Dogs Bark

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.

Diana And Her Nymph - - Nyad (2023, USA, Color, 121 min) - - 24 January 2024

Recommended. Nyad is a very good movie about remarkable resolve and athletic prowess. Annette Bening (American Beauty) is fine as Diana Nyad, hinting at the past trauma that drove her. Married co-directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo) do a workman-like job. The story of Diana Nyad’s passion to complete the previously-believed impossible swim from Cuba to Florida is stirring. The cinematography, including Nyad’s struggle with a storm at sea, is painterly. But it’s Jodie Foster (Silence Of The Lambs), playing Bonnie Stoll, Nyad’s coach and best friend - - but explicitly not her lover - - who steals the show. Foster is the first out, lesbian actor who has been Oscar^©-nominated for playing a lesbian character. Why is this important? It’s not just about representation; it’s about authenticity. And that authenticity is apparent in Foster’s performance, an unvarnished characterization at the top of  her game, intense, beautiful, natural, and true

Born Irascible - - The Holdovers (2023, USA, Color, 133 min) - - 8 January 2024

Recommended. Despite the Golden Globe, it's not certain that Paul Giamatti (Sideways) has any lock on the Best Actor Oscar^©; however, we clearly have a new heartwarming Christmas story. The Oscarian uncertainty emerges from the pat casting . . . Giamatti as a crusty-but-benign, prep-school teacher. Still, he imbues this aged stereotype with new life and is set against a very dissimilar pair . . . an African-American cook, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Rustin) who is enduring a tragic loss and Giamatti's charge (newcomer Dominic Sessa), the only student with nowhere to go over Christmas break. While “heartwarming” can quickly turn to overcooked, director Alexander Payne (Election) and writer David Hemingson (Just Shoot Me!) never allow the corn syrup to flow. Most of the story takes place during an extended - - and illicit - - “field trip” to Boston, with the usual disasters and confusion. In the end, everyone turns a page in this nice little movie.     

An Ugly Truth - - May December (2023, USA, Color, 117 min)

Not recommended. This is painful because - - although the output of director Todd Haynes (Carol) is uneven - - Natalie Portman (Closer) and Julianne Moore (The Hours) are wonderfully talented, and Portman produced May December. But this is a nasty movie.  Despite this, the many nominations and awards for tyro Charles Melton (Bad Boys for Life) seem reasonable. Melton plays the husband of Moore, and the father of her child from a romance that started when he was 14. Yuck. The tale is adapted from the true life of Mary-Kay Letourneau and her 12-year-old former student. Even more yucky. Portman and Moore play their characters minus any display of moral complexity . . . despite the obvious and well-played confusion/anguish of the object of their lust. Perhaps, then, this is the intention of Haynes . . . to mock two white women who seduce a young man of color. So what . . .  it's not a story worth telling.

Nose Job - - Maestro (2023, USA, Color and B/W, 129 min) - - 30 December 2023

Recommended. This is - - arguably  - - the age of bewildered sexuality and gender in the movies. And given the variations - - within and between - - these human qualities, movies need to be as fluid as untrammeled personalities. But there was a time when the current candor did not exist. And that is the proscenium for Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s (Silver Lining Playbook), exuberant, one-man performance as Leonard Bernstein. Berstein’s sexual ambiguity included a marriage to a star in her own right, Felicia Montealegre (Studio One), played with brilliant nuance and a boffo Mid-Atlantic accent by Cary Mulligan (Promising Young Woman). This is Mulligan’s best work ever, showing the monstrous, heartrending, - - and occasionally - - glorious experience of marriage to a genius. The story’s culmination comes in the 1973 performance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony at Ely Cathedral. Bernstein’s concluding ecstasy and his passionate off-stage embrace of Montealegre, despite their turmoil, is the perfect metaphor for their life together.