Dogs Bark

7000 RPM - - Ford V Ferrari (2019, USA, Color, 152 min) - - 21 November 2019

Recommended.  Despite being a fan in 1966, I deliberately did not check on that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Most viewers wouldn’t remember any part of the race and I want to experience James Mangold’s (3:10 to Yuma) film, Ford V Ferrari, as similar to them as I could. You’re welcome and you’ll love it. Although the acting is mostly great, it’s the camera work that elevates a racing film. Greek cameraman, Phedon Papamichael (3:10 to Yuma), doesn’t like CGI and Ford V Ferrari mostly avoids it, substituting the real motion, vibration and power. Sound effects (Jay Wilkinson/Donald Sylvester) contribute to this verisimilitude. Leads Matt Damon (True Grit) as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale (Vice) as driver/designer Ken Miles and character actor Ray McKinnon (Deadwood) as Shelby’s brilliant chief engineer, Phil Remington, are authentic and engaging. The evil meddling Ford executives are pretty cardboard  . . . but that's authentic, too.  

Underclass - - Gisaengchung [Parasite] (2019, South Korea, Color, 132 min) - - 14 November 2019

Strongly recommended. The amusement of director Bong Joon Ho (The Host) is reflected in the title. Who’s leeching on whom? Is it the basement dwellers of the Kim family, scamming their way through modern life in South Korea? Or is it the wealthy Park family, relying upon servants but finding them smelly and disposable? There is a critical moment in the wild finale of this brilliant movie where we are given a clue . . . a small thing that reflects the subtlety of Bong’s direction and Song Kang-ho’s (The Host) acting talent, as he leads another dysfunctional family. Reviewers must avoid spoilers in this carefully staged and hugely enjoyable winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or. One is reminded of the Coen brothers in Bong’s great blending of humor and wild strife. Parasite may or may not win the Best Picture Oscar - - as some critics predict - - but it’s worth a hard Academy look.

Eyes Only For Their Sufferings - - Windows On The World (2019, USA, Color, 107 min) - - 9 November 2019

Recommended. Over the last eighteen years there’s been a random collection of books and movies that include the events of 9/11. The collective horror of that morning really challenges a storyteller. Somehow, it will always be too soon. Perhaps this is why director Michael Olmos (Filly Brown) uses a foreigner’s eyes to tell his tale. Ryan Guzman (Beyond Paradise) plays Fernando, the son of a Mazatlan shrimper (Edward James Olmos, Stand and Deliver, Michael’s father) who worked for the Windows on the World restaurant on that day. Soon after, Fernando illegally enters the US in order to search for his father and satisfy his mother’s belief that Balthazar made it out alive . . . despite that everyone above the 92^nd floor of WTC North died. Fernando’s quixotic (literally) struggle for resolution, shows the complex and desperately sad environment that Manhattan had become. Look for a wonderful cameo by blues musician Charlie Musselwhite.

- - seen at 2019 Loft Film Festival in Tucson. Windows of the World will be re-shown Thursday, November 14th.

As Little As Possible - - Motherless Brooklyn (2019, USA, Color, 144 min) - - 7 November 2019

Recommended. Sometimes it seems like homage has been raised to a genre all its own. In 1974, Roman Polanski (Repulsion) arguably invented neo-noir/neo-hardboiled detective cinema with his masterpiece Chinatown. This century, we have neo-neo-noir, and Motherless Brooklyn is an interesting - - though overlong - - example. The bow to Polanski is in plain sight; Alec Baldwin's (Glengarry Glen Ross) character, is an obvious fictionalization of NYC masterbuilder, Robert Moses (channeling Trump) but much like John Huston’s (The Maltese Falcon) Noah Cross, taken to the extreme bad. And speaking of Huston, the plot of Motherless Brooklyn also samples his chef-d'oeuvre. These borrowings are all transparent acts of love by director/star/writer Edward Norton (25th Hour), who’s afflicted hero, Lionel Essrog, places a rara avis in the line-up. Norton allows the rest of the cast to display their talents. Sadly, Daniel Pemberton (Steve Jobs) awkward score only reminds us of the brilliance of Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown).

Manu’s Prey - - Water (2005, Canada/India, Color, 117 min) - - 2 November 2019

Strongly recommended. What is the role of faith in this world? So asks Deepa Mehta (Midnight's Children), who wrote and directed this astonishing film. On the one hand, we have electronic media globally inundating us at the speed of light; on the other, the fundamentalists of most major religions, using misinterpreted texts to maintain an absurd patriarchy. In Water, Mehta focuses on the abuse of widows in Hindu society during the years of Indian independence. The story unfolds against the liberating influence of Mahatma Gandhi. Mehta casts a girl, young Sarala Kariyawasam, and older Lisa Ray (Bollywood/Hollywood), as the sufferers . . . widowed as children, then cloistered in poverty. The evil of this practice - - still active today - - becomes apparent to a third, older and otherwise devout, widow (Seema Biswas, Midnight's Children), who attempts to salvage both girls. The lyrical photography (Giles Nuttgens, Hell Or High Water) of this Oscar-nominated film is breathtaking.