ARMAGEDDON TIME: coming of age – right into a moral choice

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Photo caption: Banks Repeta and Anthony Hopkins in ARMAGEDDON TIME. Courtesy of Focus Features.

The thought-provoking Armageddon Time, centers on Paul (Banks Repeta), a 6th grade boy in 1980, who, besides grappling with all the regular coming of age issues, must face issues of conscience. Paul and his new school friend, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), have their interests, but the adults at school miss the opportunity to harness the boys’ passions, instead trying to force square pegs into round holes; of course, these smart and spirited lads act out and get into trouble. That’s less of a problem for Paul, who has been sheltered by his affluent family, but Johnny is African-American and poor and already has a more clear-eyed view of the world.

On a day-to day basis, Paul is raised by his tightly wound mom (Anne Hathaway), but she defers to the family’s men when something really big must be confronted. Paul’s male role models are his venerable grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) and his grouchy, stressed-out dad (Jeremy Strong). The grandfather’s point of view has been shaped by his own mother’s having escaped a Ukrainian pogrom and having experienced anti-Semitic college quotas himself. He has survived to build a family and business success.

The grandfather is the anchor of the family, and his moral stance is absolute – a person must act with justice and decency in every situation, no mater how difficult. The dad, who views life as a continuous struggle to keep one’s head above water, is more pragmatic – one must do what is necessary to get along. The grandfather despises privilege; the dad wants to leverage any privilege that might fall his way.

The kid actors, Banks Repeta and Jaylin Webb, are excellent. (For some reason, Repeta’s facial features kept reminding me of Molly Parker).

Anthony Hopkins is a treasure, and we should appreciate every performance he continues to bring us, even an unchallenging one like this.

Jeremy Strong is such a strong actor, and he’s such a chameleon that I never seem to recognize him until the closing credits, as he shows up as Jerry Rubin, Lee Harvey Oswald, Abraham Lincoln’s secretary John Nicolay and the like. Here, he seems like a one-dimensional brute for most of this film, until the story reveals his fears and hopes.

Reportedly, writer-director James Gray, who just re-invented the adventure epic with The Lost City of Z, peppered this story with his own childhood experiences. Maybe that’s why Fred Trump and Maryanne Trump appear as characters. Maryanne Trump (Donald’s much more sympathetic sister) shows up in a Jessica Chastain cameo, and lays out the narrative that the privileged are actually meritorious.

I wasn’t wowed upon leaving the theater, but, the more I noodle about this film, the more I admire it.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT: the trauma of war

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Photo caption: Felix Kammerer in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Courtesy of Netflix.

The anti-war epic All Quiet on the Western Front unforgettably makes two points: war, in general, is a traumatizing experience and WW I, in particular, was disgustingly senseless.

The screenplay was adapted from the famous Erich Maria Remarque novel, as was the 1930 Lewis Milestone cinematic masterpiece. Since the story is told from the point of view of a German infantry recruit, Netflix commissioned a German director and cast for this version. That director is German filmmaker Edward Berger, who has been working in US television over the past decade. The actors may be German and Austrian, but they speak English in this movie.

Paul (Felix Kammerer) is a callow youth who, with his friends, is swept away by patriotic fervor and enlists in the German Army just in time to participate in the last few months of WW I. Both sets of belligerents have been grappling for years in the mire of trench warfare, suffering mass casualties for the sake of a few hundred yards here and there. The conditions between battles are horrific, and the battles are more so. Paul endures the terror of bombardment, gas attacks, invulnerable enemy tanks and charges across no-man’s land in the face of machine gunfire. The hand-to-hand combat is especially savage.

Kammerer, in his first screen role, is exceptional as an Everyman who experiences physical and mental exhaustion, dread, panic, shock, guilt and hopelessness.

The battle scenes are superbly photographed by cinematographer James Friend, who has 71 screen credits, not a one suggesting that he was capable of anything this masterful.

War may be traumatizing, but this eminently watchable film is not. All Quiet on the Western Front is streaming on Netflix.

on TV: ASHES AND DIAMONDS: a killer wants to stop

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Photo caption: Zbigniew Cybulski in ASHES AND DIAMONDS

Coming up November 15 on Turner Classic Movies, a masterful director and his charismatic star ignite the war-end thriller Ashes and Diamonds, set amidst war-end treachery. It’s one of my Overlooked Noir.

It’s the end of WW II and the Red Army has almost completely liberated Poland from the Nazis. The future governance of Poland is now up in the air, and the Polish resistance can now stop killing Germans and start wrestling for control. Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) is a young but experienced soldier in the Resistance. His commanders assign him to assassinate a communist leader.

Maciek is very good at targeted killing, but he’s weary of it. As he wants out, he finds love. But his commander is insisting on this one last hit.

This is Zbigniew Cybulski’s movie. Often compared to James Dean, Cybulski emanates electricity and unpredictability, Unusual for a leading man, he often wore glasses in his screen roles. He had only been screen acting for four years when he made Ashes and Diamonds. Cybulski died nine years later when hit by a train at age forty,

Zbigniew Cybulski in ASHES AND DIAMONDS

Andrzej Wajda fills the movie with striking visuals, such as viewing Maciek’s love interest, the waitress Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska), alone amidst the detritus of last night’s party, through billows of cigarette smoke. Wajda’s triumphant signature is, literally, fireworks at the climax; the juxtaposition of the celebratory fireworks with Maciek’s emotional crisis is unforgettable.

Ewa Krzyzewska in ASHES AND DIAMONDS

Wajda adapted a famous 1948 Polish novel into this 1958 movie. In the adaptation, the filmmaker changed the emphasis from one character to another.

Ashes and Diamonds was the third feature for Andrzej Wajda, who became a seminal Polish filmmaker and received an honorary Oscar. US audiences may remember his 1983 art house hit Danton with Gerard Depardieu.

Ashes and Diamonds can be streamed from Amazon and AppleTV. It was featured at the 2020 Noir City film festival.

Zbigniew Cybulski in ASHES AND DIAMONDS

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES. Courtesy of AppleTV.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of two music documentaries, Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues and The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile, and the surprisingly thoughtful anti-war comedy The Greatest Beer Run Ever. And I’ve recently refreshed The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Elisabeth Moss in HER SMELL.

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

  • Her Smell: powerhouse Elisabeth Moss. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Phoenix: riveting psychodrama, wowzer ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Headhunters: from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Grizzly Man: a fool’s misadventure. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Take Me to the River: fresh, unpredictable and gripping. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Lost Solace: a psychopath afflicted by empathy.  Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Audrey Totter and Richard Basehart in TENSION.

On November 12 and13, Turner Classic Movies will present a film on Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley that I haven’t yet written about. It’s the deliciously sordid Tension, where Quimby (Richard Basehart), the wimpy night manager of a drugstore, has one of the worst wives in film noir. Claire (Audrey Totter) spends her daytime hours belittling Quimby and her nighttime hours cuckholding him. When she moves into Barney’s beach house and lets the hairy-chested Barney (Lloyd Gough) beat up her nerdy hubbie, the humiliated Quimby has had enough. There’s a murder and a frame. Wikll the cops find the real murderer? Rising star Cyd Charisse plays the good girl, and Barry Sullivan plays the cop who outsmarts them all.

Lloyd Gough and Audrey Totter in TENSION.

THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE: she’s still a handful

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THE RETURN OF TANYA TUCKER.: FEATURING BRANDI CARLILE. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile is a portrait of a music legend with sapped confidence, whose career is jumpstarted by admiring younger musicians. The audience gets a glimpse into the creative process of writing of a song, an Emmy winner at that.

Tanya Tucker, in showbiz from age 9, exploded onto the country music scene with the monster hit Delta Dawn at 13. After stardom in her teen years and a Wild Child period in her twenties, her career dipped, setting up a comeback in her thirties. Now sixty, by 2019 she hadn’t released any recording for 17 years.

In 2019, Shooter Jennings began a project to showcase Tucker’s talent with new material (a la Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash) and invited Brandi Carlile to help. Carlile, a huge Tanya Tucker fan, became central to the project, coaxing Tucker along, pumping up her confidence and riding the roller coaster of Tucker’s reliability issues. The Return of Tanya Tucker is essentially a “making of” documentary about the project.

Now 60 and looking older, Tucker has a lot of mileage on her (and has launched her own brand of tequila, named with the Spanish translation of Wild Thing). Carlile finds out that Tucker is a handful.

Tucker is still a formidable song stylist, though, with a distinctive cry-in-her-beer break in her voice. The project goes better than anyone could have expected, and there’s a Feel Good ending. The Wife particularly enjoyed this film.

I screened The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile for the Nashville Film Festival. It is now in theaters.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES: what Armstrong was really thinking

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Photo caption: LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES. Courtesy of AppleTV.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues affirms my observation that, ideally, a satisfying documentary requires a great subject and great source material. For decades, apparently focused on his historical legacy, Louis Armstrong audiotaped his conversations with visiting friends, preserving his candid thoughts and reflections on his life and times. His family has made those taped conversations available to the filmmakers and Armstrong’s own words are a revelation.

Armstrong’s public Satchmo persona, perpetually upbeat and non-threatening, made White Americans comfortable and seemed Uncle Tom-like to younger Black Americans. Armstrong’s own words in private (he preferred being called Pops) leave no doubt about his own complicated thoughts. Armstrong, who was raised in the South at the height of the lynching period, was clear-eyed and resolute about American racism. His perception of personal safety and commercial viability intentionally guided his self-invented image and, also, the roles in the Civil Rights movement that he adopted and that he declined.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues also lays out Armstrong’s pivotal influences on impact on vocal popular music, on jazz and on American music. We also see Armstrong’s private personality with his family and intimates.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, which closed this year’s Nashville Film Festival, is steaming on AppleTV.

THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER: a blowhard plans a stunt, gets an education

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Photo caption: Zak Efron and Russell Crowe in THE GREATEST BEER RUB EVER. Courtesy of AppleTV.

In the surprisingly thoughtful anti-war comedy The Greatest Beer Run Ever, an ignorant blowhard’s neighborhood pals are serving in the Vietnam War, and he thinks he can uplift their spirits by bringing them beer. It’s a plot too idiotic to be credible – except that it really happened.

Our protagonist is Chickie (Zak Efron), a slacker ne’er-do-well (although we didn’t call them slackers back then) who has the intellectual curiosity of a stump. Offended by non-rah rah media coverage of the Vietnam War and by the burgeoning anti-war protest movement, he thinks a simplistic gesture is in order. As a merchant marine, he actually has means to GET TO Vietnam – by signing on a freighter. So, off he goes, with a duffel packed with cans of beer.

Once he is on the ground in country, of course, he sees that press is accurately reporting that the war is not going well and that the LBJ Administration and the military commanders are indeed lying about it. He learns that not all Vietnamese welcome Americans. And that war is very, very dangerous and very, very scary. Nor do his pals all welcome his crazy stunt.

A lesser director could have made this film as an empty-headed Bro comedy, only about the stunt itself. But Peter Farrelly, as he did with the Oscar-winning Green Book, has made an entertaining movie about a serious human experience.

And give Farrelly credit for something rarely seen in a Hollywood Vietnam War movie – Vietnamese characters are more than cardboard cutouts. Chickie has interactions with a goofy traffic cop, a savvy bartender and, most stirringly, a peasant mother and her young daughter in the countryside. The carnage and grieving among Vietnamese of all persuasions is depicted, too.

That being said, The Greatest Beer Run Ever is a very funny film, with most of the humor stemming from Chickie’s dunderheadness and the military characters all assuming that an American civilian asking for a helicopter ride into a combat zone MUST be CIA.

The very underrated Zak Efron carries the movie as Chickie gets force fed a life-changing reality check. Russell Crowe is excellent as a world-weary war correspondent. Bill Murray, without a single wink at the camera, is perfect as the lads’ bar owner, a WW II vet who just doesn’t get it. Matt Cook is very funny as a junior Army officer who idolizes the CIA.

Make sure you watch the closing credits.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever is streaming on AppleTV.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of three big movies – Tar, Triangle of Sadness and Amsterdam – each a disappointment in some way. This week, I’m bringing you an all new The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE. Plus an obscure but personally meaningful remembrance.

REMEMBRANCE

John Jay Osborn Jr. wrote the autobiographical novel which became the movie The Paper Chase, which has been very meaningful to me. That film, about a first-year law student, was released just before I started law school and many of the protagonist’s experiences mirrored those of my own first year.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Vincent Lindon (left) and Soko (center) inAUGUSTINE

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

  • Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Phoenix: riveting psychodrama, wowzer ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Headhunters: from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Her Smell: powerhouse Elisabeth Moss. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Grizzly Man: a fool’s misadventure. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Take Me to the River: fresh, unpredictable and gripping. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Lost Solace: a psychopath afflicted by empathy.  Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Robert Ryan in THE SET-UP
Robert Ryan in THE SET-UP

On November 8, Turner Classic Movies will present The Set-Up (1949), one of the great film noirs and one of the very best boxing movies. Robert Ryan plays a washed-up boxer that nobody believes can win again, not even his long-suffering wife (Audrey Totter).  His manager doesn’t even bother to tell him that he is committed to taking a dive in his next fight.  But what if he wins?

Director Robert Wise makes use of real-time narrative, then highly innovative. Watch for the verisimilitude of the bar where the deal goes down.

Robert Ryan in THE SET-UP
Robert Ryan in THE SET-UP

AMSTERDAM: a star-studded thriller without the thrills

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Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington in AMSTERDAM. Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Amsterdam, which wants to be a star-studded paranoid thriller, is only star-studded.

Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washington) met as American soldiers in WWI, and stay in Europe after the war, sharing an Amsterdam apartment and a bohemian lifestyle with another spirited American expat, Valerie (Margot Robbie). As Amsterdam the movie opens, Burt, now a shady physician, and Harold, now a lawyer, have returned to New York City, and the two share a commitment to helping other WWI veterans. The two are called to investigate a suspicious death, which they determine to have been a murder, and then there’s another murder, for which they are framed. Off they go to find the real murderers and clear themselves, becoming entangled in a convoluted conspiracy and re-encountering Valerie in the process.

Despite Bale, Washington and Robbie delivering solid performances, the story never pops. That’s the fault of a remarkably disappointing screenplay by director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle). We’re never surprised, never waiting for the next page to be turned, and not particularly invested in the characters.

The movie’s stars aside, Russell also wastes the talents of a ridiculously deep cast: Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough, Ana-Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenaert, Alessandro Nivola. There’s not a bad performance in the lot, but they just don’t get much to do. Michael Shannon and Mike Myer bring some laughs, but Schoenaert and Nivola have roles that could have been played by cardboard cutouts. Two weeks later, I can’t even remember Olyphant’s character. After winning an Oscar for wearing horse teeth and NOT singing like Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek seems to have settled into a career playing reptilian villains.

Here’s an example of bad storytelling . [SPOILER ALERT] The movie’s climax is an attempted assassination in an auditorium, like in The Manchurian Candidate. Burt is staggered by a bullet in the torso. Then there’s a fracas in which the shooter is apprehended. There’s a melee with uniformed Nazi sympathizers. Malek and Taylor-Joy’s characters are exposed, and the conspiracy is explained. Ten minutes later, as everyone leaves the auditorium, Burt removes his jacket and reveals that the bullet had only struck his back brace, and he doesn’t have a gunshot wound after all. By this time, I had FORGOTTEN THAT HE HAD BEEN SHOT.

An allusion to a real historical conspiracy is only a half-hearted political statement because this movie’s plot is just like that of every fictional paranoid conspiracy.

I recommend skipping Amsterdam and watching American Hustle again.

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS: more subtlety, please

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Photo caption: Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS. Courtesy of NEON.

The biting satire Triangle of Sadness is very funny and is at its best in the first, most subtle moments. Yaya (Charlbi Dean) and Carl (Harris Dickinson) are a couple, both professional models. Because of Yaya’s status as an influencer, they are comped a cruise on a luxury yacht. This puts them amidst a boatful of superrich fellow passengers, and Triangle of Sadness, like Parasite and Knives Out is Eat-The-Rich cinema. It’s fun to laugh at the rich, with their entitlement, tone deafness and absurd customer requests.

The cruise starts going horribly awry, even before the formal captain’s dinner is scheduled during a ship-tossing storm. Eventually, things get all Lord of the Flies. The tone of Triangle of Sadness evolves from pointedly witty to all-out comic mayhem, a la the Marx Brothers, I Love Lucy or The Hangover. As the humor gets broader, there are belly laughs, but the humor is no longer as smart. And Triangle of Sadness would be more watchable if it were shorter than 2 1/2 hours, too.

The sly beginning of the film is brilliant, with a memorable and telling scene about picking up the check in a restaurant. And funny little Easter Eggs abound, like the first names of an elderly British couple and the dramatic express delivery of a mysterious case that we learn contains jars of Nutella.

Triangle of Sadness was written and directed by Ruben Ostlund. His first notable film, Force Majeure, was a masterpiece of subtle humor. Having lessened the subtlety, his next two inferior satires, The Square and Triangle of Sadness have each won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Go figure. Anyway, I recommend that you watch Force Majeure on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu or YouTube.

The cast is very good. Charlbi Dean is excellent as the vivacious, frivolous and admittedly manipulative Yaya; (Dean died suddenly of a viral infection before the film’s theatrical release). I really admired Harris Dickinson’s performance as the dim and spineless Carl. Vicki Berlin is very good as the put-upon head steward. Zlatko Buric soars as a Russian fertilizer magnate, the self-described “King of Shit”. Woody Harrelson is very funny as the yacht’s alcoholic, Marxist captain, who does not suffer fools.

The most memorable performance is by Dolly DeLeon, who plays a character almost invisible until the final act, when she becomes pivotal and gives DeLeon the movie’s best opportunity for a killer line reading. She nails it.

I enjoyed most of Triangle of Sadness, less so as it became broader (and longer). It’s always fun to kick the rich, and Ruben Ostlund is a caustic observer of their frailties.