Category: Drama

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

By Marc S. Sanders

The moment finally arrived where I was able to see David Lean’s epic, also regarded as my colleague Miguel’s favorite film, Lawrence Of Arabia.  It truly is an eye-opening spectacle, and one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen, especially enhanced by an up-to-date Blu Ray restoration.  With a near four hour running time there is hardly an element or sliver of film that does not appear out of place.  Far ahead of the conveniences of dazzling special effects and CGI to arrive later in the twentieth century and beyond, Lawrence Of Arabia must be one of the greatest cinematic achievements ever created. 

When you factor in what David Lean made with an earlier picture, The Bridge On The River Kwai, it is fair to say that he was the James Cameron of his time – a bold, daring film director who did not surrender until every shred of a masterpiece was included in a final cut.  What puts a man like Lean ahead of Cameron perhaps, is that he depended on the resources of thousands of human extras and animals, broad desert landscape locations, painstaking architecture to set designs and buildings, along with authentic explosions and battlegrounds while delivering the story of British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence and his efforts to aid an Arab nation into battle against the Turks during World War I. David Lean was persistent in bringing as much natural quality to his finished product as possible.  In fact, Miguel informed me that Lean was seeking out any possible way to point his cameras at the desert sun to heighten the feeling of the sweltering, unimaginable heat endured by his cast of characters.  It likely pained Mr. Lean that he had to settle for an optical illusion.  Nevertheless, when I was watching the movie, it did not occur to me once.  I was still appreciating his strive for absolute authenticity.

Peter O’Toole is the title character in his unforgettable film debut.  A daring, handsome, charming blond leading actor poised for adventure.  Lawrence is assigned to ally with the Arabs during the war to hold on to the necessary access of the Suez Canal which is a through way for oil, supplies and territory.  His determination for crossing wide, endless desert plains under a sun drenched open blue sky turn him into a leader, and a hero to the Arab soldiers, particularly represented by Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif).  They are a small band of fifty men, but Lawrence proceeds with the intent of gaining fifty more as he begins a long trek from one side of the desert to the other with persistent walking or by riding camel.  Lawrence won’t even leave a single man behind.  His resolve is courageous but could be costly later.

The technical construction of Lawrence of Arabia is likely what many notice and remember first, but the film comes with a well-set character arc for its protagonist.  Peter O’Toole was a perfect casting selection for this role.  Lawrence changes over the course of the film and it’s not a celebratory transformation.  Oft times, it seemed ironic to consider him the villain; perhaps a hero who falls from grace.  His derring-do is impressive, but likely also his undoing.  Lawrence allows strength and confidence to awaken a weak Arab nation who only survived for themselves with what little they held onto before their encounter with him.  Yet, the monster Lawrence creates within his own psyche may have also spawned a challenging threat from the Arabians for many years to come, long after this war is over and further generations come into play.  Bless a people with power but be aware of how that gift is used thereafter.

Lawrence accomplishes what has been regarded as seemingly impossible and now the Arabs adorn him in heroic white cloths (which must be one of the memorable costumes in film history).  He is who they look up to as the giver of their strength and confidence.  However, like most heroes that we find in the best of stories, T.E. Lawrence is weighed by fault, particularly his own hubris.  After his conceit gets him captured and tortured, it is not so easy to return to his home country who insist he continue to carry out his leadership.  Madness is invading his mindset and the hero we have borne witness to for well over two hours of film is now significantly diminished.  Parallel to that is the overconfidence and newfound freedom a political leader like Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) absorbs for his Arabian people.  The end of David Lean’s film seems to imply what came of T.E. Lawrence’s contributions to the Arabs.  Was the world better or worse for what he achieved with his pioneering, yet dedicated military efforts?  What about Lawrence?  How did he fare, personally?

Forgive my incessant urge to compare David Lean to James Cameron.  I look at a film like Avatar and I see the monies and efforts invested to make that piece.  Yet, I feel like I walk away with little substance.  The films of Cameron not only fall short of story, but often lack texture as well.  I could never reach out and shake the hand of a “Pandoran.”  When I see Lawrence Of Arabia, though, I can feel the sweat and heat that O’Toole and Sharif experience.  Both are big films, not made on the fly. Rather, time and stress and a means to improve and show what’s never been seen or done before are offered.  David Lean might have been given all the monies in the world or the keys to kingdom to make his masterpiece.  However, it’s how he used these resources to painstaking perfection that lend to longevity in reputation for his career and Lawrence Of Arabia.

A train explosion near the start of third act is very impressive.  Lawrence and his men detonate a planted bomb on the tracks, and we see the locomotive derail onto its side, plowing into the hot desert sand.  We feel the immense weight of that steam engine.  We can detect the sand cloud that forms from the crash.  The collision of the cars being ripped apart and burned black thus create a new setting as Lawrence’s Arab followers rush to loot the train.

Grand battle scenes on horse and camel backs are meant to be seen at least ten times over in order to capture every piece of activity from the numerous extras and animals occupying a thousand different corners of the screen.  The bigger the screen, the better enhanced is the viewing experience. 

Long walks and camel rides in the desert may seem tedious for some, but not for me.  I was accompanying T.E. Lawrence and Sherif Ali on this journey.  This is another film where its running time affects what Lean set out to accomplish.  A trek through the desert is impossible to rush and this film is a testament to that notion.  I can’t say I’ve hiked through a desert plain that bears no end in near sight, but now I can lay claim that I’ve watched Lawrence Of Arabia.

Having only seen David Lean’s picture once thus far, I know that on repeat viewings I’d likely see something new each time hereafter.  This film is so alive of its period setting and backdrop and the unforgettable original score from Maurice Jarre give definition to the sweeping adventure that awaits with T.E. Lawrence’s travels.  The cast is marvelous as well.  Peter O’Toole is positively engaging.  Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn are scene stealing character actors, much like Robert Shaw would become known for a decade later with Jaws.  Alec Guinness may be doing a brown face appearance as an Arab leader, but I’ll just salute the performance.  A charming actor of grand, yet subtle, skill.  I’m glad I’ve discovered him all over again from beyond …River Kwai and Star Wars.

Movies like Lawrence Of Arabia must remain at the top of the broad lexicon of films to watch.  It’s length and scope may be challenging, but its edits, its score, its immense visuals, and the performances therein, are unmatched by most anything else available to watch. 

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s an irony to John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy.  At first, the film centers on a Texas bumpkin eager to relocate to New York City and succeed as a hustler.  Upon his arrival though, he could not appear any more virginal.  The cowboy’s name is Joe Buck, portrayed by Jon Voight in his Oscar nominated breakthrough role.

The first act of the film follows Joe on his long cross country bus ride.  He’s dressed in his finest country western shirt, stitched with floral patterns.  He’s got his black leather cowboy boots and of course the cowboy hat.  His origin bred Texas twang completes his image.  He meets a variety of comers and goers on the bus and then finally he reaches his destination. 

Schlesinger’s camera follows Voight as he treks through the city.  A man is passed out (heck, maybe he’s dead) on the street in broad daylight.  My Cinemaniac pals that I watched the film with noted how it’s funny that the streetwalkers don’t take one look at the poor fellow.  Rather they’re looking at Joe’s get up as he clearly stands out among the masses. Joe is the only one looking at the guy on the street.

Interspersed within Joe’s travels and entry into the city are quick flashbacks to where he stemmed from.  It does not look like a favorable upbringing spent with his grandmother.  There are flashes of Joe being victimized by possible sodomy.  There also appears to be a gang rape that he might have participated in.  None of it is made completely clear.  Though, it is evident that Joe has been trying to escape that environment for good. 

Eventually Joe encounters a sleazy, squat fellow who calls himself Rico Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), addressed by others as Ratso.  Joe is so naïve that he’ll trust Ratso to get him some action where he can earn some money.  In exchange, Joe is completely willing to surrender the cash in his wallet.  He’ll learn from that mistake once he’s drained of everything but a few coins, locked out of his hotel room he can’t pay for and denied of his cow skinned suitcase that contains his possessions.  Eventually, he has no choice but to live in a condemned tenement building with Ratso. Joe Buck is about to lose a second virginity as he experiences how hard it is to live within the city.  He’ll also realize the value of friendship as he sees no choice but to take care of Ratso who is very sick.  Hoffman’s appearance shockingly changes as Ratso’s health submits to a harsh, unknown illness.  The sweat all over his face is palpable.  The chilling, sickly feeling he exudes is clearly felt.

Waldo Salt’s award-winning script, based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy, explores the good nature found within two different walks of life despite the dodgy pasts that follow them. Ratso and Joe are one of the oddest couples in cinematic history.  There’s no way these two would want to be together unless one was trying to take advantage of the other or one was left with his guard down, open to being taken for and deceived.   Jon Voight has a tall youthful stature, a handsome man.  Dustin Hoffman is scrawny and significantly shorter with greasy hair, an uneasy limp and a weird squawk to his voice.  The often-times method actor seems to make himself increasingly hideous. 

Perhaps I needed to see Midnight Cowboy at the time of its release.  It surprises me the film merited the prestigious accolades it collected, including Oscars for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay.  The two actors also received Oscar nominations.  It remains an honest film of its time in the year 1969.  Yet, it is disturbing and ugly too as it captures the seedy side of New York with experimental drug use and Joe’s victimization for sex.  He gets ripped off by who he thought was a kind woman (Sylvia Miles) looking for an intimate evening with his hustler capabilities.  Later, he’ll surrender himself to a man looking for oral pleasure in a movie theatre.  It’s not the typical glamourous epic of a Hollywood yesteryear.  In fact, for a time it was the only film to be recognized for winning Best Picture with an X rating.

The celebration of Midnight Cowboy’s achievements falls upon the relationship between Joe and Ratso.  Had Joe not been so naïve to how lowlifes operate and had Ratso not become so ill, yet welcoming to Joe when he needed a place to stay, then a friendship would not have gradually developed. 

The ending to Schlesinger’s film is touching, though sad.  As the story began, it also ends on a bus heading towards a new destination – another new way of life, different from what Joe experienced in small town Texas or New York City.  The two characters sit together in the back seat and the other passengers eventually observe them like they had on Joe’s first journey.  Either individually or together Ratso and Joe are simply strange to any sort of environment.  Yet, they’ll learn from each other and that’s where Midnight Cowboy triumphs.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

By Marc S. Sanders

The outcry of teen angst in the 1980s comes through predominantly in the dramatic talking piece called The Breakfast Club.  I look at the film as a mature interpretation of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts Gang actually, and maybe an extension of some of the themes found in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.  The children are heard.  The adults are present but are mostly muffled and out of consideration.  Writer/Director John Hughes wanted the five teenagers destined to occupy a Saturday in the school library for detention to completely undo their armor.  With adults in the way, kids can never truly be themselves.  Lies, exaggerations and attempts at acceptable image come first but as his script progresses, the teens are reduced to expressing how they value themselves and each other. 

Having grown up watching The Breakfast Club by myself on many Friday nights after some challenging weeks of school, I was always looking to sit on the floor with this pack and share my own demons and fears.  Sometimes it worked.  Sometimes I felt as if the brain (Anthony Michael Hall, as Brian), the athlete (Emilio Estevez as Andrew), the basket case (Ally Sheedy as Allison), the princess (Molly Ringwald as Claire) and the criminal (Judd Nelson as John) spoke back to me and told me when I was wrong or when I was justified for having felt like I did. 

Nearly forty years later, some of the thought processes the five endure of themselves seems outdated and inappropriate, however.  For example, in Hughes’ film the female characters are sexually harassed, harshly criticized and/or they succumb to stepping outside their comfort zone and changing their appearance to please a male character.  Had this film been released in a post Me Too era, I think both sides of the political aisle would protest its content.  The Breakfast Club is certainly a movie of its day where it’s treated as comedic escapism to have Nelson’s character commit a fellatio act upon Ringwald’s panty covered crotch.  Do not mistake me.  I am not crying foul and demanding censorship or calling for torches and pitchforks.  The contents of The Breakfast Club should certainly remain preserved and viewed upon as what was a mindset of films in the 1980s, and perhaps how the opposite sexes treated one another then.  Sadly, it is still happening all too often.

The success of the film relies upon the differences in the characters.  None of them have the same interests.  Yet, if you allow them to live among themselves without any outside influences, they will open up to one another.  Hughes’ film begins where the characters hardly speak.  John gets the ball rolling as the troublemaker looking for shock value as he attempts to urinate on the floor in front of the others and then succeeds in unifying the students when he causes the library door to remain shut keeping Mr. Vernon (Paul Gleason), the teacher/antagonist, out of reach of them.  Why should the five work together against Mr. Vernon?  They don’t know or have respect for each other.  Why?  Because one generation will stand arm and arm against another generation, specifically a domineering entity. 

Now that they are isolated, Hughes writes in set ups allowing the five to shed their skin.  In one scene, the ladies empty the contents of their purses while the men’s wallets are exposed.  John sleeps around.  Allison may be mentally ill.  Claire lives off the vanity that comes with makeup and perfumes.  Brian’s middle name is revealed.  (“Ralph, as in puke.”)  The kids lie about their sexual conquests only to be cornered into telling how little experience some of them actually have.  Maybe the most common plane they share are their home lives.  Each uncovers how they relate to their parents and none of them have an ideal upbringing.  Rather, they are disregarded or abused or forced into an appearance they really are not passionate about.  Before the film ends, the five will have their battle cry of dancing individually first, and then lined up together, unified, to a song titled, We Are Not Alone. 

Hughes even allows enough time and subtlety to demonstrate how Mr. Vernon seems to suffer.  There’s a quick moment, where Vernon commits John to two months of detention.  As Vernon storms out of the room, John screams out “Fuck You!” and Hughes keeps a closeup on Vernon letting out a weary sigh.  His exhaustion of being the authoritative adult is wearing on him.  Yet, after twenty-two years of teaching it is also the only pedestal he has left to stand on; to rule over five misfits on a boring isolated Saturday.  Later, he’ll only feel his most powerful when he has John imprisoned away from the others and he can antagonize and threaten him with the intent of elevating his stature over a punk kid.  (Ironically, this moment also reveals how weak John is and not the intimidating bully he holds himself to be in front of the others.)  Later, Vernon tells the janitor how he’ll have to worry about these kids growing up to look after him when he is elderly.  He’s been so occupied with being sadistically cruel, he has not allowed time to carve out a balanced future.

The Breakfast Club is an important piece to watch for uncovering teenage mentality and the subconsciousness.  How do teenagers function by themselves, with outsiders, with their peers, and with their parents?  What’s best celebrated in many of John Hughes’ films are when he allows his characters not to hinder how they truly regard one another.  While I won’t spoil how these five consider each other by the end of this particular Saturday, as an adult and one who analyzes story more carefully than I did at age fourteen, I am disappointed with how Hughes concludes his film.  At least for four of the characters, it doesn’t seem right.  While I’m let down though, that doesn’t mean the movie is wrong. 

Teenagers will not always act upon what is right or more precisely what they know to be right or just.  Our teenage years are an opportunity to commit and then learn from our mistakes.  In our adolescent years, we explore what is forbidden with misbehavior and risk whether it be rebelling against authority, daring to drink and do drugs, acting upon sexual impulse or exacting bullying and peer pressure.  Even sneaking through the hallways around school is a game of cat and mouse where the goal is not to get caught by the teacher.

I’m inclined to recommend that parents watch The Breakfast Club with their kids when they are mature enough for the material.  Yet, I really don’t want to.  The whole point of the film is to cut off these kids from the outside world of parents and teachers and peers who expect something different of them than how they truly see themselves.  If my daughter were to watch this movie with mom and dad sitting right next to her, then she might not unequivocally respond to what Andrew, Claire, Allison, Brian and John really have to say.  To get in their minds, my daughter would have to watch without any outside influence where the conversation she has with the film is private between The Breakfast Club and her.  Perhaps, then she’ll see another teenager’s honest point of view.

ELVIS (2022)

By Marc S. Sanders

Baz Luhrmann’s take on the legacy of Elvis Presley will certainly grab your attention, even if the director refuses to carry an attention span of his own lasting longer seven seconds.  Having watched the celebrated film from 2022 for a second time, eight months after my first viewing, I see more faults with the picture than achievements.  Elvis is strongest when the carnival ride stops moving, allowing its cast of colorful characters to have conversations with one another. 

Austin Butler is now a known name for his portrayal of the King Of Rock N Roll, whose career was squandered by a slimy business manager known as Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).  Butler personifies what pop culture has recognized first and foremost about Elvis Presley, everything from the wild stage presence of dancing to the deep rockabilly singing or speaking (you decide) vocals.  He really bears an uncanny resemblance to The King as well.  Butler could have been better though had he been graced with a more economical and thoughtful script.  I don’t think Austin Butler was given enough to do.

The Elvis character hardly shares any conversations with any of the supporting characters.  That’s the film’s major shortcoming.  There are a scant few scenes of dialogue exchanged between Elvis and his mother and father, between Elvis and the Colonel, and between Elvis and his wife Priscilla Presley.  Baz Lurhmann wrote the script with Sam Bromell and Craig Pearce, and I guess it incorporates some major moments within the singer’s illustrious career but nothing seems to hold much weight.  Elvis gets threatened with being arrested for his pelvis swiveling gyrations while he performs.  We get a close up of the state Governor who leads this censoring campaign, but we don’t get an idea of his warped logic.  Elvis gets drafted into the army and the Colonel thinks to sell it as a comeback when his tour of duty will finish in two years.  Two years go by in a matter of sixty seconds however and the King is back to touring and donning the outrageous costumes, but we don’t see the marketing machinations led by the Colonel.  Where’s the deviousness and conniving?  Where’s the brainwashing of the public and our hero?  Elvis is also bedhopping from one woman to another and popping pills, but these incidents which arguably led to his life being cut short are glossed over with a sway of Luhrmann’s camera work.  When the third act of the film arrived, I didn’t even know Elvis was sleeping around until Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) announces she is leaving him.  On her way out the door, the two characters share about five or six lines of dialogue before the film races to another transition or scenario.  In this film, the love of Elvis’ life, Priscilla, holds about as much presence as an extra in the film.  Their relationship isn’t explored like Johnny and June Carter Cash in Walk The Line, for example.

Lurhmann edits his scenes with title cards of what year it is or what place it is as Elvis tours the country.  Yet, I never got the feeling that I was inside these time periods.  A minute to a minute and a half go by and suddenly it is “One Year Later.”  What difference does that make?  Where’s the transition in Elvis’ character?  When exactly did he become a sensation?  Suddenly I see that Elvis is moving into a mansion (I think is what will eventually be Graceland) with his parents and I presume he’s…well…he’s a success?!?!?!

An opportunity presents itself for Elvis to have a mentor into the world of celebrity stardom by means of B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), but as soon as he introduces himself, the man disappears and is not heard from again.  Elvis only offers a piece of dialogue later suggesting that “B.B. King once said…”  There’s no significance to the influences or naysayers who enter Elvis’ life.  The same goes for Elvis’ mother, Gladys (Helen Thomson).  The Colonel will assure Elvis’ parents that he has their son’s best interests in mind as he blossoms his career, but we don’t get enough of a solid foundation for his mother’s apprehension or her religious doctrine or the alcohol addiction that kills her.  

I know, reader.  You can argue that I’m offering descriptive text for these people.  However, the text that I give in this column is all that you see.  Baz Lurhmann is a flashy director.  I don’t doubt his skill for color with sparkles and glamour. No subject is glitzier than Elvis Presley.  Yet, if a biography is going to be recounted on film, it needs to be more than just a near three-hour music video.  Luhrmann seems prouder of the letter fonts and graphics that introduce another year like 1956 or another state like Tennessee as it zooms towards you from the depths of the screen.  The gloss of the photography in the movie is overly animated, lacking feeling or character arcs.

The script for Elvis seems to also adopt the approach that Milos Forman’s Amadeus took, where the puppet master/antagonist recalls the celebrity’s story.  Colonel Parker provides voiceover with a thick, German/Austrian (maybe ???), dialect for Tom Hanks to deliver.  Unlike popular opinion, I was surprisingly taken with Hanks’ portrayal.  He’s quite the villain in a disproportioned fat suit and bulbous sweat-soaked head.  The relationship between Elvis and the Colonel is nothing surprising.  We’ve seen plenty of bios where the manager swindles the fortunes of the outstanding talent.  Considering that is how it happened, I don’t mind seeing it again in Elvis.  However, much like everything else in the film, it is glossed over.  Only very late in the film do we learn that Colonel Parker is deeply indebted to the Las Vegas casinos, and he signs away a long-term Elvis obligation in lieu of repayment.  Before all of that comes into play however, while we know we can’t trust the Colonel, we also don’t know what his endgame is.  Only near the end, Luhrmann and his script writers throw in a last-minute Hail Mary to shock the viewers and uncover how the Colonel destroyed Elvis’ financial assets and betrayed his trust.  Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much of a relationship between the two rivals after over two hours of film.  A build up is missing.  The best way for a villain to attack a hero is to whet his appetite with trust and then use that reliability as a control device.  The script for Elvis never sets up those early moments of exposition that get the viewer, and more importantly Elvis, to trust the Colonel. 

Michelle Williams once played Marilyn Monroe in a film called My Week With Marilyn.  It’s an astonishing performance in a very shallow film.  In my review of that picture, I wrote that I wish I could see Williams play the role again in a story more worthy of what she puts on screen.  She was above that movie.  I feel the same way for Austin Butler and Tom Hanks here.  These are great actors who were not given adequate material to shine.  If only another Elvis picture could be made with them in the principal roles.

What I find ironic about Elvis is that when I first saw the film upon initial release in theatres, I felt thoroughly impressed.  While I am always more cold than hot on Baz Luhrmann’s movies, I thought maybe this was the exception.  Watching it a second time however, eight months later, I realize that much of the film I could not remember and that is because that movie doesn’t invest in memorable scenes.  It focuses much too much on flashy edit, cut aways.  What I lost from that narrative is an intimate connection to Elvis or any of the other characters. 

Even the music is not as electrifying as it is known for.  There is not enough time devoted to individual set pieces of Elvis performing numbers like Heartbreak Hotel or Jailhouse Rock, and because of the quick cuts, I’m not convinced that Austin Butler is truly crooning away in an Elvis impersonation like Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles or Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash or Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison.  Austin Butler is just not offered ample opportunity to do his best Elvis performing.

As colorful as Elvis’ life was and his legacy continues to be, Baz Lurhmann is certainly a viable candidate to direct this biography.  The problem is maybe that Lurhmann needed an editor and producer who would put their foot down and tell him to try again.  Lurhmann was more concerned with showing his own kind of magic in filmmaking and reserving the story and plot devices for the closing act.  Exposition within the last thirty minutes of a movie usually never works.

BOY AND THE WORLD (Brazil, 2013)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Alê Abreu
CAST: Vinicius Garcia, Alê Abreu, Lu Horta
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A little boy goes on an adventurous quest in search of his father.


Filmmaker Brad Bird, the mind behind The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles, once said something that occurred to me multiple times while I was watching the Brazilian animated film, Boy and the World.

“…animation is not a genre.  And people keep saying, ‘The animation genre.’  It’s not a genre!  A Western is a genre!  Animation is an art form, and it can do any genre.  You know, it can do a detective film, a cowboy film, a horror film, an R-rated film, or a kids’ fairy tale.  But it doesn’t do one thing.”

Boy and the World proves Bird’s statement correct by delivering a succinct, poignant film, virtually without words, that defies classification.  Is it a kids’ film?  It’s colorful, vibrant, and contains no long words, but it was rated PG in America.  Is it a “grown-up” film?  There is absolutely some thematic material that might require some parental explanation, but the style of the film’s images is almost like a children’s book come to life.  Boy and the World is quite unique in animation, at least in the animated films I’ve seen.  The only film I might possibly compare it to is Walt Disney’s Fantasia…or more accurately, I’d say Boy and the World was inspired by Fantasia’s core concept.  It’s a fairy tale and a cautionary tale and a coming-of-age story and a visual tour-de-force all in one.


We first meet the titular Boy in this story as he seems to be hearing music coming from under a colorful rock in a field.  The Boy is never named.  Indeed, what little dialogue we ever hear in the movie is conveyed either by grunts and coughs and harrumphs, or by a peculiar, unrecognizable language.  I turned on the Blu-ray’s subtitles, and it only said “SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE.”  But the film’s story is so well-constructed, a literal understanding of their speech is never necessary.  (Trivia note: I learn from the disc’s special features that the language we hear is Portuguese…spoken backwards.)

The Boy lives with his mother and father in a humble dwelling in the Brazilian countryside during an unspecified time period, though his clothing indicates something close to present day.  One day, his father simply decides to leave, boards a train, and is gone.  We are not given a clear reason for his departure.  The Boy is distraught, so one night he packs a suitcase (its only contents: a photo of him with his mother and father) and sets off to find him…

From there, the movie becomes an absolute visual feast.  I do not wish to give further plot details – and there IS a surprisingly compelling plot – but I do want to give some idea of the startling originality on display during the film.

  • The Boy has a unique ability that no one else in this world seems to have: he can see music.  Whenever his mother hums a tune, or his father (in flashback) plays a song on a recorder, the Boy sees the music appear in the air as little balls of color, like cotton balls or tiny clouds.  Later, he watches a parade go down a street, and the music clouds rise and swirl together in the sky, forming a huge multicolored bird.  Later still, a military formation marches down another street.  The boy sees that music as blacks and greys, and the bird it forms in the sky is far more imposing and ominous.
  • Nothing in the film is a literal representation of what it’s depicting.  For example, when the Boy sees a big city for the first time, most of the vehicles appear to have faces.  The language on all the ads and billboards doesn’t make any sense.  The sports he sees on the TV sets in the shop windows are confusing and nonsensical.  It is more like an impression a child might have of a big city, and it feels more real because of its stylistic liberties.  When he sees large industrial machines in operation for the first time, they look more like elephants and dragons than tow trucks and construction cranes.  This is something animation can do better than any other medium.

  • There is a heartbreaking scene when the Boy sees a train pull in at a station and sees his father step out.  The Boy runs forward…and then his father steps out of another car.  And another, and another.  And soon the platform is crowded with scores of men, all identical to the Boy’s father, and the Boy falls to his knees in frustration.  I interpreted this as an eloquent analogy of how anyone in the Boy’s situation might see a recognizable figure in the distance, only to be disappointed again and again.  Instead of it happening 15 or 20 times in the movie, we got it all at once, and it was an unexpectedly powerful moment.
  • Listen closely, and you’ll hear that a lot of sound effects, from birds in the jungle to car horns honking to clattering machinery, are made by musical instruments or the human voice and/or body.  Yet another unique element to an already unique film.
  • The resolution of the boy’s search took me completely by surprise.  There were little visual clues that had me believing the movie was not going to have a happy ending.  But then it unfolded, and the effect was eye-opening.  I won’t say one way or the other if he found his father or not, but I will say the ending felt earned, authentic, and very satisfying.

All told, Boy and the World is a marvelous little discovery, one that I plan to re-watch soon to drink in its marvelous visual concoction once more.  My colleague, Marc, is a playwright who once wrote a short play as a pantomime.  He believed (and still does, I think) that the main purpose of the visual arts is to show us something new and exciting whenever possible.  Boy and the World would be right up his alley.

SAFE (1995)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Todd Haynes
CAST: Julianne Moore, Xander Berkeley, Peter Friedman
MY RATING: 4/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An affluent but unexceptional homemaker in the suburbs develops multiple chemical sensitivity.


From Wikipedia:  “Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS)…is an unrecognized and controversial diagnosis characterized by chronic symptoms attributed to exposure to low levels of commonly used chemicals…Blinded clinical trials show that people with MCS react as often and as strongly to placebos as they do to chemical stimuli; the existence and severity of symptoms is seemingly related to perception that a chemical stimulus is present.”

I lead off with that because the disease showcased in Safe is utterly unknown to me.  To me, it sounds like a fancy term for bad allergic reactions, but I’m not a pharmacologist, so there you go.  I don’t mean to suggest it isn’t real, despite the blinded trials.  For the people afflicted by it, their symptoms are real enough for them, so it’s good enough for me.

And yet, despite the fact that Carol (Julianne Moore), the protagonist of Safe, is clearly suffering from something – clinically, mentally, or otherwise – affecting her health in unusual ways…I simply didn’t care.  Safe is one of those movies probably best discussed with a group so I can get opposing viewpoints, because mine is fairly negative.  Apart from Julianne Moore’s effective performance, the movie is a well-photographed but ultimately confusing slog.

Carol is an affluent housewife – sorry, homemaker, she makes that correction herself in the film – whose days are filled with making sure the 2-piece sofa she and her husband ordered is the right color, tending to her rose garden, lunching with friends, baby showers, and Jazzercise (the film takes place in 1987).  Her speaking voice sounds as if she’s internally apologizing for filling the gaps in conversations.  Her relationship with her stepson isn’t the greatest, and the role of her husband (Xander Berkeley) seems to be little more than that of a breadwinner and baby-maker.  Moore is a great actress, and in Safe she succeeds in making Carol a void, which is not an easy task.  (I was sometimes reminded of Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day where his one goal as a butler was to make sure everyone forgot he was there.)

One day, Carol suffers a coughing fit after driving behind a dump truck that spews vast amounts of smoke.  Later, she zones out at a dinner engagement with her husband’s clients.  She has trouble breathing after drinking a glass of milk.  She gets a spontaneous nosebleed after getting a salon perm.  The way the movie and Carol’s character are constructed, I got the idea that her illness was directly related to her nearly crippling ennui.  Actually, Carol reminded me of the main character in Jeanne Dielman 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, that semi-obscure Belgian film that was recently named the best film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine.  In both cases, a woman goes through the routine of everyday life while something percolates beneath the surface.  Safe attacks the story directly while Jeanne Dielman takes the long, long, LONG way around the barn, but the principle is the same.

Carol sees her family doctor who pronounces her perfectly healthy, aside from her apparent reactions to chemicals.  She starts wearing a mask when going outdoors.  One day, she walks into her local dry cleaner’s wearing her mask before realizing the place is being fumigated for pests.  She immediately falls to the floor with convulsions; blood suddenly appears in her mask.

So far, it’s looking like a “Disease-of-the-Week” Lifetime movie.  Ah, but here’s where it gets sort of interesting.  In a nearly throwaway line, it is revealed that the blood in Carol’s mask didn’t come from her lungs or her nose.  Apparently, she bit her lip.  No one can fathom why she bit her lip, least of all Carol herself.  So, I’m thinking, “Okay, she’s really suffering, but it’s not from anything real.  She bit her lip because she saw the exterminators and their masks and their sprayers and she needed to be sick.”

Mind you, despite the sensational nature of that plot description, the movie up to this point is slow as molasses.  It seems to want to create a sense of creepiness or dread, but because I was pretty sure she wasn’t truly sick, based on the information provided in the story, it didn’t really grab me.

Eventually, Carol winds up at Wrenwood, a kind of “rehabilitation clinic” she saw in a commercial on TV.  If the movie was weird and confusing before, it gets more so from here on out.  Wrenwood is not so much a clinic as a metaphysical/holistic retreat.  Its leader, Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman), speaks to his patients/slash congregation with a curious message that can be distilled down to this: if you’re sick, it’s because your negative emotions – anger, fear, envy, etc. – have gotten the best of you and are affecting your immune system.  In other words, it’s your fault.  And to get better, you just have to be more positive.

This philosophy is insidious to the extreme.  I have a friend right now who was just recently diagnosed with ALS, a disease for which there is no known cure, and which is invariably fatal.  I wonder how he would respond if someone told him that, not only is this disease his fault, but he would get better if he would only be more positive.  Pardon my French, but that’s a load of horseshit.  ALS and cancer kill many thousands of people a day, no matter how positive their attitudes are.  Are you telling me they died because they didn’t smile enough?  Give me a break.

So, here Carol is, with this guy, and she listens to his orientation speech (which is followed by a musical duet right out of a stereotypical hippy commune from the late ‘60s), and she goes back to her cabin and cries her heart out.  And I’m thinking, “Finally, she’s come to her senses.  She realizes, like we the audience do, that this guy isn’t going to help her illness, imagined or not, because he’s a charlatan.”

But no!  She buys into it.  The movie keeps throwing these plot-related curveballs that made it difficult for me to understand what the filmmakers are getting at.  I’ve read that Carol’s illness is a metaphor for AIDS.  Okay, if that’s the case, what is Safe trying to say?  That there’s no cure?  What else is new?  This movie was made in 1995, long after AIDS first invaded the cultural zeitgeist, and two years after the movie Philadelphia brought it into the cinematic mainstream.

But let’s say that is the message.  Okay, let’s talk about how Safe delivers the message.  Short answer: it doesn’t.  At first, the movie would have you believe Carol’s illness is motivated by hysteria and not pharmacological.  Then it isn’t.  Then it is again.  Then she finds a haven that might provide a cure.  Then the haven turns out to be a fraud.  But she goes along with it anyway.  But then her condition seems to get even worse…

Safe wants to have it both ways.  Maybe it’s a Rorschach test.  Or maybe it’s more accurate to call it Schrodinger’s movie, where both solutions are equally possible, depending on who’s watching.  Are there movies that can pull this off?  Maybe you can list other examples besides 2001: A Space Odyssey, because I can’t.  By the time the cryptic ending rolled around, my chains had been yanked so many times that I just didn’t care anymore.  Carol is suffering from her illness, imagined or not, so it’s real to her.  But if the movie isn’t going to come down either way, what is it actually saying?  Having no perspective is worse than having one I disagree with.

Like I said, I need to watch this movie with other people, and we need to discuss it afterwards.  Maybe other viewpoints will broaden my mind a little bit to grasp Safe’s message, whatever the heck it is.  Viewed by itself in a vacuum, much like Carol herself, I was bored sick.

[P.S. The trailer for Safe is one of the most misleading trailers in film history, yet another in a long line of scenarios where a studio cuts the trailer for the movie they thought they’d get as opposed to the one they have. Watching it, you’d think you were in for another Outbreak. But, alas, no.]

MONSTER (2003)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Patty Jenkins
CAST: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 81% Certified Fresh Fresh
Everyone’s a Critic Category: “A Movie Based on a True Story”

PLOT: Charlize Theron gives a searing, deglamorized performance as real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, an intense, disquieting portrait of a profoundly damaged soul.


The first time I tried watching Monster, some years ago, I watched it with my girlfriend, but we never finished it.  The scene where Aileen Wuornos (Theron) is attacked and raped, leading to her first murder, was so visceral that my girlfriend had to leave the room before it had finished.  Since that time, she has watched hours and hours of “true crime” documentaries about Wuornos and Bundy and Manson and Speck and so many others.  Go figure.  Having finally finished Monster on my own this morning, I believe she could be ready to give this movie another try, although I’m not sure the version of Aileen Wuornos portrayed in the film will have much resemblance to the one seen in all those documentaries.

In the past, I’ve enjoyed movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs and even Zodiac, featuring implacable, inhuman murderers with unfathomable motives and blank faces.  I enjoyed David Fincher’s series Mindhunters far more than I thought I would, despite its disquieting subject matter, partially because the killers portrayed in that series may seem normal at first, but they are eventually revealed to have massive personality disorders, genuine sociopaths with little to no consciences to speak of.  But in Monster, director/screenwriter Patty Jenkins (who wouldn’t direct another film until 2017’s Wonder Woman) denies us the ability to pigeonhole Aileen Wuornos so easily.  She pulls a Hitchcock/Psycho on the audience: getting us to root for the ostensible villain even as she commits one murder after another.

Jenkins accomplishes this by showing how a dysfunctional home life and a sometimes apathetic and cruel society ground down a young girl with the same kinds of hopes and dreams we’ve all had into a damaged woman desperately looking for a connection.  One such apathetic soul in the film says what I’ve thought so many times in my own past about anyone who makes questionable life choices: “Lots of people have bad lives, and they still choose to move towards the light.  Otherwise, we’d all be hookers and druggies.”  Well, sure, that’s easy for me to say, with two loving parents, a private school education, living in a 3-bedroom house and a steady job, etcetera.  But what choices would I have made if my father knew his friend had been molesting me for years and not only did nothing, but beat ME up for it?  What if, in my first job interview, the office manager hadn’t taken a chance on a teenager with no job experience and instead berated me for not having a master’s degree or my own apartment yet?

Monster is not a typical serial killer movie because, while it absolutely does NOT approve of Aileen’s murders, it does not try to pretend she is a mindless, man-hating predator.  She is motivated by hopelessness and, as it happens, love.  Aileen meets and falls desperately in love with a naïve young woman, Selby Wall (Ricci), the first bright spot in her otherwise bleak existence, and will do anything to keep her in her life.  If “anything” happens to encompass hooking and murdering the occasional john, for her it’s a small price to pay for the happiness she has been denied for so long.

Monster has the look of a film shot on a shoestring, much like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which enhances its authenticity, especially when it’s clear the movie was shot in the real locations visited by Aileen and Selby in real life.  Having lived in Florida for over 35 years, I recognized the feel of the locations, the city streets crowded with convenience stores and car dealerships and seedy motels.  I’m pretty sure I’ve actually been to the “Fun Stop” where Aileen and Selby ride the Ferris wheel.  The usage of these real locations made everything feel legitimate, almost like a documentary.  (Full disclosure: Selby Wall is loosely based on Aileen’s actual girlfriend, Tyria Moore, but Moore refused to allow her name or likeness to be used in the film and divulged little-to-no information about her personal life, so Selby’s character is an estimation at best.)

And then, of course, there’s Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning performance as Aileen Wuornos.  Anyone familiar with the Wuornos story has seen her most famous photos.  Take it from me: the makeup department used every trick in the book to make Theron look like Wuornos’ double.  It’s uncanny, on par with Rami Malek’s transformation for Bohemian Rhapsody, down to the false teeth that subtly alter her profile.  She even shaved her eyebrows.  But those cosmetic marvels are nothing, nothing compared to Theron’s performance itself.  I recently watched Cate Blanchett in Tár and called that the greatest performance I had ever seen by a woman.  I must now amend that statement.  Theron completely sublimates her famously glamorous persona into a chaotic jumble of nervous speech patterns and a fake swagger and the rambling patter reminiscent of a junkie looking for her next fix.  The only time she ever seems at peace is in the arms of her lover.  This performance is even more remarkable considering how “non-flashy” it is compared to other movie killers like Hannibal Lecter or John Doe.  Sure, she has her outbursts, but rather than feeling like hammy histrionics, they felt raw, like watching hidden camera footage of someone genuinely losing their shit because of some deep personal loss and not because they got the wrong size coffee at Starbucks.  It’s a phenomenal performance.


Attention should also be paid to Christina Ricci’s performance as Selby.  It’s easy to lose sight of Ricci in a film that clearly belongs to Theron, but she pitches her performance just right as another needy soul looking for a connection and all too willing to overlook (initially, at first) the red flags of a girlfriend who comes home in a different car every other night.  Her home life may not have been as scarring as Aileen’s, but she will take any port in a storm offering relief from oppression.

I enjoyed Monster in almost the same way I enjoyed Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.  These people are not the most sympathetic characters ever, or the most relatable, or even the most likable.  But I see how their dysfunctional backgrounds brought them to their desolate situations step by step, and it makes me wonder whether I would have done anything differently in their situation.  I’d like to think I wouldn’t turn to murder and/or drug use in my despair, but Monster made me realize there’s no way to know for sure unless I walk a mile in their shoes.  The last lines spoken in Monster, which I won’t spoil here, lay out the kind of misery Aileen Wuornos seems to have faced at every stage in her life.  Imagine how things might have turned out if she had just been given a chance.


QUESTIONS FROM EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Best line or memorable quote?
“‘All you need is love and to believe in yourself.’  Nice idea.  It doesn’t exactly work out that way.  But I guess it was better to hear a flat-out lie than to know the truth at 13.”

After watching this film, did you want to learn more about the true story?  Why or why not?
I must be honest and say, no, I did not.  I do not claim that Monster tells the 100% true story from beginning to end.  It’s not a historical document.  It’s a piece of entertainment that strives for truth at the expense of slavish dedication to factual accuracy, and I’m okay with that.  I’m one of those people who believe JFK is a marvelous film, inaccurate though it may be, because it captures the feeling of what it was like during that timeframe.  The same with Monster.  I could watch however many documentaries on the life and death of Aileen Wuornos, and I can’t imagine any other piece of filmmaking approaching truth to any greater degree than this movie did.

TITANIC (1997)

By Marc S. Sanders

James Cameron’s Titanic will always remain a timeless piece.  Audiences adore the relationship between the two lovers from different worlds, Jack and Rose, who meet aboard the maiden, and final, voyage of the doomed cruise liner.  Maybe more importantly, the craftsmanship of this film is still beyond compare.  Many know that when this picture was in the making, its budget ran way over and endless rumors of waterlogged technical challenges were rampant through media reports.  Titanic was predicted to sink James Cameron’s career.  Instead, it was the grand Hollywood underdog that no one expected.

I recall seeing the film twice in theaters during the Christmas season of 1997.  I was not so enamored with the script or the fictional love story that Cameron conjured as the central narrative for the real-life tragedy that took approximately fifteen hundred lives on April 15, 1912.  The visual effects were the marvel to watch, and what I patiently waited for, during the second half of the picture.  I had to tread water through the first half though.

A hardly known, but already Oscar nominated (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?),  Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Jack Dawson, the poor member of the ship’s steerage company who falls in love with an aristocratic young woman named Rose Dewitt Bukater.  Rose is played by Kate Winslet, who’s uncomfortable with the snobbishly wealthy first class section of people she’s forced to associate with by mandate of her possessively cruel, and supercilious fiancée named Cal (Billy Zane) and her mother, Ruth (Frances Fisher).  Call it a Romeo & Juliet love story.  Two lovers are forbidden to be with one another.  Yet, they are going to do it anyway.  It’s simple and nothing dimensional.  It seems to have parallels to Disney’s rated G interpretation of Beauty & The Beast.  Fortunately, what saves the storyline are the performances and chemistry of DiCaprio and Winslet.  These are not even the best roles of either actor’s storied careers.  Yet, they are anything but unlikable. 

The relationship they share aboard Titanic, as it makes its way from Europe to the United States, is told in flashback by a 101 year old woman (Gloria Stuart) to a marine exploration crew who have been meticulously searching through submerged remains of the ship on the ocean floor of the Atlantic.  The most important element to come from this section is a wise choice by Cameron to include an informatively brief analysis of how exactly the ship took on an overabundance of ocean water following a collision with an iceberg, and how it gradually began to sink, weigh down, and split apart before finally concluding with a straight dive down into the murky, cold depths.  I must note that film critic Gene Siskel acknowledged this storytelling device upon the film’s initial release. He hailed this sequence because it offered an early “blueprint” of what audiences could expect to happen and witness during the film’s second half.  We all know the ending to the film, but how exactly did it happen?  The quick breakdown helps.

Ahead of the tragedy, Cameron and his set designers offer a grand, functioning piece of machinery that is absolutely impressive to modern audiences, even over a century later.  The decks and hallways are wonderous.  The forward and aft locations seem familiar and solid.  The CGI on this reinterpretation of Titanic is undetectable.  If this film was going to live up to its name, it most certainly has done so.  This ship looks tremendous and strong and indestructible just as the architect and engineer (Victor Garber, Jonathan Hyde) written into the script proudly lay claim to.  The famous moment of the film where Jack supports Rose on the forward bow of the ship with a sunset sky in the background is positively gorgeous.

I do have reservations with the film though.  I think both stories, the forbidden romance and the demise of the ship, in Titanic work.  However, when spliced together, the picture leaves me feeling uneasy.  James Cameron has weaved his fictional romance, appropriate for used, yellow stained paperback books, with a horrifying tragedy.  It’s what you would find in those cheesy Irwin Allen disaster epics from the 1970s.  When Cal’s anger over Jack’s intrusion comes to a boil, he pursues the couple, firing a pistol at them while the ship is continuing to sink.  Jack is apprehended and handcuffed in the lower deck and his doom seems imminent as the water level grows higher.  A priceless blue diamond serves as a MacGuffin that goes back and forth to deliver the operatic divide of these characters.  These are all cinematic inventions painted upon a well-known historical tragedy simply for the sake of adventure and suspense. 

I also found it unconvincing that the only person aboard the ship to question the contingency planning and safety measures ahead of any potential disaster is young Rose, who has no insight into mariner regulation or procedure.  Of all people, it only occurs to Rose that Titanic is not equipped with sufficient lifeboats for all twenty-two hundred people on board.  For storyline options, these avenues written by James Cameron sometimes take me out of the film. 

What I hold fascinating though is where the film depicts the eventual panicked response of the passengers and crew.  We see the captain appear helpless in his defeat against the nature of the ocean running its course over the ship he commands.  A string orchestra chooses to simply perform amid the ongoing disaster, which I have read actually happened.  Most breathtaking is how all the extras in the film react to the growing shift of the ship.  Their slant becomes steeper.  The people do their best to shuffle through the flooding, eventually having to keep their heads above water.  Helpless children are abandoned.  For an emotional punch, the steerage in the below decks is gated off from reaching the top of the ship, and giving themselves a chance at survival on a life boat.  James Cameron accounts for every response and detail that likely occurred during the sinking of the ship.  It’s captivating to witness, despite how tragic the outcome.

Though I do not care for the mix of the love story and the real-life submergence of the ship, Titanic has many strengths beyond what James Cameron achieved with the most up to date technology in visual effects, at the time.  Billy Zane is a villain that you love to hate.  Truly an underrated antagonist in the history of film.  David Warner is an intimidating henchman.  Kathy Bates is a welcome Unsinkable Molly Brown, the crass wealthy woman who sets herself apart from the pretentiousness of her lady peers.   

The exceedingly three-hour running time allows you to become completely familiar with the ship from stem to stern and again the set pieces are magnificent, whether you are hobnobbing with the wealthy up top or the steerage down below.  Every pipe or rope or stairway or hallway or chandelier serves a purpose.  The costumes and makeup designs are appropriate, including the frozen complexions on the bodies that float on the ocean surface following the tragedy.  Cameron’s use of the camera is amazing as he offers wide, expansive shots of nothing but dark ocean with hundreds of people suffering towards their demise. Thus driving home the point that there’s nowhere to find salvation and relief from the bitter cold air and sea water.  These poor people faced unimaginable challenges while competing with panicked crowds, and lack of foresight from those in charge of this newly designed technological wonder.  The movie covers everything that worked against these passengers.

Titanic is an incredible accomplishment. There’s much to see and absorb.  The last time I saw the film was nearly twenty five years ago and much of the footage never escaped my memory.  James Cameron left an indelible impression on moviegoers.  Regardless of the misgivings the film holds, Titanic has held its rightful place as an all-time landmark in cinematic achievement.

NOTE: I took advantage of seeing a newly restored 4K version in 3D at my local movie theater.  I have never been a huge fan of 3D as I often find it murky and distracting from the story.  Had Titanic been offered in standard 2D, that is what I would have gone to see.  Fortunately, this re-release is an exception to my impression with 3D presentations.  The picture is glorious, and I highly recommend the film be seen while it remains in limited release.  Titanic in 3D should not be missed.

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Great Britain, 2022)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Martin McDonagh
CAST: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 96% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, bringing unexpected consequences for them both.


Is The Banshees of Inisherin slow?  Yes.

Is The Banshees of Inisherin sad?  Yes.

Does the movie have a sad ending or a happy one?  Yes.

These are not normally the trademarks of a movie I rush out to see.  In fact, I didn’t see The Banshees of Inisherin at a movie theater for those very reasons.  I had heard that, yes, it is well-written and extraordinarily well-acted, but that it was a bit of a slog.  I had hoped Banshees would be another film like In Bruges, one of the finest dark comedies ever made, but that did not seem to be the case.  So, I stayed away.

Well, I have just finished watching it at home, and I can confirm the film’s slowness and unavoidable moments of sadness, but they are contrasted with unexpected comic beats.  (I was going to say “unintended,” but they were surely intentional, further confirming the ingenuity of the screenplay by director Martin McDonagh.)  I can also confirm that this is one of the most unpredictable stories I’ve ever seen, and I mean literally, like ever.  At first, I was comparing it to Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, but that turned out to be woefully inadequate.  The Banshees of Inisherin does have the structure of a fine short story, but there its similarities to Melville ends.  I’m not sure if Banshees has a chance of winning the Oscar for Best Picture, but it’s certainly one of the strongest contenders for Best Original Screenplay.

Pádraic (Farrell) lives on the fictional island of Inisherin, off the Irish coast, in the early spring of 1923.  He is stunned one day to learn that his best friend, Colm (Gleeson), has abruptly decided to end their lifelong friendship, cold turkey.  Colm doesn’t want to talk to Pádraic for any reason whatsoever, nor does he give a reason, at least not initially.  When Pádraic persists in speaking to Colm, Colm gives him a warning: Every time he talks to or bothers Colm in any way from here on, Colm will cut off one of his own fingers and give it to Pádraic, until he stops or until Colm has no fingers left.

It was at this point that I sat up and started really paying attention.  I’ve lived long enough to know the specific kind of grief and consternation that occurs when a long-term friend abruptly cuts off all contact for reasons that are not at all clear.  So I felt Pádraic’s pain, I saw it in his face, when he realized how serious Colm was with his threat.  At that moment, I drew mental lines: Pádraic was the protagonist, and Colm was the antagonist.

Of course, Pádraic is the good guy.  He’s nice!  His adult sister, Siobhan (Kerry Condon), confirms it!  I mean, sure, he’s a little dull, and maybe not all that smart, and maybe he has a pet miniature donkey that he lets in the house when his sister isn’t looking, and he’s never heard of Mozart, but is that a crime?  Is that reason enough to end a friendship?  Pádraic doesn’t think so.  I didn’t think so!  Pádraic is so full of righteous anger that he confronts Colm.  Colm is dumbstruck.  Their conversation ends in a bit of an impasse.  And then, the next morning, as Siobhan prepares breakfast, they hear a thunk on the front door…aaand you’ll have to watch the movie for further plot developments.

(While I watched The Banshees of Inisherin, my girlfriend wondered if I was watching some kind of slapstick comedy with the volume of laughter coming from our movie room.  My explanation of why I was laughing, and what I was laughing at, didn’t quite translate.)

What is Banshees trying to say?  In my opinion, perhaps it’s this: you can’t go through life worrying about what other people think of you.  When Colm lays down the law, Pádraic should have just sucked it up and moved on with his life, right?  I was originally comparing their situation to something that might happen on social media, when someone expresses a very negative view of your post or opinion or whatever.  What do you do?  Latch onto it and let it gnaw away at you?  Post rebuttal after rebuttal until you change their mind?  (Spoiler alert: you won’t.)

As I said, that kind of thinking made Pádraic the good guy and Colm the bad guy.  But then Pádraic starts making some very bad, very DUMB decisions.  He starts listening to the advice of the closest thing they have to a village idiot, Dominic (Barry Keoghan), who suggests that Pádraic just needs a new approach: tough love.  At that point, if he’s dumb enough to take advice from a moron, whatever happens next is on him, right?  So now the balance changes.  Now Pádraic is the bad guy/dumbass and Colm is the good guy.  Just leave him alone, dude.

(For the record, Colm does explain his decision, which may shed some light on his own state of mind.  Depression?  Despair?  The screenplay offers clues, but nothing truly definitive.)

All through the film is Pádraic’s sister, Siobhan, who functions as the audience surrogate.  “You’re all f*****g boring!  With your piddling grievances over nothin’!”  She is as dumbfounded as we are at Colm’s stubbornness.  Not to mention at her brother’s foolish attempts to reconnect with someone who clearly doesn’t want to be bothered.  There are a couple of moments when it seems as if all is forgiven, but alas, it is not to be.  Siobhan’s solution to rid herself of their bickering is as simple as it is final.

When the credits rolled, I found myself wondering what kind of review this was going to be.  I liked the movie.  But it is slow and sad.  But its massive unpredictability sucked me in as inevitably as if I were watching Kill Bill or Interstellar.  That’s the key factor to The Banshees of Inisherin.  You may think you know what’s about to happen, but just try to guess exactly how the movie ends, and see how wrong you are.

APOLLO 13

By Marc S. Sanders

What’s fascinating about Ron Howard’s film Apollo 13 is that I can hardly understand what anyone is talking about.  I don’t know how they identify the problems of the doomed spacecraft.  I don’t know how any of the folks at NASA resolved the issue to get the three astronauts, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise or Jack Swigert (Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon), back to Earth.  What I do know is that William Broyles’ script, based upon the novel from Lovell with Jeffrey Kluger, allows for an ease of comprehension to know where one thing has started, where it leaves off and where it needs to go with each passing scene.

Forgive me, but when I watch NASA documentaries, I honestly get bored.  It’s amazing what has been accomplished during the history of our space program.  So much has been discovered but it’s only a fraction of what’s still left to be uncovered beyond our planet.  The films and literature that account for the engineering of space craft and what is required to travel in space lose me though.  Ron Howard puts everything in place with Apollo 13, however.  It’s the emotions that stem from the actors.  All I need to understand are the efforts each character serves to the ending that we all know.  It’s not about telling us what these guys are educated with or what science mandates.  Rather, it is about how these people respond to an unexpected and unfamiliar crisis.

On the ground in Houston, Texas Ed Harris portrays Gene Krantz.  He’s a pretty quiet kind of character, but upon his entry into the film, just ahead of the anticipated launch of Apollo 13, he is gifted a pure white vest.  Krantz wears this as his armor, prepared to take on any challenge including navigating a crew of three astronauts towards the moon.  He is surrounded by a school of nerdy looking engineers and scientists, in their short sleeve shirts, skinny ties and black rimmed eyeglasses.  They are all disbursed among an assortment of different departments.  I think one specified simply in human waste disposal aboard the ship.  Yeah, there’s a guy there making sure the urine is dispensed properly.  Again, I couldn’t tell what specialty each man is designed for, but they’re the experts.  Harris simply tells his men what needs to be done by drawing two circles on a chalkboard; one is the moon, the other is Earth.  When a frightening malfunction occurs aboard the rocket, Harris explains that his men now need to get the ship back to Earth by drawing a line between the solar locales.  He doesn’t know how it can be done, but like a football coach he demands his team find a way.

On board Apollo 13, the three astronauts are crammed in what is left of their ship, marooned to float through space. The interior gets extremely cold, exhaustion gradually overtakes them, and they are left with no choice but to power down whatever sources they have left as a means of preservation. 

A third angle comes from the wives and families of the three men.  More precisely, focus is drawn towards Marilyn Lovell (Kathleen Quinlan) with her family, including the children and Jim’s elderly mother watching the television with anticipation for ongoing developments while the media waits outside their doorstep.  The first act of the picture offers the anxiety that Jim’s wife has with this upcoming mission.  There is the standard nightmare scene.  Acknowledgement of the unlucky number thirteen.  Marilyn loses her wedding ring down the shower drain (something that actually happened). Ironically, the Lovells’ eldest daughter seems to carry the same kind of apathy for her dad’s upcoming trip like the rest of the country.  Jim may finally be having his dreams come true, to walk on the moon.  However, the rest of the world is more concerned with the possibility of the Beatles breaking up or what else is on TV.

A side story is delivered by Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise).  The poor guy was originally a part of Lovell’s three man crew, only to be sidelined at the last minute because of a suspected case of measles.  When things go wrong for Apollo 13, he enters the flight simulator to diagnose the issue and find a resolution.  He’s offered a flashlight but rejects it because the guys in space don’t have that tool.  He specifically tells his men not to give him anything that they don’t have up there, and he refuses to take a break either.  If they don’t get a chance to rest, then neither does he.  This mantra carries over to the other guys working diligently to keep the astronauts alive and get them home. 

Apollo 13 is not a how to picture.  Rather, it is a film that focuses on response. 

Ron Howard offers amazing shots of the rocket and footage in space.  The launch is extremely exciting as shrapnel sheds off the craft during its fiery liftoff. Then other parts disengage after it leaves the Earth’s atmosphere.  The interior looks extremely claustrophobic, but the actors look comfortable within the floating zero gravity confines. Hanks, Paxton and Bacon have great chemistry together whether they are kidding one another about vomiting in space or bickering with each other while caught up in the problem at hand. 

The base of NASA is alive with hustle and bustle.  Not one extra looks like they are sitting around.  They all know what monitor to look at or which teammate to lean over as they desperately discuss what needs to be accounted for.  There’s a great moment that is explained to the audience as if they are a four year old.  A man in charge throws a pile of junk onto a boardroom table and says they need to build something with nothing but what’s on this table to absolve the problem the astronauts are having with carbon dioxide poisoning.  A few scenes later, we see the junky device that’s been rudimentarily assembled.  Who knows what it does?  All I need to know is that it works. 

I did take one issue with Apollo 13.  To heighten the dramatics, sound is provided as the ship comes apart. Even I know that sound does not travel through space.  I forgive it when I’m watching fantasies like Star Wars or Superman.  However, this film recaps a real-life event and during those moments, as startling as they may be, I could not help but think about the dramatic clanging and crashing penetrating my sound system.  Apollo 13 draws from a well-known case, but it still resorts to cinematic tropes to hold my attention.  I wonder if the picture would have worked had it remained faithful to basic scientific fact through and through.  It’s not a terrible offense.  It’s forgivable.  Though it got me thinking. Heck, it obviously never bothered the masses because the film was awarded the Oscar for Best Sound Design.

Ron Howard’s film is a magnificent experience, full of outstanding footage.  It relies on actors who depend on the emotions of the scenario to narrate the story.  Recently, I watched the film Tár with Cate Blanchett.  In that film, the mechanics of orchestral music and conducting are endlessly discussed.  It’s like listening to a foreign language at times while trying to keep up.  Howard’s film could have taken that approach and bored me to tears with a lot of technical jargon from engineers and scientists.  Instead, Apollo 13 succeeds by only presenting the basics of the issues at hand.  I couldn’t name one specific part on the engine of my car, but I know it powers the vehicle, allowing it to go from point A to point B.  The army of NASA folks declare this thing has never done that before or it must be crazy to consider because that has never been attempted.  I can count on the players of Apollo 13 to know what they’re doing.  They are aware of the risks that need to be taken and know what’s at stake.  I don’t need to see their diplomas to trust their concern or computations.

Like other films where known historical events are depicted, Apollo 13 maintains its suspense even if you already know the ending.  The aborted mission to the moon became known as “The Successful Failure.”  It’s refreshing to see how this proud moment all played out. For fleeting window in time America, actually most of the world, seemed to hold a unified care for three men trying to outlast a doomed, desperate and impossible situation. 

Apollo 13 is a triumph.