Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!
Connie has been reviewing film uninterruptedly since 1970 (47 years) and routinely covers the Chicago International Film Festival (14 years), SXSW, the Austin Film Festival, and others, sharing detailed looks in advance at upcoming entertainment. She has taught a class on film and is the author of the book “Training the Teacher As A Champion; From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, published by the Merry Blacksmith Press of Rhode Island.
Nashville Film Festival September 28th through October 4th, 2023.
The Nashville Film Festival commences September 28th, and I will be there, in person, covering it. It runs from September 28th until October 4th. The Nashville Film Festival presents more than 125 film screenings, a selection of post-film Q&As and in-depth discussions with attending filmmakers.
NashFilm hosts events and programs that highlight the many aspects of filmmaking, including: a Screenwriting Competition (September 28-October 4); a Music Supervisors Program; the Creators Conference (film and music industry panels; and live music performances and new artist showcases throughout the week.
The festival opens with the documentary “I Will Survive,” from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. It is the story of the career and resurgence of Gloria Gaynor and Gaynor, plus director Betsy Schechter will be present at the post-party afterwards at Anzie Blue.
On Friday, in addition to composer Mark Isham (“Crash”) in conference, the short “The Hit Man” (18 minutes) with Richard Kind and Peter Riegert and Nancy Allen screens at the Rothschild Black Box Theatre. Later that night, “Another Body,” about a coed who finds fake nude photos of herself online, will show at the same theater.
Saturday, 9/30, a Joan Baez documentary (“I Am A Noise”) is up, along with a documentary entitled “The Disappearance of Sheri Hite.” (Sheri Hite wrote a groundbreaking book on female sexuality and then largely disappeared from public view.)
Sunday, October 1st, I am looking forward to some documentary shorts, as well as David Straithorn in “Remember This.” David Strathairn portrays Jan Karski in this genre-defying true story of a reluctant World War II hero and Holocaust witness. After surviving the devastation of the Blitzkrieg, Karski swears allegiance to the Polish Underground and risks his life to carry the first eyewitness reports of war-torn Poland to the Western world, and ultimately, the Oval Office. Escaping a Gestapo prison, bearing witness to the despair of the Warsaw ghetto and confronted by the inhumanity of a death camp, Karski endures unspeakable mental anguish and physical torture to stand tall in the halls of power and speak the truth.
Monday, October 2nd, brings a Minnie Pearl documentary, “Facing the Laughter” and a documentary entitled “The Tuba Thieves,” about real-life thefts of that instrument in California.
Tuesday, October 3rd, is a day to do some streaming, with many options there.
Wednesday, October 4th is closing night at the Belcourt, featuring the film “Foe” with Saiorse Ronan, with a closing night party at Exit/In. Earlier, there is a documentary entitled “Silver Dollar Road,” also at the Belcourt, From Academy-Award Nominee Raoul Peck, Silver Dollar Road follows the story of the Reels family as told by the matriarch Mamie Reels Ellison and her niece Kim Renee Duhon, two fierce and clear-eyed women bending to safeguard valiantly their ancestors’ land and their brothers and uncles Melvin and Licurtis, who were wrongfully imprisoned for eight years – the longest sentence for civil contempt in North Carolina history.
Tuesday Weld with Richard Janssen of “The Fugitive.”
If you are a child of the 60s, you will remember Tuesday Weld.
The blonde bombshell combined an innocent, virginal blonde beauty with a sexuality that made her Stanley Kubrick’s first choice to play “Lolita.” (She turned the part down, saying, “I don’t have to play it. I was Lolita.”)
You have to admire a woman who changed her name, legally, to Tuesday when she was only 16 years old and, when asked what drove her from Hollywood, responded, “I think it was a Buick.”
Tuesday had some outstanding roles, although it was always her appearance that preceded her, in the same way that Michelle Pfieffer’s blonde good looks have made her into a line in a Bruno Mars song.
Her childhood was not a happy one. Born in 1943, she became her family’s sole breadwinner when her father died at age 49 in 1947 just before Tuesday’s fourth birthday. Her mother, Yosene Balfour Ker, daughter of the artist and Life illustrator William Balfour Ker, was Lathrop Weld’s fourth and last wife.
Mother Yosene put Tuesday into modeling and she soon began her career as an actress. Tuesday began drinking heavily at ages 9 and 10 and had a breakdown at age nine. Mommy didn’t think that Tuesday needed therapy and life went on pretty much as before, with Tuesday’s first suicide attempt at age twelve. Later, Tuesday expressed a great deal of hostility towards her mother and said she only felt free when her mother had passed. In fact, she began telling people that her mother was dead literally decades before she had actually died.
She said she preferred television. “What I dig about TV is the pace”, she said. “Two weeks for even a heavy part – great. Too much thinking about a role is a disaster for me. I mean, let’s do it, let’s get it done.”[25]
She played the lead in the TV films A Question of Guilt (1978), in which she plays a woman accused of murdering her children, Mother and Daughter: The Loving War (1980), a remake of Madame X (1981), and a new version of The Rainmaker (1982).
In 1984, she appeared in Sergio Leone‘s gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America, playing a jeweler’s secretary, who is in on a plan to steal a shipment of diamonds. During the robbery, her character goads Robert De Niro‘s character, David “Noodles” Aaronson, into “raping” her with her complicity. She later meets up with the gang from the robbery, and becomes the moll of James Woods‘ character Max Bercovicz. Disturbed by what she sees as Max’s delusional, even suicidal, ambitions, she convinces Noodles to betray Max to the police. The performance earned Weld a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress of 1984.
Weld was married three times. She was married to screenwriter Claude Harz from October 23, 1965, until their divorce on February 18, 1971. They had a daughter, Natasha, born on August 26, 1966. Weld was awarded custody of Natasha in the divorce and $100 a month in child support payments.[26]
She married British actor, musician and comedian Dudley Moore on September 20, 1975. On February 26, 1976, they had a son, Patrick. The couple divorced in 1980, with Weld receiving a $200,000 settlement plus $3,000 monthly alimony for the next 4 years and an additional $2,500 a month in child support.[27]
On October 18, 1985, she married Israeli concert violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman, becoming stepmother to his daughters Arianna and Natalia. The couple divorced in 1998. In court papers, Zukerman quoted Weld as saying, “Why do I need to go to another concert when I’ve heard the piece before?” and “I can’t stand the backstage scene. I don’t want to hear another note.”[28]
Weld and then-husband Zukerman purchased 74 Surfside Ave in 1990 from the estate of Norman Kean, who produced the long-running Broadway show Oh! Calcutta! and who killed himself and his actress wife Gwyda Donhowe in their Manhattan apartment in 1988.[37] Although the Montauk residence was not a crime scene, Weld later struggled to find a buyer for the property due to its murder-suicide connection. Listed in 2006, it sat on the market for three years before selling at a reduced price of $6.75 million in 2009 and is now rented.[38][39] Weld bought a “tiny condo” there in 2021 for $335,000.[40]
Liam Neeson (“Taken”) has made another action movie (at the age of 71) but there isn’t much action required of him, other than driving a car and peering into the side mirror a lot.
The movie is a remake (the third) of the Dani de la Torreia film “El Desopascido” (2015). It is a bit of a “Speed” rip-off, in that businessman Matt Turner is trapped in his car, with his two children, by an unknown assailant who contacts him via cell phone and warns him that, if he or the kids try to get out of the car or he doesn’t drive as instructed, the vehicle will blow up.
There is a bomb planted beneath the seats and if Neeson or his son or daughter get out of the car, the change in pressure will automatically detonate the hidden bomb. To prove that he isn’t fooling around, the anonymous criminal blows up a car with a hapless couple inside, so that Neeson can realize he is serious. It also turns out that it is so that Neeson’s car is seen by the authorities in the vicinity where the first explosion occurs and they will begin targeting and chasing him, assuming he is to blame for all the carnage.
From there on, it is pretty much Liam Neeson driving around and doing whatever the anonymous voice on the phone tells him to do, even after both of his car doors have been removed. (A passerby tells the hapless driver this, speaking in German.) I was somewhat confused by the melange of languages. It appears that Liam and family are full-time residents of Germany (Berlin, specifically) but they don’t seem to speak the language. Yet they seem to understand televsion in the native tongue and there is no real explanation of why none of the Turner clan is bi-lingual. (Weird).
Neeson is not having a good day, as he learns during the ordeal that his wife (Embeth Davidtz, with whom Neeson workedin “Schindler’s List”) is having a meeting with a divorce attorney. Plus, his two children are mouthy and pretty annoying, especially early on. Lilly Aspell, who played the young “Wonder Woman” in that film (2017), plays his daughter, Emily Turner, and Jack Champion (“Avatar: The Way of Water,” 2022) portrays the teen-aged Zach Turner.They are typical in being addicted to their cell phones, but their hostile reactions to most requests (“Get in the car.” “Give me your cell phone.”) make them less-than-likeable.
At one point I turned to my spouse and said, “At what point did Matt lose control of his children.” It was not a remark without foundation. We are given only the slightest of clues about why Heather Turner (Matt’s wife) might be talking to a divorce attorney, but one of the main reasons seems to be that he is a workaholic and frequently leaves her holding the parenting bag, even if he was alerted in advance that he needed to pitch in that day.. At one point, the script has Liam Neeson say, “I’ve had better days,” which caused me to laugh out loud.
I also thought some of the other scripted lines were excessively formulaic and bore little relationship to what was happening onscreen. One example: “You don’t run from a challenge. You take it on.” [Well, maybe not if the challenge is keeping your car from blowing up while your two children are trapped inside with you.]
There was a scene where we learn that there is no cell phone signal in a large Berlin tunnel. I thought this meant that the bomb could not, then, be triggered. Our discussion of this plot point did give some credibility to the thought that removing Liam Neeson’s body weight from the driver’s side of the Mercedes would cause the vehicle to explode because of the “pressure plate” mentioned early on.
I smiled when the Black investigator, played by Noma Dumazweme, told the hassled businessman that the police had interrupted the cell service. She tells him that it is the first time that cell phone service was interrupted to Berlin since 1945. The only problem with that factoid is that there were no cell phones at all in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, or the 1970s. It is true that the cell phone was invented in 1973, but it was not readily available to the public until 1983. Liam’s tearing out of the signal-less underground highway tunnel with bezillion Polizei arrayed in front of him, while telling the policewoman that HE would find the culprit if they (the police) could not (and shouting “Tell your men to stand down” which she had no time at all to do) was batshit crazy.
I should mention the presence of Matthew Modine as Liam Neeson’s business partner in an investment firm. Initially, I felt this fine actor (“Full Metal Jacket” 1987) was being totally under-utilized, as he appeared only in cell phone conversations sent to Neeson’s car that were business-related. As the plot progressed, his role increased. I was happy to see that he got more screentime. (I also noticed that Matthew Modinne’s teeth are far better than Liam Neeson’s).
Here was another random formulaic line, as scripted by Alberto Marina and Christopher Salmanpour: “This was all inevitable.” Really?
Nothing that happened seemed “inevitable.” The chase scenes where Liam successfully navigates literally multitudes of police cars that are arrayed to stop him were implausible in the extreme. There have been movies with good car chase scenes (“Bullitt,”“To Live and Die in L.A.,” “The French Connection”) but this was not one of them.
This movie was directed by Nimrod Antal, who was previously involved in directing “Machete” and “Predators.” At some point, he must have known that even audiences that have been suspending belief to watch Liam Neeson go to great lengths to defend or rescue his family members for years in mediocre movies were going to find Neeson’s driving through road blocks that must have been designed by a mentally deficient police sergeant would not play successfully in Peoria (oranywhere else). It will, however, soon be streaming on a streaming service near you. Possibly right now on YouTube.
I actually enjoyed the “twist” at the end, for several reasons. The acting was acceptable, even if the script did not hold water. There were some impressive explosions at various points. Many stunt people got work in the streets of Berlin. (My son works for a company headquartered in Berlin, so I enjoyed the tour of the city.)
The thing that gave me pause as I watched what could well be one of Liam Neeson’s last outings as an action hero was the realization that we’ve lost two great ones in this genre this year: Bruce Willis and, potentially, Liam Neeson. I am not encouraged that the new crop of action movie performers is up to snuff, especially since a trailer ran for another “Expendables” film with Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham and 50 Cent. (50 Cent, in particular, was nearly impossible to understand.)
“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning,” Part One, is Tom Cruise’s latest entry into that series, the 7th in a series stretching back 27 years, and supposedly the next-to-last.
The movie runs 2 hours and 43 minutes and contains one over-the-top action sequence after another. The efforts of Ethan Hunt and the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) pits Ethan against an evil power known as The Entity represented by the arch-villain Gabriel (Esai Morales). There is a key involved, with two sides of the key meant to power the most nefarious weapon in the world. Everybody wants it and tries to get it.
The main impression I came away from this over-long film were these:
Tom Cruise is shown running repeatedly—-scene after scene after scene. SEE TOM RUN! RUN, TOM, RUN!
Tom Cruise drives a motorcycle a lot.
Tom Cruise also does a lot of hang gliding/parachuting while looking for half of this All-Powerful key in some of the most exotic locales in the world.
This movie cost A LOT to make! Supposedly it is the priciest film of Tom Cruise’s career. Pandemic delays ballooned the budget to $291 million. By contrast, “Oppenheimer” cost $100 million.
Tom Cruise has the ability to switch Significant Others onscreen almost as readily as he has done in real life. When the movie begins, the love interest is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Before the movie ends, the new love interest becomes Hayley Atwell as Grace. Both are very good.
Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell are also good, but the standout for most critics has been Pom Klementieff as Paris.
I’d like to say that the plot and the character development keep pace with the action sequences, but I’d be lying. They don’t. As the old saying goes, “It is what it is.” That means a very opulent-looking (some scenes are shot on what is represented to be the OrientExpress) movie with action sequences that are so far removed from reality that we are watching a violent ballet. We are reassured, however, that the car chase did not actually occur on the real Spanish Steps, but took place on a studio sound stage built for the stunt.
Director ChristopherMcQuarrie, who is also one of the three writers (Erik Jendresen and Bruce Geller are the others) has directed 3 movies with Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt (and worked with him on 4). He allows for some sardonic humor, here and there. There are many pompous-sounding pronouncements, like, “We live and die in the shadows for those we hold dear and for those we never meet.” Also, “Our lives are the sum of our choices, and we cannot escape the past.”
Perhaps Ethan/Tom cannot escape the past, but he sure can escape everything else! In one memorable escape an entire train is being sent hurtling over a cliff as the bridge blows up. It isn’t enough to just have the train, car by car, hurtling into the void. It also is necessary for the interior of the train to be on fire! (I can just hear the screenwriters talking that one up. Rumor is that they think up a lot of this stuff on the fly.)
By now, you’ve probably seen the stunt with the motorcycle going off the cliff and the Ethan Hunt character then unfurling his parachute and gliding to safety in previews. As Manohla Dargis of the “New York Times” put it, “Like the other large-scale, stunt-driven sequences, this showy leap at once underscores Cruise’s skills and reminds you that a real person in a real location on a real motorbike did this lunatic stunt.”
Then there’s the villain of the piece, Gabriel (Esai Morales). The two fight atop a moving train, which might be an homage to something similar in the very first “Mission Impossible” film (1996).Tom Cruise and Esai Morales were both born in 1962, so they are 61. Cruise is listed as 5’ 7” tall, while Morales is said to be 5’ 10.” The fight on the train, then, features two stocky middle-aged actors who are giving it their best shot. (The close-ups of Cruise atop the train are the least flattering shots of him in the film, forehead wrinkled, hair askew.)Here we have a perfectly attired middle-aged stocky male figure who isn’t so tall that he makes Tom Cruise look even shorter than the 5’ 7” he is (*Note: Al Pacino- only 5’ 6”).
Some critics have criticized Esai Morales as not being “evil” enough to embody the total villainy of the plot’s Gabriel. I was fine with Morales’ version of evil and have liked him ever since “La Bamba.”However, I do remember films where other baddies were far more evil-looking/acting—say Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997) for the intrinsically evil acting, or Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” and “The Witches of Eastwock.”
For the appearance alone aspect, consider Dr. No or Goldfinger or Ernest Stavro Blofeld (“You Only Live Twice,” Donald Pleasance, 1967) or Jaws or even the much more recent appearance of Rami Malek in “No Time to Die.” So, does Esai Morales look like the quintessential “bad guy.” In a word, no. But, then, neither did Ted Bundy
The locations are also standout, with the Orient Express-mentioned train scenes, others shot in what is supposed to be a Russian submarine; some in the deserts near Yemen; Amsterdam; Venice; and as many other exotic ports of call as you can name. Starting shooting in northern Italy was a stroke of particularly bad luck, as the pandemic kicked off and hit Italy hard. Cruise was sick with something early on and then both Cruise and McQuarrie got Covid (as did many others working on the film.) It even caused a much-publicized blow-up from the perfectionistic Cruise, who read the crew out in no uncertain terms.
The expert choreography of the action sequences (some of which feature Cruise and Atwell handcuffed together) is to be marveled at. The acting is sufficient for a film of this nature. Because, as mentioned earlier, “It is what it is.
Stay tuned for the second installment (and eighth and last in the “Mission Impossible” franchise) if you care whether the key fits anything and what it does when inserted.
Meanwhile, more interesting to me than the movie itself is the drama going on behind the scenes, as reported in the “Hollywood Reporter.”
The studio tried to reign in the ever-burgeoning budget, which had to shut down 7 times due to Covid-19. At one point, Cruise rented an entire cruise ship for $676,000 so that the cast could isolate. Then there was the matter of the Russian submarine, added to the budget at the last minute (and the opening of the film) in one of those on-the-fly last-minute moves that the McQuarrie/Cruise partnership has involved. Paramount tried to tell Cruise that this entry in the series would only have a 45-day theatrical window and then would begin streaming on Paramount Plus.
Cruise, aware that he has earned $3.6 billion dollars for the studio over his 37-year association with Paramount (and his 30-years playing thecharacter Ethan Hunt) lawyered up and told the studio that the 45-day theatrical window was not going to prevail. After all, there was language in their contract that said this film would be handled like the others that preceded it.
The most successful film of the series, financially, was 2018’s “Fallout,” which brought in $791.6 worldwide. It is going to be interesting to see what the numbers add up to when the dust clears on this next-to-last outing of the series that spun off from a TV series. Regardless, sources say that Cruise will make more from the film than the studio will.
A veteran of Tom Cruise movies laughed about the attempt to tell Tom Cruise that the film would only have a 45-day theatrical window showing (according to the “Hollywood Reporter”). This insider said, “ This is the way these things go. ‘Tom says what he wants and the studio says what it wants. And then Tom gets what he asked for.'”
I was one of those little girls who was given a baby doll to mother. Barbie dolls did not exist until 1959. By that point, I was entering high school and done with dolls. I do remember when my friend Beverley’s little sister, Bonnie, got her first Barbie doll. We older girls looked at it as though it were from another world. This was nothing like the Kewpie doll or the dolls with big heads that we were to mock feed with bottles. This creature was something else entirely.
I entered college in 1963 and graduated with a degree in English. When I wanted to go to law school, my father, born in 1902, said, “A woman shouldn’t take a man’s job.” While he and my mother thought it was fine if I wanted to go on to graduate school in English, law school was not something they would help me finance.
The only “acceptable” careers for a woman as I headed off to college in the early sixties were secretary, nurse, or teacher. A fourth possibility might be the less professional hairdresser. Yes, Ruth Bader Ginsberg made it through law school, but she had an extremely supportive husband who assisted her. I did not have any support from my family for a career other than the “acceptable” ones mentioned above.
As a result, I went on to get my Master’s (plus 30 hours) in English with a Journalism minor. I taught for 18 years before I took my own money and invested it in an entrepreneurial idea that bore fruit. I ended up establishing and being CEO of two businesses and left the low-paying teaching job I had labored at from 1969 until 1985 behind for good.
I talked my husband into accompanying me to see “Barbie” because another critic (male) whose opinion I respect sang its praises. Since one (of only two) theaters in our Quad City area just closed (and theweather was beastly hot) we ended up having to sit in the very first row of the theater at 5:05 p.m. on a Thursday. We couldn’t sit together—which is just as well, since my spouse went in with a negative attitude and emerged with an even more negative attitude. His remarks after the film ended were all uber critical. (Gee…maybe I should call him “the most negative person I’ve ever met” which he once said to me, for a bit of inaccurate hyperbole). I think he is just the wrong gender to really be able to relate to most of what the film was articulating about the way women have traditionally been treated in our society. You gotta’ be female to really get that. He’s not.
I loved the “Barbie” movie. I hadn’t expected to, but it entertained while really flinging some zingers at society’s treatment of women versus men, historically.
The cast is great. The fashions and music are to-die-for. The script is the best. Only those who, in the face of ample proof, deny that “it’s a man’s world,” or are arch-Conservatives, would hate this clever, well-written movie.
Of course, when a liberal Democrat marries into a Republican conclave, there will be disagreements. This is one of them. Trust me: I’m right on this one. And the Never Trump one, too.
One sure-fire Oscar nominee is probably Billie Eilish’s theme song, with others to come.
SPOILER WARNING
I will be recapping a few of the script’s better lines. Be warned.
What is the plot?
Barbie and Ken journey from Barbieland to “the real world” and—much like films as far back as “Time After Time”—they are strangers in a strange land, trying to adjust to the realities of what is referred to as “the patriarchy.” (My spouse apparently does not believe in the patriarchy, but that’s on him. It exists and has existed since time immemorial.)
Barbie is being visited by thoughts that are totally UN-Barbie-like—thoughts about death and dying, for one thing. Baumbach’s last film “White Noise” (Adam Driver) also involved thoughts about death and dying. Baumbach, who co-wrote the script with his life partner Greta Gerwig (who directed) mines his own life for themes. Many deal with dysfunctional family relationships or divorce, like “Marriage Story” and death is a concern, as it is in the works of Woody Allen.
But “Barbie” is Greta Gerwig’s triumph, because, after all, she’s female. She just had the biggest opening week for a movie directed by a woman in history, a $162 million debut, the biggest of the year.
Noah Baumbach may be more aware of “the patriarchy” (or what we used to call “the Good Old Boys’ network) than most men, but Greta has nailed all the things that women of MY generation were expected to cope with to be a desirable, acceptable female in “the real world.” As one prescient line from the outstanding script says, “Everything exists to expand and elevate the presence of men.”
What things, you might ask disingenuously?
Let me share some of the lines from this film that “nail” the idea that women have, traditionally, been put down and kept down and had to behave in certain ways in order to get by in our society.
“A woman must appear helpless and confused.” Add to that the thought, spoken by Barbie, “I like not having to make any decisions.”
“ Power (on the part of a female) must be masked under a giggle.”
“A woman must pretend to be terrible at every single sport ever.”
“Either you’re brainwashed or you’re weird and ugly. There is no in-between.”
“Every night is boys’ night.”
“I’m not good enough for anything.”
Some of these “truths” are now changing, and all are being challenged, but, remember: this is the world I grew up in, not the one my granddaughters are growing up in.
There is a terrific monologue (by America Ferrera) that articulated the “required” things for females in America. That one scene, alone, is worth the price of admission, describing, as it does, the tightrope that women in America have to navigate.
“Everything is your fault.”
“We must tie ourselves into knots so that people will like us.”
“We must reject men’s advances without rejecting them.
“It’s best if you don’t think about it too much. Don’t overthink it.”
Barbies, says the film, represent sexualized capitalism. The rise of the Barbie doll “set the feminist movement back fifty years.” The term “Fascist” is thrown around, even though Barbie immediately says that she doesn’t have anything to do with railways or the flow of commerce.
At one point, a male character says, “I’m a man with no power. Does that make me a woman?” (I laughed out loud at that one.)
Greta Gerwig is one clever writer. If you didn’t laugh at “Lady Bird” you probably need a humor transplant. “Lady Bird” also had the ability to encapsulate the mother/daughter relationship so perfectly; mothers and daughters everywhere could relate.
With “Barbie,” females of any age will be able to relate. Men? Not so much.
THE CLOTHES
Another Big Plus for me—a child of the sixties—were the outfits that the gorgeous Margot Robbie and the handsome Ryan Gosling wear. I loved the blue dress with the white collar and cuffs, although it was very short—even shorter than the mini skirt years I wore in my prime. Loved, loved, loved the green and pink outfit with the matching hat. Ken’s outfits didn’t make him appear as attractive as Barbie’s, although, as the script says, “He’s one nice-looking piece of plastic.”
THE CAST
When you’ve got Ryan Gosling willing to take a career risk like this, you’re on a roll. There was a really interesting interview with Greta Gerwig in the “New York Times” where she described how she called Gosling up and convinced him to be her Ken. Will Ferrell portrays the CEO of Mattel and his encounters with the discontinued Pregnant Midge Barbie and the Proust Barbie ( Rhea Perlman plays the part of the creator of Barbie, Ruth Handler.
THE MUSIC
Lots of good music, but listen for the closing theme by Billie Eilish, “What Was I Made For?” Potential Oscar nominee.
THE SCRIPT
Terrific! And another move forward for the talented Greta Gerwig after her debut with “Lady Bird.” She and partner Noah Baumbach have made an important movie. I would not have dreamed that this movie would deliver as it has, but the thoughts are true and the truth will out.
A line that resonated with me—a former proud wearer of an ERA bracelet (look it up)—was this one:
“We mothers stand still so we can see how far our daughters have come.” In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, this certainly rang true. And, as the script puts it, “anxiety, panic attacks, and OCD sold separately.”
It’s important for me to start this review of “No Hard Feelings,” the newest Jennifer Lawrence film, with the lyrics of the 1982 Hall & Oates hit “Maneater.” The lyrics sum up the character of the film’s female lead, Jennifer Lawrence, as Maddie Barker.
Maddie Barker is a native of Montauk, a watering hole for the rich and famous. Maddie, raised by a single Mom, is resentful of many things in her life. She is angry at the influx of the myriad well-to-do tourists in the summer season and just as angry that her own biological father—who was himself a married summer visitor—impregnated her mother and then left town, taking no responsibility for the daughter left behind. He paid her Mom off with the house they live in. A letter sent to her father years later was returned without comment. It is safe to say that Maddie’s relationship with men, in general, is summed up by the “Maneater” lyrics.
Jennifer Lawrence last appeared in “Causeway,” a grim portrait of a woman haunted by PTSD. This lightweight comedy was such an improvement. I hope she continues to, as one reviewer put it, “fly her freak flag,” because she does it so well and it is such a joy to see ANY recent release that isn’t a Marvel spin-off or a horror movie.
“No Hard Feelings” is the sweet story of a young woman Uber driver and part-time bartender trying to save her Montauk home, inherited from her recently deceased mother, which is in danger of being taken over for back taxes. She is hired by the wealthy parents of Percy Becker to try to socialize a very nerdy young man who is about to leave for his freshman year at Princeton at the end of the summer. Her payment will be a car to replace the car that is being towed by an ex-boyfriend in some early hilarious scenes.
Naming the 2 main characters “Becker” and “Barker” might not have been the strongest plot point. The side character that Kyle Mooney plays (“SNL”) seems completely extraneous and, to a certain extent, so is the character of the tow truck driver, Gary, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach. That role reminded me of one that would fit Chris O’Dowd. But most of this movie is sheer pleasure, from start to finish, thanks to clever writing and excellent acting.
The nerdy young man is well-played by Andrew Barth Feldman (“Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway during his high school years.) Feldman does a great job of holding his own opposite Lawrence as Maddie. His helicopter parents have hired Maddie Barker to bring their son Percy Becker out of his shell. His father, Laird Becker, is portrayed by Matthew Broderick, looking grayer and paunchier. Mom Allison is played by Laura Benanti. The couple promises Maddie a secondhand Buick if she will escort son Percy around town and introduce him to the ways of the world, socially and, potentially, sexually.
Gene Stupnitsky is the director and co-writer with John Phillips. Stupnitsky is known, previously, for “The Office” (2005) and “Bad Teacher” (2011). With its $31 million opening, “No Hard Feelings” becomes the highest-grossing R-rated comedy since Stupnitsky directed “Good Boys” in 2019. The film has surpassed $50 million worldwide, on a slim budget of $45 million.
The movie has raunchy dialogue, as when Maddie goes to the veterinary clinic to “meet cute” with Percy, who volunteers there. She sees him cuddling a puppy and, dressed to the nines, approaches and says “Mind if I touch your weiner.” It turns out that Maddie means weiner DOG and, when asked why she wants to adopt a dog, says, “Because I can’t have dogs of my own.”
The uber confident Maddie, taking on some teenagers who are attempting to steal their clothes as they skinny dip in the ocean, while nude is a tour de force. Her confident and aggressive take charge attitude is perfectly contrasted with Percy’s indecisiveness. However, when Maddie convinces Percy to sing a song for her at a restaurant ( he selects “Maneater”), the significance of the song’s lyrics resonate and we begin to see the emotional growth that will occur for both main characters, leading to a better-than-anticipated happy ending.
Jennifer Lawrence is a talented actress and, boy, can she do comedy! I would much rather see her in something like this than in “Mother” or “Causeway,” despite acknowledging that she can expertly do both.
Now to my own unique connection to the song “Maneater,” which made this film a home run even for me.
I once did a road trip from the Quad Cities of Illinois to Fargo, North Dakota, to visit my friend Pan. This is a distance of roughly 500 miles. It takes 9 hours. This was in the 1980s, the day of cassettes. My radio was not working, so I was dependent on the cassettes I had brought for tunes for the trip.
I popped in Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” tape and enjoyed it for a while. Then, I attempted to eject it and put in a different tape; the cassette would not eject. I tried the radio, which was not working. I had two choices: silence for 9 hours or “Maneater.”
Three times, along the route, I stopped at gas stations and asked various mechanic types to try to get this cassette out of my player, so I could change songs. I still remember the gas station attendant stretched out on the floor of my car, attractive butt-crack revealed, poking at the cassette player with a long pointed screwdriver-like instrument. He was unsuccessful in removing the tape, so it was “Maneater” or nothing for 9 long hours.
When my friend and I—who were going to be flying to Europe together on a girls only trip—went out the night after my arrival to a Neil Diamond concert (THAT will date me!) the tape was still stuck in my cassette player. We attended the concert and, after we emerged from the concert and started the engine, the tape magically popped out on its own.
I will never forget that song. I truly related to its message, then and now.
We were desperate for a movie to see at the theater on a weekend. The ones offered were grim.
Then, I noticed that the screenwriters (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) behind “A Quiet Place” had collaborated with a third writer (Mark Heyman) and taken an old Stephen King short story (from his “Night Shift” collection) and amplified it into a PG horror film. The second thing it had going for it was its lead, Chris Messina, whom I enjoyed in “Damages” (and “Argo” and “Air”). It was directed by Rob Savage who has been making films since he was eighteen that won him a “Star of Tomorrow” award.
Off we went to enjoy a truly good ensemble cast, which included Sophie Thatcher as Messina’s teenaged daughter Sadie Harper and Vivien Lyra Blair as her younger sister, Sawyer. Marin Ireland as Rita Billings has a nice cameo-length appearance as the deranged wife of Lester Billings (from the short story). Lester was portrayed by David Dastmalchian, who wanders into therapist Will Harper’s home office, tells him a harrowing story about his children dying one after another, and then, without enough of a preamble for the act, offs himself in a nearby closet.
Not since Jeffrey Epstein have we had a suicide as poorly explained. In fact—although I’ve read that the very act of barging in and killing himself in their house dooms the Harper family to what happens thereafter—I admit I don’t remember it from the source material. This explanation is not emphasized enough to satisfy me as the why for all that occurs after Lester’s untimely demise.
THE GOOD
I’m glad I saw this film in a theater, because it’s so dark that when it streams, the dark images will be difficult to decipher. The cast is uniformly excellent. The production designer (Jeremy Woodward) and the cinematographer (Eli Born) have worked together to use negative space and darkness beautifully. Since one of the lines from the film is “It needs the dark to stay hidden,” the framing and continual use of darkness is extremely well-done.
Most of us, as small children, had a fear of the dark. All of us, at any age, have a fear of what goes bump in the night. I was particularly struck by the sounds that foster the mood. I grew up in a very old house that had a heating system along the baseboards that pumped heated water to warm the rooms upstairs. The baseboard heating system made all sorts of ungodly noises. Id you were home alone, it was only a short putt from the strange gurgling noises to paranoia and incipient terror. So, well done, sound people!
I was impressed by the ominous music in the therapist scenes and elsewhere. Sometimes, the background noises are of a beating heart gradually slowing. Music is by Patrick Jonsson. Yes, the movie is more dependent on sounds and jump scares than on gory images, at least until the finale “Alien-like” scenes, but that was just fine with me. The “thing” that lurked in the closet and under the bed was well done when it finally is seen up close, but I’m partial to the build up of suspense by subtler means.
THE BAD
I had never seen a giant white ball that lights up in the possession of a child or an adult. It was an interesting prop for the “fear of the dark” theme, but, still, it seemed very unusual. While I loved the scene where the younger daughter uses the white ball to try to see the boogeyman, it was not a universal toy.
The grief that the family is experiencing, because of the death of the girls’ mother in a car accident only months prior, makes for a troubled backdrop for the teenager Sadie, in particular. Her friends at school, with the exception of one closer friend, seem like the cast of “Mean Girls.” When the wound of a lost parent is so fresh for the troubled teenager I found the extreme nastiness of 90% of her friends to be questionable, but, then, this is the age of Facebook shaming, so color me Old School. (Shame on them, by the way!)
I wondered, when Sophie goes to Lester Billings’ house, if you could really walk right in, as she does. The candles in the hallway, while a nicely spooky touch, seemed completely unsafe, but the scenes featuring Lester’s widow (Marin Ireland) were top-notch, as she attempts to lure the Shadow Monster from the dark using Sophie as unwilling bait. The dialogue made me smile, as when Sawyer, the younger child, says, “Just trying not to die.”
The old Polaroid camera in the closet, while a nice touch, was an anachronism. Who still sells or uses Polaroid cameras, and what, exactly, was the camera going to do to help Mrs. Billingsley? Sony got a nice product placement with a Sony Infolithium System. Use of the old Irish song “Tura Lura Lura” never seemed to be tied into the plot well, just as Lester Billingsley’s sudden suicide seemed precipitous and poorly explained. I blame this on my memory of the short story, which I read many years ago (and have not revisited.)
Lines that I liked (“The thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” and “”Sometimes it’s better to have something to blame than to accept things that happen”) were offset by the ubiquitous “You got this.” (That’s probably just me; I’m really sick of that catch phrase.)
Overall, while I agree that no new horror ground was broken by the film, the normal scary territory was well served. We enjoyed the film, especially glad that we had actually been able to see it because of the big screen. We’ve been watching “The Invasion” on Apple + and it’s so dark in the monster sequences that, frequently, we don’t know exactly what we’re watching.
In the documentary “It’s Quieter in the Twilight” director Billy Miossi includes information on what was once called “Man’s Greatest Modern Adventure.” What was that adventure?
The Voyager Mission, which meant the launching of not one, but two space craft to tour the outer planets, specifically Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn and Neptune—14 billion miles from Earth (farther than any other mission ever). In the late sixties, it was discovered that the gravity of a planet might enable a spacecraft to go forward in space to more distant planets. It was also noted that a line-up of the planets that would be beneficial for such an experiment was to occur in 1977; this configuration would not occur again for another 177 years.
Therefore, the Voyager project began in 1977 and was called “a fantastic exploratory achievement.” Initially, 1200 engineers worked on the project. It was Big News as the reliable Voyager spacecraft got great pictures of far-away planets in our solar system.Today, coming up on 50 years in orbit in 2027, only a dozen hardy souls remain on the Voyager project. This is a film about them, their dedication to the mission, and the end of what was once dubbed “Man’s Greatest Modern Adventure.”
This 90 minute film is just as much the story of the devoted rocket scientists who have remained at their posts through thick and thin. The space crafts have now gone out so far that they are beyond the solar system and, instead, sending back data that allows us to learn how solar winds affect other planets. As Ed Stone, Professor of Physics at California Technology Institute, an original member of the team, said, “It (Voyager) changed our view of the solar system.” Some members of the original team, speaking on camera, are 87. Others are 70. They are largely unsung heroes of our by-gone race to space.
In addition to phenomenal pictures of the rings of Saturn and other facets of the farthest planets, transmitted continuously for 42 years, we learn that active volcanoes were found on Jupiter. The scientific expertise comprised of the engineers behind the project is invaluable. As current Project Leader Suzanne Dodd put it, “They have what you can’t get from paper.”
We learn that there are only 3 tracking stations for Voyager (Madrid, Barstow, and Canberra) and only the one in Canberra, Australia, would be able to see Voyager, because it is only visible in the southern hemisphere. Complicating just normal operational issues is the fact that the Canberra observatory was due to shut down for nearly a year and the Voyager team had to plan ahead for the months that they would have no way to communicate with the spacecrafts. Also, decomposing hydrogen thrusters will make it impossible to control the spacecraft over time.
The spacecraft uses 4 watts of power a year and there are only 7.5 watts left. The only way to potentially keep the spacecraft flying and sending back data, say the engineers, is to turn off some of the heaters, throwing the heating task to those that use less power so that the salvaged power can help the aging spacecraft (perhaps) limp to a 50-year finish line. The temperature in space then becomes -76 Fahrenheit.
Another problem is the amount of time it takes to both send and receive messages or commands from the spacecraft. Voyager #1 takes 20 hours for the signal to reach Earth. Voyager #2 takes 17, so fixing anything quickly is not possible. There is even a momentary hiccup in the transmission of data during the documentary that requires 35 hours to fix.
Chris Jones, rocket scientist with the Voyager Project.
One by one the backgrounds of some of the engineers trying to reprogram the 42-year-old spacecaraft are sketched: Sun Kang Matsomato of South Korea; Jefferson Hall of Mississippi; Enrique Medina (age 70) from Mexico; Fernando Peralto from Bogota, Columbia; Suzanne Dodd, who left the project in 2010 but returned as manager; Lee Yang. We learn of the untimely death of Enrique’s wife from a brain aneurysm at the beginning of the pandemic. We see Sun Kang’s young sons growing up, after making models of Voyager as small children.
The 70-year-old says, emotionally, that he enjoys continuing to work on the Voyager project, because he feels needed. “I always loved Voyager. It makes me feel that I am needed some place. I have the expertise to take Voyager through 2025—and maybe longer.”
Indeed, others, including South Korean native Sun Kang Matsomato, say, “When I see that Voyager does not need me, I will leave.”
Perhaps the most emotional bit of film is the statement from Chris Jones, who worked on Voyager from 1973 to 1981 and then returned to the task. He retired in 2021, but breaks down and tears up, emotionally, talking about the project, saying, “There was a time when I was a kid, and I had the chance to do something for the very first time. As it gets to the end, it’s going to be special, because it’s the very last time.”
As another engineer says, “There are probably only 8 more commands to execute on Voyager. The end is coming.”
Frank Lawlor has provided an excellent soundtrack and the cinematography (Willie Leatherwood and Pete Mignin) and editing (Matt Reynolds) are top-notch in this SXSW offering.
The film opens in Los Angeles on Friday, May 19th at Laemmle Noho #7 and on demand everywhere that day, including ITunes and Apple TV. A premiere screening and Q&A will be held at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California on Monday, May 15th at 7 p.m. For all you space geeks out there, this is one you’ll like.
(Scott) Beck and (Bryan) Woods, the boys from Bettendorf (Iowa) ,have created another great film in their latest offering, “65.” The film stars Adam Driver as Mills, the pilot of a space craft from the planet Somaris, who is embarking on a 2-year run when his spaceship encounters cryogenic failure during an asteroid shower and crash lands on a planet that we will soon find out is Earth, 65 million years ago.
The ship had been carrying passengers in pods, but eleven of the passengers are dead after the crash, including the family of a young girl about the same age as Mills’ (Adam Driver’s) own daughter back on Solaris. Chloe Coleman plays Nevine, Mills’ ailing daughter. He’s being paid three times the going rate to make this long trip; his hope is to earn enough to save Nevine’s life. Alas, that is not in the cards, but the surviving pod person on his ship, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt) will, in time, grow close to Mills, despite their inability to easily communicate.
The acting in the film is terrific. Adam Driver selects interesting roles and this is an interesting role, dealing with two people who are trying to come to terms with deep grief, while also staying alive on a planet inhabited by dangerous dinosaurs. Filmed largely in Louisiana and in Coos Bay, Oregon, the end credits also mention Ireland and Australia. Wherever they found the realistic-looking caverns and mountains, the “sets” (if one can call them that) are truly fantastic.
More importantly, the suspenseful beats that beset the characters while they attempt to make it to a still-working escape pod that has landed far from the impact point of the rest of the ship, are truly terrifying. The chasms they encounter look real. The attack by a velociraptor looks real. The imagined encounters—including Koa swallowing a large insect while asleep—are creative and original.
That is the best thing about this “Jurassic Park/Alien/Star Wars” combination movie: it does not feel derivative. It feels real and fresh and new. I’ve now been at this since 1970; trust me. Check it out!
All of the above are “the good.” I enjoyed this film more than the much more generic “Haunt” that the team of Beck & Woods followed up “A Quiet Place” with in 2019. In a month that saw sequels (“Creed,” and “Scream”) galore, this film is the rare indie, stand-alone, not-part-of-a-franchise.
A thinking man (or woman’s) film; I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is also family friendly with a PG-13 rating,
THE BAD
The “bad” of “65” is not the writer/directors’ fault.
The movie got pushed back in its release date from April of 2022 to March 10 of 2023 by Covid. Then, Sony, which budgeted it at $91 million, did not market it properly. I heard almost nothing about the film before it actually launched, slated to open against the franchise sequels mentioned in the paragraph above. It should have premiered at Sundance or at SXSW, like “A Quiet Place” did in 2018.
Some have mentioned that the title (“65”) did not help the film. It tells you nothing about the theme. I was not a fan of the information projected onscreen. Yes, I know that “Star Wars” did it, but saying “Prior to the advent of mankind in the infinity of the universe, other civilizations explored the universe” seemed about as cutting edge as using a voice-over to give us essential information, which generally is not done in modern-day movies nearly as much as in years of yore.
Others have pointed to Adam Drver’s last few films as not box office catnip. They mentioned “Annette,” “The Last Duel” and “White Noise.” With the exception of “The Last Duel,” which looked like a real lemon from the get-go, both “Annette” and “White Noise” will find fans when they stream, IMHO.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, screenwriters of “A Quiet Place,” the morning after the film opened SXSW in 2018 with Connie at Starbucks.
I also wanted to share these insights from Beck & Woods in an interview with“The Hollywood Reporter,” because it underscores why “65” deserves to find its following.
Bryan Woods told the “Hollywood Reporter, “In order to sleep at night, we have to believe in a world where a great idea, if executed well, can still break out and get people talking about it. And I do believe that. I absolutely think that can still happen. Inevitably, there will be franchise fatigue. It’s just inevitable when you think about comic book movies, which we’re fans of. They’re done at such a scale that’s mind blowing, and they’re executed so well most of the time. They’ve had a stranglehold on the box office for 20 or 30 years, but there was 70 years of cinema where the only thing people would go see was the Western. The Western dominated 70 years of cinema, and then one day, people were like, “I’m done with the Western. I don’t want to see the Western ever again.” And now there’s only a couple that come out a year, so it’s all cyclical. Things will change, but I believe that there’s always room for a splashy concept that’s executed well.”
From Scott Beck: “And just the little that we can do as filmmakers, we’re always going to be interested in trying to carve our own path and make something new, and not necessarily stand on the shoulders of sequels or remakes.”
Q: You guys said something to THR years ago that’s stuck with me ever since. It was on the subject of John Krasinski getting the spotlight on A Quiet Place, and your thinking at the time was that he’d paid his dues for a long time to get that moment. And in due time, the two of you might find yourselves in a similar position to get a moment like that. Where did you guys develop such a mature mindset about all that? Is it your Midwestern values?
Beck: “Well, thanks for saying so. We had to develop thick skin early on, but we brought it upon ourselves. In high school, when we made these short films and feature films for no money, we would test screen them at the local community college. And we will never forget our first scathing review of one of our films. We were 17 or 18 years old, and at that age, you’re incredibly vulnerable while still trying to find your voice.
And yet it opened our eyes to criticism. You can learn from it as long as it’s a critique. There’s something to pull out of that, and that’s coming from two people who’ve read film criticism for ages from many different outlets. You also learn that you can’t please everybody, and things are not always within your control.”
“65” is a good movie. It will ultimately find its fans. Check it out!
The first film of the trilogy, The Evil Dead, as well as its 2013 remake, were so horrifically gory that they were actually banned in various countries including Finland, Ukraine, and Singapore. That should have been my first clue that I would hate this movie.
Eight months, one Covid lockdown, and 6,500 litres of fake blood went into making the latest in the Sam Raimi “Evil Dead” series, this one entitled “Evil Dead Rise” and shot in New Zealand. Its Irish director, Lee Cronin, earned a Saturn award nomination for Breakthrough Director at Sundance. I had high hopes upon entry to the World Premiere on Wednesday, March 15th, at SXSW’s Paramount Theater.
I was game to sit through “Evil Dead Rise.” As a former active voting member of HWA (Horror Writers’ Association) and the author of three novels some might call “horror,” this would be right up my alley for “The Color of Evil” trilogy author.
Wrong, Snore-Snout.
If 80% of a film’s success is casting, this one started out wobbly with a freakishly tall and extensively tattooed leading lady, Alyssa Sutherland. The tattoos may not have been real and the Australian actress/model’s height is listed as five feet eleven inches, so take those comments with a grain of salt. I didn’t buy any of the actors’ performances.
The synopsis read: “A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them int a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.”
I reviewed film through the eighties, when slasher films were all the rage. After about twenty in a row, I swore off the entire series of films that attempt to entertain you by thrusting a knife into someone’s throat (Kevin Bacon in one memorable eighties cabin scene) or gross you out by having excessive projectile vomiting.
This film has taken the worst of those gross-out concepts and amplified them. If that’s your thing, as it seemed to be for the man next to me who was laughing hilariously and thoroughly enjoying this movie, then go for it. If this audience member hadn’t been very large (and blocking the aisle to exit) I might have left before the end, but, thanks to Mr. Laugh-A-Lot, I couldn’t escape. I saw the entire film (as did the heckler.)
Watching an eyeball fly across the room from a severed head and someone else inadvertently swallow it: gross. Buckets of blood in an elevator that bursts forth? Derivative of “The Shining” but with much less plot justification.
During the Q&A for the film, Bruce Campbell was brought onstage, the original Ash of the first 4 films, who raised the $350,000 for the very first film that Stephen King championed and ended up playing a lead in subsequent films (but not this one.) This new version moved from the woods to the city
As Campbell (“Ash”) was speaking, an apparently inebriated male theater-goer in the audience shouted out, loudly, “This movie effing sucks” (profanity euphemism substituted). Campbell demanded that the man—already on his way out— be removed from the Paramount Theater. (It made all the papers.)
In the documentary “It’s Quieter in the Twilight” director Billy Miossi includes information on what was once called “Man’s Greatest Modern Adventure.” What was that adventure?
In addition to phenomenal pictures of the rings of Saturn and other facets of the farthest planets, transmitted continuously for 42 years, we learn that active volcanoes were found on Jupiter. The scientific expertise comprised of the engineers behind the project is invaluable. As current Project Leader Suzanne Dodd put it, “They have what you can’t get from paper.”
If 80% of a film’s success is casting, this one started out wobbly with a freakishly tall and extensively tattooed leading lady, Alyssa Sutherland. The tattoos may not have been real and the Australian actress/model’s height is listed as five feet eleven inches, so take those comments with a grain of salt. I didn’t buy any of the actors’ performances.