By: Henry J. Fromage –
I complete my Oscar sweep this week by reviewing the nominated shorts (is anyone even going to care when the ceremony rolls around in… a month?)
319. Mephisto
This film from Istvan Szabo stars Klaus Maria Brandauer as a German stage actor on the downswing who finds that hitching his wagon, perhaps reluctantly at first, but with growing vigor, to the Nazi party is a good way to achieve the fame that had thus far eluded him. All that’s required in exchange, he begins to find, is his very soul, perhaps embodied in his truly creepy role of Mephisto. A literal Faustian bargain. Two Beers.
320. Samichay
This story of a Peruvian farmer in the altiplano high in the Andes on a quixotic quest to sell his skinny cow to a local landowner struck a real chord with me. Mauricio Franco Tosso does a great job of black & white direction and all of the acting is both naturalistic and affecting, but it’s the small details of living en la Sierra that I quite enjoyed- this very website was born in the Andean Sierra, but that’s a story for another time with Sal & I. Two Beers.
321. Love Fraud
This short documentary series is about several of the he can’t even remember how many wives of Richard Scott Smith tracking his lying ass down with the help of a female Ozark bounty hunter. The chase is interesting if repetitive, and the goal of some of the many women he’s duped reclaiming their agency in pursuing him is laudable, but it’s hard to deny the real draw here is discovering just how far Smith has gone, and the final 15 minute interview with him that exposes a man of self delusions that strain comprehension. Three Beers.
322. The Crown: Seasons 3 & 4
The switch between Claire Foy/Matt Smith/Vanessa Kirby to Olivia Colman/Tobias Menzies/Helena Bonham Carter has also signaled a bit of a change in tone- despite the still serious subject matter the show continues to delve into, there’s a bit more of a comic air to things, particularly in Colman’s winking but never too much performance and Menzies’ surprising ability to keep pace. Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin both heartily deserved their Golden Globe wins as Charles and Diana this year as well- there’s only a single season left, but I do wonder how recent events have the producers thinking… Megan could play herself! Two Beers.
323. Los Angeles Plays Itself
Thom Anderson’s epic documentary is about how his home city of Los Angeles (not L.A., unless you’re an out-of-towner) and its portrayal on the big screen since essentially its inception. He uses excerpts from the films themselves to tell how they’ve often misrepresented the reality of this multicultural, complicated city, or hinted at the darkness that has often run underneath it. Two Beers.
324. WeWork: Or The Making And Breaking Of A $47 Billion Unicorn
This Hulu documentary is very much in the vein of their Fyre Fraud, a spiffily recounted story of a rich New York shyster and the other rich people (and not so rich people, who are always the real losers in these scenarios) that he took for a ride for way longer than should have been possible. In this case it’s piece of shit Adam Neumann and his piece of shit wife who have the right stuff to transform essentially a real estate pyramid scheme with New Age meets Apple branding into a $47 billion dollar valuation propped up by a house of cards that fell the minute they had to tell the truth about anything when trying to move from the private to the public sphere. Hubris meeting reality, of course, never gets old to watch. Three Beers.
325. 2020 Oscar Documentary Shorts
As is often the case, this year’s crop of Oscar-nominated documentary shorts is a catalogue of the world’s problems in 2020, from starving children in Yemen to race relations in the United States to the Hong Kong riots to, yes, Holocaust remembrance. The nicest of the bunch is A Concerto is a Conversation, which is my pick, but it’s hard to say exactly what will resonate with voters. Two Beers.
326. 2020 Oscar Animated Shorts
The lack of Disney theatrical releases this year means the heavy hitters are absent in this race (although Pixar’s spinoff Sparkshorts lab gets their second nomination in a row after Kitbull.) Besides their Burrow, we get a couple of extremely arty picks, a crass Icelandic comedy, and Netflix’s feel-bad entry that will and probably should win, If Anything Happens I Love You. Two Beers.
327. 2020 Oscar Live Action Shorts
This year’s slate of live action shorts is focused on social justice in two places- between different races in the United States, and between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It’s not often that a slate is so unified, and while it’s largely a conventionally told bunch, it’s also a quite effectively realized one- any of these would be a fine winner, but my money’s on Two Distant Strangers. Two Beers.
328. Godzilla vs. Kong
When they first announced it I wondered how the comparatively puny King Kong was going to measure up against The King of the Monsters. Well, it turns out he’s had a hell of a growth spurt, and that’s not the only thing that the producers of this film give zero fucks about making sense or relating to the other films in this series. This movie is about one thing, and one thing only- watching these two big bastards slug each other real good (and one more baddie that I won’t reveal here). And it succeeds admirably at that, if really nothing much else. Four Beers.
329. The Projectionist
Abel Ferrara directs an ode to his friend Nicolas Nicolaou, a New York theater owner originally from Cyprus who has been in the business of independent NYC theaters since immigrating as a young man. In particular they clearly bond over the sleazy 1970s New York cinema scene that produced greats like Ferrara, Scorcese, and many others. It’s a short yet enjoyable hagiography to a different time and a couple of men who’ve navigated a lot of change in the city they both love dearly. Two Beers.
330. Funny Face
With this film, Tim Sutton returns to his beautifully shot, vaguely portentous mood pieces in which violence courses beneath and just out of frame after his dalliance with more explicitly genre films in Donnybrook. This style suits him more, I think, and leads Cosmo Jarvis and Dela Meskienyar do an excellent job of sketching characters and the growing relationship between them largely silently. Perhaps reading this as an ode to the “real New York” lends it a silliness it would’ve otherwise escaped, but strong overall. Three Beers.
331. Pacific Rim 2: Uprising
It’s so clear that this sequel to the successful but not successful enough for Hollywood to bank on another fully original was made for the Chinese audiences who really made it a success. Too bad they didn’t bite enough for one more round, because despite Steven S. DeKnight taking over directing, Guillermo del Toro’s fingerprints are all over this franchise, and this one’s greater focus on the action both give it some slightly unpleasant Transformers vibes in places and still feels like the right decision. Quality popcorn fare that probably should’ve given John Boyega a sci fi action franchise he could really have sunk his teeth into. Three Beers.
332. Beloved
Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s classic novel does about as good a job as one could possibly expect with material that is so bewitching and brutal and beautiful. That is to say, it’s far from perfect and the story can be difficult to follow in its evocative flashbacks and forwards, nightmares and visions. The acting is superb all around- it really is too bad that Oprah doesn’t do this more often than she does, and while Thandiwe Newton (now choosing to go by the original spelling of her name) has the catchier and arguably nigh-impossible to play role, it’s Kimberly Elise who is the heart and soul of the film. Three Beers.
333. Love on a Leash
This looks like it may be another talking Golden Retriever flick like the many littering streaming services, but hoo boy ,this is something special. The talking dog is a misogynist from a past life who was cursed to stay this way until he learns to love properly, and man does he deserve it. This is one of those films where you suspect the filmmaker must be a space alien, a la Tommy Wiseau, Neil Breen, or James Nguyen, and here Fen Tian’s choices compare nicely. My jaw was on the floor for pretty much the entire runtime. Six Pack.
334. Every Breath You Take
This thriller starring Casey Affleck as an inexplicably wealthy psychiatrist who lives somewhere deep in British Washingtonlumbia whose patient commits suicide after his controversial therapy technique that basically amounts to being empathetic and open (and which appeared to have been working). Her brother (Sam Claflin) starts hanging a bit too closely around Affleck’s wife (Michelle Monaghan) and teenage daughter (India Eisley) before going full on bonkers, which is honestly the only interesting thing that happens in the nearly two hours this story covers. This is one of those adult thrillers that we often complain that they don’t make ’em like they used to, but conveniently forget how godawfully mundane most of them were. Five Beers.
335. Shiva Baby
This short, dark comedy is about a rich enough for her parents to pay everything Jewish girl who escorts on the side out of something in between misaimed feminist principles and boredom. She goes straight from one such encounter to a shiva for a deceased person she takes too long to figure out who it is, and enters a gauntlet of expectations, little lies, entangled relationships, and embarrassment that grows into a crescendo of social entrapment that some reviews have (with cause) compared to Aronofsky’s Mother. Simply a masterpiece of the comedy of discomfort. A Toast.
336. Saturday Night Fever
It’s important to know this is supposed to be an ethnographic movie- based on a New York article canvasing the scene of what the kids are doing these days (in the year of our lord 1976). If all you know of the film is Travolta’s freakish-chinned handsomeness and the middle school dance moves that seem to spring from some sort of cultural collective unconsciousness, then that may prepare you for how deeply fucked up this movie is. Travolta and his pals are a bunch of racists and rapists, and I don’t think this is 2021 talking about 1976, either- I can’t imagine anyone meant for these assholes to be role models nor cultural signifiers even if they eventually became so. It’s somewhat stunning how basically nobody remembers this for the truly dark and despairing film it really is, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Three Beers.
337. Tony Manero
Okay, well, Pablo Larrain remembers how dark and despairing a film it was, I suppose, because his film titled after Travolta’s main character is plenty of both. Pinochet’s Chile of this film is a faded and ugly place that aspires to dirty grit and glamour of late 70s New York. Alfredo Castro’s (who also writes) “Tony” is a vulture, an opportunistic criminal with a soullessness that reflects his environment. That makes this an often hard watch, but Saturday Night Fever‘s kind of a brilliant jumping off point for the story it’s trying to tell. Three Beers.
338. The Toll
This short and sweet thriller is about an uber driver (Max Topplin) and his passenger (Jordan Hayes) who get trapped on a dark rural road and discover to get out that they just need to do something simple… pay the Toll Man. Writer/director Michael Nader does a masterful job doling out information and plot turns to keep you guessing as our characters are- perhaps no more so than what the other is really up to. Just terrifically well done. Two Beers.
339. In the Soup
This early (1992) Steven Buscemi-starrer from Alexandre Rockwell is a joy first and foremost to see just who shows up in it- nearly everyone in the cast is somebody you’ll recognize, even if it’s in a “hey, that guy!” or “I definitely know her from somewhere” kind of way. The story itself is a bit of a farce about a pretentious director who finds an almost certainly criminal patron of the arts in a completely unhinged Seymour Cassel. It’s a lot of fun, even if a bit too recognizable in an early 90s quasi-intellectual indie comedy sort of way (let’s just say it’s Sundance win over Reservoir Dogs both makes perfect sense considering, and, well, hasn’t exactly been validated by history). Three Beers.
340. Wandering Girl
HBO has a set of Spanish-language films only subtitled in Spanish, which has an occasional cross-over with the indie and foreign films I hear about in festivals. It’s always a test of just how much my Spanish is deteriorating, but if you have a good handle on the language, this Colombian film is worth your time. Its story of a young girl who meets three adult sisters who she never knew she had until her father dies in an accident. Together they travel the country to bring her to an aunt who can take care of her instead of her possibly ending up a ward of the state. An evocatively told, joyously feminine road movie & coming of age movie that gave me some serious Mustangs vibes. Two Beers.
341. The Oak Room
This is a two setting thriller in which both of the settings are small town taverns in the midst of snowstorms, and there are 7 characters in total, and yet writer Peter Genoway and director Cody Calahan tell a group of interlocking stories efficiently and cleverly in what feels like it could have been a Fargo b-plot. A nice calling card, and it’s good to see R.J. Mitte in a prominent role again (wait til you figure out where you know him from!) Three Beers.
342. The Astrologer
BabyRuth recently let me know this long-lost 1976 masterpiece of hubris, poor skills, and possibly Producers-style financial shenanigans was available on YouTube. Before I go any further, go watch it. Okay now that we’re back, that was a whole lot of movie stuffed into a scant 77 minutes, no? I’ve never seen a director move through this many settings and this much plot as fast, and still somehow tell a coherent, thoroughly insanely wide-ranging story that still has time to make some truly baffling choices. This guy could adapt War and Peace into a tight 90 minutes and not miss a thing. This is what so bad it’s good gold is made of. Six Pack.
343. Barbie and Kendra Save the Tiger King
I frankly have no idea where I spied this title, but it’s the kind of title (and poster) you can’t spy and simply not watch. Turns out Tubi has it, like an impressive array of other shlock, and while this has a horrifically low budget, it’s at least wielded by folks that at least recognize the liberation that provides. Barbie is, well, a Valley Girl-esque Barbie and Kendra is basically Alexis from Schitt’s Creek, and they hatch a plot to spring Joe Exotic from prison, shot in one take and on the cheapest green screen possible. Meanwhile the movie keeps returning to the movie-within-a-movie The Great Catsby about Joe Exotic’s childhood, which is a gloriously dubbed public domain film about a little boy lost in the jungle from maybe the early 60s. Which is the highlight. I’ve sent a worse 72 minutes, but this proudly a… Six Pack.
344. White Bird in a Blizzard
Gregg Araki channels his best Douglas Sirk in is strikingly color-coded 1980s-set drama about a teenager (Shailene Woodley) whose clearly deeply unhappy mother (Eva Green) disappears one day, leaving her alone with her meek father (Christopher Meloni). Araki as always is as interested in teenage sexual awakening as he is in plot details, but he does a good job of both underplaying that plot and underlining it effectively when necessary. The ending is perhaps engineered to be divisive, but you can’t blame Araki for taking the conventional way out, either. Three Beers.
345. Cleopatra
I can’t argue that this isn’t overlong (and to think- nearly an hour of the original cut is still missing even though it’s already over 4 hours), nor that it was clearly an expensive folly (it takes a special kind of film to both be the highest grossing of its year and lose money). Still, every dollar is clearly up there on the screen- Cleopatra’s entrance to Rome has as mind-bogglingly epic and gorgeous an effect on us as she wished to impart on the Roman populace- and the screen is full of a generation of Hollywood’s finest talent. Elizabeth Taylor, too, for all her shenanigans throughout the long production, delivers when it counts- hers may not be the most rewarded Cleopatra, but it’s undeniably the most iconic. Three Beers.
346. Coded Bias
This Netflix documentary from Shalini Kantayya lays out a pretty airtight case that the racism and sexism endemic in society and big business is finding its way into the algorithms that governments worldwide are already turning to in order to govern in extrajudicial and very questionably legal ways. There’s so much frankly frightening about any aspect of this technology, and seeing enthusiastically undemocratic places like China embrace it should be all the warning purported democracies need. Two Beers.
347. Giants Being Lonely
This small indie from a couple of years ago has been sitting on a list of main awaiting the release of all the festival films I read about. It’s not hard to see why – this is an elliptical film about an ultimately more genre-leaning topic than you’d first expect from the simple story of a small-town baseball team and the coach’s kid who can never seem to measure up to his abusive father’s expectations. It’s beautifully produced and the direction it does end up going ultimately makes good sense, though. Three Beers.
348. Lessons of Darkness
This 50-minute Werner Herzog documentary was shot in the aftermath of the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait during the first Gulf War, in which they set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields. Herzog in his typical fashion scores the stunning scenes of apocalyptic destruction with classical music and opera, and his signature Teutonic voiceover ruminating on the meaning of existence. It’s a mood piece, but it establishes that mood masterfully. Two Beers.
