Dogs Bark

A Majors Disaster - - The Fall Guy (2024, USA, Color, 126 min) - - 13 May 2024

Not recommended. I don’t know why I have to explain this, but here’s how to make an action/adventure romantic comedy (e.g., the first two Indiana Jones pictures). Hot leading actors with chemistry and popularity.  Don’t get in their way with complicated plots, childish fourth-wall cuteness, Taylor Swift jokes, a lousy supporting cast and . . . karaoke. To its dismal failure, The Fall Guy only follows the first rule. Can you believe this is just the first pairing of Ryan Gosling (Barbie) and Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer)? Hopefully, they will find a script worthy of their thermodynamics. This one is packed with a completely injudicious number of car crashes, explosions, defenestrations, and testicular dog bites, which the stunt man/director, (David Leitch, Atomic Blonde), seems to believe tribute the importance of his former craft. But good gags need a good movie. In Atomic Blonde, the punches served the characters; here, it’s the other way round.

 

O Mio Firenze Caro - - A Room With A View (1985, UK, Color, 117 min) - - 4 April 2024

Strongly Recommended. A Room With A View was the first collaboration by director James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name), producer Ismael Merchant (The Remains Of The Day), and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Howard's End) to gain a Best Picture Oscar nomination. It also premiered Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech) as Lucy Honeychurch . . . the titular view supplied by the city of Florence. Lucy is betrothed to a priggish fellow back in Surrey, played by an untypically cast Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln) and - - in line with EM Forester's (A Passage to India) novel - - sights a new swain in Italy. Scatttered throughout are wonderful performances by Judi Dench (Belfast), Dame Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey), Denhold Elliot (Raiders Of The Lost Ark), and the late Julian Sands (Warlock) as Lucy's more warranted love. Well-deserved Oscars went to Jhabvala, the art and set decoration team, and Jenny Bevan (Gosford Park) for her costumes.  

The Pony Prances - - Ferrari (2023, USA, Italy, UK, Color, 130 min) - - 31 March 2024

Recommended. Ferrari makes a fine bookend to Ford Vs Ferrari, telling the back story of why Henry Ford II could consider buying an Italian legend. Set in 1957, Ferrari explains the financial danger of the company and the intercalation of its founder’s personal peccadillos in that peril. For that reason, Adam Driver (Marriage Story) needed a strong and authentic performance, and, despite his unconvincing accent, almost gets it. Director Michel Mann’s original choice, Ford Vs Ferrari’s Christian Bale might have done better and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) is mildly miscast as Ferrari’s mistress. But totally perfect is Penélope Cruz (Volver), employing both sensitive and scintillating acting as Laura (Mrs.) Ferrari. She should have gotten an Oscar nomination. The filming of the Mille Miglia race is technically fantastic and largely the work of also un-nominated Erik Messerschmidt (Mank), cinematography, Pietro Scalia (Black Hawk Down), editor, and Tony Lamberti (Inglourious Basterds), sound.

Duke's Picks - - The Oscars (2023) - - 3 March 2024

So, due to the summer phenomenon called Heimenopptabarb (did I say that right?), or perhaps the full absorption of cinema into the multiversal stream, I actually managed to see (and review) most of the nominated films before the day of the unveiling. And with two glaring omissions, I am not unhappy. Of course, the idea that Ken could drive his monster truck into the acting category - - but Margot was left at the curb - - is so ironically stupid; however, leaving Greta Gerwig off the directing ballot is even worse. Apparently, toxic Kenergy is still a problem. And what’s with nominating Barbie in the adapted screenplay category? Adapted from what? Her diary?

Oh well, we proceedeth onward.

Best Actor in a Starring Role - - Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction - - This was a crazy strong category. Any one of these actors did a splendid job. If I could choose two, it might be Wright and Cillian Murphy, two fine actors who deserved past nominations and will win more. Either one will make me happy, and the smart money is on Cillian. Giamatti deserved a nod for Sideways, and this role was very good, but not as hard. 

Best Actress in a Starring Role - - Lily Gladstone, Killers Of The Flower Moon - - Because of the insane oversight of Margot Robbie in Barbie, this Award is asterisked, which is sad because I don’t know who would be dropped from this astonishing group of performers. I might pick Emma Stone for the Oscar since her performance in Poor Things was so unique, perhaps too unique for the Academy. Bening and Mulligan were just up to their usual very high standards, and Sandra Hüller (Anatomy Of A Fall AND The Zone of Interest) was astonishing in both of her Oscar-nominated films. But Lily Gladstone, in Killers Of The Flower Moon, charmed everyone - - including me - - with her meticulous and intelligent performance in a fantastic role. More of her and Hüller, please.

Best Actor In A Supporting Role - - Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer - - Like Lily and several other of my choices . . . this could be a lock. I don’t know about the Academy, but I like to see actors play against type, and a mean-spirited, anti-Commie bureaucrat is about as far as you can get from Downey’s public persona. Mark Ruffalo in (Poor Things), Robert De Niro (Killers Of The Flower Moon), and Sterling Brown (American Fiction) were very good in limited parts. And I thought Ryan Gosling was wonderfully funny.

Best Actress In A Supporting Role - - Jodie Foster, Nyad - - I didn’t see The Color Purple, so this is a limited opinion, but of the ones I did see, Emily Blunt in Oppenheimer was near perfect. And many think she got gypped on The Devil Wears Prada, so she’s got the inside track over Globe-winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers). I loved America Ferrera in Barbie but I thought that Jodie Foster was terrific in Nyad, a very calm, thoughtful performance.

Best Original Screenplay - - Justine Triet & Arthur Harari, Anatomy Of A Fall - - In my mind, this is a two-way battle between the two non-English speaking films, Anatomy Of A Fall and Past Lives. Both are insightful and great commentaries on modern life. Both are deeply satisfying scripts. Anatomy Of A Fall is a more complex story, so it wins my book by a nose.

Best Adapted Screenplay - - Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach, Barbie, Again, I have no idea why Barbie is presumed to be adapted. No other story about Mattel’s toy has featured her in an LAPD mugshot or sent her to a gynecologist. What . . . ever. I loved this movie, and the script was triumphantly original. Having said all that, the other four screenplays were almost as good.

Best Cinematography - - Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer - - I didn’t see El Conde, but I’m not big on autocratic vampires. This is only van Hoytema's second nomination . . . despite his amazing career. He should have won in 2018 for Dunkirk and wasn’t even nominated in 2015 for Interstellar. I hope these errors are corrected this year.

Best Costume Design - - Yorgos Lanthimos and Best Production Design - - James Price, Shona Heath, Zsuzsa Mihalek, Poor Things - - These are obviously two separate Awards, and each has its own skills, but the wildly creative art direction of Poor Things combined them in ways that were perfectly harmonized. Actually, Barbie was also painted this way, so I have no argument with seeing the Oscars distributed between the two films. I love Jacqueline Durran (Pride & Prejudice), who is nominated for Barbie.

Best Direction - - Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer - - I could be a little bitch and protest Greta’s insult, but that would add a second insult to the five people nominated for their outstanding work. In fact, it’s hard to choose; however, Nolan’s work on Oppenheimer rose a bit above . . . and he’s never won this Award. Amazingly, Marty (Killers Of The Flower Moon) has only won one out of ten nominations.  

Best Picture - - David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie B, Barbie - - I loved Barbie for all the politically right (left?) reasons. I have always had a warm spot in my heart for girl power. Barbie mocks 21st-century femininity at the same time as it celebrates it. The Billie Eilish song (What Was I Made For?) and America Ferrera’s now famous soliloquy detail the (still) sad state of gender (ir)rationality, but Eilish and America don’t seem so much sad . . . as just frustrated. And Ryan Gosling is wonderful, mocking the traits that keep men performing the same crazy and limiting behaviors. I wonder if Elizabeth Jean Carroll would reduce her compensation by a dollar for each viewing of Barbie forced on her assailant. Anybody remember A Clockwork Orange?

And so it goes . . . I actually won’t be at the ceremony this year. Not with Meg Ryan, Isabella Rossellini, or anyone else. I will be flinging my decrepitude across the globe to a meeting at Cinecittà. If you don’t believe me, we can first visit La Bocca della Verità.

And until next time, I’ll see you . . . at the movies.

Karmic Connection - - Past Lives (2023, USA/Korea, Color, 105 min) - - 29 February 2024

Strongly recommended. Celine Song (The Wheel of Time), the writer/director of Best-Picture-nominated Past Lives has made a wonderfully thoughtful film about the lessons of life.  Two Korean children - - boy and girl - - growing up together are separated, come together as young adults, and then ten years later in New York. The woman, played by Greta Lee (St. Vincent), is ambitious and breaks off their romance. In the final sequence, she has wed a native New Yorker (John Magaro, First Cow) who speaks little Korean. Hae Sung (Teo Yoo, Decision to Leave) shows up on a visit, clearly still enamored of his childhood sweetheart. Nora (Lee) must explain how she cannot return his feelings, despite her affection. Her husband is just trying to understand both of them, linguistically and emotionally. The story is simple but impressively acted and totally authentic. A very adult movie . . . in the best sense of the word.

 

A Marriage Is A Mystery - - Anatomy Of A Fall (2023, France, Color, 151 min) - - 26 February 2024

Strongly Recommended. The center of Anatomy Of A Fall is the death - - possibly by suicide or murder - - of a man from an upstairs window while his wife sleeps one floor below. The heart of the film is the death of a marriage. The excellence of Justine Triet’s (Sybil) script/direction is the interleaving of these two tragedies in a way that makes us want to know the real story. And do we get that? We get something from Sandra Hüller’s (Zone Of Interest) careful, nuanced, and Oscar^© nominated performance, and we believe her enough to feel sympathetic . . . but with a lingering whiff of uncertainty that is unsettlingly satisfying. Most of the plot is taken up in a courtroom, attended by Hüller’s stoic son (talented youngster Milo Machado-Graner) who delivers a key bit of evidence at the end. This is a very well-made movie, deserving of its Best Picture nod.

Wrighting The Writer - - American Fiction (2023, USA, Color, 117 min) - - 12 February 2012

Recommended. Jeffery Wright (Cadillac Records) is one of our best actors and if the Academy decides that American Fiction awards him that statuette . . . I won't be upset. Wright plays Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison, a name redolent of two African-American geniuses and in that, we realize that American Fiction is one . . . a satirical folk tale and not real. This is confirmed near the end, when Monk changes the conclusion of the movie several times. I know, you gotta be there. The fiction does not keep writer/director (and Tucson native) Cord Jefferson from constructing some wonderfully real characters to bounce off Monk, particularly his dementia-suffering mother, delightfully played by Leslie Uggams (Roots) and his gay brother Cliff (also Oscar^© nominated Sterling K. Brown, Black Panther). Most of the white characters are inane but should not be taken seriously.  Despite this American Fiction, is a charming picture only diminished by the rather feckless ending.       

Watashitachi No Yuujin - - The Yakuza (1974, USA, Color,112 min) - -31 January 2025

Recommended. The Yakuza might only appeal to movie historians. It bombed at the box office. It's frequently called a neo-noir - - and it has some noir elements - - but it's really a hard-boiled detective story. The script was written by Paul Schrader (Raging Bull), based on a short story by his brother, Leonard (Kiss of the Spider Woman). The next script Schrader wrote was Taxi Driver, where he was allowed a bit more fake blood. Actually, Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) was one of the many directors considered for The Yakuza . . . until Sydney Pollack was drafted (The Way We Were). This was Robert Mitchum's (Out Of The Past) last major starring role, paired with martial-arts phenom, Ken Takakura (Railroad Man). Mitchum is doing a favor for a US gangster, retrieving his daughter from a Yakuza boss. It's a good movie . . . somewhat flawed by a lack of commitment to the genre. 

Meet Me Behind The Mall - - Rustin (2023, USA, Color, 106 min) - - 31 January 2025

Recommended. A successful gay, Black, Quaker, human rights activist who survived the 50s and 60s in America must have a place in history. Bayard Rustin (Oscar^©-nominated and gay himself, Colman Domingo, Selma) did survive and thrived in the Civil Rights Movement, despite earning the enmity of both Congressman Adam Clayton Powell (Jeffery Wright, American Fiction) and NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock, Amsterdam). Fortunately, he had friends, including Dr. Martin Luther King (Aml Ameen, Beyond the Lights) and, once the police outed him, a refusal to express shame over his sexuality. Rustin, the movie, focusses on his finest hour, setting up the 1963 March on Washington, including King's opportunity for the "I Have a Dream" speech. All this said, we don't learn a lot about Rustin's youth and work after the march, including AIDS and peace activism but this is an excellent history of a man and his time.

The Unheard Known - - The Zone Of Interest (2023, USA/UK/Poland, Color, 105 min) - - 27 September 2024, International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Recommended. The Zone Of Interest is the latest meditation on Hannah Arendt's observation that Nazi bureaucrat Adolph Eichmann exemplified "the banality of evil." Eichmann could more easily abstract the slaughter of human beings than the family of Rudolf Höss, Kommandant of Auschwitz (Christian Friedel, The White Ribbon). The story centers on Höss - - like Eichmann, a blandly ambitious functionary - - and his wife, played by Sandra Hüller (Anatomy Of A Fall), as a whiney, grubby Army spouse. Director Jonathan Glazer (Under The Skin) methodically unveils the horror underlying the banality of the Höss family . . . fussing over their flower garden. First, comes the barbed-wire-topped concrete wall bordering Höss's backyard. Then, the constant smoke. Finally, it's the background noise . . . wailing children, barked orders, and random pistol shots seeping through the walls. And most terrible is a 24/7 rumble, the ravenous oven's roar. The Zone Of Interest is Oscar^©-nominated for sound . . . evil sound.