Movies I've Seen Recently
Mar. 29th, 2021 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kelly_chamblissI've streamed a few new films lately. Here's what I thought of them:
Nomadland starring Frances McDormand
I loved this movie. It (and McDormand and Chloe Zhao, the director) have been nominated for well-deserved Oscars. The premise is a painful one: the story follows Fern, a fifty-something widow who loses her home--and her entire town--when the main local industry shuts down.
She takes to the road in an old van, where she meets a loose group of mostly-white, mostly-older Americans who live in vans, cars, and campers, traveling throughout the southwestern US in search of seasonal work and free federal land to stay on. Most are people who have fallen on hard times: they've lost jobs or homes, or as they age, they find that their Social Security doesn't provide enough to live on. They are all just one vehicle breakdown or illness away from disaster, but they persevere, have some good times, and they don't feel sorry for themselves.
Except for McD and a couple of others, the people in the film are not professional actors; they are actual nomads, and their performances are riveting.
The film is sad but not necessarily depressing. The episodic, picaresque story offers no easy fixes and no real villains (beyond American capitalism itself); we mostly get a series of compelling and moving character sketches.
My main criticism is that I think the script romanticizes all the characters a bit. Everyone is caring, kind, generous, helpful; we don't meet anyone, nomad or non, who is unscrupulous or nasty, let alone violent or dangerous. I think I understand the filmmaker's purpose behind this choice, but I also think it creates a somewhat false picture of nomad life.
Otherwise, it's a beautifully-realized, powerful film. As I say, I loved it.
Mank starring Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Dance, Lily Collins, Tom Pelphrey
I had mixed reactions to this movie, which focuses on screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz as he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane in 1940.
On the one hand, the pic was just the ticket for an old-movie buff like me. Film history has been an obsession of mine since my teen years, and the many stories surrounding Citizen Kane (certainly one of the greatest, and maybe THE greatest, film ever made) are fascinating. So from that perspective, Mank is a film buff's paradise, containing all sorts of easter eggs for filmic eggheads.
The cast is full of names and faces from Hollywood's Golden Age, and the casting people made a real effort to get actors who look (or can be made to look) like the people they play, from George S. Kaufman and David O. Selznick in minor roles to William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer in larger ones. (Dance really captures the cavernous, skull-like look of Hearst in his later years). Beyond having similar huge eyes, Amanda Seyfried doesn't look much like Marion Davies, but I thought she did a really good job with the role. IMO, her interpretation relies more heavily on Jean Harlow than on Davies herself, but she effectively shows Davies' widely-acknowledged charm, generosity, and warmth.
Technically, the film is beautifully done; the black and white cinematography is excellent, both in its period and its modern elements.
So what didn't I like? Well, for starters, the whole thing is too talky and clunky, with too many self-indulgent moments where the actors, especially Oldman, are given too much time to speechify and emote. Second, while I understand that biopics are not intended to be documentaries, I nonetheless really dislike when they veer into outright fiction. Too many viewers regard such films as historical fact (no matter how often producers insist that they are not), and an already ill-educated populace is thus set up to believe even more misinformation. The film makes Mank himself into too much of a hero, too much the "good guy," when the reality was much more complex.
Still, it was a fun film to watch and might very well net Gary Oldman another Oscar.
Six Minutes to Midnight starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.
I had high hopes for this pic both in terms of casting and setting/plot: it's a spy story set in England in 1939 at a boarding school for the daughters of high-ranking Nazis AND it has Judi Dench.
Alas, the movie is a silly disappointment. The setting (actually Wales, standing in for the south of England) is beautiful, and the old school building is perfect. The plot, though, is utter cliche-ridden nonsense; the characters are under-developed, inconsistent ciphers; and even Judi Dench seems to be phoning it in. It's the sort of role she's played too often before, and while it was undeniable shocking fun to see her portray (initially at least) a naive Nazi sympathizer complete with "Seig Heils," she quickly reverts to Standard Dench. Sure, she has her trademark fine moments of saying volumes with just her facial expressions, but on the whole, I can't imagine that she found the role much of a challenge.
It's too bad, because the basic premise had all sorts of promise. So much could have been done with it. . .and wasn't.
Nomadland starring Frances McDormand
I loved this movie. It (and McDormand and Chloe Zhao, the director) have been nominated for well-deserved Oscars. The premise is a painful one: the story follows Fern, a fifty-something widow who loses her home--and her entire town--when the main local industry shuts down.
She takes to the road in an old van, where she meets a loose group of mostly-white, mostly-older Americans who live in vans, cars, and campers, traveling throughout the southwestern US in search of seasonal work and free federal land to stay on. Most are people who have fallen on hard times: they've lost jobs or homes, or as they age, they find that their Social Security doesn't provide enough to live on. They are all just one vehicle breakdown or illness away from disaster, but they persevere, have some good times, and they don't feel sorry for themselves.
Except for McD and a couple of others, the people in the film are not professional actors; they are actual nomads, and their performances are riveting.
The film is sad but not necessarily depressing. The episodic, picaresque story offers no easy fixes and no real villains (beyond American capitalism itself); we mostly get a series of compelling and moving character sketches.
My main criticism is that I think the script romanticizes all the characters a bit. Everyone is caring, kind, generous, helpful; we don't meet anyone, nomad or non, who is unscrupulous or nasty, let alone violent or dangerous. I think I understand the filmmaker's purpose behind this choice, but I also think it creates a somewhat false picture of nomad life.
Otherwise, it's a beautifully-realized, powerful film. As I say, I loved it.
Mank starring Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Dance, Lily Collins, Tom Pelphrey
I had mixed reactions to this movie, which focuses on screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz as he wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane in 1940.
On the one hand, the pic was just the ticket for an old-movie buff like me. Film history has been an obsession of mine since my teen years, and the many stories surrounding Citizen Kane (certainly one of the greatest, and maybe THE greatest, film ever made) are fascinating. So from that perspective, Mank is a film buff's paradise, containing all sorts of easter eggs for filmic eggheads.
The cast is full of names and faces from Hollywood's Golden Age, and the casting people made a real effort to get actors who look (or can be made to look) like the people they play, from George S. Kaufman and David O. Selznick in minor roles to William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer in larger ones. (Dance really captures the cavernous, skull-like look of Hearst in his later years). Beyond having similar huge eyes, Amanda Seyfried doesn't look much like Marion Davies, but I thought she did a really good job with the role. IMO, her interpretation relies more heavily on Jean Harlow than on Davies herself, but she effectively shows Davies' widely-acknowledged charm, generosity, and warmth.
Technically, the film is beautifully done; the black and white cinematography is excellent, both in its period and its modern elements.
So what didn't I like? Well, for starters, the whole thing is too talky and clunky, with too many self-indulgent moments where the actors, especially Oldman, are given too much time to speechify and emote. Second, while I understand that biopics are not intended to be documentaries, I nonetheless really dislike when they veer into outright fiction. Too many viewers regard such films as historical fact (no matter how often producers insist that they are not), and an already ill-educated populace is thus set up to believe even more misinformation. The film makes Mank himself into too much of a hero, too much the "good guy," when the reality was much more complex.
Still, it was a fun film to watch and might very well net Gary Oldman another Oscar.
Six Minutes to Midnight starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench.
I had high hopes for this pic both in terms of casting and setting/plot: it's a spy story set in England in 1939 at a boarding school for the daughters of high-ranking Nazis AND it has Judi Dench.
Alas, the movie is a silly disappointment. The setting (actually Wales, standing in for the south of England) is beautiful, and the old school building is perfect. The plot, though, is utter cliche-ridden nonsense; the characters are under-developed, inconsistent ciphers; and even Judi Dench seems to be phoning it in. It's the sort of role she's played too often before, and while it was undeniable shocking fun to see her portray (initially at least) a naive Nazi sympathizer complete with "Seig Heils," she quickly reverts to Standard Dench. Sure, she has her trademark fine moments of saying volumes with just her facial expressions, but on the whole, I can't imagine that she found the role much of a challenge.
It's too bad, because the basic premise had all sorts of promise. So much could have been done with it. . .and wasn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-30 12:03 pm (UTC)Have you seen The Dig? I loved (most) of it.
One movie to skip is I Care A Lot. I hate this movie with a passion, and for all the reasons the critics say but mostly for its horribly clichee depiction of lesbians (which none of the critics cares to mention).
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-30 04:42 pm (UTC)