A QUIET PLACE PART II, AND THE PROBLEM WITH ALIEN INVASIONS

Deus ex machina:

Latin,  English: "god out of the machine".  A plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.

 (There are spoilers for A Quiet Place II and other movies in this post).

It's hard to know exactly when stories about alien invaders attacking earth began; clearly there are ancient carvings and painting showing humans being attacked from above by some sort of creatures, but whether they count as aliens or just mythical beings muddies the waters a bit.  The first real proper alien invasion story is generally considered to be HG Wells's classic eighteen ninety eight novel, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.  All of the usual elements are there: ghastly martians in spaceships, laser beams, terrified humans and so on.  The impact of the novel over the years has been huge, with two movie versions (one in nineteen fifty three, the other in two thousand and five) and innumerable rip offs, homages and parodies (not to mention one very famous radio broadcast from a young Orson Welles).

While Well's novel may have been written before the twentieth century, it really wasn't until the nineteen fifties that Hollywood starting turning out alien invasion movies.  Oh sure, Flash Gordon serials that featured the titular hero battling the alien Ming the Merciless started out in nineteen thirty six, but it really took a cold war to get America to start fearing an invasion.  Yes, just as Godzilla was symbolizing the dangers of nuclear radiation in Japan, alien invaders were standing in for the Russians in the US.  Starting with the nineteen fifty one classic Howard Hawks film THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, each year saw Hollywood churning out films that played on our fears of Russian invasion, with titles like EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS and INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN.  Others, like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and I MARRIED A CREATURE FROM OUTER SPACE showed a fear of not only Russian infiltration, but also the turning of good Americans into godless commies. And even with the cold war cooling, Hollywood kept making alien invasion movies, from Steven Spielberg's version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS to the just released A QUIET PLACE PART II.

The titular creatures from 1957's INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN

While I have enjoyed a number of these movies over the years, there is a central flaw in almost all of them that bugs me: the part where the aliens lose.  Most of the movies follow the same formula: a nice, peaceful day is shattered when aliens arrive and start blasting (or in some cases, munching) people.  The human casualties are terrible, but, just when things look their blackest, one of the humans (usually a scientist) discovers the alien's Achilles heel.  Their weakness exposed, the aliens are defeated and the surviving humans all cheer.  I get that most of these movies play out this way because ending the movie with the aliens winning would be a big bummer, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous*.  Time and time again in these movies we are supposed to believe that an alien race that is far more advanced than ours could lose to the humans by not foreseeing an obvious flaw in their plan.  Wells himself fell prey to this absurd notion by ending his novel with the almost triumphant aliens all dying from exposure to human germs.  And since then aliens have been brought down by things like flashing headlights (INVASION OF THE SAUCER-MEN), a computer virus (INDEPENDENCE DAY) and, in one example of a movie embracing its absurdity, a Slim Whitman song (MARS ATTACKS!).  

Now I understand that I'm not getting into the spirit of these movies, and again, I have enjoyed some of them, but it's still a stumbling block for me; I can only suspend my disbelief so far.  Which brings us to John Krasinski's twenty eighteen film THE QUIET PLACE (which he also wrote and starred in).  Which brought together elements from Ridley Scott's ALIEN (gooey monsters), Corman McCarthy's novel THE ROAD (post apocalyptic scrounging) and the English alien invasion movie,  ATTACK THE BLOCK (toothy flesh eating aliens float down to earth),  Krasinski's film added the clever premise of aliens that hunt entirely by sound, making even the simplest dropped item or misplaced foot a source of fear.  THE QUIET PLACE worked effectively for its first two thirds, with Krasinski and Emily Blunt  making a likable couple  that try vainly to keep their family safe in a very dangerous world.  But once again, I think the movie fails when Krasinski's teenage daughter, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) discovers that the normally indestructible  aliens are made vulnerable by high frequency sounds.  It seems more than a bit absurd that all the great scientists and researchers in the world were unable to find out what one kid armed with a walkman and a hearing aid does!  This gets even more ludicrous the  more you think about it: creatures with super good hearing might be weakened by loud sounds?  You don't say.  At one point we see newspaper headlines that write about the creatures, which means that the invasion didn't happen all at once; so there was enough time for people to report on the aliens, but not enough to discover what would seem to be their most obvious weak spot.

Still, despite my cynicism, I did enjoy THE QUIET PLACE overall, and I actually think that the recently released sequel is even better.  To me the film works well because there is no time wasted on exposition or  character introduction, meaning that it can get right down to the suspenseful scenes of people trying to avoid the aliens.  And I think Krasinski has improved as a director, as in one sequence he effectively cross cuts between different characters in dangerous situations (due credit must also be given to editor Michael P. Shawver) to build to a very exciting climax.  And as for the alien's weakness, well, even if it still bothers me, it doesn't kill my enjoyment of the film.  This time I could suspend my disbelief.

*Of course, not all alien invasion movies end this way, as fans of Philip Kaufman's very good nineteen seventy eight remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS can attest to. 

NOMADLAND (2020)

NOMADLAND (DIR: CHLOE ZHOU)  (SCR: ZHOU, BASED ON THE NONFICTION BOOK NOMADLAND: SURVIVING AMERICA IN THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY)

To me, NOMADLAND was a surprising choice for a Best Picture winner; it's unassuming and soft spoken, its plot is loose, there are no big emotional scenes, it has many moments of stillness, and at times seems downright meditative.  Add to that a main character who is a woman over sixty and you have a film that doesn't seem like the usual Oscar glory material. It's possible that the recent movement to diversify the Oscar voters may have led to more openness to low key independent movies than splashy, big budgeted Hollywood affairs, like Aaron Sorkin's THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (which I thought was going to win). Or maybe the Academy just wanted to embrace a road movie during the pandemic lockdown.  Either way, I  personally don't think that NOMADLAND was the best film of the year, but I do enjoy its lovely images and independent heroine.

 It tells the story of  Fern (Frances McDormand), a sixtyish recent widow who used to work at a now closed factory in Nevada .  At the start of the movie she has decided to sell most of her belongings and live in her van, traveling from place to place to find work.  In her travels she meets other people living the same lifestyle, who teach her some of the ways of life on the road.  After her van breaks down, she doesn't have enough money for repairs, so she goes to visit her sister by bus.  Her sister offers to let her live with her family, but she refuses, borrowing money for her repairs instead.  On the road, she also meets Dave (David Strathairn) a fellow traveler who moves in with his children after becoming a grandfather.  He asks her to stay with him, but she says no and hits the road once again.  

Before it was a movie, it was a non-fiction book called  Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century written by Jessica Bruder and published in twenty seventeen.  The rights to the book were optioned by McDormand herself, and after seeing director Chloe Zhou's twenty seventeen film THE RIDER (another movie about an independent loner), asked her to write and direct it.  For the shooting of the film Zhou and McDormand lived in vans like the characters for four months, and often used real people playing themselves instead of actors.  Shot on a budget of around five million dollars, the film would eventually make six million in worldwide grosses (obviously the pandemic has affected its box office take).

Frances McDormand

To me the most striking thing about NOMADLAND is just how real it feels.  There is no attempt to sugarcoat Fern's life; she is poor and lives out of a small van, she has few possessions, and yes, she has to use a bucket as a toilet.  And yet there is a beauty to her way of life, (like how she proudly shows another traveler how she has found ways to utilize the limited space of her van), and there's a dignity in her willingness to do the  hard work that she needs to do to survive.  I love the way that Zhou's camera moves smoothly through the gorgeous natural landscapes that Fern travels through, and the quiet way it shows Fern appreciating those landscapes while lying naked in a river or hugging a huge tree.  The fact that Fern is alone in these scenes is telling; Zhou's script gives Fern no big speech about her desire to be independent because we can see it in the still moments like these.  Here is a woman who misses her husband but now treasures her independence and time alone.   But even more striking than the natural landscapes are the scenes towards the end of the film when Fern visits the now shuttered factory that she and her late husband used to work in.  There's a striking beauty in the ruins of a once busy, now desolate building. 

While Fern does make some friendships and connections, they are always at a distance.  When Dave tentatively makes romantic gestures towards her, she gently turns him down. McDormand and Strathairn have a real nice chemistry; I really like the way he calmly tells her that he likes her, and the quiet way that she rebuffs him. I also enjoy the way that Dave's attempt to be helpful finds him accidentally breaking some of Fern's plates, one of the few moments of humor in the film.   It's rare and refreshing to see people over sixty portrayed romantically (although they never even hold hands), but   it's also no surprise to the audience that Fern doesn't move in with Dave; her independence has already been established earlier in the film when we see her turn down the chance to adopt a sweet dog (as a dog owner myself, it does bother me that she just leaves the poor pooch leashed to a bench!).  The idea of a person who travels alone across the country, never wanting to settle down, is not new in movies, but such wanderers are usually male characters, and ending the film with a woman refusing to live with a man and taking to the road instead is a nice inversion of the usual cliche'.

McDormand, who is in every scene of the film, won her third Best Actress Oscar for this role, and again I find that a bit surprising given that the character is usually still and almost never raises her voice.  But, to me,  that's the beauty of her performance; when Fern talks about the loss of her husband, she isn't asking for pity, she's just laying out the truth of her life.  When she works at tough jobs across the country, she never complains, even though her face shows the strain of her work.  As I said, McDormand lived in a van for this role (and she also actually worked at some of the jobs shown on screen), and that gives her performance a sense of rightness, a feeling that this isn't just some Hollywood actress slumming.  Her van feels lived in.

If the film has a flaw, it's that to me it does sometimes drags.  Although I've already stated that I admire Zhou's decision to not have big emotions in the film, I do wish that there was more focus to the story.  No, I don't want chase scenes or explosions, but maybe a little more about how Fern and her fellow travelers get by would have been nice.  But my criticisms are mostly mild for what is a very successful film.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

While I think it's clear that I really enjoyed this film, I don't think that it was the best film of the year: I preferred Shaka King's JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH, Lee Isaac Chung's MINARI and, my personal favorite, Emerald Fennell's openly provocative PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN.  Still, NOMADLAND is certainly not a bad choice, and it's great to see Zhao breaking ground as the second woman (and first Asian one) to win Best Director.  

THE PANDEMIC OSCAR SHOW

 So, how was the first (and hopefully last) pandemic Oscar ceremony like?  Not bad, in my opinion.  Placing the show at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and having the attending nominees sit at tables while a DJ (Quest Love, the drummer from the hip hop group The Roots) spun appropriate tracks gave the show a loose, party vibe that was fun.  And not having an official host took the pressure off one person to be constantly entertaining, which worked for me.  I enjoyed the long tracking shot that accompanied the first presenter, Regina King, as she made her way into the station.  And her joke about the recent Chauvin trial's outcome was well made without getting too preachy.

Most of the awards did not come as a surprise: Nomadland was favored to win Best Picture which it did, and its director  (Chloé Zhao)  and lead actress (Francis McDormand) were also favored and also won.  The big surprise was when Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for The Father over the late Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  Personally, I preferred Boseman's performance, but in The Father, Hopkins, one of the most esteemed actors in the world, showed a willingness to play a character who is sad and pathetic, breaking down in a raw and honest way at the end of the film.  (And maybe the fact that many of the Oscar voters are older themselves had something to do with it).  In any event, I am a big fan of Hopkins so I won't say his award was completely underserved.  (At the same time I still think that Delroy Lindo was robbed by not even being nominated in this category for his great performance in Da Five Bloods).

The lack of musical numbers (the songs nominated for Best Original Song were all performed in pre broadcast special) meant that the show could indulge longer speeches from the winners, which is really a lot of what people want to see the most anyway.  And there were a lot of nice moments:  Zhao becoming the first Asian woman (and only the second overall) to win Best Director (for Nomadland) and her thoughtful acceptance speech was great.  As was Yuh-Jung Youn, who won for Best Supporting Actress for Minari, and who joked her way through her speech in a charming manner.  And Tyler Perry, getting a lifetime award, gave a moving and sincere speech; even though his movies are not my cup of tea, his graciousness was appreciated.  

Oh sure, there were a few silly moments in the broadcast as well: an Oscar music trivia contest felt too much like a bar trivia night, and some speeches did go on a bit too long.  To me the worst decision was to announce the Best Picture winner before Best Actor and Actress.  Since the Best Picture award is the one that is remembered the most, and can add enormously to a film's box office success, building up to it seems to be the logical way to do the show.    In any event, ending the show with the Best Actor award really didn't work because when Hopkins won  he didn't appear and no speech was given, causing the show to peter out somewhat pathetically. Still, considering everything going on in the world, this broadcast was a fun break from the stresses of our time.  Obviously I didn't agree with some of the winners (more on that when I post about Nomadland), but that's all part of the show.

THE 2020 NOMINEES: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

 

Even with all the chaos that the coronavirus has wrecked on the world, Hollywood has decided that the (Oscars) show must go on.  Even with so few films playing in theaters and delays in production and whatnot, there were still enough good movies released (or streamed) to qualify.

Many of the choices were not surprising: because Hollywood loves movies about its own history, David Fincher's MANK, about the writer of CITIZEN KANE, got multiple nominations.  And because the Academy is made up of older people, FATHER, a film about an elderly man dealing with dementia, also is up for many awards.  It's also not surprising that Shaka King's critically acclaimed drama JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH and  Aaron Sorkin's THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, were well represented, since both were well acted period pieces about the kind of political upheaval that progressive Academy members can support.  Personally, I think it's good to see nominations for low budget independent productions like NOMADLAND and MINARI, not to mention what is probably my favorite movie of the year, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN.  It's also noteworthy that Emerald Fennell being nominated for Best Director for PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN and Chloe Zhao being nominated in the same category for NOMADLAND  marks the first time that two women have been nominated for Best Director in the same year.  And historical precedent aside, I think they both deserved it. I imagine that both will lose to David Fincher for MANK, given that he's never won before and that it's such a good looking film.

As for disappointments, although  George C. Wolfe's MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM got several acting nominations, I think it was good enough to be up for Best Picture, and I preferred it to MANK and THE SOUND OF METAL.  I also think Regina King's ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI  was also worthy of being up for the Best Picture award.  But to me the big surprise and disappointment was the complete shut out of Spike Lee's DA 5 BLOODS.  Maybe it was uneven and too long, but I much preferred it to most of the Best Picture nominees.  I'm really surprised that Delroy Lindo, who's dynamic performance steals the film, is not even nominated.  Perhaps because it came out to early in the year to be remembered?  In any event, it's a shame.  

The awards show this year will inevitably be a subdued affair, just like the Grammys and the Emmys were, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. (I'm not a big fan of all the glitzy trappings of the show itself).  While it's hard to say what the favorite is, I think that MANK will probably win Best Picture because of the sheer number of nominations it received (ten in all).  Despite the film's occasional historical inaccuracies, the strength of its performances, meticulous production design and stunning black and white cinematography will put it over the top.  But of course, I could be wrong.