Best TV, Cable & Streaming – 2020 & 2021 (so far) – Part 2

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Ted Hicks

Here are twelve more titles to wrap up this survey of what I’ve liked on the small screen in 2020 and so far this year.

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Miss Scarlet and the Duke (PBS Masterpiece)  Set in Victorian London of 1882, this series concerns Eliza Scarlet (played by Kate Phillips), an aspiring sleuth who takes over her recently deceased father’s detective agency. Of course, no one at that time can even comprehend the idea of a female detective. This is a constant challenge for her. She seeks support for her ambitions from a friend of her father’s, Scotland Yard Detective Inspector William “The Duke” Wellington. For the Duke, Eliza is a constant irritant who wants to help with cases that often befuddle the professional police. She’s a disconcerting presence for those around her, a smart-ass with Sherlockian powers of observation. Her relationship with the Duke has the familiar dynamic of male/female protagonists who constantly rebuff the other, and who you know should really be together. There’s a modern sensibility to their relationship and Eliza’s personality that might not be credible given the period, but overall Miss Scarlet and the Duke is very entertaining in ways I associate with Gentleman Jack (HBO) and the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock series (PBS). The final two episodes of the six-episode season also raise the stakes in darker ways that I hope continue in the next season.

Also, the production design and costumes are outstanding. Eliza’s outfits always pop against darker backgrounds.

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The Morning Show (Apple TV)  Mitch Lester (played by Steve Carell) and Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) were beloved co-hosts of “The Morning Show.” As this terrific series begins, Lester is out of a job after revelations of sexual-harassment charges against him. The show and its network go into damage control overdrive as they attempt to deal with the fallout and survive the scandal. Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), an outspoken field reporter with a regional news show in the south, joins “The Morning Show” as Alex Levy’s new co-host. Very timely in the MeToo reality, the show is fast, funny, and dramatic. The excellent cast also includes Mark Duplass as the harried producer of the show, and Billy Crudup as a non-traditional network executive whose agenda I was never quite sure of, though he’s one of the most interesting characters to me. Will be interesting to see if the next season can maintain the energy.

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Mrs. America (FX on Hulu)  Really great mini-series about the polarizing efforts in the 1970s to prevent the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from being ratified, led by conservative activist Phyliss Schlafly (played by Cate Blanchett). There are excellent performances from all,  including Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinhem, Uzu Aduba (Crazy Eyes on Orange Is the New Black) as Shirley Chisholm, and Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug. Martindale is a favorite of ours. She was amazing on Justified and The Americans.  Here she lets it rip as Abzug. I was pleased to see that four of the nine episodes were directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Together they have written and directed some terrific feature films, including Half Nelson (2006) with Ryan Gosling, Mississippi Grind (2015), and a Marvel superhero film, the excellent Captain Marvel (2019). Mrs. America is very engaging and very well made. A footnote is that the ERA has yet to be fully ratified.

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Mystery Road (Amazon Prime/Acorn)  Another great Australian series. Similar to Jack Irish, the series was preceded by feature films. In this case there were two: Mystery Road (2013) and Goldstone (2018).  There have been two seasons of the series, the first in 2018 and the second in 2020. All feature Aaron Pederson as indigenous police detective Jay Swan. To describe his character as tight-lipped and taciturn is an understatement. His cowboy hat, boots, and holstered weapon give him a Gary Cooper vibe. The features and the series are set in northern Western Australia, a vast, open landscape evocative of the American West. These are modern day westerns with strong neo-noir vibes. I recommend seeing the feature films first, which lead into the series. The first season of the series gets an added boost by having the great Judy Davis as a local police sergeant working with Jay Swan. In each storyline he gets sent to different communities to solve crimes. Tragic stuff happens.

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Ozark (Netflix)  Here’s the setup, per Wikipedia: “After a money laundering scheme for a Mexican drug cartel goes wrong, financial advisor Martin “Marty” Byrde proposes to make amends by offering to set up a bigger laundering operation in the Lake of the Ozarks region of central Missouri. Marty suddenly relocates his family from Chicago to the remote summer resort community of Osage Beach, Missouri. When the Byrdes arrive in Missouri, they become entangled with local criminals and later the Kansas City mafia.”

A terrific series with good people going bad, a la Breaking Bad (including that level of violence and duplicity). Jason Bateman and Laura Linney star as Marty and Wendy Byrde, with Sofia Hublitz and Skylar Gaertner as their children, Charlotte and Jonah. Julia Garner is especially great. She has received two consecutive supporting actress Emmy awards for her portrayal of Ruth Langmore, member of a local family of criminals. We first saw her on The Americans, and more recently in The Assistant, a feature film. Janet McTeer is also excellent, and very scary, as Helen Pierce, a lawyer for the drug cartel. We see the Byrdes continually getting backed into corners and somehow bluffing their way out, which frequently ends up with bodies on the ground. There have been three seasons so far, and a fourth is in the works. Below are trailers for season one and two.

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Perry Mason (HBO Max)  I was intrigued when I first heard HBO was doing a Perry Mason series. Matthew Rhys was terrific on The Americans, so I thought he would be interesting as Mason at a point early in his career. But it took me a couple of episodes to get into it, mainly because this was not the Perry Mason I’d grown up watching in the ’50s. Like Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Burr was firmly imprinted in my mind as Perry Mason. What I let go of that, it was no problem.  This is just another Perry Mason, a somewhat tattered, sometimes boozing private eye in early 1930s Los Angeles.

The production is, as you’d expect, impeccable. It’s interesting and satisfying seeing how other characters we know from the TV show have been reimagined. Besides Matthew Rhys as Mason, there’s Juliet Rylance as Della Street, Chris Chalk as a Black LAPD cop named Paul Drake, and the surprise appearance later in the series of Justin Kirk as Mason’s future courtroom nemesis, Hamilton Burger. These characters are being introduced on the ground floor, so to speak, as they begin to evolve into regular fixtures in the Perry Mason universe. The always authentic Shea Whigham plays Mason’s sometimes assistant, Pete Strickland. As usual, he puts an interesting spin on his scenes. John Lithgow is excellent as E.B. Jonathan, a lawyer who uses Mason as an investigator on cases, and acts as a mentor of sorts. Tatiana Maslany plays Sister Alice McKeegan, an evangelist with a prototypical mega-church following, seemingly inspired by the real-life Aimee Semple McPherson. Andrew Howard is Detective Ennis, a very bad cop. In the eight-part series, Mason is drawn into the case of a kidnapped baby who is murdered. He works to find the truth, despite many setbacks and the occasional beating. And before it’s over, we finally see him in court, defending the accused and finding his way to becoming Perry Mason.

One of the things I liked the most about the original TV series was the iconic theme music that played at the beginning of each episode. It’s quite obviously stripper music, and unforgettable. Yesterday I imagined Raymond Burr in flamboyant drag coming into the courtroom doing a striptease with the theme blasting away. Would like to have seen that. Terence Blanchard did the score for the new show, as well as scoring many Spike Lee films. I was thrilled that at the end of the final episode, a jazzy version of the original plays under the closing credits. Here it is:

The new Perry Mason is very different from the old, but I’d like to think they’d get along.

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Pretend It’s a City (Netflix)  This is really great, a seven-part documentary directed by Martin Scorsese about Fran Liebowitz and how she sees the world. For Liebowitz, the world is New York City. The DNA of the city is in everything she says. It’s impossible to imagine her anywhere else, though it’s fun to picture her on the Iowa farm where I grew up. Those who don’t appreciate Fran’s grouchy views on everything in sight should probably avoid this series, but we loved it. It’s especially great that Scorsese gets such kick out of her; he can be heard laughing constantly either on or off camera at something she’s said. Scorsese made a previous film about her in 2010, Public Speaking. That film had a screening at Film Forum in 2019 with Liebowitz there for a Q&A after. She’s a trip. She’s a writer who has famously had a decades-long writer’s block. Metropolitan Life and Social Studies were published in 1978 and 1981, respectively. Both are collections of essays. I was surprised to learn that she also wrote a children’s book published in 1994, Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas, about giant pandas living in New York City who want to move to Paris. She’s known now as a wit and raconteur whose bark is worse than her bite. The New York Times has called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker. For those of us who appreciate her style and sense of humor, Pretend It’s a City is a gift.

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The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)  This series about a chess prodigy is amazing. I knew basically nothing about how chess is played before watching The Queen’s Gambit, and didn’t know much more after. But I found it riveting, and that’s mainly due to Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead role of Beth Harmon. Her other-worldly presence (those eyes!) has got my attention in everything I’ve seen her in, which includes The Witch (2015), Morgan (2016), Thoroughbreds (2017), The Miniaturist (2017 mini-series), and Emma (2020). She’s slated to take the Charlize Theron part in Furiosa, a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, scheduled for release in 2023. That should be interesting.

The Queen’s Gambit, based on the novel by Walter Tevis (author of The Hustler and The Man Who Fell to Earth), became one of the most popular scripted series that Netflix has done. All seven episodes were written and directed by Scott Frank, which helps ensure a consistent quality throughout. Frank is an Oscar-winning screenwriter, whose work includes Get Shorty (1995), Out of Sight (1998), and Logan (2017). The Queen’s Gambit production and acting are topnotch. I especially liked Bill Camp as Mr. Shaibel, the building custodian at the orphanage where Beth is sent after the death of her mother. She begins to take refuge in the basement where Mr. Shaibel, in his grouchy fashion, teaches her to play chess. As Beth grows older and gains prominence for her increasingly brilliant chess playing, she also struggles with drugs and alcohol, a result of being fed tranquilizers at the orphanage. One of the neatest things about the series is that each of Beth’s matches is presented differently, so they never get stale or predictable. Despite my knowing little about chess, each match builds in tension. The series is a thriller. It’s not about chess, it’s about Beth.

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Rake (Netflix)  And yet another great series from Australia. Richard Roxburgh shines as Cleaver Greene, a criminal defense barrister in Sydney. He’s a lovable rascal, a familiar type in film and literature. Some of the terms that aptly describe him are unreliable, outrageous, alcoholic, incorrigible, and self-destructive. One could go on. His life is a trainwreck, but he somehow manages to squeak by. If you knew someone like this in real life, he or she probably wouldn’t seem quite so charming. But there’s something quite appealing about Roxburgh, similar to Guy Pearce in Jack Irish, that makes him fun to be with. But even with his manifold faults, Cleaver does have a sense of justice, despite his claims to the contrary. Defending the little guy is important to him.

I wasn’t quite as happy with the fifth season, in which Cleaver has somehow gotten elected as a senator in Federal Parliament. I preferred him in the courtroom setting of the first four seasons. Regardless, it’s still a great series and he’s a great character.

These trailers for seasons one and four will give you a more vivid sense of what I’ve described.

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Silent Witness (Amazon Prime) This British series that follows a team of forensic pathologists has been on the air since 1996, twenty-three seasons so far. It’s fascinating, and quite addictive. We only started watching recently. We finished season 19 last night. Only four to go. At the beginning, Sam Ryan (played by Amanda Burton) is a pathologist living and working in Cambridge. At the end of season three, she takes a job as a university professor and moves to London. She leaves the series at the start of season eight. Her place as the only female member of the team is eventually assumed by Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox). There have been several cast changes since the series began, though not as many or as frequent as those on the original Law & Order in this country, which is similar to Silent Witness in terms of longevity. There’s also been a shift in emphasis. When the series began, it seemed more about the work of performing postmortems on crime victims. As it has progressed, mainly since the move to London, the team has become more involved with field work, as investigators alongside the police. The autopsies depicted are quite graphic, but not lingered on or in your face for shock value. The quality of the episodes has not fallen off  over time, which can happen, particularly with long-running shows. I’m glad to say that, so far, no sharks have been jumped. Though with four seasons left, I suppose there’s always time.

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The Spy (Netflix)  Anyone who thinks of Sacha Baron Cohen as only Borat should see him in this series and as Abbie Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago 7.  He’s an extraordinary actor. In this six-part series taking place during the years leading to the Six-Day War in 1967, he plays Eli Cohen, an Egyptian Jew living in Israel who becomes a top Mossad spy, eventually infiltrating the Syrian Ministry of Defense. It’s very tense as he repeatedly evades detection, until he doesn’t, and as his assumed identity becomes more and more real to him, at the expense of his wife and children. In order to succeed in his undercover life, he risks failure in his real life.

A bonus is that Noah Emmerich plays Dan Peleg, one of Eli’s Israeli handlers. We got to know him well as FBI agent Stan Beeman in The Americans.

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What We Do in the Shadows (FX on Hulu)  As I wrote last year, I love this show. A small group of vampires share a house on Staten Island, where they’ve lived (so to speak) for over 100 years. They have the usual mundane domestic problems, like whose turn is it to clean the bathroom or sweep up. As with The Office, an unseen film crew is ostensibly shooting a documentary, which allows for direct-to-camera commentary by the characters. Very black, deadpan comedy. The second season was even better than the first. I love them all, but one of my favorite characters is Colin Robinson (played by Mark Proksch). Colin, a nerdish little man, is an energy vampire. He doesn’t suck blood; he drains energy and life force by boring people into a stupor. Here’s a clip collection of Colin in action.

Guest stars on the show have included Tilda Swinton, Wesley Snipes, Mark Hamill, Danny Trejo, Evan Rachel Wood, Haley Joel Osment, and Dave Bautista.

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That’s it for this wrap up. There may be a supplemental materials post, but I haven’t decided yet. Stay tuned and be safe. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Art, Books, Comics, Feature films, Film posters, History, Home Video, Music, Streaming, TV & Cable | 2 Comments

Best TV, Cable & Streaming – 2020 & 2021 (so far) – Part 1

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Ted Hicks

As with last year’s recap, I’m covering the best of what I saw in 2020, as well as shows from 2021 that I’ve liked so far. None of my picks are network programs. The best work being done these days is seen on streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, and cable sources such as HBO, Showtime, and FX. I’m sure many of you are familiar with most of the shows on my list, but there may be some that you either weren’t aware of or haven’t caught up with yet. There’s way too much stuff to watch, even if one wanted to, and the proliferation of streaming outlets has only increased the problem. But better too much than not enough.

The following titles are in alphabetical order and not separated by year. This will be in two parts.

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The Boys (Amazon Prime)  I came to this a year after the first season, but burned through that and the second in short order. I love it. The show posits a world where superheroes are sponsored, managed and marketed by a huge corporation. Almost all of them have been totally corrupted by their unlimited power. Opposing them are the “boys,” led by Karl Urban, a very tough character. Traditional superhero definitions are turned inside out. These are not the good guys. If you haven’t seen it, be advised that it’s extremely violent, often in ways you probably haven’t seen before.

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Bridgerton (Netflix)  Shonda Rimes’ previous hit shows include Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder. Her latest, based on a series of novels by Julia Quinn, is a period drama set in England in 1813. What gives it a terrific spin is that it takes place in an alternate reality in a racially integrated society where people of color have rank and privilege. It’s well written and well acted; the production design is incredible.

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Call My Agent  (Netflix)  Friends had been recommending this series for years. It began showing in the U.S. in 2016,  but we only started watching after the fourth season had been released earlier this year. Call My Agent follows four agents in a fictional French talent agency as they compete for business, deal with temperamental clients, juggle personal problems, and try to keep the agency afloat. It adds a meta-level by having real actors and directors play versions of themselves, which recalls Garry Shandling’s excellent HBO series, The Larry Sanders Show. We basically loved Call My Agent, though I became very irritated with some of the characters during the second season. I thought I was done with it, but kept watching and loved the rest of it. This was supposedly the end of the series, but it was announced earlier this month that there will be a fifth season.

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Criminal: UK (Netflix)  Previously this series consisted of four separate “seasons,” all taking place almost entirely inside a police interrogation room in the respective countries, the UK, France, Germany, and Spain, with four episodes per each. The format remains, but we have only the UK for this second season. It’s concentrated, claustrophobic, and compelling as the episodes play out. The characters of the interrogators are fascinating.

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The Crown (Netflix)  Created by Peter Morgan, this terrific series dramatizes the life and reign of Elizabeth II, Queen of England. Claire Foy played her in the first two seasons, with Olivia Colman taking the role in the next two seasons, of which this is the fourth. Colman is excellent, as she is in seemingly everything she does. Tobias Menzies (Rome, Game of Thrones, The Night Manager) is also excellent as Prince Philip.  Josh O’Connor (The Durrells in Corfu – see below) is petulant and nasty as Prince Charles, while Emma Corrin is quite heartbreaking as Princess Diana. Gillian Anderson is great as Margaret Thatcher, and very frightening, like some sort of crocodile. There will be another cast change for the final two seasons.

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The Durrells in Corfu (Amazon Prime)  This is a simply wonderful series. If it had continued past four seasons (26 episodes), we’d still be watching. And it’s all true, sort of. In 1935, with little money and no prospects, single-mother Louisa Durrell (Keeley Hawes) moves from England to the Greek island of Corfu with her four children, Larry (Josh O’Connor), Gerry (Milo Parker), Margo (Daisy Waterhouse), and Leslie (Colem Woodhouse). On Corfu they encounter hardship, friendship, adventures, and romance. Budding novelist Larry would grow up to become famous as Lawrence Durrell. Gerry, whose three memoirs of their lives on Corfu would become the basis for this series, became well-known as an author and naturalist. Something that’s really a kick is watching his collection of animal life expand over the course of the series. Parrots, pigs, pelicans, various lizards and the occasional goat wander through the rooms of their house. With war imminent, the family is forced to move back to England in 1939, but it’s been an extraordinary adventure

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The Good Fight (Paramount+)  Another series we came to several seasons in. This is a spin-off of The Good Wife, which we really liked. Christine Baranski carries over from that series as Diane Lockhart, along with the wonderfully named Cush Jumbo as Lucca Quinn and Sarah Steele as Eli Gold’s daughter Marissa. Strong additions to the cast are Delroy Lindo, Rose Leslie, and Audra McDonald. Legal struggles and court cases abound. An interesting real-world connection was having the Trump presidency as part of the storyline. I had no trouble with the anti-Trump position taken by the show, but I felt it was limiting and got in the way at times. Still, this is an excellent series, well written and well acted. We had to subscribe to yet another streaming platform in order to watch it, CBS All-Access, which is now known as Paramount +. There have been four seasons so far.

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Jack Irish (Amazon Prime/Acorn)  An0ther engaging Australian series. Guy Pearce stars as a formerly successful lawyer in a Melbourne law firm until his wife’s murder causes him to skid into an alcoholic depression. He’s now a somewhat tattered part-time investigator taking on dirty dealings in high places, aided and distracted by a colorful crew of friends. Based on a series of detective novels by Paul Temple, Jack Irish began as three feature-length movies (Bad Debts, Black Tide, and Dead Point)  before becoming a series for two seasons. The movies and series are available via Amazon Prime & Acorn. All are excellent, Guy Pearce especially.

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Line of Duty (Amazon Prime/Acorn) This is a critically-acclaimed series in the UK. As happened with several other series on this list, we came to this one late, after five seasons had been released. No matter, we proceeded to burn through those in short order. Line of Duty follows DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), his partner DC Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure), and their boss, Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) as they work to uncover corruption and corrupt police officers in the fictional Central Police Force. Each season of six episodes follows one storyline. We see a lot of British cop shows. This is one of the best. A sixth season has been produced, which will likely be available here later this year.

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Lovecraft Country (HBO Max)  Based on a novel by Matt Ruff, this series deals with issues of race and Black experience through the filter of a horror story. Jordon Peele did this with his feature films Get Out (2017) and Us (2019). The Amazon Prime series Them is doing it now. All are using the conventions and expectations of the horror genre to get at something very real. Set in 1950s America, Lovecraft Country follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman, a Korean War veteran and fan of science fiction and horror, as he goes in search of his father Montrose (Michael K. Williams). An incredibly complex and often outlandish narrative unfolds. It gets very violent. There are some horrific images and actions I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

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Lupin (Netflix)  An immensely entertaining French series. Here’s a synopsis per Wikipedia: “The story follows professional thief Assane Diop, the only son of an immigrant from Senegal who had come to France to seek a better life for his child. Assane’s father is framed for the theft of an expensive diamond necklace by his employer, the wealthy and powerful Hubert Pellegrini, and hangs himself in his prison cell out of shame, leaving the teenage Assane an orphan. Twenty-five years later, inspired by a book about a gentleman thief Arsène Lupin his father had given him on his birthday, Assane sets out to get revenge on the Pellegrini family, using his charisma and mastery of thievery, subterfuge, and disguise to expose Hubert’s crimes.”

As Assane, Omar Sy is stylish, clever, smooth, and always several steps ahead of everyone. He made me smile. The show is altogether very satisfying. Master thief Arsène Lupin was a character created by Maurice Leblanc in the early 1900s. His novels and short stories became extremely popular. Ending after only five episodes, Lupin felt rather abrupt and incomplete. I’ve since learned that the first season was originally to be ten episodes. I suspect the pandemic interrupted the production, though I don’t know the details. In any event, the next five episodes  have been completed and are planned to be released this summer.

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That’s all for now. Part 2 will follow shortly. Stay safe. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Books, Comics, Fiction, History, Home Video, Music, Streaming, TV & Cable | 3 Comments

More Roundtables – Directors and Producers

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Ted Hicks

As I mentioned in my previous post, the annual roundtable discussions curated by The Hollywood Reporter are conducted in this pandemic year via Zoom, rather than the participants being seated at an actual table.  In this post, we have directors and producers in discussion. In addition to The Hollywood Reporter, a second directors roundtable organized by The Los Angeles Times is also included. I watched these yesterday and earlier today, and found them engaging and informing. The first directors roundtable begins below.

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Directors Roundtable #1 (Running time: 55:44)

The seven directors taking part are listed below, along with titles and streaming availability of their films under discussion.

Regina King – One Night in Miami (Amazon Prime)

Spike Lee – Da Five Bloods (Netflix)

Chloé Zhao  – Nomadland (Hulu)

George C. Wolfe – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Netflix)

Paul Greengrass – News of the World (Amazon Prime)

Lee Isaac Chung – Minari (Film Forum & A25 sites through February 25; streaming services TBA thereafter)

George Clooney – The Midnight Sky (Netflix)

This discussion is moderated by Rebecca Keegan of The Hollywood Reporter.

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Directors Roundtable #2 (Running time: 48:12)

Aaron Sorkin

David Fincher

Regina King, Chloé Zhao, Spike Lee, and Paul Greengrass carry over from the previous directors roundtable, but what they discuss is basically new, covering  different aspects of the filmmaking process. They are joined by the following directors:

Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)

David Fincher – Mank (Netflix)

This discussion is moderated by Mark Olson of The Los Angeles Times.

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Producers Roundtable (Running time: 41:51)

The six producers taking part are listed below, along with titles and streaming availability of their films under discussion.

Andy Samberg – Palm Springs (Hulu)

Ashley Levinson – Pieces of a Woman and Malcolm & Marie (both on Netflix)

Charles D. King – Judas and the Black Messiah (HBO Max)

Dede Gardner – Minari  (Film Forum & A25 sites through February 25; streaming services TBA thereafter)

Marc Platt – The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Netflix)

Eric Roth – Mank (Netflix)

The presence of Marc Platt and Eric Roth adds some interesting perspective from an older generation of filmmakers. Marc Platt, age 63, has a long list of producing credits going back to 1987, with films projected into 2023. Eric Roth, age 76, is probably better known as a screenwriter. His films include Forrest Gump, The Insider, Munich, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and many more. Despite all their experience in the business, they both sound like they’re still excited and engaged by making films.

This roundtable is moderated by Tatiana Siegel of The Hollywood Reporter.

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That’s all for now. See you next time. — Ted Hicks

NEWS FLASH! I just read that movie theaters will be reopening in early March in New York City, subject to limited capacity and other restrictions. This is good news. We’ll see how it works out.

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Posted in Feature films, History, Home Video, Streaming, TV & Cable | 1 Comment

Cinematographers Roundtable + Quentin Tarantino & Roger Deakins and Christopher Nolan & Hoyte van Hoytema

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Ted Hicks

The annual roundtable discussions curated by The Hollywood Reporter are conducted in this pandemic year via Zoom, rather than the participants being seated at an actual table. There’s an intimacy that’s lost by this physical separation. It’s a different vibe, but I think it still works. The first of these that I’m posting is a cinematographers roundtable, which I think is fascinating and informative. This will be followed by a video of Quentin Tarantino and cinematographer Roger Deakins debating shooting on film vs. digital. And finally, a video of Christopher Nolan and his cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema speaking on, among other things, how they strive to shoot as much in-camera as possible, with a minimal use of CGI effects.

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Cinematographer Roundtable (Running time: 47:31)

The six cinematographers taking part are listed below, along with titles and streaming availability of their most recent films.

Dariusz Wolski  – News of the World (Amazon Prime)

Erik Messerschmidt – Mank (Netflix)

Mandy Walker – Mulan (Amazon Prime)

Tami Reiker – One Night in Miami (Amazon Prime) & The Old Guard (Netflix)

Joshua James Richards – Nomadland (Hulu)

Damián García – I’m No Longer Here (Netflix)

The discussion is moderated by Carolyn Giardino of The Hollywood Reporter.

These are very sharp people who know what they’re doing, and this comes across. Something that Erik Messerschmidt says particularly got my attention: “I think cinematographers are over-credited for how movies look and under-credited for how the stories are told…Cinematographers end up taking a lot of credit for things that belong to the production designer or the costume designer.”

And now the full discussion.

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Quentin Tarantino & Roger Deakins on Digital vs. Film (10:04)

Tarantino sounds a little crazy in his delivery, like Daffy Duck blowing a fuse in a Warner Bros. cartoon. But he always seems excitable and very enthusiastic. That’s who he is. Roger Deakins is definitely the calmer of the two, and also more realistic on the issue.

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Christopher Nolan & Hoyte van Hoytema on shooting in-camera (10:15)

Hoyte van Hoytema & Christopher Nolan by IMAX camera.

It’s interesting that in this video Christopher Nolan holds a view similar to Tarantino’s regarding the value of film over digital, but he explains his views rationally and technically. He’s much less emotional than Tarantino.

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Roundtables on directors, producers, writers, documentary film, and more will follow shortly. Meanwhile, stay safe. — Ted Hicks

Posted in Feature films, History, Home Video, Streaming, TV & Cable | 3 Comments

Best Documentaries 2020 – Supplemental

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Ted Hicks

For those who would like to go a little deeper, here is a selection of interviews, discussions, reviews, and performance clips for the documentaries in the previous post. Running times for videos are indicated.

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The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Frank Marshall, director)

Frank Marshall interview (9:14)

Director & Producer Q&A (24:45)

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City Hall (Frederick Wiseman, director)

Wiseman interview at the New York Film Festival (27:12)

Wiseman interview at Film Forum (56:51)

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 David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee, director)

David Byrne talks with Spike Lee #1 (4:16)

David Byrne talks with Spike Lee #2 (4:50)

Byrne & Lee interview at Toronto International Film Festival (20:41)

Indie Wire review by David Ehrlich

Hollywood Reporter review by David Rooney

Variety review by Owen Gleiberman

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 Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson, director & co-writer)

Kirsten Johnson on making the film (3:43)

Kirsten Johnson Q&A (47:23)

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Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, director & co-writer)

 Viktor Kosakovskiy interview at the New York Film Festival (27:02)

New York Times review by Manohla Dargis

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Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (Gero von Boehm, director & writer)

Gero von Boehm & Isabella Rossellini interview at Film Forum (58:06)

Newton’s dream of photographing a chicken wearing high heels. Yes, the result is rather disturbing.

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Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Bert Stern, director, 1959)

Chuck Berry — “Sweet Little Sixteen” (4:04)

Anita O’Day — “Sweet Georgia Brown” & “Tea for Two” (8:18)

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 John Lewis: Good Trouble  (Dawn Porter, director)

Dawn Porter Q&A (31:50)

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 My Octopus Teacher (Pippa Eherlich & James Reed, directors & writers)

Pippa Eherlich interview (12:24)

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The Way I See It (Dawn Porter, director)

Dawn Porter & Pete Souza Q&A (52:54)

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Zappa (Alex Winter, director)

Alex Winter interview (10:45)

Alex Winter & editor Mike Nichols interview (23:55)

Ruth Underwood & Joe Travers perform Zappa’s composition, “The Black Page” (1:35)

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Ending this with a sign-off from Porky Pig. Until next time, be safe. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Art, Books, Documentaries, Film, Film posters, History, Home Video, Music, Non-Fiction, photography, Streaming, TV & Cable | 1 Comment

What I Saw Last Year – Best Documentaries 2020

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Ted Hicks

I didn’t see nearly as many documentaries in 2020 as I have in previous years. When Film Forum and the IFC Center closed down last March (along with all other movie theaters in New York City), the venues where I’d normally see new documentaries were no longer available. Theaters are still closed here, and much as I hate to say it, I don’t expect them to reopen any time soon.

So I began doing what I’m still doing, which is streaming films online. I didn’t realize until near the end of the year that I’d been concentrating mainly on theatrical features, old and new. The title of this post — “What I Saw Last Year” — is a bit of a misnomer. In an effort to catch up on some of the ones I’d missed, I saw seven of last year’s documentaries in January, and five of those made the cut. I still haven’t seen two of the eleven titles on the list, but I’ll explain why I’m including them.

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The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Frank Marshall, director)  This was a huge revelation for me. I never had any of their albums, and before seeing this, whenever I thought of the Bee Gees, which wasn’t that often, the only thing that came to mind was Saturday Night Fever (1977) and the song “Stayin’ Alive” playing under the opening credits. I knew little of their career as it evolved over the years and their impact on pop music. Disco is just one facet of their music. This is an excellent film, and quite moving at times. Available on HBO Max.

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City Hall (Frederick Wiseman, director)  Frederick Wiseman is one of the greatest living documentary filmmakers. His contribution has been immense. Wiseman’s films are important and even essential. They show us how our society operates in Wiseman’s granular studies of institutions and communities. I love his films, but still haven’t managed to see his latest, though I’ve had numerous opportunities since last fall. His films tend to run long, and City Hall is no exception. The film’s four and a half-hour running time is daunting, to be sure, but I know it will be worth it. I’ll see it eventually, even if it’s on my computer or our flat-screen. In the meantime, because I’ve never seen a Fred Wiseman film that wouldn’t be on one of my Best Documentaries lists, I’m including City Hall here. I don’t think I’m taking a chance at all.  Available on PBS – THIRTEEN Passport.

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David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee, director)  This is great. American Utopia is a theatrical experience that transcends the notion of “concert film.” David Byrne is unique, a singular presence. The music, a mix of Talking Heads and newer songs, is  glorious. The presentation is mesmerizing and the effect is emotional and very human. Spike Lee might seem like an odd choice to direct this, but he does a great job of showcasing the material. Available on HBO Max.

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Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson, director & co-writer)  I was really struck by Kirsten Johnson’s earlier film, Cameraperson (2016), which was comprised of documentary footage she’d shot over several decades. Her new film is something else again. It’s about her father and their relationship. He’s begun to show signs of dementia, and Kirsten wants to film him and be with him while he’s still lucid and alive. As a rather bizarre way to come to terms with his inevitable death, she stages scenes — with his enthusiastic cooperation — of his demise in a variety of scenarios, such as getting flattened by a falling air conditioner as he walks along a city sidewalk. This is then deconstructed as we see how she shot it. These weave in and out of the film. This might sound morbid, but it comes off as anything but. Dick Johnson Is Dead, narrated by the director, has more than a few surprises along the way. It’s funny and quite touching, with a serious subtext. And no actual fathers were harmed in the making of this movie. Available on Netflix.

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Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, director & co-writer)  This is the second film on this list that I have not seen yet. It was available for streaming for a short period last fall, but I wasn’t paying attention, and it was gone before I knew it. I’m including it here because I love pigs, and also because Gunda has received virtually unanimous praise. I grew up on an Iowa farm where we raised beef cattle and pigs (but thankfully not chickens). Pigs are great, and I never tired of being amused by them, even as we trucked them off to the slaughterhouse. I regret not seeing it when I had the chance, but I imagine it will become available sometime this year, and I’ll definitely see it then.

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Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (Gero von Boehm, director & writer)  This is a fascinating study of the edgy, provocative fashion photographer, Helmut Newton. Isabella Rossellini is a standout among those interviewed on camera, who include Charlotte Rampling, Sigourney Weaver, Grace Jones, and Catherine Deneuve, and others. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Bert Stern, director)  Originally released in 1959, this is hardly a new film. I was blown away when I saw it for the first time last August. Since Jazz on a Summer’s Day was re-released in a beautiful 4K restoration in 2020, and because it’s so great, I’ve rationalized including it here. The film is filled with outstanding performances by Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and many others. I was particularly taken with Anita O’Day’s set (and her incredible hat), along with Chuck Berry’s smooth performance of “Sweet Little Sixteen.” It might seem odd at first to find Berry  playing at a jazz festival in 1959, but music categories are more fluid than that. Available on Amazon Prime.

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John Lewis: Good Trouble  (Dawn Porter, director)  I had been wanting to see this film since it was released last July, but didn’t get around to it until last month. John Lewis was a genuine American hero and a Civil Rights icon. This excellent documentary more than does him justice. Seen in the context of the recent White House administration, John Lewis’ life and character are a powerful example of how things can be. As he says in the film, “Speak up, speak out, and get in what I call good trouble. Necessary trouble, what is right.” He was arrested 40 times in the 1960s, and another five times while in Congress. He also says, “You only pass this way once and you have to give it all you have.” And this: “You get knocked down, you get back up, you keep going.” In 2o18 he said, “As long as I have breath in my body, I will do what I can.” Finally, during the end credits I was suddenly practically in tears, overwhelmed by the weight of what I’d seen. This film really gets your attention. Available on Amazon Prime.

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My Octopus Teacher (Pippa Eherlich & James Reed, directors & writers)  After seeing this excellent film, I realized I’d known basically nothing about octopuses. It turns out they are amazing creatures, aware and intelligent. My Octopus Teacher is one surprise after another, and quite moving in the bargain. Available on Netflix.

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The Way I See It (Dawn Porter, director)  The one-two punch of seeing this the day after I saw the John Lewis film was almost two much. I hadn’t heard of Peter Souza, the Chief Official White House Photographer during the Reagan and Obama administrations. What we see of his work in this documentary is amazing. At one point he says, “My goal was to create the best photographic archive of a president that had ever been done. Lasting images for history.” The contrasts we see between the recent administration and those of Reagan, LBJ, and especially Obama are heartbreaking (and infuriating). I was riding waves of emotion throughout this film. Note that the director, Dawn Porter, was also the director of John Lewis: Good Trouble. Both films seem essential to me. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Zappa (Alex Winter, director)  An excellent, seemingly comprehensive study of the life and work of Frank Zappa, an artist whose music transcends categories. His contributions can’t be over-estimated. This film is superior to anything else I’ve seen on him. Alex Winter had an unprecedented access to Zappa’s archives, material that largely hasn’t been seen or heard before.

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That wraps up this installment. Supplemental materials for these films will follow in a day or so. As always, stay safe. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Art, Books, Documentaries, Film, Film posters, Home Video, Music, photography, Streaming, TV & Cable | 2 Comments

Feature Films 2020: Best of the Rest – Supplemental

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Ted Hicks

Here is a variety of supplemental materials for several of the titles in my previous post.

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I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, director & writer)

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, director)

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Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, director & co-writer)

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On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola, director & writer)

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Tenet (Christopher Nolan, director & writer)

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Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, director & writer)

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This wraps up my posts on the Best Feature Films of 2020. Next up will be documentaries, followed by television. See you then. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Feature films, Film posters, History, Home Video, Streaming, TV & Cable | 1 Comment

Feature Films 2020 – The Best of the Rest of What I Saw

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Ted Hicks

Here are the best of the rest of what I saw last year, 18 films in alphabetical order. As I said in my intro to last year’s “Best of the Rest” post, I don’t claim that all of these are great films (though some of them are), but they all got my attention and engaged me in one way or another. Sometimes it’s just a performance, a feeling, more often it’s the whole package.

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Bacurau Juliano Dornelles & Kleber Mendonca Fihlo, directors & writers). Available on Amazon Prime.

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Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, director & co-writer). Available on Amazon Prime.

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Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa, director). Available on Amazon Prime.

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Emma (Autumn de Wilde, director). Anya Taylor-Joy, who scored so strongly in The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), is excellent as the title character. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of her. And any film that has Bill Nighy in it gains points just for that.  Available on HBO Max.

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I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, director & writer). Beyond strange, I don’t think the individual scenes and radical shifting of gears add up to a whole, but I found it very compelling nonetheless, even as I kept wondering “What the hell?” Available on Netflix.

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The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, director & writer). Elizabeth Moss brings a lot of intensity to this very effective sci-fi thriller that’s mainly about getting out of an abusive marriage. But make no mistake, it has nothing to do with the H. G. Wells novel or classic film, other than sharing the title and having a guy who’s invisible in it. But it’s really tense. Available on HBO Max.

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Lost Bullet (Guillaume Pierret, director & co-writer). This film and Sputnik are the two films on this list that got me the most energized and excited. The familiar and quite flexible premise of a good cop vs. bad cops is given an inventive spin that is part Mad Max, part Serpico, and every car chase movie you’ve ever seen. The forward momentum is relentless. Lost Bullet is probably not very credible, but when did that ever get in the way? I enjoyed it a lot. Available on Netflix.

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe, director).  Viola Davis is great as Ma Rainey, but the main attraction is Chadwick Boseman in his final film before his death last year at age 43. His blistering performance is overwhelming and tragic, and probably gets an extra charge from our knowing that he’s gone. I’d hoped for more music, but it’s really about the characters and race. Available on Netflix.

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Mank (David Fincher, director). For me, David Fincher (along with Christopher Nolan, Michael Mann, and Ridley Scott) is one of the best living film directors. Mank may not be his best film — that would be Zodiac — but it’s one hell of an achievement. Per numerous profiles and interviews, it’s clear that Fincher exerts total control over every aspect of any film he’s making, and it shows. Mank may be more of a film for film buffs, but it’s stunning in its look and sound and meticulous recreation of its 1940s Hollywood milieu. The casting of Gary Oldman has been criticized because his actual age is much older than Herman Mankiewicz was at the time. I didn’t know that, and anyway, so what? Oldman is a terrific actor and it’s a terrific performance. Available on Netflix.

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Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello, director & co-writer). Available on Kino Marquee/Kino Now.

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On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola, director & writer). Delicate, funny, and insightful. And a great performance by Bill Murray, who’s never been better. Rashida Jones is excellent as his daughter. This moves ever so smoothly. Available on Apple TV.

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The Quarry (Scott Teams, director & co-writer). A slow-burning neo-noir with Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham. That was enough for me. I wish the ending had been stronger, but the performances and tone carry it a long way. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Radioactive (Marjane Satrapi, director). Rosamund Pike is very convincing as Marie Curie, whose discovery of radium and radioactivity resulted in the two Nobel Prizes (Physics and Chemistry) and eventually her own death from radiation poisoning. Pike has been excellent in films that include David Fincher’s Gone Girl (2014), Scott Cooper’s Hostiles (2017), and most especially Matthew Heineman’s A Private War (2018). I hadn’t known that she endured a lot of prejudice in France due to her Polish background. Radioactive also features Anya Taylor-Joy as Curie’s daughter Irene. Available on Amazon Prime.

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The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano, director). This is a familiar premise. A man or woman seeks revenge because of a loss — family, friends, job, etc. — and has to first learn the skills to do so. But it’s all in the telling, and this film pulls it off  with style and feeling. Blake Lively is very good as a young woman intent on avenging the deaths of her parents and brother at the hands of a terrorist bomb maker. Jude Law is her reluctant mentor in the ways of killing and survival. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Sputnik (Egor Abramenko, director). An astronaut returns to earth, but he’s not alone, something has come with him. We’ve seen this before, too, but seldom as inventively done as in this Russian film. Alien (1979) is an influence here, as it has been on just about everything since, but Sputnik is its own thing, literally. It’s pretty creepy and feels very concrete, very physical, and very scary. It’s not for everyone, but then, anything good seldom is. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Tenet (Christopher Nolan, director & writer). I’ve basically recovered from having to see this the first time on a 41″ television set instead of the IMAX screen at Lincoln Square. Though I hope to be able to do that at some point in the post-pandemic future, whenever we get there. Meanwhile, seeing it smaller was better than not seeing it at all. John David Washington is excellent as the unnamed main character. I especially liked Robert Pattinson as Washington’s partner of sorts. The narrative is incredibly complex and has to do with time travel or time shifting or inversion, something like that. I had a feeling for what was going on, but I don’t pretend to understand it. That will require a few more viewings, hopefully one of which will be in IMAX. Available on Amazon Prime.

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The Traitor  (Marco Bellochio, director). Available on STARZ.

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The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, director & writer). This is a very engaging telling of the famous (and infamous) trial of a group of men accused of conspiring to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Since I was around at the time, most of the people involved were familiar to me. Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, and Mark Rylance are excellent as (respectively) Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, and defense lawyer William Kuntsler. Frank Langella is properly loathsome as Judge Julius Hoffman. But the standout for me is Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman. For anyone who thinks of him as only Borat, and doubts his acting ability beyond that, I refer them to this film, and even more so to the Netflix series Spy, in which he plays an undercover agent in Syria spying for Israel. Available on Netflix.

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That about wraps up this installment. I’m going to take a break now to watch Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), then do a final edit and post this later today. I’ll post supplemental materials for a few of these titles tomorrow. In the meantime, stay tuned and be safe! — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Books, Feature films, Film posters, History, Home Video, Music, Streaming, TV & Cable | 1 Comment

Best Feature Films 2020 – Supplemental

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Ted Hicks

For those of you interested in a closer look, here are supplementary materials for six of the films on my top-10 list.

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The Assistant

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First Cow

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Never Rarely Sometimes Always

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Nomadland

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Sorry We Missed You

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Sound of Metal

This is a lot of material for this title. As always, just pick what you want. There won’t be a test.

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That’s all for now. Stay tuned for “Feature Films – The Best of the Rest of What I Saw” in two or three days. Best documentaries and TV yet to come. Keep safe. — Ted Hicks

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Posted in Feature films, Film, Film posters, History, Home Video, Music, Non-Fiction, Streaming, TV & Cable | 2 Comments

What I Saw Last Year – Best Feature Films 2020

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Ted Hicks

A year without blockbusters or movie theaters. 2020 was a radically different year for everything, not just movie-going, and 2021 still is. If someone had told me at the outset that theaters would be closed nearly a year later, I don’t think I could have gotten my head around it.

The last film I saw in a theater was Stage Fright at Film Forum on Saturday, March 14. Not a great film, but it was a Hitchcock I hadn’t seen before, and I wanted to check that box. Besides, film screenings had already begun shutting down, such as MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center. Film Forum would close that Sunday, AMC and other multiplexes by Monday. Some theaters across the country have re-opened — I don’t know how many — but film venues in New York City remain closed.

I saw 61 films in theaters before they shut down. Since then I’ve been watching them mainly online via Amazon Prime and Netflix, with some on HBO, Showtime, and from my DVD & Blu-ray disc collection. Even with theaters not open last year, I didn’t see fewer films in 2020, I actually saw more. But get this, of the 392 films I saw, only 95 of them were new films. The remaining 297 were old films, either ones I’d seen before or ones I hadn’t seen that looked interesting. Most of the year I was, in effect, running a random repertory program at home.

But of those 95 new feature films, many of them were excellent, even great. I’ve come up with a top-10 list again this year, to be followed in part two by 18 films that were very strong and deserve to be included. The hell of it is, at the start of the new year I realized that while I’d spent an inordinate amount of time last year watching old films, I’d neglected many of the new ones that were turning up on various streaming services, such as Ammonite, Another Round, and Babyteeth. I intend to catch up in the days to come, and will cover the best of those in a later post. Meanwhile, on to the best of what I saw last year, in alphabetical order.

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Dear Comrades!

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The Assistant (Kitty Green, director & writer)  This excellent, quietly disturbing film stars Julia Garner as a recent hire as an assistant in a film production office. She gets in before sunup and leaves well after sundown. Over the course of one very long day she endures many small humiliations and sexist attitudes that are taken for granted by others in the office. Her boss, never seen but always intimidating and looming via phone and intercom, is what the Me Too movement is all about. The narrative proceeds at a slow burn, an accretion of small details, and often feels like a horror movie. Garner, who we first saw in the great FX series The Americans and more recently on the Netflix series Ozark, is excellent as a wary observer struggling to get her bearings and deal with what’s expected and demanded of her. There are no histrionics or blowups that I recall, but the atmosphere is nonetheless extremely tense. It’s like a grenade waiting to off. This is a small jewel of a film, but no one would call it feel-good. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Dear Comrades! (Andrei Konchalofsky, director & co-writer)  Konchalofsky is a well-known Russian director, but I first became aware of him in 1985 when I saw his English-language film Runaway Train, with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts as escaped convicts in Alaska who end up on a runaway train. That film ends with a powerful, existential image of Voight standing on top of the speeding train in the midst of a blizzard as it speeds through the night. I don’t remember much else, but that scene has stayed with me. Konchalofsky’s new film is based on an actual event that took place in 1962 in a small industrial town when government forces fired on factory workers who were striking to protest higher food prices and lower wages. Many were killed in the ensuing massacre, news of which was officially surpressed until the 1990s. Yuliya Vysotskaya, the director’s wife, plays Lyudmilla, a loyal Communist Party executive. Her frantic search for her rebellious daughter, who took part in the strike, makes up the heart of the film. It’s a great performance in a powerful film. Available via Film Forum/Neon on January 29.

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First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, director & co-writer)  Kelly Reichardt is an excellent director whose previous films have included Wendy and Lucy (2008) and Certain Women (2016). Her new film is quite special in conception and execution. In 1820, Cookie (John Magaro) is the cook for a group of trappers in Oregon territory. He meets King Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese man on the run after killing a Russian. They hook up and set up house in a settlement that’s more or less overseen by a wealthy Englishman called Chief Factor (Toby Jones). Cookie makes biscuits that sell like hot cakes at the local marketplace, but he needs milk to continue to make them. Chief Factor has the first and only cow in the region. Cookie and King Lu begin milking the cow at night, stealing the milk, which works until it doesn’t. This is a wonderful film, filled with unusual detail. At one point, King Lu says to Cookie, “History isn’t here yet. It’s coming, but maybe this time we can take it on our own terms.” I think it’s unlikely that anyone at that time would say something like that, but it gives a great sense of this being a country in the making, and the beginnings of a social order. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, director & writer)   Autumn, played by Sydney Flanigan in her debut film role,  is 17 years old and pregnant. She lives in a small town in Pennsylvania, where her options are limited, to say the least. She and her cousin Skylar (played by Talia Ryder) take a bus to New York City where she plans to terminate the pregnancy. They don’t really know what they’re doing, and while paperwork and finances get sorted, they spend two nights in and around the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which becomes a character in its own right. I was reminded of how stressful and uncomfortable bus stations can be, always transient, and how lonely at 2:00 am. Sydney Flanigan’s performance feels very authentic and completely natural. This film is an example of what we’re seeing more and more, narratives that don’t advance in traditional ways, that are less dramatic and less plotted. Stories develop more indirectly. Not having everything mapped out and spelled out can feel fresher and more real. That’s certainly the case with this film. Available on HBO Max.

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Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, director & writer)  Zhao’s previous film, The Rider, was one of my top three favorite films of 2018. I absolutely loved it. Nomadland is a worthy followup, and then some. Nomadland has been almost universally praised. Traditional storytelling falls away and it feels like you’ve discovered something totally authentic. This is due in part, I think, to Zhao’s method of casting real people as close versions of themselves who use their real names and experiences, as she did in The Rider. A difference this time is that Zhao employed a big-name actor, Frances McDormand, to play the lead character, Fern. This undoubtedly raised the profile of the film. Zhao also cast the quietly outstanding David Strathairn as Dave, who Fern encounters at various times on the road. Fern has lived all of her adult life in a Nevada mining town. With the death of her husband and the closing of the mine that effectively closes the town, even eliminating its zip code, Fern packs up and goes on the road, taking seasonal work where she can get it. She becomes part of a community of transient older Americans living in RVs and vans. They are fiercely independent and frequently on the move — nomads.

Zhao based the film on a non-fiction book by Jessica Bruder published in 2017, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. Many of the people profiled in the book are characters in the film. As it did in The Rider, this lends a strong documentary aspect, a kind of non-fiction fiction, if you will. Nomadland was filmed over four months on locations in Nebraska, South Dakota, Nevada, Arizona, and California. These people were living their lives as the movie was being filmed. You get a sense of their dignity and self-sufficiency, which is exemplified by Frances McDormand’s fearless performance. At one point, when concerned friends back in Nevada offer Fern a place to stay, she says, “I’m not homeless, I’m just houseless. Not the same thing, right? Don’t worry about me.” Scheduled to be available for streaming February 19 on Hulu.

Note: In what feels like a cognitive disconnect, Chloé Zhao has signed to direct Eternals, a Marvel superhero film expected later this year (pandemic permitting). Her distinctive and very specific sensibility should yield very interesting results, though it’s a little like hearing that Ozu had directed a Mad Max film. Actually, that’s a movie I’d like to see.

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Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, director)  Ken Loach is a great director whose films reflect committed humanist, social, and political concerns. These include Kes (1969), Land and Freedom (1995), My Name Is Joe (1988), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and I, Daniel Blake (2016). Loach is nearly 85 years of age, and Sorry We Missed You is strong evidence that his craft, skill, and sensitivity have not diminished in the least.

As in many of his films, the characters in Sorry We Missed You are everyday people, working class, the common man (and woman). Sorry We Missed You was filmed in Newcastle, as was I, Daniel Blake, and concerns a family struggling to make ends meet and get by. Ricky (Kris Hitchen), a somewhat hapless character, has just started working for a package delivery company managed by an abusive boss. His wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) works as a home care nurse. Ricky pressures her to sell the car she uses to get to her clients in order to have the down payment for the van he has to buy to make deliveries. Abbie then has to take buses and cabs. Their teenage son Seb skips school to be with his small crew of graffiti taggers around town, and is just generally contrary. Their young daughter Liza Jane (Katie Proctor), is stressed out by the constant bickering between her father and brother.

Working with his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Paul Laverty, Loach has created a deeply heartfelt film, sad and tragic, an essential statement. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, director & writer)  Riz Ahmed, who was great in the HBO series The Night Of (2016), here plays Ruben, a heavy metal drummer who suddenly loses his hearing. Ahmed’s performance sharply conveys his confusion, anger, and fear as he struggles go adjust to his new reality. Members of the deaf community portray characters in the film, which adds a level of authenticity that you can feel. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Unhinged (Derrick Borte, director)  This film is the wild card of the bunch. When I first saw Unhinged I was totally turned off. I thought it was irresponsible and gratuitous. Here’s what I had to say on Facebook one day after my initial viewing:

“Why, after a career that includes films as good as Gladiator, L.A. Confidential, A Beautiful Mind, and Master and Commander, would Crowe choose for his latest something as useless and empty as Unhinged. He plays a character as ugly and irredeemable as any I’ve seen in a long time. I was relieved to learn that he was wearing a fat suit and hadn’t actually gained 200 pounds for the role. His character is completely nuts from the start when he charges into a house, brutally kills a guy and then burns the house down. No spoilers here, this is the very first scene. The film seems to exist just to exhibit a whole lot of car crashes and Crowe savagely killing a whole lot of innocent people. I tend to like violent movies, but not when they’re as gratuitous as this one is. It’s very well made, but so what? Something else is that Unhinged was touted as the first film to play in reopened theaters since the pandemic lockdown began in March. If this film reflects the times and the mood, we’re in more trouble than I thought.”

Given that, you might well wonder how it is that Unhinged is on my Best Features list. Well, a day or so after posting those sentiments I was still thinking about the film. I wanted to better understand why I’d had such a visceral reaction, so I watched two interviews with Russell Crowe (these will be included in the Best Films Supplemental post in a day or so). He talks about his initial reluctance to play this kind of basically irredeemable character, and he breaks down how he thinks the film works. He’s very articulate and insightful. What he says basically turned my head around and gave me a new way to consider what I’d seen.

What’s most disturbing about Unhinged is that there’s absolutely no rationale, justification, or explanation for what his character does. Simply called “The Man” in the credits, he’s road rage personified and that’s it. He’s unstoppable, he’s a Terminator. Invariably, in the wake of murders, mass shootings, and violent events, there are always “experts” who attempt to explain and understand what has happened. We don’t want to accept that sometimes there are no answers. That’s hard to deal with. But there’s more than road rage is going on here. Crowe’s character is a darkness that just is.

Unhinged is very well made and it’s a rough ride. The narrative is single minded, unrelenting. It winds tighter and tighter. There are no distractions or relief, comic or otherwise, to ease the tension. It’s our worst nightmare. There’s an Itchy and Scratchy level of violence, except it’s not a cartoon. Unhinged is an example of transgressive cinema. It crosses the line, goes way over.

Unhinged is not a film I plan to see again, but probably will, if only because I don’t want to. And at the same time, I do. That may not make any sense, anymore than I can explain why it’s on my list of Best Films. Like Russell Crowe’s character, it just is. Available on Amazon Prime.

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The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson, director)  I love this film. I’ve seen it four times and it holds up strongly. If anything, it just gets better. I wrote about it last summer, which can be accessed here. Available on Amazon Prime.

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Working Man (Robert Jury, director & writer)  It’s great to see Peter Gerety finally get a leading role after many years of solid supporting work, mainly in TV series such as Homicide: Life on the Street (1996-1999), The Wire (2002-2008), Sneaky Pete (2015-2019), and Ray Donovan (2019-2020). Like Nomadland and Sorry We Missed You, this film takes place in a working class environment with everyday people. Gerety plays Allery Parkes, who has worked for 30 years in a factory in a Rust Belt town. When the factory shuts down, Allery isn’t ready to stop working. He finds a way back into the plant and continues to go in, day after day, doing his work. That he’s not supposed to be there and is not getting paid is beside the point for Allery. How this plays out in his life and in the community is very interesting and touching. Talia Shire, known for The Godfather and Rocky films, plays his wife, Iola. Billy Brown, who my wife recognized from the series How to Get Away with Murder, plays Walter Brewer, who joins Allery in working in the closed factory. It’s a feel-good scenario, but Working Man has some bite and a few twists along the way. Available on Amazon Prime.

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That wraps up the first part of my annual survey of the feature films I liked the best from last year. Supplemental materials for these ten films will follow in a day or two. In the meantime, Happy Inauguration Day! Stay safe. — Ted Hicks

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