Friday, February 18, 2022

White Hunter, Black Heart (1990)

  Last year, Kyle and I watched Clint Eastwood's The Bridges of Madison County, and I loved it so much.  In fact, it was probably my favorite movie I watched in all of 2020.  I have never been the biggest Eastwood fan, but since I loved that one so much, there was so much humanity in it. Unfortunately, White Hunter, Black Heart, his 1990 movie based loosely on the making of the African Queen does not have the same qualities. 

Eastwood is behind the camera and in front of it as John Wilson, the stand in for John Houston, the director of the African Queen.  Wilson is at once petulant, stubborn and in some ways toxically masculine, but at the same time, he has a keen moral compass.  Except to when it comes to his obsession with killing an elephant, he basically wants to make this movie in Africa so the studio will pay him to be able to hunt.  His friend Paul (Jeff Fahey, honestly just not a strong enough actor to handle the role) comes on as the film's writer, and there are a few fun scenes with actor's portraying the Katherine Hepburn type and the Humphrey Bogart stand in.  But overall, I couldn't get into the film.  

Eastwood is at times oddly wooden, and other times electric as Wilson, in particular, the scene in which a beautiful woman he is wooing reveals herself to be an awful anti semite.  high off the moral righteousness  he feels, he then proceeds to pick a fight with the awful racist Maître d at the hotel the crew is camped out at.  The philosophical debate Paul and Wilson have over the sin of killing an elephant, is just not that interesting, and while the elephants are beautiful, I don't feel like the majesty of Africa is really expressed.  The story of a white man entranced with Africa is an old one, as is an obsession that takes over all reason, but I just don't think the film really got at either particularly well.  ★★.5 

Thursday, October 3, 2019

La Femme's Top Ten of 2018 (10-6)



10.  Cold War (Pavel Pawlikowski):  Pavel Pawlikowski's, Cold War is a haunting portrait of doomed love, or maybe more accurately, the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Because the only time our lovers Wiktor (Tomasz Kot, smoldering but depressed in that Euro way)  and Zula (Joanna Kulig, magnetic) seem to be in love is when they aren't together.  The only time they seem happy, is never.  But that doesn't mean they aren't intoxicating to watch.  Wiktor, a musician is working on a project for the Polish government shortly after World War II is traveling around the country recording folk singers.  We soon learn that the government is opening a school to promote folk music, and eventually Communist Propaganda.   Zula is a student at the academy, who oozes both sensuality and desperation.  Their chemistry is immediate, but maybe because of the world they live in, or maybe because of who they are, they can't find happiness.  Apart, they long desperately for each other, together, they can't seem to make it work.  This movie sounds like an epic, and in many ways it is, but it is only 90 minutes (yay!).  The amount of detail Pawlikowski crams into the running time, without disturbing the languid pace is incredible.  The movie is just as much about the history of Communist Poland as these two characters, but he never tells us, and only shows us.  The black and white cinematography is gorgeous and the haunting folk music brought tears to my eyes.


9.  First Man (Damien Chazelle):  Most of the movies in my top ten are movies I emotionally connected with.  This one (and another in the top five) is one I appreciated more than loved.  First Man is a stunning achievement in cinema.  Ryan Gosling is Neil Armstrong and Claire Foy is his wife.  He is training to hopefully journey to the moon, he is also grieving the death of his young daughter from cancer.  To be honest, the whole sad dad thing didn't really work for me in this case. Claire Foy is competent in the "great man's wife" role (but I'm so freaking sick of that role that I can't really get behind it) and completely sells her big moment.  The parts I thought I wouldn't find interesting:  the training, the work is what I loved about the movie.  The scenes on the moon are breathtaking and the score was one of the best of the year. 


8.  Hereditary (Ari Aster): Hereditary makes it on the list because I love audacity.  And Ari Aster's debut film is nothing if not audacious.  In fact, it's flat out cuckoo.  A movie about grief, but make it Satanic.  Cults, devils and the ilk are probably the one horror trope that still freaks me out (except for BOB from Twin Peaks, but let's not think about him right now).  Annie (Toni Collette) has recently lost her mother, a mother that she didn't seem to like much, but still, her mother.  As she tries to hold her family together, greater tragedy strikes and thats when things start to get weird.  Actually, that's not true.  The only person her mother liked was her young daughter, who has taken to making a popping sound with her tongue that is very disconcerting.  To tell you the places this movie goes it to spoil a lot of fun so I won't.  But Toni Collette leaves it all on the screen for us to marvel and grimace at.  

7.  Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski):  A movie about a group of women who work at a Hooters type establishment, doesn't exactly sound like the kind of movie that would be on my top ten.  Did I mention the director is king of mumblecore, Andrew Bujalski?  That doesn't really put it on my top ten either (no disrespect to mumblecore, I like some of it, mostly the Greta Gerwig parts).  But Support the Girls has the biggest heart of any movie I saw from 2018.  Lisa (Regina Hall) is the manager of Double Whammies, who is having a terrible day.  Her marriage is in shambles, her job is threatened because a rival restaurant is opening in town, her employees are a mess and the cable is on the fritz before a big fight.  So many movies are about the families we find and Support the Girls is no different.  With great supporting turns by Hayley Lou Richardson and rapper Junglepussy (she's credited as Shayna McHayle but how could I not?), Support the Girls is so much fun, so genuine and really what the heart of mumblecore was.  Showing regular people, their real, sometimes ugly lives.  

6.  Leave No Trace (Debra Granik): Boy, this one is a heartbreaker.  I didn't cry at the end of this movie, but I was left feeling a huge, gaping hole.  In many ways, it reminded me of 2016's Manchester by the Sea, only maybe less tragic (but also weirdly less funny).  Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) and her father Will (Ben Foster) live off the grid in a public park outside Portland, Oregon.  He is an Iraq war veteran, clearly suffering from PTSD.  Their idyllic life is interrupted when their camp is spotted by a jogger and they are apprehended.  They end up on a Christmas tree farm in a real house.  Tom quickly adjusts and embraces this new life.  Will cannot.  McKenzie and Foster give naturalistic and vulnerable performances as father and daughter.  Much like the aforementioned Manchester by the Sea, Tom can't "beat it" and no matter how much he wants to, and how much he loves his daughter, he can't give her the life she didn't know she was missing out on.  

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

La Femme in....Rehoboth Beach, DE



I never thought I would vacation in Delaware, that sounds like snobbery and I don’t mean it to, poor Delaware is the little state everyone forgets about, smashed between Maryland and Pennsylvania.  But Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is an incredibly charming corner of the first state. People from surrounding areas all congregate on the Eastern shore, either in Maryland, Delaware or Virginia (and southern Jersey too) to escape the sweaty, humid mess that is the Mid Atlantic in the summer.  

We first found ourselves going to Rehoboth the summer of 2016, a few months after moving from Washington state to Alexandria, VA.  We knew we had to get away, to be able to breathe air again that wasn’t thick.  To feel a breeze that wasn’t burning hot on your skin.  To not get bit by 10,000 mosquitos when you take your dogs out. Rehoboth is a cross between a tony adorable beach town and a trashy party place, which is kind of why I love it. 

Rehoboth has a pretty adorable downtown area, with a bunch of shops and restaurants, frankly mostly selling Live Laugh Love, Hello Beaches, Save Water, Drink Wine signs, shirts, towels, wine glasses, you name it.  The king of merchandise suburban moms go crazy for, so not really my demo.  But it is always fun to stroll the shops and they did have a gay bookstore where I found my prized possession my WWJD shirt (WHAT WOULD JOAN DO.  Now K and my brother and his boyfriend all have one.  We are the #JoanGang) but most people go to Rehoboth to sit on the wide, sandy beaches with the warm water of the Atlantic.  There is of course a boardwalk where you can by the disgustingly delicious Grotto Pizza (a great late night snack), beach fries or frozen custard covered in rainbow sprinkles.  There are also multiple arcades where K and I play Skee Ball and try to win our dog Oliver toys from the claw machine. It’s All American fun and we love it.  

But to truly explain the wonderful and weird Rehoboth, I want to share my top four Rehoboth memories, which I think will perfectly encapsulate this funny little town,  

1.  Le Grand Dip (September 2016): My brother and his boyfriend live in Philadelphia, K and I live in DC.  So we knew that when my parents came to visit in September 2016, we could meet in Rehoboth for a beach weekend.  For some reason, my Dad had it in mind that he wanted to swim in the Atlantic.  Honestly it was more of an obsession, he talked about it constantly, to me, to my brother to my mom. And lots of people do swim in the ocean there, in fact my brother’s boyfriend is the bravest of us all and swims like a dolphin.  Everyone else in my family is much more cautious, but if my dad wanted to dip himself, we would support him! Of course, in the lead up, we coined the phrase, Le Grand Dip, and boy was it grand!  After spending a morning on Poodle Beach, the gay beach, with more men in Speedos that I have ever seen, my dad finally worked up the courage to dip himself.  My poor Dad got knocked off his feet by the waves and ended up on his ass.  Of course, our whole family couldn’t stop laughing and I don’t know if Poodle Beach has recovered!  K and I went for lunch, my brother and his boyfriend took my mom to the bathroom and my dad was left alone on Poodle Beach to contemplate what had brought him to this moment.  Needless to say, he did not go in the water again.  

2. Lynchian Nightmare at the Purple Parrot (Septmeber 2017):  The Purple Parrot is the place to be in Rehoboth, on Friday, unless you go to the gay bar The Blue Moon and I am no woo girl so K and I go to the Purple Parrot to watch the worlds weirdest karaoke.  Yes, there is your standard run of the mill karaoke classics, but there is also an incredible guy who does Midnight Train to Georgia each and every Friday.  K and I went to the Purple Parrot last September, the last weekend the arcades were open, so basically the last weekend of the summer season.  The place was packed, standing room only, but we were able to get a prime view of the karaoke.  I noticed two young men in a booth to our right.  One of the men wore a miniature black cowboy hat, a black ribbed tank top and flared jeans.  He accessorized this look with black closed toe high heeled boots that I think my mom had in 1995.  With him was a skinny, rat faced guy dressed in khakis and a button down.  They began to talk with a spry looking elderly woman dressed all in denim. I had been so distracted by watching their interactions, I didn’t notice that the creepiest man in the world was up next for karaoke.  We had seen him before, his long, clearly dyed black hair.  His sunglasses covered his deeply wrinkled  face he wore head to toe black.  We immediately remember him; we had seen him perform before and knew he was a regular.  He began to sin gin a deep voice, Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.  The lights seemed to grow darker and the flashing lights of the nightclub seemed to get more intense as he began prowling through the crowd.  The young men, clearly knowing him, began to dance excitedly, running onto the stage.  And as this man began to move through the crowd, singing to people, I turned my back, but before I did, I saw the elderly woman, twerking to the music. Never have I felt more like I was in a David Lynch movie, it was both nightmarish and oddly compelling.  


3.  The World’s Worst Mojito (July 2017):  Usually K and I like to get a pre dinner drink somewhere in town, and we often go to The Blue Hen, which opened last summer.  Rehoboth is either very upscale with martinis and French restaurants or the opposite with Orange Crushes (a Mid Atlantic cocktail basically made with orange vodka, fresh orange and triple sec, which sounds gross but is very refreshing in context) The Blue Hen is the former with a gorgeous fire pit outside and excellent Frosé, but I had it in mind that it would be nice to sit by the water.  Most of the places by the water are restaurants or arcades but there was one hotel with a bar and live music.  Almost as soon as we sat down and looked at the menu, I knew we had made a horrible mistake.  Everyone was being served in plastic cups and all the drinks looked neon.  Naively, I figured a Mojito was a safe choice, I mean how hard is it to mess up, lime, mint, rum, boom, and I mean I didn’t want a drink with a mixer, and I hadn’t seen Mojito mix before.  K wisely ordered a beer.  As I watched more and more electric colored drinks come out, I saw a drink that surely couldn’t be mine coming my way.  It was actually a beautiful color, for anything but a cocktail, a lime green/turquoise concoction, that had zero lime, or mint.  I do think it had rum, but I honestly can’t be sure.  I took a sip , and the most vile, artificial taste filled my mouth.  This was truly the worst Mojito ever, also it was huge.  I’m not ashamed to say, I poured half into the planter in front of us (sorry plant!)  and we high tailed it to the Blue Hen.  There we had expertly made cocktails in a James Beard nominated restaurant, such are the contradictions of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. 

4.  Vampires on Poodle Beach (July 2019): This July, we made our final (for now at least) trip to Rehoboth.  This time, we met my brother, his fiancé, and their two friends.  This was a long anticipated trip because we had been living on the East coast for three summers and had only been to Rehoboth together one time.  K and I were getting ready to move to LA, so we knew time was ticking away.  We chose the one weekend in July that would work for everyone.  Between holidays, birthdays, and both of us moving, we had picked the only weekend all summer that would work.  Unfortunately, we picked the one weekend with a heat wave.  An extremely oppressive heat wave, we are talking over 100 at the beach.  We are talking so hot, you don't even feel better under the umbrella.  So hot, the water barely makes you feel better!  But we all trekked down to Poodle Beach on Saturday.  Of course, everyone was taking pictures and Instagramming.  Well, five of the six of us are all extremely pale and most of us try to avoid the sun because we burn easily.  So when G, my brother's friend, posted a picture of us on his Instagram story, we learned at dinner that it had provided much entertainment to all his friends.  Including comments that we looked like Vampires.  We couldn't stop laughing, we were the five palest people you had ever seen.  


Julie

Thursday, September 28, 2017

La Femme Recommends....American Honey


 
Andrea Arnold’s American Honey is a sprawling, ugly, joyous epic that is about fleeting youth, the American recession, foolish love and everything in between.  I saw this film a couple months ago and I liked it.   When I started writing this piece, I decided to turn it on in the background to refresh my memory (and it’s on Amazon Prime!), and I found myself completely sucked in.  In fact, I love this movie so much, I am having a hard time expressing it. If nothing else, what American Honey is, is magical.

But it might not sound that way:  Star (Sasha Lane, in a stunning debut) is a teenager with no hope; she dumpster dives for groceries, takes care of her two younger siblings, and is sexually abused by her step father.  Star’s life changes when she meets Jake (Shia LaBeouf) in an incredibly depressing grocery store, when they lock eyes while Rhianna’s “We Found Love” blasts on the speakers.  It’s a hopeless place, indeed.  Star joins Jake on a mag crew (a group of aimless teens on an endless road trip selling magazines door to door), a job that seems to garner them little profits and even less prospects.

In fact, the film has all the trimmings of an exploitative-filled mess a la Harmony Korine or Larry Clarke. The mag crew is filled with grimy, young, white lower class looking (non)actors, with bad teeth and blotchy skin.  They love hip hop and don’t for a second hesitate to sing along (including using the N word). They marvel at the tall buildings in Kansas City like they are the Empire State Building.  They fight, they love, and they are a motley crew with absolutely no direction.  And they are Star’s new family. 

Arnold and her cinematographer, Robbie Ryan, make the film astonishingly beautiful even in this depressed and sometimes ugly part of America. The crew travels around the Midwest, from Oklahoma to Kansas and then up into North Dakota and everywhere (which seems like no where) in between.  Arnold uses her roving camera to capture moments of exquisite beauty, such as the way the light looks in the afternoon, a bonfire at night, and blades of grass with insects on them.  The film is a travelogue, episodic in nature but, even at 162 minutes the film, never drags.  It can be dreamlike one moment, then deliberate the next, each episode flowing into one another. Arnold uses setting and details like costume so well; everything feels very real but also cinematic, which is an incredibly difficult balance. It doesn’t veer into documentary or cinema verité, but American Honey and its characters nevertheless feel incredibly real.

Sasha Lane as Star is the open heart of the movie, and she is an amazing find.  She is so natural and without pretense but so confident at the same time, like a seasoned actor would be.  Star is constantly observing those around her, learning and adapting to whatever situation she is in. In Lane’s face, you know exactly what she is feeling and thinking.  Star is naive but also street smart. She is fearless and strong and above all. She is never a victim.  In so many films about young girls like Star, you are dreading what is going to happen to them, expecting them to be raped or murdered or just generally abused.  This isn’t to say Star doesn’t get in some dangerous situations (multiple times she meets older men and finds herself in situations that are incredibly tense).  But each time, Star (mostly) comes out on top.  It’s a nice change from the victimization of young women you often see in indie films.  


American Honey is also a highly dysfunctional but searingly sweet love story. I have never really responded to Shia  LaBeouf, perhaps more for his public persona than his performances, but he is incredible in the film.  Jake is a scumbag with a heart of gold: he is the number one seller on the mag crew and trains the recruits for Crystal (Riley Keough, so delightfully trashy and icy), who runs the crew.  You get the feeling that Jake, with his suspenders and rat tail,  has done the routine with all the girls in the van, trained them, probably slept with them, but you also get the feeling that Star is different.  She is in awe of him at first, but immediately sees his bullshit, and calls him on the dishonest nature of selling these magazines, which are mostly done through deceit and lies made up by the mag crew to garner sympathy. 


Lane and LaBeouf have a white hot chemistry that feels very dangerous and very real. As a viewer, you are torn because the relationship seems doomed from the start. At the same time, though, I also couldn’t help but root for them.  I think Arnold puts you so much in Star’s mind that you become infatuated with Jake and can’t wait to see him again (for us, on screen).  One scene, in particular, in which they drive together in a convertible in the country and the radio blasts “Fade into You” by Mazzy Star (a 90s song you might not know the name of but you have probably heard) is one of the most romantic moments I have ever seen in cinema: it perfectly captures the kind of moment you want to last forever, the moments of falling in love, moments of pure joy.  It’s simply magical and something I could watch on a loop. Like so many of the moments in American Honey, however fleeting, as a viewer, you wish they could last forever.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

La Femme...from Las Vegas to Alexandria

Nevada/Arizona Border
After K and I left Las Vegas, we both felt that the fun part of our trip was over.  We had already covered approximately 1,500 miles but we had done it relatively leisurely, and had taken three days to relax in Palm Springs and another in two in Las Vegas.  Now, Monday morning we had to cover approximately 2,500 miles in six days.  Our first stop was in Flagstaff, Arizona. We chose it because it was on the way, nothing more.  K and I both wanted to stop at the Grand Canyon, but we were already feeling fatigue.  One thing when you drive all day, is all you want to do is get there.  We had plans to stop at fun restaurants on the side of the road (we also had our two pups in the car, so that makes things way more complicated), but lots of days, we ended up just eating fast food in the car.  We wanted to be able to enjoy and explore the destinations on our route as much as we could in the short time we had.  I guess we’ll leave the grand canyon for when we eventually return home to the West Coast!  The drive from Las Vegas to Flagstaff was a beautiful one though, we passed the Hoover Dam and saw the wide open dessert of Arizona.  We also made a fun stop on Route 66 for lunch in the town of Seligman Arizona at West Side Lilo’s, a delicious diner.  It was nice to sit down and relax and check out the atmosphere, there were taxidermied animals on the wall, and friendly waitresses and huge never ending refills of soda.  The food was hearty and amazingly delicious, plus there was a tourist trap across the street of a fake western town and you know i had to check it out for Instagram and to get a picture of Rufus in the “town” jail.

Downtown Flagstaff, AZ
Wigwam Motel
When we arrived in Flagstaff, tiny snowflakes were falling on our car, for the first (and last time) we found the our room wasn’t ready.  After driving seven hours, that isn’t what you want to hear, especially when you have arrived after check in!  Nevertheless, we took the dogs to town to explore and used it as an opportunity to find a bar to return to pre dinner.  Flagstaff is a railroad town, it didn’t look anything like what I thought Arizona would.  Of course, I learned that it is actually very high up compared to other parts of the state and so the landscape is much different.  The town reminded me of what I think Alaska would be like, a little rough, all wood buildings, like a gold rush town.  A very grizzled homeless man saw us walking up the street with our dog, Snooker, who was nearing the end of her life (she died in November last year) and was undergoing cancer treatment, she was old, but she looked ancient.  Snooker was a happy, happy girl though and loved the trip so much.  She loved getting out of the car and sniffing around and exploring all the different places.  As we walked by the man exclaimed, “Look at that old timer!  She must have had lots of adventures and she still has a spring in her step.”  Of course, Snooker being the aloof dog she was, she trotted past him as he reached out to touch her. Later, K and I went to a dive bar, that had a fantastic neon sign in a hotel.  I was really into Manhattan’s and they had Michter’s whiskey, so I ordered one.  K had a Martini.  I think everyone else was drinking beer and to be honest the only scary moment we had the whole trip was when the other patrons in the bar, who were quite rough and tumble types, I mean I guess they were Flagstaff’s version of hipsters, only a lot dirtier and meaner, were like, why is that guy drinking that, he comes here and gets a martini!  In fact, they tried to come up to K, but luckily he is pretty oblivious and so when they said something to him, he didn't respond.  We finished up our “fancy” drinks and picked up a pizza for dinner in order to relax before our next day.

Santa Fe, NM

The next morning after a pit stop at the famed Wigwam hotel, where I totally would have stayed if I could.  I mean, how cute are those rooms, we arrived in Santa Fe. Santa Fe, was a place I have always wanted to visit.  I’ll admit, it probably came from one of my favorite movies as a child, Newsies (to say favorite is maybe a slight understatement, obsession is more apt).  Christian Bale’s Jack “Cowboy” Kelly, an orphan newsboy in New York City, dreams of moving  to the high desert to start a new life, and sings a beautiful and poignant song about it.  As an adult, I knew it more as a sophisticated get away for the artsy set.  And it didn’t disappoint.  If I had done one thing different on this trip, I would have spent one more night here.  We didn’t have nearly enough time to explore!  K and I seen the afternoon wandering around the adorable downtown area with the cutest adobe buildings looking for some native pottery.  The native sellers at the Palace of the Governor’s market, a central plaza in downtown, was just shutting down as we got there and I didn’t spot any, maybe a week day in March isn’t the best time.  So we wandered around and I eventually settled on a couple fun souvenirs.  We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking margaritas and chilling in an adorable hotel bar (La Fonda on the Plaza) before heading to the best dinner the whole trip at Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen.  I had been really excited to try Tex Mex in Santa Fe and I loved the food and drinks, the atmosphere was fun and lively and the sopapillas are amazing.  I wished we had more time to explore this fun town, and I definitely plan to return. 


Somewhere in the Texas panhandle


 Frankly the rest of our trip was pretty uneventful, we wanted to get to Alexandria, Virginia and we wanted to get there quick.  And after leaving Santa Fe, the landscape got much less interesting at least through the Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas.  The next day was a long driving day to Oklahoma City, where a dear friend of mine lives.  K and I left early and only stopped to have barbecue in Amarillo, Texas at Spicy Mike’s BBQ Haven.  It was amazing, I hadn’t really Texas barbecue before and it was so delicious!  I had pulled pork, K had brisket, and the baked beans were amazing, smoky and delicious.  That evening, we had a lovely visit with friends before heading out on the last leg of our journey.



When I think of the last two days of our journey, I can’t help but think of the line in Book of Mormon, “And here’s the part of our story that gets a little bit sad”. K and I had originally planned to stop in Memphis one night, Nashville and next (a relatively short drive) and then push it all the way to Alexandria in an epic 10 hour final day.  But at this point, we were exhausted.  We had two dogs in the car, we were getting up super early and trying to not stop so that we could enjoy the cities and towns we arrived in.  We were done.  And the drive to Memphis was another seven hours.  I wanted to see Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum, but I also wanted the trip to be over.  So we made the decision to go straight to Nashville, making the day a grueling ten hours.  When you drive that long, you both want to get out of the car and stop and you don’t, because you just want to get there.  I have never wanted to drive across the country and I will probably do it twice in my life.  The drive was the only day that was miserable, it rained all through Arkansas, a driving, heavy rain.  We stopped for gas in probably the grossest little town ever and drove straight through Little Rock.  We got off the freeway to go to a Sonic, a place we had never tried and the sign indicated it was five miles away.  No thank you, too much of a diversion.   So back on the freeway we went.  Within a few miles, there was a sudden slow down.  An accident had happened moments earlier.  As we approached a semi on the right side, we saw a pick up truck, completely ruined and people standing around.  And then I saw it, a man lying in the road, thrown from the truck.  It was horrible, he was clearly dead.  We made it through even before the cops which I was thankful for because the road was actually closed overnight.  Wear your seatbelt each and every time you get in a car, it can save your life. That man didn’t wake up that morning thinking today was the day he died and if he worn his seatbelt, perhaps it wouldn’t have been.

We were so wiped out that we just went to a quick dinner by our hotel and spent the next morning exploring Nashville, which wasn't nearly enough time. Nashville is cute!  It really reminded me of the Portland of the South, lots of cute shops in East Nashville, with adorable craftsmen homes.  We really only sent the morning walking around but I definitely hope to return to Nashville soon.  As we crossed from Tennessee into Virginia (well, right before the border thank you very much) we saw a huge confederate flag on a hill.  We definitely weren’t in Seattle anymore!  We spent our last night in a town in southern Virginia in Wytheville, a cute, if definitely podunk town. The contrast between Northern and Southern Virginia is pretty stark.  It is definitely the south down there! We managed to find an adorable old hotel (The Boling Wilson Hotel, a gorgeous building) with a decent bar to snack in and eventually just got pizza for dinner.  On our final day, we drove the five hours up to Alexandria and arrived in our new home.



Overall, our trip, which we dubbed #kandjacrosstheusa was so memorable.  I’m so glad we drove even though some parts of the trip were boring, tiring, and even terribly sad.  We got to see the incredible beauty of America and spend that time with Rufus and Snooker, our two wonderful pups. I got to spend two weeks alone with my husband.  I thought that I would cross a bunch of places off my list to visit, but in fact, I added a ton instead.

From Alexandria,

Julie

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

2016 Best Picture Nominees...Part 2


Manchester By the Sea: (2016, Kenneth Lonergan): Before I saw Manchester by the Sea, I knew it would be devastating and expected it to be dour.  All the reviews alluded to a terrible tragedy at the center of the film.  I managed not to spoil myself so I won’t spoil you either but I will tell you that what Lee (Casey Affleck), a janitor in Quincy, Massachusetts has gone through is actually worse than what I had guessed (and I am usually a very accurate guesser when it comes to movies, it’s one of my talents).  He works and he lives in a tiny, incredibly depressing  basement apartment, speaking to no one and for fun he goes to bars to pick fights.  When he finds out that his brother Joe, (Kyle Chandler) has finally died of his ongoing heart condition, Lee must return to his hometown, the Manchester of the title to care for Joe’s seventeen year old son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges).  

Casey Affleck is stunning as a character who wants to do the right thing, maybe even wants to move on, but literally can’t.  At first sight his performance is almost plain, as Lee in the present, he is numb, unemotive, he speaks with almost no cadence in his voice and barely moves his face. It’s as if there is not one moment where he isn’t caught in guilt, in mourning, in regret.  And we also see the contrast of Lee when was living in Manchester with his wife (Michelle Williams).  In the present, he wants to help his nephew, and part of him wants to stay in Manchester and restart a real life, but the weight of a mistake he made years earlier can’t allow him to.  I loved the relationship between Patrick and Lee, it was very natural and stilted at the same time, because these two people don’t know each other since Lee moved away.  Lonergan is always so wonderful at creating such human characters, that he makes it so easy to understand their motivations, to empathize with them completely.  Affleck uses his whole body to portray a man that is dead on the inside, but who still feels an obligation and love for his family, you feel his sadness in every single moment. 


Michelle Williams may be the most expressive and vulnerable actress working today and in both flashback and present day, her brief scenes with Affleck are wonderful.  All of the supporting roles, everyone from Kyle Chandler to Tate Donovan to C.J. Wilson as Joe’s business partner and friend are wonderful and just add such a layer of truthfulness to the film. It sounds weird with the description I just gave but the movie is actually laugh at loud funny at times.  Like life, there are moments of extreme levity, so even though its completely a story about grief and how it can be unrelenting and overwhelming, the movie doesn’t feel excessively bleak.  In fact, I put it on when I wrote this review and I was struck again at the perfect balance between extreme grief and humor.  The movie can seamlessly go from tragedy to comedy in moments and that is a really hard balance to strike.   If I had voted for Best Picture, this would have been my choice. 



La La Land: (2016, Damien Chazelle):  When I walked out of La La Land, I turned to K and said “I loved it”, I think I may have even had tears in my eyes.  And I did.  I loved the story of Mia, (Emma Stone) an aspiring actress and Seb (Ryan Gosling) an aspiring jazz musician.  They meet cute and fall in love. Mia has talent but she doesn’t have confidence.  Seb has talent but he can’t compromise his artistic visions. I loved Damien Chazelle’s confident direction and glossy presentation, just as much in love with Los Angeles as with the story he is telling.  The songs, especially “City of Stars” and “Audition” are charming and I thought that even though Stone and Gosling are not great singers, their charisma and real chemistry made it even more delightful.  

And I loved watching them fall in love, and its glorious and transporting.  I was entranced. La La Land manages to capture in an entirely artificial way the real feeling of falling in love, the magic moments when even though you are surrounded by the city you are all alone.    They meet and they hate each other, but really they love each other, and the viewer falls in love too.   And  I loved how Seb helps Mia gain confidence encouraging her to write a one woman show and quit her barista job. And Mia encourages Seb too, helping him hold onto his dream of opening a jazz club even as he joins a band that he has artistic reservations about.   

I was as enchanted with the film as they are with each other even when (here are the spoilers!) Mia lands her dream role and they say goodbye overlooking the Hollywood sign.  They tell each other poignantly that they will always love each other.  We skip forward five years and Chazelle presents us with both of our main characters, happy living their professional dreams but apart.  He then gives us a beautifully conceived dream ballet meets alternate reality sequence where Seb and Mia imagine their lives together.  It is filmed both as a fantasy musical number with beautiful homages to An American In Paris and Singing in the Rain and as a more realistic scene with home movie images of Mia and Seb living out their lives (a la The 25th Hour, which does it a million times better).

And in the moment, I was caught up, I had tears in my eyes and I was deeply moved.  But a few hours later even, I felt uneasy and I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I felt manipulated.  I felt like the entire premise of La La Land was something that I just couldn’t stand behind in the end.  Chazellle, was trying to have it both ways, give us the happy ending but deny the couple being together.  And thats fine, some of the great screen romances end with couples apart.  Casablanca, Brief Encounter, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, even my beloved Before Sunrise ends with the characters parting and not knowing if they will ever see each other. But in the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which La La Land owes a lot to, the character’s choose not be together because of terrible circumstances (war, unplanned pregnancy), not just professional ambition.  If Mia are Set are supposed to be the great romance that La La Land presents, shouldn’t one of them or both of them compromise just a little to try and make it work?  And if they aren’t meant to be together and their relationship is just meant to teach them a lesson or helps them, why the heartbreaking sequence at the end?  In a movie like La La Land that doesn’t feel right.  It’s a musical, its a fantasy, it seemed counterintuitive to everything we’d seen.  At the end of Singin’ in the Rain, Don and Cathy don’t have to choose between success and love, they get both because it’s a movie, maybe? But La La Land is first and foremost a movie with a capital M.  And if Chazelle wanted to portray a more realistic version of a “Hollywood Romance”, he could have executed it less as an homage to classic musicals to the point of imitation. Weeks after watching a movie I thought I loved, I couldn’t help a nagging feeling that was creeping up on me, La La Land was all homage, all style: it felt false.


In the end La La Land left me with the narrative that professional ambition is more important than personal contentment.  That following your dream is number one, above everything and everyone. That you can’t have everything, but if you have to choose, career is over love. Mia and Seb chose the idea of the “dream” over the reality of their happiness.  But I wanted Mia and Seb to find something more important than the idea of their “dream”. I wanted to tell them that you can be still be an artist, and a success even if you compromise your “dream”.  You can be an actor without being a movie star, you can be a musician without owning a club.  That maybe the “dream” is each other, finding someone you can share your life with, that’s the thing you can’t ever give up. 

Julie

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

La Femme on....2016 Best Picture Nominees (Part 1)

I have seen five of the nine best picture nominees and so I figured it was time for a round up!  Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Hidden Figures, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, and Lion. I still definitely want to catch Hidden Figures and possibly Fences but I can leave Hacksaw Ridge and probably Lion (that hair on Dev Patel though, omg).




Moonlight:  (Barry Jenkins, 2016) Barry Jenkins Moonlight is a stunning film to win Best Picture. And I don’t mean the mix up, I mean the fact that a 1.5 million dollar film with a 100% African American cast about a young boy growing up in Florida, struggling with his sexuality.   Chiron grows up with a mother descending into addiction and his only parental figure is Juan, the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, the very one who sells to his mother.  His only friend is Kevin, who has more in common with Chrion than he knows.  Taking place in three parts, Chiron seems not like the three actors that portray him, but as one, seamless character which is a very hard thing to pull off.  Mahershala Ali may have won best supporting actor for his subtle take on Juan but I think that the ensemble as a whole is extremely strong and I honestly can’t pick out a favorite performance.  I love when movies show you a world that you don’t know.  Chiron’s life is tough but unlike many films showing poverty and hardship, Moonlight doesn’t wallow in misery, in fact it is hopeful.  I thought the final scenes with a grown up Chiron were stunning, particularly his reunion with Kevin.   



Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie 2016):  Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are two brothers whose mother has recently died.  Her farm is on oil but is in foreclosure to the bank because of a reverse mortgage she had taken out with a local bank.  With no way of saving the farm, the brothers decide to rob the very bank that they owe money to.  Toby does it because he wants to give his sons a better life and sees no other choice.  Tanner, an ex-con,  does it for thrills.  Jeff Bridges is the affably offensive/racist Texas Ranger trying to track them down. Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan has wonderful character development and a real flair for plainspoken dialogue but there are a few too many on the nose lines directly related to the financial housing crisis that made me groan  What makes Hell or High Water more than your average heist film is its sense of place, you really feel like you are in West Texas, the relationship seem genuine, even the tiny supporting rolls are pitch perfect.  Jeff Bridges is his typical gruff self and Chris Pine is more than passable as the conflicted Toby.  Ben Foster is menacing and charismatic as the off psychopathic Tanner.  The film may be predictable but the solid elements make it one enjoyable ride.



Arrival: (Denis Villenueuve, 2016)  I hate to say it but I kind of hated this movie.  I found it compelling for nearly the whole film but the last twenty minutes completely lost me.  Alien pods appear at twelve sites around the globe.  Amy Adams is Louise, a linguist, who is called in to help decipher the Heptapods (that's the aliens) language.  She meets scientist, Ian (Jeremy 
Renner, who I actually find repulsive so maybe that was part of my problem with the film, I take responsibility for that) and together they work to try and communicate with the slightly creepy aliens.  The scenes that show Louise doing her job, meeting the aliens, trying to figure out if she should she be afraid or emboldened are wonderful and eerie. The connection she makes with them is magical for most of the film. The film is beautifully shot, eerie and otherworldly by Bradford Young.  Amy Adams is affecting and determined, her competence and passion for language is wonderfully expressed.    The problem for me with arrival is a reveal in the last twenty minutes about the timeline of the film.  It was supposed to be incredibly moving and heartbreaking.  I found it manipulative and a little cheap, frankly.  I can’t reveal too much without spoiling the film, but let me just say, I find the dead child cliche to be an easy way to manipulate the audience into extreme emotions and I didn’t care for it in this film.  I am definitely in the minority here, but I just the film too sterile and honestly, a little silly.  



Next up, part two with my two favorite of the nominees, La La Land and Manchester by the Sea

Julie