“It was the summer of ‘69”, goes the hit
Bryan Adams song. Indeed. The epic moon
landing. Woodstock. But also Nixon, Vietnam, the Manson
murders. Adams was then 9; I was 17 and
already determined to be a nonconformist.
The moon shot may have been driven by Cold War competition, but Apollo
11 was still an astounding feat for the time.
I’m not sure I even knew what a computer was … the idea of a global
internet was science-fiction futurist fantasy. With the comparatively primitive
technology of a half century ago, how did they do it? Getting there, and back.
Growing
up on a working farm, the idea of idyllic summers at the cottage was also
fantasy. I’ve never known cottage life.
So I am grateful for the recent welcome blessing of spending the last
half of July at friends’ cottages—first, Bob’s capacious beachfront place at
Southampton on Lake Huron; then Jim and Carol’s loghouse-style two-story abode
at Nahma Shores on Lake Michigan’s upper peninsula.
It
was at Bob’s on Saturday July 20, the exact 50th anniversary of that
first walk on the moon, that I started reading Oliver Morton’s brilliant book The Moon: A History for the Future. He
writes that “nothing became Neil Armstrong more than the modest and private
life he returned to, leaving only that which he had done for the public.” A new
documentary titled simply Armstrong (https://www.armstrongdoc.com/) has
been released, but I’m still waiting for it to reach Canadian theatres.
***
Catching up on the cinema scene, here
are my takes on eight current movies that include two documentaries, and two
last performances—the late Luke Perry in “Once Upon a Time …”, and Tom Waits in
“The Dead Don’t Die”. RIP, the show must go on.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
(U.S./UK/China 2019 https://www.onceuponatimeinhollywood.movie/synopsis/ )
The 9th film from pop-culture
director Quentin Tarantino actually begins in the Los Angeles of February 1969
before shifting to a fateful August, but isn’t it always summer in sunny
California? The central duo are a fading
star Rick Dalton (Leonardo Di Caprio), late of the series “Bounty Law”, and his
stunt double-driver-fixer with a violent past, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Rick nurses his boozy moods on a fancy estate
in the Hollywood hills next to that of Roman Polanski and blonde bimbo wife
Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Cliff relaxes in a trailer with his dog. While
Rick is enticed to make a spaghetti western in Spain, acquiring an Italian
wife, Cliff makes the acquaintance of a creepy hippie commune hanging out at
the derelict Spahn ranch, a former movie set. There are great cameos by Al
Pacino as a sleazy promoter to get Rick’s career out of the dumps, and Bruce
Dern as an aging addled ranch owner roused by Cliff who has given a ride to
commune member “Pussycat” (Margaret Qualley).
Cult leader “Charlie” Manson actually appears on screen for only the few
seconds that are in the trailer—which has some of the best parts of this sprawling
161-minute affair.
There’s much more as Tarantino, consummate
movie geek, piles on the period details and tropes leading up to a cartoonishly
violent alternate-reality ending (not to forget the closing credits during
which Rick is reduced to shilling for a cigarette brand). In the combustible
mix of decadence and desire, can depravity be far behind? Tarantino basked in a standing ovation at
Cannes 25 years after his Pulp Fiction won
the Palme d’Or. I haven’t been a fan
since his first feature (Reservoir Dogs),
but for all its indulgences, this fable is a blast. A-
The Lion King (U.S.
2019 https://movies.disney.com/the-lion-king-2019)
Despite mediocre to poor reviews, this
vaunted “photorealistic” Disney remake of its 1994 animated feature has already
hauled in over $1billion at the box-office. Director Jon Favreau uses something
called “virtual production” for the life-like effects. The main elements of the storyline and
accompanying musical numbers (“circle of life”, “can you feel the love
tonight”) are familiar. The lordly Musafa rules over the talking animals in the
Pride Lands, served by the chatty hornbill Zazu, while evil mangy uncle Scar
plots with ravenous hyenas to take over the kingdom. Incautious cub and heir
Simba gets blamed for Musafa’s death and banished, to the despair of girl cub
Nala, crossing a desert and growing up with comic sidekicks, the warthog Pumbaa
and lemur Timon. Of course in this circle of return Simba prevails to take his
rightful place atop Pride Rock. Unfortunately the anthropomorphic animal talk ranges
from trite to cornball, crossing landscapes unlike the African savannah, even
if the critters look “real”. C
Marianne & Leonard: Words of
Love
(U.S. 2019 https://www.marianneandleonardwordsoflove.com/)
I’m glad I arrived back in Ottawa in
time to catch the last showing at my neighborhood repertory ByTowne Cinema, the
near sellout a testament to the enduring following of celebrated
poet-songwriter-singer Leonard Cohen. Veteran documentarian Nick Broomfield’s
feature, which premiered at Sundance, is an affectionate, though not
uncritical, look back at the troubled relationship between Cohen and Norwegian
Marianne Ihlen that began in the 1960s on the Greek island of Hydra, then a
bohemian enclave, when she was exiting an unhappy marriage. Broomfield has an intimate connection to the
story as a longtime friend (and briefly lover) of Marianne who may have been among
Cohen’s muses but could never tie down the legendary artist—the moody writer
who surprised himself in becoming a singing sensation and went through more
phases than the moon. They met in the era of drugs and “free love” that was
often an emotional bad trip, especially for the children (including Marianne’s
son Axel). Yet there was a touch of
grace at the end. Interviews with
contemporaries enrich the trove of archival footage. As the songs go, as much as there’s to “laugh
and cry about it all again”, hallelujah for this sensitive and insightful
remembrance. A-
The Farewell (U.S.
2019 https://a24films.com/films/the-farewell)
Another Sundance premiere,
writer-director Lulu Wang’s semi-autobiographical multi-generational
Chinese-language family drama centres on Billi (Awkwafina), a struggling
Chinese-American young woman living in New York who learns that her beloved
grandmother “Nai Nai” (Shuzhen Zhao) has terminal cancer. However the rest of the family maintains the
tradition that this condition should be concealed from the matriarch. And Billi
plays along for the sake of family peace … her travel to Changchun, China to
join family members with Nai Nai put down to a relative’s wedding celebration.
The central performances are terrific as Billi contends with the complications
of sometimes strained family dynamics, while Nai Nai remains irrepressible
through it all. The story may be “based on an actual lie” but it leaves you
with a plausibly life-affirming lift. A-
Maiden (UK
2018 https://www.sonyclassics.com/maiden/)
This documentary by Alex Holmes
celebrates an inspiring voyage of three decades ago when an all-female crew surprised
many naysayers by successfully completing the grueling sailing challenge departing
from Southampton, England, then known as the “Whitbred Round the World
Race”. There was lots of drama even
before their boat “Maiden” left port.
But skipper Tracy Edwards, who had been an unruly problem child, proved
to be indomitable and up to the challenge. The underrated “girls” even won the
dangerous southern ocean section.
Edwards was awarded yachtsman of the year. Holmes combines footage from the perils of
the journey and the commotion it generated with reflections by Edwards and
other crew members looking back on what they proved to the skeptics. This may
not rank with the world-shaking events of 1989, but it’s compelling stuff. B+
Vita and Virginia
(UK/Ireland 2018 https://www.ifcfilms.com/films/vita-virginia)
Director Chanya Button’s period drama
centres on the famed “sapphic” relationship between the writers Virginia Woolf
(Elizabeth Debicki) and Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Atherton), drawing on their
letters and the eponymous stage play by Eileen Atkins. Vita had already had a notorious lesbian
affair when she pursued the elusive high-strung Virginia, much to the
disapproval of high-society matriarch Lady Sackville (Isabella Rossellini) who
also objected to the unconventional morals and politics of the Bloomsbury set. Button
underscores Virginia’s volatile mental state with several magic realist
touches. The scandalous carryings on amid
the luxuries of great houses (the settings are as haute bourgeois as they are
bohemian) seems to have been comparatively indulged by the respective
husbands—Vita’s bisexual Harold, a diplomat, and Virginia’s stoic Leonard, a
publisher—who play minor roles on the sidelines of this stormy passion story in
which Vita became the inspiration for Woolf’s novel of gender fluidity Orlando: A Biography. An
absorbing look before that could speak its name. B+
The Dead Don’t Die (U.S./Sweden
2019 https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-dead-dont-die)
Writer-director Jim Jarmusch has a flair
for the offbeat that’s an acquired taste, including this strange Cannes
competition feature that plays its title as a running favorite theme song by
country singer Sturgill Simpson. In
Centreville USA, “a real nice place”, a pair of deadpan cops (Bill Murray and
Adam Driver), with a third played by Chloë Sevigny, witness a rise of the
undead due to “polar fracking” knocking the earth off its axis. Amid a cast of characters, Jarmusch has fun
inserting a Trumpian effect into this zombie twilight zone under a glowering
moon. Cranky farmer (Steve Buscemi) wears
a red “Make America White Again” hat while accusing a wildman hermit living in
the bush (Tom Waits) of stealing his chickens. Then the metaphorical chickens
come home to roost. Along with “kill the head” advice to deal with flesh-eating
ghouls, Jarmusch throws in the weirder element of a Scottish samourai
sword-wielding mortician (Tilda Swinton) and an alien spaceship. Even a script in-joke can’t put off the dire fate
of messing with the earth’s balance. Time’s up middle America, you’ve been
warned. B
Stuber (U.S.
2019 https://www.foxmovies.com/movies/stuber)
The brilliant comic Kumail Nanjiani
(HBO’s Silicon Valley, The Big Sick) is the only reason I
stooped to see this, and stuck it out.
That and curiosity about what Canadian filmmaker Michael Dowse (best
known for vulgar violence-as-comedy, e.g., Fubar,
Goon) would do with the
material. Unfortunately it’s the latter
that prevails. After an ultra-violent L.A. opening of cops versus drug-dealing gangsters,
in which policeman Vic (Dave Bautista, a tattooed gorilla) loses his female
partner, we meet the hapless“Stu” (Nanjiani), a part-time Uber driver of a leased
electric car. Teased as “Stuber” by a
dumb boss, he’s in unconsummated love with friend and prospective business
partner Becca (Betty Gilpin). This is a sideshow to the main action as the
movie careens from one violently improbably episode to another with Vic as
Stuber’s passenger on an avenging mission to take down the bad guys. That’s
complicated by Vic having trouble seeing due to laser eye surgery, and worse,
his badass blonde female boss (Mira Sorvino) being a “mole” and drug queenpin.
Of course the good prevails with Vic’s sculptor daughter Nicole (Natalie
Morales) coming to the rescue, which leads to Yuletide romance. Yuck. D
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