Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation. A Review

TRUMAN AND TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION

Had the term existed in their time, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams would have probably referred to each other as a frenemy. These two openly gay Southern writers respected and detested the other, loved and hated in equal measure. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, puts these two titans of American literature as friends, rivals, and what one was to the other.

The documentary uses archival footage and off-screen interviews. We also have their personal writings read by Jim Parsons as Truman Capote and Zachary Quinto as Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote were more alike than merely their shared heritage. Both of them, for example, had drunk parents: Williams his father, Capote his mother. Both of them found inspiration in the writings that they discovered early in their lives: Moby Dick for Capote, the works of Chekov for Williams.

Their lives continued to have parallels as they built up their literary careers. Despite being Southern to their core, their great success came once they hit New York City. Capote loved the Big Apple and loathed Gore Vidal. Williams was the opposite: have great respect and admiration for Vidal but finding New York less to his liking. The two wordsmiths soon hit the big time with their works, celebrated and feted by high society and critics. 

Those critics, however, would eventually, perhaps inevitably, turn against them. Capote and Williams were left slightly dumbfounded on how they went out of fashion. Things got worse when both lost their long-term partners and started flitting from one pretty young thing to another. They also fell into their separate addictions to booze and pills. 

Truman and Tennessee had a curious relationship, part admiration, part irritation. Through their letters and words, we find that they could be very bitchy about the other. Williams had no issue referring to his frenemy as "Miss Capote". Tennessee, according to Truman, "is not intelligent". To be fair, Tennessee unlike Truman was wise enough to try and break into his frenemy's home and get caught. Eventually, the adoration both public and private faded from view for these two figures. Truman Capote outlived Tennessee Williams by merely a year and a half, Capote dead at 59, Williams at 71.

I wonder, in retrospect, if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation went a bit overboard in painting a portrait of parallel lives. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland certainly wants to show how they both were almost twins. Everything from their family histories to their eventual fall into addiction is shown as being similar and happening at similar times. I do not think that Capote and Williams were mirroring the other person. These two were different and distinct people. As such, I wonder if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is less about what one thought of the other. It is more like it is trying to make a case that somehow, Capote and Williams are almost the same because they lived the same series of situations. 

A major flaw is the voiceover work. Jim Parsons sounded like a thinner-voiced Jim Parsons. He sounded nothing like Truman Capote. Especially in the beginning, Parsons felt too forced in trying to come across as Capote. While I can see how Truman & Tennessee was not attempting to do mimicry. However, I think Parsons struggled to sound like Capote. As such, I never heard Capote's distinct voice both artistically and vocally. Quinto was better as Tennessee Williams, his Southern drawl closer to Williams' voice.

It was easier to hear Williams' words than Capote's words because Quinto sounded better than Parsons. That is not to say that Zachary Quinto sounded exactly like Tennessee Williams. He just sounded better than Parsons. 

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation at times is a bit too fixated on making their lives parallel ones. This is especially true when we see both of them interviewed by David Frost on separate occasions. I do not think that it would be surprising that both of these writers would be interviewed on the same program. Again, whether Truman & Tennessee wanted to push the idea that they were going through the same situations I cannot say for certain. It just looked that way.

I hope that people do not think that I disliked the documentary. On the contrary, for I thought that Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is a well-crafted documentary that will give viewers good insight into these figures. I just do not think that because both were gay Southern writers that they are parallels. Each was his own man. Each was creative. Their friendship, at times their cattiness towards the other, is an interesting subject. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation does much to bring their own stories to the viewer. It is a conversation worth listening in on.

DECISION: B+

Paris is Burning: A Review (Review #2000)

PARIS IS BURNING

Long before Madonna told us to "strike a pose and Vogue", there was an underground world doing just that, filled with glamour and outrageousness. Director Jennie Livingston takes into the demimonde of fierce queens who throw shade to their rivals in Paris Is Burning, capturing the decadence and tragedy of this formerly hidden subculture. 

It is New York City, 1987. We learn that to be black, gay and male is a hard burden in the world. However, there is a place, a very special place, where those are not impediments to taking the spotlight. That world is the New York ball circuit. These balls are where black and Hispanic drag queens can strut their stuff for trophies and recognition. The various personalities have something of a sponsorship with various "Houses", a formed family that can be considered something like a gay street gang. The houses provide training and guidance for these warriors of glamour.

One of the queens of the New York ball scene is Pepper LaBeija, who is the "Mother" of House of LaBeija. There are other Houses, like House of Xtravaganza. The various competitions at the balls are a wide-ranging set. There are those who aspire to be like the characters on the television soap opera Dynasty. However, there are other categories, some quite surprising to those on the outside. A group of ball participants compete in a Military category, where one competitor tells us, "Simple wins". The realness (to be able to pass for whatever you are dressing as) is a major factor in winning various competitions.

It is not just about the most beautiful or glamorous. It is also about being the most authentic looking. This world of balls has their own nomenclature. "Throwing shade" is knocking out your competitor with subtle insults. Being able to "read" someone is trash talking someone but with specific quips. If you want to have a dance off, you have to do some voguing (the name coming from Vogue magazine). 

Two years later, we learn a few things. This world has now attracted such figures as Fran Lebowitz, Geoffrey Holder and Gwen Vernon, who love the voguing. However, some old school ballers like Dorian Corey see these changes with a disdainful eye, preferring the glamour over the realness. We also learn that Venus Xtravangaza, a young aspiring ball queen, was murdered. Venus had been dead for four days when found under a bed in a sleazy motel, strangled.

The world of Paris is Burning is a fascinating one, almost like an alternate universe. The various figures that are profiled would probably be quickly rejected in the straight world. They would especially be rejected in a black or Hispanic macho world. Yet here, the various Houses could be seen as a variation of street gangs. You are loyal to them. They take the place of your biological family. The rumbles are not done on the street. They are done on the dance floor. I think one of the participants interviewed even said that walking at the ball (going down to compete) was like getting jumped. 

The viewer sees the ball contestants strip away from the stereotype of drag queens attempting to look as glamorous, if not as outrageous, as one can. Yes, there are those who do go all-out in elegant to elaborate costumes. However, there are also competitions where it is more about how much you mirror the world that rejects you than about how elegant you appear. I think many, me included, would be surprised to learn that some of the house members can win trophies for looking downright bourgeoise. Who would think that one could win a drag ball competition for looking like a businessman on Wall Street?

It is almost as if the world of Paris is Burning is a reaction and mockery of the world that has excluded the participants. Even in the drag world, the black and Hispanic men felt exclusion due to their race. Here, they created their own universe, one where they not only fit in but rule. The world bends to their will. Here, they can both integrate and be separate from the straight world. Paris is Burning not only captures this world of men strutting their stuff for the world to marvel at. It is an affirmation of themselves and an open mockery of those who reject them due to race or sexual orientation. In some ways, the drag balls are an act of resistance, a successor to cakewalks danced to mock dominant white culture.

Paris is Burning probably did not create some of the vernacular that is fully part of everyday American speech. I figure that perhaps it introduced it to a wider audience. Being able to "read" someone, delighting in "throwing shade" at a rival, these are things that we say without thinking where they came from. 

Paris is Burning is an extraordinary look into an almost lost world. While I figure that balls still exist, we saw at the end how they were coming out into the mainstream. Some of the old school ball members did not like it. The film also does not hide the tragedy and danger in this world. Venus Xtravaganza was the most extreme example, murdered during the filming. However, the specter of AIDS hangs over this world, which would claim some of the people interviewed. 

The men and women in Paris is Burning are fierce, fabulous and unafraid. They are masters and mistresses of throwing shade and not answering to anyone other than their housemates. 

DECISION: B+ (8/10)

Anita: Speaking Truth to Power. A Review

ANITA: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

In 2018, accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh became a fierce battle fought in the halls of Congress and in public spheres. Caught up in the maelstrom of the Me Too movement, then-Judge Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault. The Congressional hearings had a woman accuse a man nominated to sit on the highest court of a sex crime. 

We have been here before. Twenty-seven years prior, another woman accused another man nominated to sit on the highest court of a sex crime. Anita Hill, the subject of the documentary Anita: Speaking Truth to Power, never accused now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual assault. Instead, it was sexual harassment. Anita is a sympathetic portrait of the woman who nearly brought down a Supreme Court appointment. Perhaps therein lies the problem.

Anita opens with a surprising voicemail from Ginny Thomas, Justice Thomas' wife, asking Anita Hill for an apology. From here, Professor Hill tells of her experience pre-and-post testimony. She speaks on how she thought that the confirmation hearings and her own hearing would be nonpartisan. New York Times reporters Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, authors of Strange Justice, a book about the hearings, are also interviewed. 

Professor Hill speaks about her family, who moved to Oklahoma to escape racism (her grandfather threatened with lynching). She also talks about the longest day when she gave her testimony. She found Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter very adversarial and Delaware Senator Joe Biden unhelpful. According to other interviewees in Anita, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch used race to get Judge Thomas angry about his treatment. This was all part of a Republican plan to shift the narrative from sex to race. Ultimately, Justice Thomas was confirmed, and both he and Professor Hill have moved on.

Hill's testimony was the catalyst for electing more women to the Senate, the sight of old white men questioning both Hill and Thomas about pubic hairs and "Long Dong Silver" too incendiary for some. Hill now continues her advocacy for women, with her long-term companion Chuck Malone beside her. 

One should watch Anita with an open mind. A whole generation has passed since now-Justice Thomas faced serious accusations that still haunt him and his reputation. However, Anita does not pretend to be even sided. Everyone speaking in the Freida Lee Mock documentary is clearly on Professor Hill's side. As such, Anita will not make a case that Hill's accusations were false or politically motivated. That is understandable in that Anita is about Hill's perspective. 

At times though, Anita seemed too worshipful of the subject. Near the end of the documentary, we hear actress Anika Nomi Rose recite a poem about Hill. I cannot remember if Professor Hill was in attendance. Even if she wasn't, including adoring poetry about the documentary's subject did strike me as both pretentious and grandiose. 

Anita, I think, should also be seen through new eyes. With the contentious Kavanaugh hearings now in the history books, I cannot help but wonder whether something John Carr, a longtime Hill friend and supporter, said. "This wasn't about the truth. It was about winning". Clearly this statement was meant to define the Thomas supporters who wanted to see him on the Court.

However, could that not equally apply to those who were determined to stop Thomas and later on Kavanaugh from interpreting legislation? Such an idea, as distasteful and shocking as it is, cannot be summarily dismissed. While I have not seen the two films based on the Thomas hearings (Strange Justice and Confirmation), I figure that they take the position that Clarence Thomas is guilty. Any accusation should be investigated, but an accusation is not proof that said accusation is true no matter who makes the accusations.

A great film can hopefully be made about the machinations behind political appointments. Anita is not that film, though I do not think that it aimed to be. Instead, it is about Anita Hill, catalyst for one of the biggest political fights of the twentieth century. I do not think we learned much about the person or about the hearings themselves. Anita is not as insightful about the subject as I had hoped. It is one-sided, though it all comes from her perspective, which her supporters agree with. 

I don't know if there will ever be a truly balanced take on the Clarence Thomas hearings. We have their own books (those from their supporters and champions are in my view suspect to bias). We have various documentaries: this and Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words (which I have not seen as of this writing).  Each deserves his or her own chance to state their case. It is the proper way.

DECISION: C- (4/10)

Sally: A Review (Review #1989)

SALLY

How to look over the life of a somewhat reluctant icon and heroine? You could deify her, turn her into a perfect goddess for future generations to worship. You could diminish her, focus on the negative aspects of her private life or attempt to give her feet of clay. Dr. Sally Ride, the subject of the documentary Sally, was many things: pioneer, scientist, lesbian. Sally does an excellent job covering her public, private and secret life, neither glorifying nor tarnishing this now legendary figure. 

Sally Ride loved science and tennis. These two loves gave her a leg up when NASA at long last decided that it would seek out both female and minority candidates to be astronauts. In 1978, 35 new applicants were accepted into the space program, including, and I quote, "six females, three blacks and one Oriental".

Sally, in using archival footage, does give us many such cringeworthy moments that reflect their time. 

Ride's excellent hand/eye coordination due to her tennis prowess, along with her extensive knowledge of physics, were a major component over why she was ultimately selected to be the first American woman in space. Another reason, not spoken of at the time, was how she did not appear to seek the limelight. This gave her an advantage over her closest rival, Judith Resnick, who did appear to be more eager to bask in the notoriety of being the first. Sally, however, reveals that Ride did want to be the first but wouldn't admit to it. 

Another thing that Dr. Ride could not admit to was about her homosexuality. While she did not keep it a total secret, she also was not about to wave pride flags around NASA. Sally reveals that the reasons for her closeted life were more complicated than mere social stigma. The entire Ride family was very closed up emotionally. Whenever Sally visited her parents, mother Joyce would greet her with, "Hello, oldest daughter," then go back into the house to do whatever she was doing prior. Ride also saw what happened to her friend and mentor, tennis legend Billie Jean King, when King was outed in a palimony suit. The ensuing scandal cost King millions in endorsements and legal fees. 

All those factors played into some of Ride's various decisions pre-and-post flight. That is not to say that Ride was some dour woman. Sally reveals that when on a jet when training, she let out enthusiastic cries of "WEE!" when the jet spun. Once STS-7 lifted off, her comment was, "This sure is fun". Becoming a historic figure, however, had its drawbacks. Her rejection of a bouquet of flowers when the Challenger returned caused an uproar. The constant celebrations drained her. The Challenger explosion, which killed among others her frenemy Resnick, all took their toll.

In all those years, Dr. Ride's relationship with Tam O'Shaughnessy was her rock. Their relationship was not perfect. O'Shaughnessy would have preferred that Ride be more open about their lives beyond just business partners. They made it work, somehow, until Dr. Ride's death. With her now gone, O'Shaughnessy is able to fully acknowledge her life partner. 

Sally is both portrait of a woman and metaphorical time capsule of women in flight. One fascinating bit of discovery in Sally has nothing to do with Ride herself. In the 1950's, there was thought of having women go into space before Valentina Tereshkova became the very first woman in space (Ride being the third overall). Again, via archival footage, Sally shows aviatrix Jerri Cobb being interviewed and stating that women were perfectly capable of being astronauts. This idea was pretty much dismissed by NASA and reenforced by the culture, which made films where female astronauts collapse emotionally.

Sally shows us that even in the early 1980's, some ideas still held. Footage from the press conference with Ride and her fellow astronauts show a particularly ghastly moment. One reporter asks Dr. Ride (she would quietly but firmly ask people to refer to her as either "Sally" or "Dr. Ride", but not "Miss"), "Now, Dr. Ride, during your training exercises as a member of this group, when there was a problem, when there was a funny glitch or whatever, how did you respond? Did you weep?". She was able to at most smile dismissively at these comments, deflecting to ask if her fellow crewmen did likewise. 

Sally Ride wanted to make history. She wanted to be the first. She was aware of the historic nature of being the first. She also was not keen on having her sexual orientation be one more "first". Ride was in a vague area when it came to her sexuality, neither fully out of nor fully in the closet. Sally, however, reveals that her reticence was due to a variety of factors. Shame was not one of them. She was just a pretty closed-up person, focused on the job, sometimes to the detriment of the personal. 

In between the various footage of Ride asking tough questions to NASA administrators over what happened to the Challenger or her delight at being Cap Com (the voice at Ground Control to the astronauts), we see and hear O'Shaughnessy going through the home that they shared. O'Shaughnessy looks through photos, including the few that they have of them together in private moments versus public engagements where they were not officially a couple. These, coupled with O'Shaughnessy's comments and interviews, are some of Sally's best moments. We get a glimpse into the woman behind the myth.

Sally has various interviews from the many people who worked and lived with Ride. There is her mother Joyce and sister Karen, better known as Bear, who is a Presbyterian minister and like her sister is a lesbian. We get interviews from one of Ride's former partners and her colleagues and friends. Each gives us their insight into this most private of public figures. The archival footage blends well with the interviews. A particularly strong blend is when NASA officials, flummoxed at a woman's specific needs, wonder exactly how many tampons Ride will need when going into space. The inclusion of a makeup kit and suggestion of one hundred tampons is something that everyone now can laugh about. Even Sally Ride via archival footage.

A touching moment near the end is when O'Shaughnessy reads out a letter from Mike Mullane, a former astronaut who trained with Ride and was dismissive of women as astronauts. He not only offers condolences to her on the death of her long-term partner but acknowledges that he was wrong. He also sees that Ride is a true and great heroine for his daughters to look up to. Mullane, who was one of Sally's on-screen interviews, does talk about how he made sexist jokes. He was not asked about the letter. Perhaps he did not know that O'Shaughnessy would read it. 

Sally is a respectful and more importantly insightful portrait of this legendary figure. It does not make her infallible. She was closed off emotionally to where her manner kept some at a distance; she was willing to have an extramarital affair. Like so many of us, Dr. Sally Ride was complex, sometimes contradictory. Sally looks into those complications and contradictions, a woman who was not emotional yet thrilled with glee at flying.

I do not know if, had she lived longer, she would want to be known as "the lesbian astronaut". It was enough to be known as "the first American woman astronaut", which she used to get more girls to pursue scientific interests. Dr. Sally Ride will remain an icon and heroine for all Americans. Sally is an excellent way to get as close to the woman as she could ever let anyone get.

DECISION: A- (9/10)

Thrilla: A Review

THRILLA

The COVID-19 pandemic hit everyone in many different ways. For Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collaride, it put both their business and championship dreams close to ending. The documentary Thrilla chronicles their joint struggles while giving us a background into the men themselves. Well-told albeit with a few hitches, Thrilla is a rarity in documentary filmmaking: a film that documents something.

Thrilla, the documentary notes, was filmed during the summer of 2020, a tumultuous time as the world was in panic over the COVID-19 virus among other things. Among those whose lives COVID-19 impacted are Mike Davila and Adam Collarile, jiu-jitsu fighters and newly established businessmen. While the world was in the grips of social distancing, Davila and Collarile were focused on getting Davila to make the required weight to compete in the Eddie Bravo Invitational, a Jui-jitsu competition in El Paso, Texas. Davila, whose nom de guerre is Thrilla, knows that winning the Invitational will be not just great for his and Collaride's Legends Martial Arts business. It will be a crowning achievement in his career.

When they arrive in El Paso, Davila is at 150 pounds, but he must get down to 145 with days if not hours to go.  That he is at 150 pounds is actually a major improvement from where Davila was seven weeks earlier, which was at 188 pounds. That means Davila has to lose 43 pounds in less than eight weeks, a daunting task even for a fit athlete. As Thrilla counts down the weeks, noting the impressive weight loss, we also see the inner strength that both Davila and his friend and business partner Collaride have.

We learn from them about their backgrounds: their struggles in bonding with their fathers, their determination to build up something not just for themselves but for others. Mike Davila at one-point remarks that he had get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Collaride, for his part, notes that Mike is a sweetheart but when he is on the mat, he's a killer. 

They had become friends over time, though Mike initially was a bit leery of how joyful Adam was. At long last, they work on opening Legends Martial Arts studio, getting help from families and friends to make their dream come true. Legends opens on February 8, 2020. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo orders all non-essential businesses to close March 22, 2020. Owing to the proximity of jiu-jitsu, Legends finds itself fighting for its life almost at birth. Davila and Collaride may be down, but by no means are they out. They keep working, keep training and push on. They push on with their business and push on with the tournament. Will Thrilla win in El Paso? Will Mike and Adam not just become legends but build a legacy for future legends?

Thrilla is a wonderful portrait of two men who are both competitors and brothers-in-arms in so many ways. The most obvious way is in competing in Jiu-jitsu, a field which Davila and Collaride are passionate about. They also, however, compete within themselves. Davila's fraught relationship with his own father, Collaride's determination to leave something good behind, all are showcased in Thrilla. 

The film is not just about these two men, but about the importance of friendship and loyalty. Adam, a strong jiu-jitsu fighter in his own right, will accompany Mike to Texas despite the New York COVID restrictions because Mike needs someone in his corner (COVID prevents an audience). There's more than poetry to that analogy. These men, despite their different personalities, know that they have each other's backs. Mike, Adam, another instructor by name of Steve Ramos, and all those who go to Legends: they are more than training their bodies. In a sense, they are training their hearts and souls. 

It takes a great skill to make a weekly countdown of weight loss almost tense. Credit to director Ricardo Aguirre, Jr. for managing to build up suspense as we get a weekly countdown. Davila goes from 188 in Week One to 179 in Week Two, 172 in Week Three, until we get to 12 hours before the official weigh in. The tension and suspense are built up so well, and by this time we know and care about Mike and Adam, that when we see the disparity between Mike's weight scale and the tournament weight scale, we are as equally flummoxed and frustrated when they do not match.

As a side note, I marveled at not just how much weight Davila was able to lose in a relatively short amount of time given how I have twenty pounds that stubbornly won't shift after two years. I was amazed that Mike Davila is at the time of the tournament 37 years old. 

Intentionally or not, Aguirre, Jr. in Thrilla made a film about more than two men training for a jiu-jitsu tournament and working to keep their new business alive amidst the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. He made a film about friendship, loyalty and how a man can measure his strength from more than whom he can defeat on the mat. 

Davila and Collarile are business partners and friends, but they are also distinct personalities. Even on how they came up with the name Legends for their workout studio appear to have different origin stories. I believe Mike said that it came due in part to their proximity to Sleepy Hollow, trading in on the Legend of the Headless Horseman. 

However, in their stories of where Legends came from, we see their life philosophies come through. "Everyone wants to be a legend", Adam says, keeping to the idea of the importance of leaving something behind. Mike, for his part, notes on the importance of what comes between your birth and your death. Referencing how headstones are inscribed, he says, "That small dash is your legend". Despite any cliches about fighters, these two muscular and fit athletes are quite poetic.

Thrilla has one or two issues that stick out. A particularly embarrassing moment is when on-screen text notes Governor Cuomo's decree. It reads that Cuomo "orderd" (sic) businesses considered non-essential to shut down in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. I also think that Thrilla is not strictly speaking about Mike "Thrilla" Davila, so it is a bit of a misnomer. Adam "Bomb" Collarile is just as much a part of Thrilla as Thrilla is, so I was a bit puzzled why the film was named Thrilla. Granted, these are minor details, and hopefully the misspelled word is fixable. It just looks bad.

"Opening the gym has always been a dream, and dreams come slow", Adam observes halfway through Thrilla, emphasizing the last word. Dreams, however slow or small they seem to others, are worth fighting for. Mike "Thrilla" Davila and Adam "Bomb" Collarile, two decent men well profiled in Thrilla, show that legends are not born but made, and made with others beside you.

DECISION: B+

Lynch/Oz: A Review

 LYNCH/OZ

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" is one of the many memorable lines in 1939's The Wizard of Oz. It has now become a saying for whenever one suspects that there is chicanery going on, that there is something rather plain behind a grand image. Could that expression, however, apply to one of the most avant-garde filmmakers around? Lynch/Oz explores the connection between the quintessential children's fantasy and the filmography of one David Lynch. Could The Wizard of Oz be the inspiration for Mulholland Drive? Lynch/Oz makes that case, along with how The Wizard of Oz finds itself occurring and recurring amidst tales of murder, lost souls and psychopathic supernatural monsters.

Director Alexandre O. Philippe divides Lynch/Oz into six chapters with seven filmmakers in voiceover sharing their views on Lynch the man and the artist, The Wizard of Oz, the connections they see between the two and how both Lynch and Oz have influenced their own works. In order of presentation, the chapters and interviewees are Wind (Amy Nicholson), Membranes (Rodney Ascher), Kindred (John Waters), Multitudes (Karyn Kusama), Judy (Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead) and Dig (David Lowery). After a brief and appropriately creepy presentation by "the lounge wizard" (Sid Pink), Lynch/Oz allows each of the filmmakers their say.

Wind speculates that in Lynch's films, we see a continuous theme of people going, willingly or not, into eccentric worlds. As with The Wizard of Oz, another film that has our lead character wanting to escape their world only to yearn to return may have touched on Lynch's cinematic world. That other film also became a beloved annual television event: It's a Wonderful Life. Membranes offers that Back to the Future too was like The Wizard of Oz; it too is another tale of a young person finding a world that had doppelgangers to his real world. While Back to the Future is not a David Lynch film, Mulholland Drive is, and there we have a twisted world of doppelgangers, a world where the central character travels to a different world, navigating dreams versus reality.

Kindred suggests that like the films of its interviewee John Waters, David Lynch finds the 1950's far from the halcyon world that that decade's films or memories made it out to be. The 1950's hid darkness beneath its outwardly pleasant visions. That evil lurking behind picket fences emerges in the portrayal of seemingly benevolent figures like Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks. That can be a mirror reflection of the Wizard himself, outwardly dangerous but in reality, a front. Multitudes offers that Mulholland Drive is almost a companion piece and even an inverse of Oz, the repeated themes of lip-syncing in front of curtains being a semi-conscious callout to the Wizard himself. We also hear from Kusama who quotes Lynch when he is asked about The Wizard of Oz after a Mulholland Drive screening. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about The Wizard of Oz," Kusama quotes Lynch as saying.  

Judy has our only dual interviewees make the case that David Lynch is in their words, a "populist surrealist", one who shows the American myth versus the American dream. This reveals itself in how in many Lynch films, the women are brutalized and beaten up emotionally and sometimes physically. They see a parallel to how the film industry devoured Judy Garland. There is also a strong use of "Judy" in Twin Peaks: The Return, that keeps emerging. Dig is mostly on David Lowery's own interest in Oz, but he makes the case that despite the surreal, almost despairing Lynchian worlds of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, he still finds hope within the dark worlds he paints, of people who can return to the safety of their own Kansas.

Lynch/Oz can be best described as a filmed essay, where the various interviewees offer less a concrete case for their ideas and more a rumination on how one film has had such a powerful hold over a renowned filmmaker. Some of the observations are not unique. Lowery suggests that Lynch has similar imagery running through his films, then Philippe presents a montage of other filmmakers who use the same imagery or hit on the same themes. 

Sometimes too, we hear different filmmakers speculate on a similar point. Both Waters and Benson & Moorhead think Lynch has a secret disdain for the 1950's conformity and outwardly peaceful veneer. How Benson & Moorhead tie the MAGA movement, such as it is, to something like Wild at Heart or other Lynch films, to my mind, is more of them trying to fit something that Lynch may not even care about.

As a side note, it is amusing to hear Waters' rather bitchy take on Glinda the Good Witch of the North. He remarks that she "dressed like she had gone insane getting ready for the prom". 

Lynch/Oz makes much use of split screens to show us how The Wizard of Oz is referenced subtlety or overtly in films like Mulholland Drive or Eraserhead. To be fair, I have yet to see Wild at Heart, but judging from the clips Lynch/Oz shows, Wild at Heart looks like the most overt callout to the Victor Fleming film. The use of curtains, the red shoes, people falling into strange worlds and suffering great troubles to escape back into their original reality. These are fascinating ideas that Lynch/Oz presents us.

The film does cover a lot of ground, making its case on how The Wizard of Oz, this one particular film, resonated so much with young David Lynch that he finds himself by design or by accident repeatedly referencing it or what he drew from it. Even something as notorious as his adaptation of Dune can be vaguely Wizard of Oz like, everything from the sepia-like tones of Arrakis to the hero traversing a strange world to defeat a great evil.

Perhaps that is stretching, which is always a risk when speculating on a topic like whether David Lynch specifically revisits The Wizard of Oz in his films and television projects. It should be noted that outside a few archival interviews, David Lynch himself does not make his case for The Wizard of Oz being the film he draws so much from. Given his mercurial nature and refusal to give definitive interpretations on his films, we may never fully know if Lynch/Oz captures his mindset or is mere speculation. Still, it is hard to not think that Lynch/Oz is on the right track when we see David Lynch himself play Over the Rainbow on the trumpet (not very well in my opinion). 

One may even think that Lynch/Oz is less about what David Lynch himself drew from The Wizard of Oz than on how others see a connection between the two. Many may even think that all this may be a case of reading more into things than intended. I do not know if Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming or producer Mervyn LeRoy intended or imagined that The Wizard of Oz had some kind of great symbolism behind it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. That quote, attributed to Sigmund Freud, may not have been uttered by the Austrian psychiatrist, but it might apply to how so many may be putting The Wizard of Oz into this bizarre cinematic universe. Maybe even David Lynch himself may have read more into The Wizard of Oz than The Wizard of Oz intended. 

Lynch/Oz is a fascinating exploration connecting the Lynchian worldview with that of little Dorothy Gale from Kansas. Even I can see connections that were curious not remarked on by any of the interviewees. In Mulholland Drive, the restaurant is named Winkies, just like the Wicked Witch of the West's imperial guard. There is also a great deal of green in the restaurant, almost emerald color. You can find a connection between the filmography of David Lynch and The Wizard of Oz. You could miss it. It won't take away from either. Lynch/Oz makes its case well, but it is up to you if you accept it or want to throw water at its ideas.  

DECISION: B+

The Wizard of Oz Retrospective: An Introduction

The Wizard of Oz (1925)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Wiz

Return to Oz

The Dreamer of Oz

The Muppets' Wizard of Oz

VeggieTales: The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's

Oz the Great and Powerful

Wicked Part I

The Wizard of Oz Retrospective: The Conclusions

Frida (2024): A Review

FRIDA

What more is there to say about Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter who has become an iconic figure long after her death? There has been a slew of films, and documentaries and merchandising built around Kahlo. There are even young girls named after her. What is there new that one can find? Well, Frida, the newest documentary on Kahlo, takes the novel approach of letting Frida speak for herself, so to speak. Using her own journal entries and artwork, Frida explores her life both external and internal. 

Frida Kahlo was always rebellious. The daughter of an atheist father and a deeply Catholic mother, Frida joined the Cachuchas (the Caps or Hatted Ones) as the lone female among the miscreants of her high-end school. Then came the horrific bus accident in 1925 that left her in immense pain physically and psychologically. Two years later, she embraced Communism, which was not an eccentricity in avant-garde Mexico City.

Then came muralist Diego Rivera. In this young girl, Diego found an artist of immense skill. He also found someone who would not defer to him. He actually deferred to her, and her "Frog Face" soon became his lover and later husband. As he ascended the artistic heights, down to a one-man show in New York, "Mrs. Rivera" found herself being both a companion and a minor celebrity in her own right. 

Despite their ardor for each other, they were not blind to their infidelities. Diego's string of mistresses and liaisons were not a particular bother to either, but Diego was very jealous whenever Frida took a lover, down to threatening sculptor Isamu Noguchi, one of Frida's lovers. Whether out of spite or gross irresponsibility, Diego had an affair with Frida's beloved sister Cristina. This was the breaking point for Kahlo, who promptly left Diego. She did soon reconcile with Cristina but divorced her Frog Face.

Soon, however, Frida began attracting attention of a different sort, becoming the toast of the New York art world. Paris, however, was a different matter. She found a frenemy in Surrealist writer Andre Breton, who championed her work while being inept in promoting her. Despite herself, she remarried Diego but never had sexual relations with him again. Reaching a certain contentment, her body finally began betraying her, dying in 1954 at the age of 47. 

Frida Kahlo is one of the most chronicled and documented artists of the Twentieth Century, or so it appears to be. She certainly has become iconic, so again, why delve back into more of her? Carla Gutierrez's film takes an approach that has been dabbled with in other Kahlo documentaries like The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo in using Kahlo's own words to tell her story. Gutierrez, though, used almost nothing but Kahlo's words in Frida. Apart from the words of some of her lovers, all men, the text is all from Frida's journals, letters and interviews. We know it is someone else as Frida puts their names on the screen, along with an accompanying image or Kahlo painting of them. The film also shows what they were at the time someone else spoke. Alejandro Gomez Arias, for example, is first billed as a "Classmate", then "Boyfriend", finally "Friend", if memory serves right. 

Frida is as close as one will get to hearing from Kahlo herself outside of a seance. Some of her observations are quite optimistic given her tumultuous life. "Love is the foundation of all life," she observes. There is at times, something almost joyful in her, a love of life that her physical and emotional troubles cannot squash. 

Other times, though, we see the sarcastic side of the artist. To be fair, Kahlo had every right to be enraged at Breton's wild mismanagement of her Parisian one-woman show. She has nothing but contempt for the Paris art world, which she finds pretentious and vapid and unwelcoming. To have her artwork exhibited with the tchotchkes that Breton purchased at a Mexican flea market enrages her. 

Finally, we see the vulnerable woman behind the legend. "I've adapted to his style," Frida quietly observes when writing about the influence Rivera had on her artistic manner. In her first romance with Arias, she muses, "I'm attracted to intelligent people. I choose those I feel are superior to me," a surprising revelation for someone held as an icon of feminist independence. The bus accident is described in surprisingly quiet terms. "It wasn't violent, but silent, slow," she observes. It is impossible to fully know how horrific and traumatic this moment was for Kahlo, but the still manner with which she wrote on it makes it all the more shocking. 

Frida takes a different tack when looking on her artwork. Rather than making them static, Frida choses to animate them, bringing them to life. I understand that some viewers dislike this method, thinking that it takes away from Kahlo's unique style and drawing attention to the animated style. Others find the animation clever, opening up the work. I fall more on the latter side. What I am surprised people have not comment on more is how Frida selectively adds color to archival footage, making reality more surreal in the Kahlo style. 

I found this decision clever, adding to the choice to make Frida more on how Kahlo looked at the world than on how the world actually looked. 

Frida delves into that mix of artistic freedom and personal courage. Like other Kahlo-centric projects, that pesky adoration of figures like Stalin and Mao is not touched on. Trotsky is a slightly different matter. I suppose there is a difference between sex and admiration. I also think some of the translations would not be how I would have translated the words (Frida is in Spanish, though appropriately subtitled). As I speak and understand Spanish, I had no trouble following the various words from Kahlo, Arias, Rivera and others. I do think that even non-Spanish speakers will enjoy two songs featured in Frida: En Cantos by Natalia Lafourcade and Amores by Marissa Mur and Luis Jimenez, the latter which closes the film. 

As a side note, En Cantos can serve as a pun in Spanish. En Cantos (two words) translates to "In Songs", while "Encantos" (one word) can be "enchantments" or "delights".

Frida is a strong introduction through the thoughts and art of this now-legendary Mexican figure. "What is joy? The creation born of discovery", Kahlo observes. Frida Kahlo is an icon to many. Frida does her right.

DECISION: B+

I Am: Celine Dion. A Review

I AM: CELINE DION

I should, in the interest of total disclosure, begin my I Am: Celine Dion review by saying that I frankly do not like her music. In her catalog, I find only two songs that I actually like: A New Day Has Come and her cover of I Drove All Night. Apart from that, I have been known to occasionally walk out of the room if a Celine Dion song is playing, in particular her signature song, Titanic's My Heart Will Go On. I find her singing at times bombastic, grandiose, and the songs overall rather milquetoast. I also have to recognize that she is highly beloved and admired for her admittedly powerful voice. I Am: Celine Dion takes us into her private world, one shaken by a very rare disease that may cripple her body but not her spirit.

After a jokey faux interview by her son Nelson, we then shift to a truly shocking sight: Celine Dion in the grips of a terrifying attack from her Stiff Person Syndrome. This illness, which affects one in a million people, leaves Dion crippled, in great pain and totally immobilized. It is a jarring moment before we go to One Year Earlier, 2021.

We are informed that Dion has had to cancel her Las Vegas residency, but now we hear from the Canadian chanteuse about her life pre-and-post diagnosis. She was diagnosed seventeen years prior but kept working as long and as hard as she could. It did, however, force her and her team to concoct reasons for cancelling shows, something that she loathed to do. "It's not hard to do a show," she observes in one of the many interviews, "it's hard to cancel a show". Obviously distraught at both having to cancel a show and lying about the reason, Dion nevertheless attempts to keep things going.

We look over her past and present: her early life in Quebec as the member of a family of 14 children, her various outfits, the songbook and her devotion to her stage and home families. She even shows us that she is perfectly in on the joke, such as her song Ashes for Deadpool 2 and the spoofing of My Heart Will Go On and Titanic on The Late Late Show with James Corden.  

In the midst of all the humor and love of performing, SPS still wreaks havoc on her life and career. The voice is not as strong as it was. Her physical ability to sing and perform are weakened. After attempting to record a new song, Love Again, we see a crisis owing to her SPS. Despite this, Celine Dion is determined to keep singing. 

Again, I am nowhere near a Celine Dion fan. However, as much as I may not care for her massive ballad catalog, one finishes I Am: Celine Dion with great respect for Dion's professionalism and devotion to her fans. As she talks about having to create false stories to mask the real reason for cancellations, you can see how much it hurt her to lie to the fans. She is fully aware that people have come from far away, spent a great deal of money, and rearranged their schedules to see her live. As such, when she was forced to withdraw due to the stiff person syndrome, the knowledge that she, even inadvertently, caused great disappointment to people that love her moves her to tears. 

It is difficult to see the two crises of SPS that I Am: Celine Dion has the courage to show. As this powerhouse performer, we see her dominating the stages. Now, we see her totally incapacitated, inaudible, clearly distressed to terrified, unable to do anything except perhaps weep in sadness and frustration. Her medical team with medication and soothing talk work to get her to return to physical control. While they succeed, it is still very painful to see, and one imagines far harder to endure. 

I Am: Celine Dion is a brave revelation of one woman's struggle with a rare disease and her determination to keep doing what she clearly loves: sing. These moments of vulnerability, of seeing not the glamourous diva but the vulnerable woman, elevate director Irene Taylor's documentary. Those are the good moments.

The bad, or perhaps more curious, moments are when we are treated to a tour of her Citizen Kane-like warehouse of her artifacts. I can, with some reluctance, look through Madame Angelil's stage couture and hear about her love of shoes (she confesses she has bought shoes that do not fit because she clearly loves them). Do I or anyone else really need to know that she keeps every piece of artwork done by her children? I simply was bored by her waxing rhapsodic on the need for a sleeveless outfit to work with her grand stage costume. I also could have done without a curious section where she goes over various events on her calendar with her team.

One of them involved sending a videotaped 100th birthday wish to one Dorothy. I was thoroughly puzzled over who "Dorothy" was, or why Dion was sending her birthday wishes on Dorothy's centennial as if Dion were the Queen. 

Moreover, while unintentional, that her twins are named Nelson and Eddy made me think that she and her late husband Rene named them after American baritone and actor Nelson Eddy. They didn't, but as odd as it sounds that her twin's names are Nelson and Eddy, conjuring images of Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald singing an operetta was hard to shake.

Given the scope of her career and the courage she has shown in her struggle with stiff person syndrome, one would have to be terribly unfeeling to not think Celine Dion is, if nothing else, courageous. I left I Am: Celine Dion with greater respect and admiration for someone who values professionalism and respects her craft and audience. That, after this diagnosis, she still had fierce determination to continue singing makes one admire her more even if one is not a fan of her music.

Given all we know now about Celine Dion's physical troubles, that she was able to dominate the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony with her performance at the Eiffel Tower makes one respect and admire her all the more. It was as if she was carried by sheer will to show that she could still perform at great heights, figuratively and literally. Her rendition of Hymne a l'amour did not close out I Am: Celine Dion, but it might serve as the unofficial theme to this premiere chanteuse Quebecoise. 

DECISION: B-

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. A Review

 

SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY

Christopher Reeve was most known for the four films where he played the comic book character Superman. He fought against typecasting with some success. His greatest fight, however, was when he suffered a devasting accident that left him paralyzed. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, tells his tale of life pre-and-post accident, revealing a complex figure who found courage to overshadow that of the Man of Steel himself.

Using home movies and interviews both current and archival, Super/Man chronicles Christopher Reeve's life and career. His youngest son Will Reeve states that he has weak memories of his famous father, as he was not yet three when Reeve took to the horse show that brought about his paralysis. Most of Will Reeve's memories come from talking to his older half-siblings Matthew and Alexandra or from the home movies Super/Man shows us. 

In fact, Will Reeve celebrated his third birthday on June 7, 1995, eleven days after Reeve's devastating spinal cord injury. Reeve, devasted emotionally and physically from his paralysis, contemplated suicide. His wife, Dana, told him that while she would support whatever decision he made, "You're still you, and I love you". That was the trigger that kept him going. He was also aided in his emotional recovery by his friend and Julliard classmate Robin Williams, who could always get him laughing.

Seeing the effects of spinal cord injury, the reality of life for the disabled, and his own longstanding commitment to activism, Reeve now found a new purpose. He would channel his energy and work to making life better for the disabled. Dana, the light of his life, eventually got Reeve to have a dual focus: tomorrow's cure and today's care. This especially became important when he got pushback from members of the disabled community. A television commercial that showed him walking outraged certain disabled people, who took the notion that their lives would improve if they had no physical limitations as an insult.

However, despite his activism mixed with directing and acting work (such as his Rear Window remake), Christopher Reeve could not escape the physical damage. On October 10, 2004, Christopher Reeve died, almost ten years after his near-fatal accident. Will Reeve endured a more shocking event when his mother, Dana, died of lung cancer almost two years later despite her being a non-smoker. The now-Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation goes on.

Anyone who might think that Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a hagiography on Reeve will be surprised by how it does not paper over the less positive aspects of Reeve's story. I can argue that it does downplay his part in the critical and commercial failure of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (he does have a "Story By" credit and was at least initially keen to use Superman IV to promote an anti-nuclear weapons message). He also got taken to task by sections of the disabled community for his advocacy for a cure. 

There are also actions in his personal life that look dismissive, even cold. His older son Matthew, the first of two with Reeve's longtime partner Gae Exton, recalls that Christopher Reeve went off to a ski holiday in France the day after he was born. This revelation is not sensationalized or treated with anger, but it is not couched in softness. It is presented as fact, which it is. 

Reeve's fraught relationship with his disapproving father Franklin is also brought up, revealing the troubled Reeve family and the fears of marriage that plagued Christopher Reeve for decades. A sad moment is when Christopher is at first surprised and thrilled when his father is enthusiastic about his son playing Superman. That mutual joy is short-lived though when both discover that the information was misunderstood. Franklin, an intellectual and poet, thought Christopher was going to be in a film version of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman. The role of the Man of Steel, to Franklin's eyes, was not an academic enough role. 

We also learn that Reeve's accident was freakish in more ways than one. If he had fallen a few inches in on direction, it would have been instant death. If he had fallen a few inches in the other, a merely embarrassing fall that he would have walked away from. Other revelations, such as the difficulty and fear he faced when appearing at the Academy Awards or receiving a letter from none other than Katharine Hepburn expressing her shock are surprising. 

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is informative about the life and times of this actor. Moreover, it is also moving in this profile in courage. The audience that I saw the film with was visibly and audibly sobbing as we learn from his children, former companion Exton and colleagues about what drove Reeve. There are moments of humor, such as when Reeve's off-Broadway costar Jeff Daniels remembers what he thought when Reeve went off to film Superman. Reeve attempted to downplay the significance of his casting. Daniels was having none of it. "I may have been in Dumb and Dumber but I'm not stupid," he quips when recognizing that Reeve's life was going to permanently change, something Reeve either didn't or didn't want to admit. 

Co-directors Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui crafted a respectful but not reverential portrait of Christopher Reeve, a driven, flawed, even fearful man who nonetheless rose to the challenge placed before him. Hearing from other of Reeve's costars such as Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon, his family and even from Christopher and Dana Reeve themselves lets us in on the complex, even at times contradictory life of the man behind the myth. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story will move the viewer and give us insight into an actor who played the Man of Steel but who became a greater symbol for truth, justice and the American way. 

DECISION: A-

Am I Racist? A Review

AM I RACIST?

Since the tumult of 2020, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) movement has grown to ostensibly address issues like systemic racism. Anti-racism is embraced at the highest levels of academia, politics, even religion. Some, however, see all this as in turns a scam and a way to promote division rather than inclusion. Conservate commentator Matt Walsh looks on the DEI movement in Am I Racist? where he both mocks the champions of the anti-racist movement and allows them to mock themselves, albeit unwittingly.

In his faux-serious manner, Walsh ponders on whether he is a racist given how almost everything nowadays is seen through the prism of race. He starts by attending a workshop headed by Breeshia Wade, author of Grieving While Black. The cost is $30,000, though whether the cost is Ms. Wade's fee or the cost of the session is unclear. Seeing some of the session, Walsh is discovered to not be "Steve" and is asked to leave.

Sensing that he needs a disguise to enter spaces he would not be welcomed in, Walsh dons a disguise consisting of a bad wig and skinny jeans. Surprisingly, this faux-hipster look manages to hoodwink all sorts of DEI and anti-racist experts and activists. He takes a one-on-one lesson with anti-oppression consultant Regan Byrd (at $2,500). He gets insight from Dr. Sarra Takola (a bargain at $1,500), who sparked "conversations about race" when she had a verbal altercation with two white male Arizona State students for making her and others "feel unsafe". Walsh even throws in Jodi Brown, the relative of two black girls whose family sued Sesame Street for racial discrimination after the costumed character of Rosita did not high-five the children. The price for her brief appearance? $50,000. 

As a side note, Ms. Brown did not know the race of the person who played Rosita. Also, her appearance in Am I Racist? which was less than five minutes if that, is more than my annual salary.  

Walsh continues his journey in character. We look in at a Race2Dinner soiree ($5,000) where white women are wined and dined and told how racist they are. He mockingly campaigns in front of the Washington Monument to have passersby sign a petition to rename it the George Floyd Monument (and manages to get signatures). He reenacts the attack Jussie Smollett claimed to have survived. He eventually creates his own faux-anti-racist workshop, Do the Work (a common phrase in the DEI movement), where he manages to get people to curse out his alleged uncle who appears infirm and some of whose participants, albeit looking slightly confused, come close to agreeing to self-flagellation.

Inserted are brief conversations with ordinary people both black and white who have a simple message: love each other, noting how we all bleed the same. What conclusions will Walsh reach at the end of his merry romp through DEI and anti-racism?

Before the film was even released, Am I Racist? featured what I suspect will become an infamous moment. White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo (charging $15,000 for the interview) already looks odd when she goes through a metaphorical self-flagellation over the hypothetical problem of over and under-smiling at a person of color. Then we get to the widely reported moment when Matt (he uses his real first name this time) brings in Ben, a black man, and literally gives him cash in front of DiAngelo as reparations for slavery.

Ben, though he's obviously in on the gag, takes the cash. DiAngelo, looking befuddled and stating that she thought the whole thing was weird, eventually states that she too can go get cash. We then see her go to her purse and present Ben with $30 (knocking her fee down to $14,970). That ought to make up for those 400 years of oppression.

DiAngelo can make the case that she was duped. I do not begrudge her that, in a sense, she was pressured by expectations to "do the work" no matter how bizarre. However, she ultimately agreed to give a random stranger money and make such a generous gesture based on the recipient's race. I doubt she would have given Walsh or his Daily Wire cohort Ben Shapiro money. I'm not even sure that I, someone of Mexican descent, would get DiAngelo to open up her wallet. 

Ultimately, she was responsible for her own foolishness. No one physically forced or threatened her to do such a bonkers thing. 

Am I Racist? has a major flaw, and that is Matt Walsh himself. He cannot help himself in attempting to force audiences to think he is funny. The situations and answers that the various experts give are funny in their nonsensical manner. One of the "rename the George Washington Monument to George Floyd Monument" signers literally shakes Ben's hands and apologizes to him. 

Walsh could have let the speakers and situations speak for themselves, letting the gobbledygook and oddity of some of their actions show them for the fools and charlatans Walsh holds them as. However, Walsh simply could not resist making himself the center of attention. A case in point is the Race2Dinner scene. Disguised as a masked waiter (as Race2Dinner is segregated by race and gender in the spirit of diversity), he overhears hostesses Regina Jackson and Saria Rao hold court and express such views as how Republicans are Nazis and "this country is a piece of s**t". 

It is hard to know whether the crashing dishes from Walsh are out of genuine shock at overhearing this, perhaps anger, or calculated for a more "comedic" punctuation mark to Rao's words of healing. Later on, while still masked and in his fright wig, he essentially crashes the dinner, inserting himself into the conversation. 

Walsh clearly believes himself to be funny. He ends up coming across as slightly smug and obnoxious. This is clear at the Wade seminar, where he constantly interrupts to present these faux messages of solidarity and almost openly antagonistic in his fake sincerity. I found Wade and the participants to be civil in how they dealt with "Steve". Granted, calling the police on him was over-the-top, but on the whole, it is Walsh, not the seminar attendees or Wade, who looked bad. 

I also think it was a mistake for him to carry on the fake disguise when talking to ordinary people. He did not come across as funny and worse, insincere. The best section in Am I Racist? is when he talks to a repairman from British Guiana named Milton. This quiet, unassuming man loves America and has never seen the overwhelming racism the press and anti-racist activists insist that he endures. Infinitely patient with Walsh's schtick, he merely laughs softly when told about DiAngelo's book and ideas. He does not have time or interest in them. The only book Milton reads, he tells us, is the Bible, even offering Walsh one of the Bibles that Milton keeps in his car. In a brief conversation, three black women talk about how they grew up with white people and saw themselves as being one community.

Some of the scenes in Am I Racist? are so bizarre that one cannot believe that everyone involved are not actors doing parody. The participants at the Wade seminar. The white woman excoriated at the Race2Dinner for "tone policing" her black husband when she asks him to not be so loud. The barely intelligible man at the biker bar; those who managed to sit through Walsh's fake Do the Work seminar (the film shows some leaving in disgust or out of a belief that it was all idiotic). I do not think it is faked. I do think it looks like something out of Impractical Jokers except that they look to all be in on the act. They aren't, as Hate Crime Hoax author Wilfred Reilly (who would probably be more on Walsh's side) is similarly hoodwinked and befuddled by the hipster persona Walsh presents him with. That these are real people who think the Washington Monument should be renamed in honor of George Floyd is astonishing. 

Walsh does better when showing us the literal high cost of these struggle sessions. How Ms. Brown can justify making $50,000 for sharing her story on how a person in a Muppet outfit inflicted racial pain on her family would be interesting to hear. Seeing the massive amounts of cash made out of DEI instructions and seminars show it to be less about racial reconciliation and more about financial benefits. His summation on how neither side should be condemned to bear either white guilt and black victimhood is good.

Both the white bikers and the black women in Am I Racist? made almost similar statements on how both would bleed the same color if cut. Love one another is how they see things. That wisdom from average people is greater and deeper than the various anti-racist and DEI activists who rake in millions to keep racial divides open. Am I Racist? would be better to take a more serious look at how these activists can be utterly nonsensical. We can have endless conversations about race, but all that talking has apparently not helped make things better. 

Am I Racist? has good moments of humor through people's foolishness, but a little more focus on the people and less on Matt Walsh would make it a better project. 

DECISION: C+

Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman. A Review (Review #1822)

 

ANTONIA: A PORTRAIT OF THE WOMAN

The list of famous conductors known to the general public is probably small. People may know Gustavo Dudamel, Zubin Mehta, the now disgraced James Levine. We could go further into the past with Leopold Stokowski or Arturo Toscanini. Maybe Leonard Bernstein is the one conductor most people, classical music fans and non, can readily recall. Now we look at a rarity among conductors: a female conductor. Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman gives this strong, capable woman her moment, revealing a great truth about how the world loses when artificial barriers are placed.

Using the Brico Symphony, a Denver-based nonprofit semi-professional community orchestra, as a bookend, Antonia looks at the life and career of Antonia Brico. Born in Rotterdam, Brico moves to California as a child with her foster parents. Her musical career began thanks to her fingernails. Advised that piano playing would end her nail biting, Antonia found a passion in music. "That's one reason why it's everything in my life," she observes, "because the music was one thing that saved my reason, my sanity".

Brico shifted from the piano to conducting. She is aware that as a woman, the doors are if not shut at least extremely hard to pry open. Undaunted, she forges her own path. Brico creates her own all-female orchestra: the Women's Symphony Orchestra. She openly challenges men to have play-offs against her own members, with a blindfolded audience deciding which player is the best. While she continues teaching and conducting whenever she is invited, the frustration is clear. Brico is adamant that she can conduct five times a month rather than the five times a year she manages. 

Despite her professional frustrations, she is still full of life. Brico recalls her work with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and reminisces of composers and conductors she has known and admired. Among them is Stokowski, whom she holds as being in a class of his own. There is also Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who heard her conduct his work and welcomed her conducting.

Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman reveals a woman who is aware of the burdens against her but who opted to do what she could versus waiting for opportunities to present themselves. She did, up to a point, have to rely on others to champion her. However, Brico decided the best way to make needed change was to make the changes herself. It was a stroke of genius to create an all-female orchestra to show that women were capable players. Later, she opted to make it a mixed orchestra, arguing that art is sexless. 

The frustration and joy of Brico's life and career come through. She at one point is angry that opportunities for conducting are few and far between. She compares herself to a Russian woman who conducts on a more regular basis. Brico insists that the orchestra is her instrument and that she is all but forbidden to play it.

However, she is also upbeat and optimistic, ending A Portrait of the Woman by playing a little ragtime. Brico delights in serving as mentor and educator to new generations, primarily young women. The love she has for conducting is clear, comparing it to painting. She also speaks fondly of her work with Dr. Schweitzer, though we do not get much information on that.

One curious moment is an animated sequence providing an imagined battle of tympany players, one male, one female. Brico had issued that challenge to have a member of her all-female orchestra against men, but I do not think there were takers. As imagined, the female tympanist won handily, the male exhausted and soundly defeated. I get the message behind that sequence. However, someone being a better musician because that player is a woman is no less sexist than saying that a man is a better musician by virtue of him being a man.

Curiously, Brico observes that it has been women who have been the ones who have blocked her more than men. However, that statement is not expanded on. 

The title is accurate, as it is A Portrait, not The Portrait. Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman gives us Brico's life and work, the passion for conducting, and reminds us of a truth: that art truly is sexless. One hopes that Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman exposes more people, particularly females, that imposed limitations need not be obeyed. 

1902-1989

DECISION: B+