Review: 1978 Version of "DEATH ON THE NILE" Still Has Some Charms

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 of 2022 (No. 1841) by Leroy Douresseaux

Death on the Nile (1978)
Running time:  140 minutes (2 hours, 20 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR: John Guillermin
WRITER: Anthony Shaffer
PRODUCERS:  John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jack Cardiff (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Malcolm Cooke
COMPOSER:  Nino Rota
Academy Award winner

MYSTERY

Starring:  Peter Ustinov, Mia Farrow, Simon MacCorkindale, Jane Birkin, Lois Chiles, Bette Davis, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, I.S. Johar, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Jack Warden, Harry Andrews, and Sam Wanamaker

Death on the Nile is a 1978 British mystery film directed by John Guillermin.  It is based on the 1937 novel, Death on the Nile, written by Agatha Christie (1890-1976).  Death on the Nile the movie finds Hercule Poirot investigating the murder of a newlywed heiress, committed during a luxurious cruise.

Death on the Nile finds famous detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) embarking on a luxurious cruise on the Nile River in Egypt.  Poirot is delighted to discover that his friend, Colonel Race (David Niven), will also be aboard the Nile paddle steamer, the “S.S. Karnak.”

Also aboard are the newlyweds:  wealthy heiress, Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles), and her husband, Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale).  While in Egypt on their honeymoon, they are being stalked and hounded by Simon's former fiancé, Jacqueline “Jackie” de Bellefort (Mia Farrow), who was also Linnet's close friend.

When Linnet is found shot to death aboard the Karnak, Jackie is the most obvious culprit, but there are others on board who have reason to want Linnet dead.  There is Linnet's maid, Louise Bourget (Jane Birkin), who was bitter due to her mistress' refusal to grant her a promised dowry.  Linnet's shady American attorney and estate trustee, Andrew Pennington (George Kennedy), whom she called “Uncle Andrew,” was stealing from her.  Elderly American socialite, Mrs. van Schuyler (Bette Davis), is a kleptomaniac who wanted to steal Linnet's pearl necklace.  Miss Bowers (Maggie Smith), van Schuyler's nurse, blamed Linnet's father for financially ruining her own father.

Linnet was suing Salome Otterbourne (Angela Lansbury), a brassy romance novelist, for libel regarding a similarity between Linnet and one of the characters in Otterbourne's novel, “Passion Under the Persimmon Tree.”  Meanwhile, Mrs. Otterbourne's daughter, Rosalie (Olivia Hussey), was anxious to protect her mother from financial ruin.  Linnet was also threatening to expose Dr. Ludwig Bessner (Jack Warden), a Swiss psychiatrist faced with exposure because his unorthodox treatments affected one of Linnet's friends.  Finally, Jim Ferguson (Jon Finch) is an outspoken Communist, and he resented Linnet's wealth.

Can Poirot uncover the identity of the killer before the Karnak reaches the end of its journey?  He better hurry because the bodies are starting to pile up.

If I had heard of this 1978 take on Death on the Nile, I did not remember it.  I decided to watch it when I learned that director Kenneth Branagh was directing a new film version of Agatha Christie's novel, which was released to theaters earlier this year (2022).  Branagh also directed a 2017 film version of Christie's world famous novel, Murder on the Orient Express.

I enjoyed the 1978 Death on the Nile, but not as much as I enjoyed the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express, which starred Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot.  When Finney decided not to return for Death on the Nile, actor Peter Ustinov was cast to play Poirot.  Finney's Poirot had a humorous side, but he was deadly serious about his profession and did not suffer fools.  Ustinov's Poirot is playful, but conceited, and even a bit randy.

Death on the Nile is a sedate film, its narrative lazily moving through this plot to match the languid pace with which the S.S. Karnak sails the Nile.  The performances are nice, but a number of luminaries who appear in this film, including Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, and Maggie Smith, are merely passing through this film and resting on their laurels..  However, Mia Farrow proves just how good and perfect she is at playing crazy, unbalanced, and unstable characters.

Death on the Nile 1978 is a nice whodunit film and cozy mystery movie, and I would probably watch it again.  At times, it seems to be a surprisingly average and somewhat uninspired film, but, on the other hand, it has its charms.

5 out of 10
B-
★★½ out of 4 stars

Tuesday, May 10, 2022


NOTES:
1979 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Costume Design” (Anthony Powell)

1979 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Costume Design” (Anthony Powell); 3 nominations: “Best Actor” (Peter Ustinov), “Best Supporting Actress” (Angela Lansbury), and “Best Supporting Actress” (Maggie Smith)

1979 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Foreign Film” (England)


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Review: Jessica Chastain in "THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE" - Good Gawd!

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 of 2022 (No. 1831) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

Running time:  126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)

MPAA – PG-13 for sexual content and drug abuse

DIRECTOR:  Michael Showalter

WRITER: Abe Sylvia (based on the documentary by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato)

PRODUCERS:  Gigi Pritzker and Rachel Shane

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Gioulakis (D.o.P.)

EDITORS:  Mary Jo Markey and Andrew Weisblum

COMPOSER:  Theodore Shapiro

Academy Award winner

DRAMA/BIOPIC

Starring:  Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, Mark Wystrach, Sam Jaeger, Louis Cancelmi, Gabriel Olds, Fredric Lehne, Jay Huguley, Dan Johnson, and Chandler Head

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a 2021 biographical drama film directed by Michael Showalter.  The film is based on the 2000 documentary film, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which was directed and produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.  The Eyes of Tammy Faye the movie takes a look at the rise into fame and fall into infamy of evangelist and television personality, Tammy Faye Bakker.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye introduces young Tamara Faye LaValley (Chandler Head) in the year 1952.  Growing up in a religious community in International Falls, Minnesota, Tammy is an outcast because her mother, Rachel Grover (Cherry Jones), divorced Tammy's father.  Although she is now married to Fred Grover (Fredric Lehne), Rachel believes that she is seen by some as a harlot.  She hides Tammy in order to hide her shame.  However, young Tammy Faye ain't having none of that and inserts herself into the church.  The parishioners become attracted to the way she speaks Biblical scripture and the way in which she “speaks in tongues.”

In 1960, while attending North Central Bible College in Minneapolis Minnesota, Tammy (Jessica Chastain) meets and falls in love with fellow college student, Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield).  In 1961, the two marry and drop out of college.  They drive around the United States to preach and inspire Christian communities, with Jim preaching and Tammy singing and playing with puppets for children.  Seeking to create and have control over their own programs, the couple create “The PTL Club,” the flagship show of their PTL Satellite Network.  Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker become increasingly popular over the years, but with fame comes more money and more secrets and lies.  Can Jim and Tammy Faye save themselves with the success in which they save souls?

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is about Tammy Faye LaValley/Bakker/Messner, and as Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain gives the performance of her career.  That is saying a lot, as Chastain's career is filled with bravura performances, except for her god-awful turn in 2019's (X-Men:) Dark Phoenix.  Chastain, who recently won a “Best Actress” Oscar for this performance, buries herself in the work of this film's make-up and hairstyling artists (who also won and Oscar) and reemerges as an attractive and alluring fictional version of the real life Tammy Faye.  I couldn't stop watching her, believing in her, and seeing Chastain's Tammy Faye as a real person that I wanted to think about for the entire run time of this film.

It is a testament to Andrew Garfield's acting skills that he created space in this film for Jim Bakker.  Garfield makes his Bakker a hollow man who is beset by greed and full of hypocrisy.  He condemns Tammy's minor infidelity while hiding three decades of homosexual dalliances and affairs.  Garfield's Bakker, however, can survive in the vortex that is Chastain's Tammy Faye.

The script presents Tammy as having good intentions, as being loving, and as being naive.  Jim Bakker is in love with himself and with money and fame as much as he loves God.  The story suggests that Jim's faults make the couple vulnerable to opportunists and predators, such as Jerry Faldwell, whom actor Vincent D'Onofrio portrays as some kind of evangelical crime lord.  On the other hand, the film suggests that Tammy Faye's ignorance and unwillingness to speak up at certain times contribute to her unwillingness or inability to pay heed to the warnings of Rachel, her mother.  Rachel is played by Cherry Jones in an excellent performance that would have been noticed more if it weren't in the shadow of Chastain's.

Director Michael Showalter takes the fine performances of his cast and makes a movie that is the epic as character drama.  He gives us the rise and the fall and the (somewhat) redemption of a woman who had a moment in time that ultimately trapped her in the public sphere as a figure worthy of mocking.  To me, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is saying that she did not deserve this, but I remember her as someone who deserved some of the derision pointed her way.  As the guiding force of The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain deserves all the praise and awards pointed her way.

8 of 10
A

Tuesday, April 5, 2022


NOTES:
2022 Academy Awards, USA:  2 wins: “Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling” (Stephanie Ingram, Linda Dowds, and Justin Raleigh) and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Jessica Chastain)

2022 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Make Up & Hair” (Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram, and Justin Raleigh)

2022 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Drama” (Jessica Chastain)


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Review: Albert Finney and a Star-Studded Cast Power 1974 "Murder on the Orient Express"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 5 of 2022 (No. 1817) by Leroy Douresseaux

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Running time:  128 minutes (2 hours, 8 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR: Sidney Lumet
WRITER: Paul Dehn
PRODUCERS:  John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Geoffrey Unsworth
EDITOR:  Anne V. Coates
COMPOSER:  Richard Rodney Bennett
Academy Award winner

MYSTERY

Starring:  Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, Michael York, Colin Blakely, George Coulouris, and Denis Quilley

Murder on the Orient Express is a 1974 British mystery film directed by Sidney Lumet.  It is based on the 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express, written by Agatha Christie (1890-1976).  Murder on the Orient Express focuses on a revered detective who tries to solve a murder on a snow bound train, while dealing with a multitude of suspects.

Murder on the Orient Express finds acclaimed detective, Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), ready to board the transcontinental luxury train, “the Orient Express,” in December 1935.  Having solved a case for a British Army garrison in Jordan, he is due to travel to London on the Orient Express from Istanbul.  There, he encounters his old friend, Signor Bianchi (Martin Balsam), a director of the company which owns the line.

There are other notable passengers traveling in the same coach as Poirot and Bianchi.  There is the assertive and talkative American widow, Harriet Belinda Hubbard (Lauren Bacall).  The quiet English governess, Mary Debenham (Vanessa Redgrave), and Colonel John Arbuthnott (Sean Connery) of the British Indian Army have apparently struck up a relationship.  Swedish missionary, Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman), is on a trip to raise charity funds so that she can continue to take care of “little brown babies.”  American businessman Samuel Ratchett (Richard Widmark), is on a business trip with with his secretary/translator, Hector McQueen (Anthony Perkins), and his English valet, Edward Beddoes (John Gielgud).

There is an Italian-American car salesman, Antonio Foscarelli (Denis Quilley).  Elderly Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff (Wendy Hiller) travels with her stout German maid, Hildegarde Schmidt (Rachel Roberts).  Hungarian Count Rudolf Andrenyi (Michael York) and his wife, Elena (Jacqueline Bisset), are always together.  American theatrical agent, Cyrus Hardman (Colin Blakely), is always in the background.  The train's French conductor, Pierre Michel (Jean-Pierre Cassel), attends to the passengers' numerous needs.

On the second morning of the journey, Samuel Ratchett is found dead.  Signor Bianchi asks the esteemed Monsieur Poirot if he can discover the identity of the murder before the train arrives in Brod, where the Yugoslavian police will take over the investigation.  With the assistance of Bianchi and the Greek physician, Dr. Constantine (George Coulouris), Poirot discovers that the victim was stabbed 12 times.  Now, he must investigate 13 suspects.  Who has committed this murder?  Who is lying?  Where is the truth?  And what is the real story behind the mysterious American who is the victim?  Poirot must discover the answers before the murderer strikes again aboard a train that becomes snowbound.

Agatha Christie died about 14 months after the release of Murder on the Orient Express.  Apparently, this film and Witness for the Prosecution were the only movie adaptations of her books that she liked.  She was also apparently pleased with Albert Finney's performance as Hercule Poirot.

The primary treat of Murder on the Orient Express is its star-studded cast, led by Albert Finney, who earned a “Best Actor” Oscar nomination for his performance.  Ingrid Bergman won the “Best Supporting Actress” Oscar for her role as Greta Ohlsson, a performance that is so immersed in technical detail that it seems more fitting for some high-minded, serious dramatic film.  In general, the women here give strong performances in character roles.  Wendy Hiller is a delight as Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, and Lauren Bacall chews up the scenery as the assertive and talkative Mrs. Hubbard.

The cast of this film is comprised of the some of the biggest movie stars of the middle twentieth century.  Some were not known for playing character roles, but in Murder on the Orient Express, they flexed their character acting chops.  The result of these star performances is a hugely entertaining whodunit with a shocking murder and plenty of terrific intrigue.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and although I was initially put off by Albert Finney as Poirot, I soon found myself unable to stop watching him.  Yes, 1974 Murder on the Orient Express shows its age, but fans of whodunits, of Agatha Christie, of murder mystery films will want to see this film.

7 out of 10
A-

Wednesday, February 9, 2022


NOTES:
1975 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win:  “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Ingrid Bergman); 5 nominations: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Albert Finney), “Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material” (Paul Dehn), “Best Cinematography” (Geoffrey Unsworth), “Best Costume Design” (Tony Walton), and “Best Music, Original Dramatic Score” (Richard Rodney Bennett)

1975 BAFTA Awards:  3 wins:  “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Richard Rodney Bennett), “Best Supporting Actor” (John Gielgud), and “Best Supporting Actress” (Ingrid Bergman); 7 nominations:  “Best Actor” (Albert Finney), “Best Art Direction” (Tony Walton), “Best Cinematography” (Geoffrey Unsworth – also for “Zardoz”), “Best Costume Design” (Tony Walton), “Best Direction” (Sidney Lumet – also for “Serpico”), “Best Film,” and “Best Film Editing” (Anne V. Coates)


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Review: Walt Disney's "TARZAN" is Something Old, Something New, and Sometimes Amazing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 114 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tarzan (1999)

Running time:  88 minutes ( hour, 28 minutes)

MPAA – G

DIRECTORS:  Chris Buck and Kevin Lima

WRITERS:  Tab Murphy and Bob Tzudiker & Noni White; from a story by numerous writers (based upon the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes)

PRODUCER:  Bonnie Arnold

EDITOR:  Gregory Perler

COMPOSER:  Mark Mancina

SONGS:  Phil Collins

Academy Award winner

ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE/FAMILY

Starring:  (voices) Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight, Alex D. Linz, Rosie O’Donnell, and Nigel Hawthorne

The subject of this movie review is Tarzan, a 1999 animation fantasy-adventure film and musical directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima.  The film is based on Tarzan of the Apes, the first Tarzan novel written by Tarzan creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Walt Disney’s Tarzan focuses on a man who was raised by gorillas, but who must decide where he really belongs when he discovers that he is a human.

Tarzan, Walt Disney’s animated version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic character Tarzan, was one of the best films of the year 1999.  In fact, it was better than the Academy Award winner for Best Picture that year, American Beauty.  Many film fans and critics point to 1989’s The Little Mermaid as Disney’s return to the kind of high quality animation that made the studio so famous from the later 1930’s to the early 1950’s.  From 1989 to 2004 (when Disney stopped making feature length animated films for theatrical release, for the foreseeable future), Tarzan stands as a high water mark, being one of the best efforts of that second golden age of Disney animation (known as the “Disney Renaissance”).

However, the film isn’t just a great effort in animation, it’s also a great film, period.  Like classic Disney films, there is something for everyone.  The drama, humor, action, and adventure reach across generations to entertain anyone, especially if adults have open minds about opening up to the story of an animated film.

In this version of the classic tale, the gorilla Kala (Glenn Close) rescues an orphaned human after she finds its parents’ murdered bodies.  She names him Tarzan (Alex D. Linz) and takes him as her own because she is left childless after a leopard killed her infant.  Years later, the adult Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) discovers he is human when he falls in love with Jane Porter (Minnie Driver), who comes to Tarzan’s jungle home with her father, Professor Porter (Nigel Hawthorne).  His love for Jane forces Tarzan to decide where he belongs when he has to choose between staying with his gorilla family or following Jane back to England.

Unlike many Disney animated films, Tarzan is thoroughly a boys’ action/adventure tale filled as it is with jungle chases over trees and through dense foliage and with combat fought to the death.  He is a boy’s man, having fun all day, surfing by his feet over thick and long tree branches, and he’s a whirling dervish of flips, twists, spins, leaps, dives, etc.  The film is, however, also quite poignant in its drama, particularly in the romance between Tarzan and Jane and in the relationship between Tarzan and his mother, Kala.

What would a Disney cartoon be without laughter and songs?  There is plenty of humor, some of it surprisingly provided by Rosie O’Donnell as Tarzan’s gorilla playmate, Terk (performed when she was still the “Queen of Nice.”).  The musical score is also very good, soaring and emotional.  However, it is Phil Collins’ song score that really makes the film, and Collins finally won his long sought after “Best Music, Original Song” Oscar® for a track entitled, “You’ll Be in My Heart.”

9 of 10

A+

NOTES:

2000 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Music, Original Song” (Phil Collins for the song “You'll Be In My Heart”)

2000 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Phil Collins for the song “You'll Be In My Heart”)

Updated:  Saturday, August 02, 2014

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Review: Crosby and Astaire Keep "HOLIDAY INN" Open with Crooning and Hoofing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 73 of 2021 (No. 1811) by Leroy Douresseaux

Holiday Inn (1942)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:  Mark Sandrich
WRITERS:  Claude Binyon-screenplay; Elmer Rice-adaptation (based on an idea by Irving Berlin)
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  David Abel (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Ellsworth Hoagland
COMPOSERS:  Irving Berlin (songs and music); Robert Emmett Dolan (musical direction)
Academy Award winner

MUSICAL/COMEDY/ROMANCE

Starring:  Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale, Walter Abel, Louise Beavers, Irving Bacon, Marek Windheim, James Bell, John Gallaudet, Shelby Bacon, and Joan Arnold

Holiday Inn is a 1942 musical, comedy and romance film from director Mark Sandrich.  The film is based on an idea by legendary American song writer and composer, Irving Berlin, who also wrote twelve songs specifically for this film.  The most famous of the film's songs is “White Christmas,” which went on to be the biggest hit record in the career of one of Holiday Inn's stars, Bing Crosby, and also the best selling record of all time.  Holiday Inn is set at an inn that is open only on holidays, and the story focuses on a love triangle involving a singer, a dancer, and a beautiful up-and-coming young female performer.

Holiday Inn opens on Christmas Eve at the Midnight Club in New York City.  Crooner (singer) Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby), hoofer (dancer) Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), and signer-dancer Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) have a popular musical act.  Jim plans for tonight to be his last performance.  He is retiring and moving to Midville, Connecticut where he will be a farmer.  Jim wants Lila to retire with him, and she has previously accepted his marriage proposal.  However, she has fallen in love with Ted and wants to continue working as his partner in a new act.  Jim accepts this and bids them goodbye.

Over the next year, Jim does not have much success running a farm.  So on Christmas Eve, a year after he retired, Jim is back in NYC.  He tells Ted and his agent, Danny Reed (Walter Abel), that he wants to turn the farm into an entertainment venue that opens only on holidays.  He has named it the “Holiday Inn.”  Ted and Danny are amused at the idea, and Ted is not interested in performing there.

However, Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), an aspiring young singer and dancer, does find her way to the Holiday Inn.  There, she finds Jim, his African-American housekeeper, Mamie (Louise Beavers), and her two small children, son Vanderbilt (Shelby Bacon) and daughter Daphne (Joan Arnold).  The homey feeling that permeates the Inn and Jim's new song, “White Christmas,” convince Linda to stay.  But old rivals are conspiring to return and ruin Jim's plans again.

First, I have to be honest with you, dear readers.  I never really watched very much of those Bing Crosby holiday television specials that ran decades ago and now, still occasionally pop up on vintage TV channels.  I do, however, love to watch the films in which he appeared.  The man dazzles me, and I just love his singing voice.  He doesn't need to try hard; he seems to be amazing just naturally.

Watching Holiday Inn for the first time just recently also gave me a chance to really start to appreciate Fred Astaire.  He's amazing on film, and now, I see why the late “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, was such a fan of his.  It's the same as Crosby – he doesn't even have to try hard.  Astaire just seems naturally an incredible dancer and performer.

The production values on Holiday Inn are beautiful, obviously so even in black and white.  In fact, Holiday Inn features some of the most beautiful and sharp black and white photography that I have ever seen in a Golden Age Hollywood film.  Director Mark Sandrich, a highly respected director in his day, makes this simple story, with its nonsensical plots and narrative, seem like it is almost high art.

Crosby and Astaire's co-stars, Marjorie Reynolds (as Linda) and Virginia Dale (as Lila), are also delightful, especially Reynolds in a larger role than Dale's.  Reynolds makes Linda seem like the equal, in terms of stage performance, of both Jim and Ted.  They bring Irving Berlin's wonderful songs to life with the kind of professionalism and skill that makes such songs into hits or at least into memorable tunes.  Besides the great “White Christmas,” there are a number of stand-out songs in this film, such as “Happy Holiday” and “Be Careful, It's My Heart.”

Like some Hollywood films from the first half of the twentieth-century, Holiday Inn has characters in “blackface,” which is when White actors blacken their face to play racist and stereotypical caricatures of Black people.  In this film, it occurs during the “Lincoln's Birthday” holiday performance when Crosby's Jim and Reynold's Linda perform a song called “Abraham.”  Crosby's blackface makeup is not the worst that I have seen, but Reynold's get-up, a sort of female “picaninny” with fake ponytails radiating from her head like sunbeams, is horrible.  However, the song “Abraham” is weak, and the sequence in which it is performed is forgettable.  Honestly, I had forgotten the song, the performance, and the blackface less than a minute after it finished.

For me, Holiday Inn is a magical Christmas movie.  No, the film does not depict all 15 holidays that Jim plans to celebrate at the Holiday Inn, but the ones that really count seem to be Christmas Eve-Christmas and New Year's Eve-New Year's Day.  And in these moments, the film is most lovable and at its most enchanting.  Holiday Inn is not my favorite Christmas movie.  That would be the Holiday Inn semi-remake, 1954's White Christmas (also starring Bing Crosby), which takes its inspiration and title from the beloved song.  Still, Holiday Inn is special because it introduced the biggest Christmas song of all time, Irving Berlin's “White Christmas.”  For that reason, I will always try to find my way back to Holiday Inn … especially during the Christmas season.

8 of 10
A

Saturday, December 25, 2021


1943 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Music, Original Song” (Irving Berlin for the song “White Christmas”); 2 nominations: “Best Writing, Original Story” (Irving Berlin) and “Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture” (Robert Emmett Dolan)


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Review: "Nomadland" is Frances McDormand's Land

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 64 of 2021 (No. 1802) by Leroy Douresseaux

Nomadland (2020)
Running time:  104 minutes (1 hour, 44 minutes)
MPAA – R for some full nudity.
DIRECTOR:  Chloé Zhao
WRITER:  Chloé Zhao (based on the non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder)
PRODUCERS:  Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, and Chloé Zhao
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Joshua James Richards (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Chloé Zhao
COMPOSER:  Ludovico Einaudi
Academy Award winner including “Best Picture”

DRAMA

Starring:  Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Charlene Swankie, and Bob Wells

Nomadland is a 2020 drama film directed by Chloé Zhao.  The film is an adaptation of the 2017 nonfiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by author Jessica Bruder.  Nomadland the film depicts the real-world phenom of “nomads” people who live as transients, traveling around the United States and living in motor vehicles (“vandwelling”).  The film portrays this through the eyes of a woman who leaves her hometown to live as a vandwelling working nomad.

Nomadland opens sometime in 2011.  Sixty-something Fern (Frances McDormand) recently lost her job after the “US Gypsum Corporation” plant in Empire, Nevada shut down.  Fern had worked there for years along with her husband, who recently died.  Empire, a company town of US Gypsum, basically becomes a ghost town as almost everyone leaves after the jobs disappear.

Fern decides to sell most of her belongings and purchases a van, which she names “Vanguard.”  It becomes her new home.  Fran travel the country searching for work, sometimes working at an Amazon fulfillment center.  When she isn't at Amazon, Fern embarks on a journey through the American West, a modern-day nomad, living in her van.  Is this her new life or is it just a temporary state?

It has been noted that a number of real-life nomads and vandwellers appear as themselves in Nomadland, especially of note, Bob Wells, one of the best known proponents of vandwelling.  However, Nomadland, despite its title, is not so much about nomads and vandwelling as it is about Fern's journey.  The film's writer-director Chloe Zhao chronicles Fern's evolution from someone who becomes a vandweller out of necessity into someone who seems to fully embrace the life of a nomad.

In that, I can see why McDormand would go on to win the Academy Award for “Best Actress” for her performance as Fern.  McDormand creates in Fern a character that seems so real that I found myself believing that Fern was a real person.  This certainly helps to sell the docudrama mode Zhao sometimes adopts to tell particular chapters of this film.  In a career filled with virtuoso performances, Nomadland presents one of McDormand's very best.  Although the film does have another professional actor, David Strathairn, playing a character named “Dave,” a nomad who falls in love with Fern.  However, Strathairn and his character seem like a sapling trying to stay rooted in the hurricane that is McDormand's performance.

Nomadland is poetic and poignant; sometimes, it is poignant to the point of being too sorrowful to watch.  The film captures the restlessness in Fern, and its director captures the precariousness of Fern's new lifestyle.  Nomadland is about Fern's journey and life in Nomadland.  The “nomadland” and its nomads, are there to serve the purpose of her story.  If the film's title were more honest, it would be entitled “Fern” or “Fern in Nomadland.”  Nomadland is like a series of vignettes about Fern more than it is an actual story about something.

Still, Nomadland is a powerful character study that is successful because it is in the hands of both a powerful actress, Frances McDormand, and highly-skilled film director, Chloe Zhao, who can create multiple layers within the story of a character.  Nomadland reminds me of director Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980).  People see it as a great film, while I see it as a good, but meandering film that has built a great reputation largely on a truly great, generational performance by by its leading man, Robert DeNiro (who also won the “Best Actor” Oscar for this role).  Nomadland is a really good, but meandering film that has built a great reputation on...

As a character study, Nomadland is an exceptional film, but it has no larger meaning beyond being an exceptionally well-made film.  Nomadland is one of those film's that will make some people ask, “What's the point of this?”  Art for art's sake? Oscar bait? – I couldn't really answer that question.  However, I will give Nomadland a higher grade than I gave Raging Bull.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, October 31, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  3 wins: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, and Chloé Zhao), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Frances McDormand), and “Best Achievement in Directing” (Chloé Zhao); 3 nominations: “Best Adapted Screenplay” (Chloé Zhao), “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Chloé Zhao), and “Best Achievement in Cinematography” (Joshua James Richards)

2021 BAFTA Awards:  4 wins: “Best Film” (Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey, Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, and Chloé Zhao), “Best Leading Actress” (Frances McDormand), “Best Director” (Chloé Zhao), and “Best Cinematography” (Joshua James Richards); 3 nominations: “Best Screenplay-Adapted” (Chloé Zhao), “Best Sound” (Sergio Diaz, Zach Seivers, and Mike Wolf Snyder), and “Best Editing” Chloé Zhao)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins: “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Chloé Zhao); 2 nominations: “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Chloé Zhao) and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Frances McDormand)


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Review: "HEARTS AND MINDS" Still Condemns with Power

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 61 of 2021 (No. 1799) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hearts and Minds (1974)
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Peter Davis
PRODUCERS:  Peter Davis and Bert Schneider
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Richard Pearce
EDITORS:  Lynzee Klingman and Susan Martin
Academy Award winner

DOCUMENTARY – War, Politics

[The recent ignominious end of the “War in Afghanistan” (October 7, 2001 to August 30, 2021) got me to thinking about America's involvement in Vietnam decades ago because … you know … people never learn and they never change.  In military conflicts, if you run on up in there, you gonna eventually run on up outta there.  So anyway, I remembered the gold standard in theatrical Vietnam documentary films, Hearts and Minds, and it was time to see it again.]

Starring:  Captain Randy Floyd, Sgt. William Marshall, Lt. George Coker, George Bidault, Father Chan Tin, Daniel Ellsberg, David Emerson, Mary Cochran Emerson, Senator J.W. Fulbright, Sec. Clark Gifford, Corporal Stan Holder, Mui Duc Giang, Walt Rostow, Vu Duc Vinh, Vu Thi Hue, Vu Thri To, Gen. William Westmoreland, and Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson

Hearts and Minds is a 1974 documentary film directed by Peter Davis.  It is an antiwar movie that examines the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975) and confronts the United States' involvement in the civil war within the Southeast Asian nation of Vietnam.  The film's title, Hearts and Minds, is based on the following quote from U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson:  “the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.”  Hearts and Minds won the Oscar for “Best Documentary, Features” at the 47th Academy Awards, which were presented in 1975.

During the time of its release, critics of Hearts and Minds complained that the film was two one-sided, but from the beginning, the film's stated and obvious premise was that the United States should not have been involved Vietnam and in the strife between the governments of North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  Director Peter Davis recounts the history of the Vietnam War by examining the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the war, and he does this by interviewing government officials and military leadership and personnel from both sides of conflict.  He also uses archival news footage, specifically featuring the U.S. Presidents whose actions started, sustained, and/or exacerbated the conflict and violence that marked the Vietnam War.

It is in that way that Davis presents what I see as the film's key theme:  American attitudes and goals were the reason that a Vietnamese civil war became an American-driven Vietnam War.  After World War II, the leadership of the U.S., both government and military, decided to make the world in its image.  American's imperial ambitions had been long-simmering, seeing a number of nations as rivals or obstacles, especially the Soviet Union and China, the faces of “international communism.”  Such imperialism found a proxy war in the struggle between communist North Vietnamese and its South Vietnamese allies, the Viet Cong,against South Vietnam (or the State of Vietnam).

Hearts and Minds emphasizes how the the United States helped to create the bloody conflict with Vietnam and how it ultimately prolonged the struggle.  In interviews with such people as General William Westmoreland, the American commander of military operations in the Vietnam War during its peak period from 1964 to 1968, not only does the self-righteous militarism of the U.S. reveal itself, but also American' racist attitudes about the Vietnamese people.

This militarism and racism is also exemplified in another one of the film's interview subjects, American prison of war (POW), U.S. Navy pilot, Lt. George Coker.  The film includes footage of Coker making public speeches after his release from six-and-a-half years in North Vietnamese captivity.  Coker's racism and jingoism are repulsive, which, to me, are obviously the result of his upbringing (brainwashing) and military training.  However, I'm not sure that it was a good choice to include him in Hearts and Minds, as the film's detractors have used Coker's status as a POW to criticize the film as being “too one-sided” and anti-war propaganda.  One could always say that the attitudes Coker reveals in his return to the U.S. are, to some extent, the result of the degradation he experienced as a POW.

That aside, what makes Hearts and Minds one of the greatest American documentary films of all time (if not the greatest) is director Peter Davis' willingness to give voice to the Vietnamese people through interviews and film footage.  One of Hearts and Minds' most shocking and controversial sequences shows the funeral of a South Vietnamese soldier.  His grieving family includes a sobbing woman (his mother?) who has to be restrained from climbing into the grave after his coffin is lowered into the ground.  The cries of a grieving boy, perhaps his son, are like that of a wounded animal.  I first saw Hearts and Minds a few years ago on TV, and that scene stays with me, even as I write this.

Americans sometimes remember how many Americans died in the Vietnam War (over 58,000), but almost three-and-a-half million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died during the war (according to numbers provided by Vietnam in 1995).  An example of the wanton death and destruction is personified in a North Vietnamese farmer who loses his eight-year-old daughter and his three-year-old son because of an American bombing campaign.  His anger and grief, especially at the death of his daughter who was killed while feeding pigs (all of which apparently lived), encapsulates the wrongness of American involvement in Vietnam.

Two other interviews of American servicemen stand out to me.  First, Sgt. William Marshall, an African-American from Detroit, offers a bit of levity in the film by the way in which he describes his experiences.  However, he also condemns Americans, demanding that they witness in his war injuries a guilt from which we may not turn away.

The other is Hearts and Minds' concluding interview, which features US Vietnam veteran, U.S. Navy pilot, Captain Randy Floyd.  One of his statements summons up the feckless relationship that Americans have with their militarist and imperialist government.  Floyd says, “We've all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam.  I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers exhibited.”

With those words, Hearts and Minds makes itself both timely and timeless, although the American “Global War on Terror” of the twenty-first century also helped to keep this film timely.  It is left up to academics, film historians, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) “Academy Film Archive,” and the “National Film Registry” to save Hearts and Minds from being entirely forgotten.  Still, we movie fans, or at least some us, must make an effort to bring Hearts and Minds back into prominence.  America has need of this work of art and of this lesson in history.

10 of 10

Sunday, October 17, 2021


NOTES:
1975 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win for “Best Documentary, Features” (Peter Davis and Bert Schneider)

1975 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Documentary Film”

2018 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  “National Film Registry”


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Review: "JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH" is Divine *

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 36 of 2021 (No. 1774) by Leroy Douresseaux

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
Running time:  125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence and pervasive language
DIRECTOR:  Shaka King
WRITERS:  Will Berson and Shaka King; from a story by Will Berson & Shaka King and Kenny Lucas & Keith Lucas
PRODUCERS:  Ryan Coogler, Charles D. King, Shaka King, and Mark Isham
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Sean Bobbitt (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Kristan Sprague
COMPOSER:  Craig Harris
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/HISTORICAL

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Algee Smith, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Lil Rel Howery, Dominique Thorne, Martin Sheen, Amari Cheatom, Ian Duff, Robert Longstreet, Nicholas Velez, and Terayle Hill

Judas and the Black Messiah is a 2021 drama, historical, and biopic from director Shaka King.  The film is a dramatization of the betrayal of Chicago Black Panther Party leader, Fred Hampton, by FBI informant, William O'Neal.  Judas and the Black Messiah was eligible for the 2020 / 93rd Academy Awards due to an eligibility window extension granted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Judas and the Black Messiah opens in 1968.  Nineteen-year-old petty criminal William “Bill” O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) is arrested in Chicago after attempting to steal a car while posing as a federal officer.  Bill is looking at hard time in prison, over six years, but he is approached by FBI Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) with a special offer.  Agent Mitchell can have O'Neal's charges dropped if he works undercover for the bureau.  Bill is assigned to infiltrate the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and to spy on its leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).

Bill begins to grow close to Hampton, as the Chairman works to form alliances with rival street gangs, such as “The Crowns.”  Hampton extends the BPP's community outreach through the Panthers' “Free Breakfast for Children Program.”  By 1969, Hampton's persuasive oratory skills eventually help to form the multiracial “Rainbow Coalition,” which unites the Panthers with the “Young Lords,” a Puerto Rican militant group, and “The Young Patriots,” a militant group comprised of poor and displaced white people.  Still, Hampton even finds time to fall in love with party member, Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback).

Hampton's rise and success makes the FBI determined to stop him before he becomes what J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), Director of the FBI, calls a “Black Messiah.”  Meanwhile, a battle wages in Bill O'Neal's soul.  Will he help the FBI destroy Fred Hampton?

Judas and the Black Messiah may have received all its awards for the year 2020, but this powerful dramatization of a pivotal moment in the history of the Civil Rights movement is already one of 2021's best films.  What the writers of this film have created is a condemnation of racial injustice, mostly in the form of the local (Chicago Police Department), state, and federal law enforcement (FBI) and also in the form of the courts and prisons (especially Menard Correction Center, the prison where Hampton was incarcerated).

However, the writers also present, both in subtle ways and in obvious strokes, the racial injustice that comes from the economic deprivation and social inequality that ordinary black people suffer.  Director Shaka King shows it in the two worlds in which the traitorous Bill O'Neal travels.  The first is Agent Roy Mitchell's comfy home and the fancy restaurants where Mitchell meets Bill, and the second is the world of rundown buildings and impoverished neighborhoods where Bill is a thief, a Panther, and a two-faced, self-serving coon who has a prison sentence over his head, which leads him to be a traitor.

Bill O'Neal really isn't a “Judas” anymore than Fred Hampton is really a “messiah,” black or otherwise.  Yes, Shaka King does play some of this film, especially its last act like a mystery play or Biblical allegory, retelling and reshaping the story of the betrayal of Jesus Christ at the hands of Judas Iscariot.  O'Neal and Hampton seems like people swept up by the tide of events that was the postwar Civil Rights movement.  Their story is tragic, but Judas and the Black Messiah seems to ask us two questions:  What now? And where do we go from here?  The questions are not related to the late 1960s so much as they are being asked of us at the dawn of the third decade of the twenty-first century.

As Bill O'Neal, LaKeith Stanfield gives a layered and multifaceted performance.  Even when Stanfield plays Bill as angry or desperate, he creates multiple layers to that anger and desperation in each scene.  Before the credits, Judas and the Black Messiah presents some archival footage of the real William O'Neal, and seeing that made me believe that Stanfield made a Meryl Streep-like transformation in creating a fictional O'Neal that was, in some ways, very much like the real person.

I can see why Daniel Kaluuya won the “Best Supporting Actor” Oscar for his performance as Fred Hampton.  Kaluuya embodies the hope and the lost potential that people now look back and see in Fred Hampton.  In the last act, Kaluuya truly makes Hampton seem messianic.  And that is worth an entire shelf full of awards.  I would be remiss if I did not mention how deliciously and wickedly great Martin Sheen is as J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, thirsting for Hampton's blood.

Judas and the Black Messiah continues the run of important African-American films confronting the legacy of racism in the United States, films like If Beale Street Could Talk and BlacKkKlansman, both from 2018.  It goes without saying that this is an important film for those interested in the history of the Civil Rights Movement.  Judas and the Black Messiah is for you, dear readers, if you want  to see American films that electrify the important chapters in the American story.

9 of 10
A+

Saturday, May 22, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  2 wins:  “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Daniel Kaluuya) and “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Song” (H.E.R.-music and lyric, Dernst Emile II-music, and Tiara Thomas-lyric for the song “Fight for You”); 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Shaka King, Charles D. King, and Ryan Coogler); “Best Original Screenplay” (Will Berson-screenplay by/story by, Shaka King-screenplay by/story by, Kenny Lucas-story by, and Keith Lucas-story by), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (LaKeith Stanfield), and “Best Achievement in Cinematography” (Sean Bobbitt)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Daniel Kaluuya) and 1 nomination: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Tiara Thomas-lyrics, H.E.R.-music/lyrics, and D'Mile-music for the song “Fight for You”)

2021 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Supporting Actor” (Daniel Kaluuya); 3 nominations:  “Best Supporting Actress” (Dominique Fishback), “Best Cinematography” (Sean Bobbitt), and “Best Casting” (Alexa L. Fogel)


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Review: Mads Mikkelsen is the Best Reason for "ANOTHER ROUND"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 35 of 2021 (No. 1773) by Leroy Douresseaux

Another Round (2020)
Original title: Druk (Denmark)
Running time:  117 minutes(1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA - not rated
DIRECTOR:  Thomas Vinterberg
WRITERS: Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm
PRODUCERS:  Kasper Dissing and Sisse Graum Jørgensen
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
EDITORS:  Janus Billeskov Jansen and Anne Østerud
Academy Award winner

DRAMA with elements of comedy

Starring:  Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe, Maria Bonnevie, Magnus Sjørup, Silas Cornelius Van, and Susse Wold

Druk is a 2020 Danish drama film from director Thomas Vinterberg.  Druk is also known by its English title, Another Round, the title to which it will be referred in this review.  Although the film is an international co-production between Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, Another Round won the “Best International Feature Film” Oscar at the recent 2021 / 93rd Academy Awards as a representative of Denmark.  Another Round focuses on four high school teachers who binge drink alcoholic beverages to see how it affects their lives and work.

Another Round opens in Denmark and introduces Martin (Mads Mikkelson), a middle-age high school teacher.  He is married to Anika (Maria Bonnevie), and they have two teenage sons, Jonas (Magnus Sjørup) and Kasper (Silas Cornelius Van).  Martin is a close friend of three of his colleagues:  Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), Peter (Lars Ranthe), and Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) at a gymnasium school in Copenhagen.  All four men struggle with unmotivated students, and each feels that his life has become boring and stale, especially Martin, who is the instructor for senior history.  In fact, his students and their parents are so concerned that he is not preparing them for their graduation exams that they meet with him.  Martin is also depressed because of troubles to his marriage to Anika.

At a dinner celebrating Nikolaj's 40th birthday, the four men begin to discuss Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud (a real-life person).  The “Skårderud hypothesis” says that man is born with a deficit of 0.05% blood alcohol content (BAC).  A 0.05 BAC makes a person more creative and relaxed.  Thus, Nikolaj suggests that the four of them engage in an experiment to test the Skårderud hypothesis.  The experiment will involve the four of them consuming alcohol on a daily basis in order to make sure that their BAC should never be below 0.05.  The initial results are good, especially for Martin, but will flirting with alcoholism always yield good results?

If Danish actor Mads Mikkelson is not an international movie star, he should be.  He career includes appearances in several Danish Oscar-nominated foreign language films, besides Another Round, and those are After the Wedding (2006), A Royal Affair (2012), and The Hunt (2013).  He has also made appearances in some Hollywood big-budget event movies, including the James Bond movie, Casino Royale (2006); the remake, Clash of the Titans (2010); and Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange (2016), to name a few.

Mikkelson's Martin defines the themes of Another Round that deal with the midlife crisis, marital strife, family discord, and professional dissatisfaction.  His costars give good performances, but Mikkelson is the star here.  His nuanced and layered performance as a man in full midlife depression is radiant, and the story seems to lack quite a bit of energy whenever he is not on screen.

As films about midlife crises go, Another Round is enjoyable, and it is quaint compared to the lurid American Beauty (1999), a “Best Picture” Oscar winner that is as pretentious as it is salacious.  Truthfully, neither film really excites me, as I could give a crap about middle crises.  I can't see myself recommending Another Round except to Americans who enjoy “international films.”  Still, Another Round has Mikkelsen, and if it must be remembered, it should be remembered as an entry in his exceptional filmography.

7 of 10
B+

Tuesday, May 18, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best International Feature Film” (Denmark) and 1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Directing” (Thomas Vinterberg)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination:  1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language”

2021 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Film Not in the English Language” (Thomas Vinterberg, Sisse Graum Jørgensen, and Kasper Dissing); 3 nominations: “Best Leading Actor” (Mads Mikkelsen); “Best Screenplay-Original” (Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg), and “Best Director” (Thomas Vinterberg)

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: Takes a Bit, But Pixar's "Soul" Finds its Soul

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 30 of 2021 (No. 1768) by Leroy Douresseaux

Soul (2020)
Running time:  100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes0
MPAA –  PG for thematic elements and some language
DIRECTORS:  Pete Docter with Kemp Powers (co-director)
WRITERS:  Pete Docter, and Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers
PRODUCER:  Dana Murray
CINEMATOGRAPHERS:  Matt Aspbury (D.o.P.) and Ian Megibben (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Kevin Nolting
COMPOSERS: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with Jon Batiste (jazz compositions and arrangements)
Academy Award winner

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring:  (voices) Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson a.k.a. Questlove, Angela Bassett, Cora Champommier, Margo Hall, Daveed Diggs, Rhodessa Jones, Wes Studi, Sakina Jaffrey, Ochuwa Oghie, Jeannie Tirado, Dorian Lockett, and Marcus Shelby

Soul is a 2020 American computer-animated, comedy-drama, and fantasy film from director Pete Docter and co-director Kemp Powers and is produced by Pixar Animation Studios.  Soul is also the first Pixar film to feature an African-American protagonist.  Soul focuses on a jazz pianist who finds himself trapped in a strange place that exists between Earth and the afterlife.

Soul introduces Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a pianist living in New York City and who dreams of playing jazz professionally.  He is also a middle school music teacher at M.S. 70, and the school's Principal Arroyo (Jeannie Tirado) has just offered to make him a full-time teacher.  Joe's mother, Libba, (Phylicia Rashad) insists that he make teaching a full time job, fearing for his financial security as a jazz musician chasing gigs and sessions.

One day, a former student, Lamont “Curley” Baker (Ahmir-Khalib Thompson a.k.a. Questlove), who is now a jazz drummer, tells Joe that there is an opening in the jazz group, “the Dorothea Williams Quartet,” and that auditions are being held at “The Half Note” jazz club.  Dorothea Williams is a legend, and playing in a jazz outfit like hers has been Joe's dream for years.

But an accident causes Joe's soul to be separated from his body, and Joe ends up trapped between “the Great Beyond” and “the Great Before.”  And perhaps the only thing that can save Joe is helping a wayward soul known as “22” (Tina Fey).

Soul may feature Pixar Animation Studios' first African-American lead, Jamie Foxx's Joe Gardner,, but it is not really a “black film.”  The film is not a celebration of ordinary black people, but it dares to imagine black people as ordinary folks who have the same ups and downs, successes and failures, and hopes and dreams as everyone else.  Also, Soul is the most adult film that Pixar has produced to date.  I think children could enjoy it, but Soul deals with the kind of existential questions that adults face.  In fact, I found that the film's story seemed to confront me about my life on more than a few occasions.  I also like that the film asks a lot of questions, but bluntly and stubbornly refuses to answer all of them.

I did find the first 50 minutes of Soul to be muddled in terms of the narrative.  Everything about it is technically proficient, but the story lacks … soul.  It is not until Joe and 22 reach Earth that Soul really begins to grapple with the struggle between living a life with a purpose as in goals and living a life in which once enjoys living.

Whenever I review a Pixar film, I really don't get into the quality of the animation.  From the standpoint of technology and art, Pixar has practically always been astounding and awesome.  For a long time now, Pixar's computer-animation (or 3D animation) has been so good and so beautifully rendered and colored that it makes me forget that I am watching an animated film.  Soul, in its dazzling colors, inventive characters, and imaginative settings (“the Great Beyond” and how it welcomes a soul), is about as strong as its predecessors

Soul's film score recently won an Oscar.  Jon Batiste's jazz compositions and arrangements are captivating, and made me feel like I was right there in the performance.  Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score, especially when the story moves into the realms of the soul, is ethereal, magically, and futuristic, and sounds like music from another world.

I like the voice performances.  Jamie Foxx does not fully sound like Jamie Foxx, and, in that, he makes Joe Gardner feel like a genuine character.  What more can I say about Tina Fey?  As “22,” she shows, once again, that she has talent to burn.  Also, I think Phylicia Rashad makes the most of every line she has in the film; she makes Libba Gardner seem like a real mother.

Ultimately, Soul reminds me that I really need Pixar Animation Studios in my life.  Pixar's feature films find the best of humanity and emphasize the beauty in us all.  This time, Pixar gives us Soul to remind us to look up and notice the beauty in us and in the world around us.

8 of 10
A

Sunday, May 2, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  2 wins:  “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures-Original Score” (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste) and “Best Animated Feature Film” (Pete Docter and Dana Murray); 1 nomination: “Best Sound” (Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott, and David Parker)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins: “Best Motion Picture – Animated” and “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste)

2021 BAFTA Awards:  2 wins: “Best Animated Feature Film” (Pete Docter and Dana Murray) and “Original Score” (Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross); 1 nomination: “Best Sound” (Coya Elliott, Ren Klyce, and David Parker)


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN" Rocked Me Like a Hurricane

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 of 2021 (No. 1767) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Promising Young Woman (2020)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence including sexual assault, language throughout, some sexual material and drug use
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Emerald Fennell
PRODUCERS:  Tom Ackerley, Ben Browning, Emerald Fennell, Ashley Fox, Josey McNamara, and Margot Robbie
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Benjamin Cracun (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Frederic Thoraval
COMPOSER:  Anthony Willis
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/COMEDY/THRILLER

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Chris Lowell, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Sam Richardson, Alfred Molina, and Molly Shannon

Promising Young Woman is a 2020 black comedy and suspense thriller film from director Emerald Fennell.  The film focuses on a young woman who takes revenge for a traumatic event in her past on the unwary young men who cross her path.

Promising Young Woman introduces Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas (Carey Mulligan), a 30 year-old medical school dropout who lives with her parents, Susan (Jennifer Coolidge) and Stanley Thomas (Clancy Brown), in Ohio.  Seven years earlier, something terrible happened to Cassie's best friend, Nina Fisher, at a party, and it led to both Cassie and Nina leaving the medical school they attended, Forrest University.

Now, Cassie spends her nights feigning drunkenness in clubs, and allowing men to take her to their homes.  Then, she bluntly and forcefully reveals her sobriety when these men try to take advantage of her by having sexual relations with a woman who is too inebriated to give consent.  Things begin to change when Cassie is reunited with a former classmate, Dr. Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a pediatrician.  When another classmate reveals a lurid secret, Cassie resumes her mission of revenge, but can she survive her own mission.

Of the many shocking things about Promising Young Woman, one of them is actress Carey Mulligan.  She completely buries herself in this role, and the waif-like persona she adopted in some of her early films disappears in the storm of the force of nature that is Cassie.  Mulligan's performance as Cassie recalls classic Clint Eastwood movie characters like “Dirty” Harry Callahan and “Preacher” (from 1985's Pale Rider).  I also have to give a shout out to Promising Young Woman's makeup department for its work in creating Cassie's look, which, spiritually, recalls the those vengeful dead girls in such Japanese horror films as Ringu (1998) and Ju-On: The Grudge (2002).

I can't help but be impressed by the debut directorial effort of writer-director Emerald Fennell.  Her film is straight to the point.  Fennell is not being allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic.  Fennell delivers stunning entertainment that is both a timely message movie and a timeless cinematic film, a mainstream spin of the spirit of The Last House on the Left (1972) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978).  She may or may not be talking to you, sir, but there is no doubt about what Fennell is saying.

In a way, Promising Young Woman is the Get Out of 2020.  Like Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning film, Promising Young Woman is a game changer.  Whereas Peele's Get Out was a revelation in its message about white people's violence against African-American bodies, Fennell's Promising Young Woman is the clarion call to the reckoning for the way men objectify and enact sexual violence on the bodies of women.  Hopefully, Fennell's film is the cinematic earthquake that leads to a Hollywood tsunami.

And yes, Promising Young Woman is entertaining.  It simply manages to also blow your mind, chill your blood … and make some men reflexively cover their jewels.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, March 22, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Original Screenplay” (Emerald Fennell); 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell, and Josey McNamara), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Carey Mulligan), “Best Achievement in Directing” (Emerald Fennell), and “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (Frédéric Thoraval)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  4 nominations: “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Emerald Fennell), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Carey Mulligan), “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Emerald Fennell), “Best Motion Picture - Drama”

2021 BAFTA Awards:  2 wins: “Best Screenplay-Original” (Emerald Fennell) and “Outstanding British Film of the Year” (Emerald Fennell, Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, and Josey McNamara); 4 nominations: “Best Film” (Ben Browning, Emerald Fennell, Ashley Fox, and Josey McNamara), “Best Editing” (Frédéric Thoraval), “Original Score” (Anthony Willis), and “Best Casting” (Lindsay Graham and Mary Vernieu)


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "SON OF SAUL" is Powerful and Unforgettable

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 of 2021 (No. 1763) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Son of Saul (2015)
Saul fia – original title
Country:  Hungary

Running time:  107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)

MPAA – R for disturbing violent content, and some graphic nudity

DIRECTOR:  Laszlo Nemes

WRITERS:  Laszlo Nemes and Clara Royer

PRODUCERS:  Gábor Rajna and Gábor Sipos

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Mátyás Erdély

EDITOR:  Matthieu Taponier

COMPOSER:  Melis László

Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring:  Geza Rohrig, Levente Molnar, Urs Rechn,Todd Charmont, Jerzy Walczak, Sandor Zsoter, Istvan Pion, Amitai Kedar, Juli Jakab, Gergo Farkas and Balazs Farkas

Son of Saul or Saul fia (original title) is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama from director Laszlo Nemes.  The film is set in a concentration camp and focuses on a prisoner who tries to save his son's body from the crematorium.  The film won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of 2015.”

Son of Saul opens in the Nazi extermination camp, Auschwitz, in October 1944.  Jewish-Hungarian prisoner, Saul Ausländer (Geza Rorig), is a member of Sonderkommando.  This unit is made of Jewish prisoners who herd other Jews into the showers where they will be gassed to death.  Afterwards, Saul and the other Sonderkommando remove valuables from the clothes of the dead, drag the dead from the gas chambers to the crematoria so they can be burned, and finally clean the killing floors.

Saul carries out his dreadful task with a stoic and impassive expression upon his face.  One day, however, Saul recognizes a boy removed from the gas chambers.  He believes the boy is his son, so he begins a desperate, furtive campaign to save his son's body from the flames of the crematoria.

I have seen many films and television programs that are partially set in concentration camps and films that directly or indirectly concern the Holocaust.  I think that Son of Saul is only one of a few films that I have seen that are set entirely or almost entirely in a Nazi extermination camps.  The most obvious example is the Oscar-winning Schindler's List, which was directed by Steven Spielberg.  In some ways, Spielberg presented Schindler's List as if it were something out of time, a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood, in terms of acting and staging.

With Son of Saul, director Laszlo Nemes makes no attempt at the artifice of prestige Hollywood cinema.  Stylistic and stylish choices are used to make clear to the audience that the situation in which Saul Auslander lives is entirely bleak and without hope.  This Nazi machine to kill Jews that we call the Holocaust is an industry, and its factory workers are dead men and women walking.  You do whatever you need to get the job done, even if you have to shoot prisoners one by one and dump their bodies in pits because the machinery is temporarily clogged or the backlog of those to be processed is too long.

Saul's desperate plot to save the boy-who-could-be-his-son's body is only that – an act of desperation.  It is something a dead man does so that at least one of his last gasps will taste sweet.  Saul and practically all the other Jewish prisoners are already dead.

Son of Saul is a damning work of art.  This is high art as a cave painting on the consciousness of lovers of cinema and movie buffs.  Son of Saul is a recreation... or is it a reminder of a time so terrible that it haunts the past, present, and future of our species.

9 of 10

A+

Saturday, October 29, 2016


NOTES:
2016 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” (Hungary)

2016 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film” (Hungary)

2015 Cannes Film Festival:  4 wins: “FIPRESCI Prize-Competition” (László Nemes), “François Chalais Award” (László Nemes), “Grand Prize of the Jury” (László Nemes), and “Vulcain Prize for the Technical Artist” (Tamás Zányi-sound designer for the outstanding contribution of sound to the narration.); 2 nominations:  “Golden Camera” (László Nemes) and “Palme d'Or” (László Nemes)

The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#28DaysofBlack Review: "LILIES OF THE FIELD" Feels Timeless and Spiritual

[For his performance in Lilies of the Field, Sidney Poitier became the first Black man to win the “Best Actor” Oscar.  Poitier received his Oscar at the 36th Academy Awards ceremony, held in April 1964.  It would be 38 years later, at the 74th Academy Awards in March 2002, when the second Black man won a “Best Actor” Oscar, Denzel Washington.  That night, Halle Berry also became the first, and of this writing, only Black woman to win a “Best Actress” Oscar.]

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 19 of 2021 (No. 1757) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lilies of the Field (1963)
Running time:  95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Ralph Nelson
WRITER:  James Poe (based on the novel, The Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett)
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Ernest Haller (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  John W. McCafferty
COMPOSER:  Jerry Goldsmith
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring:  Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino, Francesca Jarvis, Pamela Branch, Stanley Adams, and Dan Frazer

Lilies of the Field is a 1963 drama film from producer-director, Ralph Nelson.  The film is based on the 1962 novel, The Lilies of the Field, written by William Edward Barrett.  Lilies of the Field the film focuses on a traveling handyman and the nuns who believe that he is the answer to their prayers.

Lilies of the Field opens somewhere in the Arizona desert.  Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier), an itinerant jack-of-all-trades, stops at what he assumes is an ordinary farm to obtain some water for his car, a station wagon.  There, he sees a group of women working around the farm.  These women turn out to be five nuns:  Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), Sister Gertrude (Lisa Mann), Sister Agnes (Iro Crino), Sister Albertine (Francesca Jarvis), and Sister Elizabeth (Pamela Branch).  The nuns, who speak very little English, introduce themselves as German, Austrian and Hungarian nuns.

Maria, the “Mother Superior” (the leader of the nuns), persuades Homer, whom she calls “Homer Schmidt,” to do a small job of roofing repair on the main building.  He stays overnight, assuming that he will be paid in the morning.  The next day, Smith tries to persuade Mother Maria to pay him by quoting from the Holy Bible, but she responds by asking him to read a Bible verse from the “Sermon on the Mount” (“Consider the lilies of the field...).  This won't be the last time that Mother Maria stonewalls Homer on the payment she owes him, but his strengths and skills are apparent to her and her nuns.  Mother Maria believes that Homer has been sent by God to fulfill their dream of building a chapel (which they call a “shapel”) on their land.

If people remember Lilies of the Field, it would be for Sidney Poitier's performance, which earned him the “Best Actor” Oscar, and for the film's historical relevance.  Poitier's win for portraying Homer Smith was the first time a black man had won the “Best Actor” Oscar, and it was also the first time a black actor had won an Academy Award in a lead acting category.  To date, Homer Smith is my favorite performance of Poitier's.  Poitier presents Homer as a man full of skill, grit, and determination, with plenty of sly wit and humor.  Most of all, through Homer, Poitier makes the audience believe in man's capacity for kindness and in a man having a sense of duty and honor that he does not use to place himself above other men.

The film is blessed with several good performances.  Lilia Skala, who earned a “Best Supporting Actress” Oscar nomination for her performance, can convince the audience that Mother Maria is a real person and not just a character in a movie.  Skala makes Maria's faith seem genuine, and it is Maria's faith in God that in turn makes this film feel like a religious movie, or even a Christian movie, for that matter, without Lilies of the Field specifically being either religious or Christian.

Faith in God and faith in the goodness of man are at the heart of this film.  James Poe's screenplay and the way that director Ralph Nelson presents this story combine to send a simple message of faith in God over worrying about the things one wants to happen.  Lilies of the Field is not a Christmas movie, but I think it could be a wonderful entry in people's “Happy Holidays” playlist.

I found myself often very emotional while watching this film.  At a little more than a hour and a half of run time, Lilies of the Field seems like a fairy tale, a folk tale, or even a Biblical story.  It is magical.  It is wonderful.  And it makes faith seem like a very good thing, indeed.  When people speak of the magic of Hollywood films, I think that there is plenty of that magic in Lilies of the Field.

10 of 10

Tuesday, February 23, 2021


NOTES:
1964 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Sidney Poitier); 4 nominations: “Best Picture” (Ralph Nelson), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Lilia Skala), “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium” (James Poe), and “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Ernest Haller)

1964 Golden Globes, USA:  2 wins:  “Best Actor – Drama” (Sidney Poitier) and “Best Film Promoting International Understanding” and 2 nominations:  “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and “Best Supporting Actress” (Lilia Skala)

1965 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Foreign Actor” (Sidney Poitier) and “UN Award” (USA)

2020 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  1 win: “National Film Registry”


The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Amazon wants me to inform you that the link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the ad below AND buy something(s).