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!
Talk to Me Danny and Michael Philippou (“Rocka Rocka”) worked on 2014’s great Australian horror film “The Babadook.”
But this year they are directing a horror film, starring Sophie Wilde and Miranda Otto. It premiered at SXSW and is being distributed by A24, beginning July 28th.
The film opens with pounding intense music at a party. A young man wades through the crowd to a room in the back and pounds on the door, insisting that his brother open the door. When the brother does not open the door, he breaks it down. Mayhem involving a large butcher knife ensues. The Philippou brothers have our attention.
The plot involves a hand that supposedly belonged to a psychic who communicated with the dead. Teenagers come into possession of it, and all hell breaks loose.
You must grasp the hand (supposedly the mummified remains of the psychic who owned and used it previously. You must light a candle and snuff it out when done. You must say “Talk to me,” followed by “I let you in” and that’s when the fun and games begin. Did I mention that you, as the subject doing this for “fun” at a party are tied to the chair and that only 90 seconds must elapse before the candle is blown out, or else the spirit that inhabits you might not leave your body? If you go longer than 90 seconds and happen to die during the time the spirits from limbo are inhabiting your body, they will take your corporeal self over and you are theirs, apparently forever with a very long-term habit of terrorizing and torturing other normal idiots who take up the hand and use it as a party trick.
The Philippou brothers at a Buzz showing of “Talk To Me” at SXSW 2023.
If you’ve followed this, so far, be aware that some studios gave the directors notes on their script that said they must get the history of the hand and explore that more fully. One of the two directors, appearing after the screening, said, “When I read that, I said, WTF is this? I don’t want to do that. We’d get notes like ‘You’re fired if you can’t get these in,’ so we went the indie route.”The moderator noted, with only thinly veiled sarcasm, that U.S. studios have entire offices of people who give filmmakers horrible notes, which the successful directors learn to ignore.
The filmmakers, instead, chose to gather friends and people’s whose opinions on the horror genre they trust(ed); they used their feedback, instead. Asked if they would refuse to use any horror technique seen elsewhere, the answer was, “I found it fun to do a spin on certain tropes. We wanted to have the film be both horror and drama. Life isn’t all one emotion.” The director mentioned films he admires: the Russian film “The Return” or “Memories of Murder.”
The Philippous finally went indie because they had heard and read a lot about studios requiring directors to do things a certain way and the director not having final cut. As one said, “We wanted to make a horror story, not become one.”
Newcomer Sophie Wilde carries most of the movie on her slender shoulders, and she does a great job. The
Sophie Wilde, star of “Talk To Me.”
consensus was that we were in the presence of a movie star. When asked how she got into the frame of mind to do the most grueling scenes, she referenced music and said, “I’m a firm believer in music to get into that mood: techno and ambient to get to a dark place.”
This film is quite the dark place. The make-up people did not get the nod they deserve, as the apparitions that haunt those who use “the hand” were horrifyingly grotesque. Sophie, herself, noted that some of the scenes were shot in an extremely hot, small room and, “I thought I was possessed. I was so hot. I felt like I wasn’t a real human being.”
This is an auspicious beginning with A24 for the Philippous. It was much more creative than the bigger budget “Evil Dead Rise.”
to me
Directors:
Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Executive Producer:
Stephen Kelliher, Sophie Green, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Daniel Negret, Noah Dummett, John Dummett, Jeff Harrison, Ari Harrison, Miranda Otto, Dale Roberts, Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Producer:
Samantha Jennings, Kristina Ceyton
Screenwriter:
Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Cinematographer:
Aaron McLisky ACS
Editor:
Geoff Lamb
Production Designer:
Bethany Ryan
Sound Designer:
Emma Bortignon
Music:
Cornel Wilczek
Principal Cast:
Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Zoe Terakes, Chris Alosio
“Little Richard: I Am Everything,” a documentary from Lisa Cortes, premiered at SXSW on March 13th.
I’ve saved the best for last, because this was genuinely one of the best documentaries—if not THE best documentary—-that I saw this year (and I saw a lot of them).
There are extensive clips of Little Richard, the flamboyant showman from Macon, Georgia, one of twelve children of Leva Mae and Richard Penniman, a minister who ran bootleg on the side.
Richard was born somewhat crippled (one arm was longer than the other) and queer and his father kicked him out of the house because of his sexual orientation. He found a place to stay at Ann’s Tic Toc speakeasy, where he sang blues and gospel and listened to Sister Rosetta, the Mother of Black soul.
Director of “Little Richard: I Am Everything” Lisa Cortes.
We learn that Billy Wright helped Richard get a record deal and that Esquerita, a musician, taught him to play piano. The technique was boogie woogie on the left and Ike Turner with the right hand. However, the music that Richard was making was considered “race music” and was only allowed on Black stations. The documentary is right when it says, “It says something profound when Black music is the wellspring” for rock and roll. Of course, record producers tried to steal the sound and put white singers like Pat Boone on vinyl.
Little Richard was not much of a businessman and was paid only half a cent a record, which was a very low return. He played to segregated audiences, but he was so popular and so electric that white teenagers broke the color barrier to get into his shows in Black clubs. As Richard said, “My music broke down the walls of segregation.” He mentions Fats Domino and Blueberry Hill, as well as Bo Diddly and B.B. King and others who followed.
Little Richard used make-up and said “I don’t give a damn what they think.” But, ultimately, he lived in a constant state of contradiction because of his religious upbringing and would try to go ‘straight’ multiple times. These were the days of Emmet Till (Sept. 2, 1955) and Richard wanted “the capacity to own the right to be in the world.”
As Bo and Richard said, “We built a hell of a highway and people are still driving on it. And they ain’t paying for it!”
Various singers like Tom Jones, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards pay tribute to Little Richard, who also helped the Beatles out when they were just starting out.
Then, Richard withdrew from rock and roll and enrolled at Oakwood College, a Black conservatory. He thought his music was the devil’s music, and a comet or Sputnik going overhead made him think the world might be coming to an end. He even married Ernestine Harvin, a fellow student, in Los Angeles. She described him as “positive, loving and caring” as a husband.
Richard toured in 1962 on a bill in London with Jet Harris and Sam Cooke. It was in Liverpool that he would meet the Beatles and Billy Preston in Hamburg at the Star Club. English bands, at that time, were very static, but Mick and the boys learned from Little Richard.
In 1964 Little Richard was on “American Bandstand” and, in fact, Dick Clark would organize the only testimonial awards tribute to Little Richard very late in his career, after he returned to music from spreading the word of God. Richard was described as “generous” and “so real” and he spoke up and told the world, at the 1989 induction of Otis Reddng into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, “He’s the root of all this.” Richard would also say, “I feel so real. I feel so unnecessary.”
It can truthfully be said that Little Richard paved the way for everything that followed.
The documentary director previously worked on “All in the Fight for Democracy,” a documentary about Stacey Abrams. She said she wants to “Explore figures and people who move things forward and are a continuation of how change is possible.” She gave credit to Gus Wynner (“Rolling Stone”) for their partnership and said that the documentary took 18 months to make.
For instance, Ernestine Penniman, Richard’s one-time love, was said to be dead, but came forward when the film was in post production. The family, when they finally saw the finished product, said, “You did Richard right.”
She sure did. It’s a terrific documentary and one of the best things at SXSW this year.
Bob Odenkirk and Mirielle Enos onstage at the Stateside Theater in Austin, Texas, at SXSW, on March 11, 2023.
“Lucky Hank” is Bob Oderkirk, in his first television outing since leaving “Better Call Saul.” The premier episode of the AMC+ series premiered at SXSW on March 12th (Oscar day), showing once and once only at the Stateside Theater in Austin.
The series owes much to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on which it is based, “Straight Man,” by Richard Russo.
The synopsis for the series reads: “An English department chairman at an underfunded college, Professr Hank Devereaux toes the line between midlife crisis and full-blown meltdown, navigating the offbeat chaos in his personal and professional life.” As IMDB further says, William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at Railton University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park”
If this all sounds like a great vehicle for Bob Odenkirk, you’re right. The humor and sarcasm are on full display in this clip.
THE GOOD
The cast, headed by Odenkirk, is stellar. Mirielle Enos (“World War Z,” “The Killing”) plays Hanks’ wife, Lily, and she is a revelation. In the Q&A following the screening, she admitted that she “wanted to play a less closeted woman.” Her serious role in “The Killing” made her a natural choice for screenwriters Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman, who had worked with her on “The Killing.” Those representing the premiere in Austin referred to the cast as “spectacular.”
The writers are similarly spectacular. Although credit must also be given to the source material, as the writers admit that they constantly “went back to the book” while also adding depth to Hank’s character.
Bob Odenkirk, onstage after the screening, talked about how he ended up working this hard so soon after “Better Call Saul” ended. “I had said yes to the show. I really thought it would take forever. It didn’t.” Factor in a heart attack that Odenkirk described as, “what happens when you don’t take your heart medication” and here he is in an 8-episode series that he praised as “A place for everyone to do their best” and “A lot of variety on a journey that goes somewhere.” Odenkirk added that it was “Great use of modern TV. We had 4 different directors and travel alterations. The stories and characters progress and it is more like an 8-episode movie.”
Bob Odenkirk and cast members of “Lucky Hank”, streaming on AMC+ on March 19th.
He also praised the dream cast and said, of his character, “He’s so different from Saul, who was a loner. There are people in the right relationships. You love your wife and then, if you’re married long enough, you hate them.” (This brought laughter and an admonition from the writers, “Bob! Your wife is in the audience.”) Odenkirk continued, “If it’s a great relationship, you find your way back and you don’t even know how.” He felt that Saul and Kim in “Better Call Saul” were loners, but “I liked the way this guy relates to other people.” Pointing out the fundamental differences between his Saul character and Hank he said, “It’s fun to do wildly different things. It’s one of the reasons I went into this business.”
THE BAD
For me, the bad is that I currently don’t have AMC+. In order to watch this wildly entertaining series, I am going to have to subscribe, which means that my spouse (of 55 years) is going to be gifted with a subscription to the series (which premieres on March 19th). Since his birthday is March 21st, thank you, Hank, for figuring out what to give the man who has everything. This looks like a totally enjoyable, witty, well-written and well-acted 8-episode series that will entertain mightily.
“Being Mary Tyler Moore” documentary screens at SXSW on March 13, 2023.
Director James Adolphus, who helmed the documentary “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” was asked about his exposure to Mary Tyler Moore before he undertook making this extraordinarily intimate two- hour film about her life.
He admitted that he had never watched any of her shows, that she was more a figure that his mother knew. (“I knew her from the lyric in the Weezer song.”) He then said, “It’s odd to make a film about someone you don’t know and to fall in love with someone after the fact. She felt like my cousin, my sister. She had to fight back against the patriarchy.”
The documentary is an attempt to reconcile the insecure woman who looked so proud and regal with the real woman inside who was not that way at all. It was an attempt to show the modest, humble person beneath the veneer. With the help of many clips from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” it more than succeeds.
One week after the 18-year-old MTM graduated from high school, she got a job portraying Happy Hotpoint in television ads. The problem was that the young Mary had married Richard Meeker in 1954, when she was eighteen. She soon turned up pregnant, giving birth to her only child, Richard, and losing herHotpoint job in the process.
Later in the film we learn that Moiore’s own mother would gve birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, only a few months after Richard’s birth, giving Mary a sister, as well as a brother, John, who was 7 years younger. There were references to Mary’s mother’s alcoholism, but Moore’s parents were married more than 50 years. Her mother eventually sobered up and even took on duties caring for the two youngsters, Elizabeth and Richard, who were so close in age.
Mary’s marriage to Meeker did not last. She would separate and then marry again almost immediately, in 1962, to Grant Tinker, to whom she would remain married for 18 years. Her career, in 1959, included a stint as Sexy Sam, the faceless voice on “Richard Diamond, Private Investigator.” When Mary asked for a raise from her $85 per episode salary, she was fired.
Director James Adolphus of “Being Mary Tyler Moore” on March 13, 2023 at SXSW. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
Enter Carl Reiner, a comic mentor who envisioned her as the character Laurie Petrie, the wife in a 1960 pilot dubbed “Head of the Family,” The show eventually morphed into “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” When David Susskind suggested, in a somewhat offensive interview, that women should not work, Mary said, “I could waste a lot more energy sitting around chatting with other gals all day.” She became exactly what the network was horrified by: a contemporary woman. She also insisted on wearing pants on television, which broke new ground. (As aformer junior high school teacher who insisted on wearing pants suits in 1969 at a time when they were banned by the school, I could relate.)
Throughout the documentary, we learn just how groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore would become. This was just the beginning. In interviews, Mary referred to the period as “An unenlightened time. I believe in figuring out a way to contribute.”
At the end of the 5-year run of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” Mary was a hot property who charmed men without antagonizing their wives. She had a comic flair that no less an expert than Lucille Ball recognized and applauded. She was offered a picture deal with Universal and—unusual for the time—had the right to refuse to do pictures that she did not think would benefit her image.However, in order to be given permission to star in a musical version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on Broadway, Mary would give up that right of refusal and, following the Broadway bomb the show became, would end up in films like “Change of Habit” (1969) opposite Elvis.
In 1968, when she was 32, a miscarriage led to her diagnosis as diabetic. With a blood sugar level of 700, she was fortunate to have been discovered to have the disease, which would end her life at the age of 80 in 2017. Friends credit her Dr. husband with extending her life at least ten years.
Broadway having bombed, CBS offered her her own show. Mary and Grant Tinker jumped at the chance. Tinker saw that forming their own company would be beneficial and Mary Tyler Moore Enterprises was born, with Tinker at the helm and Mary the major talent. At one point, the company had six shows on the air at once.
Meanwhile, Tinker hired Jim Brooks and Allan Burns to write the show, which would place Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis as a woman making it on her own at the age of thirty.I remember how groundbreaking it was for the goal to be not just to marry, but to be independent and live on one’s own. “That Girl” with Marlo Thomas had a similar single girl protagonist, but her main mission was to find a husband.
At this point, in real life Mary Tyler Moore had never been on her own, but had been married since she was 18 years old. The entire idea of society’s pushing young women into marriage was covered in 1979’s “Kramer versus Kramer,” where Meryl Streep articulated this “never been on my own” status all the way to 5 Oscars. As someone who lived it, I can vouch that the goal was to “have a ring on your finger” by the end of college, at the latest, a goal that did not appeal to my own working mother or to me. Like Mary Tyler Moore’s onscreen character Mary Richard, this was “ahead of the times.”
Mary Tyler Moore lived the fifties ideal of marriage after school and as soon as possible. She remained mired in marital bliss, marrying Tinker immediately after divorcing Meeker. She remained a married woman until she was 44 years old, when she and Tinker divorced (1980)and she moved to New York City. She remarried for a third time in 1982 to Dr. Robert Levine, 14 years her junior.
The show that Mary Tyler Moore launched, about an independent thirtyish woman making it on her own, was a risk. It was almost killed by a terrible time slot, until Fred Silverman took over CBS, axed a lot of comedies like “Green Acres’ and moved “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” into the best time slot on television. It was, as Rosie O’Donnell termed it, “Appointment TV.” Silverman placed her show on the same night as “All in the Family” and alongside Bob Newhart’s show on Saturday nights. The rest is history, as the talented cast garnered multiple awards and still has one of the best endings of any series sit-com on television, past or present.
Lena Waithe answers questions about “Being Mary Tyler Moore” onstage at the Zach Theater during SXSW 2023 on March 13, 2023.
Mary Tyler Moore won 7 Emmies, 3 Golden Globes, and earned an Oscar nomination (for “Ordinary People”). And, as the documentary terms it, “As Mary Tyle Moore goes, so goes the nation.” This meant welcoming the 1973 Supreme Court decision to allow women the right to decide whether or not to have an abortion.In 1980, immediately after her divorce from Tinker, Mary conquered Broadway with her performance replacing Tom Conti in the play “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?” Meanwhile, she described herself as “going through adolescence” in New York City, as she was said to be involved with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director of the play, and was socializing after years of marriage. However, she was drinking more than she should have been, and, as he noted, sometimes that could lead to belligerence. She would curb this possibly inherited tendency towards alcoholism by a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic.
In 1980, Mary Tyler Moore was nominated as Best Actress for her role as Beth in “Ordinary People” opposite Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. Director Robert Redford said he had always been fascinated by the possibility of a dark side to MTM, who might have been brittle inside with a pensiveness, anger, hurt, and confusion over such issues as her inability to connect meaningfully with her son Richard.
Also in 1980, Mary’s son Richard, then aged 24, would die of a gun shot wound. The documentary says he had a gun collection, was inherently clumsy, and it was an accident. Three weeks after his death, MTM would be nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress for her role in “Ordinary People.” She would also lose her younger sister, Elizabeth, to a drug overdose at the age of 21. Her younger brother John would die of kidney cancer.
Mary met Dr. Robert Levine, her third husband, when he cared for her ailing mother in 1982. The line in the documentary is that “She fell in love for the first time in her life.” Yet Grant Tinker’s children, who became her step-children, testify to the good years with Mary Tyler Moore as their step-mom. The 14-years-younger Levine would remain her husband till the end, caring for her in their bucolic Connecticut home. The couple was devoted to one another and Levine set the plans in motion to produce this documentary, despite turning down many earlier overtures.
The now 73-year-old Levine reached out to Lena Waithe (“Ready Player One,” “Master of None”) after reading an interview in “Vanity Fair,” in which she expressed an interest in doing a documentary about Mary Tyler Moore’s life.When asked about his decision to share his private film of Mary with Producer/Director/Writer Waite, Dr.Levine, an executive producer, said, to laughter, “To have a Black queer girl from the South side of Chicago want to tell her story. Are you kidding me?”
Dr. Levine was asked what surprised him after seeing the film. He responded, “I had never seen the bridal shower footage with Betty White and others. It was simple and natural. She talked about me making her a tuna fish sandwich in the middle of the night. Things like that had the most impact for her. It is the simple kindnesses that really have the most impact.The journey of her life was the journey of women in this country. As a human being, she felt the need to keep going forward. She was ahead of the times. I didn’t want a derivative feeling. A new voice coming forward (Lena Waithe) was interesting to me.”
Waithe added, “I wanted to give a real sense of how she was as a person.” The decision to use voice-over(s) rather than the talking head documentary approach was Waithe’s.
The documentary is long, at 2 hours, but it is very good. While an interview with Rona Barrett is over-used and David Susskind comes off poorly as an ultra-conservative fossil of the times in his onscreen interview, I would highly recommend this HBO documentary, funded by Fifth Season, if you are or were a fan of Mary Tyler Moore’s work. She helped raise over $2 billion for Juvenile Diabetes and gave so many other working women a model that remains groundbreaking.
Credits:
Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Documentary Spotlight) Distributor: HBO Production companies: HBO Documentary Films, Fifth Season, Hillman Grad, The Mission Entertainment, Good Trouble Studios Director: James Adolphus Producers: Ben Selkow, James Adolphus, Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, Debra Martin Chase, Andrew C. Coles, Laura Gardner Executive producers: S. Robert Levine, Michael Bernstein, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller Cinematography: James Adolphus Editor: Mariah Rehmet Archival Producer: Libby Kreutz Music: Theodosia Roussos 2 hour
Jesse Plemons (“Breaking Bad”) appeared onstage at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas at SXSW with his castmates (Lily Rabe and Elizabeth Olsen) after the March 11th premiere of the first two episodes of the David E. Kelly series “Love & Death.” The series was written by Kelly but directed by Texas-born Leslie Linka Glatter. Plemons was a shadow of his former self, showing off a remarkable weight loss post series.
Co-star in this drama about the Candace Montgomery murder of her lover’s wife that took place in 1980 was Elizabeth Olson. HBO will be broadcasting the 6-part series.
True credit for the story of an affair gone horribly wrong goes to Texas Monthly articles that the Texas-born director had read, as had Kelly, whose many television shows include “L.A. Law,” “The Practice,” “Doogie Howser,” “Allie McBeal,” “Picket Fences,” and “Chicago Hope.”
The film starts in September, 1978, and, as we were told in the Q&A following the showing of the first two episodes, the series will delve deeply into the town and its residents before covering the same ground that was covering in the 1990 film “Murder in a Small town” or the 2022 Jessica Biel starring vehicle “Candy.” Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs, a book examining the case and events following the trial, written by Dallas-based journalists John Bloom and Jim Atkinson, was published in January 1984. The HBO Max series will be released in April (2023).
Kelly, onstage after the screening, said, “If this story wasn’t true, you couldn’t make it up.” The creators commented on the lists of “dos” and “don’ts” that the couple make up prior to embarking on their sexual adventures. They are straight from the original lists the cheating lovers made up before embarking on their affair. Not to ruin the suspense of this story told so many times, but, although Candace Montgomery bludgeoned Betty Gore 41 times with a wood-hewing axe, she was found innocent on October 30, 1980, by a jury of 9 women and 3 men in McKinney, Texas.
Jesse Plemons in a still from the new series “Love & Death.”
The director said, “This is not a show about failing marriages. It’s about so much more.” “To be honest and have empathy, we didn’t want it to be just a true crime drama,” said the writer and director.
The interviewer from “Elle” magazine, asked, ”How could this happen?”
The answer, given by the director, was “Reality creeps up on our expectations. It’s really about how boredom and reality can creep into a long-time marriage.” Another cast member said, “We don’t play the ending (i.e., the murder). We play the moment.”
Jesse Plemons—in real life married to Kirsten Dunst and looking completely different onstage than he does in the film due to a huge weight loss— said, “They just wanted to be seen and heard. There is no hiding from what is true in yourself.” One scene that illustrates this is the one where Candace Montgomery attempts to snuggle with her spouse, saying that she knows that “Snugglepuss” was his favorite character. Her husband squirms free of Candy’s embrace and corrects her. “It’s Snagglepuss.”
Series director Leslie Linka Glatter (“Love & Death”).
I felt as though I had already seen multiple adaptations of this story, because I had. This one will cover ground already covered several times before. If you aren’t at all familiar with the crime, this one will be an in-depth examination. It may not have been re-examined and/or re-litigated as often as the JFK assassination, but the decade is young
I have not received Red Carpet placement for Opening Night since 2017, so I executed Plan B, planning to take myself over to the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar Boulevard to see “Confessions of a Good Samaritan.” This was a film about a woman who donated a kidney to a stranger. When I arrived, the film had begun, so I took myself to “Caterpillar,” instead.
This was a fascinating documentary about a new YouTube fad, changing one’s eye color, which is done, surgically, in India. It sounded very dicey, and, as it turns out, it is.
The documentary, written and directed by Liza Mandelup of the Parts & Labor film enterprise, followed the journey of Raymond David Taylor of Miami as he set off for India to have his brown eyes turned into a color described as “frost.”
It seems that there is a thriving cosmetic industry in Cairo, Mexico, Panama, and India and, of course, the recent deaths of two American citizens in Matamoros, Mexico, (we now know), was a trip for cosmetic surgery. A friend of mine flew to Costa Rica for dental work, so I’m surprised I had not heard of this latest vision fad, but I don’t spend much time watching videos on YouTube.
David had a very rough childhood, even getting kicked out of the house while young, at one point, and he (and most of the other patients) seem to think that “Changing me will change my outlook on life.” As David says, “If I feel sad one more day, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”
He doesn’t have the money for the surgery, but a well-written letter to BrightOcular explaining his desire for the implants brings an offer from them to come have the cosmetic procedure for free, if he will let the company use his story and his photos for advertising purposes.
We then meet others on this medically unregulated journey, including Izzy, a woman from New Delhi, a young man from Japan, a male underwear model and a beautiful girl from Jamaica, but the focus is on David, which filmmaker/writer Mandelop explained was her attempt to initially start out with three main characters and trace their journeys, with one emerging as central to the story.
She described this engrossing film journey into eye surgery this way: “I wanted to visually convey it. I wanted to do something that people wouldn’t think was cinematic, like eye surgery, but make it cinematic. It became an emotional journey. David allowed me to make the film that I was craving.”
In the course of the journey, we meet David’s mother, who also suffered a rough, abusive life, but tried her best as a young single mother to care for her children on wages of $2.35 an hour. David’s mother and David don’t agree on a lot of things. She is okay with David’s being gay, but she says, “I cannot deal with that if you start cutting parts of your body off and adding stuff.” She adds that she thought he was a great female impersonator. Mom’s point-of-view is, “You’re stubborn. You don’t listen.” She adds, “You’re never satisfied with the way you look.” Others in the film describe the cosmetic procedure as “a bandaid to the past.” Most of the others have selected jade green as the color their brown eyes will be after surgery.
Writer/Director Liza Mandelup, “Caterpillar.”
It is a big blow to David when they do three patients’ surgeries simultaneously and, in the process, he is given jade green eye color by mistake, rather than frost. This will mean another eye surgery to fix the error.
If you are thinking, “This can’t be safe,” you’re right. It is only about four months post-surgery after David undergoes the procedure that he describes it as “the worst mistake of my life” when headaches and visual problems begin. All of the prospective patients seem to want to transform to some ideal person they have created in their heads. When the subject of the film appeared before us in person, however, the audience got the feeling that the subject of “Caterpillar” has, in fact, bettered his life, moving back to Brooklyn and now working as an EMT. He explained his mother’s absence from the showing as his way of “avoiding drama.”
Director Liza Mandelup and Raymond David Taylor, subject of the SXSW documentary “Caterpillar”on Opening Night, March 10, 2023.
Some other patients, we learn, who did not heed the United States opthalmalogists’ warning about the damage the implants have done (or are doing) to their eyes ended up blind or partially blind. One former patient whom David tracks down after he begins encountering headaches and blurry vision said that he woke up after 5 years with blood on his cornea. “I had to remove them or go blind.”
The unfettered access to the surgery and the patients seems quite unusual. That is, until we learn that the leadership of BrightOcular is very circumspect. No one ever comes forward to represent BrightOcular or another entity called Spectra. These agencies exist and are offering this service and heavily advertising how it will “change your life” on social media, with beautiful pictures of patients like David. They are not as forthcoming about the negatives of the procedure. The Indian physician who says he, personally, would not undergo the procedure knows this is a very risky way to change one’s outlook on life and seems to convey that through his reticence to heartily endorse the procedure.
David bought into it with words like, “This is my new beginning. I’m changing,” or “Beauty matters. Beauty gets you through the door.
Musical selections like “Stand By Me” and “I Want to Dance With Somebody,” selected by Music Supervisor Melissa Chapman, merge with the early upbeat theme of positive change seamlessly and add much to the extremely well-done production.
Afterwards, the writer/director (Liza Mandelup) and David, the chief subject, answered questions about the inspiration for the film and its aftermath. Liza said she had been doing research on the apps that can change one’s appearance when she learned of this eye surgery. She sent the BrightOcular company an e-mail asking if she could do a documentary about the process. They were very positive in their response and never really surfaced as an entity. Their leadership remains a mystery.
She cautions that David was one of the few patients who listened to the warnings from U.S. eye doctors, post-surgery, and had his implants removed fairly quickly. Others have faced the need to have cornea transplants and some have gone blind because they refused to give up the implants over a period of years. One patient, asked what she would be content with in regards to improving her appearance, answered, “What am I content with? Just more.”
Among the best compliments of the terrific job the filmmaker did with this riveting documentary was a woman who stood up in the back during the Q&A and said, in heavily accented English, “You mean this was a documentary? I thought it was a movie!”
Isla Fisher at the premiere of “The Beach Bum” at SXSW. (Photo by Connie Wilson).
SXSW, 2023, starts tomorrow, March 10th.
I will be trying to cover as much ground as I can, while battling some issues involving my e-mail not working right.
I picked up my badge and had my cameras tagged yesterday, and I’m ready to roll tomorrow, with a TV premiere of “Swarm” from Donald Glover, who will be here in person, and an earlier documentary, “Confessions of A Good Samaritan,” which is about a girl donating a kidney to a stranger.
The opening night film with Chris Pine (“Dungeons & Dragons”) does not sound like my kind of movie, but I am looking forward to the documentaries about Mary Tyler Moore (“Being Mary Tyler Moore”), Michael J. Fox (“Still”), and 91-year-old Captain Kirk, William Shatner, entitled “You Can Call Me Bill.”
All kinds of celebrities have come streaming back to Austin for SXSW, including the First Gentleman (Doug Emhoff), Joe Jonas and celebrity wife, Riley Keough (granddaughter of Elvis), Jen Psaki (former White House Press Secretary under Biden), Chelsea Manning, Eva Longoria, Liev Schreiber and a host of others. If that isn’t a varied range of talent, I don’t know what is! Something for everyone.
Scott Rogowski, Host of H.Q. Trivia, “live” in Austin at SXSW. (Photo by Connie Wilson). There is now a documentary about H.Q. called “Glitch,” featuring Scott Rogowski.
Anthony Whyte, owner of The Movie Blog, where my reviews will also appear, is flying in late tomorrow. I look forward to meeting my New York City boss for the first time.
Meanwhile, I continue to fight against a cellulitis infection and a bum knee, so bear with me.
Enjoy the two old pictures from previous SXSW festivals. I have been reviewing the films and documentaries here since 2017, the year that Ryan Gosling and Natalie Portman came with “Sound by Sound.” During the pandemic, it was pretty much all via streaming, but SXSW is back with a vengeance.
Last year, I had the opportunity to see “To Leslie” here, with one of this year’s Academy Award nominees, Andrea Riseborough. I hope my viewing this year will be as excellent as that indie film, and check here and on The Movie Blog for daily updates.
“Knock at the Cabin” is M. Night Shymalan’s return to, if not stardom, at least respectability. Most of the fans who have reviewed the film have liked it. The critics? Not so much.
As a critic, I vote with the people. Cal me more Ebert than Siskel.
I liked it, although—let’s face it, folks—it is going to be very difficult for Shymalan to ever live up to the “twist” of “The Sixth Sense.” He has had 7 films in a row that have opened at Number One at the box office and, as another review said, “He’s the rare brand-name filmmaker who prefers to be a low-budget outsider.” Apparently, Shymalan has been financing his own movies ever since the one about the girl who lived in the swimming pool (Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron’s daughter) with Paul Giamatti self-destructed back in 2006 (“Lady in the Water”). That one was a bit of a stinker, true.
I applaud Shymalan’s realization that, in order to control the final product, he would need “final cut” and one way to get that is by securing your own financing. He seems to be continuing to make films post that swimming pool disaster, so I’m guessing it’s turned out to be personally profitable. Since this one only cost $20 million to make, it should turn a profit, which means more movies from M. Night Shymalan (and more cameo appearances, a la Alfred Hitchcock), as we briefly see him in the infomercial about air fryers on television.
Let’s recap, post his breakthrough and most memorable 1999 film (“The Sixth Sense”), which was the second highest-grossing horror movie of all time.
In his twenties, [Shyamalan] says, “I don’t think you could have told me that making thrillers for your whole life wasn’t a bad thing. At first it was a sense of, ‘Hey, I can make anything.’ But that’s hypocritical, because when I pick up an Agatha Christie novel in my library, I have a strong expectation. So, I get it … When I became happy with the idea of making thrillers for the rest of my life, everything went right.”[ This courtesy of Wikipedia.]
So, how thrilling is “Knock at the Cabin”? It held our interest, for sure.
The script, co-written by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond, and Michael Sherman (adapting Paul Tremblay’s book The Cabin at the End of the World), is a binary plot concept, not a twist. (Shymalan has abandoned the idea that every film he makes must have a “surprise” ending, even if audiences have not abandoned that expectation.)
For this one, you either have to accept the premise that the quartet of strangers who come upon little Wen (Kristen Cui) in the woods catching grasshoppers and putting them in a bug jar are truly psychic individuals, not unlike Richard Dreyfuss and troupe in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and have had a major league religious vision, or you don’t buy into that truth. The bugs seem(ed) symbolic, to me, of the soon-to-be-imprisoned family members.
My husband felt there were echoes of “10: Cloverfield Lane.” I’ve already mentioned the visions of the various folk in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Reviewer Nick Allen felt that Jordan Peele’s “Us” echoed throughout the film, a comparison that did not resonate for me. Another mentioned Shymalan’s fascination with the End of Times (“The Happening”) and suggested he avoid the topic in the future. (Ahem).
The quartet breaks into the cabin and tells the family there that they must kill one of their three family members to prevent the end of the world. The major evidence to support their theory seems to be televised segments showing the catastrophes the quartet has predicted. The Four Horsemen (Malice, Nurturing, Guidance, Healing, says the script. Wikipedia says sword, famine, plague and the wild beasts of the Earth, among other listings.) could have pre-taped this “proof,” which Daddy Andrew points out. With all the bad people in the world, does Andrew really care about saving all (or any) of them? He’s not religious (we learn this from the adoption scene), but Eric is, and we can see that plot point coming a mile away, especially after the script says “Trust in something more than yourself.” [The uber religious will relate to that.]
The acting is good, with Ben Aldridge playing Andrew and Jonathan Groff portraying Eric. Jonathan Groff was in “Frozen” and “Mindhunters” as well as a role onstage in “Hamilton.” I swear he had a recurring role in “GLOW,” but I cannot find his name among those credits, so please drop me a line if you remember him in “GLOW” (Great Ladies of Wrestling).
The pair in the cabin is a gay couple who have adopted 8-year-old (“8 in six days”) Wen from Asia. This fulfills the obligatory plot point a homosexual or lesbian relationship must at least be alluded to in present-day film(s). I was put off by the scene near the end when Wen is told to go sit in a treehouse and wear her headphones. She is then MIA from some pretty important developments, but it will take years of therapy to overcome what she has already witnessed. Seems like too little too late, plotwise, to rush her off to a leafy hideaway and tell her to tune out.
The four attackers are led by the gentle giant Leonard, played by Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The Glass Onion”). Leonard is a second grade teacher from Chicago and seems quite apologetic about the quartet’s need to bring pain and suffering to the family in the remote wooded cabin. The biggest “name” actor of the four is Rupert Grint as Redmond (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” of2001).
We soon learn that Redmond might have a grudge against Ben, in particular, and may have actually attacked him in a bar many years before, in a fairly traumatic encounter. Is this a delayed vendetta of some sort? There are two women in the group of Crazies-or-Are-They: one is Nikki Amuka-Bird as Sabrina, a post-operative nurse. The other is Abby Quinn as Adriane. While Sabrina is a post-op nurse, Adriane seems to be a bit of a lightweight, mentally; she worked as a fry cook.
The entire 100 minute plot hinges on whether or not the intruders can convince the small family that they must sacrifice one of their own to save the world.
I thought how timely this entire plot concept of Q-Anon crazies is in a world beset with misinformation where, as we know, one such deluded fellow actually swallowed whole the entire story of Hillary Clinton operating a child trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor. There are enough lunatics on the national scene, currently, to populate a large city, and we saw many of them on January 6th. The quartet is quite devoted to their cause, however, and use televised segments showing all of the horrible things that will occur if the family doesn’t capitulate. First, flood and earthquake. Then pestilence. Then planes falling out of the sky. Then fire. Later, we learn that the unifying device involved is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but please stop reading if you are unhappy that I have gone this far in discussing the plot. (I haven’t gone any further than the star of the film Dave Bautista has done in discussing the plot on national television, but I may from this point forward, so buckle up. Or don’t. Whatever. I’m going to discuss some plot concepts, and most of these plot points I have not seen discussed anywhere else.)
GAY THEME
I have seen various critics praise the idea of the family in the woods being gay saying, in effect, “Bring it on!” I have no argument with having the family be gay, bi-sexual, trans, lesbian or any other segment of the population. It seemed timely. While I applaud the culture for being accepting of any depiction of a loving family, I am more interested in the mechanics of trying to either accept or reject the binary plot points that will determine how this film plays out. It is overdue for minorities of various sorts to receive equal and fair treatment and opportunities; I wonder if the % of the plot occurrences will ever match the % of each minority in the nation as a whole?
SCRIPT
At one point, the script says, “There’s always a choice. Our choices make our destiny. Will you make a choice to save the world?” Psychology 101.
ONE WORD OF CAUTION
Why is acquiring a gun the salvation of the family? Does anyone other than me think we have way more guns (and gun owners) now than we need? Encouraging more people to go buy guns, if an unintended consequence of the film, was NOT the timely message I hoped for. However, once Daddy Andrew (Ben Aldridge) does get his hands on a gun, near the film’s climax, it makes no sense that he wouldn’t use it on Leonard. This didn’t really compute, for me, but, then, that is true of many points in many movies (as I’m sure you would agree.) I won’t hold that against Shymalan. Reminds me of the time my brother-in-law gave me a hard time in my first novel (“The Color of Evil”) because my psychotic killer clown escapes from a prison van while being transferred from one prison to another. Uncle Mark contended that massive amounts of security would have been on hand to transfer the dangerous criminal. Maybe he was right; maybe I was right. (I had addressedthe staffing issue.) A bit of suspension of belief and leeway is due the creative guru IMHO.
TIMELY MESSAGES
On the other hand, all of the catastrophes that the quartet foretold are very timely (and well illustrated). Tsunamis (check). Cities flooding. (Check) Deadly plague (Check. See Covid). Planes plunging to Earth. (Check). Fire (California Burning.) Crazy people ranting (Marjorie Taylor Green, Q-Anon, and half of the Republican party). Plus the entire lack of faith in faith in anything (government, religion, marriage, etc.) on a lot of people’s parts, which this film also capitalizes upon.
MUSIC
As any good Hitchcock fan knows, the music can make the moment. Hitchcock’s partnership with Bernard Herrmann or Damian Chazelle’s partnership with Justin Hurwitz or Jordan Peele’s collaborations with Michael Abels are examples. Here, the composer of the score is Herdis Stefansdottir. The Music Supervisor was Susan Jacobs. The film really benefits from the music.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Camerawork from Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer is excellent. You will note that the choice to pull away from acts of intentional violence inflicted by the attackers on themselves is made by Shymalan. I’m always reticent to watch explicit gore of the splatter or any other variety. You may feel differently. Your choice, but I liked Shymalan’s discretion here.
CONCLUSION
M. Night Shymalan lives on a 125 acre estate near Philadelphia. His fans, like Taylor Swift’s “Swifties,” are quite devoted. Therefore, he has complete creative control, has garnered Oscar nominations for some of his films, does a great job, and is laughing all the way to the bank. This is not to suggest that just making money is any kind of criteria for works of art, but this latest offering is both enjoyable, interesting, well-done, and profitable. Like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that’s a dynamite combination. I didn’t like it as much as 2016’s “Split,” but I do think it was a return to form (from “Old”) for Shymalan. Try it, if you’ve liked any of his previous films.
Bill Nighy is perhaps best-known to international audiences for his memorable performance as washed-up pop singer Billy Mack in Love Actually (2003), which won him a BAFTA for best supporting actor. He has also appeared in the “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” films and has won numerous acting awards in a long career that goes back to the 1970s.
This year, Bill Nighy has been nominated for Best Actor in his film “Living” and he will have to compete against newcomer Austin Bishop (“Elvis”), Irish actor Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inishirin”), Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”), and Paul Mescal in “Aftersun.”
“Living” is a loose adaptation/remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” (aka “To Live“), a post-World War II drama about a Tokyo bureaucrat who goes on a similar journey after a terminal diagnosis of gastric cancer. Here, the Japanese setting has been traded for fifties London and Bill Nighy as Mr. Williams is the head of one of the many departments and bureaucracies that governments form. So often, the workers in such bureaucracies, become bogged down in it all. The screenplay’s term is “the sheer grind of it all.” The screenplay here was written by Kazuo Ishigero, based on the original Ikira Kurosawa work “Ikiru,” and is also nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Nighy has been giving us convincing portraits of men whose chief desire (as with Mr. Williams) was to “be a gentleman” for years, but he also has run the gamut from zombies to alcoholic singers. It is perhaps ironic that Nighy in this role has been dubbed “Mr. Zombie” by the only female staffer, Aimee Lou Wood as Margaret, because he has, in fact, often been cast as a zombie.
In this particular film, however, it is the shock of his terminal diagnosis that reveals to the aging bureaucrat just how he has lost the joy of living. You just know that, in the time that he has left, he will attempt to regain his lust for life. As he says, “I remember what it was like to be alive like that.” As Miss Harris (Margaret, portrayed by Aimee Lou Wood) describes zombies, “they’re sort of dead, but not dead.” Margaret has quite a few nick names for her co-workers, including, “the hoverer” and “the confused chimney,” most of which have to do with the shuffling of papers by her co-workers, without any real progress.
Stacks of paperwork in each employee’s in/out basket show that they are busy, but what they seem to be busiest doing is giving regular Londoners the run-around—especially a group of neighborhood women who are dead set on getting a new playground. Alex Sharp as new employee Mr. Wakeling is ultimately someone who absorbs the life lesson that Williams, in his final weeks, attempts to share. He begins trying to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The boss who will succeed Mr. Williams, however, Mr Middleton (Adrian Rawlins) remains set in cement and, while talking a good game about progress, completely misses the point of the lesson that Mr. Williams’ last few months of life were meant to illuminate.
Another theme handled very delicately deals with the difficulty of a parent in communicating with the younger generation. When Williams learns of his approaching death, he wants to confide in his son, Michael (Barney Fishwick). He even practices what he will say in the hall mirror. Still, he cannot breach the gulf between them; Michael is just as tongue-tied and helpless at really communicating with his father, as Michael’s wife browbeats him about talking to his dad concerning Nigh’s platonic friendship with Aimee Lou Wood as Margaret Harris. In the fifties setting, an old man befriending a much younger colleague who is female is simply not done. Everyone assumes the worst, and the son and daughter-in-law want to put a halt to gossip. The film very accurately reflects how times have changed since the fifties in society. Nighy, at 73, certainly has the necessarily lengthy career to have seen these changes.
The film, directed by Oliver Hermanus, is elegantly old-fashioned. I mean that in all the best ways. The score, by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch swells with the full orchestration of olden days in this 1 hour and 42 minute movie. The cinematography by Jamie Ramsay is spot-on and all of the supporting players are excellent in their parts. It should be noted that the script is also Oscar nominated as Best Adapted Screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro. There’s a definite feeling of a beginning, a middle, and an end and we even get a life lesson that we all should take to heart. To me, the other film that seems old-fashioned in this good way is “A Man Called Otto” with Tom Hanks. I don’t agree that there is a “merging” of films like “A Fistful of Dollars,” derived from their Japanese source.
I found it interesting reading that Ishiguro had wanted to script a remake of the Akira Kurosawa film for years and was only able to pitch it to Bill Nighy (whom he always viewed as the actor best suited to play the role of Mr. Williams) when he and his wife ended up sharing a cab with Nighy after a party. Nighy had never seen “Ikiru,” but once he watched it, he enthusiastically signed on to the project. He now approaches the pinnacle of an acting career—a possible Oscar win.
The front-runner to win the Oscar for Best Actor is “The Whale’s” Brendan Fraser. The five-minute ovation at Cannes and his come-back story, not to mention his superb acting, will be hard to beat, but the confined sets for “The Whale” and the depressing subject matter might give other veteran actors a chance. Colin Farrell, for instance, has also gone many years without a vehicle worthy of his talent. Only “Elvis’” Austin Bishop is a break-through performance. Which of the three veteran nominees—-Nighy, Farrell, or Fraser—is likely to take home the statuette in March? We’ll all have to watch to find out. (And, of course, to make sure that nobody gets clocked unnecessarily during the broadcast.) The fifth and final nominee, Paul Mescal in “Aftersun,” barely has a shot.
Here’s an interesting quote from Bill Nighy about awards, in general, uttered in 2007 when the Golden Globes honored him: “I used to think that prizes were demeaning and divisive until I got one, and now they seem sort of meaningful and real.”
Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Stephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Colin Farrell on the Red Carpet at the 50th Chicago Film Festival.
Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Brian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”
Judd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”
Barry Keoghan, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Actor in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett
Austin Butler, “Elvis”
Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”
Paul Mescal, “Aftersun”
Bill Nighy, “Living”
Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett, “Tár”
Ana de Armas, “Blonde”
Andrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”
Michelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”
Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Best Director
Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Steven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”
Todd Field, “Tár”
Ruben Ostlund, “Triangle of Sadness”
In the “Best Picture” category, I have seen 7 of 10. By the time of the March 7th broadcast, I will have seen 8, minimum. It is always difficult to see all of the films if you don’t live in a major metropolitan area. It is especially difficult if the film is an international offering and has poor distribution. No predictions or comments until I complete my viewing of the nominated films prior to the March 7th awards ceremony.
Actress in a Supporting Role – I’ve seen all of these nominated performances. I did not enjoy the “Everything, Everywhere All At Once” film, so I’m not blown away by the nomination of 2 actresses from that film. I did appreciate the film more after reading that, basically, a very few people put this film together. I do acknowledge that the lead role would be quite demanding. I will make some predictions closer to March 7th.
Actor in a Supporting Role: I’ve seen all of these performances. My initial thoughts on the nominees here is that Judd Hirsch, although good in his role in “The Fabelmanns,” is barely in the film. “The Causeway” film was underwhelming (a Jennifer Lawrence indie film) although Brian Tyree Henry was good in a small film. I can see where Hirsch might get the vote for his long career, but, for me, Brendan Gleeson was the best of these 5.
Actor in a Leading Role: I’ve only seen 3 of the 5 nominees. This was partially because two of the films did not have as wide a release, and partially because of my own health issues. I still need to see Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy before commenting. With the three I have seen, I am torn. I appreciate the acting tour de force that Brendan Fraser gave us in an overall depressing film that was almost like a stage play in having taken place on one set. I’ve watched “Elvis” three times, but I have always felt that Colin Farrell deserved more recognition for his work and Austin Butler is a newcomer. I met Colin Farrell in Chicago at the premiere of the Liv Ullman-directed film “Miss Julie.”
Actress in a Leading Role: I’ve seen all of the nominees. I actually like Andrea Riseborough’s performance in “To Leslie” the best of these nominees. She was great opposite Marc Maron! I am puzzled as to why the lead in “Till” didn’t make the cut. One also wonders about the Jennifer Lawrence role in “Causeway” and the diss of Viola Davis in “The Woman King.”
Best Director: I’ve seen all the nominees except “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Ostlund. I’m a longtime fan of Martin McDonagh (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and “In Bruges”). Everyone is a longtime fan of Steven Spielberg, which may work against him, since he has won previously. “Tar” was a great performance from Cate Blanchett, but it was not a great movie for the audience. Likewise, unless “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” begins a sweep—which will happen without me being onboard—I would vote for either McDonagh or Spielberg.
More predictions and commentary to come. These, for me, are the Big Categories, and, of nominess, I’ve seen 28 of 35 of the Big Ones. While this is only 80%, I had the kind of 2022 that makes it amazing I saw that many!
Jesse Plemons (“Breaking Bad”) appeared onstage at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas at SXSW with his castmates (Lily Rabe and Elizabeth Olsen) after the March 11th premiere of the first two episodes of the David E. Kelly series “Love & Death.” The series was written by Kelly but directed by Texas-born Leslie Linka Glatter. Plemons was a shadow of his former self, showing off a remarkable weight loss post series.
She described this engrossing film journey into eye surgery this way: “I wanted to visually convey it. I wanted to do something that people wouldn’t think was cinematic, like eye surgery, but make it cinematic. It became an emotional journey. David allowed me to make the film that I was craving.”
