Category: Biography

12 YEARS A SLAVE

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m grateful for those brave filmmakers who defy what is so glaringly oppressive in order to uphold a truth.  Steven Spielberg accomplished this with Saving Private Ryan and especially Schindler’s List.  I own both films on 4K, but I’ve only watched them each a handful of times.  I recently completed my second watch of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave.  While Schindler may feel more personal to me as a Jewish person who has met several Holocaust survivors, McQueen’s movie is uncompromising in its cruelty to black people , recklessly referred to as n!gg@rs, being held as property within the southern antebellum confines of slavery during the mid 1800s just ahead of the Civil War.  It’s one thing to read about lynchings and whippings.  It’s another to see it visualized; to see the life being breathlessly taken from a human being.  Not a slave.  A human being.

From such an ugly period in American history, the isolated story of this film follows the North Eastern free black man Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor, giving the performance of his career – heartbreaking, smart, emotional, fearful and brave at the same time).  He is a happily married father of two who earns an honest trade as an entertaining violinist in a well to do upstate New York Community.  When his family leaves town for a few weeks, Solomon is approached by two happy, colorfully dressed charmers with top hats (Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam).  Solomon believes he is being recruited to perform for some events across state lines for a significant sum of money.  He’s wined and dined by the men for a few weeks.  However, following a lavish dinner among the three, he awakens to find himself in southern Georgia, chain shackled at his four limbs.  

Despite his protests, insisting he is a legal free man, he is slapped, screamed at and trudged along to Louisiana and sold to a wealthy Plantation owner (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is comparatively kinder than his property keeper (Paul Dano).  Dano especially stood out to me this time as I reflected on Quentin Tarantino’s regard for the character actor. I question if the director, infamous for tossing the n-word around in nearly all of his films, has even seen 12 Years A Slave and had an opportunity to observe Paul Dano’s appearance. Dano’s character is genuinely mean spirited and hateful with that southern redneck naive racism for the black man. It’s what is demanded of this piece. His performance cruelly teases the black slaves with a song that sounds like a nursery rhyme but chants like a horror film while his screams insist they clap along. McQueen is wise enough to edit Dano’s voiceover singing as the slaves are getting accustomed to the new property, they are forced to tend to and live upon. Later, Dano and Ejiofor will conflict with one another, and the scene is terrifying of what it implies will arrive. So, there’s my two cents on actor Paul Dano (also known for There Will Be Blood, The Batman, and Prisoners). I’ll throw two more cents around and ask Mr. Tarantino to go reflect on his meritless position on this fine actor.

This picture also features Paul Giamatti headlining a horrible scene, working like a car salesman as he slaps the naked physiques of Solomon and other black people. His purpose is to demonstrate the value and endurance of these “properties” for potential buyers.  The novelty of used car salesman tactics seemed to originate here.  With no regret, black children are torn away from a helpless, anguished mother.  McQueen with John Ridley’s Oscar winning adapted screenplay includes this scene to show how quickly a transition into slavehood occurs.  Solomon and many of these other folk were free moments ago.  Now, they are delivered off a boat and are being sold like cattle, to be used not just for work but for sexual appetites and playthings.

The second half of the story finds Solomon as a sold property slave of the viciously harsh Edwin Epps.  Michael Fassbender has never been more terrifying with intense rage that hides any other memorable performance in his impressive career.  He more than serves the antagonism of this film the same way that Ralph Fiennes did for Schindler’s List.  This is a monstrous individual.  Strong, oppressive, with no way to be endeared.  If he’s mad, for whatever reason, he’s going to be mad at his faultless slave workers who do nothing out of line and work solely to satisfy Edwin’s demands.

As the title implies, Solomon’s captivity carries on for twelve years with no access to his family or proper legal authority.  He also dare not reveal he can read or write, lest he will come up as a threat to those that violated his legal rights as a free northerner.  Solomon Northrup was always to remain trapped.  Even his talents with the violin are compromised as he’s awakened in the middle of the night to marshal the entertainment for Edwin as he compels his property to dance naked among themselves in his drawing room.  

As horrific as Solomon Northrup’s story is, later accounted for in his published book, it’s a fast paced and engrossing tale.  McQueen assures an understanding of how harsh it was to live within the dense, stale heat while picking pounds of cotton for the slave owners and their wives.  The whispers of flies and mosquitoes, along with tall grass and dragonflies often found in the south bring an awareness to the mundane and exhausting life of picking cotton from sunup to sundown.

The work was never the worst though.  The younger black girls were groomed to be continually raped.  A telling moment occurs when Edwin prances around the property in just a loose, sweaty shirt (no pants) with a child holding his hand. It is easy to grasp what’s to become of this girl, especially considering how Edwin treats Patsey, a teenage slave, who is repeatedly raped and beaten by him while infuriating the jealously of the Mistress Epps (Sarah Paulson).  

Lupita Nyong’o is Patsey, in an Oscar winning performance.  Nyong’o’s anguish matches Fassbender’s rage in equal fashion.  (He was Oscar nominated too.) Ahead of shooting days, the actors maintained rigid exercises together to preserve a direct trust during the abusive scenes.  Though thoroughly convincing in their dialects and performances of tears and brutal anger and screams, I cannot imagine it would be healthy for either actor to go full method here.  Had they actually done so, I’d argue they’d never return to a sense of acceptable balance, mentality and perception between one another.  What they do together, just like this whole cast, is hard, brutal work. Just look at how red faced Fassbender gets. See how glossy Nyong’o’s complexion gets behind the screams and tears. Not all of this is just makeup spray water.

Steve McQueen takes large sections of his two-hour film to demonstrate the carryover of time.  I’m not necessarily talking about twelve years.  Rather, minutes and hours.  One section has Solomon strung up from a tree by the neck.  The only thing keeping him from crushing his windpipe is to continually tip toe on the wet mud beneath his feet.  Morning turns into sweltering afternoon and into night.  McQueen does not rush this moment.  He wants the audience to realize that black slaves were regularly hung from oak trees.  It’s one kind of understanding to endure the hanging with literally no aid or sympathy to rely on.  What’s worse? A quick hanging that ends in blacked out death, or the kind that only dangles a person to the absolute brink of death?

The hardest sequence is an unbroken four and a half minute shot.  The director’s camera circles around Patsey’s scarred, bound, naked body, as she gets bloodier and bloodier by the unending whippings from Edwin’s unreasonable rage. When the taskmaster forces Solomon to take over, a sad irony is that Patsey begs Solomon to resume the whipping.  She’d rather take her punishment from him, than the slave owner.  

Paulson is in the background of this scene too.  She never flinches, always looks justified in permitting this action to carry on seemingly like a Lady MacBeth.  Nyong’o allows herself to be weakened to nothingness with horrifying screams.  Fassbender seems to never tire of flinching his arm with the whip in hand.  Ejiofor does not rush into what is forced upon him but once he begins, he’s out of breath with terrible suffering for what he is compelled to bestow upon this helplessly tied up woman.  Again, McQueen never breaks this into quick edits.  It is all one shot, as you see mists of sweat, blood and body heat emanate from Nyong’o’s back with every swiftly delivered lash.  It is so unfair.  That’s a terrible understatement, but it’s what comes to the forefront of my mind.  What person ever deserves this kind of treatment?  What reason could there ever be to whip a person into a bloody, stinging, charred up pulp?  This is never, ever fair.  

The scene is so harrowing that I have yet to discover how it was safely put together for filming purposes.  What these actors went through. It’s uncanny how real it looks.

None of what you see in 12 Years A Slave is ever forgivable. Long after these doers of evil are dead as well as their offspring and their offsprings, it remains as never excused and should never be offered repentance.  Some would actually say “Well you have to understand, that’s what it was like at the time.” To hell with that. Today, moments like these are actually being dismissed and erased from our institutions as attempts are made to “make America great again.” There are places in this world where this kind of treatment still occurs.  It’s fascinating that generations have not learned from the sins of ancestors.

McQueen’s film is assembled with amazing craftsmanship.  John Ridley’s screenplay contains a dialogue that performs with intellect, even if there are characters that we presume were denied formal educations.  Brad Pitt offers a cameo as a white man with a conscious devoid of prejudice.  Listen to his dialogue against that of Fassbender’s.  On a sweltering summer day on the plantation, these two sides of the slave ownership argument operate like a congressional debate.  Ridley incorporates vocabulary that lend to another time, long outdated, but telling of the limits that some people will never adopt. Ejiofor, as an educated Solomon, has been diminished to look like a censored man, but even his shredded, dirty slave wear does not prevent him from realizing there is a hope for common sense and good nature, even in this unseen corner of the world.

The antebellum plantations are vast and isolated from a civilization with architecture of tall posts on white porches.  These areas look like contained miniature empires; maybe adapted from grand landmarks of ancient Rome or Greece. The costumes deliver a wide contrast of social status.  The cast of slave actors perform scenes nude in dirty field settings, broken sheds and dark, smelly cattle barns. The white aristocrats are dressed in the finest fabrics.  12 Years A Slave does not just describe. More importantly, as a very well-done film, it shows how wide a berth these people are separated from one another.

This is a necessary, monumental biography to watch and explore.  In social media I continuously remind people that the Holocaust happened less than ninety years ago, and it could easily happen again.  The same is equally true for slave history.  If the acceptance of this mentality can be taught, it will be learned and then it will be executed.  It can happen so easily and so swiftly.

History is unclear of what became of Solomon Northrup after he wrote his book, ahead of his death, but his story will never be forgotten.  It’s fortunate that McQueen’s picture was bestowed an enormous number of accolades including winning the Oscar for Best Picture.  An Academy Award is not simply recognition for artistic greatness.  Its reputation allows a piece of filmmaking to constantly be recalled for years to come among an elite collection of accomplished achievements.  If anything, that should ensure the terrible chapters of American slavery are never, ever forgotten.

TRAIN DREAMS

By Marc S. Sanders

Clint Bentley directs a script he co-wrote with Greg Kwedar, based on Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams.  It’s a gorgeous looking picture that covers an early 20th century logger and railroad worker within the dense woods of Washington state.

Joel Edgerton is Robert Grenier, a bearded logger with an unknown background. The soothing voiceover narration from Will Patton tells us that Robert never knew his parents and is unsure of his exact age.  

Unexpectedly, he quickly falls in love with Gladys (Felicity Jones).  They envision an idyllic life together in a log cabin next to a peaceful lakeside.  They have a daughter and could not be happier.  Yet, during logging season, Robert must leave his family behind to cut down trees for industry supply of a quickly evolving western civilization.  He takes other jobs laying down railroad tracks that lend to the conveniences of transportation and shipping (before the reliance of air travel), including the logs he cuts down. His purpose is circular to a thriving country.

His committed work is not always pleasant.  As a means of revenge, a friend is gunned down right in front of him.  The casualness of the act is the most shocking element of this moment.  Still, there is no time to grieve.  

When he’s working on the railroad, he bears witness to the cruel treatment that others deliver to a Chinese immigrant.  He can not stand up to these behaviors.  He has money that needs to be earned.  So the work takes precedence.

A mentor and demolition expert (William H Macy) meets an unfortunate fate, as well.

Tragedy personally befalls Robert upon his return home following a job. Now, the man is left to resort to isolation where little human interaction exists among the wooded areas.

It’s hard to take your eyes off Train Dreams, now playing on Netflix, and one of ten films Oscar nominated for Best Picture.  The screenplay speaks like a Robert Frost poem.  That’s a compliment and a shortcoming for me.  Will Patton says so much when there’s not much to be said.  Rather, Bentley’s film works visually as you watch a concentrated Edgerton focus on his character’s hallucinations and especially the loneliness he endures in the second part of the film.  

Regrettably, this movie is also a little boring.  Sometimes it feels like I’m watching one of those short nature films you look at while in a museum that a documentarian provided.  When I’m a tourist, a ten minute film like this can show the trees getting chopped as they make their slow tumble to ground.  Frankly, when it’s too hot outside is when I go into these theaters to get some air conditioning and a quick snooze.  Train Dreams teeters on that experience.  

There’s no denying how solid the film is considering the subject matter.  Technically it’s very impressive with expansive forest fires and artificial trees masked as tall pines to demonstrate the sawing of hundreds year old barks.  When the camera is pointing up through the green leafed branches into the wide blue expanse of sky, you want to freeze frame and perhaps paint a scenic skyline.  Adolpho Voleso’s cinematography is rich in color.  Definitely worthy of recognition.

I found it interesting how much I took Robert’s perspective for granted.  He uses a floppy aluminum saw that is pulled and pushed to cut through the wood.  As he gets older, a fellow woodsman relies on an battery powered chainsaw, thus making Robert’s skills more obsolete.  

Later, he meets a woman (Kerry Condon) who has been recruited to oversee the treatment of the forests from a high-rise lookout post; she just might the coming of the forest rangers.  Robert only knew of trees from what was way over his head.  Now he can look down upon them.  The ending goes even further and demonstrates how Robert’s self-absorbed isolation held him back from keeping up with a developing age of technology like automobiles and airplanes, far beyond the trains that had been the faster way to travel along the tracks that he built.

Train Dreams is an interesting issue of a National Geographic that I’d never have picked up had the Oscars not given it some recognition.  Now that I’ve seen it, it’ll go back on top of the tall stacks of magazines in my grandmother’s basement.

SONG SUNG BLUE

By Marc S. Sanders

Films that are based on true stories will always take theatrical liberties with the storytelling.  Look at Oliver Stone’s JFK.  Sometimes, if it is so skewed you absolutely should not approve of it.  Consider Bowling For Columbine which starts out with an offensive, bold-faced lie to draw you in.  

On other occasions, the alterations made justifiably serve the picture to obtain an emotional reach from the audience.  Craig Brewer wrote and directed Song Sung Blue, which he calls an incredible true story.  The set ups seem too perfect to convince me some of these events actually happened.  However, the major highlights ring absolutely authentic and with an entertaining pair like Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson leading the picture, this is a magnificent experience.  The audience I saw it with on Christmas Day was so wrapped in what was put on screen, with organic comedy, tragic setbacks and toe tapping harmonized energy from the two actors doing outstanding “impressionism” of Grammy winning singer Neil Diamond.  

Mike and Claire Sardina (Jackman and Hudson) meet while working as tribute performers at a local fair.  She’s doing Patsy Cline.  He’s refusing to be Don Ho.  They quickly fall in love, like literally on the next night after they meet, and brainstorm with his guitar and her piano how they can become a musical act on their own.  Mike wants to emulate someone that lives up to his energy and persona. He declares to an AA group that he’s a “superhero of music.”  He’s Lightning.  She’s Thunder.  Claire thinks Neil Diamond is the perfect facade.  Mike agrees so long as the unfavorable “Suleman” opens their shows, and they resort to other numbers besides “Sweet Caroline.”

Soon they are married while his daughter Angelina (King Princess) befriends her daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson).  Her son Dana (Hudson Henley) takes to video recording their performances.  One happy, blended family.  

Like most musician biographies, Lightning and Thunder get off to a rocky start performing in seedy venues with audiences who would rather they play Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Naturally, a following and a stride eventually build, and the act is somehow opening for a popular grunge band from the 1990s.  I won’t spoil who it is because Mike and Claire never heard of this headliner. This delivers a great gag.

Song Sung Blue is a warm comfortable journey through its first act.  It’s hard not to love anyone occupying this picture, including supporting turns from Michael Imperioli, Fisher Stevens and an unrecognizable Jim Belushi.  Once you’re settled into the story the dramatic weight of the piece enters, and it becomes heartbreaking for Lightning and Thunder.  Only after this unexpected change is introduced does the need for triumph work as the story’s conflict, and there is a lot to contend with for the couple, and particularly Rachel.

These characters are so likable that you’re apt to feel proud of them and Brewer does good work at showing the struggle.  Kate Hudson, with a Midwest accent, is especially effective.  She goes from offering a welcome personality to being cold, bitter and angry.  I wouldn’t object if she got an Oscar nomination.

Hugh Jackman is a magnificent entertainer.  Unlike his Wolverine films, his real age with wrinkles and grey hair deliver a twenty-year sober alcoholic living with a chronic health issue. However, Mike has an unstoppable drive of positivity through music with a microphone, a strumming guitar, and his flowing hair to compliment his colorful and sparkled stage outfits.  Brewer allows room for Lightning’s weaknesses, both physically and mentally.  

There’s a nice balance of both characters at the top of their game as well as far beneath the bottom rung of the ladder.

Song Sung Blue is very absorbing in the moment.  Only after I walked out did I question some of the set ups and wonder if certain events truly happened as assembled into the final edit.  I’m skeptical if the conclusion for one character truly played out like it did.  It’s just too neatly wrapped up like a Hallmark film or a soap opera episode.  That being said, the manipulations worked on me and the audience.  So, why should it bother us?

A twisted irony also happens though, which I had no choice but to believe.  It’s just simply too outrageous that Craig Brewer would work it into this story if it wasn’t true.  My wife exclaimed “No way!  You’ve got to be kidding me!”  Without knowing anything about the real Mike and Claire or seeing the documentary film this picture is based on, my gut insists this has got to be true and a reason why Song Sung Blue merits a movie presentation featuring two Oscar nominated actors.

When you see Song Sung Blue I urge not to frown on the film if you notice some of the truths are stretched a little.  Instead, absorb the outstanding performances of Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson doing electrifying interpretations of Neil Diamond’s collection of hit songs including “Better In Blue Jeans” and of course “Sweet Caroline.”

Song Sung Blue is marvelous entertainment.

YOUNG GUNS

By Marc S. Sanders

In the late 1980s a novel idea hit the screens.  An MTV interpretation of the Old West with a rock anthem soundtrack of electric guitars and drums. A far separation from Ennio Morricone’s unbeatable spaghetti western approach.  

The film was Young Guns, featuring handsome stars like Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips.  They were each different kind of gunslingers in their own right while delivering stand out personalities.  The film has some problems in editing, and some sequences do not work.  Yet, it remains stylish with impressive set designs, props, costume wear, and an especially appealing array of performances from the whole cast.  

Billy The Kid aka William H Bonney is one of the most notorious outlaws in American history.  Emilio Estevez brilliantly turns the gunslinger into a quick draw joker with an addictive cackle and an adorable smile.  William is taken in by the mentoring John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) who already oversees a collection of orphaned young men.  He’s teaching them to bear responsibility on his farm while they learn proper manners at the dinner table and how to read.

A neighboring industrial enemy, L.G. Murphy (Jack Palance) commissions his men to gun down Tunstall.  Billy and the rest of the gang are then deputized by the local Sheriff to issue warrants for the arrest of the killers.  However, Billy repeatedly exercises his own form of justice by killing one guy after another with his pair of six shooters.  Soon after, the boys are on the run by horseback while creating a whole bunch of mayhem.

I never considered Young Guns to be a perfect film, but I like it a whole heck of a lot.

There are moments that serve no purpose, like when the men get high on peyote, introduced by the Navajo, Chavez Y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips).  It’s not amusing.  It’s not quotable and the scene runs too long as we watch the cast walk and talk while in daze.  Frankly, most movie scenes of just watching people get high are boring.  Often, they go nowhere and I’m not sure how to respond. It’s like I’m the designated driver fiddling with my car keys at a drunken binge fest. This is no different.

As well, there seem to be gaps within the body of the story. I know it is inspired by the Lincoln County War, but it’s never entirely clear why Tunstall and Murphy are at odds with each other.  We just have to accept that the two elderly men of equal proportions are against one another.  Still, Palance versus Stamp is a very inviting conflict to look at. (Supposedly, the real John Tunstall was only in his mid-20s.)

Young Guns has a very cool polish.  These cowboys are downright attractive, sexy like Hollywood movies tend to offer, and I love how they handle each other, their horses and their pistols.  Every time a six shooter whips out of a holster and clicks, the movie becomes more alive.  The guys look well-worn within this environment, close to the Mexican border of the 1870s.  The image is just as effective as Clint Eastwood appears in his various assortment of westerns.  

Billy The Kid, over this film and its sequel, is Emilio Estevez’ best role of his career.  The actor has such a cocky, nervy way about him and his over-the-top laugh is impossible to forget.  A favorite scene in all of movies emerges when Billy toys with a bounty hunter in a saloon.  Estevez delivers much fun before gunning the guy down. I never tire of watching that moment.

Kiefer Sutherland is second in line with a graceful sensitivity as the educated and poetically romantic Doc Scurlock.  You worry about him and his courting affair with a young Chinese concubine that is owned by Murphy.  Lou Diamond Phillips specializes in knife throwing as Chavez, the token Navajo.  His presence belongs here as an unpredictable sidekick.  

The best surprise is delivered by Casey Siemaszko as the virginal, boyish illiterate Charlie.  Some gunslingers were afraid to ever become outlaws.  Charlie is ugly and dirty, bumbling and sweet, reminiscent of Fredo in The Godfather films.  Siemaszko never became as established as the others in the cast, but he’s a good performer who delivers panicked fear and brings the glamour of Young Guns down to a semblance of reality.  

Young Guns is a style over substance product.  It has potential for a stronger storyline, but the dialogue works and the cast is stellar, which also includes Dermot Mulroney, Terry O’Quinn and Charlie Sheen.  The sequel is actually better as it commits closer to the intrigue of Billy The Kid.  

Not perfect, but this is a fun escapist western experience.

THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William Dieterle
CAST: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Prolific novelist and muckraker Emile Zola becomes involved in fighting the injustice of the infamous Dreyfus affair.


If you want to get me angry at the movies, you can do one of two things (besides leaving your phone on): Make a really terrible movie that makes me sorry I’ll never get those two hours back…or make a really good movie about some kind of social injustice, where those in power are so empirically wrong that any fool can see it, except those in power.  Matewan (1987) comes to mind, as do I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Do the Right Thing (1989).  William Dieterle’s The Life of Emile Zola falls neatly into that category, as well.

I’m tempted to give a play-by-play summary, but that would take too long.  In short, novelist and muckraking author Emile Zola is approached by the wife of Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer wrongly convicted of espionage and sentenced to Devil’s Island.  Mme. Dreyfus convinces Zola of her husband’s innocence, and Zola pens the famous J’Accuse…! article, an open letter published in the paper accusing the French military of antisemitism (Dreyfus was Jewish) and conspiracy.  The last act of the film covers Zola’s trial for libel.

The scenes that really made me angry were the ones where French officers planted, suppressed, or burned incriminating evidence of their own treachery.  Outright lies were paraded as fact, and the actual spy was acquitted in a court-martial of his own, just so the French government could continue the façade of Dreyfus’s guilt.  When the comeuppance arrives for the parties involved, it is immensely satisfying.  No one is drawn and quartered, which is what I would have preferred, but it’s good enough.

While the actor playing Dreyfus himself (Joseph Schildkraut) won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it seems incredible to me that Paul Muni did not win for Best Actor that same year.  It went to Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous, and I’m sure Tracy’s performance was exceptional, but Muni as Zola is pretty amazing.  He ages convincingly with Zola, from starving artist to a well-fed member of respected Parisian society, never less than convincing while playing a man much older than himself for much of the film.  The highlight is a late courtroom monologue that runs about six minutes.  It’s not exactly subtle screenwriting, but Muni makes the most of it.

The same could be said about the film’s screenplay as a whole.  It’s not the kind of story where the two sides have equal validity, so the script doesn’t have to be coy about where its sympathies lie.  There may be a few moments that feel like the film is preaching to the choir, but it nevertheless has great power.  That might just be me, though, given my proclivity for rooting against social injustice at the movies.

On the whole, The Life of Emile Zola is the tale of a life well-lived, punctuated by an incident that made Zola’s name immortal, and contains one of the best courtroom sequences I’ve ever seen.  It’s biography at old Hollywood’s best, not 100% historically accurate (as stated in an opening title card), but capturing the emotional essence of the story in a way no history textbook ever could.

WALTZING WITH BRANDO

By Marc S. Sanders

You think you know someone, but then you learn a whole other side about the person.

I only know Marlon Brando from his achievements in The Godfather, Superman, A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront.  There’s also his final picture, The Score, with his Vito Corleone counterpart, Robert DeNiro.  I’ve seen him spoofed on Saturday Night Live and know that he’s even poked fun at himself in a film like The Freshman.  He was notoriously and proudly quirky.  I guess Brando was so content to appear odd to everyone else beyond the island of Tahiti, which became his escape to paradise, away from autograph hounds, environmental abuse and Hollywood barbarianism.  Brando simply endured his greatness as one of the most incredible movie actors ever to subsidize how he really wanted to live in utopian isolation.

Billy Zane seamlessly inhabits the persona and physical appearance of Marlon Brando in Waltzing With Brando.  The film presents a slice of the actor’s uncompromised efforts to build an ecological home, and maybe a hotel, on an uninhabited island next to Tahiti.  To bring this idea to fruition, Brando recruits a young, undaring Los Angeles architect named Bernie Judge (Jon Heder) to helm the project.  This will be an undertaking that Bernie could never expect and can hardly circumvent around impossible challenges in the face of proven scientific engineering, chemistry, and physics.  Brando seems to have an answer for everything though.

By breaking the fourth wall to speak to the viewer along with voiceover narration, Heder is charming about his unexpected adventures.  The white-collar shirt and necktie of city life is abandoned for shorts and conch shell necklaces.  Actually, as Brando demonstrates its better and less inhibited to just be nude like the rest of the cheerful islanders.  Despite his reservations, Bernie gets more and more accustomed to Brando’s perceptions but still he has to find ways to be practical to complete this unconscionable project.

Drinking water is needed.  Marlon’s answer is to filter it from his own urine.  Electricity needs to be installed on the island.  Though, is Marlon truly serious when he suggests that energy stem from a power source like electric eels?  Bernie soon learns that there will never be a client as unpredictable as Marlon Brando.  Money is not an obstacle he cares about.  Oscar trophies serve a menial, floor level purpose that is only a little more useful than resting on a mantle.  An upcoming gangster movie is not really his thing.  A paradise devoid of man-made contamination and pesky societal intrusions is where his focus lies.

Watching Bernie Judge struggle with being away from his wife and daughter, while working with islanders to start at the basics like building an airplane landing strip first, I was reminded of The Brutalist, the fictional period piece that centered on building a grand, outrageously expensive structure within a mountaintop.  That film watched its architect wither away into haunting madness.  The Mosquito Coast with Harrison Ford also came to mind.  Thankfully, Waltzing With Brando does not take these directions.  I know nothing about architecture or engineering or practically any kind of science.  Yet, I know that whatever Marlon Brando conjures up seems unheard of and impossible.  Brando’s friend, Bernie Judge, did not allow these considerations to stop him though.  Why shouldn’t we explore our ideal paradise no matter how exuberant it seems? (Mosquitos are also a problem to deal with and Brando frowns on using pesticides.  Hmm. What can be done?)

Still, we have to be realistic.  Richard Dreyfuss plays Brando’s money manager and represents the challenge of making resources obtainable.  Brando has to go back to work.  Judge needs more and more funds for material and labor.  He takes daring personal risks.  Even the banker does.  Utopia is expensive and never merciful. 

Director Bill Fishman wrote and adapted Bernard Judge’s biographical tales of his encounters with Marlon Brando.  His film is lighthearted, hardly stressful in any kind of dramatic weight.  Perhaps that is because Bernie Judge did not respond to Brando’s ideas with frustration like The Brutalist would have you believe.  While I was not entirely fond of the voiceover narration because I did not recognize its necessity, Jon Heder is magnetically likable.  He’s a cheerful friend telling a bedtime story that took place in a small corner of the world.  Most people never explored these crystal waters and white sands traversed only by Marlon Brando and the native islanders.  This is a civilization unaware of the burden of conflict and pressure. 

Billy Zane does not go over the top with his portrayal of Marlon Brando.  The more subtle and aloof he is in each scene, the more convinced and accustomed I became to his peculiarities.  With Fishman’s script, Zane delivers a handful of dynamics to Brando.  Early in the film, Brando tells Judge that his desire is to live in this Tahitian paradise forever.  He knows however that he must continue to make movies to eventually fund this lifestyle permanently.  Later in the film, it is easy to surmise why Brando feels that way.  While filming The Last Tango In Paradise, he is trapped in a phone booth where his fan base recognizes him.  It’s one of the few times when Billy Zane performs on Marlon Brando’s genuine discomfort, and it is terribly unsettling.  It’s awkwardly ironic that the most famous actor in the world is out of his element among a worldwide community of followers and devotees begging for pictures and autographs.

Like Marlon Brando and an eventual Bernie Judge, Waltzing With Brando wants you to leave the theater with a smirk on your face.  An attempt at achieving the impossible with absolute content does not have to be a miserable journey.  An effort to find ways to overcome challenges can deliver lifelong friendships and personal experiences that belong only to you.  Bernie Judge learned this through his friendship with Marlon Brando.

Waltzing With Brando is a thankfully rewarding experience, a brush with perfect happiness.

NOTE: Stay through the end credits because this “Marlon Brando” has a few treats in store for you.

SILKWOOD

By Marc S. Sanders

As the 1980s were setting its stride, Silkwood might have been one of the earliest in a line of films to focus on the union worker who fights back at the billion-dollar corporation.  Some might unfairly regard the movie as The China Syndrome, Part II. Other well-known pictures of this mold are even more familiar to me like Michael Mann’s The Insider.  However, director Mike Nichols, working with a first screenwriting effort from Nora Ephron who partnered with Alice Arlen, showcases the aggravation on not just Karen Silkwood, the real life potential whistleblower, but also her friends and co-workers in a one factory town just outside of Oklahoma City.

Karen (Meryl Streep) lives with her boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and her best friend Dolly (Cher) in a run-down house in the middle of nowhere.  They ride to work together at the local plutonium manufacturing plant where they dress in scrubs and gloves. Punch in, punch out kind of days, and often they are expected to work double shifts and weekends.  Karen works an assembly line where she places her hands in rubber gloves and assembles dangerous combinations of chemicals in an enclosed box.  It’s also routine that before you leave your station you wave your hands over a sensor to ensure you have not been exposed to radiation.  There’s even sensors you walk through as you enter and leave the plant.  When those sensors go off, a calm kind of film seemingly turns into a horror movie.  The last thing anyone could ever want is to get “cooked.”

Karen does not live a perfect life.  Her three kids reside with their uncompromising father in Texas.  Money is not ideal.  Dolly is a slob and has also invited her girlfriend to live with them.  Karen can manage with all of this, but when she observes some unconventional activities around the factory she gets up the nerve to head the union for better protection and working conditions.  However, the further she goes looking at files and photos, jotting down notes of what people say and do, plus taking trips to Washington DC, and getting phone calls from attorneys at night, she becomes more and more isolated from Dolly and Drew, along with the rest of her close-knit workers.  Karen is not just risking her job, but everyone else’s jobs and worse her own life.

The attorneys lay it out to the townsfolk and the union of the horrifying statistics that go along with radiation exposure.  The tiniest fraction of a miniscule of exposure to the smallest crumb of chemicals could increase a human’s bearable limit towards radiation and cancer.  The sad irony is that the more that is learned, the more the people of this area smoke and smoke some more.  Granted, this story takes place in the early 1970s, though.    

The company is primarily represented by an intimidating Bruce McGill.  He’s great in everything he does and is worthy of an Oscar nomination somewhere.  M Emmet Walsh has no lines but his presence is enough to shake you; the slimy guy you easily recognize from every other movie you have seen.  While the company’s overbearing intrusion is shown plenty, the script for Silkwood focuses more on how these working people get by.  They are treated unfairly and in dangerous working conditions, but they also know this is the only place that offers steady income in the area.  Without this factory, the whole town would be left in dire straits.  Karen is repeatedly told or implied to leave well enough alone.

Meryl Streep notches another harrowing performance on her resume and bears such a departure from more sophisticated characters found in Sophie’s Choice and Kramer Vs Kramer.  Karen Silkwood is not educated and she bears an unmistakable white trash dialect but she’s also not stupid and the more progress she makes at exposing the plant’s shortcomings the more unfairly she is treated with department transfers and workplace shake ups that she is indirectly blamed for.  Potential threats on her life begin to build, but she only upholds a bravery.  You really observe the strength of Meryl Streep.  She’s at the top of an elite class of actresses at this time that also included Sally Field, Jessica Lange and Glenn Close.

Cher plays Dolly in her first on screen role.  The variety act performer probably subjected herself to a bigger departure than Streep.  She was not a professionally trained actress at the time.  Mike Nichols insisted on no makeup along with her hair unkept and flat, while dressed in green chino pants and baggy sweatshirts.  The new actress carries herself so well without the usual glitz that accompanies her.  Her scenes with Streep are workshops in acting technique. 

Kurt Russell delivers another understated performance.  One of the best actors out there who has never been enough of a critical darling.  Drew is likable and Kurt Russell plays him as a settled in match for Streep’s portrayal of Karen.  Watch how they tangle up in each other’s arms in bed or when he snaps at her as she carries on her crusade while he’d rather things be left alone.  His timing is perfect for the script.

Mike Nichols keeps his film calm, except when the go by the numbers narrative must be disturbed.  A radiation cleanse with high pressure hoses will make you wince.  The factory alarms will terrify you.  Meryl Streep accepts the physical taxations necessary for this setting.  Nichols gets in close with his camera to show how cleansers dressed in scrubs and masks rub Streep down until her skin is a burning red.  I distinctly remember how her right ear appears in this scene, getting flushed by something just short of a fire hose, and the aftermath of her sitting in a chair is so discomforting while a company doctor assures her that there’s not much to worry about as long she brings in her urine samples daily.  In fact, soon all of the employees are tasked with delivering their urine samples.  What kind of place is this?

While Silkwood is based on a true story with a burning question left behind, I do not want to reveal too much.  Many have seen Silkwood since it was released over forty years ago, but as the third act begins, the fallout only becomes more disturbing and Mike Nichols directs a horrifying sequence built primarily on the pealing of old wallpaper.  That’s all I want to suggest. 

Karen Silkwood was a very unlikely crusader.  She probably never envisioned what she would become and what she would fight for.  Yet, she uncovered horrible truths that should not have been occurring under the eye of billion-dollar corporate America.  After watching Silkwood, I can only imagine what else was there to turn over.

NOTE: Another good reason to watch Silkwood is to discover early performances from some amazing character actors who were either just starting their careers or continuing to hide in the crowd. 

Scavenger hunt for Anthony Heald, James Rebhorn, David Strathairn, Ron Silver, Fred Ward, Diana Scarwid, Bill Cobbs, M Emmet Walsh, Craig T Nelson, Tess Harper, Will Patton, Richard Hamilton and Josef Sommer.

SEPTEMBER 5

By Marc S. Sanders

September 5 is a sweeping account of how breaking news used to be assembled.  You had to be in the right place at the right time.  If you weren’t, then perhaps the sports department of your media conglomerate is, and they will get the story. 

The very first televised terrorist attack was broadcast at a sadly appropriate time.  The 1972 Olympics were being covered by the ABC television network.  For the first time, homes all across the world would be able to watch the games in color, from a satellite feed shared among the big three networks.  ABC had the broadcasting rights to the games though.  The setting is especially interesting to this story.  The Olympics are being hosted by Germany, primarily out of Munich.  This is an opportunity for the country to finally redeem itself, only twenty-seven years after World War II had come to an end and their country’s Nazi regime had been overthrown.  Germany had a lot to make up for.

The Sports Division of ABC news turn over in the wee hours of the morning of September 5.  Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) slumps into the studio and relieves Roone Arlege (Peter Sarsgaard) following long hours of editing and covering competitions in swimming, volleyball, boxing, track and so on.  There’s minimal staff on shift as the athletes and coaches are asleep for the night, but then Geoffrey and crew believe they hear machine gun fire out of the direction of Olympic Park, and suddenly everyone is awakened and scrambling to put together the story fast. 

No other broadcasts are reporting on this alarming incident.  This is a story that comes at ABC Sports in their own time.  Had this happened today, amid an age of worldwide shrinkage with the existence of the internet, these guys would have been way behind.  In 1972 however, they can rely on Mariane Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) a female German flunky of the sports division to translate the various radio communications between the terrorists and the German negotiators, and what plans are being put in place.  Nine Israeli athletes have been taken hostage in their hotel rooms with two believed to have already been killed.  The terrorists (believed to be a Palestinian militia group called Black September) demand that Israel release two hundred of their prisoners or they will kill a hostage every hour beginning at noon.

Forgive the cliché terminology, but September 5 is a taut, nail biting, documentary style thriller told only through the perspective of the ABC Sports division.  While the developments of the hostage situation feel urgent, for these unshaven guys in glasses and wrinkled shirts who are operating on little sleep and a lot of coffee, it is about getting the news out quickly and accurately, and just as importantly, first.  Geoffrey and Roone are constantly on the phones trying to learn whatever they can from Peter Jennings, the eventual famed ABC reporter, who is nearby the incident and at times hiding from the German police who are desperately trying to clear the area of the press.  The guys even send in a staff member with a smuggled camera and reels of film taped to his belly while he poses as an Olympic weightlifter.  The Germans forbid the press from trespassing but insist the games carry on.  So, the athletes and coaches are the only ones who can enter the area to prepare for competitions of the day.  Even Howard Cosell happens to be in a hotel staircase nearby and can provide feedback. 

In the news control room, the guys are literally putting walkie talkies next to microphones that broadcast live on air with Jim McKay who is behind the desk, talking to the world.  This is bare bones news broadcasting with unsophisticated technology to aid them in this short window of time.  The director of this film, Tim Fehlbaum, brilliantly captures the desperate inconveniences of reporting this way. 

Roone and Geoffrey also have to contend within their own ranks.  This is not a sports story.  This is a news story and so Roone must insist on keeping the story.  They are the only ones there.  How much more effective would a news division located on the other side of the world fare?  Therefore, Roone’s team are the only ones qualified to cover this developing story.  ABC News will not have access to this. 

Roone also has to improvise how the satellite feed is shared with their competitor, CBS Sports.  It’s a pain in the ass inconvenience and yet the resourcefulness and quick thinking of the control room staff find a way to uphold their claim on this story.

While watching this account, it matters little if we know the outcome of the September 5, 1972, Munich attack.  This film’s purpose is covering how the first few who knew about the situation responded. By the time the ninety-five-minute film is over a lot has been shared.  Tim Fehlbaum, with an Oscar nominated screenplay written by him along with Moritz Binder cover quite a bit.  The pace moves as fast as these people in the control had to move on that terrible day.  So, the information comes quick.  With real life archived ABC footage spliced within the film, you feel as if you are standing in the corner of this dark room with various tv screens, microphones, and telephones. 

You watch John Magaro feed information to Jim McKay, and then the picture cuts to real life footage of McKay at the desk.  It’s quite inventive how the script is accommodated to work in line with what Jennings, Cosell, McKay and others literally said as the crisis was being reported.

Having seen all ten Best Picture nominees for 2024, it is disappointing that September 5 did not make the cut.  Tim Fehlbaum’s picture certainly deserves more recognition and a slot over other contenders this year.  Still, the screenplay is a well-deserved accolade.  To interweave a fresh script that hinges on what was literally said on television screens around the world at that time is a marvelous strategy. 

September 5 is a crackling thriller of a terribly sad day.

NICKEL BOYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys, is now an Oscar nominated film for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is based on a true story that needed the exposure of a film.  However, a better adaptation than what director RaMell Moss did with it should have been completed. 

The Nickel School of Southern Georgia is the setting for a boys school where various forms of abuse took place during the civil rights era.  Apollo 8 was making new discoveries in space, but racial prejudice and crimes of adolescent abuse were not being revealed to a greater public.

Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is a bright student who has been accepted to a prestigious school for gifted learning.  Upon walking to his destination, on the outskirts of Atlanta, Elwood inadvertently gets blamed for a crime he did not commit and is sent to the Nickel Reform School.  The black students are relegated “to the other side of the nickel” in less favorable quarters than the white students. 

At the school, Elwood develops a friendship with Turner (Brandon Wilson) and together they do their best to survive the harsh challenges that go with living at Nickel.  Elwood remains positive that he will be able to leave the school one day and return to his loving grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).  Turner knows differently.  These boys are never leaving, and they will be compelled to obey the harsh tyranny of living at the school.

What helped me get through the near two and a half hour running time is that sadly this is an all too familiar story, especially for black youth.  The challenge though is the construction of the film.  RaMell Moss takes an unconventional approach where the viewer is the point of view of the two boys.  For about the first third of the picture, we are seeing what Elwood sees.  When he nods his head to the floor, the viewer sees the floor.  When he looks up to the sky, we look to the sky above him.  When he is listening or speaking to another person, like Turner or Hattie for example, that’s who we see.  The viewer is restricted to a forced tunnel vision of only what Elwood’s eyes focus on.  Frankly, as soon as the film began, I said to myself, “Oy.  Two and a half hours of this!”

Shortly after Elwood arrives at Nickel and sits down for breakfast, the perspective finally changes to Turner when the boys meet for the first time.  Now we get to see what Elwood looks like because we are looking through the eyes of Turner.  At this point, I told myself to either fall asleep, walk out or get accustomed to this different way of watching a movie.  I selected option number three and I’m glad I did because I started to become engrossed in the picture.  It’s compelling and absorbing. Granted I was still unsure of what this story was about as the film keeps the viewer very limited as to what is seen and told.  Arbitrary moments are shown through the eyes of the boys that do not necessarily progress the story.  These adolescent boys are not directly tormented as much as they are simply living in a captivity they do not fully understand.

A third person perspective is eventually put upon us.  We are watching the film at a different time, during an internet age, as we see a black man with dreadlock hair surfing the internet and pulling up articles about the Nickel Boys School that once existed.  I had an idea of who I was standing behind as he spoke with his girlfriend, but still I was not entirely sure, and other than an attempt at inventiveness, it puzzled me why the film veers occasionally into this direction.

Nickel Boys has an eye-opening story to tell but the experimental narrative of this picture does not entirely work.  It’s more frustrating than admirable.  RaMell Moss works with a very good cast of young actors who are focused on upholding the first-person perspective.  They are speaking the language of his camera.  Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean as a viewer that I like it.  These young actors deserve a more conventional means of telling this story.  I am confident they can handle that kind of direction just as well.

Nickel Boys ends with a mild twist.  While it might not have seemed necessary, and with Moss’ unusual approach I was not even sure what happened, it’s interesting for at least a beat.  However, to be sure I understood what occurred I turned to my resident Cinemaniac, Thomas Pahl, for assurance that I was accurate in what I think happened. 

I also took issue with RaMell Moss breaking his own rule of filmmaking.  The film limits itself to three different kinds of perspectives: a first-person view from either Elwood or Turner, and a third person sight from a character we meet in a more modern time.  Yet, for one concluding and significant moment that occurs near the end of this story, Moss changes his camera angle for a standard conventional approach.  Why do this?  Was Moss finally at the end of his rope and could not fathom how to demonstrate the story’s end unless he broke away from his own unique approach?  For me this shows the filmmaker could not stay consistent all the way through with the final cut of his picture.

Forgive the presumption, but I recall the Academy considering nominating films only if there is a minority representation contained somewhere within the finished edit.  I’m uncertain if that remains an unspoken rule or if it is set in stone.  Honestly, I think it’s simply considered with a lack of justified merit. 

I do not find Nickel Boys to be worthy of the best of 2024.  A handful of films that were not as recognized did not get the accolades this film received.  Is the picture being honored because it depicted a black experience?  I cannot help but wonder.  It is not a terrible film because there are parallel ideas happening alongside the main storyline and the cast is especially good.  Real life tragic stories are especially appealing to The Academy.  The direction of the piece takes away from much of the benefits of the film though. 

Garner up your patience with the limited view you will have watching Nickel Boys.  I also say this without sarcasm, maybe take a Dramamine.  When watching a production in a first-person narrative, often people are prone to motion sickness.  Surprisingly, it did not happen for me this time.  It should have because I cannot play updated video games that rely on this angle.  Yet, a friend had a different experience with Nickel Boys, and he said it took all his strength not to get up and exit the film.

I’M STILL HERE (BRAZIL)

By Marc S. Sanders

Biographies of terrible truths are fascinating.  Haunting, yet fascinating that circumstances ever got as far as they did when unfairness, immorality and unspeakable tragedy occurs.  Walter Salles’ Brazilian film I’m Still Here recounts the abduction of Reubens Paiva in 1970 when Rio Di Janeiro was under the control of a militaristic dictatorship.  This is a moment in world history that I am completely unfamiliar with, and so I wished that Salles’ movie provided more backstory to paint a clearer picture.

Reubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is a father of four girls and a boy.  Despite a happy marriage to Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and a comfortable life across the street from the coast, the government stronghold of the island looms with planes flying overhead and check point searches at intersections.  Other than this dark overrule, life goes on for the Paiva family as they plan to build a new home, send their eldest off to London for college, and swim daily in the ocean blue.  Ice cream outings are also a treat.

Then Reubens is requested to go with a military escort.  He gets dressed in a jacket and tie and calmly leaves the home.  Eunice is also taken and placed in a dirty cell for days while being put towards intense questioning.  Their daughter, Verona (Valentina Herszage), is stopped at a checkpoint and searched while out with friends.  No explanations come their way for these encounters.  

Following a few weeks in captivity, Eunice is released back to her home.  Reubens is nowhere to be found and assumed to still be held prisoner.  The couple were friends with people much like them who apparently spoke out against the regime.  It is likely Reubens was taken due to his writings and vocal protests as a former Congressman.  It’s also concerning that foreign diplomats are rumored to be kidnapped as well.  There’s definitely an uneasy feeling happening. Now Eunice’s dilemma is to try keeping her children calm and sheltered from news of this arbitrary situation, including her worst fears about her missing husband.  

I’m Still Here is certainly an important story that needs to be told and was more than ready for the big screen.  I’m sorry to say though that Walter Salles’ picture is terribly boring.  Once the captivity sequence is over, Salles relies often on Eunice silently wondering what has become of her spouse.  Colleagues visit with rumblings of what they have heard and in between there is a lot of gazing at photographs and newspaper articles.  It’s challenging to embrace a character looking at documents and pictures over and over with no progress being introduced to the story.

There are moments of paranoia as Eunice observes people watching her and the family from across the street.  Tragedy befalls a loving pet as well.  Yet, I never felt the tension that I’m sure resided with this woman from one day to the next.  Eventually, the film takes two different leaps in time and an older Eunice is now played by Fernanda Montenegro (Fernanda Torres’ real life mother). 

I’m Still Here is very slow moving. I couldn’t help but feel lost with most of this story and it’s not until the second and final epilogue arrives that a televised newscast offers more clarity to what likely happened.  I was glad I walked away with a better understanding, but it does not make up for how lost I was during the first two thirds of the picture.  

I still do not understand how the military coup came into power. A prologue might have helped enhance the threat the family had to face.  I was never clear on what precisely Reubens stood for against this stronghold regime.  What was his platform?  What bothered him specifically?  Anyone could tell me it should be obvious, but again I know nothing about this story that arguably is not shared in schools and is hardly a current event.  Granted, Brazilians likely have a clearer idea.

Without enough knowledge, I’m Still Here is uninteresting.   Viewing characters staring at old photos is not stimulating enough on its own and I’m sure Eunice Paiva was at least a little more aggressive than Fernanda Torres’ performance implies.  I read that Eunice never cried in front of her children and that is demonstrated in Salles’ film.  So, I have to presume this real-life woman, who eventually earned a law degree she used to fight for human rights, would have been much more aggressive than what is on display in this movie.

I can only recommend watching I’m Still Here as another example of tragic unfairness towards human rights.  

Learn about the Paiva family.  However, instead of watching this film, it might be better to rely on the book it’s based on, written by Eunice and Reubens’ son Marcos Rubens Paiva.  I’d expect it to be much more insightful.