Cancel culture comeuppance? Hallucination from a woman falling into madness? A ghost story? A psychological thriller? Whatever your read on TÁR it undoubtedly makes you think.

Cate Blanchett’s bravura performance as the maestro Lydia Tár is enough to make this one of the best movies of the year. But that is just the appetizer, the enticing aroma that gets you to dive deeper into the full meal of a film.

Todd Field so rarely makes a movie that one could forget he is still even interested in the art. But then he gives us a film like TÁR and he’s back like the cannons firing in the 1812 Overture. This is a loud thunderclap of a film.

Ok enough with the film critic bombast. I lost myself in the moment. Forgive my transgression. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, maybe in the course of this review. I’ll do my best to contain my inner pretentiousness. But Field’s movie did something inside me. It triggered me to do a couple of things.

First it motivated me to actually write a review for the first time in months. Too many months. The pandemic and life just got in the way. So here I am inspired by a manipulative, self-important and deeply troubled character to put pixel to paper. Then TÁR inspired me to try to be like her but in critic form. Thankfully I stopped myself before I “TÁR’d” again.

Lydia Tár is a female predator. She uses people, abuses them, and then tosses them aside when they fail to be of use to her. This comes up a lot in the film. She indulges adoration from people, but she really craves it. That boosts her ego, and her ego must be fed. There is little doubt she is a maestro. She is uber talented. But she toys with people for sport. Her one-time protégé Krista. Her assistant. A conducting class at Julliard. They are all just instruments in the orchestra of her life.

She spots a new target in a Russian cellist and starts her despicable game. But something is wrong. Lydia begins to hallucinate. She hears a medical device, the metronome in her apartment starts ticking for no apparent reason. She hears a sound at her pied a terre and starts playing it on the piano. There are more and more instances of her apparently losing her mind. But the cellist is an elusive target and Lydia loses control. Her past misdeeds come back, and she must pay. She loses her position at the Berlin Symphony. She loses an opportunity to conduct a recording of Mahler’s 5th Symphony. Her charitable foundation tosses her aside because it seems she’s been using it to target victims she can control.

The last act of the film sees her diminished. Lost. Her hopes and dreams crushed as she tries to save face and really there’s no way that can happen for her.

Blanchett plays each of these notes perfectly. Her commitment to the performance and the character makes us at first in awe and then finally and tragically in contempt of her horribleness. No moment more horrible than when she threatens a child who has been bullying her own daughter. Field could have been more preachy about cancel culture, but instead he allows the audience to come up with their own interpretation. The viewers own experience will inform whether they think Lydia a hero or a villain.

There is much more to love about TÁR. The cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister is spare by powerful. The production design and choice to keep everything in muted colors, save for Krista’s red hair, fits the mood. Same goes for Hildur Guonadottir’s (already an Oscar winner for The Joker) score. It relies a lot on Mahler’s 5th but there are touches of original music, especially the song that plays under the opening credits, that are genius. Outstanding supporting performances by Nina Hoss and Noemie Merlant just add to the texture of the film.

Speaking of the opening credits. Field chooses to run the full credits at the beginning of the film. Maybe it’s a commentary that art is collaborative, the opposite of what Lydia Tár seems to think.

TÁR may not be for everyone. But Blanchett’s performance is the point of entry and the reason everyone should see the film. It is a film that makes you think. And as I have said in many other reviews, that is the highest praise I can give to any piece of art.

Sometimes a show is perfectly written, perfectly cast and perfectly executed. And even then, it seems to fly under the radar. That is especially true these days if the show doesn’t involve Jedi, Dragons, Elves or Superheroes. In this case that below the radar show is INDUSTRY.

The HBO drama follows four recent college graduates as they go to work for a financial services company in London. In the first season, all four are fighting alongside other “first years” to hang on and get the permanent jobs they all covet. How each person goes about that varies. There is cheating, lying, back stabbing, sex, drugs and drinking. All are used to wield power and influence the bosses’ decision at the end of that first year. The survivors are Harper (Myha’la Herrold), Yasmin (Marissa Abela) and Robert (Harry Lawtey). They all earn jobs with the fictitious “Pierpoint”.  Gus (David Jonsson) sort of survives but realizes the cutthroat nature of this office may not be for him.

The second season finds Harper still working out of a hotel room she occupied during the pandemic. Yasmin has secured her spot on the FX (foreign exchange trades) team and Robert is foundering on the CPS (cross product sales) desk. Harper returns to the office and starts covering Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass) with great success at first. It makes her a rock star. Robert become the go to person for Nicole who is one of the biggest clients in the firm but who also has a sexual harassment problem. Yasmin has her sights set on moving up to specialty client services, wining and dining the firm’s wealthiest, most important clients.

And if you are confused about what all that means buckle up, because once you begin watching a lot of this will sound like a foreign language to the average person. I have a pretty decent knowledge of investing and a lot of this language and maneuvering flies right over my head. But that is not important. I know, that sounds counterintuitive. How can you watch a show where you don’t understand about a third of what’s going on. It doesn’t matter. The financial services and investing lingo is just a vehicle to the larger story about greed, manipulation, privilege and backstabbing. You get a sense of what is going on and that one person is driving a bus and another person is laying in the road about to become a victim. Konrad Kay and Mickey Downs created this show and they have conceived it brilliantly. The execution is perfection. They have a complete understanding of what’s going on and who their characters are. Kay and Downs keep everyone in their lanes. No one ever does something that leaves you thinking that character would never make that choice. It’s brilliant.

What also makes this work is the outstanding case of young actors. Herrold, Abela, Lawtey and Jonsson crush it every episode. They may the right choices every time. Ken Leung’s Eric runs the CPS desk and becomes Harper’s mentor. He recognizes she is an absolute killer shark. He nurtures that in her and it sometimes bites him in the ass. But it fits his character.

This is only just the surface of what is a deeply complex and enormously satisfying show. It should be as beloved as SUCCESSION and maybe next year the Emmys will realize it and bestow all the love on this wonderful show.

There are several movie franchises I have intentionally avoided. Most of them horror since that is really not my jam. I find the jump scares, peril and gore overwhelming. I am trying to escape all that when I sit down to watch a movie. One of those franchises is the Predator movies. The original and the Alien v. Predator sub-franchise. Just had no interest.

So it was with some reluctance I clicked on Hulu to watch PREY. Is this for me? Will my anxiety be ramped up from its normal “constant freak out” level? Trepidation to be sure. But several people suggested it, glowing reviews and an interview with director Dan Trachtenberg told me to put aside those reservations. And boy am I glad I did.

There is some of what makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. A decent amount of gore and jump scares. But this is so much more than what scares you. The story of a young woman struggling for respect resonates across the centuries. The concise storytelling is refreshing in an age when these kind of projects are either more than 2-and-a-half hours or 9 episodes long. I got a clear picture of the main character’s backstory and motivation within the first 10 minutes or so. I understood the threat soon enough and it was all dealt with in just over 90 minutes. There is something to be said for a short, well told story.

It doesn’t hurt that Amber Midthunder is absolutely phenomenal as Naru, the young Comanche woman who wants more for herself than staying home learning the ways of medicine. She wants to hunt with the men. And we quickly learn she is good at it, and smarter than some of the more experienced hunters. Most of the movie leans on Midthunder’s character and she is more than up to it.

The members of her community are also very good, including her brother Taabe played with equal measures of bravery and sensitivy by Dakota Beavers. Dane DiLiegro is the Preadator. I don’t know how much of his character is VFX versus practical effects, but he does a great job giving us just a little bit of feel for what the Preadator’s goal is, what he may be “feeling”. It’s quite a trick to do that when you don’t have any actual lines.

I know Trachtenberg’s work from the first season of The Boys. He directed the pilot, or first episode “The Name of the Game” and set a tone for what might be the best superhero property out there. Trachtenberg knows how to shoot action without making it confusing or hard to follow. You feel you are there but not getting nauseous because the camera is too close. He also has a knack for showing his characters at their best even when the situation is the worst. Also special shout out to the score by Sarah Schachner who builds on Alan Silvestri’s original theme and combines it with Native American themes.

If you are a, well let’s face facts, a scardy cat like me. This movie will not prey on your anxiety and to not watch it is to miss something quite special.

 

THE CONVERSATION was always a blind spot for me. I knew it was out there, but I just never got around to watching it. After watching THE FRENCH CONNECTION last month which was on TCM for their 31 days of Oscar and FXM nearly once a week, I wanted more Gene Hackman. Also, with a lot of talk about the 50^TH Anniversary of THE GODFATHER, it felt like time to dive in. I don’t know why I waited so long.

This is likely the best of the 1970’s Paranoid Thrillers, a list that includes THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, THE PARALLAX VIEW and THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL among many others. For me it’s close between this and CONDOR, but the way Robert Redford forces himself on Faye Dunaway in one scene tips the scales toward THE CONVERSATION. I’m not going to get into the sexual politics of 1970’s auteur filmmaking. That’s for another time.

Brief plot summary time. Hackman is Harry Caul, a surveillance and security expert who is considered the best in his field. At the start of the film, he and his team are trying to listen into a conversation between Cindy Williams and Fredrick Forrest. They are using high tech microphones from three different locations and later Hackman will piece together a full conversation. He’s been hired by what appears to be a government agency. Harry doesn’t care what they are talking about at first, he just wants a clean recording. But as we follow Harry, we all learn there may be a lot more going on here. And Harry is having second thoughts because after a previous job, his work product was used to wipe out an entire family. He tries to keep an emotional distance on the job, but the more he hears the more worried he becomes.

Hackman is so wonderful at playing this kind of role. His physical presence gives an air of authority and confidence as does his no nonsense attitude. But you can tell there is more going on there. He plays these layered characters so well. It is similar to what he does with Popeye Doyle in THE FRENCH CONNECTION. The more paranoid he becomes, the more paranoid we become. It’s a fantastic performance.

The supporting case is stellar. Very early Harrsion Ford as the assistant to the director of the mysterious agency. You can see where his star power begins. Williams is very good as the woman being spied on. A very different role than Laverne & Shirley. Robert Duval has an uncredited role as The Director… it’s small but memorable considering he brings similar energy to his part in NETWORK just a few years later.

Just a moment for an appreciation of John Cazale and what might have been. Cazale died of cancer at 42. He only appeared in five theatrical films, but what a resume. The first two GODFATHER movies, THE CONVERSATION, DOG DAY AFTERNOON and THE DEER HUNTER. Holy cow that’s an impressive run and he is spectacular in every one of those films.

The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He famously cared much more about this movie than THE GODFATHER. You can see the love and care that went into this. Every shot is purposeful. From the way Harry’s apartment and workplace are laid out, to the wardrobe to the twist I did not see coming at all. It is masterful. THE CONVERSATION was nominated for Best Picture but lost to another of Coppola’s films.. THE GODFATHER PART II. Can you imagine that? Being nominated for two Oscars in the same year? Amazing. Legend.

Coppola has said this was his favorite of all the movies he’s made. I can see why. Not much can top both GODFATHER films. But this comes close. And sometimes close is good enough. If you are like me and have yet to watch THE CONVERSATION, fire up Paramount+ or Epix and give it a try. And if you don’t like it, that’s ok. I won’t take it personally. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

 

 

I was kind of interested to see Kenneth Branagh’s version of DEATH ON THE NILE. I enjoyed MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it. It was “nice”.

But the reviews were not great and the Armie Hammer-ness of it made me say, “nah”. If I’m going to a theater and risk getting sick, it’s not going to be for this movie.

Now it’s on streaming, so I thought I’d check it out. It’s disappointing.

It doesn’t have much of the flair of the ORIENT EXPRESS. It goes through the motions. It feels like it should be better. But I suppose it could also be a lot worse.

Seeing Hammer play a man who threw over his fiancé in favor of a rich beauty made my skin crawl. I could not separate the man from the role.

The rest of the cast is serviceable. Branagh is ok as Hercule Poirot. Others, including Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov and David Suchet, have done it better.

The best part of the cast is Annette Benning. Russell Brand is almost unrecognizable save his signature beard. Speaking of signature facial hair. We do get an origin story for the moustache Branagh sports in these two movies. So that’s something.

The film also fails because, well… I hate to say this, but maybe Gal Gadot just isn’t that good an actress. She was good as a bit player in the Fast and Furious movies. I thought she was amazing in the first Wonder Woman movie, but maybe I was blinded by her gold bracelets and Patty Jenkins great story and directing. Now she is getting lead roles like this one and Red Notice. And in both she just can’t carry the load she’s given. She’s stiff. She needs to relax into the roles. She feels like she’s trying too hard.

Anyhow, it was good that this was released in “Dumpuary” (the time of year when bad movies are released because everyone is focused on awards season, and no one pays much attention to how bad these films are).

Will Branagh mine the Poirot canon again? Maybe. But I hope the next version is better than this.

When you hear that a movie involves “The Multiverse” you probably are thinking Superhero. Something from DC or Marvel. Something that will be so totally confusing and confounding that you may just say, “eh, no”.

I implore you, do not skip EVERTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Calling it a Multiverse move is like calling Casablanca a Nazi movie or The Godfather a crime movie. All of those are true, but also beside the point.

EVERTHING EVERYWHERE… is about so much more. It is about family, being a mom, and the nature of failure and success. It uses the Multiverse as a tool to explore the larger message it is trying to convey. I’m not saying the Multiverse isn’t important or completely cool. It absolutely is. And it is far less confusing or brain melting than anything Marvel and DC are doing. I don’t want to spoil it, but just as a way of explanation, in this version you can access the skills of your counterpart in another timeline. I don’t think that gives too much away. It also makes for some of the craziest and funniest parts of the film. Yet for all that coolness, it is not the heart of the story.

Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn who owns a laundromat in Simi Valley with her husband (Ke Huy Quan… yes him… more on him later). They have a daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Szu (Mei from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). The laundromat is not doing well.  They must go to the IRS for a meeting with an auditor played by Jamie Lee Curtis. The bring along her father (James Hong) who is visiting for a New Year celebration. After that, nothing is normal or usual.

The multiverse intrudes and Evelyn is as confused as we are. Her guide is her husband who keeps shifting into another version of himself from a different universe. Evelyn must catch on quickly to save the Multiverse, her family and her sanity. All this while trying to save and/or defeat her daughter who is the cause of all the chaos in the Multiverse.

But it’s not just about saving her daughter. It’s about saving her family. It’s about accepting who we are and who we can be. Evelyn believes she is a failure at the start. But is she? That is her journey of discovery.

All of this craziness comes from the warped minds of Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). They are the filmmakers behind SWISS ARMY MAN, a movie I really enjoyed. That was equally weird. But this is better. It uses our familiarity with this Multiverse stuff to tell a much deeper story. It could have gone completely sideways, but Daniels are good enough to know how far to take it before we all lose our minds and interest.

It helps that the case is perfect. Yeoh usually plays such strong, confident women. It was great to see her stretch outside of our familiarity. She totally nails it. You probably know Quan better as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or as Data from The Goonies. His challenge here is to switch back and forth between confused, mouse of a husband to super confident Multiverse expert. He also nails it. Plus, he wins a fight using a fanny pack… so points for originality. Curtis is so good at these roles. She knows exactly how to sell her own role while bringing humor along for the ride.

The choreographed fight scenes are fantastic. The whole movie is kind of a mash up of Hong Kong martial arts, Superhero and family drama. Doesn’t sound like it would work, but it works on every level. We are due to get deep into Marvel’s Multiverse with the next Dr. Strange movie. I am confident Sam Raimi can pull it off, but probably not as effectively as Daniels.

Let’s take a look at how I did. Not bad. I’ve done better in the past (Sorry, I have no photographic evidence to support my claim,, you’re just going to have to believe me).

I made predictions in 21 of the 23 categories. I left out Live Action and Animated shorts because I had seen none of them and really didn’t know enough to make an educated guess.
I missed four categories. I was hoping West Side Story would win, but I knew in the back of my head that Cruella was going to take the trophy..
As I stated in my predictions, I thought Mitchells v the Machines would have a late surge, but Encanto was strong enough to hold on.
I completely whiffed on the screenwriting categories. I thought The Worst Person in the World deserved the Oscar, but figured I was alone on Joachim Trier island. My guess was Licorice Pizza. Belfast surprised me. At lease Don’t Look Up didn’t win. For adapted screenplay, I thought Maggie Gyllenhaal would get some kind of recognition for her film, but it was CODA’s night. It’s not a bad screenplay. I just liked The Lost Daughter better.

The rest went as I thought it would. I’m not some predicting genius. A lot of these were obvious if you did a little research. So yay me. I can research. 5 years of college didn’t go to waste. Thanks CSUN.

The show was a complete mess. Nearly 3 hours and 45 minutes of mostly crap. They pushed the below the line categories to the pre show and replaced those awards with some absolutely terrible bits. If the Wanda Sykes tour of the Academy Museum was supposed to motivate me to visit, it had the opposite effect. Regina Hall’s bit about the testing hot guys was cringeworthy. As was the Hall and Sykes bit about giveaways. Not funny. Not even close to funny. Not even in the neighborhood.

The reunions were nice, yet completely pointless. The “hey look who we got together” gawking was just dumb and did nothing to celebrate those films. The Godfather tribute did nothing for me other than make me concerned for Al Pacino’s health. Why didn’t he and Robert De Niro talk?

The In Memoriam segment was a complete disaster. A little TV 101 from someone who’s been in the business 35 years. Don’t make it harder for the audience to watch. I could barely read some of the names when they were placed on the giant screen at the back of the stage. Why were there dancers in the first place? The little speech interludes were nice, but Betty White? Yes, she’s a legend. But she made her mark in TV. Felt out of place at the Oscars. And Spirit in the Sky was a bizarre choice. One of the lines is “put your trust in Jesus”. Wonder how the Jews, Muslims or Atheists in that part of the “number” felt about invoking Christian iconography.

You’re waiting for me to talk about Will Smith and Chris Rock. I’m not going there. The one thing I will say is I felt terrible for Questlove. It stole his moment. That sucks.

I’m glad CODA won. It was the feel good movie we all needed. Will it go down in the pantheon of great Oscar winners? Probably not. Drive My Car, Dune and The Power of the Dog are probably better movies. But what’s wrong with making everyone smile after 2 years of panic and anxiety. Nothing at all.

I was very ambivalent about seeing King Richard. I like Will Smith, but he’s not among the actors I will seek out on a regular basis. He’s very hit or miss for me. Also, movies that deal with terrible parents make me squirm in my seat (I put I, Tonya in that category but it was impossible not to love). I always saw Richard Williams as one of those crazy sports parents, a type I have dealt with in my life.
I finally decided to give it a shot and I’m glad I did. It is not by any means a great movie. I liked it, but wasn’t over the moon. I’m probably very alone on an island with this opinion, but I did not love Will Smith’s performance. He felt like he was in a different movie. His “impersonation” of Williams was almost distracting. Everyone else seem like a real person while he seemed like a caricature. It felt like he was in a very different movie. What saved it for me were the performances of Aunjanue Ellis and Jon Bernthal. They were the best parts of the movie. Ellis felt like a real person and thank god she was there to rein in Smith. She felt like she was pulling him off a cliff (both story and acting) a few times. She deserves a Supporting Actress nomination. Bernthal was just fun and a real audience surrogate.
I wondered why this is an awards contender. But I get it. The Oscars now is about rewarding impersonation. If you play someone famous or infamous and you pull it off then you will be recognized. I dislike that trend in films. We need more original, fictional stories and fewer of these biopic-style treatments. Rant by grumpy old dude over.