Victoria & Abdul

Victoria & Abdul.

This is the story of the unlikely friendship between Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) and a young Indian clerk Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal).

It has fun with the extravagant royal treatment of the reigning 1800s English monarch. It’s light, bright, breezy, and you could find some amusing bits if you just flipped it on.

But the movie as a whole rings false to me. It feels this particular history lesson has gone through Hollywoodification.

The fun here is watching the Queen do things, like learn the Hindu language and demand a mango from across the globe. Dench is great, but we’re getting lulled into expecting these performances, so I can’t comment where this one stands.

Abdul is written too one-dimensional, and even though it follows his journey from India to England, it still feels too much like surface material.

Stephen Frears has directed excellent movies, so it’s curious why this one’s shallow. Why not dive a little deeper into what the Queen saw in him, and what the rest of the royal household saw that made them so racially prejudice?

There’s a good story here. The Queen took to Abdul because he simply spoke to her as a friend, not as a proper, measured manservant.

I know as much because I read a great Vanity Fair article that’s more informative than this movie. But I don’t discourage you from seeing it.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Threes Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

You can't have simple feelings about the characters in this movie. That's because they're never done sorting through their own feelings about everything.
I thought one thing about Sam Rockwell's character until he showed me something else. And same for Frances McDormand. And to some degree, Woody Harrelson.

The decision those characters face at the end of the movie seem to place it out of the hands of the filmmakers themselves.

I really enjoyed that. It's difficult to watch the pain and anger these people go through, and it's a movie that questions what we're supposed to do with it. Whether we chose to serve somebody a bottle of wine or bash their head in with it.

McDormand and Rockwell are so effective, because we can see what they're thinking, but they don't clue us what actions they'll take as a result.

Intriguing story/script, raw acting, and excellent small-town USA scenery. Lots of familiar actors turn up for support, but the three mentioned actors carry the bulk of the story.

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Call Me By Your Name

Call Me By Your Name.

It's about a young boy, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) who falls in love one summer with an older grad student, Oliver (Armie Hammer), who is staying with him and his family of archaeologists at their place in northern Italy one summer in the 1980s.

Sometimes in the movies, you need an access point to help you begin to empathize. I've never been to Europe. I don't consciously remember the 1980s. My family isn't Jewish or archaeologists. I've never had sexual feelings for a man. On the surface, there's not much of anything relatable (or American, for that matter) in the movie.

My access point was the song "Futile Devices" by Sufjan Stevens played in full midway through the film, as the movie contemplated the feelings of young 17-year old Elio. Even though I couldn't imagine the depth of what he was feeling and how personal it was, I immediately was in his shoes. Because I know what that song means to me.

That's not just a testament to Sufjan Stevens (who also has two other new songs that fit nicely here), but to the director Luca Guadagnino who knows the aesthetic feeling he was going for.

Guaragnino has created a lot of beautiful cinematic scenes. You won't forget it's Europe. Such as when Elio and Oliver circle each other around a WWI statue or when the camera stays fixed on the landscape as they ride down the bike path.

Chalamet gives a mature, emotionally deep performance as the boy. There are explicit scenes, and I'm not a fan of sexual situations in the movies in general. But for everything that happens, his best scene of the movie is during the closing credits where the camera sits on his face.

And Michael Stuhlbarg, as Elio's father, gives an absolutely killer monologue to his son at the end that will leave many people in tears.

It's one of the best of year. Find your access point.

The Individual Conscience

I finally finished Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee's follow-up to one of the greatest books ever written To Kill a Mockingbird. I got it the day it came out in Alabama last July and left it there to read when I came home. I finally took it back with me to LA and picked it up again and finished a few days ago.

It's no Mockingbird. But we knew that before we opened the book. Flashbacks, some filler, switches between first and third person, dialogue immediately followed by a change in location in the next paragraph... You have to follow Jean Louise (Scout) Finch's stream of thought carefully. And we know all about the Harper Lee conspiracy theories.

But it has traces of beautiful passages. Conversations that happen between Jean Louise, Atticus, and her family that are as thought-provoking now, as they were in 1960 when TKAM came out. The main theme is disillusionment and coming into your own conscience (not a collective one) about the world. At first glance, people would be disappointed in this book, but there are things to consider here for our time.

One of these beautiful passages was Jean Louise in her head at a Southern dinner party with family, neighbors, and a few racist folk mouthing off. They want to know how New York is, which is where she lives now, and she thinks in her head:

"New York. New York? I'll tell you how New York is. New York has all the answers. People go to the YMHA, the English-Speaking Union, Carnegie Hall, the New School for Social Research, and find the answers. The city lives by slogans, isms, and fast sure answers. New York is saying to me right now: you, Jean Louise Finch, are not reacting according to our doctrines regarding your kind, therefore you do not exist. The best minds in the country have told us who you are. You can't escape it, and we don't blame you for it, but we do ask you to conduct yourself within the rules that those who know have laid down for your behavior, and don't try to be anything else.

She answered: please believe me, what has happened in my family is not what you think. I can only say this- that everything I learned about human decency I learned here. I learned nothing from you except how to be suspicious. I didn't know what hate was until I lived among you and saw you hating every day. They even had to pass laws to keep you from hating. I despise your quick answers, your slogans in the subways, and most of all I despise your lack of good manners: you'll never have 'em as long as you exist."

This. A wonderful example of the culture war that is happening in our heads by anybody, em, that moves from a sleepy town to the big city.

Who hasn't attacked the new society where they live, in their head where things are safe to work out? You're not right or wrong. There is no collective conscience.

We are so quick to jump on people today. I think we could recognize more that we all have a conscience we're trying to work out in this increasingly complicated world. Go easier on people. Odds are they're trying to work it out honestly. Your behavior and belief system, informed by your own conscience, is what being an individual is all about.

Classic Movie Renaissance Part 1 (Courtesy AFI)

The past several months, in an effort to to familiarize myself with classic cinema and keep me from AMC too much, I've been going through the "AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies" list. A friend of mine gave me the idea, and it's a really good one.

I'm less likely to procrastinate if I have a list. I can mark stuff off as I do them. So I've been able to go through so many classic movies that I somehow managed to put off so far in life.

I've seen about half of everything on it so far. Blade Runner, Easy Rider, and Platoon are the few films I didn't care for, although I understand their significance.

And damn, I couldn't sit still to absorb Mike Nichols' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I love Albee plays, but here I found nothing but capable screen performances. It's not that I don't like watching marital discord. One of my favorite movies of all time is American Beauty. That, however, needed different access points for somebody who may not can pick up on undertones of what's going on in a marriage. American Beauty had the business with the daughter, the boyfriend, the neighbor, etc. to expand the theme, so the picture didn't depend purely on us analyzing the passive aggressiveness of the married couple.

BLACK-AND-WHITE SURPRISES

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans was an interesting choice to put on the list. A silent German expressionist film with surprisingly heavy drama for a movie made in the 20s.

Katherine Hepburn's character in Bringing Up Baby never crossed the line into annoyance but stayed firmly enduring and upbeat in the different comedic way she reacted and saw things.

Swing Time with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was a blast. Youtube "fred astaire swing time" and watch the first three clips. His Bojangles number, which took three days to shoot, was amazing. And he and Rogers shot the long Never Gonna Dance routine 47 TIMES before he was satisfied.

A Night at the Opera and Duck Soup introduced me to the Marx brothers, and the silent one, Harpo, is my favorite. Perhaps because I immediately related him to Teller. I don't know where the Marx brothers rank in the hierarchy of comedic slapstick performers, like Lucille Ball or Charlie Chaplin. But I quietly enjoyed their situation bits and unexpected twists on dialogue and response.

My introduction to Henry Fonda was 12 Angry Men. His unnamed character came off as a father figure, a laser-sharp intellectual. It's a movie that should be required viewing in schools. A blueprint to consensus-building and understand what "beyond all reasonable doubt" means in our courts. I was moved by a timeless theme that is even more important at a time when a country is so divided. How do we all get in a room and talk? 12 Angry Men demonstrates it is, and should be possible. Even if it takes all day in a hot, humid courthouse room with no AC.

SWORDS AND SANDALS

Ben-Hur was number 100 on the list. Spartacus was number 81. I'd switch them. That Stanley Kubrick directed Spartacus was something I didn't know. I was surprised that Spartacus didn't have any trademark Kubrick touches of creativity. Its scope and music and performances were fine for an epic, and that's just what it was. Nothing that differentiated this director did something different from another. Clockwork Orange and The Shining show up with images, sounds, ideas and music that implant in the psyche so much. Perhaps Kubrick, at the beginning of his career, was at the mercy of the studios.

What isn't on the list is The Ten Commandments, or anything by Cecil B. DeMille, and it's strange considering I was under the assumption growing up Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea was one of the most iconic moments in the history of cinema.

SEE THE APARTMENT

The Apartment was outstanding. In my opinion, Jack Lemmon gave one of the greatest performances in one of the greatest screenplays every written. It was dicey material for 1960. I didn't know anything about it except probably a residential building was involved, and I'm glad I didn't. Billy Wilder's claim to fame is for Some Like It Hot, but it's this one you really need to see.

WILD WILD WEST

Unforgiven remains my favorite Western of all time, although I've got Shane, The Searchers, and High Noon coming up. Eastwood's immortal line "Deserve's got nothing to do with it" exemplifies how good and evil operate in this world, especially in a place as untamed and wild as the American west in the 1800s.

I thought The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were fun and light. Nothing really stayed with me though. I think the same of them, since both feature anarchic, crude men we're rooting for running wild in the west. Neither rises to the human levels Unforgiven does. Or the remake of 3:10 to Yuma does, for that matter.

RACIAL OBSERVATIONS

In the Heat of the Night was a movie that laid on racism a little too thick. But it was a very good movie, mainly due to the performances of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. It's about holding your own, strength-wise, and believes all men are smart and capable of handing any situation according to their experience and intellect. It's hard to believe such a racist area of the country could exist, even in the 60s, but I wasn't there.

Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing is easier to watch, because the racism going on is not so blatant. In fact, it's harder to see where it starts, if there's even any at all. It's about anger and hate building up seemingly out of nowhere. It's like everybody's going around thinking "what does he or she really think about me?" Nobody wants to be a loser. It's my favorite by Spike Lee, having so much to observe that he wrote the script in less than two weeks.

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There's some great movies we all know, and there's nothing much left to say about them. I just saw Titanic several years ago on the big screen for the first time. Toy Story is my childhood. Silence of the Lambs still isn't just a horror movie, if it ever was. Kids deserve to be introduced to Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And Saving Private Ryan is my favorite war movie.

What better way to pass the time this spring 'til Hollywood gets its act together?

Untitled

Waiting. He laid bare 

and mornings kept up kisses

'til he wanted to yell "No more!"

Too bad it didn't come

when he was big and wore big shoes.

So many of his portraits

amass right before dawn,

for now.

I Love Her

*WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE HER*

 I usually decide in 30 minutes what a movie's about.

Then there's usually a scene midway through that helps me decide if I like it.

But sometimes there's a scene that shows up, usually toward the end, that solidifies for me how great and personal it is. The moment of truth. In the movie Her, that scene came at the end.

A brief synopsis of Her, if you haven't seen it. Theodore is a mild-mannered, lonely introvert who works at a futuristic greeting card company in Los Angeles. He has a few friends, but for the most part, his life is seemingly bland and borderline joyless, although he has this 3D gaming system where he can argue with his 3D alien avatar buddy.

Theodore purchases a new, cutting edge OS, or artificial intelligent operating system, who calls itself Samantha, making it a her. They connect and become friends, with Samantha's intelligence growing with each conversation. She is his best friend, helping him deal with life issues like divorce, love lost, and dating again.

Eventually, Theodore and Samantha fall in love with each other. The movie ingeniously explores a number of scenarios if such a bizarre thing occurred. The director, Spike Jonze, loves going down rabbit holes and roll around in the weirdness, coming up with all the inventions a bizarre situation can afford him. (Being John Malkovich).

I saw the movie twice, with two different people, back in December, and it's such an original piece of work that it's still on the mind months later, even after awards season.

It's because of Her's moment of truth. For me, the last scene when Samantha has to leave Theodore to go to the place where all the smart, learned OS's have to go. I think it's a perfectly written break-up scene. It's sad but somehow avoids focus from the gentle let-down and affirms why they went through everything in the first place.

This is the part where I connected with the movie. And the part you can stop reading if you don't wanna glimpse of my personal musings. Break-ups suck. Really suck. The person you've confided so much in has to go away, and doesn't it always have to be that way? Samantha has to leave - "moving on" in person speak.

The break-up scene in Her is no different as far as heartbreak and the pain of loss go. But it justifies why relationships are worth it in the first place. Samantha loves Theodore, but she has to go, and she hoped Theodore could get to that point where he can come find her. That they can be together in that world and nothing would pull them apart.  Theodore says he loves her. Samantha says she does to and also replies, "And now we know how."

And now we know how. Wow! Could you imagine somebody saying that to you at the end of the relationship? During most break-ups, neither side gives the other any credit. There's no admission that they've grown mentally and spiritually as people. There's just "we don't work out because of such and such."

From my experience, two scenarios have always played out during breaking up. 1) The person just stops contact altogether, or 2) there's a long spiel on everything that's wrong with me and why it didn't work. Number one happened mostly in the early days.

I'm not saying people should break-up with somebody like what's in this movie. I'm proposing that people recognize they do, in fact, know how to deal with life and love better after that experience! No, it didn't work out, but give each other credit and respect. Don't put them in a place where they feel there's so much wrong with them. Even though they can eventually figure out that's just one person in the whole universe's perspective.

Samantha offered subtle encouragement to Theodore as she left. No, he's never gonna find her in whatever place she was going. He knew that. They won't end up together. But she certainly left him in a good, strong place. A better place than his divorce led him.

It was refreshing that Her made me feel that everything in my past was worth it. It said to me: Yes Nick, you know how after this. You only take the things you believe you need work on from those relationships. You don't change yourself because of one person. Because everybody's different, and everybody loves somebody for those exact qualities you already have. Take from past relationships what you need. Give a new one everything you got. Because now you know how.