Project Hail Mary

 

One's enjoyment of the Phil Lord and Christopher Miller space thriller Project Hail Mary will depend on one's appetite for (1) existential threats to planetary survival told as an intergalactic road movie and for (2) everybody's favorite Ken doll, Ryan Gosling. I'm pretty much a sucker for both.

Gosling stars as a Dr. Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist teaching middle school, who is "recruited" by an enigmatic scientist, Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), to be part of a project team to find out the cause of a celestial anomaly, called the Petrova line, that is robbing the sun of its energy.

The audience meets Grace as he awakens from a years-long coma, deep in space and approaching an unfamiliar star. Grace's story is revealed in flashback, as his memory returns, and he puts together the nature of his mission and what he must do to deliver vital information to the Earth, light-years away.

As he nears his destination, Grace encounters a gigantic spaceship being piloted by an alien being with far superior knowledge and capabilities, despite looking like a stone crab. Using human inqenuity, they learn to communicate. Grace names the alien Rocky, for obvious reasons, and they begin to pool their knowledge to chart a course to gather data and, as Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz) says, "save the stars."

Much of Project Hail Mary, which is based on the novel by Andy Weir, is about the mystery of the matter called "astrophage," star eater. The rest is about how having a common purpose binds spirits together, levels differences and puts a face on a universal concept called "love."

Pillion

 

Writer/director Harry Lighton's Pillion is a steamy BDSM tale of a handsome, taciturn biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and a retiring but lonely parking patrol officer named Colin (Harry Melling) that manages to do much more than titillate and unnerve.

Those open to the rigid-then-shifting dynamic between these young men -- one a chilly monolith and the other a wounded ego -- might discover universal truths about the intertwining of identity and need.

That is, Lighton is proposing that we often become what we must to get what we want -- once we discover what that is.

Pillion, which is the name for the passenger seat on a motorbike, introduces us to Ray's tribe of dominants and their submissives in the South England town of Bromley without judgment or the gaze of the non-BDSM community. He makes clear these men are willing participants in humiliation, and, in fact, they are expressing a variety of love, even though Ray insists "this is not what this is about."

We also get to know Colin's loving and hugely supportive parents, mother Peggy (Lesley Sharp) and father Pete (Douglas Hodge), who are thrilled their younger son has found someone. But they quickly grow concerned about Ray's seeming lack of openness. Peggy, who is terminally ill, is worried that her son is being mistreated by someone he barely knows and whom she doesn't know at all. At a get-acquainted dinner, a surprising concession from the congenitally withholding Ray, Peggy confronts her son's friend, who responds by telling her to mind her business.

Fissures eventually develop in the relationship, leading to an ultimatum that both Ray and Colin regret.

No, Pillion's storyline, graphic nudity, and explicit depictions of sexual intercourse make it decidedly NOT for general audiences. However, looking beyond the leather and chains, one might find a relatable story about the lengths to which people will go to find "love" or something that approximates it.

Sirât

 

I was not prepared for Oliver Laxe's intensely absorbing and devastating film Sirât, which has been nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature.

Set in the desert regions of Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, Sirât tells the story of a Spanish father, Luis, and his young son, Esteban, (Sergi López and Bruno Núñez Arjona, respectively) who are looking for their daughter/ sister. They believe she is attending a rave in a barren expanse of sand and rock in Morocco.

As father and son wander about the camp, asking ravers if they've seen the girl in a flier they are handing out, propulsive dance music throbs, bodies sway and twitch, and the audience is introduced to a "family" of roving ravers -- Steff, Josh, Jade, Begui and Tonin -- real-life street performers, artists and roustabouts playing themselves.

The ravers tell Luis and Esteban of another rave happening deep in the desert, quite a distance from there. Father and son ask to come along, as daughter/sister might be there. The ravers are reluctant, thinking of the treacherous road that lie ahead. But when the camp is dispersed by soldiers as part of a military evacuation, the ravers flee in the buses, followed by father and son in their minivan.

Unease creeps into the picture in the early minutes, mainly because we're not sure why the daughter is missing. We're not sure if Luis is uncertain or ashamed. This makes the subsequent perils even more unsettling and confounding. When sudden and horrific events happen, audiences might find themselves falling into despair, unable to see anything but dust and emptiness.

Sirât is beautifully filmed and the music rattling and thumping techno has been nominated for an Academy Award for sound. The picture contains many messages -- love and family, life's purpose, music as transformer and anesthetic.

But, to me, it is mostly about the value we assign to others and what those values say about us.

Private in Public

 

While waiting for my car to be serviced this morning, I was among a captive audience of seven or eight people within earshot of a conversation between two women who, it appeared, were strangers to one another.

A sympathetic comment after a big yawn was the opening salvo for a flood of stories about troubled sleep ("I didn't want to get out of bed this morning!"), family drama ("I don't understand what they're doing!"), darling grandchildren ("They're my heart!") and the grands' seemingly clueless parents ("He did wrong, but he's my son, so I have to back him up!").

I had taken a book to read but struggled to stay focused as the ladies shared all manner of family business -- pending divorces, children being used as weapons, the sanctity of widowhood, God's providence, etc.

One lady recounted how her daughter-in-law put news of her failing marriage on Facebook and complained when the husband's cousins weighed in. ("She had no business putting it out there!")

The service department was overrun this morning, so the ladies had lots of time to share and commiserate.

The sociologist in me wondered why it was so easy for them to "pour the tea" as they did.

Was it the anonymity of the customer lounge, where people also gab loudly on their phones?

Did these ladies enjoy the attention from the rest of us that their conversation pulled?

What would their families say if they knew Grandma was telling strangers about them?

This being "private in public" is nothing new, but it feels different, like folks need even MORE validation and connection than they did in the past.

Which, if true, is surprising, considering how pervasive social media "connections" are today.

But, on the other hand, maybe social media "connections" aren't authentic and leave folks wanting more -- like being six feet away.

TP USA

I see some states are trying to force Turning Point USA into colleges with the expressed intention of bolstering student character.  

I suspect this move is to promote that group's agenda and groom students for the regime's nationalist enterprise.

Frankly, I'm conflicted about this. Not on the leveraging of a state to push TP USA on campuses; that's a non-starter for me.

I'm torn between letting TP USA give it a go and die on the vine as we'd hope and actively protesting the group's move. The First and Fourteenth amendments loom over barring the club entirely.

And yet I can imagine TP being used as a screening tool for future employment, kind of like Greek Letter Organizations have been networks into the middle-class for college grads. Some fraternities are sustained by prosperous and well-positioned alums who identify "worthy" junior members for employment in their companies and firms. 

It's not a stretch for me to imagine TP USA using campus chapters in this way, handing out jobs in the public and private sectors to junior members who talk the talk and walk the walk.

Of course, equal employment legislation helped cut through closed networking systems, offering those who had been excluded access to those posts. 

The executive likes a closed, controlled system, which is why DEI was attacked and dismantled.

International Showtime

TV babies of a certain age might remember International Showtime, which ran on NBC in the early-to-mid '60s. 

Don Ameche, an actor about whom I knew nothing at the time, would introduce the various acts from locations around the world, mostly Europe. I especially enjoyed the circuses, and the white-faced Pierrot clowns in their pointed hats. 

I think the sketches were in French or Italian, but they were wonderful, and unlike Northeast D.C. where I was living. 

Watching International Showtime was transporting, kind of magical. The vast world was brought into the living room, through our sometimes snowy TV set -- Marshall McLuhan's legendary "global village." 

Looking back I see that from 7:30 to 8:30 on Fridays, the world -- which was roiling with war and social injustice -- was, well, good.

How Soon is Now?

Friend Chuck Twardy introduced me to British post-punk band The Smiths back in the Reagan era and my ardor never waned over all these years, even after the group dissolved.

The band's songwriters -- guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey (birth name Steven Patrick Morrissey) -- are credited with pushing the boundaries of rock music with their rich melodic lines and lyrics about longing and isolation that are by turns plaintive and humorous. The band's following was serious and sizable.

Both Marr and Morrissey continue to record, with Marr's output surpassing Morrissey's in both style and substance -- and in quantity.

Still, as The Smiths, Marr and Morrissey wrote enduring songs in the indie rock vein. Among their more impactful is the lamentation "How Soon is Now?" It certainly is my favorite of their catalogue.

I recall being in Seattle with a friend, ready to ring in the new millennium. We wanted to be present in a tech capital if computer intelligence went kablooey.

While waiting in a night club to ring out 1999, I heard the needle drop on How Soon is Now? What an inspired choice, I thought, as I watched patrons flood onto the dance floor.

The song is about our universal need for human connection -- a valuable reminder then as we were worried that our cyber intelligence would evaporate.  

But it's also valuable for us today -- maybe more so -- as we stare down Artificial Intelligence, waiting to see who blinks first.

(Click photo for song)

Dairy Queen ad and Media Literacy

 

Back when I was in the classroom, I laid a foundation for the formal study of media messages by including this Dairy Queen ad from 1960, a period of sufficient distance that its products can be looked at dispassionately while maintaining social, political and historical significance.

I talk about why the ad was created (to maintain / increase share of the fairly new but lucrative fast-food market) and where it appeared (print publications), noting in most instances that there was accompanying text ("ad copy") to make the pitch to consumers.

I talk about the bright colors tying the elements together and the kinds of feelings psychologists tell us yellows, blues, greens and reds prompt in most of us.

I talk about the "story" or "narrative" in this ad -- a gathering of a dozen or so folks on a sunny day, probably a weekend, outside of the city, to get ice cream, as that is mainly what DQ was known for at the time, denoted by the soft-serve cone in the sign.

I also point out -- though many students are well ahead of me on this point -- that all of the human subjects in the ad appear to be white, dressed in what would have been conventional middle-class, color-coordinated apparel -- collared shirts and skirts -- and driving vehicles because that's how you got to DQ in the burgeoning suburbs in the Eisenhower years. They are neat, well-groomed, with bright smiles that suggest they are in good health.

I talk about how the choices of color, subjects and location were deliberate and intended to connect with a target audience, whom advertisers hoped would see themselves either actually or ideally in that space, in that story.

I talk about how media messages became more diversified to reflect greater social and economic equality, but the "stories" and "spaces" remained essentially separate with ads targeting blacks set in cities ("urban markets") and ads directed at whites set in locales outside of the city.

I point out that today, or until quite recently, media messages that were NOT inclusive were not reflective of real-world spaces and stories that have been created in the 70s years since the DQ ad. I tell the students that inclusion and diversification of media messages has not only been sound and realistic but they've been profitable for these multi-billion dollar businesses.

I still believe all of this, but I've been wondering lately if this message would be stifled in academies of higher education in 2026?

Laura Nyro's World

 

Since we're all about dividing people up and assigning labels and putting folks in groups, let's just say the world is made up of people who think Laura Nyro was a poet / prophetess / feminist with a genuinely unique songwriting gift.

Wedding Bell Blues

Stoned Soul Picnic

Eli's Coming

And When I Die

Sweet Blindness

Save the Country

The rest of the world is made up of folks who will say, "Laura who?" And that's their lost, for real.

Nyro died nearly 30 years ago of ovarian cancer, the same disease that took her mother. Both she and her mother were 49 years old at the time of their deaths.

The Crucible at Trustus Theatre

 

Trustus Theatre has successfully staged Arthur Miller's classic Red Scare-era play The Crucible in a modified form as a merging of the original focus on the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th century with contemporary musings on moral panic and injustice, deceit and betrayal.

Director Jayce Tromsness, a veteran Trustus performer and company member, has moved this familiar work into a modernist arena that offers outlines of performance space backed by semi-opaque screens. Characters wear a mix of black and grey period and contemporary costumes, many bearing splashes of brilliant red symbolizing the bloody work being done.

Absent Miller's original lengthy disquisitions, the play offers the story of a community near Salem, Massachusetts, that is caught up in the puritanical purging of suspected witches. A group of young girls, following the lead of a Barbadian slave named Tituba (Nicole Perez), were seen dancing in a field by the resident minister, Rev. Parris (William Paul Brown). As the girls succumb to various mysterious ailments, including catatonia, Parris summons another minister, Rev. Hale (Asaru Buffalo) to lend assistance.

Thus begins an investigation that eventually consumes the community and leads to the arrest of many woman who were accused by the girls of being witches, following the lead of a manipulative fraud named Abigail (Kaeleigh Miller).

When Elizabeth Proctor (Ashley Rose Montondo), the wife of one of the town's most upstanding members, John Proctor (Jason Stokes), is arrested, Proctor's affair with young Abigail is revealed to the audience as is her motive for naming his wife.

The Deputy Governor (Steve Harley) arrives to judge the guilt and innocence of those accused, more panic sets in, homes and farms are emptied by wave upon wave of accusation. Defenses are seen as threats to law and order, and the court is revealed to be an elaborate double-bind where justice cannot be secured for those charged if they don't admit to being guilty.

Miller, who was a truly literary playwright, explored multiple levels of personal and societal truth, his thoughts about faith and duty are profound, and the final scene of John Proctor's "confession" is a pinnacle moment in a work that at its center extols integrity and heroism.

The Crucible is a big work, searing and upsetting in the boldness of its rage, and Trustus' production spares no one, even today's leaders who themselves stoke fear and paranoia to maintain their grip on power.

Hoppers

 

Daniel Chong's animated feature Hoppers is the most fun I've had at the movies in quite a while.

It's the tale of a spirited young environmental crusader named Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) who takes on an ambitious public official (Jon Hamm) to save a beloved beaver pond from highway development. 

Mabel uses an outlandish mind-transferral device -- that is decidedly NOT like Avatar -- created by a university researcher to infiltrate the natural world and recruit animals to return to the spot and thwart the development plan. 

Mabel moves into a convincing robotic beaver suit created by the professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimi), and heads out on her crusade. 

The array of critter characters she encounters in the wild is endlessly delightful, none more so than George, the crowd-pleasing partymaster and king of the mammals (Bobby Moynihan). And the film's serious message about peaceful coexistence is needed in these dismal times.

As with most recent Disney / Pixar productions, Hoppers has something for all ages, but I believe it will resonate best with oldsters who not only get the sight gags, but who recognize what is truly at stake for our present and future survival -- working together.

Elmer Gantry (1960)

A friend's note this morning about a Texas mega-preacher who promoted the war with Iran as a holy testament to the Second Coming got me thinking about Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry (1960).

Brooks may have inserted this opening crawl in the film to appease the film review panel or perhaps his own conscience. Dunno.

The note about the impact on children seems quaint, doesn't it?

"We believe that certain aspects of Revivalism can bear examination—that the conduct of some revivalists makes a mockery of the traditional beliefs and practices of organized Christianity!

"We believe that everyone has a right to worship according to his conscience, but Freedom of Religion is not a license to abuse the faith of the people!

"However, due to the highly controversial nature of this film, we strongly urge you to prevent impressionable children from seeing it!"

I LOVE the posters.

Becket (1964) redux

 

I don't think of Peter Glenville's Becket (1964) as a particularly "religious" film, even though its title character is Roman Catholic prelate and martyr Thomas Becket.

It is, however, a very political movie, which might amount to the same thing these days.

The film, whose screenplay received an Academy Award, recounts the power dynamic between England's Henry II (Peter O'Toole) and his former chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, played by Richard Burton. The king and Becket were once carousing friends.
In the movie, Becket takes on a different posture after agreeing to become the king's man in the church and help him control powerful bishops. Becket is ordained and elevated, rapidly.

Becket's crisis of conscience over the king's desire to control church leaders leads to a rift between the old friends. At one point before his miserable end, Becket is approached by armed men who threaten to arrest him.

Watching from a window, Henry sees Becket warn soldiers that if they lay a hand on him their souls will be damned. The men retreat. Henry smiles and says to himself, "Well-played, Thomas."
The impasse is brief, the battle of wills continues and Henry eventually exclaims, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" It is taken to heart by his guards, who descend upon Becket while he's at mass. Becket's dying words: "Poor Henry."

It is unclear if Becket is speaking spiritually, bemoaning the king's damnation, or is referring to the inevitable war with Holy Mother Church. Henry eventually does public penance for his rashness.

In either case, the picture IS crystal clear that power often rests with those who can make the most compelling argument about the nature of God's will and commands. That might be why the film's script was so celebrated.

We are seeing similar tactics today, in bloody, brutal dispatches and pronouncements about the war in the Middle East. Its defenders are invoking the Almighty. Even as the head of the Roman Catholic Church condemns it repeatedly.

The Hobo

 

This reproduction by vintage Americana artist Jim Daly was a gift from an aunt who bought it for a few coins at a thrift store. She thought I'd like it.

It's battered and water-stained and has been owned and handled.

It's kitsch -- and is in abundance like those Guardian Angel prints from the 1800s -- but I like it, quite a lot.

I like that the hobo is reading a newspaper, and that it's the WSJ and that it costs 15 cents.

I like that he's a financial stumblebum, but he's not bummed out. I like that he's on-the-move, as his suitcase suggests. I like that he's dressed up and giving the day a go.

No, he's probably not reading that day's edition, but it doesn't matter. He's putting something in his head, something that might prove useful.

I like that the drawing speaks to a lot of former journos who believe newspapers were a public good and worked hard at newspapering because folks outside the newsroom valued them, too.

 

The Bride!

 

Maggie Gyllenhaal's feminist-horror shriek, The Bride!, is a cinematic Rorschach that I hope will pull patrons into lively discussions of its many themes.

Jessie Buckley delivers a fully committed performance as the title character -- a revivified murdered moll in the '30s, Ida, who occasionally channels the spirit of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of horror classic Frankenstein. Buckley (celebrated for her bravura performance in Hamnet) struts, spews and contorts as a resurrected discarded woman in search of a "name," which, of course, is the film's marker for "identity."

Joining Buckley at center stage is Christian Bale as a lovelorn suitor, the centuries-old Frankenstein's monster, who comes to Chicago to seek help from Dr. Euphronious, played with gusto by Annette Bening. Euphronious has been conducting her own experiments on animal cadavers. Together, the monster and the doctor unearth Ida's corpse and bring to life this broken but spirited woman who seems indifferent to love -- at first.

Gyllenhaal blends Old Hollywood pastiche with neo-punk stylings, casting her famous brother, Jake, as a Silver Screen song and dance man on whom Frankie, a movie buff, is fixated. Swept up in Tinsel Town romance, Frankie and Ida give dating a whirl but find only rejection and brutality in the clubs they visit. They retaliate, police get involved, and eventually the film turns into an homage to Bonnie and Clyde.

Much of The Bride! is presented with knowing winks and nods about its "shocking" elements. But there is quite a lot to reflect on here -- most pressingly society's visceral, violent response to women who step out of line and dare to say, "I am NOT who you say I am! Who am I?"

 

Broadcast News redux

 

I saw Broadcast News with a buddy as part of a double-feature with Wall Street at the Jefferson Square Theater back in '87.

I've not watched ace provocateur Oliver Stone's Wall Street again since then, but have re-screened James L. Brooks' dramedy numerous times.

Those who know the film will recall that it ends with a mass firing of newsroom personnel from the Washington, D.C., office of a major television network.

Holly Hunter's high-strung / neurotic / perfectionist producer Jane Craig -- just the kind of person news organizations love, BTW -- is retained, as is her pal and confidante, high-utility reporter Aaron Altman (the always brilliant Albert Brooks). Promoted out of the D.C. office to a major slot in London is the pretty and dim Tom Grunick, a small-market sports reporter who finds himself batting 1.000 in the big leagues with the help of the previously mentioned Craig.

How these three cross paths and clash is the substance of this picture, which asks us to pull for the standard-bearers even though they have glaring personal blindspots.

Broadcast News is biting and brilliant and offers more than a little insight into the turbulent '80s, when style was winning over substance -- from Reagan's White House on down. Though Craig is swept up in the flash flood of superficiality, Altman tosses her a line of truth with which she saves herself and her integrity.

She confronts Grunick about his faking tears for a cutaway in an interview, saying he crossed the line of professional ethics. He responds, not ineffectively or untruthfully, "They keep moving that line though, don't they?"

Touche'.

And, sadly, here we are 40 years later. The line is not just moving, it's faded away.

 

War and Man

 

During the opening segment of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, mankind's hominid predecessors are depicted waging battle over a watering hole with screams and flailing arms. The more fearsome -- or more numerous -- win rights to the water. This appears to be a ritual.

The hominids are not the apex predators, however, as leopard attacks show. The victors crouch together in the darkness of their cave dwellings, listening to leopard breaths, waiting for mortal threats to pass.

The hominids are "transformed" one day after the arrival of the mysterious singing monolith that is the physical representation of human evolution in Kubrick's film. After touching its lustrous black side, the previously herbivorous hominids discover, idly, the utility of dry bones.

The scene of the first murder is chilling, as the "monkeymen" scream and flail their arms as they had before but now they also swing femur and tibia as weapons. The startled, unarmed hominid tribe retreats -- either to study war themselves or to be destroyed by others.

And thus it is ever so.

Ready to Rumble?

 

Rumbles in Cackalackey? Well .....

You know that scene near the end of DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) when the Children of Israel are caught worshipping a gold-plated cow? (When the Deliverer's away and all that.)

Moses (a burly and bearded Charlton Heston) arrives with the titular orders from Jehovah, the first being NOT to worship other gods, BTW, and the party stops.

Moses issues an ultimatum -- Choose your side! -- and squares off with the Hebrew turncoat Dathan (a Foxy Edward G. Robinson), who claims Moses is bringing fake news from the top of the mountain and shouldn't be trusted.

Things get tense, and the horde starts scrambling.

Moses, armed with the tablets, trashes the Temu god in a fiery display of righteous indignation. A mighty earthquake opens a chasm, the road to perdition, and the unjust fall in, right after their idol.

It's all pretty spectacular and skunks the other miracles that came before in the picture -- including the Red Sea parting, IMO.

I say all that to say, it's been 70 years so MAGA has had plenty of warning.

Life and Art

 

     

Near the end of Stanley Kubrick's cinematic reshaping of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange (1971), "reformed" teenage degenerate Alex DeLarge is pummeled by the homeless upon whom he used to prey and arrested by two of his former sadistic cronies, Georgie and Dim, who were recruited to be police officers by the new authoritarian government that rules by intimidation and subterfuge and mind-control.

Life and Art?

History written with LYING!

 

D.W. Griffith cast white men in blackface as the lecherous freedmen creeping after the virginal Lillian Gish in Birth of a Nation (1915).

Uber racist and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson loved the movie -- history written with lightning, he said of the film, endorsing the picture as an accurate record of Black predation and Reconstruction corruption, celebrating the "birth" of the robed and hooded Christian Nationalist Klan.

Today, our uber racist and U.S. president and the regime propaganda machine are telling Griffith and Wilson "hold our beers" as they warn of skulking dusky men waiting to rape and rob -- as they do those very things on an unconscionable scale.

"History written with LYING."

Crime 101

Bart Layton's Crime 101 invites the audience into a world of corruption that is not so different from the real world, where even decent people can be compromised if the price is right.

Chris Hemsworth plays Davis, a gentleman thief in L.A. who robs jewel couriers during their deliveries. He's a gentleman because he is measured and methodical and never hurts anybody. He has popped up on the radar of a grizzled detective named Lou (Mark Ruffalo), who feels isolated from the rest of the force, is going through a divorce, and fixated on catching the thief.

Davis works for a big-dog smuggler and trader called Money (Nick Nolte) but falls out of favor with him after a heist goes south. When Davis steps back, Money hires Ormon, a renegade stick-up boy on a motorbike (Barry Keoghan) who is not afraid to break a few heads or lay out a few bodies during a job.

Into the mix comes gig-worker Maya (Monica Barbaro), who runs into Davis, literally, and begins a tenuous relationship, through which the audience learns a bit of crucial backstory of the secretive thief and the reason for his peculiar drive.

A separate storyline involves a high-dollar insurance agent named Sharon (Halle Berry), whose promotion to partner has been put on hold again. A big delivery to one of the firm's wealthy clients (Tate Donovan) offers Davis the kind of payday he needs to quit and the retribution that Sharon needs to heal her wounds.

Layton, who wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Don Winslow, manages to keep all of these threads tightly in hand as he weaves a fascinating story about the price of personal integrity in a world that places no value on it.

Sentimental Value

 

Norwegian writer/ director Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value will remind many of Ingmar Bergman's most touching and introspective films (Cries and Whispers, Persona, Autumn Sonata) as it recounts with brilliant deliberateness the strained relationship between a famous movie director Gustav (that wonderful Stellan Skarsgård) and his daughters, Nora (an amazing Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (an equally affecting Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).

Nora is a stage actress whose bouts of paralyzing anxiety are a symptom of deep, troubling wounds she carries, made even more pronounced by the death of their mother. Agnes, a wife and mother, offers Nora support and champions her work in the theater. Their devotion to one another is luminescent.

When Gustav moves back into the family home, he brings a screenplay he has written and wants Nora to star in. Nora refuses to even read it, saying only that she can't work with her father. His abandonment of the family to make movies planted seeds of resentment in Nora, seeds she has watered the many years he's been absent. Perhaps she fears letting the resentment go. She needs it.

Gustav invites an American actress Rachel (Elle Fanning) to take on the role he offered his daughter, clearly in an attempt to wound Nora and pull her back into the project. This move is indicative of Gustav's Machiavellian tendencies, which themselves are rooted in childhood trauma. He is a master at withholding love and disappointing others.

Trier offers audiences a glimpse at how we fail to uphold both personal and universal truths. Rather, we opt for deception to avoid the pain that honesty often brings.

Sentimental Value is a powerful, thoughtful film that nonetheless might be difficult for some because of its tone and pacing.

The Beatles' Yesterday and Today

 

Old people stuff ...

Sixty years ago, Capitol Records freaked out at the response from radio stations and record stores to The Beatles' Yesterday and Today's infamous "butcher cover" of band members in white smocks and holding pieces of meat and dismembered dolls.

John Lennon said the grisly image was a comment on the Vietnam War. Others said they were also sniping at how Capitol cobbled together American releases from cuts the band had recorded for their UK albums.

Capitol retrieved the record as best it could, and a new cover was shot with Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr posed around a steamer trunk. The record was re-released and has sold millions of copies since the summer of '66.

As one might expect, the original cover is a highly valued collectible, in some cases, selling for more than 30,000 dollars.

Send Help

In Sam Raimi's pitch-black thriller-comedy Send Help, Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien play highly efficient budget analyst Linda and her nepo baby boss Bradley, respectively, who find themselves stranded on an island in the Gulf of Thailand after a plane crash kills everyone else on board.

When we meet Linda, she's a bundle of slatternly social awkwardness, who, nonetheless, had been promised a promotion by the company president before his death and the ascendance of his feckless, frat-daddy son, who gives the job to a golfing buddy.

Linda and Bradley are so brilliant rendered that we feel repelled by both of them for different reasons, reasons that are undoubtedly intensified as the story unfolds. Linda has aspired to "Survivor" notoriety, so she takes on the challenge of keeping the nagging / whining Bradley and herself alive. Linda's amazing fortitude and resourcefulness do not temper Bradley's domineering selfishness -- at first. A campfire heart-to-heart midway through sheds some light, so to speak, on Bradley's narcissism and Linda's neediness.

As the hours and days pass, the animosity ebbs and flows, and to the viewer's delightful surprise, the tables turn and turn again, until the last minutes of the picture when all bets are off on who will be the real "survivor" -- the analyst or the asshole

The Odyssey beef

Christopher Nolan cast Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy for his upcoming epic, The Odyssey.

Some folks are having a ball trashing the choice as inaccurate and not true to the original material etc. Helen was white!

Me thinks this is rage baiting from folks who have too much free time.

Counter-arguments against finding offense in the casting of a mythical character are sensible to me but don't seem to get much traction -- evidence this is all social media chirping.

Nolan's work is routinely visionary, and, IMO, he can do as he pleases because the film will most assuredly be a quality production.

Folks SHOULD be asking why he wasn't able to get the executive to play the part of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who, after entrapping and eating some of Ulysses' men, was outwitted and blinded by a smaller and smarter being and left crying that "Nobody" had hurt him.