Tag: Oscar contenders

Screen Time: Just Films

JWF Leave a comment

Despite having had our first Covid shot, we’re still being cautious about our activities.  Only socializing, mainly outdoors, with a small group of neighbors. And not yet venturing forth to restaurants or cultural events.  Once we’ve had shot #2, we may ease up a bit, albeit still wearing masks when we leave our home turf.    

That’s a long way of saying that we continue to watch lots of films, together, the Chief Penguin and I, and separately on the treadmill.  Here’s this past week’s crop, everything from history to proms to glass and Obama.

1960’s HISTORY

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)

(chicago.suntimes.com)

This is the gripping story of a piece of history I was aware of but didn’t fully recall.  Who was responsible for the riot associated with the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago?  Was it the radical members of SDS, the Yippies, and Tom Hayden?  These and other groups were all against the Vietnam War, but how they went about their business varied.  Seven men, plus initially Bobby Seale, were all tried together in one courtroom.

Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman is fabulous.  Mark Rylance as Kunstler is great, and it’s fun to see Eddie Redmayne as the always preppily dressed Tom Hayden.  Frank Langella, who loomed large in The Americans, here plays the aggressive, acerbic Judge Julius Hoffman.   

UPLIFTING REVIEW OF THE OBAMA YEARS

The Way I See It (Peacock)

Pete Souza was the chief White House photographer during Obama’s presidency.  Probably few knew him by name then.  When he left the White House after Trump was elected, he began posting photos of Obama on Instagram with witty, pointed, and cutting captions.  He gained a following, and he made the rounds on the speaker circuit.  This film focuses on Obama and his family with occasional commentary from colleagues like Samantha Power.  

It’s also an account of Souza’s career from assignments for National Geographic to gaining a post in the Reagan White House.  And it details Souza’s evolution from behind-the-scenes photographer to an actively political person. It’s hard to watch this and not feel good about that less contentious time. Recommended!

Looking at his work (documentary.org)

A note about Peacock.  It’s another streaming service for films and TV programs.  I signed up for a free account just to watch this documentary.  That it’s free means that ads interrupt the flow periodically.  You can avoid them if you pay for a premium account.

GLORY HOLES IN THE HOT SHOP

Blown Away (Netflix)

Alex, one of my favorite contestants (newyorker.com)

I like glass, art glass, and when I was a child, my family made several trips to the Corning Glass Center.  Later, the Chief Penguin and I also visited.  Seeing the glass blowers through the viewing window was a highlight every time, watching them create beautiful pieces of Steuben glass.  As a kid, I acquired a couple souvenir miniature colored glass animals.

This Canadian documentary series is the glass art counterpart of the British Baking Show.  Contestants compete against one another and the clock.  Each week they must design and create a glass piece around a particular theme.  They are rated on technical quality, adherence to the assignment, and overall creativity.  Each week, someone gets eliminated.  

It’s fascinating to watch the stages of creation from design through heating, blowing, and shaping the glass to arrive at a finished piece.  And you get to know the personalities of the contestants who last the longest.  Each piece is judged by the resident evaluator and a guest in a field related to that week’s creative brief. The ultimate winner gets a residency at Corning.  There are 2 seasons. I’ve just about reached the conclusion and the naming of the winner in Season 1.

ANGST IN INDIANA

Prom (Netflix)

Streep, Nicole Kidman and others (thefilmexperience.net)

I decided to watch this film because I like Meryl Streep.  Here she plays an aging actress who is brittle and full of herself.  She and several of her co-stars travel to Indiana to help a teenage girl who’s been denied the opportunity to go to the prom with her girlfriend date.  It’s based on a musical and the song and dance numbers are fun.  

I liked the premise of inclusiveness, but overall, I found the film hokey and perhaps even dated.   I recognize I am definitely not the target audience, but I stuck with it to the end.  Perhaps because I was on the treadmill; otherwise I’d have given it a pass.

Big Screen in the Big Apple

JWF Leave a comment

Bingeing. When we are not happily engaged entertaining our granddaughters, we go to the movies. Some might say we binge. Yes, good films come to the Sarasota/Bradenton area, but not as quickly and not all of them. We are now well acquainted with several cinemas in the West Village and are not averse to settling for a hot dog as lunch before the first showing of the day. Here are several of the films we’ve seen so far. More to come.

La La Land. Going in, I knew that this film was being touted as a contender for Best Picture and that it was a musical. In the first 20 minutes or so, I thought, oh no, we’re in for two hours of fluff and the Chief Penguin will soon be snoozing. Not so! Yes, this movie is sort of a musical (the leads do burst into song at emotion-laden moments) and boy meets girl and gets girl (at least for awhile), but it is much more. Scenes of true-to-life conversation and conflict are interspersed along with creative visions of an alternate reality. That the setting is Los Angeles, Hollywood to be precise, only adds to the magic.
Ryan Gosling as Sebastian and Emma Stone as Mia are likable and believable 20-something adults, each aspiring to realize a dream; he to own his own jazz club and she to make it as an actress. I left last week’s performance of Guys and Dolls feeling happy and uplifted. While La La Land is a more nuanced work, I was both entertained and satisfied as it played out. Perhaps it’s a tad too long, but it’s fun on several levels.

Fences. If you know ahead of time that this was first a stage play, then you’ll be prepared for the static nature of this film. It’s probably the one weakness or drawback to it. The year is 1957, the setting is Pittsburgh, and it’s the depiction of one stressed and poor black family.
The acting is powerful, especially the lead performances. Denzel Washington is Troy Maxson, the illiterate, storytelling garbage collector who craves recognition for who and what he is, a husband and father who has a strong sense of responsibility. He also feels responsible for and possibly guilty over his brother Gabe, brain damaged in WWII. Viola Davis is his wife Rose, his staunch advocate and compass who seems to work as hard as he does, but with little appreciation from him of her unexpressed wishes and desires.
Troy’s sons, Lyons, 34, and Corey, 17, are sources of tension and conflict when Troy won’t accept that their needs and wants don’t dovetail with his. And when Troy doesn’t heed his best friend Bono’s wise advice and is promoted at work, he no longer sees Bono every day and the friendship languishes. (Note that Bono is played here by a black albino which confused me since I initially thought he might be white.)
Fences is the best known play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle. The world is slowly changing for the better for blacks, but not enough that Troy can or will see it. Moving and messy as only human relationships can be, this is a film worth seeing.

Arrival. This is a strange movie. Science fiction which we don’t often go see, but more cerebral than one might expect. When twelve space ships containing aliens from somewhere else land around the world, one in Montana, linguistics professor and language expert Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, is recruited to communicate with them. Their language is a graphic one, and Banks and Ian, a physicist played by Jeremy Renner, struggle together to make sense of who they are and why they have come to earth.

The scenes of Louise and Ian suiting up and making the journey into the black space egg and then communicating with the looming, long-armed heptapods in front of a glass wall are appropriately unnerving and even somewhat harrowing. Tension rises when several countries with similar craft threaten to use force against them. How the day is saved is an interesting twist.
Throughout the movie plays with time and how time is perceived. Louise is plagued by visions and memories of past events, or are they really past? The movie takes a short story by Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life,” and expands its scope to create the international crisis. I didn’t fully understand what filmmaker Denis Villeneuve was doing until I read several articles including one in Verge. Telling would spoil the film for you, so I won’t. If your curiosity is piqued, see it.

DINING FIND
It’s easy and tempting to return again and again to just our favorite restaurants, but it’s better to not get into a rut and to try new restaurants. After yesterday’s film at the IFC on 6th Avenue, we glanced at the menu at Tertulia and then wandered in. We had enjoyed very much the food in Spain and thought this tapas plus place looked inviting. And it was.

Warmly lit with brick walls, a long bar and tables in front and an arched dining area farther back, it was just right for lunch on a cold day. We indulged in a glass of sherry (lots of choices here) and then tucked into ham croquettes, a plate of blistered shishito peppers, and some Iberico ham along side tomato bread. We were aiming for a light lunch and this turned out to be the right amount of food. We look forward to a return visit!