Oppenheimer (2023): A Review

OPPENHEIMER (2023)

"Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds". These words from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita came to J. Robert Oppenheimer upon seeing the successful nuclear bomb test. Oppenheimer, the biopic of the "father of the atomic bomb" is a brilliantly acted and directed film. It is filled with remarkable images and insight into this complex figure. 

Oppenheimer flows back and forth between the past and what would be current-day events in the film. American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is being questioned by a small board over whether or not to renew his security clearance. That clearance was already hard to get when Oppenheimer headed up the Los Alamos section of the Manhattan Project during World War II. This project involved building a nuclear bomb both safely and before the Nazis could.

Oppenheimer's personal life is fraught with personal and political troubles. He has had a liaison with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). He also keeps a friendship with their mutual friend, Berkeley professor Haakon Chevalier (Jefferson Hall). Both Chevalier and Tatlock are openly committed Communists, as is Oppenheimer's brother Frank (Dylan Arnold). While Robert is sympathetic to Leftist causes, he never joined the Communist Party and oftentimes urged caution about political activism/agitation. 

One person that Oppenheimer did not have caution with was with Kitty (Emilie Blunt). She may have been married when she met Oppie. However, that did not him from knocking Kitty up. He and Kitty do marry, and he stays mostly loyal to her. It is not, however, his marital fidelity that bothers high-ranking military officials now that the Second World War has begun. It is his fidelity to the United States.

Despite misgivings, Manhattan Project head General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) ultimately recruits him. Oppenheimer gathers a hand-selected group of scientists to come to his remote New Mexico ranch at Los Alamos to begin work. He gets everyone he wants except for Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), despite Einstein being the impetus for the creation of the Manhattan Project. Now, Oppenheimer must navigate the scientific, professional and personal among all his men (and women). 

Not that there are not people who distrust Oppie. There are Major General Kenneth Nichols (Dane Dehaan) and Colonel Boris Pash (Casey Affleck). They believe that Oppenheimer would give nuclear secrets to the Soviets. There is a spy among the scientists, but it is not Oppenheimer. Post-war, one of Oppenheimer's fiercest enemies is Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.). Despite his curious pronouncing of his surname as "Straws", Strauss tries to build up rapport with Oppenheimer through their shared Jewish ancestry. Oppie won't bite. Now that the war is over though, Strauss becomes convinced that Oppenheimer is a security risk. He also holds a grudge when Oppenheimer publicly humiliated him at a congressional hearing. Finally, Strauss and Oppenheimer are at fierce odds about the development of a hydrogen bomb.

Strauss is the mastermind of the hearing that Oppenheimer is facing. Strauss is also up for Commerce Secretary. Will Strauss manage to outflank Oppie and achieve his great ambition? Will Oppenheimer continue living with guilt over his successes?

Oppenheimer runs three hours long. Upon rewatching the film, however, I wondered exactly what if anything could have been cut out. Perhaps a bit of the extramarital liaison between Oppenheimer and Tatlock could have been trimmed. Tatlock's suicide could also have been trimmed. Overall, though, I was surprised at how well Oppenheimer held together. This is especially true given two elements that distinguish it from other films.

The first is that the film is not structured linearly. Oppenheimer goes back and forth from the board hearing to his work pre-and-post Los Alamos and to Strauss' Cabinet hearings. The second is that in almost all the sections that center around Strauss, Oppenheimer is in black-and-white. There are a few moments when Strauss is featured in color. There are a few moments when Oppenheimer is featured in black-and-white. For the most part though, we have color for the title character, black-and-white for his antagonist. 

That the balance never comes across as gimmicky or jarring is a credit to the production team. Jennifer Lame's editing never felt confusing or out of place. Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography made the separate sections look incredible. Both would rightly win Academy Awards in their respective fields, two of the seven Oscars that Oppenheimer would receive. 

Van Hoytema's cinematography was used effectively and brilliantly in the film. Sections were downright beautiful visually. The film shows various scientific visions that on screen look exceptionally breathtaking. Curiously, Oppenheimer was not nominated for Best Visual Effects and lost Best Sound to The Zone of Interest. I can see a case for why and how that happened. However, the Trinity test sequence is a brilliant use of visual effects and sound (or lack thereof). While watching, I heard in my mind Marvin the Martian. "Where's the kaboom?! There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!". Oppenheimer uses that silence to build up anticipation for a brilliant and terrifying sequence.

Oppenheimer also won for Best Director. Christopher Nolan, in terms of directing actors, more than merited the recognition. He directed three actors to nominations, with two wins. Robert Downey, Jr. is brilliant as Lewis Strauss. He makes him into a confident figure, cool under pressure, yet burning with quiet rage. Downey's Strauss is not a man to trifle with. We see someone who, despite his success, is still fearful that he will not measure up. I did not hate Lewis Strauss. I did not pity him either. Instead, I saw him as an effective man, driven by a curious mix of sincere belief and petty vindictiveness. He does have one moment of rage. That makes what has come before almost jarring.

Cillian Murphy is brilliant as J. Robert Oppenheimer. He maintains the calm demeanor, in keeping with how the real Oppenheimer was in public. This is a man who never rages or grows belligerent. Instead, Oppenheimer is calm and rational. His soft voice adds to the overall manner of making Oppenheimer into a deliberate man.

One scene sticks out. Oppenheimer is giving a short speech after the war is declared over. We see him say what he thinks his hardworking Los Alamos group wants to hear. The words are upbeat and even a touch jingoistic. What we see both in terms of Murphy's performance and Nolan's directing is that his heart is not in his statements. They are performative. In fact, we see Oppenheimer very alarmed and guilt-ridden by what he has brought about.

Oppenheimer's third acting nomination and only acting loss was for Emily Blunt as the fiercely loyal but equally sharp Kitty Oppenheimer. She is no shrinking violet, able to stand up against her and her husband's accusers when she testifies. However, she is also aghast and angry at Oppie for continuously not appearing to fight. Kitty endures Robert's tryst with his former mistress. She also stays besides him despite whatever doubts that she might have.

Oppenheimer is filled with top notch performances from the entire cast. This film embodies the adage of "there are no small parts, only small actors". We get small roles for a wide variety of established actors and young talents. This film features Josh Hartnett and Josh Peck as Oppenheimer's colleague Ernest Lawrence and Kenneth Bainbridge, the man who literally pushed the button at the Trinity test site. There are cameo roles from other Best Actor Oscar winners (Cillian Murphy winning for this performance). Gary Oldman appears as President Harry Truman. In his small role, we see Truman as one thoroughly unimpressed with what he sees as Oppenheimer's self-flagellation and self-righteousness. Dismissively waving his handkerchief at Oppenheimer, he tells the sad scientist that those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki do not care who built the bomb, just who dropped it. 

There are other cameo appearances in the film, each leaving a strong impression.  Among them are Kenneth Branagh as Danish physicist Niels Bohr, Casey Affleck as the cold Colonel Pash and Ramy Malek as David Hill, another physicist who dares stand up against Strauss in his confirmation hearings. Tom Conti appears briefly as Einstein, making him a serious figure versus the common idea of Einstein as brilliant but a bit wacky. 

While they are not cameo roles, actors as varied as David Krumholtz, Jason Clarke and Alden Ehrenreich work well in their roles of fellow Manhattan Project scientist Isidor Rabi, de facto prosecutor Roger Robb and Strauss' Senate confirmation aide.  

Matt Damon is probably the weakest as General Leslie Groves. He seemed to be one note, almost always raging. It was not a bad performance, but I was not enthusiastic about it.  I could also question how Alex Wolff could play fellow Berkeley scientist Luis Alvarez. Granted, Alvarez was of Spanish descent. However, it is doubtful that such casting would not raise eyebrows if done now.

A lot of Oppenheimer's power comes from Ludwig Gorasson's Oscar-winning score. It has a tense and gripping manner that also blends genuine mourning for his emotional plight. The film is almost totally filled with Gorasson's score. There are very few moments when we do not hear music. However, the score is so strong that it is not a flaw.

Every element in Oppenheimer works brilliantly (no pun intended). On every level, Oppenheimer meets its goal of being an intelligent and entertaining film. "It's paradoxical, but it works", J. Robert Oppenheimer observes to a colleague in the film. That could be a good description of the American Prometheus. 

1904-1967

DECISION: A-

2024 Best Picture Winner: Anora

Sight (2023): A Review (Review #2125)

SIGHT (2023)

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord". So begins The Battle Hymn of the Republic. That could also encapsulate Sight, a deeply moving and effective film. Sight is based on a true story. If there are any deviations from fact, it would not lessen Sight's emotional impact.

Sight flips from Nashville in 2007 and 1960-70's China. Dr. Ming Wang (Terry Chen) is a pioneer in eye surgery. He is able to give sight to those with deeply damaged eyes. Dr. Wang and his Wang Vision Institute partner Dr. Misha Bartnovsky (Greg Kinnear) have had great success with their surgeries. Dr. Wang now has the biggest challenge of his career. Sister Marie (Fionnula Flanagan) is Catholic nun who has brought an Indian girl named Kajal (Mia SwamiNathan) for treatment. In a shocking act, Kajal's mother blinded her so that she could be a legitimate beggar.

Dr. Wang is reluctant to take the case, knowing the immense damage done to Kajal's eyes. However, he takes the chance. However, Dr. Wang is a haunted man. He continues to struggle with the aftereffects of the Cultural Revolution which he and his family barely survived. Young Ming (Ben Wang) wants to follow in the footsteps of his father and mother (Donald Heng and Leanne Wang) into medicine. He also fancies pretty Lili (Sara Yi), the proverbial girl next door. However, these are dangerous times for educated people. The Cultural Revolution is in full force. Red Guard thugs push everyone around and demand that Ming and Lili join them.

The dangers eventually put them all at risk. It is through sheer good luck and the Cultural Revolution petering out that the Wangs manage to survive. Ming's brilliant mind allows him to return to his education and even go to America to continue them. He is also eventually able to bring his family to America, including his lazy brother Yu (Garland Chang).

What he is not able to do is restore Kajal's sight. Ming is bitter and reproachful. No one can get him out of his funk. Misha cannot. His family cannot. Not even pretty bartender Anle (Danni Wang), whom Ming is too shy to approach at first. He feels great guilt about his medical failure. He feels greater guilt over Lili's fate, which is still unknown to him. Approached to try again with another patient, Ming at first declines. However, when he finally finds peace through another meeting with Kajal, Dr. Ming Wang is ready to try again. Will he be able to exorcise his private demons? Will he be able to see internally the way he helps others see externally?

At the end of Sight, the real Dr. Ming Wang appears to tell us that everything that we saw is true. We see footage of Dr. Wang dancing with Kajal at the EyeBall fundraiser. We see pictures of the real Misha and his wife, June. We also see Dr. Wang with the real Arle, whom we discover did end up married. This stays close to a standard biopic. 

What sets Sight apart from other biopics is that we get moments of lightness and humor that play closer to a fictional film.

Dr. Wang opted to name the fundraiser with the deliberate pun of "Eye Ball". In Sight, Misha chides him for choosing such a silly and cliched name. The interactions with his family also have humor, such as his brother Yu's continuing efforts at business that always sound eccentric. Arne and Ming have one of the best "meet-cute" moments. She is working at the hotel bar where Ming is having a drink after an event. The man next to him asks if the food there is good. After Ming tells him that it is, that patron says that "the green stuff" looks great. Before Ming and Arne have a chance to warn him, that patron swallows a massive amount of wasabi. As the poor misguided patron is taken away by ambulance, an immediate bond comes between Ming and Arne. In one of Sight's flashbacks, we see Ming and two other Chinese students arrive at college. The three immediately realize that their suits are inappropriate for the setting. They have little money for new clothes. Enter a scene at the Salvation Army thrift store, where they marvel at jeans for fifty cents. 

Let's just say that their new threads are not exactly the latest styles either.

Moments like these make Sight into a nice, charming film. The audience is not drowned in misery or tragedy or seriousness. However, director Andrew Hyatt does not shrink from showing us particularly dark moments. Hyatt adapted Dr. Wang's autobiography From Darkness to Sight along with John Duigan and Buzz McLaughlin. The various Cultural Revolution scenes shock the viewer with their terror and brutality. They are not graphic. However, the scene where Wang, having been severely beaten, is unable to help a terrified Lili is deeply moving. Sight does not shrink from showing how the Cultural Revolution did great damage both culturally and individually.

It also gives us an insight into Dr. Wang's current dark night of the soul. In Sight, we see a haunted man, privately tormented by what he went through and what he failed to do. This carries over into his work. He is devastated when Kajal does not regain her sight. However, in time he, thanks to people like Misha, Arle, Sister Marie and Kajal herself, is able to forgive himself.

Sight is beautifully acted all around. The film floats between past and present, so we get two Wangs. Ben Wang leaves a very strong impression as the young Ming Wang. He is smitten with Lili, respectful and loving towards his parents, and able to display both courage and fear whenever facing against the Red Guard bullies. Wang shows a wonderful range throughout Sight. After a positive turn in Karate Kid: Legends, Ben Wang shows that he is fast becoming a solid actor in both English and Mandarin. Terry Chen as the adult Ming Wang also displayed moments of almost naïve charm. He also showed Dr. Wang's commitment and tenacity along with his fears and doubts. 

Most everyone else had smaller roles. Even Greg Kinnear, ostensibly the biggest name in Sight. The various figures flowed and ebbed throughout the film. Kinnear was asked to play the loyal, slightly goofy sidekick. He did that well. Danni Wang also was not a major part of Sight as Anle, the woman who eventually agrees to date Ming. She however is both charming and intelligent, a break from the usual portrayal of potential love interests as nothing more than supportive (though she is that). 

Sight blends humor and heart to tell this truly inspirational story. It shows our characters as flawed but ultimately good people, always attempting to do what is right. Dr. Ming Wang is a person of faith. "There is more to life than what we see", the real-life Dr. Wang tells us at the end of Sight. On that, we agree.    

 

DECISION: B+

Our Son: A Review

OUR SON

Luke Evans is a rarity in Hollywood. He is an openly gay actor who for the most part has stayed clear of playing gay characters. He tends to play characters who are either straight (such as his turns in Dracula Untold and the live-action Beauty and the Beast) or where his sexuality is unimportant (such as in the live-action Pinocchio or Fast & Furious 6). As such, Our Son is outside Evans' normal filmography. Perhaps Our Son is well-intentioned. I just would have liked it to have been better.

After thirteen years of marriage, book publisher Nicky (Evans) and his partner, former actor and now stay-at-home dad Gabriel (Billy Porter) are finding themselves drifting apart. They have different parental philosophies when it comes to raising Owen (Christopher Woodley), who is Nicky's biological son but whose surrogate mother is black. Poppa Gabriel is very nurturing, while Daddy Nicky is stricter when it comes to things like letting Owen sleep in their bed despite him being eight. 

Now things come to a head when Gabriel confesses two things: desire for another man and how he no longer loves Nicky. They openly though calmly fight about Owen in front of their friends, including lesbian couple Claire (Liza J. Bennett) and Judith (Gabby Beans), who are about to have a gender-neutral baby of their own. Nicky now has to try and raise Owen by himself, no easy feat given how he has pretty much shunted child raising to his spouse Gabriel. For his part, Gabriel has no real way of supporting Owen, though there is the possibility of working for their mutual friend Matthew (Andrew Rannells). 

As the custody battle between Gabriel and Nicky begins, both men struggle with their feelings of whether he will be the best choice for Owen or not. Nicky also begins exploring the world of clubs again (Gabriel already having strayed into a brief extramarital affair with the object of his desires). Who will end up having primary custody of Our Son, Owen?

Our Son is the gay version of Kramer vs. Kramer, with Luke Evans playing the Dustin Hoffman part and Billy Porter playing the Meryl Streep part. There are so many similarities between Our Son and Kramer vs. Kramer that one is within his/her rights to think that screenwriters Peter Nickowitz and Bill Oliver (who also directed) watched the latter and took notes to see how to adapt it to a gay setting. I am not saying that Nickowitz or Oliver actually or literally stole from or used anything from Kramer vs. Kramer. 

I am saying that for me, there were scenes and situations from Our Son that reminded me of Kramer vs. Kramer. Daddy Nicky, like Dustin Hoffman's Ted, cannot make breakfast for his son. Poppa Gabriel, like Meryl Streep's Joanna, leaves his spouse because he does not love him anymore. Owen, like Justin Henry's Billy, can be a bit insufferable where I thought he would be better off being put up for adoption. To be fair, Our Son makes both Nicky and Gabriel at times so awful as parents that Owen would probably be better off being raised by Isabella (Nuala Cleary), the very sensible and patient babysitter who comes around every so often.

Perhaps I am being too harsh, as Our Son makes the case that Nicky is a pretty clueless and absentee dad, and Gabriel is almost the perfect mother. Nicky is not, for example, overly devastated that Gabriel confesses to desiring another man. He seems more perturbed that Gabriel did not ask permission to pursue an extramarital affair, suggesting to the audience that they have an open marriage. That, at least, was the impression that I was left with, which is a very bizarre one. 

In terms of performances, Our Son had me at times laughing at what were meant as serious, somber moments. A fight between Nicky and Gabriel which was meant to be devasting in the emotional revealing had me chuckling. I think it has to do with how earnest everyone was playing the scene. Despite everyone's best efforts, it came across as parody. More laughable was when Judith was giving birth to their gender-neutral Sheila. Granted, I have never witnessed or given birth myself, but Judith's facial expressions coupled with her stating, "IT HURTS!" made me wonder why either of them did not think that it would not. Haven't they invented drugs to dull the pain? 

I think highly of Luke Evans, who is very skilled in almost everything that I have seen. I think that he gave it his all in Our Son. It is unfortunate that the end result made Nicky into a total wimp. Evans was nothing but weepy and forlorn in the film. I understand that Nicky was upset about the prospect of losing Owen, but he was not that involved prior to the breakup. As such, his reaction seems to be more out of character. He was even a bit bitchy when the subject of Gabriel's career came up, dismissing his former spouse's claims of an acting career as being nothing but upstate summer stock. The only thing that I got out of Evans' performance was my surprise at how tatted Evans is. 

This is, I think, one of the first projects where I have seen Billy Porter take a major role (I remember him from 80 for Brady, which was traumatic enough without him). I think he too tried to match what he thought of as a major drama. It never worked for me, though, as if Porter was trying too hard. 

I will say that I thought Woodley as Owen did a decent job, even if at times he came across as whiny and obnoxious. 

"It must be hard fighting for the right to marry and then just ending up in a divorce court like everyone else", Nicky's nephew Max (Will Coombs) essentially scolds his uncle when Nicky finally tells his religious family about the breakup. I am perplexed on the thinking that, once same-sex marriage was legalized, such relationships would be permanent and immune from things like a breakup and now custody battles when only one parent could be biologically related to a child. I think Our Son came with noble and sincere efforts. It just did not work for me. 

DECISION: D-

The Boy and the Heron: A Review

THE BOY AND THE HERON

There were some who were surprised if not shocked when The Boy and the Heron was announced as the winner for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award. It was a surprise because traditional, hand-drawn animation had usually been shut out. It was a surprise because most prognosticators had tapped the highly praised Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to be the almost inevitable winner. When you call Across the Spider-Verse "one of the greatest films ever made in the history of cinema", it suggests that it is a hard act to compete with. Those who have seen both Across the Spider-Verse and The Boy and the Heron, I think, will come to the conclusion that the Academy made the right choice. Visually stunning, with an incredibly imaginative story, The Boy and the Heron (originally titled How Do You Live?) is perhaps long but well worth the time.

Near the end of the Second World War, young Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) survives the firebombing of Tokyo, but he cannot save his mother Hisako, who is at a hospital hit during the bombing. His father, Soichi (Takuya Kimura), who runs an aircraft company, decides to spirit Mahito to the relative safety of the countryside. He also introduces Mahito to his new, pregnant wife Natsuko, who happens to be Hisako's sister. 

Mahito does not adjust well to his new surroundings. He is civil towards his aunt/stepmother, but he still struggles with school and the grief of his mother's death. He is also being pestered by a large grey heron, who eventually begins speaking and taunting him. Mahito gives chase, and finds a mysterious, dilapidated castle once built by his great-uncle. This is a place filled with mystery and magic, which Mahito is warned away from.

However, when Natsuko wanders into the forest where the castle is, Mahito defies those around him to search for her. From there, Mahito and the heron, revealed to have a humanoid being inside, must navigate a strange world made up of cannibal parakeets, fire goddesses and the spirits of those yet to be born, known here as the warawara. Going with them is Kiriko (Ko Shibasaki), one of the old women who serve at the Maki home but who in this world becomes young and forces Mahito and the heron-man to work together. Will Mahito find Natsuko? What of Himi (Aimyon), the fire goddess and warawara protector who has a connection to all of them? Who will live and who will die as they work their way back to Mahito's world?

The Boy and the Heron runs a little over two hours, which might drain the viewer. That is probably the film's only major flaw, for everything else is breathtaking. The animation is astonishing, with moments of visual splendor that leave the viewer mesmerized. Even in the beginning, when Tokyo is being firebombed, somehow the destruction going on is very impressive. Seeing Mahito see his idea of his mother engulfed in flamed is not horrifying but surprisingly moving. Things as large as the march of the villainous parakeet army to as small as the warawara rising to the heavens are beautiful images.

The Boy and the Heron is a showcase for how animation can create these fantastical worlds not bound by logic. Where else but in animation can giant cannibal parakeets or images of women melting into water be seen as possible? One looks at The Boy and the Heron, purely on a visual level, and be swept away by its inventiveness and creativity?   

Story wise, The Boy and the Heron is also wildly impressive. The film is about a young man, traumatized, who at one point in the story harms himself, coming to terms with his grief. The original Japanese title, How Do You Live? comes from a book that his late mother left him to write on. In this, we see how Mahito still carries, metaphorically and perhaps literally, this great grief which his new situation does not help. Could his long journey be, if not a literal dream, a way for him to work through his grief, his loss and confusion to find peace? When he learns who Miri really is, he attempts to warn her of the future. She, however, cheerfully dismisses it, perhaps signaling that we cannot escape our fate for good or ill.

"Forgetting is normal," Mahito is told near the end of the film. The Boy and the Heron is more than just filled with beautiful animation. It is a moving story of loss and resilience. While again perhaps a bit longer than it should be, the viewer will find The Boy and the Heron to be a beautiful piece of work.

DECISION: A-

Godzilla Minus One: A Review (Review #1963)

GODZILLA MINUS ONE

For better or worse, Godzilla at times has turned into a joke, this big lizard roaring and stomping his way through Tokyo. It does not help that recent American productions focus more on spectacle and CGI destruction than plot. Now, this iconic figure goes back to his roots with Godzilla Minus One. The film manages to balance what people expect in a monster movie with an intelligent and moving human story. 

In the waning days of the Second World War, kamikaze pilot Kiochi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is on a small island with a group of other Imperial Japanese soldiers. There, they find a giant lizard has risen from the waters and attacks the garrison. Kiochi, who does not want to perform his divine mission for Emperor and country, becomes paralyzed with fear at everything going on around him. Sadly, only he and another man survive, but Kiochi is shamed and ashamed of his lack of action.

Things are no better when the war finally ends, and he returns to a devastated Tokyo. His family is gone. His countrymen look on him with shame. He finds life, hard as it is to bear, must be kept going. Circumstances bring him into contact with Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), a young woman who has also survived the war. Noriko has been caring for an orphan whom they name Akiko, and despite themselves have formed an unofficial family.

Kiochi's expertise eventually help him find work as a minesweeper, where he soon starts bonding with the motley crew of cynical older men and naive young men too young to have fought in the war. The ship, however, finds an old acquaintance of Kiochi: the lizard known as Godzilla. He now is stronger and more dangerous due to the atomic testing at the Bikini Atoll, and he now starts targeting the nearby ships. Kiochi, still traumatized both by the war itself and his lack of action, continues struggling with both guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder. Eventually, Godzilla lands in mainland Japan itself, putting everything and everyone that Kiochi loves in danger. 

There is apparent loss, but also now a determination to stop this monster from destroying all of Japan. How to do so when it comes to Godzilla? It will take a metaphorical and literal all-hands-on-deck method to bring about Godzilla's downfall. Will Kiochi finally find his peace as Operation Wada Tsumi begins? Who will live and who may die to fight Godzilla to the death? Will Godzilla finally be taken down? Will those battered by the war find resolution?

In many current Godzilla movies, particularly American ones, the focus has been on the massive level of destruction. Looking at recent Godzilla films like Godzilla vs. Kong and 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the mindset among those involved in these films is that people want nothing but total destruction. Godzilla Minus One takes a different tack. Here, we do get some major action pieces. However, in a surprising and welcome turn, we also focus on the human element. 

Godzilla Minus One (I believe that the title comes from how the Japanese see World War II's end as "Year Zero" and the added destruction from Godzilla pushes it to "Year Minus One") takes its time to let us get to know the people involved. Slowly, we know Koichi and Noriko, these two survivors who are attempting to build not just their own lives but the world around them. In some ways, Godzilla Minus One is about Japan's early post-war years, where there was a realization and determination to survive what would have decimated other peoples.  

We see Koichi and Noriko's basic goodness, the slow bonds that they build not just with each other but with Akiko, who is really no kin to either but with whom they create that family unit. A lot of Godzilla Minus One is driven by Koichi's guilt about surviving the war. By taking on Godzilla, Koichi believes that he can restore not so much his honor but his sense of self. He is protector: of Noriko and Akiko, of his fellow minesweepers, of his nation. While Noriko is closer to nurturer, she is not a weak woman. It takes great personal courage to care for a child not your own, even willing to raise her alone. 

I think Godzilla Minus One is uniquely Japanese with its ideas of shared responsibility. Here, everyone collaborates, working together to confront a joint menace. There are many moments when one is moved by the performances and the willingness to sacrifice themselves for others. Mizushima (Yuki Yamada) is the youngest of the minesweeper crew, too young to have fought in the war and treated as something like a child. He balks at being left behind while the other, older men go to face off against Godzilla. I believe he asks what does that leave him? "We leave you the future," he is told. I admit to finding this scene quite quiet and moving.

The focus on the human characters is not meant to imply or suggest that Godzilla Minus One skimps on the spectacle. Far from it. The film rightly won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award for bringing the giant lizard to life. Godzilla's attack on Ginza is an astonishing set piece, blending the humans and the monster so effectively that it is pretty much impossible to know what is real and what is not. This and two sea battles between Godzilla and the Japanese are astonishing visual moments that will leave the viewer almost breathless. 

Each of the performances work extremely well. The film allows for moments of bonding between the men and even between the men and Kiochi's informal family. We get to know them, and as such, we end up caring about their plight and whether or not they live or die.

That is perhaps one of Godzilla Minus One's few flaws: it pulls out the rug from under us not once but twice when it comes to characters. I think that the film's runtime, which is a little over two hours, might be a bit punishing. The second is a minor issue, the first is a little harder to bear. 

On the whole however, Godzilla Minus One is a thrilling film that blends intimacy with spectacle. Everyone gets something out of it: there are human moments, there is Godzilla stomping over Tokyo. An excellent addition to the overall Godzilla mythos, Godzilla Minus One shows why he can claim to be King of the Monsters. 

DECISION: B+

The Exorcist: Believer. A Review (Review #1955)

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER

After having not one but two prequels and two sequels, The Exorcist got a third sequel. The Exorcist: Believer, from what I understand, was meant to be the first of a new series of Exorcist films. Judging from what a fiasco Believer is, I think we can put that idea away. The Exorcist: Believer is a horror film in that it is horrible beyond imagining. 

While on a mix of a photographic assignment/vacation in Haiti, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and his heavily pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) find themselves in the midst of a major earthquake. The voodoo blessing that Sorenne got for their baby girl Angela didn't help save Sorenne's life as Victor is forced to decide between saving the mother or the child.

Thirteen years later, the teen Angela (Lidya Jewett) still wonders about her mother. She and her BFF Katherine West (Olivia O'Neill) decide the best thing to do is having their version of a seance to contact her. They end up disappearing into the Georgia woods, terrifying their parents Victor and Tony & Miranda West (Norbert Leo Butz and Jennifer Nettles). The girls are eventually found, frightened, but what they think is a few hours has actually been three days. The deeply Christian West family and the atheist Fielding family are relieved to find the girls alive. However, they also observe their strange behavior. Angela attempts to strangle Victor with her mother's scarf. Katherine creates a scene at Service, screaming about "the body and blood".

What could be going on? To find out, Victor eventually seeks out Chris McNeill (Ellen Burstyn), who after her daughter Regan's exorcism has written a book and talked for years about their experiences. Could Angela and Katherine be possessed by a demonic force? Ann Brooks (Ann Dowd), a nurse and former nun, seeks out help from Father Maddox (E.J. Bonilla). However, it will take an all-hands-on-deck approach, as this exorcism will need the Baptist Pastor Revans (Ralph Sbarge), Victor's neighbor and Pentecostal minister Stuart (Danny McCarthy) and witch doctor Dr. Beehibe (Okwui Okpokwasili) along with Ann and a bit of Father Maddox to try and expel the dark forces from the girls. Who will live, who will die and who will be literally blinded by their own stupidity?

The Exorcist: Believer has a screenplay credited to Peter Sattler and director David Gordon Green, with story by Green, Scott Teems and most surprising to me, Danny McBride. It would not surprise me if more hands were involved in the script. However, if so, at least these people had the good sense to not want to be publicly recognized. 

The Exorcist: Believer is awful, awful, awful on every level imaginable. It might have even found new levels of awfulness unknown to man or demon. It is close to an hour in this almost two-hour movie before we get the first glimpses that something is satanically amiss. In that time, the audience must endure Leslie Odom, Jr.'s totally blank expression. The Exorcist: Believer has the worst single performance in Odom, Jr. to where one genuinely wonders if he can actually act or was just so bored with things he did not bother to act. No matter what the situation, Odom, Jr. had the same blank expression. 

The nadir of this expressionless performance is when Victor and Chris go to the West house to find Katherine. The house is in total shambles, yet Victor calls out for Tony as if everything is fine and he just happened to wander in. Absolutely no reaction to the conditions around him, Odom, Jr. carries on, apparently totally oblivious to how the West house was pretty much destroyed. 

The Exorcist: Believer also finally manages to drag then-91-year-old Ellen Burstyn into an Exorcist sequel (Linda Blair popping up in a last-second cameo). Blair appeared in Exorcist II: The Heretic, and Jason Miller decided that he needed work desperately enough to appear in The Exorcist III. Now, the set is complete, but at least Blair has the excuse that she was a teenager when she agreed to The Heretic. Burstyn should be embarrassed by this, particularly a noted line where she mentions that she herself did not witness Regan's exorcism.

"My opinion? Because I'm not a member of their damn patriarchy," she tells Victor over why she thinks she did not see the exorcism. Leave aside for the moment the patronizing and downright idiotic suggestion that sexism kept her out (I doubt that the two priests would have allowed anyone to witness, let alone participate in this ritual). In less than ten minutes, she ends up going alone into Katherine's room, attempting some kind of exorcism herself. Chris, who we are told is so knowledgeable about exorcisms that her memoir A Mother's Explanation is almost a how-to guide, gets literally stabbed in both eyes by a crucifix. For all of Chris' bemoaning about "the patriarchy", she ends up proving Fathers Merrick and Karras right in their exclusion of Chris. 

Every performance from the adults is deeply embarrassing to silly, making The Exorcist: Believer into almost a comedy. I won't pick on Jewett and O'Neill as they are children who were given a thankless job and, I believe, did the best that they could with what they had. The adults, however, had no excuse. They all en masse looked laughable. 

The Exorcist: Believer is worse in even the most basic elements of character. One wonders if anyone behind the film has ever met a Christian, let alone understand them. There is no way, NO WAY, that a Baptist minister would agree to participate in any kind of ceremony with essentially a witch doctor. The blending of Christian and occult practices would appall Reverend Revans (technically it is Pastor Revans, but I find the alliteration of Reverend Revans funny and perhaps unintentionally revealing). Moreover, The Exorcist: Believer seems to make the case that the occult practices of voodoo are what ends up saving at least one of the girls. After all, Believer begins with Sorenne receiving a blessing from a voodoo priestess.

Even if you rejected any objections to The Exorcist: Believer on it being almost vicious in how it treats Christianity be it Protestant, Catholic or Pentecostal, you cannot expect people to take seriously a character named "Dr. Beehibe". Demons flee at the name of Dr. Beehive. 

I now genuinely think that The Exorcist: Believer was not a serious attempt to make a horror film. It was meant as a spoof. Either that, or maybe Danny McBride just looked out the window, saw a beehive and said, "Now THERE'S my witch doctor who will take down the devil". When Katherine calls out "The body and the blood" at her service, I was howling with laughter. 

On so many levels, The Exorcist: Believer does not make any sense. Father Maddox, in a rushed scene, attempts to convince the local Catholic hierarchy about the need for the exorcism "based on what I witnessed with my own eyes". In the film, he witnessed nothing. As much as the film wants us to be shocked or horrified or empathetic towards the characters, we fell nothing. Well, perhaps contempt for them to where when the possessor demands that the parents choose between Angela and Katherine, I would have been fine if neither made it.

Should you be curious as to which child lives or dies, it should be clear. 

The Exorcist: Believer attempts to make things scary with its dominant greenish/bluish tinting throughout. The end result is just to make the film look ugly and laughable. The editing, particularly during dual examination of the girls, makes it almost frenetic to confused. 

Simultaneously boring and blasphemous, The Exorcist: Believer may not be just the worst film of 2023. It may be one of the worst films of all time.

DECISION: F-

THE EXORCIST FILM SERIES

The Exorcist

Exorcist II: The Heretic

The Exorcist III

Exorcist: The Beginning

Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist 

THE EXORCIST TELEVISION SERIES

The Exorcist

BlackBerry: A Review

BLACKBERRY

Technology, trends, things that seem to be eternally ubiquitous have a strange way of fading away into history. Once, the nation had Blockbuster Video stores seemingly on every corner to where the expression "Make it a Blockbuster night" was as dominant as the company that spawned it. Now, it is a relic of a lost world. The same can be said for the BlackBerry device. None other than former President Barack Obama seemed to never be without his "Crack Berry". Now, a BlackBerry device is fit for a museum, relegated to the same historic section one would find typewriters or rotary telephones. BlackBerry chronicles the rise and fall of both the device and the minds behind it. While it has some good performances, its length and one specific performance push it ever-so-slightly down.

Out in the wilds of Waterloo, Ontario, the nerds of startup company Research in Motion (RIM) are tinkering away with their PocketLink device that will put communication within people's pockets. The pitch meeting is a disaster, with RIM heads Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (cowriter/director Matt Johnson) making a poor impression on financier Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Fortune, however, smiles on the duo when, owing to his belligerent manner, Jim is now able to provide his own financing in exchange for a stake in the company.

Balsillie, for all his bullying, knows a good thing when he sees it, and the PocketLink is a good thing. What is not is RIM's rather laidback manner, which he finds immature. There is a sense of arrested development among the RIM employees, where they will break for video games and Movies. RIM appears more like an afterschool STEM program than a serious company. If there is one thing that Balsillie is, it is serious. Eventually, he gets Lazaridis to bring a prototype to New York, but Mike manages to bungle this effort too by forgetting the prototype back at the hotel. Despite this, Balsillie and Lazaridis manage to bring investors to the newly dubbed BlackBerry.

Balsillie is always pushing Lazaridis to do more despite Mike's objections on technical grounds. Balsillie is also alarmed at an attempted hostile takeover of RIM, forcing him to come up with more BlackBerrys that the system can handle. The chaos eventually has Balsillie bring in the pushy network engineer Charles Purdy (Michal Ironside), a terror to the RIM engineers but who to be fair does whip them into shape.

By this time Balsillie, who is hockey-crazed, becomes fixated on buying the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL team and moving them, secretly, to Hamilton, Ontario once he purchased the team. Lazaridis, no pitchman, is forced to try to drum up support to counter the new threat of Steve Jobs' iPhone. Totally lost, Lazaridis promises a better device he calls "The Storm" even though he knows no such product is even in development. Now, it has to be, forcing RIM to outsource things to China over Fregin's very loud and vocal opposition. Balsillie, for his part, is MIA in the oncoming Storm fiasco, so focused on getting the Penguins that he forgoes a chance to save the company by meeting with Penguin officials over AT&T officials. 

The meetings for Lazaridis and Balsillie are disasters. Worse, when the Storms finally arrive, Lazaridis, technician at heart, hears a strange buzzing and begins attempting to fix each Storm phone. With that, the BlackBerry finally collapses. 

BlackBerry, at heart I think, wants to be something like The Social Network, a tale of the rise and fall of both a company and a long friendship. Granted, Facebook, unlike BlackBerry, has not fallen, but my sense is that BlackBerry wanted to paint a similar story. What BlackBerry has as a major positive are many of its performances.

I have sensed that Jay Baruchel has more to him than just Hiccup from the How to Train Your Dragon films. BlackBerry allows him a chance to show that untapped range with his performance as Mike Lazaridis. He is still something of a nebbish, which Baruchel has played more often than not. However, he also shows Lazaridis to be totally committed to the product, one who loves the technology and wants it to be the best. Lazaridis' fears and struggles with people are well-played by Baruchel. Of particular note is when he has a break with Fregin over Lazaridis' impromptu declaration of the Storm device. Baruchel plays the mix of paranoia, anger and genuine loss that the situation forced him into.

The real standout in BlackBerry is Howerton as Jim Balsillie. Best known for the comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Howerton makes Balsillie into a coldhearted, ruthless but efficient businessman. There is nothing funny about Balsillie, a driven, hard-headed and hard-hearted man who let power go to his head. Balsillie was not afraid to cut down the jolly atmosphere at RIM if it meant getting things done, but he also let his hubris and delight in machinations get the better of him. Seeing him so utterly enraptured by owning an NHL team to the point where he would skip an important meeting to try and finalize the deal already makes for great viewing. Seeing Balsillie deflate when the Penguins organization informs him that they learned about his scheme to relocate the team and as such, deny his offer makes for greater viewing.

BlackBerry is Howerton's picture, and he makes the most of his time. One almost sympathizes with Jim, a man who put himself in the hands of bright morons. However, Howerton shows how Jim could be ruthless, bullying and downright cruel. 

In smaller roles, Ironside's Purdy and Cary Elwes as Carl Yankowski, the man who tried to take over RIM, also do strong work. Ironside in particular makes Purdy into a no-nonsense figure who does not give a damn that making the core RIM staff work late upsets their routine. "It's bad luck to work on Movie Night," one of them tells him when Purdy orders them to start creating Storm. The look of disbelief to anger Ironside has does much to convey Purdy's mix of contempt, irritation and fury at the immaturity that he sees.

My one caveat, the one aspect of BlackBerry that does bother me, is its director/cowriter and costar Matt Johnson. As the goofy Doug Fregin, the yang to Mike Lazaridis' yin, I think Johnson perceived himself to be the real star of BlackBerry. I would not be surprised if Johnson saw himself that way given that he directed, cowrote (with Matthew Miller, adapting the nonfiction book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story of the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry) and was the third costar of BlackBerry. I get what Johnson was going for in making Fregin this total goofball who was still a technical whiz. I just never bought it. Moreover, I found Johnson quite annoying as Fregin. Try as I might, I could never shake the sense that Johnson was trying too hard to make Fregin into this loveable eccentric when he ended up being someone I wanted to see fired.

BlackBerry, which I understand was reedited into a three-part miniseries, is a good film that could have been better. In that sense, it is a bit like a BlackBerry Storm: something that had a lot of potential but was brought down by an infernal and incessant buzzing. 

DECISION: C-

Flamin' Hot: A Review

FLAMIN' HOT

Does a biopic have to be completely accurate? No, I think many biographical films take liberties with their subjects. Flamin' Hot, the biopic of former Frito-Lay executive Richard Montanez, however, has met with especially ferocious criticism on its accuracy. Is it fact? Is it fiction? Is it a mix? Flamin' Hot works on a certain level if it meant to be crowd-pleasing. It does not, however, work if you find its efforts too hard.

Told in voiceover by its main character, Flamin' Hot tells the story of Richard Montanez (Jesse Garcia). Despite being the son of migrant workers, Montanez is endowed with fierce pride in his name and his Mexican heritage. He also is a firm outsider amidst the WASP world of California, finding comradery and companionship with the pretty Judy (Annie Gonzalez).

Unsurprisingly, Richard and Judy go from friends to lovers and cholos, doing all they can both legal and illegal to keep themselves afloat. Richard is determined to move upwards and eventually hoodwinks his way into being a janitor at a Frito-Lay plant, the first honest job he's had. Determined to move above the strict culture of Frito-Lay caste system, he nudges his way to being a protege to crabby engineer Clarence Carter (Dennis Haysbert).

Carter shows him all that he knows about the machinery, but Richard still cannot move up. More troubles come his way due to the evil Reagan Administration, whose economic policies endanger the plant's survival. Eventually, thanks to his cultural background, Richard sees that the Latino market is both massive and untapped. As he puts it, the reason Frito-Lay is struggling is because of "Brown neighborhood, white flavors". Why not create specific flavors for his community? Using his sons as guinea pigs, Richard Montanez creates the Flamin' Hot Cheetos. 

Showing pluck, determination and gumption, Montanez goes to the very top, directly calling Frito-Lay CEO Roger Encino (Tony Shalhoub). Encino is surprisingly enthusiastic about the Flamin' Hot Cheetos, but apparently no one else is. With no marketing and poor sales, it takes Montanez's barrio background to come up with guerrilla marketing to get the Flamin' Hot Cheetos noticed. Will it be enough to save his job and the plant?

Flamin' Hot has had, from what I understand, major reporting questioning the accuracy of the story. The veracity of Montanez's claims to have essentially invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos is extremely doubtful. Director Eva Longoria used the expression "his truth" to paper over the truth on the matter. Personally, any variation of "your truth" is a term that I detest. 

The truth (as opposed to Montanez's truth) on the matter is not something that I hold against Flamin' Hot. The film, while fudging the facts, is meant as an inspirational tale of someone overcoming great odds to become an American success story. As such, Flamin' Hot works well. The problems come from how Flamin' Hot stubbornly refuses to concede that it takes great creative license with the truth (vs. "his truth"). I accept that biopics are not one hundred percent accurate. There are composite characters, shifting timelines and even invented scenes that deviate from the facts. Flamin' Hot, for its part, may have gone into almost straight-up fiction and try to pass it off as fact. That is more troubling since, again from my understanding and I may be wrong, Montanez proclaims himself a devout Christian. How a devout Christian can perpetrate an alternate reality is something I cannot reconcile.

I am more puzzled by any suggestion that Montanez is a man of deep faith given how Flamin' Hot makes evangelical Christians less than pleasant people. This is captured by Richard's troubled relationship with his father, Vacho (Emilio Rivera). Vacho, if memory serves right, is a nickname stemming from "boracho", Spanish for "drunk". In voiceover, Richard informs us that Vacho has traded in booze for Jesus, but he is still portrayed as gruff, hostile and dismissive of his son's efforts. For someone whose life was supposed to have been changed by a personal relationship with Christ, Vacho hasn't changed save for his sobriety. Yet I digress.

Flamin' Hot, as I said, is meant more as a crowd-pleasing film than a straightforward narrative. It works on that level thanks to Jesse Garcia's performance. I could have done without the constant voiceover from Garcia, who seems determined to tell us all of Montanez's inner thoughts. That being said, I get where Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chavez's screenplay was going for with these narrations. They are peppered with Chicano lingo and the California Mexican-American worldview. When, for example, Montanez first starts working at the Frito-Lay plant, he struggles with the disrespect that he felt. "I had to mind my gangster," he tells us. Later on, he imagines how a Frito-Lay board meeting went by putting it in cholo terms. Referring to the board as "gangsters with money", Flamin' Hot shows these very white men speaking and behaving as though they were all cholos from the barrio.

As a Hispanic myself, I got the jokes and quips. I related slightly more only because I know people like Richard and Judy Montanez and the world they live in. I'm not completely of that world: I'm closer to a WASP than a cholo, one who prefers the white flavors of regular Fritos than the spicy Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Yet again, I digress.

Garcia is winning as the enthusiastic Montanez, a hustler who won't take "No" for an answer. His enthusiasm for all things makes Montanez an interesting character. At one point, he tells a job interviewer that he has a Ph.D.: poor, hungry and determined. Garcia also shows us Montanez's genuine anger at being held back over and over. He finds it frustrating to be overlooked, and Garcia makes that struggle relatable. As his pachuca girl, Annie Gonzalez does well as Judy, who supports her man even when she finds him difficult. In their smaller roles, Haysbert and Shalhoub also do good work as the cantankerous engineer and Frito-Lay CEO respectively. 

If Flamin' Hot will be remembered for anything, apart from the controversy over the film's accuracy, it will be because Diane Warren received her 15th Best Original Song Oscar nomination for The Fire Inside. Warren has yet to win a competitive Oscar, and The Fire Inside is her first nomination after receiving an Honorary Oscar. The Fire Inside is like Flamin' Hot Cheetos: spicy, with the hint of Hispanic kick to it. It was never going to win, but unlike her nomination for Tell It Like a Woman, few people doubted Flamin' Hot was a real movie. 

Flamin' Hot has the atmosphere of the California Chicano world down well. It makes its protagonist a pleasant, positive figure. Its accuracy may be in doubt, but there is a sincerity to it that makes it passable. 

Born Circa 1958

DECISION: C+

Next Goal Wins (2023): A Review (Review #1815)

NEXT GOAL WINS

I had the great fortune to see a great sports film: Breaking Away. I think I got spoiled, for that Best Picture nominee was followed up in my viewing by one of the worst sports films I have ever seen: Next Goal Wins. Based on a true story, Next Goal Wins is so convinced that it is funny that it ends up being anything but. 

The American Samoan soccer team is the worst team to ever attempt to qualify for the World Cup. In 2001, the Australian Socceroos team did more than demolish the American Samoans. They won over them in a shocking 31-0 score. Since then, the Football Federation of American Samoa continues to struggle with an abysmal team. Now in 2014, there is a chance for FFAS to redeem themselves to the world and themselves.

Down on his luck coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) has been fired by his estranged wife Gail (Elisabeth Moss) and her new boyfriend Alex (Will Arnett). He also has been sent by them to American Samoa on this mission of mercy. A bit of a lush with a tragic secret, Thomas cannot enjoy the beauty of American Samoa as he endures this motley crew of inept footballers. 

He also struggles to tolerate the quirky nature of the American Samoans. Of all the players, the most dominant in terms of story is Jaiyah (Kaimana), who is "fa'fafine", biologically male but really female. A bit of a distracted player, Jaiyah is only aggressive when you call Jaiyah by the birth name "Johnny". How will Rongen, this white man sent to be the team savior, be able to get his team to achieve FFAS' one task: get the team to score just one goal? Will the American Samoans rise to the occasion and show the world that they are not a joke?

Next Goal Wins works if and only if (and that is a big if) you see it as an inept parody of those inspirational sports film like Breaking Away or Hoosiers. You can make a good parody out of the concept, but Next Goal Wins appears to want to hedge its bets on that concept. If it was meant to be sincere, it ended up being an almost mean-spirited take on these characters. Everything in Next Goal Wins is so self-consciously broad that even in the parts that may be true to what happened come across as dreadful farce.

Director and cowriter Taika Waititi (writing with Iain Morris) never wanted to settle on whether Next Goal Wins was sincere or cynical. This almost crazed confusion comes a great deal from how the actors play the parts. It is almost sad to see good actors playing things so overtly broad that they looked as if they knew they were giving bad performances. In Fassbender's first scene, he attempts to justify his poor record. "You can be riding high in April, shot down in May," he tells them. I sat there absolutely shocked that Rongen was literally quoting the song That's Life when his job was on the line. Fassbender's delivery did not help. He is an exceptionally talented actor but throughout the film, he looked slightly crazed and with no growth.

Throwing in almost at the last minute a tragic story from his past crushes any sense of the forced wackiness Next Goal Wins was pushing. You cannot take any of this seriously when Rongen is ambushed at the airport by a camera crew for Who's on the Plane?, which we are told is the most popular show on the island. Every time, every single time, that Next Goal Wins wants to push how wacky and quirky everyone was, it ended up making everyone look either stupid or insane.

How do you take seriously a film where FFAS head Tavita (Oscar Kightley) literally sounds out the acronym as if it were literally what the organization is called?

A good chunk of Next Goal Wins revolves around Jaiyah, a curious decision on a number of levels. Jaiyah can technically play on the American Samoan team because Jaiyah is still listed as male. If we went with the idea that Jaiyah is female, does that mean that women can play with men in the men's league? There is a women's World Cup, so it is a bit confusing why Jaiyah is not with that team. Granted, there is no American Samoan women's team, but given that Next Goal Wins makes clear Jaiyah will transition, it seems close to having a woman on the men's team.

Moreover, nothing in Next Goal Wins suggests that Jaiyah in particular is a good-to-great soccer player. The film actually makes the case that in Jaiyah's flighty, distracted manner, Jaiyah should have been cut. Why the film focused so much on Jaiyah at the expense of someone like Nicky Salapu (Uli Latukefu), the 2001 goalie who wants a second chance to redeem himself, one does not know. It certainly does not help that Waititi opted to give himself a part as a local minister who opens Next Goal Wins. Why an ostensibly Protestant minister would wear a robe with Mary, Mother of Christ on it again one cannot explain.

We are told that the American Samoans are very religious. That religious aspect is played for laughs, such as their habit of literally stopping whatever they are doing when the bells rings. It does not make them look reverential. It makes them look like they are being summoned by the Morlocks. Given how big some of the American Samoan teammates are, the Morlocks could feast on them for months on end.

Next Goal Wins is more delusional than anyone who thinks the American Samoans will ever hoist the World Cup. I figure everyone aimed for another film of a group of athletes unsuited for their chosen sport. The Jamaican bobsled team from Cool Runnings however were in a funny film that did not make them look stupid.     

DECISION: F

2023 Live Action Short Film Oscar Nominees: The Reviews

 

2023 LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM 

OSCAR NOMINEES

I like to watch as many of the short film Oscar nominees as possible: animated, documentary and live action. This year, I was able to see only the Live Action Short Film nominees. I now review them in order presented, adding the runtime as well.

THE AFTER 

(18 minutes)

Dayo (David Oyelowo) was a once-successful businessman who witnesses a random knife attack. This attack leads to his daughter stabbed. Adding to the horror, Dayo's wife plunges to her death when attempting to save her daughter's body. Sometime later, Dayo is an Uber driver who lives his life vicariously through his fares. It is not until a particularly bickering couple, along with their own daughter, comes along that he finally breaks down. The girl, Emily (Izuka Hoyle) gives him a hug, which causes him to fall to the ground and wail, frightening Emily's parents. With him all cried out, he returns to his vehicle.

I get what The After is going for, so I give some credit to John Julius Schwabach's screenplay for making the effort to tackle grief. I can also commend that the film both opted for a knife attack and did not shy away from showing children killed. However, I think that he and director Misan Harriman could not help themselves in being a bit too heavy-handed with the idea that grief cripples emotionally. At what is meant to be the climatic, cathartic moment of Emily/Laura (Amelie Dobuko) hugging Dayo, I suppressed giggles versus bawling. His collapse was actually funny, and to be fair, the parents' reaction was rational. I found Oyelowo more funny than tragic, and I do not think that is what The After was aiming at. I was not taken in by what I figure was meant as a moving drama on grief and acceptance, though the closing song, Let It All Go, was good.

DECISION: D-

RED, WHITE AND BLUE 

(24 minutes)

Arkansas waitress Rachel (Brittany Snow) is struggling financially when she sees the results of a pregnancy exam. She has two young children already: a tween girl, Maddy (Juliet Donenfeld), and a boy, Jake (Redding Munsell). Rachel opts for an abortion, with some help from a mysterious benefactress who gives her a very large tip. She will,  however, have to drive from the "slave" state of Arkansas to the "free" state of Missouri for the procedure. Rachel and Maddy bond on this unofficial road trip, but once at the abortion clinic, Rachel is met with indifference until we get the twist: the abortion is not for Rachel, but for Maddy.

Red, White and Blue is produced by Samantha Bee, who is so far on the Left that even the liberals that I know and knew find her over-the-top. The film veers dangerously close to being pro-abortion propaganda. By showcasing the most extreme case for an abortion, I think Red, White and Blue is not so much trying to start a conversation but promote a one-sided view on a very contentious subject. It is unfortunate, because Red, White and Blue came close to showing that abortion is not as clear-cut and simple as either side presents it. When the film leads you to think that it is Rachel who is seeking an abortion, we get quick shots of her looking at her children's pictures. In a particularly moving moment, we see Rachel seeing Maddy on a carousel then shift to Rachel remembering when she was pregnant with Jake, observing Maddy on a carousel, Rachel tenderly touching her growing belly. 

Had the film kept out the twist, we might have had a more introspective film from writer/director Nazrin Choudhury. It would have achieved something so rare in today's fierce abortion debate: nuance, and an acknowledgement that abortion is a complex issue with which people genuinely struggle about. Instead, it went for the shocking twist that did not sit well with me. It somehow suggests that a tween girl getting an abortion due to an assault is the same as an adult getting an abortion due to too many kids. It can be tricky to make that parallel without pushback. Red, White and Blue (whose title alone is suggestive of abortion as almost patriotic) ends with an overtly grand mini-speech by Maddy about how elephants are her favorite animals because female elephants stick together, help anyone in the herd and are strong and brave. I literally rolled my eyes at this point, clearly getting the forced subtext. Choudhury and Bee are laying the symbolism way too hard here. Red, White and Blue is well-crafted and well-acted. It just did not land the ending. 

DECISION: C+

KNIGHT OF FORTUNE 

(24 minutes, in Danish)

Widower Karl Bergstrom (Leif Andree) is seeing his wife's corpse at a Copenhagen morgue, or rather, her casket. He cannot bring himself to have the casket opened, attempting to distract himself by trying to fix the morgue's light and failing to do so. Soon, he is startled to find Torben (Jens Jorn Spottag) in the bathroom stall next to him. Karl does not want to admit he is there to see his late wife, but Torben says that he is there to see his own late wife. Reluctantly accompanying him, Torben begins a lengthy eulogy until they are interrupted by the real woman's family. Karl eventually discovers that Torben was unable to say goodbye to his wife. He spots him on a park bench, and they bond over their mutual spouses' favorite song, Knight of Fortune.

I will grant that perhaps the language barrier blocked my understanding of Knight of Fortune. However, a few years ago, all but one of the Live Action Short Film nominees were not in English and I not only understood everything but thought the only English-language nominee was the worse. Unsurprisingly, the sole English-language nominee, Riz Ahmed's film/music video The Long Goodbye won. Knight of Fortune, written and directed by Lasse Kyskjaer Noer, is I suppose fine. It has an idea in there. I just was not won over by it. The film left me colder than the corpses, as if it was trying to be funny but not succeeding. It may also be due to how Knight of Fortune was dominated by greys, with only the closing scene in any color. Maybe it is not a terrible film, but not one that I thought much of. 

DECISION: D-

INVINCIBLE 

(30 minutes, in French)

Starting in media res, Invincible tells of Marc-Antoine Bernier (Leokim Beaumier-Lepine), a young Quebecer who, despite the pleas of his mother over the phone, plunges a car into the water. We then go back to how we got to this moment. Marc is highly troubled, finding a bit of respite when allowed to go for a weekend with his parents and younger sister. Weekend furlough over, Marc goes back to the youth detention center. He clearly does not want to be there, making life hard for himself and a bit frustrating for friend and foe alike. Frustrated, he makes a desperate run for freedom, one that ends in tragedy.

Invincible is inspired by a true story, we are told in the beginning. Its writer/director, Vincent Rene-Lortie, was moved by the story of his friend to create this fictionalized version of events. Invincible is an excellent short film. Beaumier-Lepine's performance is exceptional. We see Marc as both a weary young man and sweet kid, arrogant but also life-affirming, beaten down but with some hope. In one particularly sharp moment, Marc uses an illegal lighter to set off the sprinklers to refresh himself after the fan in his room goes out. Invincible does not paint Marc as either an innocent or a victim. Rather, he is a complex figure. We see his world, one that has both joys and self-inflicted misery. This young man is a skilled wordsmith, a poem he wrote about his plight deeply moving. There is not a bad performance from the cast, though Beaumier-Lepine is the dominant figure. It is hard not to be moved by Invincible, whose title does seem ironic but which holds the audience in rapt attention. 

DECISION: B+

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF 

HENRY SUGAR 

(39 minutes)

Adapting a Roald Dahl short story, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is that of the ultimate anonymous benefactor. Narrated by "Roald Dahl" (Ralph Fiennes), we learn of a figure named Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch). He is a gambler looking for the perfect way to win at cards. While staying at an estate, he comes upon a book by Dr. Chatterjee (Dev Patel). We then get Dr. Chatterjee's account of Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), who comes to Dr. Chatterjee for him to verify that he can indeed see without his eyes. Khan, he tells the doctor, has learned this through years-long training with a Yogi (Richard Ayoade), who was reluctant to train him. Now having read Chatterjee's story of Khan's training with the Yogi, Henry Sugar will teach himself how to read what the cards are without seeing the front of them. He does so after years of training and begins to reap a fortune. Finding what to do with it, Henry causes an accidental riot when he flings the money out the window. Reprimanded for this, Henry decides to hit various gambling houses and use the winnings to fund hospitals and orphanages, the former in disguise and the latter anonymously. With Sugar now dead, his story can finally be told.

The Wonderful Story of  Henry Sugar is a Wes Anderson film, meaning that it doubles if not triples down on his twee style. Some people love it, some people hate it. I can go either way. Henry Sugar does not let up in the Andersonian deadpan manner. In fact, we get everything that people either adore or detest about Anderson in miniature, with a new twist. As Henry Sugar is adapted from a Dahl story, we get even the narration delivered by the actors in the same slightly disengaged manner. Every. Single. Word, be it dialogue or not, is spoken. We also get the various figures speaking to us directly at least once during their presentation. I continue to be unimpressed with Benedict Cumberbatch. I have yet to find a great performance from him, only his luxurious baritone. To be fair, this may be the most ethnically diverse cast Anderson has ever worked with: an Indian man (Patel), a black man (Ayoade) and a half-Indian man (Kingsley). I was not won over by The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which I did not think was so wonderful. It does, however, have Benedict Cumberbatch in drag, so there is that. 

DECISION: C+

CONCLUSIONS

Looking through the five short films nominated for Live Action Short Film, there is a theme running through them, intentional or not. Each film revolves around death. Two of the nominated films (Invincible and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) have their lead characters die. Two of the nominated films (The After and Knight of Fortune) are about the grief that accompanies death. The last film (Red, White and Blue) involves the taking of life, at least as seen in some circles. From my perspective, I think the moving Invincible is the best of the lot. It hit me emotionally because it was so grounded, a far cry from the overt whimsy of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. I was disappointed in Red, White and Blue as I felt it lost the chance to look at abortion beyond the binary debate and bring shades of conflict and contradiction. The twist simply never sat well with me. Red, White and Blue is well-acted and mostly well-written, but dear goodness that "elephants are like women, STRONG AND BRAVE" speech coming from the girl came across as grandstanding and something a tween girl would not say. The After and Knight of Fortune are not terrible per se, but I found them uninteresting. Worse, I found The After slightly comical due to Oyelowo's performance. 

Ranking: 

Invincible

Red, White and Blue

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar *

The After

Knight of Fortune

Even before the Academy Awards ceremony, I figured that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar would win. The Academy has been searching for a way to give an Oscar to Wes Anderson, who up to now had eight nominations counting this one. Now, Wes Anderson can be an Oscar winner. It is a terrible shame that the popular beat out the good.