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!
Rock musician Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band took the stage at the Civic Center in Moline, Illinois on Saturday night, August 26th, 2017, for the second show on his just-launched tour (Tulsa was first).
The clip above shows off more of the band, in general, but the entire show was jam-packed with hits, from “Against the Wind,” “Rock & Roll Music,” “Like A Rock,” “Why Don’t You Stay?” to “Hollywood Nights.”
It was a predominantly middle-aged crowd that turned out to see and hear the rocker from Detroit and the place was as crowded as I’ve ever seen it. The downtown parking ramps were all full and we had to walk about a mile to even find a place to park.
It was a great show and very poignant when Seger sang the lyrics, “I’m older now, but still running against the wind.”
“Wind River” opens with a young Indian girl running barefoot across snow with a mountainous landscape in the background. We soon learn that the mountains are (supposedly) in Wyoming on the Wind River Indian Reservation, a reservation established for the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes in western Wyoming. The entrance to the Wind River Reservation is the small town of Lander. We do see a town sign for Lander early on, but all the mountains used in the beautiful cinematography are really in Utah.
Ultimately, the young Indian girl running for her life dies of pulmonary hemorrhage from the sub-zero cold. Her body is discovered by Corey Lambert, a Fish and Wildlife employee whose job, as he tells FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) called in to consult is, “I hunt predators.” Corey was stalking mountain lions when he came upon the young victim’s body, Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Asbille).
The pretty blonde FBI agent (Elizabeth Olson) responds, “So why don’t you come and hunt one for me, then.” The Florida-born, Las Vegas-based agent is out of her league and she knows it. She doesn’t even seem to own boots or mittens, so the locals have to help her out
Corey not only knows the territory well, he also has a backstory (doesn’t the hero always have a backstory?) about losing his own teen-aged daughter three years prior. His young teen-aged daughter Emily also happened to be the best friend of the just-discovered dead girl, Natalie Hanson.
The best male actor comparison for Jeremy Renner’s portrayal of the anguished bounty hunter is that his role is a throwback to the roles played by strong silent types, like Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda and young Clint Eastwood. Renner has been justifiably praised for his performance here with critics saying it’s his best work since “The Hurt Locker.”
The cinematography is gorgeous, if brutal, and one of the leads seems well cast. The barren wintery landscape is the biggest cast member. Sheridan also gets in some digs about injustices done Native Americans, including the factoid at film’s end that no statistics are compiled for missing Indian women. Here’s an example of the sentiments Sheridan has scripted, spoken by the Indian girl’s brother to the cops, who say they only want to help: “Why is it that it starts with you white people trying to help.” He implies that it always goes bad after that and, judging from history, he’s not wrong.
Sheridan initially had his heart set on Renner for the part, but Renner’s role in “Awakening” caused him to be unavailable at first, so Chris Pine was set to play the role, but “Wonder Woman” duties forced him out. Then, Renner’s schedule opened up and allowed Sheridan to continue with this frontier film, after scripting—but not directing— both “Hell and High Water” and “Sicario”—casting his first choice as the main character. The credits throw in the fact that it is “from the producer of “Lone Survivor.”
This, however, is Sheridan’s first time directing one of his own scripts. He and his cast perform competently, although the current trend of leaving numerous unanswered questions means we are still wondering what-the-hell happened to Renner’s own daughter 3 years back. We are equally mystified by the question of relationships by film’s end (Is Renner still in love with his divorced Indian wife, Julia Jones as Wilma? Is Renner attracted to Olsen’s FBI agent? What? Open-ended themes are all the rage these days, so those are a couple of unresolved issues you’ll have to mull on your own after the film ends.) Ben Richardson’s beautiful cinematography is enhanced by the score composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Filmgoers at Cannes gave the film an 8 minute standing ovation, while the Sun Dance people also liked it a lot. (Sheridan didn’t tell the studio he was entering the film at Sun Dance, but it turned out well.)
The denouement where we find out how the beautiful Indian girl (Natalie is played by Kelsey Asbille) ended up dead features Jon Bernthal (“The Walking Dead”) as her boyfriend. He is only in the film for about twenty minutes. The “let’s have everybody shoot everybody else” finale has been done-to-death in this year’s “Free Fire” and various Tarantino films. I had hoped for more—maybe even a well-scripted plot twist.
Elizabeth Olson, playing the FBI agent, seems way too pretty and fragile—which supports her insecurities in her job but makes you long for a Frances McDormand of “Fargo,” the movie, or an Allison Tolman of “Fargo,” the TV show (Season #1) to really make the part believable. Renner, for me, fit the bill, especially when surrounded by excellent Native American actors, like Graham Greene’s Ben (*NOT the long-dead British novelist, but the actor who appeared in “The Green Mile” and “Dances with Wolves.”)
The movie plays like “Jeremiah Johnson” meets Melissa Leo’s 2008 drug-smuggling-in-Canada film “Frozen River” amidst the modernized-to-the-present-day landscape of DeCaprio’s “The Revenant.” The acting by Renner and the plot, itself, are throwbacks to the seventies, something I couldn’t be happier about. I’ll enjoy watching for Taylor Sheridan’s next film. This one opens wide on August 4th.
Genre: Western murder mystery thriller
Length: 111 minutes
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Stars: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olson, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal
There are diseases that become forever associated with a famous victim. Michael J. Fox is active with research for Parkinson’s Disease. Mary Tyler Moore was a lifelong diabetic. Jerry Lewis, although not a victim of the disease, will always be associated with the marathon television fundraisers he organized and helmed for Muscular Dystrophy. One particularly insidious disease had, as its most famous victim, Mr. Cool, himself – a man who once said, “You only go around once in life, and I’m going to grab a handful of it.” And, boy, did he ever!
This famous actor once was at the top of Charles Manson’s “hit list.” It was by sheer luck that this A-lister was not present the night Manson’s minions struck and killed Roman Polanski’s pregnant actress wife, Sharon Tate, and her entourage at her Los Angeles home. (After learning his name was on a Manson “hit list,” the star began carrying a gun.) His last words were said to be, “I did it,” although other reports say he died in his sleep under an assumed name (Sam Shepherd) at a Juarez, Mexico clinic. This mega-star died of mesothelioma – a cancer affecting the lining of the organs, such as the lungs, heart and/or abdomen.
Who was he? More about that in a moment.
Mesothelioma is a disease that kills between 2,000 and 3,000 people annually, and an estimated 43,000 people around the world die from the disease each year. You can be exposed to the asbestos, which is a known cause of the illness, and not show any symptoms for decades due to the disease’s long latency period. It is particularly difficult to catch early, because the symptoms mimic so many others. To wit: 1) Shortness of breath, wheezing or hoarseness 2) A persistent cough that worsens 3) Blood coughed up from the lungs 4) Pain or tightness in the chest 5) Difficulty swallowing 6) Swelling of the neck or face 7) Loss of appetite 8) Weight loss 9) Fatigue or anemia
Those symptoms mimic many other diseases, and victims often do not seek help until their illness is too far advanced for effective treatment. Even cases that are caught early have a grim prognosis.
One other famous face of mesothelioma was musician Warren Zevon, who wrote “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” In a “Tonight Show” program devoted solely to Zevon and his music, talk show host David Letterman paid tribute to the “Werewolves of London” tunesmith. Zevon advised, known to be terminal with mesothelioma at the time of the taping, advised others “enjoy every sandwich.” (These taped appearances can still be found on YouTube and are deeply moving; Zevon worked right up until his death, compiling a memorable final album which featured many guest artists.)
The famous face of mesothelioma mentioned in paragraph two has been named one of the Top Thirty Movie Stars of All Time on various polls. His work has been cited as an influence on actors working today, like Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell. He once said, “I live for myself, and I answer to nobody.” That maverick anti-establishment attitude informed his work and his life—and made it more difficult to get him to consult a doctor when he first noticed a persistent cough in 1978. Although he gave up his cigarette habit and underwent antibiotic treatments, he did not improve.
Finally, after filming one of his final films, “The Hunter,” Steve McQueen had a chest X-ray and a biopsy. The biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive and rare cancer directly caused by exposure to asbestos. The most likely explanation for why McQueen contracted the disease is also in keeping with his rogue image: he was a Marine at one point early in life and was sent to the brig for not reporting for duty, but being absent without leave (AWOL) to spend time with a woman. Part of McQueen’s punishment was to remove asbestos from pipes aboard a troop ship.
McQueen also speculated that Hollywood’s love affair with asbestos, which was used on movie sets to create fake snow from 1930 to 1950, might have exposed him to the deadly carcinogen. The use of asbestos occurred in movies as famous as the Bond film “Goldfinger” and “It’s A Wonderful Life” (although not used in that Jimmy Stewart picture as snow, because a substance known as foamite had been invented for that purpose in 1946). Asbestos was used to decorate other parts of the “It’s A Wonderful Life” set and it was used in the CBS Network facilities building for years, where another veteran character actor, Ed Lauter (“The Longest Yard,” “The Family Plot”), worked for many years. He died of the disease in 2013 at the age of 75, only five months after his diagnosis. In 1942, when Bing Crosby sang “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” in the film “Holiday Inn,” the snow falling was actually asbestos, and 1939’s “Wizard of Oz” relied on asbestos for the poppy field scene. Stunt men who wore flame retardant suits in films were exposed to asbestos (McQueen did many of his stunts himself and “Towering Inferno” was one of his biggest films) The suits that race car drivers often wore contained asbestos in the early days; McQueen was a well-known racing enthusiast of both fast cars and motorcycles.
Steve McQueen’s efforts to find treatment led him to Mexico to undergo questionable treatments by a man (William Donald Kelley) who promoted a version of the Gerson therapy. It used coffee enemas, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cattle and sheep, massages, frequent washing with shampoos, and laetrile, which is derived from apricot pits. Nothing worked. McQueen paid upwards of $40,000 a month ($116,000 in today’s dollars) for the treatments over three months in Mexico. (Kelley’s medical license was revoked in 1976).
Against his U.S. doctor’s advice (U.S. doctors said his heart was too weak), Steve McQueen underwent surgery to remove huge tumors that had, by that time, spread to his liver, neck and abdomen.[The liver tumor, alone, allegedly weighed five pounds] McQueen died of cardiac arrest at 3:45 a.m., twelve hours after surgery on November 7, 1980, at age 50. The El Paso Times said he died in his sleep. He was cremated and his ashes were spread over the Pacific Ocean.
Meanwhile, the asbestos that took Steve McQueen’s life at age 50, almost 40 years ago, is still legal in the United States. First responders to the 9/11 attack in New York City on September 11, 2001, survivors present in the city and those involved in cleanup at the site were exposed to asbestos, as it was used in the construction of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Hundreds of tons of asbestos was released into the atmosphere as a result of the airplane attacks. My own nephew, an architect, was in charge of plans by an architecture firm to remove asbestos from schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that took place within the last five years.
Organizations like the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance work year-round to educate people about the dangers of asbestos. Steve McQueen’s death was only one of thousands that year, but people are still being exposed to the mineral today and thousands will be diagnosed this year.
Maybe it’s time to step up and make asbestos illegal in the United States?
“It Comes At Night” Writer/Director Trey Edward Shults Talks About His New Film
Genre: Horror/thriller/mystery
Length: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Writer/Director: Trey Edward Shults
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Griffin Robert Faulkner, David Pendleton, Mikey the dog
Reviewer: Connie Wilson
Following the absolutely gut-wrenching preview showing of the film “It Comes At Night” in Chicago on Thursday, June 1st, writer/director Trey Edward Shults talked about how this, his second feature film, came to be. (the movie opens wide on June 9th).
At 18, Trey became an intern on a Terrence Malick shoot in Hawaii for the volcano scenes in “Tree of Life.” He was rooming with the film loader, who taught him how to load film inside a changing bag for Imax films. They were helicoptered to the volcano site and filmed lava erupting from the volcano.
Something caused the second unit film loader to be unavailable and Trey stepped in, with lava oozing down the sides of the volcano in the rain and the cinematographer yelling, “We need another mag!” After that, Trey quit college at 19 and, in addition to interning in Austin with Malick, was employed on a Jeff Nichols movie.
Shults spent this time studying movies constantly, making shorts, and trying to find his voice as a filmmaker. He says he has never worked on “a traditional film set” and is open to collaborating with actors. “Krishna,” which was Shults’ first feature-length film, premiered at SXSW in 2015, featured his family members, and earned him a 2-film deal with A24. It is a movie about family and, as he said in Chicago, “I knew I had to quit making movies that starred only my family members.” (Laughter).
So “It Comes At Night,” film number two, was born, after Shults had captured the John Cassavetes Award (2016), the Independent Spirit Awards Breakthrough Director Award , the Gotham Award (2016) and earned reviews that praised “Krishna” as “unforgettable,” “original” and “a ferociously impressive film debut.”
In this, Shults’ second full-length feature film, Joel Edgerton (“Loving,” “Midnight Special”), who plays Paul in the picture and also was an executive producer, helped with assembling the top-notch cast: Carmen Ejogo of “Selma;” Riley Keough (Elvis’ granddaughter who was in “The Girlfriend Experience” and “American Honey”) as Kim; Christopher Abbott (“James White”) as Will and new-comer Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis, through whose eyes the story is told. Said Shults, “I’m very blessed, because they are all very talented and amazing people. I went through the Hollywood bullshit casting. You fly to London and meet with someone and they say, ‘Oh! I’d love to be in your movie!’ and you fly home and then they say they have committed somewhere else.” Stelts shrugs and says that the role of Travis was cast during a Skype session with Kelvin Harrison, Jr. of New Orleans, who was 22 at the time, while Shults was 27. Kelvin is the person through whose eyes we experience the film. (When asked for his favorite scene in an interview, Harrison said he enjoyed the grim, gory sequence where Riley Keough straddles him in bed and oozes thick blood into his mouth. He also identified one of his favorite movies as the 1959 film “Imitation of Life,” about a light-skinned black girl passing for white).
The personal elements of the film came from Trey’s watching his father (from whom he had been estranged) slowly die a grim death from pancreatic cancer. As someone who nursed her father through terminal liver cancer in a town too small to have much of a hospice program, I could definitely relate. In sharing that commonality, I earned a hug from the director, who is the product of various strong female role models, including his actress aunt Trisha Fairchild, who starred in “Krisha.” Family is important to Trey and that line about trusting family first is used in the film’s dialogue.
The long, slow fade to black of his father’s death made a deep and indelible impression on the young filmmaker. He says, “I started writing and it started spewing out of me. For the people who dig it, that’s cool. It’s not about the disease; it’s about what the disease does to people.” He mentions genocide and paranoia and the struggle to survive, turned to maximum volume.
Set in a remote cabin in the woods, the survivors of an unnamed disease are trying to survive, using gas masks and barricading themselves from what is out there that might infect them or kill them. We never know exactly what that might be, but gas masks are used throughout, as are kerosene lanterns and natural light (much like Terrence Malick’s films and their emphasis on natural light.) The film’s tone is reminiscent of early Carpenter or “Night of the Living Dead.”
Dream Sequences: Q: You’re never really sure it is really a dream or reality. Is that intentional?
A: “Yes. The way we shot it was deliberate, from 240 to 275 to 30. The score is also subtly different and, at the end of the movie, the aspect ratio slowly changes and the reality/dream music is interwoven; we shot 3.0 for the rest of the film. The goal with the nightmares was a path into Travis and how he’s thinking and how he’s processing these things. (“Totally,” is usually Trey’s favorite one-word response.)
Q: What about the stupidness of horror movies, in general? What did you think was stupid in that way in your film, if anything?
A: Travis running into the woods after Stanley (the dog) is probably the stupidest thing. (He adds that he would probably have done it, too).
Q: What about the title?
A: A title hits you and then it sticks with you. At night is when my brain is most active. It’s a little gateway into how I think. (Laughs) I had this nightmare where I had cancer, but it was just in my finger, but I was gonna’ die. The title “It Comes At Night” is not literal. It is metaphorical. It’s intentional. The purpose was to put you in the headspace of the characters.”
As Trey says, “The entire theme is pretty minimal. Less is more,” he says, quoting Mies van der Rohe.“I really wanted to make the most of this toned-down setting. There isn’t an ounce of fat on this movie.” Shults mentions some of his Obsessive/compulsive tendencies (wrestling, when in high school, until a shoulder injury ruined that career) and says, “I mixed the gunshot sounds over and over and over.” Shults also said, “We didn’t do night lighting. You go in the woods with a flashlight or in your house and it’s dark and it’s totally terrifying. We wanted economical storytelling. It’s a low-budget film (shot in 5 weeks in one setting.) There is no hidden material.”
Shults tells the story of attending a screening of “There Will Be Blood” with his mother and how it influenced him, as have such diverse films as “Boogie Nights,” “Night of the Living Dead,” “The Shining,” and “The Thing.” For all of his admiration for such classic horror films, Shults says “It Comes At Night” is not a genre film.
“The movie is about the unknown and the fear of the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown.” He tells the story of his cousin who, having been drug addicted but clean for years, came to a family reunion but relapsed while at the reunion (and later died). These brushes with death early in his life—whether a parent or a cousin—obviously have informed the young filmmaker’s work. His apprenticeships with Terrence Malick inform the first 45 to 50 minutes of the film, when the cinematography goes from cameras to dollies to zoom shots.
Some will not like the ending, because the film leaves us with questions.
Shults says, “I like questions. I know that’s what I love. I love the kind of movies where you think about them later and wonder about things. If this turns out to be one of those movies that stays with you afterwards, that’s cool.” (“Totally.”)
Obit: The Obituary Writers at the New York Times Discuss Their Craft
Genre: Documentary Director: Vanessa Gould Length: 95 minutes Actors: Bruce Weber, William McDonald, Margalit Fox, Paul Vilella, Douglas Martin, Jeff Roth Cinematographer: Ben Wolf Original score: Joel Goodman Reviewer: Connie Wilson
Once, 30 people helped maintain the basement archives of 10,000 drawers in the basement of the New York Times offices, drawers stuffed with obituary clippings that documented the lives of the rich and famous. Now that staff is down to one. Say the few obituary writers at the New York Times who are left, “You can count on one hand the number of obituary writers left on staff.”
Why have old newspaper clippings in the day of the Internet? “We like to keep the paper copy because we don’t know if the online sources are going to work.”
This surprisingly light-hearted, entertaining and engrossing documentary doesn’t just interview writers. There are many film clips of the famous, such as the September 26, 1960 JFK/Nixon debate held in Chicago. The first of four televised debates, it was estimated that 70 million people tuned in; it is still considered the turning point in making the photogenic John Fitzgerald Kennedy a media darling who would go on to win the Presidency, beating Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard M. Nixon, who showed up looking haggard, sweaty and unshaven.
The obituary this day was that of the first television media consultant (William P. Wilson, 86) who insisted on the single support podium and ran 2 blocks to purchase powder puffs and make-up for JFK, while Nixon eschewed any cosmetics and his image suffered afterwards as a result. Naturally, I perked up my ears at the news that his surname was “Wilson” and I found his savvy recognition of the fact that the far trimmer and fitter-looking Kennedy would photograph well on television with his perfectly-fitted suit, while Nixon (who had been ill) looked pallid, sweaty and nervous, was the beginning of that entire field of television on-air consultants. There were also stories of last-of-their-kind individuals like Manson Whitlock, who repaired typewriters until his death. When asked about “prepared ahead” obituaries, the writers said that, generally, if a person was in their prime and relatively young, no advance obituary existed. That’s what made writing up the deaths of individuals like Prince, Michael Jackson, Carrie Fisher, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams so daunting. Who does the NY Times have on file now? “Stephen Sondheim, Meadowbrook Lemmon of the Harlem Globetrotters, Mort Sahl and Jane Fonda—although we hope we don’t have to use them any time soon.” Say the few mostly male and mature obituary writer, “You’re always wrestling with a way to fold the facts in, if we can. We don’t want to stop the narration. We’re trying to weave a historical story and entice the reader. It’s a one-time chance and you can’t do it again.”
Bruce Weber, featured prominently in the documentary, gave some of the essentials of a good obituary. First, following the unfortunate announcement that a Russian ballerina had died (when she is still alive and well today), the death must be confirmed by a reputable source—possibly a family member, the police or the hospital. Says Weber, “I had to call all the Wallaces in Champaign-Urbana when (writer) David Foster Wallace died.” Second: avoid flowery sentimental language. “No Hallmark card language to give the obituary an emotional cast.” Douglas Martin, originally from Clear Lake, Iowa, read aloud from his great grandmother’s obituary that appeared in the Clear Lake Mirror and violated that rule to the max. No euphemisms for dying are to be used, like “shuffled off this mortal coil” or “passed away.” Third: always provide the cause of death. It has long puzzled me why obituaries tip-toe around the cause of death, often not mentioning it at all. Weber confirms that readers want to know what killed the person, especially if the individual was young.
Fourth: get it right! Weber tells the camera that he regrets a small error in an obituary (of William P. Wilson, 86) that ran that day. He had identified William Wilson’s grandfather as a Democratic Congressman from Illinois; the family has reported that Granddad was Republican. “That was such a small thing. I could have simply left out his political affiliation and it would still have been good. I regret that.”
The length? Depends on the fame of the subject. Obituaries can run 500, 800 or 900 words, but it is the more important celebrity types that garner the greatest space. Also mentioned was the pressure of getting the obituary into print on time if the celebrity—-as with Michael Jackson—dies unexpectedly, has a large body of work, and dies in the afternoon. MJ was declared dead late in the day, around 3 p.m., and that made it difficult to get it written well by 8 p.m. when the paper went to press at 9 p.m. (“We had to really scramble.”) Philip Seymour Hoffman, by contrast, was found dead early on a Sunday morning, which helped the work pace of the writers. However, in this Internet age, “the competitive pressures of journalism have increased exponentially.”
This film is an amazing piece of documentary work. The pacing was great and the quick flashes of celebrities as varied as David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Carrie Fisher and Prince—flickering by in quick, well-edited cuts—was a good way to spice up an otherwise potentially dry, boring topic. What sorts of unusual stories have been written by these obituary writers? There was the obit of Svetlana Stalin (daughter of the U.S.S.R.’s Josef Stalin), who defected to the U.S. and died in Topeka, Kansas. The inventors of the Slinky and the television remote were profiled. There was the sole survivor of the landmark court case Brown Vs. the Board of Education decision, an African American woman educator. Jack Albert Kenzler who averted the scrubbing of a space mission with his inventive tinkering and died at age 74, was newsworthy. The pilot of the Enola Gay who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Manson Whitlock, who repaired typewriters all his life and died in 2014, among the last of that dying breed.
Margalit Fox noted, “Obituaries are inherently retrospective things. It used to be that the only people allowed to be players on the world stage were overwhelmingly white men, but that is changing.” The obituaries point out the changing technology (from typewriters to computers), the advances of women and minorities, and the creation of brand new jobs in this sophisticated age, such as the television media consultant William P. Wilson, shown in a film clip onstage at the Kennedy/Nixon debate scene. Each person mentioned earned a film clip or photo of them during life, many of them very amusing and all of them interesting. Doesn’t writing about death every day become dreary and depressing? “No,” says Bruce Weber. “We want to know, ‘How did people get to be the way they are? How did the world get to be the way it is?….We’re trying to write an entertaining piece about history for those who may not know that history. Art also makes you a permanent piece of people’s history. A lot of people my age (Weber is 57) begin to think of their mortality. Seeing the full circle, the full arc. Am I accomplishing anything? Did I leave a mark? The appreciation of the universality of dying intrudes. There’s nothing you can do about dying.”
Director: Jonathan Levine Writer: Katie Dippold Stars: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Christopher Meloni Length: 1 hour 30 minutes Reviewer: Connie Wilson
“Snatched” is a film about a mother/daughter vacationing pair who are kidnapped while on the daughter’s non-refundable vacation (“Let’s put the FUN back in non-refundable!” says Amy in trying to convince Goldie to accompany her).
Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) has been dumped by her boyfriend (Randall Park as Michael) in a restaurant scene that the row of middle-aged women behind me found laugh-out-loud hilarious. I have to admit: it was pretty funny ( It’s been featured in various trailers on television).
The mother in this equation is 71-year-old Goldie Hawn, an Oscar-winning comedienne whose presence in the film brought in the older crowd. Goldie is living her life very cautiously, having raised Schumer and her onscreen brother Jeffrey (Ike Barinholtz) as a single Mom after Mr. Middleton walked out on the family. Linda Middleton (Goldie Hawn) is fixated on cats and spends the evening checking the locks on her home, as she is convinced that the world is a very dangerous place. Son Jeffrey also has issues (agoraphobia) and only Emily (Amy Schumer) seems to be a free spirit who goes for adventure like a heat-seeking missile.
When Amy’s band member boyfriend dumps her, she is stuck with a trip to Puerto Cayo, Ecuador and no one to take it with. Ultimately, Emily asks Mom Linda to go with her, even though, while on the trip, Mom emerges from her hotel room swathed in multiple layers of clothing, causing Amy/Emily to say, “You look like a beekeeper.” I smiled, as I have a friend who will not expose her aging skin to sunlight, even when in Cancun for two weeks. And—let’s face it—inviting Mom to accompany her is better than leaving Linda/Goldie at home reading a book entitled “How to Cheer Up a Depressed Cat. ”
Goldie Hawn has not been in a film since 2002’s “The Banger Sisters” but her comic timing is just as sharp as ever, and she looks great for her age, as anyone who has seen her at various awards shows will know. Now, Goldie has become BFF with rising star comedienne Amy Schumer, who told “People” magazine, “I read the script, and, as I’m reading it, I pictured Goldie the whole time. There was never anyone else.” Schumer went on to tell a story about running into Hawn on an airplane and “sort of creepily” following her from the airport terminal and pitching the project to her. (Hawn says she does not remember the incident).
I found the interaction between the two blondes very natural and authentic, although the critics who have complained of the crassness of language and situations are not wrong. (One scene, in particular, involving Amy giving herself what used to be called “a spit bath” in a ladies’ rest room and washing all unmentionable spots, with the door swinging open at a key juncture so that the man who has been chatting her up at the bar gets a good look at her. That scene is Exhibit A, but the row behind me found it to be pretty damn funny, and I can’t argue with them.) Perhaps you’ve seen that scene in trailers, as well.
My favorite character, other than the two leads, was Christopher Meloni (television’s SUV: Special Victims’ Unit) as Roger, a cashier from Rochester who misrepresents himself as a seasoned jungle guide, when, in reality, he has only spent 3 weeks in Ecuador and is wearing a hat from J.C. Penney. When their intrepid guide instructs them to swing across a deep canyon on a vine, saying, “I’m the man so I’ll go first” and the vine instantly breaks, I laughed. When he instructed the mother/daughter combo to “take the first 10-hour shift” so he can sleep, I smiled. His character was fun and funny.
Less fun or funny was the bad guy of the piece, Morgado, played by Oscar Jaenada. It seems that Morgado employs good-looking young men (in this case, Tom Bateman as James) to lure hapless single females on adventures that will involve kidnapping them and holding them for ransom. Once in the clutches of Morgado, the women have to call home and implore Jeffrey to ransom them.
Jeffrey is one of the three most annoying characters in the film. He makes so many calls to the U.S. Embassy that the agent on duty (Bashir Salahiddin as Morgan Russell) finally says, “If you feel the urge to call again, resist it.” The other two annoying characters are Ruth and Barb, played by Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack. I didn’t find that either of these two talented comic actors added much to the movie, but I do appreciate the studio’s savvy promotion and marketing. It was released on March 12th, which means that it was the perfect choice for Mother’s Day.
“Snatched” also cost only $42 million to make and quickly moved up to second place (behind “Guardians of the Galaxy II”) in money made, and “Guardians of the Galaxy” is a vastly more expensive film. Goldie brought in the older crowd and Schumer’s fans were also in attendance, plus the Hawaiian jungle settings were convincingly tropic, with cinematography by Florian Ballhaus. (Schumer, who just broke up with her Chicago boyfriend of 18 months, was sick for a week with bronchitis and couldn’t shoot during that time.)
Say what you will about the anatomical references (‘Your tit’s out.”) and the crass low-brow humor, if the women behind me were any indication (you could barely hear the dialogue above their raucous laughter), this feel-good movie about mother-daughter bonding will make money and potentially spawn a sequel. (Goldie says, “Definitely there’s a toe back in” and Schumer says that she’d like to make another movie with her idol “as soon as possible.”)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Comedy Thriller Length: 110 minutes Director: Nacho Vigalondo Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson, Dan Stevens Reviewer: Connie Wilson
Spanish director of “Colossal” Nacho Vigalondo at SXSW.
According to Spanish Director Nacho Vigalondo (“Timecrimes”), “Colossal” was greenlit by the studio because Anne Hathaway championed it. Hathaway saw a chance to play the avenging female who fights back against male physical abuse. The Oscar-winning actress (“Les Miserables”) jumped at the opportunity.
It’s too bad Hathaway and Vigalondo didn’t take this homage to Japanese kaiju movies and Godzilla one step further and have the two main characters (Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis as Gloria and Oscar) represent the symbolic influence that the United States has in the world, for good or bad on a colossal scale. Now would have been a particularly good time in history for that approach.
Colossal” director Nacho Vigalando.
But that didn’t happen in this improbable film about a young girl who drinks and parties too much and, as a result, is kicked out of cozy Manhattan digs by her British boyfriend (Dan Stevens) and returns to her small-town America hometown roots to lick her wounds and try to figure her life out. While there, Gloria (Hathaway) learns that she controls a Godzilla-like monster that is terrorizing South Korea.
Colossal” director Nacho Vigalando.
Vigalondo, during the Q&A after the film, acknowledged that, to a certain extent, he identified with the character Hathaway portrays, who makes it out of the small town she grew up in and seems to be making it in the Big City. She doesn’t want to go back home with her tail between her legs, a failure. Vigalondo found himself in the same position after his birth in Cabezon de la Sal, Spain, a small town, in regards to his move to the Big City of Madrid, Spain. He also cautioned against making the film into too much of an anti-alcohol polemic, laughing about his own fondness for hoisting a drink now and then.
Hathaway has seemingly made it in the Big Apple as far as most of her classmates back home know. Until she hasn’t. Her drinking is out of control and her boyfriend (Dan Stevens as Tim) wants her to rein it in. He packs her stuff in Manhattan and tells her to clear out.
Gloria goes back to a conveniently empty house—presumably her old home— in her small hometown, where old classmate Oscar (JasonSudeikis) owns a bar and offers her employment. The signs all point to Sudeikis having carried the torch for Hathaway’s character of Gloria, keeping tabs on her and following her progress for 25 years.
The Highball Lounge next to the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar Boulevard, where Jason Sudeikis bartended during SXSW to promote his film “Colossal.”
One cool thing that the filmmakers did to promote the film at SXSW was to have Sudeikis fly in and bartend one weekend night at the Highball Lounge, connected to the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar Boulevard. Sudeikis makes a very good “boy-who-still-has-a-crush-on-girl” in this film, although the character arc written for him is not completely logical. (One minute Sudeikis is the good guy helping out his girlfriend. The next, he is her worst nightmare.)
When Gloria (Hathaway) accidentally discovers that her presence in a certain park at an early hour of the morning causes a huge Godzilla-like monster to go on a rampage in Seoul, South Korea, the movie veers from reality to sci fi fantasy. The premise (I’d like to have heard THIS pitch) is that anything Hathaway does remotely controls the monster, as long as she is in her local park at the bewitching hour. The monster mimics her actions, whether it is dancing, holding its arms up in the air, or killing hundreds of innocent locals under his giant feet.
“Colossal” director Nacho Vigalondo at SXSW.
Later, Sudeikis learns from Gloria that he, too, can wield super power as a robot, if he shows up at the same exact moment in the small local park, so we are treated to many scenes of the robot and the Godzilla-like creature squaring off while the hapless residents of Seoul scream and run for their lives. Funny or terrifying?
The movie has been dubbed a “fascinating misfire” and “idiosyncratic and eccentric, with reviews that cite ““diminishing humor from an inherently absurd conceit” (Dennis Harvey in the September 21, 2016 “Variety”) it has been compared to Hathaway’s previous role as “Rachel Getting Married” meets “Godzilla.”
THE GOOD: The cast does a good job with this implausible premise. Sudeikis, in particular, is asked to suddenly morph from hero to villain with very little rational motivation for changing so completely. He pulls it off, but is much more convincing as the likeable character in the first half of the film.
The feeling I got while I tried to decide whether I liked this film or not was that Hathaway was desperate to have a film portraying a female heroine who displayed empowerment, one who triumphs over the bad guy(s) and would sacrifice a plausible plot to get that opportunity. Hathaway’s actions resonated with one abused woman in the theater, who spoke to the issue and described herself as being “moved to tears.” That seemed a bit much, since the film is predominantly comic, with serious underlying issues that are never fully addressed. It was a bold choice to make this film, if not a totally successful one.
There is little focus on what steps Gloria is going to take to overcome her apparent addiction to drinking and the party life, but, as Bill Murray’s shrink in “What About Bob?” (Richard Dreyfuss) would say, “baby steps.”
The supporting performers, (Tim Blake Nelson and Austin Stowell as Garth and Joel) playing cronies of Oscar (Sudeikis) are also good, although underused. There is a puzzling romantic encounter between Joel and Gloria that seems superfluous and unnecessary—almost as though it were an after-thought or a plot line that the director introduced and then dropped.
On the bright side, Jason Sudeikis comes to the fore as a player who can provide convincing acting as the leading man/love interest in future films.
THE BAD:
Nacho Vigalondo, director of “Colossal” at SXSW.
The plot is a flimsy premise for a movie under the best of circumstances, whether borrowing from Japenese takusatsu cinema, or an homage to films like “Godzilla.” It could have been a comic drama about people coping with normal problems— alcohol addiction, drug addiction, or domestic abuse— but it does little but scratch the surface of those weighty issues. Cast members are either not used to shed any light on same or are barely seen at all. Sudeikis’ character arc was particularly troublesome, (although it apparently rang true for at least one member of the audience).
OVERALL:
I’m wondering whether people who shelled out up $40 minimum for a night out on the town (dinner, parking fees, movie ticket) are going to feel this slight film was worth the price of admission? During the post-film Q&A, the Director urged all of us to post a 3-word Twitter review with the hashtag #Colossal. This would enter all of us into a contest.
What should I write? “#Colossal: weird & odd. #Colossal: Inventive but slight. #Colossal: creative fail. #Colossal: fantastical concept. #Colossal: amusing failed premise. #Colossal: thin, sometimes funny.
I ddn’t enter.
The man behind me wrote: “Colossal: colossal fail.
Secrets Behind the Show the Whole World Watched – World Premiere and Q&A
Genre: Documentary Length: 65 minutes Cast: Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz, Fran Brill, Bill Barretta, Frank Oz Reviewer: Connie Wilson
In 1955, creative genius Jim Henson created a troop of puppets known as The Muppets. By 1978 The Muppets” was the most-watched television show in history, with 235 million viewers in 102 countries, according to “Time” magazine. Henson’s untimely death at age 53 in 1990 left right-hand man Frank Oz (real last name: Oznowicz) more-or-less in charge of the troop, which came to fame on “Sesame Street.”
The world premiere of the documentary “Muppet Guys Talkiing” was on Sunday, March 12, at SXSW’s Paramount Theater. The film has been worked on for at least 5 years.
Frank Oz of the Muppets on the Red Carpet at SXSW in Austin, TX.
Frank Oz worked with the Muppets from 1963 until roughly 2000. After helping Hansen film “Labyrinth” (1986) he directed “Little Shop of Horrors” (1986) with Steve Martin, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (1988), “What About Bob?” with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss in 1991, “In & Out” with Kevin Kline in 1997, “Bowfinger” with Eddie Murphy in 1999, “The Score” in 2001 and “Death & a Funeral” in 2007. He also signed on to voice Yoda in the “Star Wars” movies and, initially, to perform puppeteer functions for the character (before Yoda was digitalized). Yoda’s distinctive speaking style is credited to Oz, with Lucas giving him creative license to create the character.
Frank Oz’s second wife, Producer Victoria Labalme, suggested that the main puppeteers from Henson’s hey-day get together and talk about Henson’s influence on their lives and on the world. The five appearing in the film were the now-deceased Jerry Nelson, Dave Goetz, “new guy” Bill Barretta, Oz himself and only female puppeteer, Fran Brill. The project, germinating since 2011, morphed into this short documentary “Muppet Guys Talking,” dedicated to original puppeteer, Jerry Nelson, (“the Count” on “Sesame Street,”) who died August 23, 2012. Labalme suggested the project to her spouse shortly after their marriage on July 17, 2011.
Fran Brill, the only female puppeteer.
Fran Brill, the only female puppeteer, said, “Henson was the most incredible man I ever met. He dragged us literally all over the world and enriched our lives.” The group agreed that the creative and collaborative Henson “emphasized treating others well and, hopefully, you would be treated well in kind.” As one said, “I feel blessed to have been put in a place where I could communicate with so many.”
Onscreen, we were treated to vignettes of the most famous of the Muppets and were given behind-the-scenes stories of how each member of the cast came to join as well as the details of some of the difficulties of shooting certain famous Muppet scenes. All agreed that Henson would not ask anyone else to do something that he, himself, would not undertake. His stints in a sunken metal container with breathing apparatus, underwater, for hours (sometimes they worked all night) to make it appear that Kermit the Frog was sitting on a log in the water was diagrammed. Another scene involving shooting an apple off the head of a Muppet character was mentioned (the hiredarcher was a 17-year-old girl who had only 9 inches between success and disaster), and one particular scene in one of the Muppet movies where the characters appear to be scampering up a pole to escape marauding wolves was explained for the interested and appreciative audience.
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Oz on the Red Carpet at SXSW in Austin for “Muppet Guys Talking.”
Fellow filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (“From Dusk to Dawn,” ’96; “El Mariachi,” ’92; “Sin City,” 2005), an Austin resident, handled the Q&A onstage following the short film and the seasoned puppeteers explained that they often would find a personal flaw, isolate it, amplify it and try to make it lovable to distill their individual characters. All lauded “the sense of abandon and lunacy that Jim taught us” and one said: “I miss the sense of play that comes from a company owned by a person. Jim created a safe environment, but you felt you could be as free as you wished.” Puppeteer Dave Goetz said, “We all learned commitment from him. He was the hardest working person I’ve ever met.”
Among other accolades to the deceased Henson (who was raised a Christian Scientist) were: “He never threw his weight around. He never yelled; if he was mad, he’d get quieter. He was self-effacing.” The cast reminisced that Henson even wore a costume in the opening television scenes until others talked him out of it and handed the duty to others. Said the cast, “He was a harvester of people. He appreciated all sorts of people and brought them all together. He took a chance on sweetness. Disenfranchised people feel accepted in the Muppet world. He was promoting the oneness of the world and was generous and kind.”
Bill Barretta with Producer Victoria Labalme onstage at the Q&A after “Muppet Guys Talking.”
Individual quote: From Bill Barretta (“the new guy” even after decades) when asked about his job with the Muppets: “It’s a dream come true. To think that this is something that could happen. Unbelievable. It was an opportunity to do what I love.”
Fran Brill: “All of our lives were changed in such a way because we all met Jim Henson. He had more effect on me and my life than my parents. He treated everyone the same. This movie was made to champion what he did.”
(L to R) Robert Rodrigeuz, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Fran Brill, Bill Barretta and Victoria Labalme onstage at the Q&A after “Muppet Guys Talking’s” World Premiere at SXSW in Austin, TX.
Dave Goelz (who was working at Dell computers in Silicon Valley at the time): “I was unemployable in Silicon Valley. I think they were sick of me poking my home-made puppets over the cubicle dividers. I was just too crazy. On top of that, Jim dragged us all over the world. It is important to have diversity—something that we need right now.” The crowd present at the Paramount reacted positively to his statement.
(L to R) Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, Fran Brill and Frank Oz. One participant in the project not present, Jerry Nelson, died in the interim and the film was dedicated to his memory.
Frank Oz: “I worked with Henson since the age of 19. He was just himself and we followed. Then he helped you with his kindness He wasn’t caustic. It was a collaborative effort and he was incredibly supportive.”
Reports of the lavish funeral ceremony that also lauded Henson’s basic human decency (Henson died of a virulent formof streptococcal toxic shock syndrome on May 16, 1990, 20 hours after experiencing a medical emergency).
We should all be remembered so fondly by our friends, family and colleagues.
Genre: Documentary Feature Length: 95 minutes Writer/Director: Brian Knappenberger Principal Cast: Nick Denton, A.J. Daulario, John Cook, David Folkenflick, Floyd Abrams, Peter Sterne, David Houston, Margaret Sullivan, Jay Rosen, John L. Smith
The trial between wrestler Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media pitted privacy rights against freedom of the press, but ended up as a case study in how big money can silence media using legal means. This examination of the free press in an age of inequality echoes the “Vanity Fair” issue with an article by David Margolick entitled “V.C. for Vendetta.”
From that article, we learn that, outed as gay (“Peter Thiels Is Totally Gay”) by one of Gawker’s web sites in 2007, Silicon billionaire Peter Thiel ($2.7 billion as a co-founder of PayPal, and an early investor in Facebook) laid low until 2016, when he seized the opportunity to financially back Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy suit over a sex tape to bankrupt the entire organization.
In this documentary that interviews all the principals except Thiel (who is seen speaking at other venues), we learn that “what he’s done is to legitimize the idea that an uninvolved party can fund an effort by someone else in order to destroy a news organization. If billionaires and multi-millionaires can be behind the scenes doing this, that is conspiratorial and underhanded completely.” As Gawker founder Nick Denton, who was personally bankrupted, said, “We were outgunned here.”
Knappenberger dubs it, “abusing the justice system to go after journalists.” All these efforts have taken back a lot of 1st Amendment rights. Many others are mentioned in the piece: the Chandler family, the Salzburger family of New York, Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the “Washington Post” and, in greater detail, Sheldon Adelson’s purchase of Nevada’s largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
John L. Smith, the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote a book about early investors in Las Vegas’ history entitled “Sharks in the Desert: The Founding Fathers and the Current Sharks.” There was one line mentioning Sheldon Adelson. Adelson sued Smith for the one line in the book, and lodged the $15 million dollar suit at a time when Smith was bedside in a local hospital with his young daughter Amelia, who was suffering from a brain tumor.
Smith was offered all sorts of financial inducements not to publish articles about Adelson, but resisted. He was blackmailed regarding the one line in his book, and, as he said: “Bullies always act the same.”
Then, unexpectedly, the entire staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was brought in to a meeting cold and told the newspaper had been sold. They were not allowed to know who had bought them. Rather than take this without investigating, the entire staff, including one employee who had been with the paper for 39 and ½ years, dug in to find out if Adelson was behind the purchase in the face of overwhelming obfuscation.
Smith said, “”Everybody came in and everybody stayed. For us, it was preserving whatever integrity we had. We knew it was a career-ending move. Some stories are worth losing your job over.” As Smith asserted, “Journalism is a calling for a lot of us.”
As a Journalism Major (Ferner/Hearst Journalism Scholarship recipient at the University of Iowa), this documentary spoke to me. I characterize myself as “”Old School” because my stint with 5 “real” newspapers began at the age of 10 and continues today, 6 decades later. I am of the generation that grew up with only 3 television channels trusting the voice of Walter Cronkite to tell us the truth. There was no Internet. There was no cable television, and we believed in presenting both sides of the story so that readers could draw fair conclusions with all the facts at their disposal.
The idea of “hacking” Internet accounts (there was no Internet) and Wiki Leaks style dissemination of documents from the e-mail of others was decades away. I find it personally offensive that anyone in a position of authority can level wholesale charges of bias and dishonesty against the hardworking men and women of the press. One of the least honest politicians (or human beings) of all time has underscored just how important a free and independent press is from his podium in the White House. No less an authority than Thomas Jefferson talked about the importance of a free press to keep the checks and balances of this country working properly.
This documentary was depressing in that it showed the extent to which being rich means being able to destroy the very institutions we all thought were inviolate. As we watch money corrupting the very fabric of society, we are simultaneously experiencing the intentional undermining of the free press and I, for one, view it as one of the biggest tragedies our Republic has experienced since its inception. A very informative, relevant and concerning documentary. Reading the “Vanity Fair” article by David Margolick explained much of the Peter Thiel/Nick Denton Gawker sex tape dispute in far greater detail, which added to my understanding of the film’s rehash of the trial, (which was surreal in so many ways). The revelations about the Las Vegas Review-Journal were new to me, but explained a lot.
Worth watching, if you care about remaining free and being part of an informed populace in a working democracy.
