I pretty much hated “A Star is Born,” although I agree that the acting was strong, not the least Lady Gaga. I could not stand the privileged, condescending, petulant dickhead that Bradley Cooper played. His surprise introduction of her to his audience was aggressive if not abusive. His role in life was to disrupt her upward career trajectory (as his fell) with drunken sloppiness, public scenes, and excessive pouting. Kinda reminded me of Kavanaugh. Meanwhile, she enabled, excused, and absorbed his bad behavior. Mostly I wanted him to take a shower, scrub his sweaty face, and wash his slimy hair.
(Scroll down for the next review)
The trailer:
The fundamental flaw in “Tea with the Dames” was that it was directed by a man, Roger Michell. He raised the (wrong) questions and topics. This documentary shows four of Britain’s most delectable old actors – Dames Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith – in conversation over cups of tea, apparently shot in a single exhausting day. Michell never asked what it was like to try to find meaty roles for women over the decades, nor did he ask about harassment or pay discrimination. Rather, he was most interested in their relationships with their (often famous) husbands. Missed opportunity.
Short summary: “Gilda” is strangely lacking any emotional impact – I got neither big laughs nor tears. So much was missing (some important voices, an engaging narrative arc) – but most of all her work was missing (except very short snippets out of context.)
I remember the first year of Saturday Night Live. Endearing Gilda Radner had been the very first staff member hired for the show – and for me and many other fans she was at the heart of show, even as she was fighting writer-room sexism to get herself into the skits. She was a total riot!
I remember watching as she got thinner and thinner, although we didn’t know the words for bulimia and anorexia at the time.
I remember when she got cancer, when she came back in remission, and when she got ill again.
I remember when she died. It was shocking. It was painful.
You’ll find very little of the magic of Gilda in this documentary. It’s stitched together in jerky bits and pieces, with many of the talking heads being current SNL comedians who never worked with her or even knew her. I appreciated the childhood photos and commentary – that part of her life was new to me. Unfortunately the tone of the film is distant, dispassionate, more like a resume than the gushy love letter Gilda deserves.
With just three days left on a year’s probation, after serving time for a felony, Collin (Daveed Diggs) is doing everything he can to follow the rules and make it out of these last days without trouble. However, his best buddy since they were 11, Miles (Rafael Casal), is pretty cavalier about the situation and is raising all sorts of hell. Collin is black; Miles is white. They are both in turmoil over the gentrification of their city Oakland, California.
Trigger alert: There is male-on-male violence, fueled by fear, anger, injustice, and testosterone – although no woman is a target in this film. Made by these two real-life friends and strongly directed by first time director Carlos Lopez Estrada, this film examines with brutal honesty the volatility of the intersection of race and class and masculinity.
The oppressive ever-hovering threat of the police is palpable. The desperation of the women trying to protect their sons is tangible. Patter, slang, and the spoken word weave a verbal tapestry of their pain. And nothing is simple or straight-forward – just like our real lives. The acting is superb. Blindspotting is funny, scary, and humane. It will leave you with a lot to talk about. I very highly recommend it.
This review is a total collaboration between Stephanie Schroeder and Sue Katz.
Pretty blond Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is caught on prom night with her panties down in the back seat of a car with her girlfriend. Her parents are dead and her guardians are convinced that the best thing they can do for her is to ship her to a super-Christian center (“God’s Promise”) that purports to “convert” young people (“disciples”) afflicted with the sin of SSA (that is, same-sex attraction, in the lingo of the converters).
Their methods are strict, ridiculous, and dubious, led by two experts. The slimebaggy, Disney-villianesque, Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) moves easily between manipulation and vicious cruelty. Rev. Rick (John Gallagher Jr.) claims to be a successfully converted ex-gay and, employing his dimpled smile, he pushes the whole narrative of Christian sin.
Their center is no place for youngsters. But when Cameron spies two other residents sneaking a joint, she makes friends with them. Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck) is a captivating character who identifies as Two-Spirit. Jane (Sasha Lane) is a witty and irreverent rebel whose role in the film could have been much more developed. The three of them form a dissident posse, and face daunting developments together.
With the constant drum beat of a nebulous religiosity pounding, the disciples are led through such earnest activities as Christian karaoke, jazzer-size for God, and drawings to diagram past trauma leading to SSA (too much competitive athleticism for girls, over-identification with female family members for boys, smothering parental love or, conversely, not enough parental affection for everyone).
With these young people in uniforms (girls in skirts; boys in pants) as pawns, the adults at “God’s Promise” play out every fascist’s and closet homo’s fantasy. By creating a dictatorship in a real-life setting (a religious compound far from civilization, cut off from reality and communication with the outside world, and without any oversight) these adult despots are free to enact whatever sick program they want with impunity. Even when an outside authority gets involved, he caveats his investigation with "despite the mission of this place," meaning there is no hope, there is no help to stop the abuse of these teens.
The film, which won Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize, is based on a novel set in 1993 by Emily M. Danforth. The director Desiree Akhavan (“Appropriate Behavior”) does a pointed job of nailing the hypocrisy and dangers of these “conversion” therapies, which were debunked decades ago. The film has an unusual number of behind-the-camera women, from cinematography to music supervision.
The film is receiving only limited release in the U.S. despite the top prize at Sundance, and as has been written about elsewhere, may soon be overshadowed by another "conversion therapy" film by a male director, focused on a male protagonist, and with enormous star power. This is another example of the way films by and about women (especially queer women) are often diminished by the film establishment. See "The Miseducation of Cameron Post." See other movies by and about women. And, read more about the dismissal state of queer female sexuality in film in this interview with Akhavan.
Sorry. Don’t hate me, but I cringed a bit at this film, which Rotten Tomatoes gives a 99% rating. (You know me: always in tune with America.) I was looking forward to it because Fred Rogers was a Pittsburgh boy much of his life and the show aired in early 1968 on my childhood PBS station WQED.
And that’s my problem. In 1965 I left my youth behind in Pittsburgh and by 1968 I was ensconced behind the barricades of Boston radicalism. As I watched this film about sweet (saccharine?) white, calm, empathetic Mr. Rogers, I kept thinking about what was going on outside that studio.
Che Guevera had been executed in Bolivia just a few months earlier while they were shooting the show. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were murdered that year. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam was in 1968. President Lyndon Johnson’s mostly pale male Kerner Commission confirmed the existence of systematic and institutional racism across the country.
While I watched the film, I couldn’t help but think that although Mr. Rogers had a reputation of speaking truth to children – about disability, about death, about feelings – his calm patience and ability to remain entirely unruffled was in painful contrast to the screams and chants and protests of my world.
Many of those oppositional voices on the streets were addressing the real problems of real kids: from poverty to racism to segregated education to gender discrimination and so much more. Rogers’ “thing” was encouraging self-esteem and showering unconditional love – he was an intelligent Dr. Feel Good to the pre-adolescent set, replacing the drugs with thoughtfulness. But as my companion at the film said, “Many children need more than self-esteem to cope.” The world he created seemed to be entirely of kids and those who cared for them all, in a kind of anonymous group hug. I think about my own childhood – with its violence, men exposing themselves, anti-Semitism, limitations on me because I was a girl – and I just can’t relate.
Full disclosure, the show was too late for me as a kid and I didn’t have children of my own, so I never had an emotional attachment to this relaxed, frank easy-going dude with the Perry Como sweaters. Nor did I gain that attachment while watching the film.
One problem for me may be the director Morgan Neville. He made the Oscar winning documentary film “20 Feet from Stardom,” which I also thought was a missed opportunity and which I also criticized. I think his ideas for films are brilliant and his execution kinda meh.
Those who grew up on Mr. Rogers or raised their kids watching the show may feel more moved. This is supposed to be a tear-jerker, but I only sprouted a bit of moisture in the scene when Mr. Rogers is sincerely surprised to meet up with the adult who, years earlier, had been a kickass kid with disabilities on his show.
In this gripping and engaging bio-pic, an abusive waitress mother (brilliant work by Allison Janney) pushes her talented daughter Tonya Harding (played wonderfully by Margot Robbie) onto the ice and into the world of competitive skating. The father bails on the family – the first major betrayal by a man Tonya has been leaning on – and the mother’s violence becomes relentless. Tonya hooks up with the first guy at hand and uses him as an escape from the mother’s hairbrush beatings. He takes over the physical abuse where the mother left off.
All along, as her skills improve and her talents shine, the judges try to impose a very particular lady-like femininity on an athletic girl who gets little if any recognition for being the first American woman to nail two triple axels in a single competition.
The film provides a compelling representation of violent abuse. It highlights the oppressive imposition of a narrow notion of femininity by sports’ ruling bodies (which imposition I know only too well from the partner dance world) and the financial demands (like expensive costuming) these judges mandate for success in competition. It reveals how the combination of male stupidity and arrogance ruins women’s lives – in this case when her ex and his doofus sad sack friend decide to have Tonya’s rival attacked. And when the criminal justice system is anything but just.
But I have failed to mention Tonya’s quick wit and quicker tongue and the many funny bits in the film, not the least the tRump-like idiocy of the ex-husband’s buddy. Tough as all the physical blows are, the film itself speeds right along, bringing us a slice of white minimum-wage life where art struggles to survive.
I can’t take any more misery in my life so I was looking for a light-hearted film without rape, torture, or vicious racism in it. Everyone recommended Lady Bird, that is, everyone who hadn’t yet seen it. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 100% (reviewers) and 89% (audience), but I find I cannot depend on those (mainly) boys.
Lady Bird is a coming of age film about a mother/daughter relationship, with dad as a sideshow. All I could think was: “first world problems.” Everyone is perfectly white bread. The central angst is between the mother Marion (played by Laurie Metcalf – who used to play Roseanne’s sister) and the main character Christine – whose biggest rebellion is adopting the nickname "Lady Bird" (Saoirse Ronan). But really, their “problems” are pretty damned tame and unremarkable.
Lady Bird is supposed to be 17, but Saoirse Ronan looks exactly her real age of 23. It was hard to feel much empathy for any of the characters, except for one scene with a sobbing lad. I’m an easy crier at films, but I felt nothing. There are also dangling story-lines and inexplicable directorial decisions. This was blandness in the extreme. I will concede, however, that Lady Bird met my basic criteria of no rape/torture/vicious racism.
One tangential rant, if you’ll allow me. I went to my usual destination the Kendall Theatre, a Cambridge, MA cinemateque which has undergone recent refurbishment. It brags of its big upholstered seats, but their dimensions suit people close to 6’ tall – like so many god-damned seats in this country. Hmmm, I wonder which gender makes these design decisions. That means for shorter people, if we sit back, the depth of the seat results in our feet dangling so we have to perch on the edge. Grrrrrr.
I am so sorry to report that I was disappointed in the film Battle of the Sexes, which I ran to see after so many FB friends raved about it. The Battle of the Sexes covers the historic 1973 match between a 55-year-old loud-mouthed hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) and the tennis champ Billie Jean King (Emma Stone). I was living in a feminist commune when this all came down and I remember 8 or 10 of us crowding on to the bed of the sister who had the TV in her room. Each volley, each point, each up and down elicited screams and cheers and curses from us. Life in those early days of women’s liberation was an intense and emotional time. Each “click” of consciousness about women as an oppressed group forced us to revise our individual histories (oh, so it wasn’t my fault I that the teacher groped me) and our view of the world. Sure the Battle was hyped. Sure it was a media event. But we longed for a victory, any victory, in those early days.
I am not one who subscribes to the Great (Wo)Man Theory. One woman did not change history. The social context was missing. The five-year-old women’s liberation movement and three-year-old lesbian liberation movement constituted the ground on which the women of tennis, led by Billie Jean King, could build their independent circuit and their struggle for equal purses. We’re in the ether of the film, but not quite in the film.
The young friend I saw the film with could hardly believe that Bobby Riggs really took such a carnival approach to life, but that was just as I remembered. Riggs was desperate for both money (he was a gambler) and attention, so he was always happy to get up in any bizarre costume for any sponsor that would pay him to do it. He was a walking circus and every event he touched – including this profound historic moment – was doused in his silliness.
Hindsight is all well and good, but the soft-focus delivery of King’s love affair with her hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) gave insufficient sense of how freaked out King was by her own sexuality, an agony for her over many years. Of course there’s no hint of how devastating the end of their relationship would be. In 1981 Marilyn sued in what was called a “palimony” case (pal as in chum as in friend as in there was no formal social recognition for same sex hookups), which outed Billie Jean King, causing her huge anxiety. We all desperately wanted her to come out much earlier, but tennis had to wait for Martina Navratilova to be out and proud in 1981.
King’s husband Larry King was played by Austin Stowell as a handsome, long-suffering, utterly supportive sweetie, despite being replaced in Billie Jean’s bed by her girlfriend. I don’t recall anything about their relationship, but wow he seemed too chill to be believed. Bobby Riggs’ posh wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue) dumped him over his gambling and foolery, but took him back, according to the film, once he was publicly humiliated by his loss to a woman. That seemed a bit odd as well.
Several bit roles are played by some fab actors. The entertaining Alan Cumming gets to camp it up in a decorative but small part, and Sarah Silverman does quite an interesting, believable job as a grown-up manager of the women’s tennis tour. I’m not generally a fan, but I loved her hair’s grey streaks and the solidity of her acting. With a straight face, Fred Armisen plays a crank healer shoveling herbs into Riggs. And Natalie Morales brings us Rosie Casals, who I remember with great affection as one of the earliest openly feminist sportswomen.
Friends posted that they cheered and wept, that it was just the film they hoped to see. I was generally unmoved – and this despite the intensity with which my collective and I experienced the match itself back in the day. What a high it was. What a victory. What a symbol. After all that belittling of women as athletes, it was orgasmic to watch Billie Jean thrash the professional chauvinist. Personally, I’m going to wait for some woman to make a documentary because this film was not strong enough to carry or deliver the impact of that momentous Battle.
The Big Sick: Pakistani Muslim boy meets skinny white graduate student girl. Despite their original intentions, the quickie turns serious. The families have other plans. There is a coma, confrontations, and in the end there is a sunburst of happiness.
Based on his real life, Kumail Nanjiani (Uber driver by day; stand-up comedian by night) has created a sweet laugh-out-loud tear-jerker that is the perfect break from your daily routine. (Unless, that is, you are in a conflict with your immigrant parents.) Zoe Kazan plays Nanjiani’s actual wife Emily V. Gordon with just enough whimsy and sass. Ray Romano does a good job as Zoe’s slightly-awkward dad, but Holly Hunter is a bit weird and kinda mangles her lines as Zoe’s mother. Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff are perfect as Nanjiani’s parents, torn between tradition and the reality of living in the USA. The mother could have been from any ethnicity:
Mother: I was so worried. We saw on the news that a train derailed, and we thought that you were on the train, and you had died. Kumail: Nobody died on that train, ma. Mother: But did they look under the train?
The film’s Rotten Tomatometer score is a righteous 98%. It was the perfect film for a rainy Yom Kippur afternoon. I believe it is leaving the cinemas soon, but you can stream it and then thank me later.
Despite the excited buzz everywhere about the new documentary “Obit,” centering on the obituary journalists of the New York Times, I am sorry to say that the film killed itself today. A gaggle of white men dug the grave for a trickle of elite white men over whom a selection of white men gave eulogies.
I have written many letters to many editors over the years in which I say, “Whew. It seems that only white men die in your world.” I scan with rare success for the odd mention of the life of a person of color or a white woman in the hallowed pages of our premiere newspapers. But when you see the film “Obit” you understand why. White editors sit around assigning obituaries to white male journalists and none of them notice that something is awry.
The solitary woman on the obit team, Margalit Fox, is the only one in the film to touch on the subject, and she does so with a couple of incomprehensible sentences about how the people dying now were raised 60+ years ago and so times were different and it will take another generation for people of color and women to be making enough of a mark to rate a place in their paper. (!) Clumsy and convoluted and plain wrong.
A whole film on obituaries and there isn’t a single serious discussion of how and why subjects are selected or how the race and gender of the selectors might just be impacting the list of those whose lives are written about.
The only Black NYT employee we see – and that for just a few seconds – is during footage of a NYT editorial meeting. At that table is a Black man who, I discover in the credits, is Earl Wilson, an editorial desk assistant. We are shown celebrity subjects of color receiving obituaries, such as Michael Jackson and Prince and Whitney, but not scientists, politicians, or even athletes. The unexplained, unconnected photos of MLK edited into the visuals are bewildering as there is no narrative about any obit for him. The film is more excluding than the NYT itself.
As for women subjects, why the very first one named by “Obit” is the highly accomplished Candy Barr, a stripper who died in 2005. Thanks for highlighting our sheros. Nothing against Candy Barr (who has an interesting back story the film does not mention: she is also known, according to Wikipedia, for “shooting her estranged second husband; and being arrested and sentenced to a prison term for drug possession”), but the film might have mentioned anyone from Fannie Lou Hamer to Shirley Chisholm to Adrienne Rich.
The longest segment about a single obit subject focuses on John Fairfax, some white British adventurer who rowed across oceans and died in 2012. Why was he the film’s highlight? Why not others who died that same year (Etta James, Eve Arnold, Earl Scruggs – to name three)?
There were some scenes in the “morgue” – where clippings and drafts of obituaries for the still-living are stored in a chaotic crypt that one awkward white man works alone. He seems overwhelmed and startled when he opens random file drawers.
At the end of the film – after we’ve been subjected to talking head followed by talking head, everyone one of them a white man except for Fox – we are assaulted with a rapid-fire montage of images of life – random unidentified children playing, people ambulating, others laughing, jumping from era to era with no explanation or justification. My impression is that this was done to demonstrate inclusiveness, as not a few of this hodgepodge of images involves all those who are not at the NYT obituary-writing table. Sorry “Obit”: Not enough.
My final verdict. “Obit” is a lost opportunity. It is peculiar, but not in a pleasant or especially informative way. And it says soooooo much that we already knew about the New York Times.
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