One Battle After Another

Well, that’s an interesting concept for a movie: make a film about characters whom only a crazy person would find sympathetic. I guess this is what happens when you start from a position of making sure you have the correct politics, and then work on developing the story from there. That applies especially so when those correct politics echo the most deranged fever dreams of campus justice warriors. The result here is that the story’s villains are plainly villainous, but the putative heroes are simply bundles of uncontrolled animal urges who are not any more admirable than the other side. Other relatively minor issues grow out of a muddled timeline—the tale clearly has contemporary happenings on its mind, but includes a time shift that requires an origin point much further back in the day—and a central relationship that is preposterous on its face. So much for the problems. On the other hand, one must acknowledge that the plot has good pacing, the performances are solid all around, the script does not shy away from any particular difficulties, and—lastly but certainly not least—the core story in its human dimensions overcomes the film’s self-inflicted wounds to grow increasingly more compelling as the narrative moves forward. Also, the movie deserves credit for presenting a most compelling argument for the fact that security and liberty are diametrically opposed forces; increased emphasis on the former necessarily undermines the latter. That’s a political statement that is very much worth making these days, more so perhaps than the blanket canonization of one population cohort versus the demonization of another. So while this flick would hardly qualify as a Best Picture nominee (let alone winner) but for it tickling the strings of Hollywood’s preferred viewpoints, it must merit consideration as a good to maybe even excellent film—it’s just not an example of greatness. So don’t take that PURR as more than it really is. As usual, the real neverending battle is the fight to get people to stop overhyping whatever catches their momentary, acculturated but unrelated fancy. 

The Sound of Music

An ode to beauty, both musical and visual. From the very first shots this movie is gorgeous to look at, and impressive visuals fill the screen throughout, while the music and songs present a lovely tableau that provides delight and warmth throughout. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are splendid in their roles, as are the children, even if their transformations play a little too quick and easy (especially so with the Captain, who goes from hardass to softie in a relative blink). But that’s a quibble. Mostly, this story hits all the right notes, up to and including a touch of drama and derring-do at the climax. Even though it runs almost three hours this movie never drags; you stay engaged and entertained all the way to the end. No wonder this is perennially popular. You can do a lot worse than to include this one among your favorite things.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Irresistible fun. The bedrock of this film is a tremendous sense of humor, a vibe that runs through every aspect of the story’s multidimensional view and injects laugh-out-loud moments into its exploration of how every universe is, ultimately, centered around the one person who is experiencing it. In particular, the filmmakers deliver some spot-on send ups of just about every Kung fu movie trope ever shown on screen, often with uproarious results. In contrast, the sentimental parts of the tale almost seem like a bit of a letdown when they arrive, but they are hardly unwelcome. Indeed, one wonders if all of the movie’s absurdity would even matter if there were not some emotional grounding in the end. The cast members individually and together are remarkable, handling a script that goes far out on a multitude of limbs with impressive aplomb—and doing so in two languages to boot. It’s hard to argue with the acclaim this movie received upon release. A winner in just about any universe you like.

Driving Miss Daisy

There is, perhaps, an object lesson in this film, particularly for the “justice warriors” of today: a greater impact might be had through gentler persuasion, rather than shouting and canceling. It is easy, and superficial, to look at this story--and particularly Morgan Freeman’s performance--and see only caricature and stereotyping. But the road to respect, in all dimensions, starts with accepting people at their face value. That’s the journey that Daisy and Hoke go through here, and thanks largely to the performances of Freeman and Jessica Tandy--both of whom inhabit their characters to perfection--they effectively carry the audience along with them. It may be easy to dismiss this movie; it has often been treated as something of a punchline over the last 30 or so years. But if you give it a chance, you can see why such a deceptively low-key movie was appreciated in the first place.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Major problems face the viewer who watches this film in 2021, approaching 50 years after its release. Most prominent among those problems is the distraction factor that comes from having seen a great many of these actors in various other roles. You have to make an active effort to sink yourself into the time and place of this movie. When you lock in, you recognize that one of the key ingredients here is actually subtlety. If this film were made today, the strokes would be much broader; Nurse Ratched would be a Cruella-type villain and McMurphy would be a faultless hero. Neither applies to the presentation here; you can see both sides of this "argument" although ultimately, the movie's moral still comes through in the end. Another impression: it's entirely possible that Jack Nicholson has never played any character other than Jack Nicholson. I'm not sure what to make of that--just bringing it up here. All in all, this is a film worth seeing; not sure I would have made it Best Picture (though I don't have the perspective to compare it to all of its competition from that year), but this film's long-lasting influence has the ultimate say.

From Here to Eternity

It's probably not a good sign when you spend most of a flick waiting for bombs to drop--as in Pearl Harbor. This work's Best Picture win is evidence that the movie was overvalued due to its proximity in time to WWII (and, perhaps, its alleged raciness, though in reality it's really quite tame). The film's greatest strength lies  in the performances, particularly Burt Lancaster's work as the least screwed up of the principal characters. The narrative's intertwined stories are weak and fairly uninteresting, at least to this viewer. Admittedly, I'm not really one for stories focused on the "lives and loves" of fill-in-the-blank type people, even in a normal context; set such a story against the backdrop of world-altering historical events, and that putative main subject matter comes across as unusually petty and ultimately meaningless. A major disappointment.

Slumdog Millionaire

You know all those people you know who insist on how much they want to go to India? Based on this movie, those people are nuts. Or maybe it's not a place full of violence, evil-doers, wretched poverty and gangsters. Someone, on one side or the other, has bad information. As for this as a work of cinema, it is certainly a strong effort, and probably deserved its Best Picture win, especially in relation to its competition (you could argue for Benjamin Button, probably not the others). The strength here comes from Dev Patel's performance; he made an interesting choice to go calm in a role that often seemed to call for frenetic, and that comes across as a wise decision. Director Boyle's signature visual flair helps sew together what might have otherwise been a distractingly discontinuous narrative. And the climax definitely pays off the long, complicated trip to get there. The only quibble: fact-checking those quiz show questions would have been nice; at least one was dead wrong, and another was debatable. All in all, though, a good film well worth one's attention.

Parasite

Entertaining, engaging, and more than a little thoughtful. Is this flick all those things to a Best Picture degree? I'm not sure about that--the level of the competition matters, too--but it's closer to that level than I expected going in. The story's rich layering helps immensely, as do several fine performances from the actors playing the members of the antiheroic Kim family. Their work translates well, and suspends the viewer's judgement of their actions long enough to maintain the audience's open state of mind as the proceedings reach their equally open-ended conclusion. It was a deserved honor to be nominated, for sure; actually winning the statue was a bit of icing on this film's cake. Ultimately, this film may be remember as the signal that the rest of the world has at least caught up to Hollywood, if not surpassed it.

The Shape of Water

Charming in many ways. Beautiful looking for sure, given its strong art direction and masterful cinematography. That's a bit ironic given the picture's overall theme, but I guess it's a movie so at least some parts of the work must be good-looking. That doesn't necessarily come from the cast, all of whom are unconventional (though hardly monsters); the movie and its makers deserve credit for confounding the usual cinematic expectations in that way. It helps that every performance is spot on, and in a few instances downright powerful. I can't quite say for sure that this rises to the level of Best Picture, but the film is surely worth your time. Go ahead and dive right in.

12 Years a Slave

An artfully crafted and masterfully executed film. This movie achieves exactly what you would hope and expect from a film on this subject: the viewer must watch this story and think to himself, “How would I react to being treated this way?”--precisely the kind of empathy required to prevent such madness. And ‘madness’ is the proper term; in some ways, this film serves as a meditation on how big a role insanity played in creating, justifying, and propping up slavery as an institution. (Not to mention religion, of course.) It’s worthy of its awards, and certainly worthy of your attention.

Argo

This is a very enjoyable movie, but then no duh, it did win Best Picture. That statue does not always necessarily go to the deserving film; in this case, I think the win was deserved, given that all the competitors were flawed. And this too is a film with flaws, but they are slight enough--a few cliched scenes at the climax--that they hardly make watching this work anything less than a fine experience. One interesting thing to note: the verisimilitude is almost too good, in that watching this flick as an American of a certain age can call up a little more rage against Iran than anyone, at this remove, should feel comfortable feeling. Let’s hope that with time comes wisdom, all the way around.

The Artist

A very clever film. I don't know if it's Best Picture clever; I suspect it won the little gold statue for being a movie about movie-making, and given the self-fellating ouroboros that is Hollywood, that was probably more than enough for Academy voters. Which is not to say this one isn't good; again, it's very clever, it pulls out all the stops to tell a silent story visually, and the performances lay on a healthy dose of charm. That's enough to result in a very enjoyable movie-watching experience. So give it a look; just don't start worshiping it or anything.

The French Connection

The don't make Best Picture winners the way they used to. Maybe that's a good thing. This film really shows its age, beyond the facts of Gene Hackman's now advanced age and Roy Scheider's untimely death. And some of the characters' actions, which probably seemed like tough, gritty police work back in the day, come across as ludicrous today. Still, this one does offer up some stylish touches--flourishes of contemporary, down-and-dirty realness, that famous chase scene, and interesting ambiguity all the way to the end. Not bad, but not an all time classic, either--at least not for this viewer.

The Hurt Locker

I need to be cautious here. This is a good movie. A good movie. But this is not a Best Picture movie. I suspect that award had much more to do with the politics of the award-givers, and what they wanted to say, versus the actual quality of this film. The performances ring true, the direction is well done, and the scenes look for all the world like they really were filmed in Iraq in 2004. But again, this film is less a narrative plot than a series of scenes/vignettes on the subject of war and what it does to people (a.k.a. the Saving Private Ryan effect). I'm starting to think that this represents a trend in moviemaking on the subject of war; why the reluctance to show a real war story, instead of just a pastiche representing feelings about the conflict? Is there something there that filmmakers are trying to hide? Avoid? What's going on here? Answering those questions might eventually yield some real Best Picture war movie material.

The Departed

The good news: Scorsese put together a hell of a cast for this film. The bad news: it was Scorsese directing them. This movie neatly exposes and sums up the Scorsese problem: a technically fine film that lacks something, or is off-putting in some crucial way. That aforementioned cast is a case in point: as in all this director's movies, everyone throws himself too forcefully into his role; you can practically see the actors look at the camera and say, "Check out how intense I make this scene." The effect is not one of intensity, but of actors trying too hard (at best) or chewing the scenery (at worst). And it's up to the director to reel that in and hit just the right note. As usual, Scorsese doesn't do that here. And the movie is consequently less than it should be.

The Deer Hunter

The problem with ordinary lives is...they're ordinary. By definition, not particularly interesting. And since this movie is focused on--at least at the start--a set of quite ordinary lives...well, you see we have a problem. Sadly, ordinary lives--in fiction at least--are only redeemed in their disintegration. So it is here. The steel town characters portrayed by DeNiro, Walken, et al., are fundamentally just your average assholes. Things only get interesting when they ship off to Vietnam and life starts hitting them (almost literally) like a shot to the head. Beyond that, there's a little too much self-consciousness about being "important" in this flick--a bad trait in any movie. The reputation this film has is, in this viewer's opinion, not especially well deserved. Your mileage may vary.

Million Dollar Baby

A great film for gruff humor. But then again, its calm and reflective tone casts a spell over the viewer, slowly drawing you in to its hidden world. The constant voice over narration gets irritating after a while, though it's forgivable when you get to the end and realize there was a reason for it all along. The story does take too long to get to its point at the climax, but the strength of the tale and solid performances overcome any issues. Worth a look.

Hamlet (1948)

A visually interesting presentation, great story (naturally), and good (though sometimes uneven) performances make Olivier's 1948 film of Shakespeare's masterpiece worth seeing. The quality is not quite as high as film historians would have you believe (witness the aforementioned uneven performances), but there's more than enough quality within to make this a worthy rendition of the story.

The Best Years Of Our Lives

An extraordinary film, worthy of its Best Picture award. The tripartite storyline examines the plight of returning WWII veterans from all angles, up and down the social, economic, political, and emotional spectrum. Great performances by Dana Andrews, Frederic March and Harold Russell, along with William Wyler's keen direction, make this one a classic that everyone should see.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

They got it mostly right, veering off from the hard and true only in little, forgivable touches. Most impressive of all, the spectacle never really overwhelms the "human" story; the emotions are present and true. A bang up way to end a three-year-long, wild and exciting ride.