Photo caption: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver in HOUSE OF GUCCI. Courtesy of MGM
Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in House of Gucci, a story of sordid behavior among the rich and famous, “inspired by true events”. Driver plays Maurizio, the feckless scion of the famed Gucci clan. Lady Gaga plays Patrizia, the humbly born striver who snares Maurizio as a husband. In filmmaker Ridley Scott’s telling, the conniving Patrizia molds the charmingly goofy naif into someone with the wherewithal to screw his relatives out of the business.
This is Shakespearean family treachery – and Patrizia will learn the price of turning someone into a cutthroat. Lady Gaga is once again (A Star Is Born) absolutely magnetic on-screen. Driver makes the character of Maurizio very, very interesting as he evolves into (almost) what Patrizia wants him to be.
The flashiest role – and performance – is Jared Leto’s as Maurizio’s cousin Paolo. Leto is physically unrecognizable in the role – chubby, with the hair of the The Three Stooges’ Larry Fine and corduroy suits of absurdly wide wale. In The House of Gucci, every other character explicitly and correctly describes Paolo as an idiot. Many critics have compared Paolo, as the family’ weakest link, to Fredo in The Godfather; however, John Cazale’s performance as Fredo brought subtlety that was not on the written page, and Paolo is written to be a full-out buffoon. Leto is very funny, though.
Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons are excellent as the Gucci generation that built the business. Pacino’s Aldo (Paolo’s father) is a shameless hustler and Iron’s Rodolfo (Maurizio’s father) has reinvented himself as a patrician recluse.
Although it’s a smidgen too long, I was entertained by The House of Gucci. But The Wife, even less tolerant of long running times than am I, was bored and disgruntled by what she saw as a lack of redemption.
(For some reason, I keep calling this movie “House of Pizza” after the legendary San Jose joint.)
Photo caption: Benedict Cumberbatch in THE POWER OF THE DOG. Credit: Kirsty Griffin; courtesy of Netflix.
This week – three more movies in theaters, five more now streaming and a note on my own William Randolph Hearst movie-going fantasy.
Every once in a loooong while, I have an experience that I treasure – seeing a movie as the only patron in a theater. Since I visited Hearst Castle as a kid, I’ve loved the idea of posing as the magnate at his very own private theater. One would think that this would happen more than it does. In a non COVID year, I will see 100+ movies in theaters, and I see lots of obscure movies at sparsely-attended weekday matinees. But, almost always, there’s at least one more audience member.
Anyway, it happened for the third time last Monday – The Souvenir Part II at San Francisco’s Landmark Embarcadero. My previous two solo screenings were of The Mariachi in 1992 at the Los Gatos and of Not Fade Away in 2012 at the AMC Cupertino Square.
IN THEATERS
The Power of the Dog: Jane Campion’s simmering drama of hostility that, most unexpectedly, meets its match. Brilliant performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Also now streaming on Netflix.
Julia: This charming documentary, affectionate and clear-eyed, tells the unlikely story of how Julia Child broke through every expectation of her gender, class and upbringing to become an icon in her fifties.
The Souvenir Part II: An exquisite art film about a young woman’s emotional recovery. This won’t be in theaters for very long.
Also in theaters:
Belfast: a child’s point if view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Belfast is justifiably one of the Oscar favorites. #2 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
No Time to Die: I went to a James Bond movie, and a romance broke out.
ON VIDEO
Brian Wilson (seated left) in BRIAN WILSON: LONG PROMISED ROAD. Courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.
A slew of movies have become widely available to stream, by which I mean that they can be rented for $3.99-$6.99 from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube:
If you are willing to pay $19.99, you can already stream Lamb, No Time to Die, Last Night in Soho and The Many Saints of Newark. Or you can wait just a few weeks for these films to get down to $6 territory.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Passing: navigating a racist society and the value of one’s identity. Netflix.
On December 6, Turner Classic Movies airs Caged, the 1950s prototype for Orange Is the New Black? Eleanor Parker played the naive young woman plunged into a harsh women’s prison filled with hard-bitten fellow prisoners and compassion-free guards. Parker was nominated for an acting Oscar, but her performance pales next to that of Hope Emerson, whose electric portrayal of a hulking guard also got an Oscar nod. Caged also features the fine character actresses Thelma Moorhead, Jane Darwell (Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath) and Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton here as a young woman). Sixty-four years later, Caged might still be the best women’s prison movie ever.
Photo caption: Benedict Cumberbatch in THE POWER OF THE DOG. Courtesy of Netflix.
Set in 1925 on a vast Montana cattle ranch Jane Campion’s simmering drama The Power of the Dog is a portrait of a seething man and three pivotal relationships.
That man is Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), who owns the ranch with his brother George (Jesse Plemons). Phil is a natural leader, quick-witted and verbal, with the cowboy skills and machismo to single-handedly castrate 1500 steers…without wearing gloves. He acts like he is living in 1870, but not out of ignorance – he was Phi Beta Kappa at Yale and has chosen his retro persona.
George has also been to college, but one senses that George didn’t have the intellectual curiosity to finish. George is quiet but not self-conscious about it. Comfortable in his own skin, he dresses like a prosperous 1925 businessman, even when on horseback. Phil has excitement, and George has decency.
There is no alpha in the brothers’ relationship. With all his overt masculinity- Phil defers to George socially and in business. Despite their contrasting personalities, they complement each other comfortably, and they even sleep in the same hotel bed.
Kirsten Dunst in THE POWER OF THE DOG. Courtesy of Netflix.
Phil is rocked when George suddenly brings home a bride, the widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst). (Dunst and Plemons are a couple in real life.) Phil reacts with a toxic campaign intended to inflict misery on Rose. He bullies her son and os so mean to her that she won’t even come down to dinner in her own house without her husband. Once capable of running an inn and restaurant, she is now shattered, hiding booze around the house so she can sneak self-medication, and she sinks into a puddle of drunkenness.
But Phil’s most pivotal relationship is with Rose’s teen son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is sensitive, artistic and effeminate. From his first sighting of Peter, Phil unleashes a torrent of bullying with merciless hostility and incites the entire bunkhouse full of cowboys to join in. Peter’s life at the ranch becomes as filled with dread as his mother’s.
Campion doesn’t linger on the point, but Peter returns to the ranch from a year of medical studies, having developed a close friendship with another guy at school. Peter is much more self-confident, and then he discovers one of Phil’s secrets. At this point, the scales are tipped, and Phil and Peter’s interactions evolve into more of a duel. After all, Peter is the only character who is at least as smart as Phil. What happens is utterly unexpected.
The ending of The Power of the Dog is the ultimate irony – on multiple levels.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee deliver two of the year’s finest performances. Benedict’s Phil is fundamentally mean, with a meanness driven from rage just below the surface, perhaps from self-loathing. Or, perhaps the rage is from Phil’s resenting that he has any vulnerability.
There is (hopefully) a time when each boy becomes a man. In the culture, we usually see this depicted physically, but it has more to do with developing a new psychological toughness than physical toughness. Late in the film, The Power of the Dog morphs into a singular coming of age story. Smit-McPhee’s performance as Peter finds his own mental and emotional power and takes psychological command is the key to The Power of the Dog’s success.
Kodi Smit-McPhee in THE POWER OF THE DOG. Courtesy of Netflix.
The entire cast is very good, including Keith Carradine, Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), and Thomasin McKenzie (Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho).
The Power of the Dog is directed by Jane Campion (The Piano), and Campion adapted the screenplay from the Thomas Savage novel. Campion is a historic figure, the second woman to be nominated for a directing Oscar, the first to win the Palme d’Or; and a favorite of critics and cinephiles. I have not warmed to her other work, except for the first season of the episodic series Top of the Lake, starring Elisabeth Moss. But The Power of the Dog is a perfectly paced film, as the story builds from an exercise in dread into the unforeseeable.
The Power of the Dog is also a beautiful film, thanks to Campion and rising cinematographer Ari Wegner (Zola). I wouldn’t have suspected that New Zealand is standing in for Montana. Campion found enough dust and dry, yellow grassland in New Zealand to make it work very well.
The Power of the Dog has been in theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
Photo caption: Honor Swinton Byrne in THE SOUVENIR PART II. Courtesy of A24.
In The Souvenir Part II, writer-director Joanna Hogg continues the autobiographical story from her The Souvenir, where the young filmmaker Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) has been devastated by the sudden death of her lover, which reveals that he was NOTHING that he had seemed to be. Part II follows Julie’s emotional recovery.
Grieving and shattered, Julie is consumed by investigating, Who WAS he, REALLY? The central question in this story is whether she be able to process the loss and get on with her life. And then, as she moves on, will she get to make her movie?
I called The Souvenir “certainly…the most profoundly sad film of the year”. Part II is more relaxed and sometimes even funny (and less challenging to watch than the first film).
Hogg is a remarkably gifted filmmaker. Making use of static shots, and glimpsing characters through doorways and in mirrors, she frames each shot exquisitely. The most economical of storytellers, Hogg relies on a MINIMUM of exposition ithrough dialogue,and lets the audience pick up the story through the telling visual hints.
Honor Swinton Byrne’s quiet but powerful performance as Julie is exceptional. Her scene in a pub where Julie begins to connect with a sympathetic and supportive film editor (Joe Alwyn) is one of the year’s best.
Julie’s mom is played by Swinton Byrne’s mother, Tilda Swinton, who is flawless. Richard Ayoade shines as Julie’s most talented and temperamental classmate.
You don’t need to have first watched The Souvenir to appreciate The Souvenir Part II. Part II is playing in theaters, but won’t be for long.
Jonathan Majors and Zazie Beetz in THE HARDER THEY FALL. Courtesy of Netflix.
The Harder They Fall is a neo-spaghetti western, pretty much like Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, except that all the gunslingers are of African ancestry. As in Taratinoesque film, there is lots of bloody violence prefaced by clever speechifying.
Technically, this is a revenge film, with a heinous act in the opening scene sure to to be avenged in the last. But it’s really an excuse for some of the finest Black screen actors (Regina King, Idris Elba, LaKeith Stanfield, Delroy Lindo) to don cowboy gear and engage in the Western genre.
The protagonist is played by Jonathan Majors, who broke through in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and it’s great to see him leading a Hollywood movie. Because I don’t watch much TV, I’m late to the party in recognizing Zazie Beetz as a compelling screen presence; man, she’s a force.
Deon Cole (Blackish, I’m Fine, Thank You or Asking) so good in broadly comic roles, gets to show off his dramatic chops.
There is plenty of humor sprinkled throughout and one LOL moment when the protagonists ride into a White Town. That joke is an homage to one in Blazing Saddles.
There’s nothing original about The Harder They Fall except for the all-Black cast. There’s nothing memorable about it, either – just 2 hours and 19 minutes of amusing shoot ’em up with some really excellent actors.
Photo caption: Julia Child in JULIA. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
The charming documentary Julia is an affectionate but clear-eyed portrait of the iconic Julia Child. Child became a best-selling author and TV star in her fifties; besides outlining her importance, Julia tells the unlikely story of how she got to that point.
Indeed, one of the most remarkable aspects to Julia Child was how she broke through every expectation of her gender, class and upbringing. She was liberated by WW II, which gave her the chance to reject the societal limitations of her background.
To mark her impact, Julia shows us both pre-Julia educational TV and pre-Julia American cuisine (think TV dinners and jello salad).
Julia is very well-sourced and based on no fewer than THREE books. We get to hear from some of Julia’s family and friends, and a slew of celebrity chefs.
Julia highlights Julia Child’s life-changing first French meal – sole meunière at La Couronne in Rouen. Through TripAdvisor, I found the restaurant online, and it still offers the dish on a Julia Child menu.
Julia was directed by Julia Cohen and Betsy West, the team behind the excellent Ruth Bader Ginsberg biodoc RBG. Julia is now playing in theaters.
Photo caption: Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Ciarán Hinds in BELFAST. Courtesy of Focus Features.
On the Thanksgiving weekend – take the family to the theater to see Belfast. Or gather the family to stream CODA on AppleTV.
IN THEATERS
Belfast: a child’s point if view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Belfast is justifiably one of the Oscar favorites. #2 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
No Time to Die: I went to a James Bond movie, and a romance broke out.
ON VIDEO
Keep Sweet: This documentary traces the remarkable aftermath of the Warren Jeffs child sexual abuse scandal in an isolated settlement of fundamentalist Mormons. A decade after, a tiny community tries to wrangle a new future. Opens November 24 on discovery+.
Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant in CODA. Courtesy of AppleTV.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
Passing: navigating a racist society and the value of one’s identity. Netflix.
Dirt Music: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Kansas City Bomber: self-discovery at the roller derby track. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube
ON TV
Dean Martin in KING OF COOL. Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.
Turner Classic Movies’ will re-air the new Dean Martin documentary King of Cool on November 26. King of Cool is filled with insight into an icon who was extremely successful at being unknowable. Set your DVR.
Photo caption: Dean Martin in KING OF COOL. Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies.
Turner Classic Movies has premiered the Dean Martin documentary King of Cool, and it’s coming back to TCM on November 26. King of Cool is filled with insight into an icon who was extremely successful at being unknowable.
Dean Martin used his charm to mask his detachment. Universally beloved, his internal life was still never understood by his closest friends and colleagues – and even by his family.
Director Tom Donohoe and producer Ilan Arboleda, who had teamed for the essential filmmaking doc Casting By, faced this challenge – how does one create a biodoc on an enigma? Donohoe and Arboleda turned to the device from Citizen Kane – what was the “Rosebud” that drove and explained Dean Martin? (There’s one very fitting answer to that question in King of Cool.)
Superbly sourced, we get to hear from Martin’s closest associates, plus friends and co-workers like Bob Newhart, Angie Dickinson, Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, Barbara Rush, Florence Henderson, Lainie Kazan, Tommy Tune, Frankie Avalon and Dick Cavett,. The clearest – and most poignant – testimonies come from Martin’s daughter Deana Martin and Jerry Lewis’ son Scotty Lewis.
Despite Martin’s unknowability, King of Cool reveals a lot, including what Dino was really drinking on stage in his nightclub act, his close friendship with Montgomery Clift, and his rebuke of the JFK inauguration. There’s a wonderful firsthand account of his hosting big Hollywood parties and sneaking out to watch TV. We also get reading from Mark Rudman’s 2002 poem about Martin, The Secretary of Alcohol and hear how no less than Elvis Presley described Martin as “King of Cool”.
On a personal note, Dean Martin is on my own very short list of the most perpetually cool humans to ever walk the planet, along with Ben Gazzara, Joan Jett, Jean Gabin, Dr. John and Barack Obama.
TCM will replay King of Cool on November 26. Set your DVR.
Photo caption: KEEP SWEET. Courtesy of discovery+.
The documentary Keep Sweet traces the remarkable aftermath of the Warren Jeffs child sexual abuse scandal in an isolated settlement of fundamentalist Mormons. A decade after, a tiny community tries to wrangle a new future.
Fundamentalist Mormons broke from the mainstream Church of Latter Day Saints, chiefly over the practice of polygamy, which they call plural marriage, and founded settlements in remote corners of the Great Basin. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) created a community in the adjoining border hamlets of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona.
In 2002, Warren Jeffs took over as the FLDS’ “prophet”, became the community’s absolute dictator, and implemented a reign of terror that included forcing child marriages to older men and expelling anyone who disagreed with him. This ended in 2006 with Jeff’s conviction on child sexual abuse charges. Warren Jeffs’ DNA established that he had impregnated a 15-year-old “wife”, and there was audio recording of sex with a 12-year-old. The title of this film comes from one of Warren Jeffs’ creepiest exhortations.
Keep Sweet returns to Hildale and Colorado City to find a community traumatized and torn asunder. Many of those victimized by Jeffs have returned to live among Jeffs loyalists, and the power dynamic has shifted. Of course, those on both sides grew up together in the intimacy of a tiny, isolated community.
Keep Sweet is directed by Don Argott (Framing John DeLorean, Art of the Steal, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time). It benefits from footage of the community shot by producer Glenn Meehan a decade earlier; Meehan was documenting the “lost boys” – teenage boys forced to leave Hildale and Colorado City by Jeffs so older men would have less competition for teenage “brides”.
Some of the residents are nostalgic for the Jeffs regime, in denial of Jeffs’ misdeeds, and even ready to lose their homes rather than submit to legal authority. In what I find a sometimes stunning exercise in even-handedness, Argott allows these folks to have their voice and lets the audience members make their own assessments. Argott is sympathetically protective and respectful of everyone’s humanity, no matter how misguided.
For more depth on the Warren Jeffs case itself, I recommend Amy Berg’s fine documentary Prophet’s Prey (Showtime, Amazon, Vudu and YouTube). And for an offbeat fictional narrative on fundamentalist Mormons, there’s Electrick Children (Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube); it’s a story of magical Mormon teen runaways in Vegas (and it was my first look at Julia Garner of Ozark and The Assistant). And there’s the fictional Juniper Creek compound in Big Love, led by characters played by Harry Dean Stanton and Matt Ross.
This is a compelling true story of those who choose to heal – and those who deny that there was any wound to heal. Keep Sweet opens November 24 on discovery+.
Photo caption: Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan in BELFAST. Courtesy of Focus Features.
Plenty of recommendations this week, but the Must See is Belfast – mask up, get yourself to a theater and see it.
IN THEATERS
Belfast: In Kenneth Branagh’s superb coming of age story, we see Northern Ireland’s Troubles through the eyes of eight-year-old. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Belfast is justifiably one of the Oscar favorites. #2 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road: An unusual documentary about an unusual man. Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work.
Also in theaters:
Passing: navigating a racist society and the value of one’s identity. Also streaming on Netflix.
Dirt Music: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Kansas City Bomber: self-discovery at the roller derby track. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
ON TV
Irène Jacob in THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE
On November 21, Turner Classic Movies airs the exquisitely written The Double Life of Veronique (1991). Two women, one French and one Polish, both played by Irène Jacob, are living separate lives hundreds of miles apart yet somehow they are connected… Writer-director Krzysztof Kieślowski was on the verge of his 1993-1994 masterpiece, the Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, Red and White), which is high on my list of Greatest Movies of All Time. Kieślowski died in heart surgery just two years after the trilogy at the age of 54, robbing cinema of yet more masterworks (he was reportedly working on another trilogy).
