Review: Rebecca (2020)

Posted on October 16, 2020 by sheila

A new adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s book for Netflix, starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas. I reviewed for Ebert.

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Music Monday: Scott Walker In The ’70’s: 8 Years In Easy Listening Hell, by Brendan O’Malley

Posted on October 12, 2020 by sheila

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. I just wrapped up posting his 50 Best Albums. But I figured I’d keep “Music Monday” going with more of the stuff Bren wrote about music.

This is part of Brendan’s lengthy series of essays on Scott Walker, which I’ll be posting for the foreseeable future, one every Monday.

Scott Walker In The ’70’s: 8 Years In Easy Listening Hell

In the three years after The Walker Brothers broke up, Scott Walker wrote, produced and recorded five full length albums. Most artists of the era tended to release an album a year, a pace which Walker almost doubled even though he was also hosting his own weekly BBC show during one of the years in question. Now, volume doesn’t necessarily equal quality so there is an element of subjectivity here, but the sophistication and intricacy of these albums is, to my opinion, staggering.

The first three albums each charted quite high, with Scott 2 reaching number 1, no small feat in an era dominated by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and countless other foreign acts.

The special compilation compiled from the BBC program was released while Walker was preparing his first fully original album, the first three having been peppered with standards and Jacques Brel translations among his own compositions.

Scott 4 was released in November of 1969. Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott Walker Sings Songs From His TV Series hit #3, #1, #3 and #7 respectively.

Scott 4 didn’t chart at all. His next album Til The Band Comes In was a compromise for Walker as he was forced by his record label to record songs that he didn’t write in addition to his own material. It, too, failed to chart.

This hardened the resolve of the record label. There was nothing in Walker’s contract that gave him the right to decide what songs went on the albums. He has never described exactly how this unfolded but the result was devastating.

In the five years spanning The Walker Brothers career to the failure of Til The Band Comes In, Walker wrote upwards of fifty songs.

From 1970 to 1978 he wrote none.

Eight years. None.

Oh, he sang. Quite a bit. The label was attempting to rediscover the romantic niche triggered by the swell of “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”, trying to tap back into the repressed female English libido that had sent legions of young girls hurtling at Scott Walker’s frail tall body as he tried to sing through the screams.

Walker disconnected JUST enough to be able to do the job, to sing the treacle. Sure he was still involved in the studio and arrangements but his fire had been dimmed. These eight years see Walker release four solo albums and two with the oddly reunited Walker Brothers. A total of sixty-four tracks. None of them original.

Now, there are factions within Walker’s fans, as with any artist of note. Some followed him into the treacle and incorporated it into their view of him. These fans are invariably downright disgusted with his output since then, wishing that he’d return to the lush melodies that he wrote in the ’60’s. Then there are the modern punks who have no use for the MOR (middle-of-the-road) product he churned out during this cruise control and who are thrilled at the avant-garde boundary that he has sped past into uncharted waters.

I find the easy listening period fascinating, like watching a great actor in a terrible movie. These are not crude productions, they are lush affairs with perfectly executed string sections, brass trills, orchestral bombast. Walker’s singing is impeccable and quite stunning. It all sounds effortless but if you try to match him note for note you are out of breath in an instant and he just keeps going and going and going.

There is an extra layer of meaning that these songs have accrued over time when you factor in what COULD have been. The weight of these weightless confections is somehow painful because you can’t help but wonder what he would have done with all those resources in excavating his OWN strange and eerie vision.

Imagine Fiona Apple hidden inside a Celine Dion album.

It reminds me of the end of Being John Malkovich, with John Cusack trapped for eternity without a voice, doomed to watch all that he had loved just outside of his grasp.

And yet, somehow, against all probabilities, beauty remains in the trap.

Listen to “Sunshine” from 1973’s Stretch.

— Brendan O’Malley

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Angles and Archetypes: From Burt to Brando to Rourke to Jensen Ackles to Martha Graham to Hieroglyphs to Paul Le Mat

Posted on October 11, 2020 by sheila

“Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” — Frank Sinatra

When Burt Reynolds died I wrote this whole thing about how he “worked his angles.” Like Tyra Banks tells you to do. Like all the great personae of yore knew how to do.

I’m obsessed with actors – men especially – who work their angles in this way. Burt. Marlon Brando. The Wild One is a TREATISE on how to work your angles.

John Wayne at times works his angles, hands on hips, indomitable, head lowered then rising, head crooked back to look over his shoulder … all connoting power, alertness, he understood what his body meant, and how he used it consciously. Mickey Rourke, at his best, was so angle-y he was almost twisted up into a pretzel.

Even with the angles, though, he has an almost liquid-y quality, smooth, nothing tense – his angles are fluid … one of the reasons he became such an important star when he first arrived. Nobody else moved like that. He called up so many references to so many other actors, connecting him to a powerful past, while also suggesting a promising future. James Dean was all angles, his body was both 100% stressed-out and 100% relaxed, at the same time. Not an easy feat to pull off unless you MEAN that shit. Jensen Ackles completely understands how to use angles in his physical work on Supernatural. Every moment has that little something … extra. He understands the continuum of icons he – and the character he plays – is in. He utilizes that knowledge in the shapes his body makes.

I have a whole theory about actors who “work their angles” in this way, and do so without seeming like they’re overtly preening or posing. Their angles are FULL, not empty. This has to do with understanding archetypes. Not every actor does. It’s not strictly realistic what these actors are doing, it’s … extra, it’s … epic to some degree. They’re expressing the reality of the character’s moment to moment life, but they are also looping in their work to something larger, a tradition, a knowledge, a continuum. Consciously or unconsciously? Well, in acting that question hardly matters. What matters is that it happens.

Here’s another theory: because they are all beautiful – and knew it on some level – they understand what their beauty means and what it can convey. They are conscious and unconscious simultaneously. They are humble and arrogant, simultaneously. But most of all: they are self-aware. They know what they look like and they move their bodies through space with purpose, with awareness of their effect on us.

This has nothing to do with beautiful faces shot lovingly in closeup. This has to do with the body, and the boldness of these actors’ understanding of SHAPES.

And by shapes I mean ANGLES.

And by angles I mean ARCHETYPES.

Martha Graham understood this! In her innovative choreography, she removed the fluid circles of ballet and introduced sharp angles. The theatre critic Stark Young observed after watching Martha Graham dance, “She looks like she’s about to give birth to a cube.”

He wasn’t wrong.

It is not a coincidence that Graham’s angle-filled choreography was all about ARCHETYPES. (Bette Davis studied with Graham. No surprise: now there’s a woman who knew how to “work her angles”.)

It’s also not a surprise that Madonna studied with Graham. Madonna uses angles in her work constantly … what’s Voguing but working your angles?

Voguing came out of the Harlem ballroom scene in New York, flourishing years before Madonna came along and popularized it. Voguing exaggerates: the angles shift so quickly they turn fluid. What was set in stone becomes up for grabs. It’s fascinating to consider this connection with Graham, as well as its clear connection with archetypes. The queer community understood “presentation” of self, “performance” of self and identity, and – to boil it down – that’s what Voguing celebrated. With voguing (the song, in particular), Madonna consciously looped herself into an iconic tradition, paying tribute to the divas of the past, who worked their angles like nobody’s business.

How contemporary does Gloria Swanson look there? It could have been taken yesterday. I am not sure how it WORKS but I just know it’s so: sharp angles don’t exactly exist naturally in nature. Nature is fluid, chaotic, a constant proliferation with no rhyme or reason. And so angles somehow communicate the eternal. Maybe BECAUSE angles don’t exist in nature, outside of tremendous mountain ranges (but even they wear down over time), by twisting your body into sharp angles, you are saying: “I am outside of time.” The figures in Egyptian hieroglyphics … all angles, angles, elbows, necks, headdresses jutting back on an angle, even the fact that they’re standing upright, defying gravity, becomes an angle, their body an angle against the ground they walk on. The angle suggesting immortality, energy against deterioration.

I am not an art historian, but this loops into archetypes, the eternal symbolic figures representative of something else, something huge, something CONCEPTUAL rather than actual.

And, not for nothin’, but Voguing sometimes looks like Egyptian hieroglyphs in motion.

Archetypes tap into a collective memory. They are familiar, even if we can’t put our finger on it. Actors who work on this level are, unsurprisingly, often our biggest stars, our indelible icons. They’re outside of their own time. They are universal. Their work is great, and often grounded in reality, but it’s not kitchen-sink-mumble-mumble reality. It’s connected to something much much larger than themselves. Angles are an essential part of a story-teller’s toolbox.

The reason this all came to me – and I think about it a lot anyway, is in considering Paul Le Mat’s performance in American Graffiti.

Even when he’s behind the wheel he’s working his angles.

At certain points it’s almost exaggerated …

but he knows exactly what he’s doing. With all this, it’s still a naturalistic deeply felt performance. The character is already a throwback, on his way to being a dinosaur, and he’s the only one in the film who seems to know it. The awareness of this is in his face but it’s also in his ANGLES. Important to remember: In, say, Jonathan Demme’s Citizens Band, Le Mat is NOT all angles because it’s not that kind of part. This one is. He’s doing it ON PURPOSE.

With these sharp angles, with every corner of his body, Paul Le Mat moves the character out of the realm of the real and into the iconic. Recognizable to all. You don’t even need to know the storyline: you look at the shape his body makes against the sunrise and you get it ALL.

That shot – and him – taps into memories, dreams, reflections. His body there is a hieroglyph, it’s “graffiti,” in and of itself. It helps us perceive him, perceive his context. He helps us see beyond the moment into the eternal.

THAT’S how you “work your angles.”

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Supernatural: Aaaaand we’re back. Open thread.

Posted on October 9, 2020 by sheila

Posted in Television | Tagged | 38 Comments

Stuff I’ve Been Reading

Posted on October 9, 2020 by sheila

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny

Glenn is a friend of mine and I’ve been looking forward to reading his book on the making-of Goodfellas. Glenn is an amazing writer (he blogs at Some Came Running: he doesn’t post often but whatever he posts is always thought-provoking. I love his style). Coinciding with the 30-year anniversary of Goodfellas, Glenn set out to tell the story, from conception to completion. He interviewed everyone involved, everyone he possibly could, from Scorsese to Thelma Schoonmaker, to De Niro, to people who had one scene. It’s fantastically rich material. I particularly loved Glenn’s chapter on the music in the film, one of its distinguishing characteristics – it’s practically a “jukebox movie”, a la American Graffiti, there are sometimes 3-4 songs included in one scene. Glenn knows a lot about music – he’s been in a band, he has a music background, I always love talking with him about music – and so he doesn’t just list the songs and how they are used, but provides backstories for each of the songs (and the musicians), so you get a sense of the surrounding context. By doing so, by digging into these backstories, you find deeper connecting threads than you might otherwise, if you just stayed in the realm of “this song works well in this scene and here’s why.” In this Day and Age, when pure uneducated “opinion” rules the day – it’s so nice to get some facts, some knowledge. It’s beautifully written, and I tore through it in three days. It’ll be a book I go back to again and again. I also had fun re-watching the movie, so the moments Glenn discussed were fresh in my mind.

Kaputt, by Curzio Malaparte

In 2018 I read his Kremlin Ball, translated into English for the first time (via the indispensable New York Review Books Classics imprint). I couldn’t even believe the book existed. A first-hand glimpse of Moscow in the 20s? Of the hierarchy of toadies, glittering parties, how this supposedly proletariat leadership immediately re-arranged itself into a corrupt elite with all the perks? All written by someone who was there? Malaparte, born Curt Erich Suckert, was an Italian writer, diplomat, war correspondent. He played both sides in WWII, which makes some of his stuff sketchy, to say the least, but indispensable BECAUSE of that. How often do you get first-person accounts of the Axis point of view?? It’s grotesque. But it glitters, too. So I’m finally getting to Kaputt, which is basically a novel (wink wink) about a correspondent traveling around through Axis countries during the war. I’m only three chapters in but all I can say is: this is a book like no other. He’s an incredible writer (I suppose I should say – this is an amazing translation), and the images he pulls up – horrors – horses frozen in the lake in Finland, the empty landscape filled with smoking burning machinery … and also … the lack of moral outrage. Total lack. It’s a tough pill to swallow. But important! FASCINATING.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe

I’ll just repeat what I said, more or less, on Instagram: I am finally getting to Say Nothing, so get off my back everyone who keeps asking me if I’ve read it yet. I’m one-degree removed from this horrible story: two friends of mine, married, play a major part in this story. Both were interviewed extensively for the book, and one of them knew all the major IRA players, since he was IRA himself. He was in Long Kesh prison for 18 years and participated in the “blanket protest.” My friends are journalists and passionately dedicated to their work. I am proud to call them my friends. We stayed with them when we went to Belfast. We went to Bobby Sands’ grave – Milltown Cemetery is something else, man – and it was somehow perfect that I would visit with someone who actually knew him, considered him a friend. (Weirdly, back during the hunger strikes era, my family was in Ireland. I was a kid but I remember absorbing the tension. It’s just strange to think that up north a future friend of mine was in prison with all of those hunger strikers I was so worried about.) On one of our walks in Belfast we walked by the Sinn Fein offices with the mural of Bobby Sands on the side along with his famous quote about the laughter of children. “Oh shit, look.” one of my friends said, pointing. “That’s Gerry’s car.” Gerry. No last name necessary. Then we went home and had Bloody Marys and watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition, because that’s what you do when you visit your former-IRA friends. (Accentuate the “former”. This is why they’ve had so much trouble.) If you have been paying attention to the story told in Say Nothing (and it made recent international headlines), and the role Boston College played in the long overdue murder investigation – then you will have heard my friends’ names. They were central figures – THE voices, really – in the situation. (Side note: the library involved is the same library that took my dad’s valuable Irish book collection after he died. BC was his Alma mater). Much of this I had heard first hand from my friends – it was a years-long battle. I am finally getting to the book. I am gonna tear through it. I already can’t put it down.

Journey into the Whirlwind, by Eugenia Ginzburg

I had been meaning to read this memoir for years. Ginzburg was a Communist, a proud Party member. A true-believer. Then Kirov was killed in 1934. And her world fell apart, as did the worlds of millions of others, caught up in the vice of “conspiracy” surrounding his murder, which was really just the pretext for Stalin to launch his Terror. Ginzburg was arrested in 1937 for … no reason. For lack of political orthodoxy – and she was a strict and devoted Marxist. She was “lacking in vigilance” – she DIDN’T criticize the people she should have criticized, or she didn’t criticize them enough, or in the right way. I can’t help it, I think of this when I watch these waves of scandals playing out on social media today. “Why didn’t you act the perfect way 20 years ago even though nobody knew the truth of the matter then? You were insufficiently vigilant. Your apologies are insufficient because you didn’t use the exact right words.” Listen. There’s historical precedent for how dangerous these views are, when exaggerated to their end point. I’m only 9 chapters in, but I literally gasped at one sentence, tossed into the middle of an action-packed chapter when she gets arrested: “I never saw him again.” She’s talking about her little son. She’s headed down to secret police headquarters for an interview, supposedly so she can clear up her “incorrect” attitudes towards a former colleague … and she has a casual moment with her son playing on the floor before walking out the door. “I never saw him again.” The book is brutal. You want to know why I distrust orthodoxy in any form it takes? It’s because of books like this.

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Dynamic Duo #24

Posted on October 9, 2020 by sheila

“People try to put us d-down
Talkin bout my generation…”

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The “Tsk Tsk Tsk” of Destiny

Posted on October 5, 2020 by sheila

This is not a love story.

And yet.

When I write about M., I end up using romantic terms. The impulse is authentic. Cliches are sometimes useful, especially for someone like me, the last to know what the hell is going on in her own life. You need to talk to me about emotional stuff in very blunt terms. Say it twice. Make sure I get it.

I was 24 when M. and I met. He was 26. We were two wild children. I was strolling around with an undiagnosed monster of a mental illness (diagnosis would come 20 years later. See my opening statement about being the last to know what the hell is going on.). My sense of self was in pieces all over the floor. My perception at the time was M. was WAY wilder than I was. (This was incorrect which I figured out late in the game. He was wild behavior-wise, but extremely stable inside. I was the opposite.) Despite his young age, M. somehow had the maturity to sense what was going on with me – he probably couldn’t have put it into words, but he had a sense for it. He picked up those pieces on the floor. He did not try to fit the pieces together. He did not judge the pieces for being broken or judge me for having lost track of the pieces. He did not flee into the night at the sight of the broken pieces. He just handed the pieces over, like “I have no idea why these are scattered on the floor, but I think they’re yours.”

I have written a lot about him. I even quoted him in one of the pieces I wrote for my Film Comment column. I laughed at myself as I was doing it, but it was appropriate to the subject, I swear. I never forgot what he said to me. We met in the thick of the improv scene in Chicago. He’s extremely well-known in the field.

Continue reading →

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Music Monday: James Bond and Scott Walker: You Only Live Thrice, by Brendan O’Malley

Posted on October 5, 2020 by sheila

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. I just wrapped up posting his 50 Best Albums. But I figured I’d keep “Music Monday” going with more of the stuff Bren wrote about music.

This is part of Brendan’s lengthy series of essays on Scott Walker, which I’ll be posting for the foreseeable future, one every Monday.

James Bond and Scott Walker: You Only Live Thrice

In 1967, The Walker Brothers were superstars in Britain. Their concerts seldom lasted very long because raging hordes of English teenage girls stormed the stage and tried to love them to death.

The fact that they were American boys who had chosen England as their adoptive country made them mysterious, the deep moodiness of their balladry opened other unlocked secrets in the hearts of these mostly female followers. They were a band but they weren’t really rock and roll. They weren’t rough and rowdy but there was something dark and dangerous about them all the same.

So it wasn’t surprising when the James Bond team of MGM, Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman asked the band to sing the title song of the next James Bond flick, which was to be titled You Only Live Twice.

The Walker Brothers declined.

On listening to Nancy Sinatra’s version, it is now impossible for me to stop imagining what this song would have sounded like with Scott Walker’s airless croon instead of Nancy’s perfectly acceptable but pedestrian performance. Take a listen to the theme song to You Only Live Twice with it’s incredible and instantly recognizable violin decrescendo.

The match of material to talent would have been electric. If The Walker Brothers had decided to record “You Only Live Twice” for the film they might have shot to international superstardom. Why did they say no? I have only read one book on The Walker Brothers called The Impossible Dream which is full of anecdotes but when it comes to the real inside scoop it seems to be as in the dark as we are.

Stranger still is the fact that that same year a film was released starring Elke Sommer called Deadlier Than The Male.

Scott Walker wrote the theme song of the same title. The movie is about a female spy. This song is also fantastic.

In some perfect universe this film would have been a box office smash in the United States and the song would have broken the group in their homeland. But, as you can see from the opening sequence, Deadlier Than The Male has only one good thing in it. The song.

So. One year. Two spy movies. The Walker Brothers turned down covering You Only Live Twice to sing an original song for Deadlier Than The Male. All in the same year.

It would be 32 years before James Bond and Scott Walker crossed paths again.

1999. David Arnold is putting together the soundtrack for The World Is Not Enough with the fantastic title track by Garbage.

Arnold writes a song called “Only Myself To Blame” and seeks out Scott Walker to sing it. In Arnold’s mind, this song was the fitting conclusion to the failed romance between Bond and Elektra King, who winds up trying to kill 007.

Arnold saw the song as the finale. Director Michael Apted felt it was TOO somber, too down. The song is relegated to the soundtrack. Once again, the blast of recognition and distribution that normally accompanies a song from the Bond canon eludes Scott Walker.

It is worth it to hear Scott Walker sing a terribly sad song over a piano, an upright bass and a delicately brushed snare drum. He seems to be singing back to his younger self, back to that strange time when his band turned away from the spotlight and refused to become part of film history. They would never come that close again.

— Brendan O’Malley

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R.I.P. Derek Mahon

Posted on October 3, 2020 by sheila

“When growing up, my bunch of friends would have thought of ourselves as anti-unionist because we were anti-establishment. We would have been vaguely all-Ireland republican socialists. But then, when theory turned into practice, we had to decide where we stood and I never did resolve it for myself. Marching for civil rights was terrific, but bombs and killing people? I never put a name to my own position and I still can’t, which suits me fine. From time to time you get a kick from some critic for not being sufficiently political, or for being a closet unionist or a closet republican. There was a time when people – much more English people than Irish – would ask, ‘Why don’t these Ulster poets come out more explicitly and say what they are for?’ But there is all this ambiguity. That is poetry. It is the other thing that is the other thing.” — Derek Mahon

Popular Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon has died at the age of 78. I wrote a long post about him, which I post every year on his birthday. It can now be my tribute. He has been writing poetry for most of his life, and there are many great poems to choose from but “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford” is one of Ireland’s most beloved poems. I posted it in that post I linked to. Oana Sanziana Marian wrote of that poem:

His most famous poem, “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford,” digs, too, but instead of turning soil, as in Heaney’s earthbound rural scene in (maybe his most famous poem) “Digging,” Mahon gets underneath “a burnt-out hotel / Among the bathtubs and the washbasins” and – but who would see this coming? – commemorates forgotten victims of Treblinka and Pompeii through the perspective of a thousand mushrooms crowded around light passing through a keyhole.

Most recently, a poem he wrote some years back – “Everything Is Going to Be Alright” – came back up into public consciousness when it was read on an Irish news program in early March, as it became clear that a lockdown was imminent. It took hold. People shared it endlessly on social media. It spread like wildfire. It was what people needed to hear.

Everything Is Going to Be Alright
by Derek Mahon

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart;
the sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

 
 
It brings tears to my eyes. Art can disturb, enlighten, reveal. It can also console in dark dark times. Scared people clung to this poem. I know I did. This is why we need artists.

Rest in peace, Derek Mahon.

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September 2020 Viewing Diary

Posted on October 3, 2020 by sheila

September was the longest month of my life. I started out putting my cat to sleep. I was in Rhode Island and had been so for a month. I came home, and everything had changed. And everything will keep changing. By this time next year I will not be where I am at, pandemic or no. The beginning of September feels like it was two years ago. And September only has 30 days, not 31. Something happened to time itself. It stretched out. Here’s what I watched in September.

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016; d. Richard Linklater)
God, I love this movie. I pop it in all the time. I reviewed for Ebert.

Suzi Q (2020; d. Liam Firmager)
This already feels so damn long ago but I sat out on the porch in Rhode Island with Mitchell, and we drank whiskey, ordered pizza and watched this movie. I had reviewed it for Ebert and I thought he would find it fascinating. He did.

The Argument (2020; d. Robert Schwartzman)
This one didn’t really work for me. I reviewed for Ebert.

The Leftovers, Season 1
I watched the pilot a couple of years ago and it was right up my alley. The aftermath of some global catastrophe … plus a chain-smoking CULT on the edge of town? But then I just didn’t continue for whatever reason. Been doing a lot of binge-watching during this extended period of mostly-lockdown. This time, it stuck. I knew it would be right up my alley. The cast is superb. Carrie Coon, especially. One of the things I love about Nora – and Coon’s performance – is how … aggressive Nora is, how unpleasant, really … and yet with all this vulnerability and trauma. This is actually true of all of the characters – everyone is sitting on top of a mountain of grief, and everyone deals with it in different ways. I got so sucked into the show. It’s a very strange show. But not strange for the sake of strange. It’s … sci-fi I guess you’d call it … but just as Supernatural may be in the “horror” genre (well, not anymore, but that’s another story) – the show is REALLY about family … The Leftovers shows a post-apocalyptic world, what it’s REALLY about is grief. It understands how difficult – how impossible, really – letting go is. It’s facile to say to someone suffering “You have to let it go.” I am in love with the show.

Ted Lasso, Season 1, e or 4 episodes
Allison had been dying to show me this. I have been missing our weekends holed up with one another so we made a plan. I went into New York City for the very first time since March – was too scared to use public transportation – so I drove in. The place is eerie now, a slightly sad and mostly empty ghost town. Allison and I crawled into bed and watched television. I stayed there a couple days. She works from home now, so she worked, and I sat in her bed writing. She made me watch the pilot of Ted Lasso. I love Jason Sudeikis and this whole project (if I’m not mistaken) was initiated by him. Allison loves it for its silliness, its light-heartedness, and the funny performances – a perfect escape for our dark times. (People who keep wanting art to reflect Right Now seem to forget that the biggest box office hits during the Depression were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies.) I absolutely loved it and Hannah Waddingham, who plays the owner of the football club is – quite literally – brilliant. Some of her moments made me gasp. These British actors, man … they know how to do it. The character is so perfectly coiffed, so imperious but as you get to know her (we watched a couple of episodes), you see her misery, the bright frigid smile popped on top of a howling crevasse of pain. Anyway, I’m very intrigued and Allison and I will eventually watch the rest of it.

The Vow (2020; d. Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer)
I had been waiting for this. I plowed through most of the episodes last month (I got a screener, as a critic) and finished it off this month. He disgusts me so much it’s hard for me to even LOOK at him. And it’s hard to fathom why people would look at him and think he was wise, or enlightened. This is the fascination: the people who got involved in this thing were smart, educated, driven. Studies have shown that people who join cults have, on average, higher IQs than the general population. So … this eradicates the idea that only gullible dumb follower-types join cults. He offered something, he presented something in such a way that people fell for it. Here’s the thing that is so interesting about The Vow and how it’s structured: The documentary holds off on “unmasking” the leader until way WAY into the proceedings. I mean, it’s obvious this was a cult and a very destructive “organization” but they don’t start off with “This guy is a con-man grifter.” They sort of insinuate themselves into the stories of the survivors, and through that … you see why these smart people succumbed. In a way, the documentary forces you to join the cult, just to get an idea of why these people stayed. And … Allison and I discussed it – we both could see the appeal. Nobody joins a cult. They join an organization that they think will help them and help them be better people, more useful citizens. It’s way too easy to look at the pudgy gross face of that leader and think “The people who followed him must have been out of their minds.” Well, no. They weren’t. And he ruined their lives. I also never thought I would say the following words in the course of my life: “Catherine Oxenberg is a fucking hero.” But I have. This story is very very disturbing and extremely trigger-happy. Be warned going in. But it’s extremely well done. Very impressed. I had been following this story since it first broke. I listened to the podcast. But there’s so much here I didn’t know. Excellent doc.

Witness to Murder (1954; d. Roy Rowland)
The shadows are black as pitch in this noir. Figures emerge from the liquidy black. The shadows of people are practically disembodied spirits the lighting is so dramatic. Barbara Stanwyck sees something in the apartment across the way, she sees a man murder a woman. She reports it. She is not believed. The murderer (George Sanders) begins a campaign of both intimidation and coercion to get her to retract or … to shut her up for good.

To Be or Not to Be (1942; d. Ernst Lubitsch)
It’s hard to believe this film even exists. It’s even harder to believe when you consider the year it came out. It’s a black BLACK comedy, barging into the catastrophe of the day – Germany’s overrunning all of Europe – and making fun of it – making fun of the Nazis – but also mourning what is happening. There’s one sequence in a movie theatre which Tarantino leaned on heavily for a similar sequence in Inglorious Basterds. Honestly, To Be or Not to Be is a sui genesis masterpiece. Most of the films coming out after American entered the war were anti-Nazi. So is this. But this? This has the melancholy touch of a European refugee. It’s different.

This Gun for Hire (1942; d. Frank Tuttle)
One of my favorite movies. I pop it in all the time. Alan Ladd, making his extraordinary debut. This character has been imitated over and over and over again. He basically started a cottage industry. The French New Wave sure loved him (Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Samurai is an unofficial yet totally obvious remake of This Gun for Hire). And Veronica Lake is adorable, earthy, real. With the best hair in show business. Still. Her magic act is a wonder, and the slow way she gets under this hired-gun’s skin is beautiful to behold. Tenderness. I wrote this on Instagram: “When Alan Ladd’s contract killer character screams, ‘THAT GIRL’S MY FRIEND!’, it surprises me every single time, even though its one of my longtime faves and I’ve watched IT so many times. No matter how many times though, I am not ready for that moment, for what it feels like to hear this taciturn damaged chilly man say the words “my friend.” AND his back is to the camera when he says it! (Back-ting!) The sound of his voice when he yells those words gets the job done.”

Big City Blues (1932; d. Mervyn LeRoy)
Poor innocent (annoying) country bumpkin (Eric Linden) comes to New York with stars in his eyes. Over a long night, during which his cousin (Walter Catlett) throws him a debauched party, bumpkin’s innocence is lost. And Jesus, it’s about time, you’re an adult, pallie. Joan Blondell plays a showgirl and – basically – a professional escort, who takes said bumpkin under her wing, all as the party wheels totally out of control. I love Pre-Codes. They’re so frank.

Infidel (2020; d. Cyrus Nowrasteh)
I reviewed for Ebert. It’s a bifurcated movie, one half having nothing to do with the second half, but I did enjoy a lot of it.

The Swerve (2020; d. Dean Kapsalis)
What an upsetting experience. What an incredible performance from Azura Skye. Jesus, this actress “goes there.” Watching The Swerve, it is impossible to stay neutral or distant. It is impossible to not feel for this woman, even if it’s just watching in horror as she goes off the rails. If you’ve ever been mentally sick, like REALLY sick, you might see yourself in her. You also might not want to watch, it hits so close to home. Amazing performance. I reviewed for Ebert. I highly recommend it.

Misbehaviour (2020; d. Philippa Lowthorpe)
A new movie about the women’s movement’s attempts to disrupt and take down the 1970 Miss World pageant in London. I reviewed for Ebert.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013; d. Jim Jarmusch)
What a movie. I hadn’t seen it since it came out. I wrote about it here. The movie weaves a spell. It’s about vampires, of course, but it’s mostly about the central relationship, their devotion to one another, their need to be together but also apart … Watching Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as a couple, you get the sense – you really do – that they have been together for centuries. Their devotion to one another is so moving. I love this movie so much. Also, KILLER Wanda Jackson needle-drop. And it made me sad to see Anton Yelchin.

Possessor (2020; d. Brandon Cronenberg)
Reviewed for Ebert. Not really a fan, unfortunately. Some may love it! But as I always say: it’s not my job to tell you what YOU think, OR to align myself with the consensus. All I can do is tell you what Me-Myself-I think.

A Call to Spy (2020; d. Lydia Dean Pilcher)
I thought this was very good and feel fortunate it was one of my assignments for Ebert. It’s a fascinating and well-told history lesson, a slice of history never before told. I really dug it.

Vox Lux (2020; d. Brady Corbet)
I reviewed for Ebert. Should have given it 4 stars. Inspired by posting my brother’s essays about Scott Walker. This movie is so so good. Brady Corbet … I am so excited to see what he does next. From Childhood of a Leader to THIS? Both so excellent? I love a movie that makes bold choices, big big choices, choices that many people might not like, or “get”. At a certain point, all good artists have to say “fuck ’em if they don’t get it. This is for the people who DO.” Fantastic film.

The Leftovers, Season 2
I am curious to hear from fans of the series. Season 1 haunted me and gripped me. Season 2 was also really good, but it didn’t grip me like the first season. There were sequences that blew me away: the whole episode in a hotel was unbelievable. Matt Jamison’s whole journey. Regina King is already on my list of Great Actresses – ever since Jerry Maguire – and it is so so good to see her here, in such an interesting and complex role. I love Margaret Qualley in general (she was excellent as the Manson girl who drags Brad Pitt back to Spahn Ranch in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Good to see Steven Williams, too, as Virgil, the pedophile in the trailer, who gives Justin Theroux poison, because that makes sense. Williams, of course, plays Rufus on Supernatural, a handful of guest spots which cast a long LONG shadow. He’s a great actor. Rufus and Virgil have some things in common. In fact, and this will only be understandable to Supernatural fans, a LOT of Season 2 reminded me of certain arcs in Supernatural, particularly the dying and then rising again. Also Sam’s arc of walking around with Lucifer, unseen by everyone except him, is present in the whole Kevin-is-haunted-by-Patti, who follows him around, a devil on his shoulder. Is Kevin crazy or is Patti really there? This is Supernatural playbook. The whole environment of “Miracle” – with that crazy tent city outside of town – the bridge to get in – all of this feels extremely REAL, even though the series is extremely surreal. I just feel like … in the aftermath of some huge humanity-shifting event – this would be very very plausible. I just finished up Season 3, which turned me into a puddle on the floor. The whole series is extraordinary. I love the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants energy to the whole thing – I know it drove some people crazy. I loved that aspect of it. I was always on the edge of my seat. Would love to hear from other fans.

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