fcwemyss Reviews

Wildcat (2023)

Thoughts On Wildcat

[7/10 · 28 May 2024]

I saw WILDCAT on May 19th, 2024. This was at Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, New York. The audience stayed for the entirety of the end credits. Only I do that. I think this means that this was an audience of readers. Flannery O'Connor was the draw.

WILDCAT tells a little about the life of the author of the novel WISEBLOOD. I know Flannery O'Connor's reputation: She was the ultimate Iowa Writers Workshop figure; she was a serious Catholic from the deeply Protestant deep South; and she wrote the greatest short story ever written by an American, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find."

The movie will best be understood in comparison to other movies of the last thirty or so years dealing with the lives of creative people. Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollack and Thomas Wolfe have been subjects of films. FRIDA was stunning, but it had, in common with most relatively recent cinematic treatments of the lives of artists, the goal of pointing the audience to the works the subjects created. Frida Kahlo, like Herman Melville, suddenly caught the world's attention decades after death. Pollack was very famous in his lifetime and his work is never out of fashion. Thomas Wolfe remains a colorful author nobody has much patience for; the movie is focused solely on his working relationship with the great American editor, Maxwell Perkins. Wolfe, the historical figure, remains recognizable to people who love books. But nobody loves his books. (Well, nobody I love does.)

WILDCAT is Ethan Hawke's entry into this field. I started reading WISEBLOOD once. I read three of O'Connor's stories and I've read a fair number of HARPER'S BAZAAR and/or ATLANTIC MONTHLY articles about her. I've seen her mentioned in many a discursion in THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW. I almost borrowed THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY today. But I put it back on the shelf after reading half of the first paragraph. Someone had borrowed WISEBLOOD, and O'Connor's story collections are due back at the library in a few weeks. People are reading her right now. I decided to let someone else's eyes rest on THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY.

I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I was the only person in that audience of Flannery O'Connor fans (or industry insiders) who allowed himself to be heard laughing at the funny parts. O'Connor's sardonic humor is much more prominent than that Sacred Heart stuff she made so terrifying. The movie weaves actual conversations from O'Connor's life with scenes from her fiction, and many characters from her life are played by the same actors acting out the short stories. What I found really intriguing was that the movies presented PARTS of stories. (I have pointed out I have read three of her stories, but I'm certain that all the ones adapted here are treated in part. The opening of the movie is from one of the stories I read. Ethan Hawke wants to pique our interest in O'Connor's work, and he shows us a Flannery O'Connor who adapts what she experiences or witnesses. O'Conner's mother, played by Laura Linney, crops up in different guises in the stories, as does O'Connor herself.

Ethan Hawke's movie features his daughter - Maya Hawke is a first-rate actress, by the way - playing a woman who puts herself and her mother in her fiction. Years and years ago, when Ethan Hawke was in his early twenties, he published a book, and I remember the skepticsim with which this was met. But he consistently emphasizes a life of reading; of play-going and, I would say, salvation through the written word. Put him in a category with the Wyeths; Lloyd Bridges and his family; or the Wainwright and McGarrigle families. There is a tradition of creative families and Ethan Hawke's is one of these. Nobody else was going to offer a sincere treatment of the literary art of the short-lived, uncompromising author at the center of WILDCAT. Nobody else wanted to show the legacy Flannery O'Connor left the reading public.

Knowing some little about O'Connor or her writing will help you enjoy WILDCAT. But you might see it and then seek out her books.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

The One Movie Cary Grant Tanks

[6/10 · 23 February 2024]

They say, and I believe the "they" this time, that Cary Grant said this was his worst performance. I suspect Frank Capra told him to play the character as a constantly frantic witness to unspeakable actions. The thing is, the actions are so unspeakable that underscoring them is the opposite of what the hero in this dark comedy should do.

I started reading the play before seeing this film at a local independent theater the other night. The play's laughs stem from the characters' genteel manners as the macabre truth unfolds. Capra, a populist, can't manage the dynamic.

The entire cast is good OUTSIDE of Cary Grant. But, inasmuch as he was probably the best all-around actor in Hollywood history, it's a study in how even a great star, under bad direction, can fail to shine.

(Grant's one-on-one scene with Peter Lorre is subtle, though. You can almost see the relief in his face as he drops the manic act in the presence of another serious actor.)

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Very Funny And Very Serious

[9/10 · 22 October 2022]

This is a Swedish movie in English with an international cast. A cruise ship, taking a small group of astronomically wealthy people SOMEWHERE, encounters a partly natural and largely man-made disaster. The laughs are not so much stemming from witty banter but from how far the characters test each other.

As it proceeds, it becomes clear that class tensions trump every attempt at human connection. A scene I find oddly touching involves an industrialist approaching two beautiful women at the ship's open air bar, a camera in his hand. What he wants is for them to take a picture of him to send to his girlfriend, who couldn't be with him. He's not trying to seduce them. He is so grateful they've taken a picture of him that his extreme gratitude becomes almost tragic. While the comedy in this movie is broad, it is acutely observed.

That the movie gets radically disgusting is not, in my view, a flaw. The overarching effect is its mirroring of our current state of social emergency. The gross-out humor won't amuse most gross-out humor advocates, because it is politically charged.

The cast is uniformly excellent; every character is well-realized. The two leads (if "leads" is the word for a movie which studies many characters in detail) are trapped between ALL the classes represented here. It is a fashion model and his Influencer girlfriend. They climb the trellis of class, seeping through it, slip off of it and cling to it because they are unattainably beautiful.

The ship's stewards and stewardesses are sensible, the maintenance crew is hard-working and looked down upon by the stewards, and the captain is accountable to no one. He bonds with a Russian oligarch on board, and their verbal tussle over capitalism and communism occurs as torrential weather and volcanic vomiting define the trip.

The movie is in three or four long segments. When a power shift occurs in the final segment, it is not so much a surprise as a study in such shifts. But even this study is not conventional. I would say that this part of the movie owes something to various books and movies about stranded outcasts. William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES (and the movies made out if it), DeFoe's ROBINSON CRUSOE, Herman Melville's BENITO CERENO, and the work of John Boorman come to mind.

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

There Is A Plot, And It's A Good One

[9/10 · 28 July 2019]

Even people who like this movie seem to think there's no plot. Now, with the risk of including Spoilers (although I won't be drawing arrows to or underlining plot points) the story of the two main protagonists, DiCaprio's down-and-out actor and Pitt's stunt double with nowhere to go but up, is not simply about, or even mainly about, their friendship. It is about what each of these two do in the face of adversity. This is not a piece of nostalgia and I don't think there's even a moment of nostalgia in it. It makes use of a fairly distant, but not quite yet remote past. I was nine in the year this movie takes place. I remember this time vividly. In capturing certain aspects of this era, ONCE UPON A TIME prompts recognition in the minds of viewers who lived during that era. There isn't a single moment designed to make us yearn to return to 1969. Nor is this work designed to make us think it was a dystopian era. This may seem odd, given the focus on the Manson Family, but Tarantino is neither critiquing nor praising late '60s America. He is taking an event which is seared into the minds of people who lived at the time, an event which has become mythic; as central to American iconography as the legend of Jesse James; and made it the backdrop of a story about how individuals choose to use their freedom.

Ghost Light (II) (2018)

Light Comedy Thriller With A Shakespearean Twist

[8/10 · 14 July 2019]

This is a neat little comedy with an edge of suspense. The premise is basic: A theatrical troupe gets together on an old estate in New England in order to rehearse and present MacBeth. It being "the Scottish play," things go wrong. If you know a little about theater, you may know that productions of Shakespeare's play about a murderous pair of royals often go awry. Alec Guinness, for example, got the worst reviews of his life for a MacBeth he did in 1963 or so. (I've heard the audio version he did for Caedmon. It sounds like a great performance to me.) Actors, directors and producers have stories about bad productions and disasters surrounding the performance of MacBeth. Ghost Light makes clear from the start the superstitions around the play. You do not have to know much more than that to enjoy what is a nice, light look at people who make theater for the love of it. There is a lot of nuance in this film. The actors are shown in multiple lights. Carol Kane is sympathetic as an overplaying Witch, Cary Elwes, who, at first, seems like a self-centered ham, becomes a serious MacBeth. Roger Bart as the stressed, kindly director, centers the movie. If you know the play fairly well, you'll notice the parallels between the actors' lives and those of the characters they play. The cast in uniformly good. Shannyn Sossamon is very convincing as the lady who wants to play Lady MacBeth. Tom Riley, whose character rehearses Macbeth when the actor whose supposed to play him is momentarily out of commission after a mysterious on-set accident, is really good at playing an actor AND playing MacBeth. Liliane Klein and Zele Avradopoulas as the landladies who lease their space to these over-ambitious but weirdly gentle troupers, highlight the world outside the play, until...well - watch it. The special effects are good, and, indeed, a movie which has, as its goal, the idea of showing how and why this particular play makes actors a little cray-cray, should have good special effects. This is an enjoyable way to spend a little over ninety minutes. if you have affection for theater and enjoy a few riffs on a bardic theme, this is for you.

Midsommar (2019)

Horror Story About The Nature Of Cults

[9/10 · 3 July 2019]

It's easy to forget, as you reach the end of this shattering horror story, that it opens with a moment of trauma. Before the central characters leave the U.S. for their trip to a seemingly idyllic commune in Sweden, one of them is visited with profound, shocking grief. Once they're in Sweden, it takes a good while for earth-shaking events to take place; not that these are not hinted at, of course. But as the scene is set, we are treated to something like a Robert Altman film. Multiple characters on the screen deal with each other as they relax on hillsides, play music, settle in, etc. In short, the sheer realism of this movie makes its sheer terror all the more plausible. Describing the plot can never do justice to the first-rate acting, cinematography and editing. Hitchcock once said, "I wanted PSYCHO to be a fun picture." MIDSOMMAR is fun, as well. But PSYCHO wasn't a documentary. MIDSOMMAR has something of a documentary about it. It is very much about cults. You have to bring something to it when you watch it. The audience I saw it with (in its first week here in the U.S.) began laughing about two-thirds of the way through a particularly detailed sexual scene. There was grim humor in it, but this was the laughter of discomfort. On the way out of the theatre, though, I got the sense that even people who said they were confused by it were entertained. THAT said, I'm not certain entertainment was intended. MIDSOMMAR is scary because much of what it depicts is the essence of cult life.

Queers (2017)

Funny, Sometimes Shattering And Always Thoughtful

[9/10 · 12 March 2018]

QUEERS is really riveting television. It is a mini-series, but the episodes are not intertwined and can be watched in any order. It was made for the BBC for the fiftieth anniversary of the Homosexual Offences Act, which decriminalized sexual acts between men over 21 in Britain. Consisting of eight monologues spoken directly to the camera by different actors. Each monologue is set in a gay bar which appears to be one particular bar, the very existence of which, over the hundred-year course of the series, implies a continuum. Each episode is written by a different writer. But Mark Gattis directed each episode. There is a unity of tone. The immediacy of each story is enhanced by the fact that each is told in the first-person by an actor looking directly at the camera, and hence at the viewer. The temptation is to say each of these is an interior monologue, but, in fact, the actors are talking to us. This is actually very novel. (Hamlet's soliloquy, as a rule, is performed as if he is talking to himself, even as he scans the faces looking at him from the audience. But the characters here really are addressing us. I have two personal favorites here: "I'd Miss You Alice" and "The Man On The Platform." Beautiful performances are featured throughout this project, but every stop is pulled in these two episodes. Of the eight stories, two are told by women, and the irony is not lost. The Homosexual Offences Act specifically dealt with men, but there are two sexes, and 1967 was a watershed year in Britain for anyone, whether a gay male, a lesbian or straight ally. Inasmuch as each story is told by one person, we do not see people interacting. This does not mean Queers is without dramatic tension. It is sometimes a shattering viewing experience, quite often funny, always thoughtful and, above all, truthful.

Duck Soup (1933)

The Marx Brothers' Best Movie

[9/10 · 17 January 2016]

At a mere 63 minutes, this may be the shortest Marx Brothers movie. But if you were to cut out, from the other movies, the sorts of things which were not in this one, you'd still find that, minute for minute, this is the team's most consistent effort. All the other Marx Brothers movies contain a piano solo by Chico and a harp solo by Harpo. Most of the other movies have multiple songs sung by a non-comedic couple. DUCK SOUP dispenses with all of that. What remains is a fast-paced, driven assault of one-liners, sight gags and masterful slapstick routines, all with an antisocial edge. It also is a parody of patriotic musical extravaganzas and war-movie clichés. This movie became exceedingly popular with college crowds thirty-five years after it was released. it's a sort of cinematic equivalent of MAD Magazine.

Like You Mean It (2015)

Thoughtful drama of a gay couple at a crossroads.

[7/10 · 17 January 2016]

This is a good film. On the surface it is about a gay couple struggling to stay together, but it is actually about one-half of this couple.

Mark, played by LIKE YOU MEAN IT'S writer/director, Philipp Karner, doesn't merely have difficulty committing, he has increasing difficulty communicating with anyone. His character is interesting, especially in that, as a professional actor, auditioning generally for voice-over assignments, he must use a wide variety of voices. That English is not his native language, and though he has mastered an infinite variety of American accents, he is finding himself unable to continue.

Jonah, his boyfriend, played by Denver Milord, is a struggling musician. What is very subtle about this movie is that it shows us typical tensions a gay couple experiences but demonstrates a unique element: Post-traumatic stress disorder. Jonah, an intelligent man, is helpless to reach Mark, whose relationship to his estranged father is the backdrop to this couple's crisis.

It is well-acted and photographed, and unlike a lot of movies which have entertainers as main characters, it shows what they do. We see that Mark isn't just an actor down on his luck. We see him auditioning and we realize he's good. When Jonah sings to Mark one night, at Mark's request, we are shown that he is good and that he is doing the sort of music heard today. This adds to the realism.

LIKE IT IS is as thoughtful as any story by John Updike or Joyce Carol Oates. The short story may be the form which has most influenced this film. In my view, that is a plus.