Genre – Page 44 – 2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!!

MIGUEL’S 100 FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME: #10-1

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

At last. The acme. The zenith. The tippest of the top. The ne plus ultra.

As part of a challenge from Jim Johnson, I created a ranked list of 100 of my favorite movies. To reiterate, this is not necessarily “definitive” by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, please…can I switch numbers 35 and 88? Absolutely. But lists are lists, and here we are.

Per the rules, here are my top 10 most favorite movies of all time, followed by a complete list of all 100 for the curious. Feel free to argue/tell me how wrong I am in the comments.

10. THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998) – Another Peter Weir film that is hypnotic and compelling, especially during the final sequence when I thought I would levitate from my seat in the theater out of pure joy. I’m not exaggerating. As someone who had a strict religious upbringing, I identified strongly with Truman, someone who experiences life, love, and the world only as far as the people pulling the strings will allow. I felt his wonder and curiosity and slow realization that there just might be life outside of Seahaven, the island home he has never left since he was born. When the true nature of Truman’s world was revealed, I wasn’t exactly shocked (the trailers did an uncommonly good job of spoiling that surprise), but I felt a kinship to his situation. And when he finally overcomes his fears and heads into the unknown…I all but cheered. This movie was an acutely personal experience that I will never forget. Others may not have felt the same thing, and that’s fine. But for me, The Truman Show is absolutely in my top-ten.

9. CASABLANCA (1942) – One of the greatest movie-going experiences of my life was seeing the 50th-anniversary screening of a new print of Casablanca at Tampa Theatre in 1992. I had still not seen this so-called classic, so I figured, why not now? I went with a friend of mine who HAD seen the movie, and we sat in the balcony. Surprisingly, I do not remember the acoustics interfering with the movie’s dialogue as much as it normally does. I heard every line crystal clear…and I also heard the full house cheering with every famous line. “I was misinformed.” “Round up the usual suspects.” “Play it, Sam.” At first, I was annoyed, but as the movie went on, I was amazed at how caught up in the story I was getting, despite how clichéd a lot of it was. By the end, as Rick and Renault walked off together, I was sold on Casablanca’s place in Hollywood history, and it has been a favorite of mine ever since. I have heard and read numerous arguments against Casablanca, and those good folks are entitled to their clear, concise, and well-stated opinions…no matter how wrong they are.

8. DR. STRANGELOVE or: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) – George Carlin once said that you can make a joke out of literally any subject, no matter how dark or taboo. Stanley Kubrick’s satirical take on nuclear holocaust is a case in point. What started out at the screenplay level as a straight-up thriller morphed into a Python-esque comedy where statistics about warheads and megadeaths rub shoulders with an American President named Merkin Muffley and an eccentric German scientist whose right hand seems to have a life of its own. Peter Sellers pulls off a hat-trick by playing three vastly different characters, some of whom share screen time, and making each one so unique that, when I first watched it, I had a hard time believing they were all played by the same actor. Kubrick shoots some thrilling combat footage, foreshadowing what he would later accomplish with Full Metal Jacket 24 years later, then contrasts it with scenes like the one where George C. Scott’s character gets so keyed up while describing the capabilities of his long-range bombers that he forgets he’s describing how the apocalypse might literally begin. (Dr. Strangelove was so effective at combining humor with the unthinkable that, when Fail Safe was released 10 months later, it was not quite as successful as it could have been because audiences could not take it seriously.) This movie reaches my top 10 for its sheer audacity and wit in the face of material that seems incapable of supporting a comic premise.

7. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) – Breathes there the man with soul so dead they have not yet seen It’s a Wonderful Life? If so, I pity that man. Frank Capra’s ultimate Christmas movie has turned many people off, it seems, by the thoroughly depressing plotline during the first 80% of the film (approximately). George Bailey, an everyman with dreams of traveling the world, is forced to put those dreams on hold to save the family business. In the process, he meets and marries the love of his life, has four kids, and flirts with bankruptcy every fiscal year. When a crucial bank deposit is misplaced, putting his entire livelihood in jeopardy, George contemplates suicide – on Christmas Eve, no less. So, yeah, this ain’t exactly the Marx Brothers. What turns It’s a Wonderful Life into a true classic and a perennial favorite is the last 20% of the movie, where George’s guardian angel appears and offers him a gift: the chance to see what the world would be like without him. In a lesser film, that plot point would provide the engine for at least half of its running time. Capra wisely realizes that George’s “redemption” only means anything if we see just how far and fast he falls, and what’s at stake, and so his redemption scenes function more like punctuation marks at the end of a sentence. The rapturous finale is, let’s face it, corny as hell…but by God, it works. Best. Christmas. Movie. EVER.

6. SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993) – I will never forget a moment when watching Schindler’s List for the first time, when Schindler is observing the evacuation/extermination of a Jewish community from a nearby hill. As Schindler keys in on a little girl in a red coat, German soldiers line up several Jews single file, then fire their pistols at one end just to see how many Jews the bullets will kill before losing power. I distinctly remember thinking, “Wow, how horrible,” but I also remember a faint smile on my face, because I was also thinking, “Wow, here’s a movie that isn’t going to pull any punches.” …and then I had a sobering moment when I reminded myself, wait, this isn’t just a director lining up a shot to make a point about the horrors of war…someone probably witnessed this exact moment, which made it into a book, which made it onto film. That realization opened my eyes and brought a whole new clarity to everything that had come before and would come after. What makes Spielberg’s film even more astonishing is that he and screenwriter Steven Zaillian, sorcerers that they are, managed to somehow bring just the right level of entertainment to the screen without feeling they were downplaying the seriousness of the subject matter. Perfect example: when the little boy points out who killed the chicken – it’s an awful, awful scene, but the punchline gets a laugh, and it doesn’t feel out of place. Schindler’s List is some kind of miracle and should be required viewing for…well, everyone.

5. AMADEUS (1984) – When I was just hitting my teenage years, I wasn’t listening to a lot of pop radio, so my dad got me into classical music by buying a box set (on cassette!) of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. I got familiar with the style and flow of classical music, and started slowly realizing the connection between movie scores and classical music, etc. And then Amadeus started airing on cable. The first thing I remember is coming across it towards the end, during the scene where Mozart is dictating his music to Salieri. I had no idea what I was watching, but the way that scene represented classical music being broken down into its component parts, and how a composer must know each little section inside and out to make sure everything works when it all comes together…that scene blew me away. Then I watched Amadeus from the beginning, and I was mesmerized from start to finish. I identified with Salieri’s frustration: “God, I am your true servant, yet you allow this vulgar man to flourish while I toil in obscurity.” Sure, I was only 13, but that captured one of my eternal questions when it came to religion in general. But even aside from the movie’s grand themes, Amadeus embodies the word “sumptuous.” Not until Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette had I ever seen a movie with such exquisite sets and costumes. And I had to wait until I saw a “making-of” documentary to be convinced that old Salieri and younger Salieri were played by the same person. Amadeus uses some of the greatest music ever written to support a story with which anyone can identify: Am I destined to only recognize greatness without ever achieving it myself? A stone-cold classic.

4. PINOCCHIO (1940) – Animation has held a special place in my movie-loving psyche ever since I discovered how laborious the animation process is, particularly when it comes to hand-drawn animation. The idea that every single frame was painstakingly drawn, painted, and photographed was mindboggling to me, especially when animated movies seemed so free in movement and the characters looked convincingly heavy and real. What sorcery is this? The high-water mark of hand-drawn, or ANY, animation is and shall remain Walt Disney’s second feature film, Pinocchio. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times, if not scores, and it never ceases to amaze me. Look at Pinocchio’s facial expressions in any given scene. Look at how Monstro the whale evokes immense size and weight. Look at that fantastic underwater section as sea creatures of all shapes populate every corner of the frame. And especially consider the story that pulls no punches when it comes to dramatic impact. Nowadays, many films aimed at kids are all sugar and sweet and give mere lip service to danger and/or peril. Compare them to Pinocchio, a movie that puts the hero in creepy danger (Stromboli), then creepier danger (Pleasure Island and those donkeys), then in utter mortal danger (Monstro’s pursuit). This may be an animated film, but it refuses to talk down to its audience, children or otherwise. Pinocchio is a classic that has rarely been equaled (opinions vary), but which will never be surpassed. Change my mind. [Spoiler alert: you won’t.]

3. CITIZEN KANE (1941) – The Bridge on the River Kwai [1957] was one of the first movies that convinced me that “old” movies could be as thrilling as modern films. But the first movie that convinced me that older films could be BETTER than modern films was Citizen Kane. After years of hearing about it by reputation, I rented a copy from Blockbuster and was thunderstruck at how engrossed I was after the first five minutes…and that’s just the newsreel. From there on, the mystery of Kane’s life and his cryptic dying word just got better and better, visually and story-wise. Especially visually. Volumes have been written about Welles’s vision and his close collaboration with cinematographer Gregg Toland to accomplish some of the most iconic and virtuoso shots in the history of cinema, so I won’t go into details here. The visual aspect of this film is as closely related to its success as any other element. Certainly, it’s filled with brilliant performances and breathtaking rapid-fire dialogue that feels lifted from an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. But it’s the camerawork that caught my attention more than anything else the first time around, and it still amazes me today. I have yet to see a black-and-white movie that demonstrates more visual virtuosity than Citizen Kane. (And to those who claim it’s “boring”…um…I literally have no response to that…)

2. HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971) – When I was performing in a show in my mid-20s, I had fallen into a kind of depression, or at least a deep funk. Due to a variety of factors in my life at the time, I felt redundant, powerless, talentless, and terribly cynical about the world in general. A fellow cast member noticed my pain and brought in a VHS copy of Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude for me to borrow and watch. He told me, “I recognize myself in you from 20 years ago. So, trust me when I tell you that this movie will change your life.” I was naturally skeptical, but I took it home and watched it…and I am not exaggerating when I say, Harold and Maude literally changed my life. Maybe not overnight, but it absolutely changed my perspective on a great many things. The story is quirky, to say the least: a depressed young man from a very rich family stages fake suicides and attends funerals for strangers to pass the time. At one of these funerals, he meets a lively 79-year-old woman who shares his fondness for funerals, but who has a very different outlook on life. She takes him under her wing, encourages him to not to take life so seriously, teaches him to appreciate the little things, and so on. He falls in love with her unshakeable positivity…and with her, romantically. What happens next, I shall not reveal, but when I reached the film’s final sequence, I was transported. When it was over, I felt I was seeing the world around me with blinders off. It is no exaggeration to say that, without Harold and Maude, I would not be where I am today: in a stable relationship with the woman I love for over 20 years, in a job that I – well, “love” is a strong word – a job that I ENJOY as opposed to one that I don’t, a sturdy support structure composed of my closest friends and family, and making enough money to pay the bills while still being able to travel and indulge in my passion (acting) on the side. “Harold, EVERYONE has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can’t let the world judge you too much.” Words to live by.

1. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Great Britain, 1962) – This has been my favorite film of all time since seeing it on TNT over 30 years ago. Even in a non-letterboxed format (sacrilege!), the majesty of David Lean’s magnum opus was undeniable. Then I saw it on a 2-volume letterboxed VHS, and I got to see even more of the desert scenery and carefully planned details in the corners that I missed on network TV. On DVD, things got even better. But THEN…the Blu-ray came out…and I was blown away. Now I could see the Bedouin through Lawrence’s binoculars. I could see the tiny speck on the horizon before it resolved itself into the figure of a man on camelback. The sand and dust and smoke and blood all reached a level of detail that made me fall in love with it all over again. (And I don’t think I can talk about seeing it on the big screen in 70mm for its 50th anniversary without making this a novella.) This movie hits all the bases. Visually, it’s simply magnificent. This was the early 1960s, so Lean took the gigantic movie cameras of the day to the real Jordanian deserts and shot virtually everything in the film on location…IN THE DESERT. The widescreen compositions and movement are unparalleled. Story-wise, this is, of course, the story of a man’s life against an epic backdrop, so right away you’ve got me. The details of Lawrence’s life during the Arabian campaign during World War I are provided with just enough information to let the audience know exactly what’s going on without overwhelming you with a deluge of minutiae. But the real engines driving the film (aside from David Lean, of course) are the powerhouse performances from the cast: Omar Sharif, a fiery Anthony Quinn (regrettably in “brownface”, but fiery nevertheless), and of course Peter O’Toole as Lawrence. With his piercing stare, lanky frame, and soft-spoken presence, Lawrence comes across as just slightly north of mad, but his conviction and tactical brilliance in the field make him an invaluable asset for the British…until he decides Arabia should be free from ALL rule, not just Turkish, and sets out to LIBERATE Arabia. The feeling I’m left with after watching all 227 minutes of Lawrence of Arabia is the same one I get after finishing a long, extremely entertaining novel. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I will ever get tired of watching this film. Lawrence of Arabia is as close to cinematic perfection as anyone is likely to get, and it is my absolute favorite film of all time.

TOP 100 FAVORITE FILMS OF ALL TIME:

Lawrence of Arabia
Harold and Maude
Citizen Kane
Pinocchio
Amadeus
Schindler’s List
It’s a Wonderful Life
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Casablanca
The Truman Show
The Red Shoes
Pan’s Labyrinth
Cloud Atlas
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Godfather
The Godfather: Part II
Parasite
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Blade Runner 2049
The Last Emperor
Prometheus
The Exorcist
Wall*E
Children of Men
Requiem for a Dream
United 93
Spirited Away
The Deer Hunter
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Saving Private Ryan
Pulp Fiction
Baraka
Nostalgia for the Light
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Network
Chinatown
Midnight in Paris
The Remains of the Day
Being John Malkovich
Notorious
Psycho
Breaking the Waves
To Be or Not to Be [1942]
Match Point
The Iron Giant
Up
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Look Who’s Back
Inglourious Basterds
Double Indemnity
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Apartment
The Piano
The Sting
Fight Club
Magnolia
Jaws
Aliens
Roma
Ready Player One
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Inside Out
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
The Social Network
Stranger Than Fiction
Life Is Beautiful
Incendies
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Toy Story
Lost in Translation
Bound
Skyfall
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Whiplash
Get Out
The Babadook
Hotel Rwanda
Promising Young Woman
The Dark Knight
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
Dark Days
A Separation
Monterey Pop
Run Lola Run
There Will Be Blood
Dark City
Hoop Dreams
Finding Nemo
Little Miss Sunshine
Hereditary
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Logan
Love Actually
Atonement
Joker
Star Trek [2009]
Avatar
I, Daniel Blake

THE WHALE

By Marc S. Sanders

I still have a lot of catching up to do, but arguably the best performance by any actor in 2022 comes from Brendan Fraser in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, an adaptation of the stage play written by Samuel D. Hunter.

Fraser plays Charlie, an intelligent online writing professor. His course is done online as he has become an enormously overweight recluse, following the loss of his boyfriend, circumstances to be revealed over the course of the film. Charlie is so obese that he can barely walk, and he confines himself to the left side of his sofa with the television in front of him and his laptop nearby to conduct his courses or to pleasure himself with gay pornography. He has a walker to get himself on to his feet and carry his bulk, but showering is not easy. Even picking a key up off the floor is an impossibility.

He receives visits from his only friend, a nurse named Liz (Hong Chau). When she arrives on Monday, she discovers that his blood pressure is indicative of congestive heart failure and urges him to go to the hospital. He insists he can not afford the bills and has no insurance. He also receives unwelcome visits from a young man named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) spreading the word of God with brochures from the local church. Lastly, the visits Charlie treasures the most are from his cruel and mean-spirited daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) who takes no reservations with berating Charlie as a deadbeat dad and only comes to him because she practically demands he write her essays to avoid dropping out of school. She also rudely takes pictures of Charlie at any given moment. Each time she raises her cell phone for a click, it feels like she is giving her father the harshest middle finger imaginable.

Much like an earlier film, known as The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky explores what comes after the main character has tormented himself into a destiny difficult to escape or be rescued from. Aronofsky is frank about offering up helpless souls only now living with everyday ongoing pain both physically and, as we discover, more importantly, mentally. Highlights of Charlie’s day are when the pizza is delivered and he shouts through the door that the money is in mailbox. The delivery guy knows the routine all too well by now and the best he can offer is to ask if Charlie is okay while never seeing his grotesque appearance.

Aronofsky doesn’t offer much variety on the surface. The film takes place entirely in Charlie’s apartment. Sometimes we go down the hallway and see another room or we get a conversation between Liz and Thomas on the front porch. The cast only boasts seven actors. Yet, Hunter’s screenplay is not limited to what Charlie is having to endure. There is also an unexpected backstory to Thomas and there’s more to uncover with Liz and Ellie. The pizza delivery guy, who we never see, even discovers something. One particular essay about Moby Dick that Charlie desperately urges Thomas to read out loud early on has a surprising significance that I didn’t see coming.

Still, the film belongs almost entirely to Brendan Fraser and how he enhances the performances of his cast mates, particularly Sadie Sink. Their scenes are so well performed. She is an outstanding young actor working on a manic level. I imagine Sadie Sink had to come down from the hyper activeness of her scenes. She is uncompromisingly mean. When the director yells, there is no way she could just turn that characterization off. I bet she walked away from the set to catch her breath. Opposite her, Fraser’s character has no choice but to be more restrained. Physically, it is hard for him to breathe and therefore speak at times at a high octave. He cannot stand up very well and rush to embrace his daughter even if he wanted to try. She is mean enough to challenge him though. The outcome of that moment will have you hate her character for sure. Yet, you don’t forget she’s a kid and her current state is a product of something else, perhaps from Charlie’s past misgivings.

Timewise, they are also on uneven playing fields. Hunter’s script counts down the days as the top of some scenes depict it as Monday and then Tuesday and so on. Charlie is running out of time and has a lot of hanging threads to tie off. Ellie has an entire life ahead of her to name call and scream at him and hurt him, but Charlie cannot afford to upset someone and work on apologies later. The best he can take advantage of right now is to appeal for all the wrongs he’s committed or been accused of. Most importantly, can he fix his relationship with his daughter?

Liz is a health care professional by trade and knows what is best for Charlie, but likely also knows it’s too late and rather hopeless, considering his current condition. So, it only makes sense to surrender to his needs by bringing him meatball subs and barbecue ribs. What she is determined to do is to keep his daughter and ex-wife away from him. It’s a conflict that Charlie has no choice but to allow.

Thomas is that last new person to ever enter Charlie’s life. Yet, what is his gospel of God and salvation going to do for Charlie now? Charlie can’t keep this kid from coming over, but is he really going to listen and take any of it seriously?

Brendan Fraser’s performance is so limited to the setting of the film and the physical restraint of being a large man with no flexibility. However, he provides so much in the pain his character has suffered long before the current week captured on screen. It’s an astonishing achievement in acting. Within the bulbous head depicted in so many closeups are tired eyes that have gone through so much like toiling with leaving a marriage in exchange for a homosexual relationship, and weakening a connection with his child.

Beyond the enormous weight he lives with, Charlie also lives with an unhealthy food addiction. Just ahead of the last act of the film, Aronofsky is relentless in showing how Charlie responds to personal suffering, not physical, by drowning himself in enormous amounts of sloppy and messy food as Fraser guzzles everything into his mouth. Charlie suffers from so much more than just being morbidly obese. He could live with that. It’s other moments and people and losses in his life that are hard to continue to live with. The difficulty of those things is cursed upon by Charlie with uncontrollable amounts of food. Some people who suffer with difficult matters might hide in bed all day or binge watch television for an entire week. Some turn to drugs and alcohol. Charlie binges on food. He doesn’t love his food. He only uses it to drown out his pains.

I imagine it’s hard to learn about people like Charlie who are held down by the challenge of extreme obesity. They have become so physically large that they literally can not get up from their sofa without help and therefore never leave their homes. Because they never go outside, we are unaware of people like this. I once had a neighbor that I never, ever saw. I could hear their TV in the apartment next door but I never saw them. How is that possible? Why is it that they never revealed themselves? There’s a story there. Maybe a terrible or uncontrollable dilemma. Darren Aronofsky, Samuel D. Hunter and Brendan Fraser offer a glimpse into what goes on behind this closed door. It’s heartbreaking.

Maybe it is so tragic because of why Charlie is shown within his confines by Aronofsky, written within the circumstances that Hunter offers and most importantly demonstrated by Fraser as a man ready for his life to end. If only he can resolve a final digression with his teenage daughter suffering from a pain of anger likely instigated by him.

Again, Brendan Fraser’s performance is the best one I have seen this year, and with no doubt in my mind, he should absolutely win the Oscar. This could go down as the best accomplishment is his colorful career.

PARENTHOOD

By Marc S. Sanders

Once you’re a parent, you’re always a parent. You’re also always a child to someone. No matter if you are close with your mom and dad, or estranged and not on speaking terms, or your parents have passed on, you are always a child to someone. Parenthood from 1989 demonstrates that you never clock out from being a parent or a child.

The Buckmans consist of four adult children portrayed by Steve Martin, Dianne Weist, Harley Kozak and Tom Hulce. They all got little ones to tend to with respective partners (Martin with Mary Steenburgen, Kozak with Rick Moranis and the other two are currently on the single status). Their parents are portrayed by Jason Robards and Eileen Ryan and even the generation before them is represented by Helen Shaw.

With a cast of characters this large, there are various storylines and dynamics of raising and supporting children to go around. Each child, or in other words, each parent has daily struggles to deal with. The nuclear family of Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen’s is given the most attention when it is uncovered that their eldest child of three is struggling with anxiety. Elsewhere, Robards finds himself trying to rescue his immature, lying twenty-seven-year-old son, Hulce, from gambling addiction and debt. Weist is doing her best to survive a sexless life after her letch of an ex-husband has left her to deal with a daughter (Martha Plimpton) pregnant and married to a stock-car racing airhead (Keanu Reeves) and a quiet, distant teenage son (Leaf, later known as Joaquin, Phoenix). Kozak’s storyline really belongs to Rick Moranis as her genius, nerdy husband determined to raise their three-year-old daughter as a virtuoso prodigy. Kafka is a bedtime story.

Wow, that’s a lot of baggage to unload in two hours’ time. Yet, it works so efficiently in a film directed by Ron Howard. I’ve used this compliment before, but it bears repeating. You can write a full-length screenplay about any one of these characters. I guess that is the goal you strive for when you produce a film featuring an all star cast filling the slots of a large collection of characters. A film like Boogie Nights and Love, Actually accomplishes this feat so well. Parenthood just the same.

Favorite moments for me occur with Jason Robards’ character. It is evident that he was not the best father, particularly to Martin’s character, and his admiration is likely misdirected towards the kid who hasn’t made the best choices in life, played by an aloof Tom Hulce. I really like the story arc of Robards and Hulce’s relationship when the truth rests like an ugly slime on the surface that just can’t be filtered away. Suddenly, a man prepared for retirement and rest, has to acknowledge that his adult son needs help but is he worthy of support and love any longer? This movie is arguably not even the highlight of Jason Robards career, but you can not deny what a gifted actor he was. His timing and delivery are so recognizable as a hard-edged retiree parent.

Dianne Weist, the only cast member to be nominated for an Oscar for this film, has a couple of good storylines as well. Much of her performance stems from all too common drama where a spouse leaves her and abandons any relationship he had with their children. It’s so unfair for the child. It’s hard on the mother who has to maintain a career while raising teenagers who are entering a new phase with regards to love and sex. Plimpton gets into an argument with Reeves, her boyfriend, and Weist starts to swat him away. Then Plimpton unexpectedly announces they just got married and Weist turns to swatting Plimpton. Weist is funny while the material holds dramatically. It’s a real nice balance.

Steve Martin has a good storyline as well. He’s a hard working white collar executive who wants to prioritize attention for his son though it kills him to lose out on a promotion he knows he’s entitled to. At the same time, he battles with how his own father (Robards) treated him at a young age. He makes sure that his son’s birthday party is the best. He encourages the boy to play second base on the little league team. He attempts to do everything denied of his own childhood for his son, now. Still, it’s not enough. Parenthood can often feel like a winless battle.

Martin also has good scenes with Steenburgen, and they remind me of my relationship with my wife. She’s the sensible one. I’m the one who gets trapped in insecurity and anxiety and low self esteem as a worker, a friend, a husband, and especially as a parent to our teenage daughter. I excel at taking care of the bills though.

Why am I making this personal all of the sudden? Well, perhaps it is to call out the true nature of family and marriage that exists within the script for Parenthood, written by Babaloo Mandell, Lowell Ganz and Ron Howard. There are some moments where Martin’s character daydreams of scenarios for his son. One time the boy becomes a valedictorian with a speech offering complete recognition towards his father. In another moment, he’s a rooftop sniper blaming dad for making him play second base and missing the game winning out. When I get trapped listening to the thoughts in my head, I envision what could be. More often than not I’m predicting dread, which almost never arrives. Yet, I believe parents yearn to raise the perfect child that they never were. It’s an impossible stretch. I write that here and now, and still, I’ll try and try. So what, though! While I’m working for perfection and absolute happiness for my daughter, I must remind myself that my efforts are contributing towards a successful path for her full of fulfillment and happiness. More importantly, while at least half of my efforts could lead in failure on my part, my intentions are always done with absolute love and care for her. That’s what I see in the here and now. I’m blessed. My whole family is blessed. So many families have it so much worse and I wish them well. I have to remind myself not to take what I have for granted.

Ron Howard’s film is not entirely perfect. I could have done without some of Steve Martin’s recognizable schtick from his stand-up routines. I always like his material. I just think some of it doesn’t belong here, the same way Robin Williams would let his known antics creep into some of his films. Some scenes are also spliced into the film jarringly, like when a dentist’s office is suddenly vandalized. Thematically, these break away moments should have remained on the editing floor. Fortunately, the movie isn’t anchored by these plot points for too long.

There’s much to relate to with Parenthood. Kids who gleefully sing about diarrhea, to parents mired in regret and doubt. Teenagers who think they have found love to the absence of father figures. Grown-ups who just haven’t grown up and parents who are just getting a little too ambitious in their child’s upbringing. This is not a film, necessarily about the love a parent has for a son or daughter. Rather, I appreciate how it questions the role these characters serve towards their fathers, mothers and children.

Love is only one dynamic in fatherhood, motherhood, and childhood. Parenthood focuses on everything else.

MIGUEL’S 100 FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME: #50-26

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Counting down my favorite 100 films of all time in answer to a challenge from Jim Johnson. Here’s part 3, numbers 50-26.

50. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) – Quentin Tarantino’s gleefully revisionist World War II revenge fantasy/thriller makes no claims at historical accuracy, except when it comes to popular German films in the 1940s. If you can accept that fact, then just sit back and bask in the non-stop pyrotechnics, both visual and verbal. ESPECIALLY verbal. The dialogue in this film rivals Pulp Fiction as some of the best QT has ever written. Christoph Waltz is a revelation as the main villain. And the finale will keep you laughing when you’re not gasping at the rampant violence. You know. Typical Tarantino stuff.

49. LOOK WHO’S BACK (Germany, 2015) – There are dark comedies and there are DARK comedies. Look Who’s Back is a DARK comedy about the completely unexplained materialization of Adolf Hitler in modern-day Germany. Think of the Sacha Baron Cohen comedies that film the main character interacting with real people, then imagine that the main character isn’t somebody who THINKS he’s Hitler, he IS Hitler. The comedy takes a dark turn as he suddenly becomes a media darling all over again and when the real people being filmed start agreeing with some of his policies. It’s been said that satire is impossible to define. Look Who’s Back comes pretty damn close.

48. ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) – Tarantino’s ninth film is a lot like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: It’s big, bombastic, and goes the long way around the barn to get to the finale, but in the end it all comes together and becomes a transcendent experience. What had been reported in the trades as a movie about the Manson murders starts out as a Goodfellas-esque travelogue of late-sixties Hollywood, with Sharon Tate merely a bit player on the sidelines. The beauty of the film is how it involves you in the story of a fading star and his long-suffering stuntman while the terrible fact of what’s about to happen lurks in the background. Taken as a whole, it’s a love letter to “old” Hollywood with a middle finger to Manson and his cronies thrown in for good measure.

47. UP (2009) – A widowed senior citizen keeps a promise to his dead wife (shown in a heartbreaking prologue) by literally flying his house to South America using thousands and thousands of helium-filled balloons. Ridiculous, right? Did I mention the stowaway? And the dogs who can speak English through an electronic translator? And the mountain lair of a madman? How did this material work? I can’t explain it. I can only report that it’s one of the best animated films I’ve seen, with several emotional beats that rival anything in Terms of Endearment or any other classic “weepie.” Yet another triumph from Pixar.

46. THE IRON GIANT (1999) – Due to a horrible ad campaign that dumbed the material down to the level of an MTV video, this modern classic sank at the box office and vanished from memory except from the minds of its creators and the critics who praised it to no avail. Thankfully, it’s been rediscovered by a new generation of animation fans who recognize greatness when they see it. Brad Bird’s story of a giant metal robot stranded on Earth and befriended by a little boy has unavoidable similarities to Spielberg’s E.T., but it still feels brand new. And that ending still has the power to choke me up a little bit. “Superman…”

45. MATCH POINT (2005) – Call this the Woody Allen movie for people who hate Woody Allen movies. (Or just Woody Allen, for that matter.) In this loose adaptation of 1951’s A Place in the Sun, a struggling tennis pro falls in love with and marries the daughter of a wealthy family, but when his lust is triggered by an absurdly sexy Scarlett Johansson, he finds himself willing to do anything to be with her…as long as he doesn’t lose the affluence of his wife’s family. This starts out as a soapy drama, but it undergoes an astonishing makeover into an examination of how much our lives are governed, whether we like it or not, by pure chance or luck. If you can guess the twists in this film before they happen, you should be playing the lottery.

44. TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942) – Taken on its own merits, To Be or Not to Be is one of the funniest comedies ever made. But also consider that, while it takes potshots at Nazi Germany and Hitler himself, the characters and the movie never let you forget there is real danger afoot. And also consider that this film was made and released just after America had entered World War 2. It would be akin to making and releasing a screwball comedy about Osama Bin Laden in January 2002. That extra level of subtext makes this original version of To Be or Not to Be one of my favorites of all time. (Don’t get me started on the Mel Brooks remake…God love Mel, but ugh.)

43. BREAKING THE WAVES (Denmark, 1996) – Lars von Trier is celebrated for his eclectic, taboo-breaking films, but I feel those attention-grabbing films tend to distract from what may be his greatest film, Breaking the Waves. The story focuses on a naïve young woman who marries a rough oil-rig worker. When the worker is paralyzed in an accident, he tells her to go out and have sex with other men and come back and tell him stories about her various trysts. Other reviews of this film seem to forget that he has a very good reason for doing this…but watch the movie and see what I mean. This is one of the most spiritual films I’ve ever seen. Not religious…SPIRITUAL. It’s transcendent.

42. PSYCHO (1960) – Every slasher movie from Halloween to the upcoming Scream VI can trace its point of origin back to Alfred Hitchcock’s most frightening film. By smashing traditional norms of Hollywood storytelling (wait – she’s DEAD??!!), Hitchcock not only breathed life (ironically) into the horror genre, but also put audience members on alert: even the stars can get killed, so check your expectations at the door. I still remember myself literally holding my breath as Lila walked down into that corn cellar… And if that final exposition-laden monologue at the end spells things out a little too clearly…well, when you consider the audience at the time, I give it a pass.

41. NOTORIOUS (1946) – Now THIS is Hitchcock’s true masterpiece. In a story generously “borrowed” from by John Woo’s Mission Impossible: II, a suave spy coerces the beautiful daughter of a jailed Nazi sympathizer to get chummy with one of her father’s friends in hopes of uncovering a plot involving…well, it’s one of Hitch’s famous MacGuffins, ‘nuff said. The clockwork script is one of the masterworks of the screenwriting form. And don’t forget that wowie-zowie tracking shot soaring from the top of a chandelier and ending on a close-up of a crucial key. If I say any more, I’ll give something away. Notorious is far and away my absolute favorite Hitchcock movie.

40. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) – Remember what I said earlier about 1999 having a bumper crop? Here’s another case in point. Spike Jonze’s surreal serio-comic masterpiece has all the trappings of a rejected Twilight Zone episode, but somehow it manages to transcend its slapstick tendencies and becomes something incredibly insightful, asking unanswerable questions about what it truly means to be human. Or alive. I’m not doing it justice. Look, so this guy finds a portal on the 7th-and-a-half floor of a building, a portal that mysteriously carries you into the head of John Malkovich. You know, that guy who played a jewel thief in that one movie…?

39. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993) – In the annals of tragic romances, this one takes the cake for me. A no-nonsense butler and a slightly more impulsive head of housekeeping on a stately British manor, sometime before World War II, slowly bond, all appearances to the contrary. But the butler’s sense of duty to his master forces him to keep any ideas of romance at arm’s length. (There’s also a subplot about his boss being a Nazi sympathizer, necessary but sometimes distracting.) The emotional dance between Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson is powerful to behold; it reminds me of Lost in Translation in terms of paying attention, not to what is being said, but to what is being withheld. When that bus pulls away at the end, with someone weeping…I didn’t cry, but my heart broke all the same. The fact it won zero Oscars is astonishing.

38. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) – Hands down my favorite Woody Allen movie of all time. In classic fantasy fashion, Gil, a disaffected novelist in Paris with his fiancé, wanders the streets alone at night and inexplicably finds himself in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Salvador Dalí, to name a few. As a fan of all things nostalgic, this is heaven for Gil…but when morning comes, he’s back in the present. The message of the film resonates with me: it’s easy to look back and say, “Those were the days.” But back then, those folks looked back even farther and said the same thing. Bottom line: our glory days weren’t 20 or 30 years ago. We’re in our glory days right now. (You know what, just click here to read my review: https://2unpaidmoviecritics.com/…/midnight-in-paris-2011/ )

37. CHINATOWN (1974) – One of the darkest film noirs ever made. I’m not talking about the scenery, which is mostly drenched in the stark sunlight of the California desert, but the material. A cut-rate private eye in 1937 Los Angeles stumbles backwards into a labyrinthine plot involving orange groves, water reservoirs, and “apple cores.” At the heart of the mystery is Evelyn, a cool-as-ice femme fatale with more than enough secrets of her own to power TWO movies. To describe the film’s ending as “fatalistic” does disservice to the word: it’s a f*****g DOWNER. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. A happy ending for this movie would have felt incredibly phony. (It’s been said the screenplay by Robert Towne is still used as an object lesson for screenwriting classes.)

36. NETWORK (1976) – Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s prescient satire about the lengths to which a TV network will go to maintain a ratings hit doesn’t feel as satirical as it did 46 years ago. In a time when some evening news programs are little more than talk shows without the live audience, the “Howard Beale News Hour”, featuring psychics, gossip, and endless op-eds, feels less like satire and more like a documentary. But even if Network didn’t have that clairvoyant vibe, it would still be one of the funniest, most literate movies about the entertainment business since Sunset Blvd. Not to mention it’s only one of two films to win three of the four acting categories at the Oscars. Talk about a powerhouse.

35. SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (1927) – If you’ve never seen a classic silent drama before, this is the place to start. (I’d recommend Buster Keaton and/or Harold Lloyd for total rookies, but I digress…) F.W. Murnau’s powerful melodrama stirred my emotions like no other silent film has, before or since. I could cite the camera’s freedom of movement at a time when movie cameras weighed as much as a medium-sized horse. Or the liberal use of visual effects to convey the state of mind of the characters in ways that rendered dialogue pointless. Or the emotional power of the story about a married man driven to madness by a city woman of questionable morals, but who comes to his senses on the brink of murdering his wife. There’s more to it than that, of course, but the combination of story, technique, and direction makes for an unforgettable experience.

34. NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (France/Chile, 2010) – This one is going to be hard for me to pin down in a short paragraph. The subject matter and storytelling method combined to create one of the most sobering, most thought-provoking documentaries I’ve ever seen. One half of the storyline involves Chilean women combing the Atacama Desert for the remains of loved ones who were “vanished” by Pinochet’s regime during the 1970s. The other half presents astronomers using powerful observatories in the same desert to probe the night sky for answers to the origins of our universe. How the two stories are linked, I leave for you to discover. This movie was made to inspire long talks around the water cooler.

33. BARAKA (1992) – This movie is the single best argument ever made for purchasing and owning a big-screen TV with a powerful sound system. A five-person crew shot footage on 70mm cameras in 24 countries across 6 continents for 14 months. The result is one of the most transcendent film experiences I’ve ever seen. With no dialogue and an ethereal musical score, the viewer is treated to some of the most fantastic images ever captured on film. The overall effect of the movie is one of overwhelming realization that we are all traveling together through space and time on a chunk of uniquely life-giving space rock. I’m not making sense. Just read my review: https://2unpaidmoviecritics.com/2021/11/26/baraka-1992/

32. PULP FICTION (1994) – Watching Pulp Fiction for the first time was like riding a brand-new rollercoaster at night wearing a blindfold. I had absolutely no idea where it was going, but I was having a blast getting there. Its influence on future generations and filmmakers is undeniable. Its non-linear structure confounded some viewers (including me) the first time around, but like taking a second look at a painting, everything comes together upon repeated viewings. The shocking violence, the salty language, the tracking shots, the faultless dialogue, the Gimp, the gold watch, the twist contest…I could go on and on. If Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is QT’s equivalent of Beethoven’s Ninth, Pulp Fiction is Beethoven’s Fifth. (If you’re not a fan of classical music, Wikipedia is your friend.)

31. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) – Followers of the Oscars (me included) have yet to forgive the Academy for not awarding Best Picture to this gritty, ultra-violent tribute to the soldiers of the “Greatest Generation” who landed at Normandy on D-Day. It’s yet another showcase of Spielberg’s mastery of the cinematic form, presenting stomach-churning tension and blood-soaked battle scenes in a way that still manages to entertain without cheapening the message. Saving Private Ryan can lay legitimate claim to being the best World War II movie ever made.

30. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) – Now, having SAID that…David Lean’s epic World War II adventure tale NARROWLY edges out Saving Private Ryan in my rankings for the same reason Jaws edges out Aliens: the earlier film accomplishes the same objectives as the newer film, but with fewer resources in the visual effects and technology department. In my eyes, they’re equals, but I must play by the rules, so…there you have it. Anyway, The Bridge on the River Kwai was one of the first epic “old” films I ever saw, along with Ben-Hur and West Side Story. I was stunned by the finale, which was edited so well it felt like a modern film, not a film from the classic era. (And yes, that was a real train on a real bridge over a real river.)

29. THE DEER HUNTER (1978) – The best movie about the Vietnam War I’ve ever seen. That’s right. I said it. Go ahead and list all the other greats in this sub-genre, but none of them cover all the emotional bases we see on display in The Deer Hunter. Director Michael Cimino’s masterwork gives us the home life of the soldier, the soldier in combat, and the soldier trying to assimilate back home, all in unsparing detail. History buffs deride the infamous Russian Roulette sequence, but I see it as a metaphor for the chances any combat soldier took on any given mission in that jungle. I could go on, but I won’t. Click here instead: https://2unpaidmoviecritics.com/…/18/the-deer-hunter-1978/

28. SPIRITED AWAY (2001) – Picking my favorite Miyazaki film was no chore at all. This was the first one of his films I had the opportunity to see on the big screen, and it was stunning. Still is. The story is basically Alice in Wonderland by way of Terry Gilliam: a young girl must figure out a way to restore her parents to human form (long story) by working for a powerful witch who runs a bathhouse for creatures from the spirit world. The various spirits and creatures who visit and inhabit this bathhouse run the gamut from little soot sprites to giant walking turnips to talking frogs to three disembodied heads. The whole movie is a riot of color and imagination…and about 99% hand-drawn, at a time when CGI had established itself as the new box-office king of animation. Miyazaki has created some amazing films, but Spirited Away set a bar that he has since approached, but never surpassed.

27. UNITED 93 (2006) – I can count on two or three fingers, depending on my mood, that can bring me to the verge of tears (or past it) every time I watch them. United 93 is at the top of that list. I was skeptical when I first heard about it, thinking it was still too soon for Hollywood to cash in on the story of that tragic day. But United 93 is not just a film. It’s a genuine tribute, starring a handful of people who were involved in the background, including Ben Sliney, the newly-hired Ops Manager of the FAA…September 11, 2001, was literally his first day on the job. The decision to shoot the movie in a semi-documentary style was inspired and is one of the reasons it’s able to pull me into the story every time. It feels immediate in a way that other films on the same subject have never been able to capture, and that’s why that final sequence brings me to tears every time. Any movie that can do that deserves a place on this list.

26. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) – Darren Aronofsky’s tour de force. Requiem for a Dream reaches a point where you want to look away, but you just can’t. There have been many movies about addiction, but I can’t think of any I’ve seen that put all the consequences on display like this movie does. Three connected storylines show the spiral from those initial highs down to the deepest lows…and then below that…and then below THAT. It’s wrenching and the ending is a downer, but it’s a visual feast. Aronofsky uses flawless editing to convey every character’s state of mind, especially when it comes to the mother and that refrigerator. Friends have asked me, “What’s the POINT of this depressing movie, and why do you love it so much???” The point of the movie, I guess, is to serve as a warning: anyone who has ever even considered doing hard drugs should be forced to watch this movie first. Why do I love it? Because it’s electrifying filmmaking, even considering the subject matter. But…maybe don’t watch it on an empty stomach.

…to be continued…

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

By Marc S. Sanders

I have finally righted a serious wrong and watched Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, and what a pleasurable experience it has been. Reader, if this movie lover who gets hopped up on science fiction gobbley gook with laser swords and spaceships can watch an old black and white movie feeling sorrow for its main characters, and elation when the film finishes, then it’s easy to understand how timeless and impressionable Capra’s classic film truly is.

I recall when I had finally seen It Happened One Night, originally released in 1934 and arguably the pioneer of the romantic comedy genre. I could not help but connect certain moments and pieces of dialogue to the films released while I was growing up, like When Harry Met Sally… and Bull Durham. Those films took inspiration from Capra’s comedy with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Capra pioneered storytelling once again with It’s A Wonderful Life. As my wife and I watched the movie late last night until nearly two in the morning, I said to her this is like Back To The Future. My wife said A Christmas Carol. Both true statements. So perhaps while Capra was revolutionary with his own storytelling, he might have been adopting some inspiration from what came before as well. Regardless, I applaud his approach. Frank Capra is a tremendous gift to the cinematic medium. If there was a Mount Rushmore for filmmakers, Capra would most certainly be sculpted alongside the likes of Hitchcock, Chaplin and Disney.

George Bailey (James Stewart) has big dreams of leaving his sleepy little town of Bedford Falls and building grand designs of skyscrapers while also exploring the world, beginning with Europe and Alaska and whatever else needs discovering. Like any of us, our yearning for adventure and the destinies we wish for get interrupted. Before you know it, we ask ourselves if life has passed us by. It takes a guardian angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) to remind George that life has been with him all along; maybe not the life he envisaged, but certainly a life of purpose and significance beyond just himself.

George watches as his high school chums go on to grand accomplishments that pay off in enormous amounts of wealth. His younger brother Harry (Todd Karns) goes to college, gets married and becomes a celebrated war hero. However, George remains in Bedford Falls offering loans to his fellow townsfolk that he can’t afford to honor with a business he inherited from his father. To lend and support comes involuntary to George. He’s just a good man.

On the other end of the spectrum is the mean, wealthy miser Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore). Barrymore plays Potter like one of the worst villains in the history of cinema. An unforgiving, jealous wretch of a man. His cruelty is long and unmatched, even if he is relegated to a wheelchair. He knows how destitute George is, despite his unending generosity, but Potter won’t tolerate the admiration George receives. To squash George’s stature, he’ll buy out his business. He’ll make every effort to silence George Bailey’s influence. Potter will even try to take George under his wing where he can maintain complete authority as a big fish in the small pond of Bedford Falls. Yet, Potter’s never-ending wealth cannot crush the love for George’s humbleness and giving nature.

A favorite device of mine in movies is when the filmmaker can turn the story’s setting into a character all its own. Examples of this are shown in pieces like Spielberg’s Schindler’s List where the use of thousands of extras and piles of rubble bring testimony to the atrocities of the Holocaust. In James Cameron’s Avatar (which I just watched as a refresher for the just released sequel), an imaginary neon glowing planet awakens our senses, and we learn that its inhabitants form a symbiont circle with the plant life and animals that dwell there. In many films, the time and place speak to the viewer. Bedford Falls is a main character to the story. Capra makes wonderful use of the Main Street where each business building quickly becomes very familiar as if we have walked into these small town structures a hundred times. It hearkened me back to my time in Fair Lawn, New Jersey where I would accompany my grandmother on her daily errands to the bank, the kosher deli and the Woolworth’s. Wherever she went, everyone knew Helen. In Bedford Falls, the pharmacy with the soda jerk doesn’t look new to me. It appears like I’d seen it a hundred times before. Martini’s, the bar, felt like I knew every hob knobber in the joint. I could smell the ink and feel the creak of the wooden floors in Bailey Building and Loan.

The townsfolk are also assembled wisely by Capra. An old man sitting on his porch at night takes in the flirtations that George and soon to be wife Mary (Donna Reed) exchange with one another. This man represents Bedford Falls taking stock in what’s to come next for our protagonist. The people in this town have a rhythm to their gatherings. Capra offers a magnificent shot where the camera is overhead behind George, wearing his overcoat and hat, and the townspeople are facing him at the other end of the sidewalk. They expect of George, but does George have anything left to give? I can only see the back of Jimmy Stewart, but I know all too well the expression he’s sending to the people opposite him. Look at the scene where they march over to George Bailey’s business demanding their monies back. How one delivers a line followed by another is perfectly timed to James Stewart’s despair. The ending is beautifully cut as these same folks come into George’s home to offer their sense of giving during a desperate hour of need for George.

I always knew the story of It’s A Wonderful Life. Years ago, I saw a stage production where Miguel portrayed George opposite his girlfriend in the role of Mary. Yet, I was not familiar enough with the surprises that Capra’s film offers. I just didn’t realize how much fantasy is embedded in the movie as Clarence is meant to be a naïve angel who has yet to earn his wings. Seems a little too childlike for me on the surface. I’ll admit I didn’t take to the angels represented as blinking stars early in the picture. That’s hokey! However, when Clarence is personified in the latter half of the film, Henry Travers brings a sense of clarity to the purpose of life when he forces George and maybe anyone watching the movie to imagine what things would be like had they never been born. Reader, I think I’ve seen story adaptations like this on episodes of Family Ties and The Golden Girls. In this movie, it becomes frightening as we realize the actions we take carry impacts with them. Had George not rescued his brother Harry from a skating accident, what would have happened to a squadron of soldiers during the war? Had George not had the nerve to dance with Mary at his high school dance, what would have happened to her? Had George not existed, then he wouldn’t be available to lend monies to people and what would have happened to a beautiful collection of new homes that would never be erected? These questions are incorporated into roughly a thirty-minute last act that remind you to appreciate all that you saw earlier in the film. I want to say its cheesy, but Travers and Stewart really don’t make it that way. The sequence comes through with forthright honesty from Travers, never going big or outlandish, and genuine anguish from Stewart who convincingly appears like he’s lost everything when earlier he felt like he had nothing.

I read that Jimmy Stewart did this film shortly after returning from serving in World War II. He was suffering from PTSD and much of the torment and agony that George exhibits was coming through naturally on film. This has to be one of the all-time greatest performances on screen. Jimmy Stewart’s timing in practically every scene of the picture is perfection. He’s a wide eyed optimist with big enthusiasm to get his life going. Then he transcends into a teasing flirt with the girl he was not expected to hook up with. When George tells Mary he wants to throw a lasso around the moon and give it to her, I really believe he could do it. We have Jimmy Stewart to thank for that. Later, he’s unexpectedly frightening as he is on the verge of being charged with fraud and penniless. Stewart is uncompromising in front of Donna Reed and the young actors playing his children. When he kicks over the table with the train set and gifts, on Christmas Eve, it’s terribly shocking. Sadly, it’s relatable. A film from 1946 presents personal problems and struggles that exist today. That is why It’s A Wonderful Life is such an important piece. We struggle to live with our struggles.

Frank Capra’s film is necessary to remind each of us to never give up, no matter how hard it gets. We have value. We have importance to ourselves and to others. We are loved. Yes, it’s only a movie and it conveniently solves itself in its made-up fantasy. However, those that enrich and occupy space in our daily lives are real and they are folks who depend on us for their fulfillment and happiness. We are necessary to making their lives better and sustainable. Reciprocally speaking, they are just as important to mine and your satisfactions. It might be drippy to claim that Frank Capra’s film is a “feel good movie,” but I prefer to believe that the writer/director, along with Stewart, Reed, Travers and the rest of the company served a higher purpose. They demonstrate that we have all been blessed with an enormous gift filled with the riches of love and friendship that life absorbs and treasures.

Happy Holidays!!

FOUR CHRISTMASES

By Marc S. Sanders

I love Christmas cookies. Those Santa, snowman and tree shaped sugar cookies with the frosting and sprinkles. They are my weakness come every December. Cookie cutter, however, is not necessarily a compliment when talking about a movie. Four Christmases is as cookie cutter as they come.

Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn are Kate and Brad, an unmarried couple happily going on three years and ready to celebrate the holidays alone in Fiji while lying to their divorced parents, on both sides, about doing charitable service within poorly developed countries. However, when they arrive at the airport and learn that their flight is cancelled, wouldn’t you know it?!?! A news reporter is there to capture them on live television revealing their ruse. Now Brad and Kate have no choice but to visit each parent’s home on Christmas. With less than an hour and a half running time, let’s chop this up evenly, shall we? Figure there will be about 15-20 minutes devoted to each parent. Hence the title… (say it with me now) …Four Christmases.

Let’s go see Brad’s dad first, Robert Duvall, who lives with Brad’s aspiring MMA fighting brothers played by Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw. They live a simple life with a Zenith television set and Christmas presents that are purchased with a ten dollar or less limit. A gift of a satellite dish is not gonna go over well, and will likely mean a fall off the roof. Side note: doesn’t falling off a roof seem to happen a lot in Christmas movies? Also, if the bros are into MMA fighting, well you know that Brad is going to have to endure body slams galore while Kate simply gasps in shock at her boyfriend’s demise.

Transition time in this film happens in the car while going to the next Christmas celebration. Brad and Kate take these opportunities to question the purpose of their relationship. They think they have relationship troubles licked by NOT getting married and not devoting themselves to time with family, but are they kidding themselves?

Next stop is at Mary Steenburgen’s house, Kate’s mom. Kate’s older sister played by Kristin Chenoweth is here too. Kate’s agonizing childhood is brought up for laughs like attending a fat camp and reminiscing about her being the one with the cooties and fearful of bounce houses. Oh, look what’s in the backyard! A bounce house! How ironic! Know where this is going? A visit to the church of an overzealous evangelist (Dwight Yoakum), where Kate and Brad are quickly recruited to participate in the Nativity play, happens.

This is about midway through the film and I gotta say I can’t blame Brad and Kate for always lying about going somewhere else for the holidays. Who wants to live with this kind of torment? There’s some truth to the adage “You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family.” The movie wants me to recognize the oversight of Brad and Kate and their disregard for family time, but I don’t see it. These are cruel people that they are confronted with.

Next up, let’s go see Sissy Spacek, Brad’s mom, who is sharing coitus with Brad’s high school best friend. Enough said there.

There’s more transitional driving to happen where the question of if Brad wants to get more serious about their relationship is discussed following Kate’s reveal that she took a pregnancy test. Often in films, it’s the baby factor that tests the relationships. I wish Hollywood would think outside that box a little. Having children is not the end all be all, all the time, in building a loving relationship. Components involving work, religion, and money also come into play. Mustn’t forget about love too. Just once, I’d like to see something else. So many couples live happily without children. We are even reminded how it’s rude and intrusive to ask “when are you going to have a baby?” In fact, it is rude to ask that question because it’s too standard and presumptuous. Hollywood should account for that. I digress though.

The fourth and final Christmas visit occurs at Jon Voight’s house, Kate’s dad. Not much wrong here, as we are in the final act of the movie where it’s more about a will they or won’t they conundrum for Brad and Kate. So, cue the insightful commentary from Voight dressed in a comfy blue sweater.

Look, I can’t deny it. I laughed at several moments in Four Christmases. Favreau is hilarious in his tattooed, buzz cut, intimidating presence. The Nativity play with Brad dressed as Joseph and getting caught up in the hallelujah enthusiasm is funny too. Duvall is doing his old man redneck routine like he does in Days Of Thunder, and well…c’mon it’s ROBERT DUVALL!!!!

I just wish I didn’t know what was coming from one scene to the next. In a film this structured, you don’t even have to try to predict what will happen. You have an involuntary instinct to just know.

As well, I don’t get a kick out of seeing how uncomfortable characters are made out to be when they are doing nothing but paying a visit. Poor Brad gets outnumbered by his fighting brothers and suffers the Home Alone slapstick body blows. Later, a baby spits up all over Kate’s dress, and Brad starts to dry heave at the sight of the mess. That’s not funny. That’s a shame. In life that happens. Babies spit up, but we should feel awful for the victim. How uncomfortable that must be. Kate is not Joe Pesci trying to rob a house and getting a deserving paint can to the face. Kate isn’t laughing at her misfortune. She’s in shock. Steenburgen and Chenoworth cackle hysterically, though. I can’t bring myself to do that. I feel bad for these two, and all I’m thinking is that it really sucks that they couldn’t make it to Fiji. I wish they made it to Fiji. What a shame they never got to Fiji.

Like Home Alone or Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Four Christmases wants to deliver the message that there is nothing better than to spend the holidays with the family, or get married and start a family of your own. Yet the campaign seems to defeat itself in its demonstration. I love my family and I love being married, but if I saw this film ahead of what I have now in life, twenty years going strong, I might have thought otherwise.

Quick reminder: THEIR FAMILIES ARE FRACTURED IN DIVORCE ALREADY!!!! So, all that Four Christmases tells me is TO HELL WITH FAMILY. I JUST WANNA GO TO FIJI!!!!!

GO

By Marc S. Sanders

Character perspective is so vital to a story. It becomes even more important when you are telling multiple tales. When you have a collection of five or six characters in your screenplay and they each have a circumstance that overlaps with one another, a smart way to narrate one reckless evening is by chopping up the time period into multiple plotlines. Numerous stories offer several perspectives and then you may appreciate what director Doug Liman accomplishes with one of his earliest career films, Go.

Go focuses on an assortment of early twenty-somethings scrounging for money while also taking in the nightlife during an evening close to Christmas. Two supermarket cashiers, Ronna and Simon (Sarah Polley, Desmond Askew) have different things on their mind. Ronna, who is exhausted having worked double shifts, is on the verge of getting evicted from her apartment because she has no money to pay the rent. Simon just wants to go with his buddies for a good time in Las Vegas, but he’s got to work. So, the two swap shifts.

The script follows the Ronna avenue first where she meets up with some acquaintances of Simon’s looking to score some ecstasy. Ronna thinks of a get rich quick scheme to meet with Simon’s drug supplier, Todd (Timothy Olyphant), and then sell to Simon’s buddies directly. Naturally, it doesn’t work out so neatly.

The second act of the film focuses on Simon with three buddies (Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer and James Duval). Because Simon is written as happy go lucky, but also careless, he’ll get into his own kind of adventures and mischief. It can only happen in Vegas.

The third act turns the viewpoint over to those acquaintances that approached Ronna, two soap opera actors named Zach and Adam (Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf). These guys weren’t just looking to score some drugs. They’re up to something else entirely.

I’ve never been one to take to movies where the characters are intoxicated or high through most of the film. I can only handle so much of Seth Rogen’s drug episode schtick like with Pineapple Express, released years after Go. What’s most appealing about Liman’s film, however, is that you are moving along one path, and then suddenly you are reversed and driving down the other side of the fork in the road. This routine occurs again for a third time.

Much like Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, you can argue that the writer/director could simply take the straight route from beginning to end. Yet is that really interesting? Would Pulp Fiction have worked as well or better than its final composition? Don’t we usually see that approach in everything else out there? As well, these characters are not following a storyline that contains gripping material with symbolism or intense dialogue and circumstances. So, how exactly do you heighten a kid buying drugs off another kid while keeping the viewers’ attention span? You stir the pot. (No pun intended.)

Following a rage dance club effect of opening credits, Liman does a close up of Katie Holmes as Claire, Ronna’s friend. She’s talking to someone, who we can’t see, about how fun the surprises are with opening Christmas presents. Go works from beginning to end because it turns in surprise encounters that you would never expect. Call it a butterfly effect. A flap of the wings leads to this encounter which leads to that encounter and so on. If you are taken with the film, you just might smirk with pleasant surprise when you uncover who Claire is actually speaking to.

Early on in the film, we will see a one-sided conversation on the phone. Later we will see the other side of that same call and I get a kick out seeing a story running parallel to another story I just got done seeing. (Forgive the redundancy of that sentence, but that’s the point!)

Another moment will have a character draw a gun on another character, only a hit and run with a car disrupts the moment. Thankfully, we’ll meet the personalities behind that car later on. As the picture becomes more and more clear, you might cheer “Bravo!” at the invention of Go.

As noted before, Doug Liman’s movie has been compared to the drive behind Pulp Fiction. I understand the temptation to make that association. However, this movie stands on its own. Where Tarantino will show perspective of different characters, he will branch off into forward thinking with new events. Go steers its focus to parallel plot points. We see what’s occurring in Los Angeles right now with Ronna. Later, we will see what’s happening in Las Vegas at that very same time with Simon. Tarantino picks up where we left off. Liman documents what’s happening elsewhere. While these two characters are going along their own paths simultaneously in different parts of the universe, what happens to one of them will bear on what happens to the other as the trajectories continue.

I might be making this out to be fancier than it ever needed to be, but it’s a kick ass good time, nonetheless. The soundtrack is absolutely fun. You get absorbed in the settings, almost wanting to be in the Christmas night club party with strobe lights and neon colors, or the Vegas casinos and strip joints. The personalities and dialogue are super smart and witty with hilarious comebacks. “If you were any more white, you’d be clear!”

At the time Go was released in 1999, from a marketing perspective, it did not appear all that attractive. Lots of club music and symphonics surround the picture. The most marquee name in the film, probably still, is Katie Holmes who is not exactly on the same level as an Angelina Jolie or even a Jennifer Lawrence of today. Yes. Nearly twenty-five years later many of these young actors are more recognizable. I dare you to come up with their names though as soon as you see them in the picture. However, because I’m not watching Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, I have no expectations of how any of these various storylines are going to turn out. When the film leaves the Ronna storyline, are we going to get to see what happens to her next? Will Simon get back from Vegas? Lots of questions abound as the film moves on.

While Go is reveling in its debauchery, it’s performing as a smart machine that hits all the right notes where it will lay the groundwork for comedy, but then segue into serious material where the protagonists find themselves in a situation they might not be able to escape. Go is a movie that keeps you alert, even if you’re high, during one sleepless and irresponsible night.

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 BRUXELLES

By Marc S. Sanders

You ever see a movie that feels like utter torture while watching it, and then when you have time to reflect on it later, you at least appreciate the message it delivered? I guess this can apply to my experience with Sight & Sound’s recent selection of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as the greatest film of all time; number one on their list of the best 100 films of all time. This picture usurped other achievements like Citizen Kane (number one for close to five decades) and Vertigo (which held the top spot since 2012).

Chantal Ackerman directed this feminist film in 1975, produced in Belgium, about a widow named Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) who lives a very mundane life. The running time of 3 hours and 21 minutes positions a still camera depicting her everyday activity over three ordinary days. We see Jeanne boil potatoes, prepare soup, and escort gentlemen callers behind her closed bedroom door. One man per afternoon. In the evening, her non talkative adult son Sylvain (Jan Decorte) arrives home and she serves him soup and dinner. The viewer watches them eat their whole meal with Jeanne barely able to hold conversation with her son who remains mostly unresponsive. After dinner, the sofa in the living room is unfolded into a cot for Sylvain to prepare for bed. The following morning, Jeanne takes time to fold her son’s pajamas and shine his shoes. Jeanne will then run errands like seeking out a particular color of yarn for sowing, or a button to replace on her coat. She also waits for a colleague (maybe another woman in her line of work) to drop off her baby to be watched for a short period of time, before Jeanne’s next afternoon appointment with another gentleman. After the appointment, she will fold up the little towel in the center of the bed for where her customer positioned himself.

This is a very tedious film to watch with little dialogue that is delivered in French with subtitles. There is insight to be gained however, and as I reflect on the film, it mostly comes through in the deliberately long running time. I believe Ackerman was attempting to make a viewer’s experience with the piece feel as lonely and mundane as the main character. There are very few cuts in the film. Often, for long periods of times, maybe as long as four or five minutes, we are watching Jeanne sit in a chair staring into space. We will watch her walk down her hallway or across the street to the post office. We will watch her button every button on her coat or house robe. We observe her take a routine bath. We see her peel potatoes. We watch her enter the kitchen to find a utensil and then leave while turning off the light. She’ll then return to the kitchen for something and turn the light back on. Near the end of the film, she receives a package and has trouble with a knot while undoing it. After nearly three hours of this routine kind of activity, I knew she would leave the room, walk down the hall, enter the kitchen, pull open a drawer and look for a pair of scissors. There is nothing special in any of this, but it remains in the final print to be witnessed. Nothing you see in this film is enhanced with stimulating devices like dialogue, music cues, lighting effects, close ups or strategic editing. Even the title of the film, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, is very, very boring and ordinary. We are simply watching how a lonely widow lives from day one to day two and on to day three.

I am one of four members of a movie watching group of friends who get together (hopefully once a month, if our schedules allow it) to watch three movies on a Saturday or Sunday. One member selected this film out of curiosity with Sight & Sound’s notable recognition of late. (We also watched Shane Black’s Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang and Doug Liman’s Go.) While we are watching these selected movies, we respond like any audience member should to a film. We’ll laugh or scream. We’ll comment in moments that seem appropriate and keep the mood lively. Much commentary was tossed around among the four of us while watching Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. At times we sounded like locker room boys. On multiple occasions I told my good friend Anthony how much I hate him for selecting this slog of a picture to watch. We even started to look for symbolism or inconsistencies in the film. On several occasions, we see Jeanne enter the kitchen and there is only one chair positioned at the table. She walks out of the room and when she returns there will be two chairs, only we never saw her or Sylvain bring in a second chair. What could that mean? Is this film suddenly going to reveal itself with a supernatural characteristic? Could there be someone else in the house? Will Sylvain and Jeanne have dinner at the kitchen table tonight, instead of in the dining room. Is there something symbolic about this disappearing and reappearing kitchen chair? I’ll save you the trouble, Reader. It means nothing. I could only draw that it is an error in editing or continuity. Yet, that is where our minds would go to, as we absorbed these long moments of ordinary life. Blame us for yearning for the quick fix that most movies offer. We are simply weak, very weak, men.

Bear with me as I tell you that to watch Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is sheer torture. To listen to a faucet drip into an empty tin pan or watch a strand of grass grow in real time is at least as entertaining. Movies serve to make us laugh or cry or scream in fear and heighten our suspense. Movies serve messages that we choose to agree or disagree with. Movies teach us about a kind of person or industry we may never come across and movies allow us into the mind of an artist’s own imagination. Movies can disgust us. Movies can anger us, and movies are also there to frustrate us, like Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

To think back on this film, I’m taken with Jeanne, the character, and what she ultimately does before the film concludes. I’d never spoil the movie’s ending. However, it stands as the most memorable moment in the picture. It’s a scene I won’t forget and it certainly is the most eye opening. Most importantly, it’s understandable having lived as a witness to Jeanne’s seemingly worthless and boring lifestyle. We’ve all endured boredom. I’d argue at times we’ve all felt a lack of worth to ourselves and those around us. I certainly have questioned my value on this earth more times than once. Therefore, to really feel how hollow Jeanne is with whom she caters to each day, like an unresponsive son or gentlemen callers that lack loving affection while they pay for a quick tryst, a viewer must endure the long running time of the film. It’s the most assured way to embrace the authenticity of Jeanne’s empty livelihood. The most important element to Chantal Ackerman’s film is likely the running time. How else to truly understand how mundane a lonely widow is than to live through a near full three days with her? Therefore, Ackerman is successful in getting across what she wanted to with her film.

Credit should be recognized for the actress Delphine Seyrig. To simply sit in a chair staring into space with a camera (likely positioned on a tripod) at the other end of the room and not break character for long periods of time requires extreme concentration and endurance. To share a scene with another actor that does not respond to anything you are doing, is equally challenging. Seyrig is a professional actress, whose career I’m not familiar with. She has likely portrayed more stimulating characters with more hyperactivity in other pieces of work. To bring a performance down to a level of this most extreme kind of monotony is certainly dexterous while requiring complete focus.

I’ll likely never watch Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ever again. I don’t need to. I won’t gain anything new on a second or third viewing. I won’t ever forget the film, however. It stands apart from most other films I have watched because the construction of the piece is intentionally unexciting and the performances are deliberately ho hum. There are people who live completely uninteresting lives, and it is certainly sad to acknowledge that. Movies will tell me that a deranged man will kill people. They will also tell me that heroes go searching for treasure or that employees have a desire to exact revenge on their boss. Movies will demonstrate how families will love each other or how two people fall in or out of love. Movies will also explain how sorrowful it is for a person to experience loss. Movies will also tell me that people live within a mind that offers no self-worth while their heart beats and beats from one mundane and ordinary day to another. The best example of that is Chantal Ackerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. An admirable accomplishment for a film dependent on the study of a woman’s sheer emptiness.

MAN ON FIRE (2004)

By Marc S. Sanders

A movie that has eluded me until now is Man On Fire featuring Denzel Washington in another Tony Scott film. I say eluded because with this director/actor combination I’m usually satisfied with the finished product. That wasn’t the case here, though.

Washington portrays a hard drinking bodyguard named John Creasy. He’s recruited by his war buddy, played by an uninteresting Christopher Walken, to protect a young girl named Pida (Dakota Fanning), daughter of an automobile industrialist and his always fashionable wife (Mark Anthony, Rahda Mitchell). Creasy is a cold fish at first who refuses to accept Pida’s friendship. Jump to a couple of quick scenes later and he’s become her surrogate father and swimming coach. In a matter of seven minutes of running time, I’m supposed to accept that this guy has turned into a cuddly teddy bear for this kid. As soon as that happens, Creasy is ambushed and Pida is kidnapped following her piano lesson. We are not even a quarter of the way through the picture, but the remaining hour and forty minutes play like an awful how-to documentary on effective means of torture for bad guys before ruthlessly killing them.

Tony Scott is a director who always seeks to demonstrate that glossy film styles are more significant than the screenplays he directs or the characters who reside within. (Two exceptions come to mind though, Crimson Tide and True Romance. Maybe some of Top Gun too.) Man On Fire is a frustrating watch as Scott’s camera performs like a narrator with attention deficit disorder. It can never sit still. The movie jerks around so much with ridiculous quick cuts and deliberately grainy and distressed cinematography. Just when I’m trying to comprehend a new player who enters the fold, the camera jumps to something else like a street corner or a moving car or Denzel Washington’s sunglasses. There are subtitles for the Spanish speaking characters that appear in a block letter font that looks like it came from a karaoke machine. There’s also subtitles for what somehow appear to be “important” or “powerful” statements. A line like “pass the salt” might read like “PASS the SaLt…PLEASE!!!!” Tony Scott is obviously going for some kind of MTV music video approach, but it’s awfully distracting and downright annoying. As well, I must ask why. Why go through all this effort? The cameramen must have been getting motion sickness while fumbling and shaking around their equipment to shoot this picture. So why bother?

The most interesting plot point happens in the first three seconds of the movie. A statistic pops up describing how often kidnappings occur in Mexico (one every sixty seconds), and how as many as seventy percent of those incidents end up with a dead victim. That’s a shocking dilemma, worthy of attention. Through his career, Washington’s selection of scripts has allowed him to tackle important issues with moments of debate and smart dialogue, as well as suspenseful action if there is a call for it. However, Tony Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland are not interested in using these facts as a springboard with Man On Fire.

Once the expected kidnapping occurs, and following a very quick healing – as in less than two days – of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, John Creasy goes on a war path of revenge when he learns that Pida is dead. Creasy doesn’t get to perform with much intellect here. Having only a partial license plate number, he’s able to follow the breadcrumbs that lead to a crime syndicate notorious for winning millions in ransom demands. Creasy simply goes up the food chain from one member to the next until he gets to the top of the pyramid. That’s the movie! That’s it!

He’ll cut a guy’s fingers off and cauterize them with a car cigarette lighter. He somehow has access to a rocket launcher to use within the city. Sadly, the most novel technique is to stick a rectal detonator (yes, I said rectal) up a man and set a timer for the guy to come clean with information before it goes off. We can thank Tony Scott for putting up a countdown digital clock on the screen to gauge how close this thug is to his demise.

My past experience with movies like these have taught me that there’s always a traitor. Someone set the plan in motion to abduct the little girl. That’s not hard to figure out. Once the character appears on screen, it could not be more obvious. The motivation is just as ridiculous.

Man On Fire is only imaginative in how the protagonist dispatches one guy after another. It lacks any effort in creativity towards its hero. The guy drinks. He torments his enemies. He’s got nothing interesting to say. There’s a neglect for a very real and common problem within the country of Mexico. The only design that is given attention is “artistic style” that Tony Scott adopts to mask away what is not there in any of the writing or character development.

I’d like to learn more about how the Mexican government responds to these kidnappings and maybe the experience that survivors endured. Show me the torment that the families go through. Can I see the method to the kidnappers’ plots or how they select their next target? A very real predicament was offered with Man On Fire, but then it was tossed aside so I could see the effectiveness of an explosive suppository. Now, is that really a movie that any of us want to see?

THE FABELMANS

By Marc S. Sanders

Often, coming-of-age stories are narrated through the eyes of the child on the cusp of becoming a teenager or a grown up. It’s important you realize that I say through the eyes, however. It’s what the protagonist observes that allows him or her to appreciate, and comprehend. Steven Spielberg will tell you he came of age by learning how to make movies. It stands to reason however, that he did not come of age by looking with just his eyes, but rather with his 8mm and 16mm cameras. The Fabelmans is a fictionalized, loose interpretation of how the celebrated filmmaker transitioned from adolescence into young adulthood with dreams of telling stories with movie making inventiveness.

Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle, the older version; Mateo Zoryan, the younger version – both performances are magnificent) is escorted for the first time to the movies by his parents Mitzi and Burt (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) on a wintery New Jersey night in 1952, where he sees The Greatest Show On Earth. For eight year old Sammy, what starts out as nervous fear of what to expect in a dark theater with a giant screen turns into exhilaration as a car does a head on collision with a locomotive. Shortly thereafter, a series of eight Channukah gifts assemble a Lionel train set for Sammy. It’s exciting to see it go around on an oval track. It’s more electrifying to preserve it on film with a toy car driven by a Mordecai figurine crash right into the steam engine and the boxcars hitched to it. That was Mitzi’s idea to capture it on film. That way Sammy can get a thrill out of watching the accident over and over again without causing any further damage.

Sammy only progresses from there. When Burt gets a job promotion, the family moves to Arizona. The desert allows a teenage Sammy to continue with his love of filmmaking by shooting his family during the cross country trek and then making westerns and war films with his Scout Troop pals as the actors. He sets up tracking shots by propping his camera on a baby carriage rolling along cardboard laid out on the ground. Ketchup becomes blood. Sammy is even inventive enough to poke holes in the actual film strip at precise moments when his sheriff and outlaws fire their six shooters. Now it really looks like the cowboys are shooting real rounds of gunfire. Mom and dad, his sisters, his teachers, and friends are all impressed.

His Uncle Bennie (Seth Rogen) is also dazzled by Sammy’s natural talent. Bennie is Burt’s best friend and co-worker, and per Mitzi’s insistence he moves to Arizona with the family. By use of his camera and editing machine, Sammy will soon learn that Bennie actually means more to Mitzi than he does to Burt.

With a script that Spielberg constructed with Tony Kushner, the director/writer depicts a kid, much like he was, who expressed his honesty and learned the truth about the people around him when his projector was on. The camera doesn’t lie, ever. A motion picture camera will even hold on to the final beats of a person’s pulse before they finally expire. That one moment in time where there’s life and then suddenly there’s death can be eternalized on film, forever. It’s through this storytelling device that allows The Fabelmans to stand apart from other coming-of-age films like Rebel Without A Cause or Splendor In The Grass or any of the John Hughes brat pack films. The childlike quality yearning for adventure and fantasy shines through with Sammy’s westerns or John Wayne inspired war pictures. Sammy also realizes though that he can pick up on real life and emotion with his 8mm, like on a family camping trip.

Michelle Williams gives an outstanding, sometimes ethereal performance. It’s real. She’s not doing fantasy. Yet, she lives for the fantasy and adventure. I recall a well known anecdote of Spielberg where he described in his youth, his father woke up the family in the middle of the night to watch the skies for a meteor shower. (Watch The Skies was the original title for his film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.) In The Fabelmans, Mitzi enthusiastically takes her children in the car to pursue a tornado. Later moments will have her dancing freely in her nighty in front of the car headlights while the family is camping; uncaring over the fact that her dress is see through. Sammy will notice how awkward his father Burt feels, while at the same time seeing how enamored Bennie is at the sight. Williams has a beautiful balance though of a woman trying her best to appear happy and collected for the sake of her children and husband, but not living the story she wants. This will influence Sammy as he maps out his own future. He’ll live the life he wants. Learning the merits of algebra will never hinder his destiny to make movies.

Later occurrences will show evidence as to how well Sammy can capture reality with his camera. Following a series of bullying and antisemitic teasing after the family transitions to northern California, Sammy is welcomed to shoot the senior ditch day at the beach. A telling moment occurs when the film is shown at the prom. The taller bully is overwhelmed by how championed he’s depicted in the film. He’s bordering on furious with Sammy, though. The mean kid knows he’s cruel to the scrawnier, Jewish Sammy, and it immediately eats away at him with guilt over his past treatment. Sammy’s film has changed and disrupted this kid. Another kid bully is shown to look like the jerk he is and nothing else. He walks alone on the beach. He’s not an athlete. He’s nothing but a no talent, unlikable antisemitic jerk. This kid is also changed because now he can see what he truly is as the viewer looking at his own cruel behavior shown on film for the whole world to see. Movies will bring out what we harbor deep down, inside.

Ironically, Sammy is so well versed with camera work and follow up editing that he is practically unaware of how durable his theme of honesty through the lens truly is. What Sammy captures comes without even trying and it sends a raw emotion to the viewer, whether it’s a mean-spirited bully or even his own mother watching.

Steven Spielberg could never be anything else except a movie maker. Yet, after over five decades he’s still introducing audiences to new kinds of accomplishments. He started as a director with adventure and fantasy on his mind with the likes of monster trucks, killer sharks as well as swashbuckling treasure seeking and visitors from outer space. Later, he had to reinvent his craft and think outside his fanciful dreams to show brutality and hope through horrifying moments in history like the abuses endured by black southern plantation dwellers, slavery, the Holocaust and the unglamorized harshness of war, political unrest, and terrorism. Further on, he carried out the romance of stage musical performance and even learned to poke fun at his own past accomplishments.

In the short period of time that we get to know Sammy Fabelman, we see transfers of perspective in this young boy’s outlook through a camera. Sammy goes from making silly mummy monsters of his sisters to intimate hand holding shared by his unhappy mother and the man she truly loves, a man who is not his father.

Whether he is watching his own films, or it is his friends, or his mother, his father or even his tormentors at school, Sammy realizes that a film will always do one thing and never falter away from that one thing. His camera will always, always, always tell the truth.

Thankfully, a truly inspired epilogue moment, which left me with a big, enthusiastic grin, has Sammy still learning that as frank as his filmmaking may be, it’s important that it is also never boring. I don’t think I have ever been bored with a movie made by Steven Spielberg.

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