Simon Boccanegra

It sounds as though he's angry at the film because of things its admirers claim on its behalf, which is a trap I try to avoid. I've seen or read a few Campion interviews, and she hasn't claimed to be eviscerating a myth or anything so pretentious. As for the part of its being shot in New Zealand instead of Montana...I cannot bring myself to care. Stanley Kubrick shot a Vietnam film entirely in England, much of it on soundstages, and a lot of people call it a masterpiece. (I personally think it's his second-worst film of the 11 that really count, but not because he failed to shoot on location.) It does seem to me that whenever anything that's even remotely classifiable as a "Western" (wide-open spaces, guys in Stetsons, horses, livestock) gets made, and it doesn't hew to a classic template, there are a lot of people who feel strongly against it. It happened with McCabe & Mrs. Miller and it happened with Brokeback Mountain as well. And nothing against Sam Elliott, whose acting I've always liked, but more people are still seeing and talking about those movies than about some of the genre cowboy stuff he's done. I say that as someone who actually enjoyed The Desperate Trail.

I've never seen Welcome to L.A., and now I want to. I went through an Alan Rudolph phase years ago, when I saw and loved Choose Me on television. Then I also saw Trouble in Mind and The Moderns. (So it was a Geneviève Bujold phase too.) Those were not quite at the same level as Choose Me, but stylistically the same sort of thing. I never sought out the earlier Rudolphs, though. I lost sight of him after Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and Afterglow. There were others between that were not as memorable, such as Love at Large and Equinox.

The young hero, Paul, is 15 when we first encounter him. Maybe with adaptational license, we're supposed to think he's a little older than he was in Frank Herbert's telling, but nine years older would be a stretch. But Chalamet is still in the phase of being able to get by with playing a teenager. It doesn't last forever for anyone, but he can still do it (his slightness helps), and he brings name recognition and a fan base with him. Plus, it's a long-spanning saga, with only a portion being covered in Villeneuve's first film. He doesn't remain 15. The then-unknown Seattle stage actor Kyle MacLachlan was the same age, 24, while shooting of the earlier Dune film was ongoing. His screen parents were only slightly older than the Ferguson/Isaac pair. Francesca Annis was in her late thirties, and Jürgen Prochnow in his early forties.

Lilith says she doesn't care about the money, "but it means everything to you, doesn't it?" The revenge motive is the one that makes the most sense. She prides herself on being able to read people, figure them out, and Stanton is someone beneath her in class ("nothing but an Okie with straight teeth") who does a version of that for entertainment and profit. She tries to humiliate him in the nightclub scene and he turns the tables, even taunting her: "Madam, you are not powerful. Not powerful enough." The line comes back in their final confrontation: "Am I powerful enough for you, Stan?" I'm unsure whether Grindle hurt her. She does say he's dangerous and unpredictable, she has the unexplained scar, and he claims to have "hurt" women. But it isn't clear whether she's suffered at Grindle's hands herself or he's simply confided things he's done to others. In any case, things in Lilith's background have made her a very dark character, capable of cruelty.

Alfred Hitchcock's last, Family Plot, about a phony psychic and her taxi driver boyfriend getting involved with a jewel thief and his partner/moll. This doesn't have a reputation as a disaster or anything, but it gets lightly passed over as a frivolous, unworthy coda for someone who was so foundational. I finally saw it recently and thought it was likable, cleverly plotted, and amusing. The quartet of Barbara Harris, Karen Black, Bruce Dern, and William Devane is one of the best casts Hitchcock had in his '60s/'70s period -- all four are both good actors and well cast for what they're doing. (That's the kicker. So often he had good actors but they were all wrong for a part. When I read a synopsis that begins "Paul Newman plays a brilliant physicist who..." I'm already laughing, and I'm not supposed to be.) It's no career-capping masterpiece, but I had a much better time watching it than I did with some other Hitchcocks that are held in higher regard (Marnie, Spellbound, Suspicion).

There were scenes in the first half -- I especially remember one involving Stewart and Sally Hawkins -- in which I was getting maybe a third of what was said. I thought maybe it was the sound system of the theater in which I saw it, but then I read several reviews that mentioned all the barely audible dialogue. So I gave the screenplay a read-through to make sure I wasn't missing any writing that would bring the movie up a point or two. (It was either that or pay to stream it with the closed captions, and I didn't find it that intriguing.)

I'd put this one in the "interesting failure" category. I have read the screenplay, and it really isn't much on the page. It's a movie that works or doesn't work based on atmosphere, visual style, sets and costumes, music, acting, and a viewer's level of interest in these real people of recent history. It's skillfully directed, and I liked most of what the actors did, but the combination of surreal touches (including the Anne Boleyn ghost imagery) and banal tabloid psychology doesn't connect, in my opinion. Princess Diana has always inspired ambivalence in me, and this version of her grows tiresome. I hadn't seen Timothy Spall in a movie in several years (since he played JMW Turner for Mike Leigh), and he's so thin now. I was relieved to read afterward that it was intentional and health-related. As a veteran character actor whose lane was "heavy English guy," he was concerned the roles might dry up, but that hasn't happened. He plays an invented antagonist for Diana on the royal staff and is excellent as always.

It does sound weird. I've never felt Hanks had much of a facility for accents. He gets by with it when the material is broad and farcical, e.g., his over-the-top "southern gentleman" in the Coens' unloved remake of The Ladykillers. But in more serious movies in which he's attempted to sound as if from New England or Eastern Europe or wherever, his attempts have been distracting. He sounds fake, and the viewer is conscious the whole time of his attempts to stay in it and keep it consistent.

Jonny Greenwood scored both films, so there's that too.

A good conversation between two of our new, very deserving Oscar nominees.

Bright Star (about tubercular poet John Keats's romance with Fanny Brawne) is the one I loathed. The movie itself seemed tubercular. It reminded me of a line I read from a critic on a different movie a long time ago: it exists at such a low energy level that it seems to be up to you to project a light onto the screen. The word that comes to mind for Campion is "insistent." There isn't a lot of variety or contrast. She settles on a particular tone and pursues it with a bulldog's tenacity for the whole movie. The Power of the Dog is a successful example (for me).

Harry Melling (Dudley/Malcolm) had had a memorable role in Joel and Ethan Coen's previous movie, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. In the third of the six stories, he played a limbless orator who is carted from town to town in the Old West by an impresario (Liam Neeson) to deliver dramatic readings of scripture and poetry. The Coens always have tended to bring back actors they like, so here he was again in Tragedy of Macbeth, this time with arms and legs. I don't know how I missed Kathryn Hunter as Mrs. Figg when I saw the HP movie she was in. That voice is so distinctive. She was most familiar to me from a Mike Leigh movie, All or Nothing. She had a long scene there as a talkative Frenchwoman who's a passenger of one of the main characters, a cab driver played by Timothy Spall (another Harry Potter alum). Leigh talked recently about how he had to cajole her a bit to be in All or Nothing. She had been in a few movies in the '90s, but she preferred the stage.

A rule change took effect this year, with a guaranteed ten. In prior years, there could be as many as ten, but they all had to clear a certain statistical threshold. I preferred the days when there were five, personally. The way it's been since they (re-)expanded the field, we all know several nominees have no chance. So as soon as the nominations are announced, everyone's saying, you know, "This one will win technical awards at most, and that one has a chance in acting and screenplay, but the only legitimate Best Picture candidates are X, Y, and Z." Maybe that was true even when there were five nominees -- no one was betting on The Mission for 1986; it was clearly between Platoon and Hannah and Her Sisters, with an outside chance for A Room with a View -- but it's even more true now. It just gives more films the opportunity to advertise that they're "Best Picture nominees," and once in a while a big box-office hit can get into the list and boost television ratings of the ceremony. About whether 2021 was a good or mediocre year: I think it was about average. There were films I really liked, some that will likely fade, some that were worthwhile but a little disappointing given the expectations and talent (this is where I'd put The Tragedy of Macbeth), and as always, biopics that seem to have been made mostly to get someone acting awards (looking right at Tammy Faye). Sometimes it takes a few years for me to be able to look back and see that a year was special. The chatter dies down and I'm always finding small films a little later.

I've wondered about that too. He was major in the first season, and this season he's barely made a bigger impression than the two younger brothers. I feel as though they wouldn't be underutilizing him by choice. All I could guess was that Skyler Gisondo was acting in so many other things during season 2's production period that they only had him for a short time.

I think someone connected with the film said that 4 percent of the dialogue was in Spanish, which sounds about right to me, and people online tacked a zero on and got it into the conversation that 40 percent of the dialogue was going to be in Spanish...which is absurd. Also, when a line is said in Spanish, the character sometimes then restates it immediately in English. Maria, Bernardo, and Anita are trying to get accustomed to speaking English even at home among each other. People should see what they want to see, but the language issue should not be a factor here. I hope WSS '21 does find the audience it deserves eventually. Some movies do. Everyone has seen (and most people love) The Shawshank Redemption. That bombed when it was released and didn't do much better when it was re-released after getting Oscar nominations. It only found its audience on video and television.

Belfast is sweet. It wasn't my favorite of the year or my favorite example of the "I remember when I was a little boy in turbulent times" genre we've had from several esteemed filmmakers (Amarcord, Radio Days, Hope and Glory, Roma, and so on), but it's something I could see winning in a preferential-ballot situation, because it won't have a strong "anti" contingent. It's barely more than an hour and a half long, easy to grasp, visually beautiful, and it's about a likable and loving family. And Oscar does love nostalgia. All the Van Morrison on the soundtrack will be catnip to a lot of the Boomer members. Ha! I remember a few years ago when his frequent cinematographer Roger Deakins boxed his ears for watching a "big" movie on his phone. (“Roger made jokes about my iPhone. For people who don’t know. Roger was traumatized that I had The Thin Red Line from Terrence Malick on my iPhone and Roger thought it was horrific. Me, I thought it was cool because I could take the movie with me. It’s not the same, but the thing is, I want to fight for the big screen, but a lot of my cinematic experiences have actually been on television.”) I do like DV, both in terms of his films and from what I've heard of how he is on the set.

This is the point when, traditionally, the complaining about what didn't get Oscar-nominated starts, but I'll accentuate the positive for starters. The nomination that was no sure thing and makes me happiest is Penélope Cruz for Parallel Mothers. I thought the movie was good-not-great Pedro (some breathtaking stretches, including the final scene, but the pieces didn't line up as well as in, say, Talk to Her or Pain and Glory), but she was astounding, as good as she's ever been. And while I'm already seeing comments from Gaga fans about how it proves the Academy members are idiots and don't actually watch the movies, I saw Parallel Mothers and House of Gucci as attentively as I see anything, and I know which performance impressed me more. (Also, which film framing the performance was vastly better.) Jesse Plemons making the cut for the least showy of the four superbly acted central roles in The Power of the Dog is another nice surprise. I was also happy for Jessie Buckley as the younger version of the protagonist in The Lost Daughter. I was sorry to see Denis Villeneuve left out of the overall Dune love. Also, Judi Dench was fine as the grandmother in Belfast, but I think her selection over her costar Caitriona Balfe is a bit of the "living legend" effect. Like, "We love the movie itself, and she was in it, so why not nominate her?"

All we've seen of Eli's childhood household is the brief scene this season in which he comes home and the father (who will age into M. Emmet Walsh) insists that a blessing be said before they have dinner. The wrestler/mob enforcer version of Eli is very irreverent about it and does a half-assed job, and his father slaps him. So "yes" on religious household (to a degree), but we haven't heard anything I recall about what led him into religion. I'm thinking if the show goes on for a couple more seasons, they'll thread more in via flashbacks with the young Eli and the young Aimee-Leigh.

I'm glad Aimee-Leigh and Baby Billy knew another song. I didn't think I could take "Misbehavin'" again. I can't stand it, but then I can't get it out of my head. And just by mentioning the title, I'm probably making that your problem too! The interlude episodes (both of them so far) have been like...vegetables, but well-prepared vegetables. I"m more interested in the present-day story than in decades-ago flashbacks, but they do flesh things out and give fullness to relationships and ongoing events. So I guess they get the job done. Gideon's been blink-and-you-miss-him this season, compared to last. Maybe they had Gisondo for a limited time, given how ubiquitous he is these days?

High praise from Eric Roberts. “I've never been involved in a working situation, both in front and behind the camera, that was as much fun or as rewarding as Righteous Gemstones, and I mean that.” https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/hbo-crave-righteous-gemstones-season-2-eric-roberts-john-goodman-danny-mcbride-televangelist-megachurch-203642329.html It's always nice to catch him in a project of quality, giving a good performance, as he has in this show. There was a time when he looked like the next "great American actor" (Roger Ebert in 1986: "The movie industry does not know how he will turn out, but he holds the potential to be mentioned with Brando, De Niro, Hurt and the others who come surrounded with the aura of a special talent"). And it's easy enough to go back to his early films, King of the Gypsies, Raggedy Man, Star 80, and see it wasn't a mirage. In those days, he was even picky about the roles he would take. But his personal life took some dark turns, his acting got hammier and more mannered, and before long he was saying yes to everything, much of it straight-to-video garbage. True, a lot of actors in their sixties would gladly trade places with someone who works all the time, has 600+ IMDb credits, and still gets supporting roles in films by Christopher Nolan and PT Anderson. But Roberts is an interesting "what might have been" case.

The main character did get a conscience, but he couldn't save the day. Mindy (DiCaprio) had such a supportive family. Even when he was nobody special, they were so proud of him, watching him on television the first time he went on that morning show. That's one reason I liked the last-supper scene so much. Melanie Lynskey's big scene (the one with the thrown pill bottles) reminded me a little of Beatrice Straight's Oscar-winning performance in Network (famous for being the Oscar-winning performance with the shortest screen time: five minutes of a 121-minute film). In fact, Don't Look Up seems to be trying to be to the early 2020s what Network was to the mid-1970s.

Gardner was so good in the 2018 Halloween film. She had a delightful rapport with the kid she was babysitting, and obviously had a flair for comedy and an interesting voice, besides being beautiful. It's rare for someone to really "pop" in that kind of movie, where you get attached to the character. And she was playing one of the supporting young people (the girl having trouble closing the closet door in the trailer), so...you know. So I was happy to see her in Gemstones, albeit first masked, then covered in bandages. I wish she'd stuck around.

Agreed. Although I'd give the nod to the 2021 film for the overall quality of acting, in that it has a present-day murderers' row of awards contenders while 1947 had a postwar B-list in support of Tyrone Power, Helen Walker's Lilith was a standout in 1947. She's not the italicized femme fatale that Blanchett is. Walker's IMDb bio describes her as "a beautiful and bright actress whose career never reached its full potential, in spite of her evident talent." I can see it. Coleen Gray, who played the "Rooney Mara role" in 1947, was later the love interest in The Killing, generally considered Stanley Kubrick's first great film.

I gave this another look via Apple TV and felt about the same re: its strengths and weaknesses. It has a striking look. I like some of the visual flourishes, such as Lady Macbeth releasing the burning letter and letting the wind carry it into the (deliberately artificial-looking) night sky, where it blends in with the stars. I made note of the same excellent supporting performances: Kathryn Hunter above all, Alex Hassell, Moses Ingram. But again, neither lead knocked me out, and @Rickster is right on target about Denzel Washington. I can't figure out what he and Joel Coen were going for here. He underplays the first two thirds of the role (at times it's as if he's feeling out the sound of the words privately) and then in the last third, he's strutting around and hollering as if it's a Medieval Training Day. A shift there makes sense, in that the character has given way to desperation and madness by that point, but his contrast is too extreme, in my opinion. Comparing it with the 2015 film, also very high-style, I liked the look of the new one more and the drama of the earlier one more. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard have a lot of sexual chemistry, and the director (Justin Kurzel) pursues that thread with them. Washington and McDormand play the characters as though they’re way beyond such things. They are an older couple who long ago got used to each other. Even their murderous plotting is matter-of-fact. Fassbender and Cotillard can still surprise each other. But with respect to the 2015 one (presently on HBO Max), the subtitles are really advisable. Lots of quirky regional accents and unorthodox delivery.

It's hardly the biggest problem with the movie, but III muddies up the timeline. Anthony and Mary are born within the span of the first film, in 1951 (a year after the Michael/Kay reunion) and 1953 respectively. The second film picks up with them as children in 1958. Anthony is having his First Communion. So far so good, as he would be seven. But it seems Puzo and Coppola badly want the kids to be younger than 28 and 26 at the start of the third film (1979). Even for children with a very traditional and imposing Italian family background on one side, they're too enmeshed. Anthony is played by a 28-year-old, but that isn’t how he’s written, with Mom marching him into Dad’s office to deliver his “I’m gonna do my own thing” statement. Mary is even less convincing as the age she would be, played by 19-year-old Sofia Coppola, replacing 19-year-old Winona Ryder, and really getting "babe in the woods" writing. I guess Puzo and Coppola had their hearts set on developments with just-adult children (the defiant son quitting law school to sing, the daughter falling in love with a dangerous man and dying for her father's sins), and they were equally dead-set on the 1979-80 period so everything could coincide with real-life Vatican scandals and mysteries: the suspicious death of a new pope, the hanging suicide-or-murder of the banker, etc. Also, Michael (born 1920) needed to be "old" to a certain degree. Frankly, I think he gets written and played as if he's more than just pushing 60. By the way, this may just be an unfortunate drawback of our high-def age, but when they show a newspaper headline in this movie, it’s obvious that the text is unrelated. At one point there’s one that reads “Vatican Accountant Missing,” and what’s underneath it is a Cold War stew of paragraphs from various stories: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Castro. And it stays on screen for a good long time.