arrest of Falcone, proving that he doesn’t control all of them, as with the horrid Noah Cross—“He owns the police!”—in Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974), one of those so-useful director-acknowledged-inspirations for The Batman.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
Cyrano (Joe Wright, 2021) rated PG-13 123 min.
Based on the well-loved play of long ago, as well as a more-recent stage musical, we have the unrequited-love story of a man seen by many as a “freak” (he's actually very accomplished, erudite) who hesitates revealing his deep love for Roxanne only to help another suitor, supplying eloquent love letters allowing for a (second-hand) relationship.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.
Here’s another rendition of Cyrano de Bergerac (originally a play by Edmond Rostand [1897]), this one being a film based on another play about this content (Erica Schmidt [2018]—she’s also the cinematic-screenwriter here) which is adapted from the older work, with the plot essentially the same (as well as the primary actors being in both versions of the recent stage-to-screen transformation) across the many years, except now rather than being unwilling to express himself directly to his object of affection because of an ungainly-large-nose, Cyrano’s a dwarf (although his military successes are notable; at one point in this story he defeats 10 adversaries in a swordfight); oh, and there’s another change here: in both Schmidt’s play and this adaptation the structure’s been turned into a musical, which for me is its downfall as I (philistine though I may be) perceive most of the songs (save for “Close My Eyes” and “Wherever I Fall,” sung by Cyrano’s troops as they face certain death in their war with the Spanish) as simply ongoing-dialogue set to music rather than songs that stand on their own in furthering-while-enhancing the foundational-narrative (see West Side Story [Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins {1961}, Steven Spielberg {2021}]; Cabaret [Bob Fosse {1972}]; Chicago [Rob Marshall {2002}] for examples of musicals that more effectively achieved this intent).
As with other renditions of this tale of Cyrano, the problem for the protagonist is that he (played here by Peter Dinklage) has grown up somewhere outside of Paris (the setting of our story, although shot in Sicily, but—stay calm—all the dialogue’s in English) with the now-stunning Roxanne (Haley Bennett), yet as they’ve come to the big city he’s deeply enamored of her but won’t tell her as he’s convinced neither she nor society as a whole will accept this desirable woman as the consort of such a diminutive man, despite the respect he’s achieved in this larger community as a leader of men. As he keeps his intents silent, Roxanne’s pursued by the egotistical Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn) who offers none of the true romance she seeks but could provide a comfortable material life as Marie (Monica Dolan), Roxanne’s attendant, keeps pointing out, given her mistress’ scant resources. Despite her desire for deep passion in a relationship, though, Roxanne’s immediately smitten with a new recruit in Cyrano’s military unit, Christian de Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who equally falls for her but doesn’t pursue it because he can’t woo her with eloquent patter. Determined to enhance his desire for Roxanne, even in surrogate form, Cyrano helps Christian by writing mesmerizing letters to her as if they’ve come from Christian. When the star-struck-would-be-Romeo and Juliet meet, though, his clumsy words put her off until Cyrano helps orchestrate a sort-of-balcony-scene where he feeds soothing lines to Christian resulting in Roxanne’s reattachment. At this point the Duke intends to force marriage (or at least himself) upon Roxanne, but when he sends a priest to precede his arrival one night (announced to Roxanne by Cyrano and Christian) she quickly weds Christian, throwing the Duke into such fury he quickly sends Cyrano’s regiment into front-line-battle.
⇒Cyrano keeps sending “Christian's” letters to Roxanne until Christian finally understands his friend is truly in love with her as well, demanding they tell her the truth. Cyrano refuses so Christian runs into the enemy lines, insuring his death. 3 years later, Cyrano—still suffering from war wounds—goes to see Roxanne as he frequently still does, asks to read “Christian” ‘s last letter to her, but as he begins to recite more than read she finally realizes he’s the author, allowing her to admit her long-standing-love for him (why she couldn't have expressed it sooner isn’t clear to me), then Cyrano tragically dies.⇐ The acting (and some of the singing except for Dinklage [others aren’t always that great either]), settings, cinematography, and costume design are all first-rate (Oscar nomination for this last area), the story (as it has been through the ages) is heartbreaking, but I can’t say any of these elements rise to my Top 5 of the 2021 releases, nor is the film as a whole in my Top 10 due to this musical structure (sorry, Ms. Schmidt) with the CCAL largely agreeing with me as the RT critics give 85% positive reviews, although the MCers are noticeably-less-supportive: a 66% average score.
Audiences haven’t been too overwhelmed either with only $3.3 million at the domestic box-office ($4.9 million globally), but it only reached 797 theaters (now 694) so, if interested, you might want to stream it in 4K via Amazon Prime Video or regular HD at Apple TV+, others, all asking a $19.99 rental. For a Musical Metaphor I’ve something maybe obvious, maybe not with The Police’s “Roxanne” (on their 1978 Outlandos d’Amour album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T1c7 GkzRQQ with semi-appropriate-lyrics such as “Roxanne / You don’t have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You don’t have to sell your body to the night […] I loved you since I knew you / I wouldn’t talk down to ya / I have to tell you just how I feel / I won’t share you with another boy.” “Appropriate” as songwriter/vocalist Sting was inspired by a poster of the play when the band was in Paris (along with prostitutes in the vicinity of their hotel) and in the words about how long the singer’s loved this woman, doesn’t want to share her; “semi-“ in that the song’s specifically about a prostitute which Roxanne is definitely not, although it’s clear Cyrano doesn’t want her turned into one via a forced marriage to the Duke while he also has some qualms he’s contributed to consigning her to a false relationship with Christian in that she loves his eloquent words which have “bought” her in a sense, even though she knows almost nothing about the man she’s given herself to (though the marriage was never consummated because the Duke sent Christian to the battlefront before the wedding night could take place). A well-done, touching story, but almost all of those songs … (sigh!).
Suggestions for TCM cablecasts
At least until the pandemic subsides Two Guys also want to encourage you to consider movies you might be interested in that don’t require subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, similar Internet platforms (we may well be stuck inside for longer than those 30-day-free-initial-offers), or premium-tier-cable-TV-fees. While there are a good number of video networks offering movies of various sorts (mostly broken up by commercials), one dependable source of fine cinematic programming is Turner Classic Movies (available in lots of basic-cable-packages) so I’ll be offering suggestions of possible choices for you running from Thursday afternoon of the current week (I usually get this blog posted by early Thursday mornings) on through Thursday morning of the following week. All times are for U.S. Pacific zone so if you see something of interest please verify actual show time in your area for the day listed. These recommendations are my particular favorites (no matter when they’re on, although some of those early-day-ones might need to be recorded, watched later), but there’s considerably more to pick from you might like even better; feel free to explore their entire schedule here. You can also click the down arrow at the right of each listing for additional, useful info.
I’ll bet if you checked that entire schedule link just above you’d find other options of interest, but these are the only ones grabbing my attention at present. Please dig in further for other possibilities.
Thursday March 17, 2022 (sorry, nothing appropriate to St. Patrick’s Day today)
10:30 PM Camelot (Joshua Logan, 1967) Well-known version of the Knights of the Round Table legend, adapted from a Broadway play by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe; King Arthur (Richard Harris), Queen Guenevere (Vanessa Redgrave), and Sir Lancelot (Franco Nero) try to maintain dignity, high ideals amidst infidelity, insurrection. Decent the box-office, mixed critical responses; Oscars for Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Song Score or Adaptation Score.
Friday March 18, 2022
5:00 PM Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977) Some don’t care for Allen after molestation accusations (denied, never charged), but if you’re open to his work this may be the best, winner of Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress (Diane Keaton). Marvelous satire on romance between a charming pair of neurotics—so, “La dee da, la dee da,” go downgrade your wardrobe.
Saturday March 19 2022
1:30 PM Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982) Biography of famous nonviolent-activist Mahatma Gandhi whose protests for rights for Asian Indians led to legal victories against the British Empire in South Africa and India, later contributes to his home-country’s freedom from the Empire; marvelous lead by Ben Kingsley. Won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Kingsley), Original Screenplay (John Briley), Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Editing (nominated for 3 more).
Sunday March 20, 2022
9:00 PM There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) Set in late 19th-early 20th centuries about a fierce oil entrepreneur (Daniel Day-Lewis) who adopts the young son (Dillon Freasier) of a deceased worker then has conflicts with a preacher (Paul Dano) as lies and murders build up around the charismatic but deadly main character. Oscars for Best Actor (Day-Lewis), Cinematography (Robert Elswit), and was nominated for 6 more: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay
(P.T. Anderson, from Oil! [Upton Sinclair,1927]), Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound Editing.
Tuesday March 22, 2022
5:00 PM The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940) A masterwork of cinema despite being somewhat sanitized (especially the final scene in the film, even though it’s in a different part of the book) from John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning-novel about the Oakie Joad family leaving a drought-ridden far, for a supposedly-better life out west in California during the Great Depression. Stars Henry Fonda but also great work from John Carradine, Jane Darwell, especially in the heart-breaking-but-inspirational scene as Tom leaves the family. Oscars for Best Director, Supporting Actress (Darwell).
Wednesday March 16, 2022
9:15 PM On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) Deserving winner of 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Marlon Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint). A mob/union boss (Lee J. Cobb) runs the waterfront but a sub-honcho’s (Rod Steiger) in trouble because his brother (Brando) witnessed a mob killing, is being pressured to testify by a priest (Karl Malden). Contains the famous “I coulda been a contenda” scene between Brando and Steiger in a testy, claustrophobic cab ride.
11:15 PM A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) From Tennessee Williams’ equally-searing play (it’s more cruel, as Hays Code-dominated films had to conform to “decency” standards), this masterpiece of interpersonal-brutality stars Marlon Brando at maybe his best but acting Oscars went to Vivien Leigh (Actress), Karl Malden (Supporting Actor), Kim Hunter (Supporting Actress), plus one for B&W Art Direction and 7 other noms including Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay (Williams). “Stella!”—what more can I say? Even with the censorship, an all-time cinematic triumph.
If you’d like your own PDF of ratings/summaries of this week's reviews, suggestions for TCM cablecasts, links to Two Guys info click this link to access then save, print, or whatever you need.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: In quick fashion, here are some extra items you might like: (1) New on Netflix in March 2022; (2) New on Amazon Prime Video in March 2022; (3) New on Hulu in March 2022; (4) New on Disney+ in March 2022; (5) New on HBO/HBO Max in March 2022; (6) Directors Guild of America awards; (7) Critics Choice awards; (8) Jane Campion (after sweeping recent director awards) apologizes for comment about the Williams sisters tennis stars. 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:
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!
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AND … at least until the Oscars for 2020’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 27, 2022 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they’ve never seen).
To save you a little time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the
Oscar nominees for 2021 films.
Here’s more information about The Batman:
https://www.thebatman.com/?home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48JPzRkgu64 (29:51 interview with director Matt Reeves
[ads interrupt at about 5:50, 17:00])
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_batman
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-batman
Here’s more information about Cyrano:
https://www.unitedartistsreleasing.com/cyrano/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqibZYgjLyU (40:22 interview with director Joe Wright,
actors Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and screenwriter Erica Schmidt)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cyrano
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/cyrano
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If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu/, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)
If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.
By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact, but maybe while there you’ll get a chance to meet Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, RIP). Ken
P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me by My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/
wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes/wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" (19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this well). But, while I’m at it, I’ll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johanna."
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