THAT'S NOT CINEMA

"That's not Cinema."


Recently, famed director Martin Scorsese, in an interview promoting his latest film, inflamed the internet by saying about Marvel Movies, “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”  When another famed director, Francis Ford Coppola, echoed Scorsese's comments, he added “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is." ,more uproar and backlash ensued.
Now part of this is an inevitable cycle of any art form, with the older generation (both directors are over seventy) lashing out the new generation in predictable fashion.  And anyone thinking that Scorsese and Coppola are making over the top critical statements should read Frank Capra's 1971 autobiography, in which the creator of films like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE  ranted that"practically all the Hollywood film-making of today is stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators."(!).  In other words, the old have always romantized the art of their formative years and rejected the new.
When Scorsese and Coppola first began making their movies in the late 60's and 70's, most mainstream movies were definitely for adults; the end of the production code in 1968 allowed them and other filmmakers to deal with subject matter that would have been impossible just a few years earlier.  This new artistic freedom resulted in movies that were both grown up and successful (Coppola's THE GODFATHER was not only a critically acclaimed film for adults, it also was the biggest hit  film of 1972). 
But the death knell of the grown up film as big box office came long before the Marvel Movies: when George Lucas's STAR WARS was released in  1977, it showed that if you updated the kiddie serial stories of Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon while adding top flight special effects, kids would not only flock to see them, they would see them again and again, and buy merchandise on top of that.  While hugely successful films had been around since the very start of the medium, no other movie had dominated the box office for so long, or had built such anticipation for its inevitable sequels.  And really, right then, the concept of a series of films as a franchise was born. 
Which brings us to today's Marvel Movies, which show just how much moviemaking has become about spectacle, with  bigger and bigger effect scenes with one over the top battle after another.  I agree with both Scorsese and Coppola  that these movies are repetitive and formulaic, with individual directors subsuming any personal style they may have into a sameness that matches all the other films in the series; lack of individuality is the point.  Now, film series are nothing new (between 1938 and 1950 a stunning 28 movies based on the comic strip Blondie were released!), but between the Marvel Movies and the DC movies, I can't think of a time when the main stream box office was so captured by one kind of film.  Scorsese compares these kinds of films to theme parks, but think of them more like fast food: mass produced variations on the same thing.  Spiderman is to Bat Man as the Big Mac is to the Whopper. 
Now, I'm not naive, I know that movie making is a business, and that these films make boat loads of money both in the US and overseas.     The logic behind them is obvious, with the modern viewing public having so many choices of watching movies in so many formats, giving audiences thrills on a big screen with good sound is one of the best ways to entice them into the theater.  This is also nothing new: back in the 1950's Hollywood responded to the rivalry of TV partly by making bigger and bigger epic movies in Cinemascope, providing images that no TV screen could equal. 
But the difference this time is that Marvel movies, and other blockbusters like them, are squeezing out smaller, more intimate films from screens, pushing them exclusively into art houses or home viewing, making it harder for them to catch an audience at all.  Disney, which owns the Marvel movies, has gobbled up so many theaters with these films and their other (mostly uninspired) big releases that it's hard for rival studios to get a foothold.
So how will this all play out?  Well, for people who care about movies for grown ups, the Oscars are probably more important than ever, with the prestige of nominations and awards bringing attention to movies that would have no chance of being seen by big audiences otherwise.  Really, without the Oscars, Disney could just buy all the multiplexes and only screen their films and few people could tell the difference.

GREEN BOOK (2018)

GREEN BOOK (DIR: PETER FARRELLY) (SCR: NICK VALLELONGA, BRIAN CURRIE AND FARRELLY)

The past year has been a strange one for the Academy of Motion Pictures!  First, back in August, there was an attempt to come up with a new category:  Best Achievement in Popular Film, which was a brazen attempt to expand the audience for the awards broadcast.  When that hit like a lead balloon, the Academy shrugged and shelved the idea for a later date.
Then the nominations came out, and, somehow, surprise hit biopic BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY was among the Best Picture nominations, even though its director, Bryan Singer, was facing multiple charges of sexually exploiting minors.  Also among the Best Picture ranks was the Netflix produced ROMA, which barely qualified due to its brief theatrical run, a decision that angered no less a personage than legendary director Steven Spielberg.  Then comedian Kevin Hart was picked to host the show, but when past homophobic jokes he had made came to light, he was let go and they decided to go without a host.  And then there was an attempt to shorten the broadcast by giving the awards for best editing and cinematography during the commercials, but when some prominent  directors pointed out that cinematography and editing were kinda essential to filmmaking, that idea, too was dropped.
And then there was the eventual Best Picture winner, GREEN BOOK.  Based on the true story of a Southern musical tour by pianist Dr Donald Shirley in the 1960's, it had a  modestly successful box office run in November, and faded into relative obscurity.   But then it was nominated for five Academy  awards.  This was after the family of Dr. Donald Shirley dismissed the film as a "symphony of lies", and after Mahershala Ali, who played Dr. Shirley in the film, publicly apologized for not having met with his surviving family after taking the role.  And of course, despite all of this, it managed to win Best Picture, quickly becoming the most controversial choice since 2004's CRASH.
Is GREEN BOOK really so lousy?  I don't think so, but it's a bland and safe choice for the Academy to make, which may be even worse.  Or sure, it's an amiable enough mismatched buddy comedy, with some funny moments and good chemistry between the stars, but its story is predictable, its feel good attempts at being uplifting are obvious, and it can't help falling into the trap of being yet another movie about race relations in which a noble white person learns a lesson about bigotry by saving a non white person.  The fact that this film would win the top prize from the same Academy that previously awarded far more powerful films about race, like TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, and MOONLIGHT, feels almost like, well,  a country that goes from electing Barack Obama to Donald Trump.

Viggo Mortenson & Mahershala Ali

The film began as a labor of love for writer director and actor Nick Vallelonga, who heard stories about the relationship between his father Tony and Dr Shirley and thought it would make a good film.  He interviewed family members that remembered the relationship, and listened to some old interviews with Dr Shirley and then co wrote a script with Brian Currie.  Peter Farrelly, mostly know for gross out comedies like THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and DUMB & DUMBER, was picked to direct the film (he also got a screenwriting credit).  A bit surprisingly, non Italian actor Viggo Mortensen was chosen to play the lead role of Tony, while Mahershala Ali was cast as Dr Shirley. The film was coproduced by Dream Works Pictures and Participant Media and released by Universal on a budget of around twenty five million dollars.  Although it did underwhelming box office at first, thanks to its Oscar win, it has grossed about eighty three million dollars in the US.
Set in the 1960's, it's plot tells the story of hefty sized New York night club bouncer Tony the Lip, who, in between his usual jobs, takes an unlikely position as a driver for renowned  African American pianist Dr Donald Shirley as he tours the Southern part of the country.  The two get to know each other and bond as they encounter the harsh, sometimes violent racism of the South at that time, and Dr Shirley introduces Tony to the Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans traveling in the South looking for safe places to stay and eat.  By the end of the film they become friends, with Dr Shirley visiting Tony's family during  Christmas dinner.

Putting  all the controversies about this film aside, it's simply at heart a mismatched interracial buddy comedy with  the usual racial stereotypes flipped (it's Dr Shirley who teaches Tony about proper diction, while Tony teaches him about Aretha Franklin and Little Richard).  Oh sure, there are some tense moments when racial tensions in the South could lead to possible violence for our heroes, but there's never any sense of real peril.  We know that they'll be fine by the movie's ending, leaving even the ugliest scenes of possible danger essentially bloodless.  It really is surprising to me that this film not only won Best Picture, but also Best Original Screenplay, considering it's predictable choices and easy formula of putting the characters in trouble and getting them out, and that it ends with that most hackneyed  of cliches, the big Christmas dinner.  Hardly an original idea! Also, a subplot about Tony considering a job with some local gangsters goes nowhere and plays up to the notion that you can't make a film about Italian Americans without some kind of reference to the mob.  And then there's the infamous fried chicken scene, in which Tony buys some chicken in Kentucky and practically forces Dr Shirley to eat some, even though he's never had it before; it really is ridiculous to believe that  Dr Shirley not only had never tried fried chicken before, but also has to be taught how to eat it!  The fact that he holds the chicken like it's some kind of foreign object adds to the absurdity.  (And it also feels like a commercial for the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, with the logo prominently displayed).


And if the script is underwhelming, so is Farelly's direction.  Oh sure, he and cinematographer Sean Porter give the movie a pleasant enough glow (standard issue for Hollywood period pieces), and there's some nice scenery, but there are few if any memorable images or striking camera movements.  It's a pretty workmanlike job.  Not too surprising given that his previous film was the sequel to DUMB AND DUMBER!
I've already said that I enjoy the chemistry between the two leads, and that really is the film's saving grace: Viggo Mortensen gained forty pounds to play Tony, and while at times he seems to be over doing the Italian stereotypes, he does express the more tender side of his character and makes him feel  real.  Mahershala Ali won a Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of Dr Shirley, and he is the best thing in the film.  From his clipped, perfect elocution that turns into dry sarcasm when he ridicules Tony, to his sad, withdrawn loneliness and coiled anger when confronted with racism.  And I won't deny that, other than the aforementioned chicken scene, I really do enjoy all the moments of Ali and Mortensen playing off each other, and I particularly like the way that Dr Shirley helps Tony write letters back home to his wife Delores.  And Linda Cardellini as Dolores is also good, bringing a nice warmth and likability to every moment she's in. 
And finally, it must be mentioned just how much this movie resembles 1989's Best Picture winner DRIVING MS DAISY, which was also a period piece about a mismatched racial relationship that involved lots of driving.   And while I think GREEN BOOK is marginally better than that film, it does seem kind of pathetic that the Academy would pick such similar films, with the implication that somehow we've progressed because now it's the white person driving around the black person!

Look Familiar?

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

I think my misgivings about this film are pretty obvious.  My personal favorite film of the year was Barry Jenkins's gorgeous James Baldwin adaptation IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, which,  sadly, was not even nominated.  But I also preferred Spike Lee's BLACK KKKLANSMAN, Alfonso Cuarón's ROMA, and Bradley Cooper's A STAR IS BORN.

THE 2019 NOMINATIONS: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The 2019 nominations Academy Award nominations have just been announced, and my first impression is that the Best Picture race is a diverse mix, from big budget crowd pleasers like BLACK PANTHER (the first super hero movie to garner a Best Picture nomination)  and A STAR IS BORN, to lesser known films like THE FAVORITE and ROMA.  While I don't dislike any films in the list, I'm quite disappointed at the omission of Barry Jenkins's wonderful IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, which is up for Best Adapted Screenplay (Jenkins), Best Original Soundtrack (Nicholas Britell) and Best Supporting Actress (Regina King).  I suppose the Academy felt that Jenkins already had his moment when his equally great MOONLIGHT won Best Picture two years ago, but I prefer IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK to every other film on the list.  I'm also disappointed that Marielle Heller's wildly entertaining CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? isn't up.  Plus I think Wes Anderson's marvelous animated film ISLE OF DOGS was good enough to win a Best Picture nomination along with its inevitable nomination for Best Animated Film.   And while it came out early in the year, and was a low budget film, I wish that Bo Burham's EIGHTH GRADE were up for something, just for its painfully realistic view of adolescence!
The Academy also embraced controversy in some of its Best Picture choices, with both Adam McKay's Dick Cheney skewering (and highly divisive)  VICE  and Spike Lee's Trump bashing BLACK KKKLANSMAN both defiantly nominated in the face of a conservative president.  Controversial for another reason is Peter Farrelly's GREEN BOOK, a pleasant if predictable movie that, while based on a true story, has had its veracity attacked by family members of the real life character Dr. Don Shirley played by Mahershala Ali in the film.   And then there's the surprise hit BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, which has somehow wound up on the list despite the fact that director Bryan Singer has been accused of multiple sexual assault charges, and also reportedly had to be replaced during filming.  This will probably prevent the film from winning.

Even though I'm disappointed about the IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK snub, I'm still glad to see Yorgos Lanthimos's oddball costume drama THE FAVORITE up, which I thought would be too weird for the Academy to honor.   But I can't imagine that it will win.  Which brings us to what is the most likely winner:  Bradley Cooper's  A STAR IS BORN (which has eight nominations altogether). It looks like a strong contender partly because of Lady Gaga's surprisingly strong dramatic performance, and partly because her costar  Cooper also did a good job in his directoral debut.  Add to that the fact that the film's tragic plot is one that has resonated for decades (this is the fourth official version of this story!) and that the film is a popular hit with a strong soundtrack, and I think its chances are good to win the big award.  But then I thought the same thing about LA LA LAND two years ago, so what do I know?

ACHIEVEMENTS IN POPULAR FILM? SAY WHAT?

Last Wednesday, the Motion Picture Academy released a press briefing concerning some upcoming changes in their organization: first, Oscar telecasts would be held to a three hour time limit, with some awards being given during commercials with a highlight reel of those awards to be shown later in the broadcast.  This makes perfect sense: ratings for the show have been in decline for years, with many viewers complaining about the show's often four plus hour length.  And let's face it, many of the awards are given to people who worked on films that the vast majority of the viewing audience have never seen or heard of (like Best Live Action Short Subject), or for technical things that are difficult to understand (there are two separate awards for sound editing and sound mixing!).    While the people who worked on those films should win awards, cutting down the broadcast time given to their wins  should make the show more entertaining and accessible.
The second part of the press release is far more interesting, and potentially controversial.  A new award for “outstanding achievement in popular film” has now been announced, with details to be forthcoming. It would appear that this is an attempt to broaden the show's audience by giving a major award to a block buster.  In other words, the Academy is  trying to make a people's choice award, one that reflects the tastes of the main stream movie going public more than the supposedly elevated tastes of the Academy members.  This is not the first time that the Academy has made this kind of move: in 2009, when the box office hit THE DARK KNIGHT did not get nominated for Best Picture, the Academy expanded its Best Picture Nominees from five films to ten, making room for more hit movies.  This led to films like 2015's MAD MAX:FURY ROAD getting a Best Picture nomination, something that probably never would have happened if the nominees had been held to five.  Apparently, even that move wasn't seen as enough to placate the rabid fan boys who flock to the latest special effect explosion movies, and who feel disrespected by the Oscars.
But is this just pandering?  By implying that big money making movies are somehow in a different category than the ones that are usually nominated, they almost seem to be lowering popular films, saying that they are only worthy of winning in  a separate  category (although a film could be nominated for both an Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film award and Best Picture, like when Toy Story 3 was nominated for Best Animated Film and Best Picture).
Once upon a time, popular films were almost always at least nominated for Best Picture, but in recent years, mainstream Hollywood movies have mostly gotten louder and dumber.   Playing to the lowest common denominator, giving that all important young male demographic just what they want, while keeping stories simple to appeal to the ever growing world wide audience, has become Hollywood's stock in trade for some time now, and, to be fair, they have reaped enormous financial rewards from doing that.  But should that cynical, sequel and reboot driven style that turns the cinematic art form into the equivalent of Big Macs, really be given an award for artistic achievement?  Aren't the technical awards for things like special effects, editing and production design enough?  (Really, when you get down to it, it's those technical people behind the scenes who create those special effects that do the real work for so many blockbuster movies, as the screen writers cough up cliches and the actors stand in front of green screens).  
As an avid moviegoer who mostly avoids mainstream Hollywood films until the "Oscar bait" movies start getting released late in the year, I don't like the idea of this new award; let the popular films make money and the "good" ones win awards.  At the same time, I understand why the Academy chose to do this; generally speaking, when more popular movies are nominated, more people watch; they can point to high ratings for the  years when TITANIC,  THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING and AVATAR were nominated.  But it's been nine years since that AVATAR broadcast, and the viewing habits of the American public has changed.   This new award may do little to end what is a growing trend for most TV viewers, who prefer streaming formats that allow for more flexibility in their viewing habits.  (The fact that the Super Bowl and the Grammys have also seen their ratings drop in recent years reflects this.)   Sure, there's something exciting in watching events unfold live, but a lot of people would just rather watch the best parts on You Tube afterwards so they don't have to wade through the endless commercials and dull parts.  Adding a new award will probably not buck this trend, and in the long run, I think it cheapens the Academy by forcing it to reward things like super hero movies and inane comedies. 

A DISTURBING TREND

(There are spoilers for the movie HEREDITARY here, you've been warned)

The low budget horror film HEREDITARY, written and directed by Ari Aster opened just last weekend and got a decidedly mixed reception: while critics highly praised the film (it rates an impressive 92% on the Tomato meter) audiences surveyed on the way out gave it a lowly D+ grade.  As someone who is sick of super hero movies and loves independent movies, whenever critics and the general public disagree, I'm usually with the critics, but not this time!  Putting it bluntly, I actively hated this film and almost walked out on it in the first half hour.  Now understand, I not someone who can't stand horror movies,  (I loved GET OUT from last year, and THE BABADOOK from 2014), no,  my problem with HEREDITARY stems  from one of the most difficult things to portray on a movie screen: violence against children.

Stories for children, have, of course, often featured children in dangerous situations in which they are threatened by evil adults, from THE WIZARD OF OZ to HARRY POTTER, but these stories have inevitable happy endings and are light hearted in tone despite the moments of danger.  And more serious, realistic examples of children being threatened can work when handled in the right way, as in the powerful scene in SCHINDLER'S LIST in which children hide in out houses to avoid being sent to a death camp.  No, what bothers me are recent  films like HEREDITARY that are made for adults and that consciously seem to be pushing the audience's tolerance level by amping up the violence against children.  Last year,  Darren Aronofsky's fever dream film MOTHER (which I had some admiration for) ended with a baby being eaten.  Another film, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, (which I also hated), showed two young children slowly wasting away from a hideous curse that eventually makes blood pour from their eyes.  

That brings us to HEREDITARY, in which, in a harrowing scene, a 13 year old girl suffering from an allergic reaction, sticks her head out of a careening car window and is literally decapitated.  The moment itself is over briefly, but in the aftermath, director Aster chooses to show a long, realistic, lingering shot of her severed head on the road, being eaten by ants. Why did he choose to do this?   That shot has no purpose in the plot, making its repulsiveness completely unnecessary. It's a terrible choice, in my opinion, and even though it lasts a few short seconds, it  casts a pall over the rest of the film. (In case you were wondering, this was the moment that almost made me walk out). 

Any time a director decides to put an image like that in my head, the movie needs to justify it, and this film falls far short of that in my opinion: although it starts out like a serious family drama, HEREDITARY eventually degenerates into a standard issue ghost/possession story with the usual scenes of people having crazy nightmares, stumbling into dark spooky rooms and choosing to do things that defy logic.  Sure, there are some good performances and well shot scenes, but nothing that compensates for that horrific image.  

There's been a lot of praise for the performance of Toni Collette as the long suffering mom in the film, and while I think she is very good, digging into big emotional moments with a ragged intensity,  it's a better performance than the film deserves.  In fact, the raw emotion she  brings to the dramatic parts of the film wind up seeming silly when contrasted with her character  doing things like floating in the air and speaking in a possessed voice.  In a serious dramatic film, her realistic performance would work perfectly, but here it just winds up seeming ridiculous.

I've already mentioned that I loved Jennifer Kent's THE BABADOOK, which was also about malevolent spirits and possession, and also had a child put in danger.  But in that film, the endangered child was  central to the plot, and Kent handled it effectively and tastefully.  And as for the aforementioned baby eating scene in Aranofsky's MOTHER,  that film had become so completely surreal and metaphorical at that point in the film, that the baby eating seemed like an inevitable part of the story. You see, it's not the threatening of children that I necessary object to, it's the context in which it is handled in the film, and I think Aster handled it terribly here.  There really is no context for me that justifies seeing a young girl's severed head being eaten by ants!

THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017)

When Guillermo del Toro's THE SHAPE OF WATER won the Best Picture award for 2017, it was not a big surprise; del Toro's movie had been nominated for a whopping 13 awards, and had already won 3 (for del Toro's direction, its production design and its score).  On the other hand, there had never been a science fiction film that won Best Picture before (somewhat amazingly, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY was not even nominated for Best Picture!), and there was quite a bit of buzz about some of the other films nominated, like 3 BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI and GET OUT.  Still, the Academy resisted having another upset like they had had the year before when MOONLIGHT defeated LA LA LAND, and they awarded the expected winner this time.  Personally, while I find del Toro's film undeniably lovely to look out and well acted, I think it falls short of greatness, especially in its predictable screenplay.

In 1954's cult monster film classic THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, there's a striking moment when the film's lovely leading lady goes for a swim in the Amazon waters, and the film's titular creature (also known as the gill man) starts to swim below her.  But instead of attacking her, it follows her motions beneath her, without her knowing, copying her, clearly carrying out a sort of mating dance.  Up until then, the creature had only been shown as a fearsome beast, but in that moment, its awkward desire made it seem almost likable.  For a lot of adolescent boys just discovering girls but feeling too, well, monstrous, to act on their desires, it hit home.  One of those adolescent boys was Guillermo del Toro, who was a horror movie obsessed, monster loving kid, that would go on turn those childhood obsessions into movies.  Beginning with his first feature film, 1993's interesting vampire reimagining CRONOS to THE SHAPE OF WATER, every film he's directed has some kind of monster or ghost running through it.  He says he first got the idea for THE SHAPE OF WATER while talking to writer David Kraus in 2011, and he also considered directing a straight up remake of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON for Universal (allegedly, the studio passed on his pitch for the film when he wanted to end it with the gill man and the female lead ending up together!).  Del Toro eventually wrote the film as a love story, and immediately wanted English actress Sally Hawkins (who had been so likable in 2008's Mike Leigh film HAPPY GO LUCKY) to play the lead.  Octavia Spencer, Micheal Shannon and Richard Jenkins, excellent actors all, were cast in supporting roles.  Del Toro finished the script with help from TV writer Vanessa Taylor and shot the film for a relatively low twenty million dollar budget in 2016.  Powered by word of mouth as much as Oscar nominations, the film would eventually gross around one hundred and ninety million dollars, making it one of the most financially successful Best Picture winners in recent years.

Set in Baltimore in 1962, it tells the story of Eliza (Hawkins), a mute, orphaned cleaning woman, who lives in a modest apartment building in which she has befriended her lonely, gay, recovering alcoholic neighbor Giles (Jenkins).  At work, she and her friend  Zelda (Spencer) are cleaning out a government lab in which a scaled, man sized fish creature has been housed by security manager Richard (Shannon).  Eliza finds herself drawn to the creature, despite the fact that it has bitten off two of Richard's fingers.  She starts to feed it, play music for it, and teach it sign language.  When she discovers that Richard plans to kill and dissect the creature, she sneaks him into her apartment with the reluctant help of Zelda and Giles.  Slowly, she finds herself falling in love with the creature, and they began to have an unusual sex life. Giles also finds himself drawn to the creature and he discovers that the creature has magical healing powers. Meanwhile, Richard, enraged at the creature's disappearance, eventually tracks him down on the same night that Eliza plans to release it into the sea.  Before she can, Richard shoots both her and the creature, but the creature resurrects himself and kills Richard.  Then he carries Eliza off into the water, both healing her and giving her the ability to breath under water.  The two of them swim off together.
From it's lovely opening tracking shot that glides through a water flooded apartment and ends on Eliza, reclining in the water like sleeping beauty, while Jenkins's narrator character on the soundtrack refers to her as "a princess without a voice", de Toro establishes that this story is a modern, adult fairy tale, and throughout the film cinematographer Dan Lausten and production designer Paul D. Austerberry give the film a surreal green tinged look (even the food and the cars are green) while still realistically recreating Baltimore in the 1960's.  And that fairy tale quality is extended in both Alexandre Desplat's excellent score and the use of old jazz tunes on the soundtrack, which contrast with the odd squacking noises that the creature makes.  (Pat Friday singing "I know why" has never sounded so haunting!)  I love the slightly crazy scene in which Eliza imagines herself singing in an old black and white Astaire-Rogers style musical with the creature making an unlikely dance partner.  Since those movies were themselves often like fairy tales, it doesn't seem out of place and keeps with the overall tone of the film while giving de Toro a chance to put in an unexpected homage to old Hollywood.

However, playing out like a fairy tale makes the plot  too simple at times for my taste; this is a film where I could guess almost every beat of the story from just having seen the preview beforehand.  From Eliza bonding with the creature and sneaking it  out, to the killing of the evil Richard at the end before the inevitable happy ending, there are no plot twists in this film that could be called surprising (although I must admit that I did not foresee an actual Communist spy being part of the story, but I also found that subplot pointless).  Along with being a like a fairy tale, the movie also resembles a number of films that came out back in the 1980's (like ET, SPLASH and STAR MAN), in which innocent alien or magical creatures were threatened with horrible government experiments; at times I couldn't help but feel that I've seen this story before, right down to the creature's magic healing powers and resurrection abilities that resemble ET's.  There are also questions of plausibility in the story, with a human sized fish creature somehow getting around a crowded city without anyone noticing (he even takes a trip to a movie theater!).  Even fairy tales have to make sense.  And I would have like to know a little bit more about the creature, especially regarding whether there are any more like it out there. 
Still, this film is certainly never boring to look out, and that's especially true of the magnificent job done by the effect and makeup crew on the creature, turning the old gill man from THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON into a modern marvel.  Del Toro has said designing him was one of the most difficult things he's worked on in all of his years of film making, and it shows.  It's a monster that can be both frightening and beautiful, threatening or pathetic.  And clearly they learned one of the important lessons of ET: audiences will care for an alien creature as long as it has big, soulful eyes.  Also, credit must be given to Doug Jones, the man in the suit, who has been working with de Toro since 1997's MIMIC; his years of playing monsters and training as a mime  pay off in the way that the creature's thoughts are often conveyed with a simple gesture or turn of the head. For a monster performance, it's often subtle.

As for the other performances, most of them are very good.  In Eliza, Giles and Zelda, we get a trio of lovable misfits, the kind of people who weren't always welcome in the era of the early 60's as the film often makes clear.  Sally Hawkins as Eliza is extremely endearing; with her simple beauty and broad, expressive eyes, she doesn't need to talk to carry the film; from the early moment when we see her kindly bringing breakfast to her neighbor Giles, to the way she taps her feet on the floor as she walks down the hall, mimicking the tap dance routine she just saw on TV, we're completely on her side.  One intriguing question arises concerning her character:  we hear that she was found alone and abandoned in the water as a baby, and she has a scar on her neck that resembles a fish's gill.  Therefore, one has to wonder,  is she herself half fish creature and half human?  That would explain why she's almost immediately drawn to the creature, even after she knows that it bit a man's fingers off.  The movie never says she is, but it's an interesting idea  Richard Jenkins as Giles is also very good as an unhappily closeted gay man;  I love the  wistful nature he has when he finds himself confessing to the creature that he feels alone too, and he's also often funny (at one point he asks of the creature "Now, is he a god? I dunno if he's a god. I mean he ate a cat, so I don't know!").  Octavia Spencer as Zelda is fine, but she really doesn't have a lot to do in the standard role of the African American faithful friend to the main character type.  Still, I do enjoy her reaction in the scene in which Eliza mimes out exactly how she and creature can have sex!
And then there's Micheal Shannon as the vile Richard; with his tall frame and harsh features, Shannon is usually typecast as a villain, so his casting here is no surprise.  But the script gives him no dimension whatsoever, he's just a sneering, leering horrid person in every scene; even when he's at home with his family or buying a new car he seems creepy.  Even worse,  I find his one note performance more and more grating as the film goes on and he gets more and more despicable. (There's even a scene involving him torturing someone for information; it's ugly and unnecessary, and I wish Hollywood would get over the need for such scenes in movies and TV shows)  I understand that fairy tales always have wicked characters, but it wouldn't have hurt to have given him a few moments of sympathy.  While I have enjoyed Shannon in other roles over the years, the best thing that I can say about this one is that he's not quite on screen enough to ruin the film, but he definitely damages it, in my opinion.

SO DID THE ACADEMY GET IT RIGHT?

I think it's clear that I admire this film without loving it (it's not even my favorite Del Toro film, I enjoyed 1996's PAN'S LABYRINTH more).  I think that nominated films like Jordan Peele's GET OUT and  Martin McDonagh's THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI  were better, and films that weren't nominated like Dee Rees's excellent post war drama MUDBOUND,  Craig Gillespie's deliriously entertaining I TONYA and Lee Unkrich's and Adrian Molina's delightful COCO were also superior.  Still, De Toro is a likable Hollywood personality who's been making (mostly) good films for 20 years, so I'm not exactly upset about the Academy's choice.

THE 2017 NOMINEES, FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The nominees for the Academy Awards for 2017 have just been announced, and there aren't a lot of surprises, the films that are up are mostly ones that have done well at The Golden Globes and won other awards.  Still, I personally did not expect that the leader in the number of nominations would be Guilllermo De Toro's THE SHAPE OF WATER, with thirteen nominations.  Could this oddball romance become the first science fiction movie to win Best Picture?  We'll see.  I certainly am amused by the fact that a modern Oscar nominated film could be so heavily influenced by the 1954 B-movie THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON!
The controversial 3 BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI  is also up for an impressive seven awards, and while I imagine that the wonderful Frances McDormand will almost definitely win for Best Actress, I doubt the Academy will want to give a Best Picture award to a film that has inspired some pretty angry backlash about its racial politics.  Personally, I think one of the two World War 2 set prestige movies  (they would be DARKEST HOUR and DUNKIRK) have the best chances of winning, because one should never bet against any movie that bashes Nazis.  At the same time, Stephen Spielberg's THE POST is a film about the power of the press, and with the nation lead by a president who has referred to the non conservative news media as "enemies of the people", it might be a good way for the mostly progressive Academy to stick a finger in his eye.  Still, the fact that the film has only one other nomination (Meryl Streep is up for Best Actress, as usual) shows that there probably isn't much support for the film overall. The rest of the Best Picture nominees probably have little chance:  PT Anderson's PHANTOM THREAD is probably to strange for the Academy, despite another great performance by Best Actor nominee Daniel Day Lewis.  CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the gay romance, is probably too arty for the Academy, while horror satire GET OUT is too dark.  And Greta Gerwig's LADYBIRD is a low budget, realistic look at a complicated relationship between a teenage girl and her mother, hardly the kind of movie that wins Best Picture, although I'm glad to see that Gerwig is up for Best Director. 
As for the films left out, I personally loved Craig Gillespie's I,TONYA, and I think it should have been nominated for Best Picture, but at least it got acting nominees for it's two female leads, (Margot Robbie and Allison Janey) so there's that.  I also would have liked to see Micheal Showalter's highly entertaining romantic comedy THE BIG SICK get a Best Picture nominee, but its great screenplay is up, so again, that's something.  Overall, this a good, interesting mix of films that spreads love to both big budget films and low budget indies.  So what will win?  Well, despite it's 13 nominations, I think THE SHAPE OF WATER will mostly win technical awards, and with 3 BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI being too hot right now, I'm thinking that DARKEST HOUR (which has 5 other nominations besides  Best Picture) has a good chance, seeing as how it's in similar territory as 2010's winner THE KING'S SPEECH.  But of course, I thought LA LA LAND was going to win last year, so what do I know?

THE FALL OF HARVEY WEINSTEIN

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted on Saturday to oust Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.  It was just the latest indignity suffered by the man who had been one of moviedom's most powerful producers.  More importantly, he has  also been pushed out of his position as head of  his company, because of multiple charges that have been made of him  sexually harassing women in the industry for years.  Some of those charges extend to outright rape.  The Academy moved fast to protect its image; the story of the charges against Weinstein had only broken ten days earlier.
While being thrown out of the Academy is mostly just a symbolic gesture, it does show the changing attitude towards the harassment of women in Hollywood that is slowly taking place.  No better illustration of that can be seen than the fact that director Roman Polanski was allowed to remain in the Academy even after he pled guilty to having sex with a minor in 1974 and fled the US.  Even more amazing, Polanski won an Oscar for directing THE PIANIST in 2002!  I think it's safe to say that Weinstein will not be winning anymore awards.
Weinstein often held himself as an old style Hollywood producer, who was powerful, tough and demanding, but also one who could make quality films that won multiple awards.  (And ironically, were often aimed at female audiences).  Sadly, his sexual behavior also marks him as an old style movie mogul; a recent article in Slate magazine pointed out that the term "casting couch" was first used in Variety magazine way back in 1937. The stereotype of the lecherous producer exists for a reason: Harry Cohn, for example, was head of Columbia Pictures from 1920 up until the fifties, and he was legendary for demanding sexual favors from aspiring starlets.  The sad fact of the matter is that in Hollywood you have a continuing story of pretty young women dreaming of fame and powerful men who can make those dreams come true, but only if they get something in return.  Sexual harassment in that situation is almost inevitable; the good news is that now men like Weinstein will be called out for it (although it took far too long for him to fall, given that rumors about him have floated around for years), and with more and more women calling the shots at studios, things will hopefully improve.
And then let's not forget the Trump factor: although conservative media is trying to hype Weinstein's fall as an attack on liberal Hollywood, it should be pointed out that Weinstein's behavior is very similar to what Trump himself has been accused of by no less than twelve women, which didn't stop the Republican party from making him their nominee.  Let's face it, sexual predators exist on both sides of the political fence, as recent high profile resignations for similar charges from conservatives Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes prove.  The good news is that something that was once shrugged off as "men being men" has now become unacceptable in the workplace, and as more and more women reach positions of power in more and more fields of business, men will have to learn to adjust or get out.  If anything good has come from the election of Trump, it's that women, shocked at the victory of a man caught bragging about sexual assault, are standing up and going public about such deplorable behavior more and more.  In other words, Weinstein won't be the first Hollywood mogul to be called out.  You can count on it.

ONE MOTHER! OF A MOVIE

While I normally only write about Oscar related movie news on this site, I feel that I need to write about Darren Aronofsky's MOTHER!, because watching it was such an overwhelming and draining experience that I feel I need a place to process it.  And I'll be spilling spoilers because I don't know how the hell else to talk about it!
As of this writing, MOTHER! is tanking at the box office and there's little chance that it will ever earn a profit, even though it's budget is a modest (by Hollywood standards) thirty million dollars.  Not even three well known stars (Ed Harris, Michelle Pefiffer and Javier Bardem) and one big star (Jennifer Lawrence) can expand it's audience.  Even more amazing, it has the rare distinction of being one of only ten films to get an "F" rating from audience polls.  Critics, on the other hand, have been kinder, giving it a healthy 67% on the Tomatometer.
One thing is certain, MOTHER! is one crazy, intense movie that starts off like an queasy thriller and then takes a left turn into the openly surreal, and highly symbolic, until visual metaphor overwhelms the screen.  The last half hour of the film can not be taken literally in any way, with one wild and disturbing image following another, their meaning often obscure and vague. Eventually, any kind of conventional linear plotting is almost completely abandoned, until the film ends with one last ambiguous image.  None of this is anything the average American moviegoer is interested in; pointing that Aronofsky was clearly influenced by Spanish director Luis Bunuel is not going to move a country mostly bored by foreign films!  The ad campaign for the film clearly played down the surreal nature of the film's ending and made it look like it was far more conventional, which may explain the audience's exasperation with it.  Its opening seems normal enough at first, with Lawrence's young house wife (no character names are used in the film) married to an older famous poet (Bardem) in a lovely home that she herself rebuilt after the original house, the one that Bardem grew up in, had burned down.   Their tranquility is broken when a doctor (Harris) and his wife (Peffifer) come to stay unannounced, with a secret agenda of their own.  Somewhat inevitably, they bring violence with them.  At first, Laurence's character reminded me of the Natalie Portman character from Aronofsky's  2010 film BLACK SWAN; again, we have a story told from the point of view of a young woman in a stressful situation who veers on the edge of insanity, and for whom reality and fantasy overlap.  (I've already mentioned the influence of Bunuel, certainly Roman Polanski's classic horror film ROSEMARY'S BABY is another touchstone for this film).  And for a while, Aronofsky sticks to a BLACK SWAN like story, but, slowly but surely, hints are released implying that both Laurence and Bardem are clearly meant to be something other than human.  

Aronofsky's has challenged audiences before, especially with 2000's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM,  but this is time he seems to have pushed too far, by putting Laurence, one's of Hollywood's most popular and well liked stars, into a grueling role that sees her veer from being humiliated and ignored to being beaten and tortured, often while pregnant.   And no matter how surreal and symbolic those torture scenes are, they're still hard to sit through.  And what is the only way to test an audience's endurance more than endangering a pregnant woman?  That's right, endangering a baby, which Aronosky also promptly does in gut churning fashion.
So just what is the film about?  The script was written by Aronosfsky in a mere five days, and he himself has called it a fever dream.  And yet, his intentions sometimes are clear; like Bunuel, who's films were often condemned by the Catholic church, Aronofsky's target seems to be religion.   The  Bardem character is clearly supposed to be God (he even says "I am I" at one point, a direct quote of God from the bible), and he's a selfish and vain one at that; he can't seem to resist opening his home to his adoring followers, even as it becomes dangerously overcrowded.  And when those followers start to fight with each other, eventually leading to what appears to be a large bloody war, he does nothing to stop them, just as many religious groups have fought and killed over the "right" way to worship God.  Such a depiction of God is not exactly something that a religious country like the US wants to see!  Although Aronofsky has been a bit withholding about his own spiritual beliefs, it would seem clear that his Jewish upbringing played a role in his writing a God character that is far more old testament than new.
But what are we to make of the Lawrence character?  My gut reaction, once I got over the stunning images I'd just seen, was that she was a damned soul trapped in a hell of her own making (notice that she never leaves the house).  But as I thought about it more, I felt that she was more like a modern Virgin Mary, impregnated by God, and then forced to watch her son die horribly and then be eaten like Christ is symbolically ever Sunday.  Another interpretation is that she is the literal embodiment of Mother Nature, who's beautiful creation (the house)is slowly destroyed and corrupted, by the ever imposing and growing human race, who even go so far as to kill her newborn baby.  (Significantly, Aronofsky is an environmental activist).    The fact that such a shocking movie ends with what seems to be an upbeat note, with things reverting to back to normal and the story starting all over again, ties in with the fact that Aronofsky's last film before this was 2014's NOAH, another story of destruction and renewal.
But the most intriguing question about this film is just how it got made in the first place.  In an era of remakes, reboots and franchise films, how did a major film studio like Paramount not only green light this film but then also put America's sweetheart in the lead role and give it a wide release in over 2,000 theaters, including multiplexes?  I don't know just how, but I'm glad that they did, even though I left the theater shell shocked after viewing it!  It's so rare to see a mainstream film that really sticks with you and makes you think about it for days afterward, and kudos to Lawrence for agreeing to star in such an offbeat film (and she really carries the movie, despite all the craziness).  So what I'm saying is, if you're not squeamish and are open to an openly surreal style of storytelling, you might want to try this film out.  For the rest of you, I'm sure there's a TRANSFORMERS movie playing somewhere.