Dogs Bark

Ain’t No Use To Wonder Why - - The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (2020, USA, Color, 129 min) - - 22 February 2021

Recommended. It’s curious that Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men) didn’t call his movie The Trial of the Chicago 8. There were originally eight of the protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago brought to trial. The odd man out was Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Aquaman), who vigorously protested he had no attorney and needed to be tried separately. He was. But before he left, his disruptive protests resulted in the judge ordering him shackled and gagged. This most memorable image of the trial probably did more to assure that everyone was found innocent on appeal than the defense and earned Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella, Dracula) a seat on Hell’s Supreme Court. Seale is also the least developed character in this movie. Other abuses of history abound and are detailed elsewhere. It’s not a bad movie, just not all it should have been.

A Bird On A Wire - - Nomadland (2020, USA, Color, 107 min) - - 20 February 2021

Strongly recommended. Initially, Nomadland is a bit depressing. Especially if Frances McDormand (Fargo) occupies your demographic and your 401K is rather lean. The story’s beginnings primarily concern how to survive on little income and much water under the bridge. As the movie progresses, we learn more about McDormand’s character, Fern, who didn’t choose a marginal existence but accepts it, even taking delight in a few moments. We also see the various off-ramps offered that she passes by . . . a simpatico sister (Melissa Smith), a loving companion (David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck) and we all reach a point of equipoise. Nomadland is the work of astonishing Chloé Zhao (The Rider), a Chinese-born filmmaker who - - based upon this and past work - - understands the American West better than we do ourselves. Beside the strong cast, she’s assisted by exemplary music (Ludovico Einaudi, This Is England) and pictures (Joshua James Richards, The Rider).

Waist Deep - - Da 5 Bloods (2020, USA, Color, 154 min) - - 17 February 2020

Strongly Recommended. Spike Lee, writer/director of Da 5 Bloods, is one of those rare filmmakers whose films are never not interesting. Maddeningly self-indulgent in some cases but never pedestrian. Da 5 Bloods isn’t a Rambo knock-off. How many movie makers would include explicit homages to BOTH The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Apocalypse Now? Add to that the caper angle of Charade - - without Hepburn and Grant - - featuring only the African-American George Kennedy, Delroy Lindo (Get Shorty). Actually Lindo is great in this, despite a slightly underwritten character. Lee is brilliant at ensemble casting and Da 5 Bloods is no exception. Once again, Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) proves he needs neither comic books nor biopics to create a memorable and lively character. Lenser Newton Thomas Sigel’s (The Usual Suspects)  representation of  the Vietnam backcountry is lyrical. Longtime Lee collaborator Terence Blanchard (Inside Man) provides another great score.

Nothin’ But a Pain In Your Heart - - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - - (2020, USA, Color, 94 min) - - 6 February 2020

Strongly Recommended. Across the arc of her remarkable, Oscar-nominated career, from Doubt to this compelling performance, Viola Davis (Fences) has incarnated a blood rage . . . a rage that details in all its complexity, the 400-year history we celebrate this month. But perhaps in no character ever have her talents and her rage been put to better use than this movie, George C. Wolfe’s (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) brilliant adaptation. The complexity and the agency of the actual Ma Rainey’s rage may be a product of the late August Wilson’s (Fences) Tony-winning play and it may be noteworthy that Denzel Washington (Fences) produced the film . . . but Ms. Davis is the star, in every sense. She plays off an equally intense performance - - his last - - by Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther). Expect Oscar nominations for all of the above; however, the supporting cast should also be lauded, principally Glynn Turman (Cooley High).  

Uncoded Message - - These Three (1936, USA, B/W, 93 min) - - 29 January 2021

Recommended. If you’ve seen William Wyler’s The Children’s Hour, you might enjoy seeing his first movie based upon Lillian Hellman’s (The Little Foxes) play and re-written into a conventional romantic triangle between Miriam Hopkins (The Heiress), Merle Oberon (Wuthering Heights) and Joel McCrea (Sullivan’s Travels). Hellman’s skillful excision of the lesbian basis of the story is worthy of study. Very little of the dialogue needed changing. The new romance does shift the moral injury from gossip to homophobia, which Hellman purportedly intended from the start. What is lost is the credibility of the public disgrace. Although the three leads do good work here, when Hopkins admits her romantic feelings for McCrea, the drama seems halfhearted, compared to the original story. Oscar-nominated Bonita Granville (The Glass Key) is more believable as the evil gossip-girl Kathy. It’s delightful that Wyler recast Hopkins as the goofy but nasty aunt in the later film.