Category: Movies

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Project Hail Mary isn’t a bad movie. It is clearly well done — quality technology creating the splendor of outer space, an interesting but flawed character, and an actor (Ryan Gosling) who winningly captures this character. But it doesn’t work for me.

I will confess it isn’t my type of movie to begin with — a Sci Fi movie with a lot of action moving the plot along. The sun is being eaten away by some mysterious microbe and someone has to go on a suicide mission to figure out why. Will they make it on time? So even though I wouldn’t normally go to this type of movie, I saw some potential there.

The main problem I have is there just isn’t enough plot and/or action to keep this movie going for the 2 and 1/2 hours plus running time of the movie. But what are directors (there are two of them — Phil Lord and Christoper Miller) to do when they have all this fabulous technology that can recreate outer space? They show it with way too many minutes of blaring choral music of Grace looking with awe. I get it. Yes, it is awesome but repetition makes it a little less so. It began to bore me after about the mid-point of the movie.

This boredom lead to me picking apart the plot. Most movies depend on suspending a certain amount of disbelief. A movie about spacecraft in outer space and meeting with aliens then would require much more than the normal movie. Keep the damn thing moving or else you will lose your audience. So, as I was plodding through these beautiful shots of space, I used this time to find plot holes.

Like how the hell was Rocky (the alien our lead character, Grace, encounters in his trip) is Grace going to reconnect with Rocky in the vast expanse of space when they have no communication after Grace departs for earth. Or, given the time needed to save the earth and the time Grace needs to get where he needs to go and his own inability to make it back, how is their enough time for him to save Earth. There was a very short time frame to work with.

Now normally these are not big issues in a movie that is moving along because you are paying attention to what is happening on screen but it is the death knell for movies when you start thinking about them in the middle of the movie you are watching because it means you are no longer watching the movie.

So while Project Hail Mary is in no way a bad movie, it just isn’t a great movie either.

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Eric Dane and James van der Beek, two highly paid and successful actors, both recently died. What is astounding to me is that in both cases Go Fund Me accounts have been set up for the families of both men. This may be a scam, Dane’s Go Fund Me account is being investigated at this moment, but both, as of right now, appear to be for legitimate needs — Dane’s children’s future education and van der Beek’s outstanding hospital bills.

This should give one pause. How depressing is it to think that these two families with a high earning father are strapped for cash after he dies. Then, because the health system sucked all of their money during their illness, Go Fund Me accounts are needed to help the family out. While I understand that the Go Fund Me accounts are necessary to help these families during a terrible time, All the Go Fund Me accounts do is prop a system that should fail.

Where does that leave the rest of us?

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I am getting to an age where I just don’t want to be bummed out anymore. Life bums me out enough. Spending more time getting bummed out is a young person’s game. They have plenty of time to recover. I, at 68, am on a much more limited timeframe and I need to monitor closely what goes into this often bummed out mind so I prefer to be entertained as opposed to bummed out. Which brings me the movie Blue Moon.

I can say it is a great movie with great acting. It is clear that people involved in the movie put a lot of effort into it and they certainly were successful in bringing the story of song writer Lorenz Hart to light. Honestly the only thing I have against the movie is that it is a better play than movie as it all takes place at the Sardi’s bar in New York. There is nothing really cinematic about it.

Despite its many fine qualities, I am unable to recommend it because it bummed me out and, furthermore, I can’t see why I should spend my time being bummed out by it. There is no deeper message other than Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) was depressed and desperate. He saw his successful partnership with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) coming to an end and there was nothing he could do to stop it. What am I to make of Hart’s sad spiral into the gutter? He seemed like a charming but difficult man who was unwilling (or unable) to save himself.

The bartender and the piano player at Sardi’s are trapped by their paycheck to listen to Hart’s tales about his romance with a much younger woman. They listen but more out of boredom than genuine concern. They have to be there so let the tired drunk writer talk until I have something better to do. When his friends do arrive after the play, they acknowledge his past genius at the same time as they are distancing themselves from the non-stop bull shit that comes out of Hart’s mouth. Particularly cruel is his former writing partner Rodgers. He seems intent on both irritating Hart with his own present success without Hart and wanting to work with him again if Hart would only buckle down to their partnership. It is unpleasant to listen to Rodgers complaints about Hart — it is like listening to someone else’s bad job review. All right already, just fire him and put him (and us) out of our misery.

Then there is the younger woman, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). Hart, in yet another perverse display of masochism, sits inthralled by her stories of being seduced by her lover. This is the woman he is supposed to love and he joyfully hangs on her every word about a her man who treats her badly but who she would gladly drive hundreds of miles to be with again if he only he would ask. asked. Something, she also admits, she would never do for Hart. It is one awkward painful moment after the next. Why? Great acting. I guess. Whatever that is worth.

Watching a sad man’s self-destruction is really not worth my time. It is just sad. I can get more than my share watching the news.

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There is this horror movie trope where someone hears a noise and then goes to investigates. At this point, everyone watching the movie knows that investigating the noise is a big mistake, mostly because the background music is building the suspense so the audience knows this isn’t going to end well. When I am watching these movies, I think why is this person so stupid. Everyone knows you shouldn’t investigate the noise in the basement. Particularly if it is late at night and no one else is at home. Come on.

Well, you would think I would be more careful when I heard a noise the other night. It was coming from outside. Without a second thought, I went out to the porch to investigate. Fortunately for me, it was nothing to worry about. It did, however, get me thinking, absent the suspense building music, I, without giving it a second thought, checked on the noise outside.

You think, after a lifetime of witnessing the worst in movies, I would know better by now. But clearly I am just the horror show victim waiting for the monster to leap out and get me. It is kind of embarrassing.

So my apologies to all the characters who I screamed at for being so stupid. I am deeply deeply sorry.

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The Conservative Press is agog at Jacob Savage’s the Lost Generation. Savage details the trials and tribulations of White men trying to break into Academia or Cultural positions right now. It is all DEI and racial discrimination. I am afraid they are emphasizing only one aspect of his argument while downplaying and missing some of his more salient points. They are going on about how lesser candidates who are women or people of color are getting the jobs that should rightfully being going to White men. This was not Savage’s point at all.

Savage points out that this problem exists for young white men and not older white men. Older White men already have their jobs in Academia and in Cultural institutions while younger White men are vying for open positions. The problem for younger White men is that these positions, in the past, skewed disproportionately to White men. This past discrimination worked against women and people of color. So if you presently have a staff of 10 and 7 of them are white men, what happens when a position becomes available and your institution is interested in diversity. The young white men are at a disadvantage. Not because of women and people of color but because the institution already has too many white men.

Is this unfair? Yes, absolutely. But how can you achieve two varied goals — a diversified work force and being absolutely fair to everyone. Conservatives say that diversity shouldn’t be considered a factor at all. The only thing that matters is who is the better candidate. Well, that would be nice but how exactly does the best candidate always get the job?

For example, Savage discusses the hiring of television writers. How does one determine who is a better writer? Particularly if one of your goals is to broaden the stories you tell to include more stories about women and people of color. Who better to tell these tales than women and people of color? White men can, of course, write women characters but then I am betting than women can write even better women characters. So, then, who is the best candidate for the job? The man or the woman?

How does one determine the best candidate in Academia? Is it teaching? Is it research? Or is it the old tried and true old boy network where connections with the people who make the decisions help you get the job? Why should groups who have been discriminated in the past, trust that you are hiring the best candidate? The word of the person making the decision? After how many white men are hired does one question the process? Five? Ten? Twenty? Never. And after twenty or so white men are hired and discrimination is determined, what happens to all of those candidates that were overlooked? Tough luck.

By the way, there isn’t only one perfect person for the job. Indeed this is rarely true. The difficult decision comes generally because there are several people who could do the job well. This is particularly true with jobs that everybody wants. Jobs in Academia and Culture have always had stiff competition. They carry salary, prestige, and power. In the past, a lot of white men vied with other white men for these positions. And a lot of white men were disappointed. Now the competition has expanded to include women and people of color. This means that the competition is fierce and there is even a bigger chance of not getting your dream job. Savage writes at the end of his essay: “The truth is, I’m not some extraordinary talent who was passed over; I’m an ordinary talent—and in ordinary times that would have been enough.”

The sad story is that talented White men are used to getting the job and they aren’t anymore. Their expectation did not match the reality of our present world. It is a difficult lesson to learn but life, as we are constantly being reminded, is unfair. Is it fair that some parents can afford private tutors for their children who may have fallen a step behind in class while poor parents with a child in the same situation can not? Is it fair that some schools are direct conduits to Ivy League Universities while other schools are not? Is it fair that some parents make a significant donation to a university which gets their children into an elite university while a poorer parent with an equally gifted child can not? Is it fair that some children are well fed when they arrive at school and poorer children are not?

I could go on but you get the point. Life is unfair in a lot of different ways. Why this particular unfairness is so important while other unfairnesses can be ignored is informative of the motives of the people complaining right now. I mean if the unfairness in the education a person receives throughout their life can be equalized as best we can then we wouldn’t have to discussing the unfair treatment of White men now. It wouldn’t be a problem because everyone would believe that everybody had a fair chance from the start. But we aren’t talking about the differences in education that people receive, are we? I wonder why?

We do not live in a perfect world. There are plenty of bigoted people in important position making employment decisions. Processes devised to protect groups who have suffered discrimination in the past skew the process against the people who did not suffer discrimination in the past. So maybe we look at how to do the process better as we learn more. But, please, please don’t talk to me about the loss of our meritocracy. Because it is bull shit and you know it is bull shit. We never had one and we never will. All we can do is continue to work at making it better. And we will never ever succeed.

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The Night of the Iguana is a movie I have been wanting to see for sometime. It’s based on a Tennessee Williams’ play though John Huston and Anthony Veiller wrote the screenplay. Williams usually plumbs the depths of the human race’s deep dark secrets and, lately I have to be in the right mood for these descents. But this movie has so many talented people involved, the big names alone are an impressive list of Hollywood heavyweights — John Huston, Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and Deborah Kerr — I knew that I would eventually breakdown and see the movie.

I was pleasantly surprised. First the story isn’t so dark as Williams usually portrays the world, There is an underlying positive feel that is missing from most Williams plays. The characters go through some challenging experiences but they aren’t destroyed by what happens to them. They pick up the pieces and carry on with their lives It may not be where they intended to go but at least they aren’t being carted off to the insane asylum like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. They survive the storm.

For a movie that is over 60 years old, it aged well. It feels very much like a movie that was made in 2023 about life in the 1960’s. Richard Burton, who sometimes comes off like a stiff Shakespearean actor to me, particularly when in a Shakespeare play, is natural as the rascally defrocked minister who is reduced into being a tour guide in Mexico for good Christian women. Ava Gardner is a good time woman running a tourist hotel. She lives her life very much on her terms, even to the point of having two young men as lovers while her husband was still alive. Deborah Kerr is an unmarried artist struggling with poverty and caring for her aging grandfather. All these characters could easily be turned into caricatures but the actors give these characters a different look aided enormously by a script which surprises us with their actions while still being wholly believable.

The story takes surprising and interesting turns, the pace is crisp and unforced. and the acting is impressive. If you are looking for a good old movie, see this one.

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I want to recommend a movie called Under the Silver Lake without steering you wrong. First, it isn’t Citizen Kane. There are some real problems with the movie particularly the bone headed treatment of woman — almost all the women are good looking eye candy scantily clad, topless or nude. They are primarily there to please the male gaze. The plot is convoluted, possibly non-existent which is weird because there seems to be a plot that is always moving but not necessarily forward and perhaps not side to side or backwards either. It is way too long. The movie is clearly aimed at young men with thwarted artistic ambitions — a very limited audience indeed. The lead character, played by Andrew Garfield, is kind of creepy even though he is, for lack of a better word, the hero of the movie.

Despite all of this, I did enjoy the movie and am thinking about days after seeing it. So there is something there. I am just not sure how to describe in such a way that anybody would understand. The movie is definitely not for everyone but I, for one, kept thinking this is an interesting enough ride for me to stay on board. There is no need for spoiler alerts because there is too much going on for anyone to connect the dots to a cohesive plot even if you have seen the movie.

It comes as close as I have ever seen of capturing the offbeat weirdness that is LA. A weirdness that is both sinister and oddly cheerful. Everyone is a performance artist and a member of a secret conspiracy whether they want to be or not. David Robert Mitchell, the director, is fan of Alfred Hitchcock and this movie is definitely a homage to him. There are hints of other old movies throughout the film.

The plot sort of is this: the hero is completely distracted from the very real possibility of being evicted from his apartment to investigate instead the disappearance of a woman he met just once. Because no one can explain where she is, he becomes enmeshed in probably unrelated conspiracies from a nut who seems completely rational at times but has an answer for the hero’s every question which makes him sound believable even though you know he is crazy. There are adolescent hooligans keying cars, gurus, nuclear fallout shelters, comic book shops, parties that absolutely anybody can walk into if they have the right cookie, secret codes that lead to maps found on the back of cereal boxes, blind folded journeys through Griffin Park lead by a homeless man wearing a paper crown, and a naked women wearing an owl mask who could be a notorious murderer. Do you get it?

It’s funny, sad and frequently unbelievably artificial while also being genuinely LA.