"Three Billboards is not a racist film. What's truly 'problematic' is Twitter's appetite for controversy. Martin McDonagh has come under fire over the presentation of a bigoted supporting character in his Oscar-nominated drama, a misinterpretation as wrongheaded as it is counter-productive" (The Independent)
"This decidedly adult fairytale, about a forlorn, mute cleaning lady and the uncanny merman who save each other’s lives in very different ways, careers wildly from mad-scientist B-movie to heart-thumping Cold War noir to ecstatic, wings-on-heels musical, keeping an unexpectedly classical love story afloat with every dizzy genre turn." (Variety)
"Dunkirk tells of the evacuation of Allied soldiers stranded on the beaches of France during World War II. Close to 400,000 soldiers were cut off with the German army surrounding them, with only days to escape. Unconventionally for a war movie, it isn’t really about facing nor fighting the enemy but the desperate act of survival." (IGN)
1/22/18
"Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has been named the best film of 2017 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), which handed out the EE British Academy Film Awards in London on Sunday. The film from writer-director McDonagh, a dual Irish and British citizen, also won awards for Leading Actress Frances McDormand, supporting actor Sam Rockwell and McDonagh’s original screenplay, as well as a prize in the Outstanding British Film category. The last film to be honored as both the best film and the best British film by the BAFTAs was The King’s Speech...BAFTA and the Oscars have not agreed on the year’s best film since 12 Years a Slave in 2013."
The Leading Actor award went to Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour); Director award to Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). The article in The Wrap has a complete list of the nominees and winners.
POSTED 3/5/2018
"How did "The Shape of Water," a movie about a mute cleaning woman falling truly, madly, deeply in love with a fish-man, wind up winning the Oscar for best picture? It starts with the power of love, the film's Oscar-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, says. 'Love is much stronger than hatred and it's much more powerful than fear,' Del Toro told The Times in a November interview. "Love is the antidote to what we're living through today." That timely resonance helped "The Shape of Water" become the first sci-fi film to win best picture....'It's set in 1962, but, for me, this is today," the Mexican-born Del Toro said. Pointing to the movie's Cold War era, he added: "When people say, 'Let's make America great again,' they're dreaming of that time. Everything was great if you were white Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. If you were anything else, you were [screwed]. So it's a false memory of that time.' The film's across-the-board support in the industry — it won top prizes from the Producers Guild and Directors Guild as well — was also probably aided by its baked-in love for cinema. Its main characters live above a beautiful movie theater, and the sound from the venue's showings bleeds into the action, making cinema a constant presence as it is in Del Toro's life."
"The Shape of Water" producer-director Guillermo Del Toro, left, and producer J. Miles Dale at the 90th Academy Awards. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Frances McDormand ("Three Billboards") onstage after winning the Oscar for lead actress. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Gary Oldman in the Oscars photo room. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Gary Oldman won his first Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour.”
POSTED 3/23/2018 /LAST UPDATED 5/16/2018
Based on the Hugo Award winning and New York Times best-selling book series by James S. A. Corey, The Expanse is a thriller set two hundred years in the future, after mankind has colonized the solar system. A hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together for what starts as the case of a missing young woman and evolves into a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history. (from the Blu-Ray.com synopsis)
Season 3 begins Wednesday April 11 on the SyFy channel.
The Expanse: Storylines, Questions And Thoughts For Season 3 (TiBS)
5/11/2018 - "Syfy has canceled its sweeping space epic, "The Expanse," after three seasons. The TV network will air its last "Expanse" episode in July, according to a report by Deadline.com, but the show's production company, Alcon Television Group, plans to shop the series to other networks." (space.com)
5/16/2018 - "After the show's cancellation on the Syfy channel last week, fans of the solar-system-spanning adventure "The Expanse" have rallied, encouraging Amazon and Netflix to pick up the show and garnering support from cast members and celebrities." (space.com)
POSTED JULY 18, 2018
POSTED SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
*Emmy's are awarded on television programming from June 1, 2017 until May 31, 2018
**The phrase comes from a speech by the FCC Chair of the time, Newton N. Minow
Answers to trivia
1. Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working television system on 26 January 1926. This is a bit of a trick question. Baird's television was a mechanical system. The first electronic television was invented in 1927 by 21 year old American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth.
2. In 1928, WRGB (then W2XB) was started as the world's first television station. It broadcast from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY. It is still broadcasting today.
3. Julia Louis Dreyfus has 9 wins and 24 nominations for her work on Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Veep.
4. UPDATE: Saturday Night Live won its 65th Emmy Monday night.
5. The DuMont Television Network, which had begun experimental broadcasts before the war, launched what Newsweek called "the country's first permanent commercial television network" on August 15, 1946, connecting New York City with Washington. Not to be outdone, NBC launched what it called "the world's first regularly operating television network" on June 27, 1947, serving New York City, Philadelphia, Schenectady and Washington. Baltimore and Boston were added to the NBC television network in late 1947. DuMont and NBC would be joined by CBS and ABC in 1948.
6. The Hallmark Hall of Fame has aired more than 250 episodes on various networks over the years and currently stands as the longest-running prime-time show in TV history. Its first program was in 1951.
7. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet ran for 14 seasons from 1952 - 1966.
8. The 1996 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, where Muhammad Ali lit the torch, was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion viewers globally.
9. Beginning almost simultaneously in Arkansas, Oregon and Pennsylvania in 1948, cable originally brought distant over-the-air television signals from miles away to mountainous or geographically remote areas.
10. iTunes began offering select television programs and series in 2005, available for download after direct payment.
POSTED SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (winner lead actress in a comedy series). Photo Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones (winner supporting actor in a drama series for the 3rd time). Photo Kevin Winter/Getty Images
POSTED OCTOBER 9, 2018
POSTED NOV 8, 2018
Sci-fi author Redfern Jon Barrett believes that creating utopias in fiction doesn’t just inspire people, but also brings these utopias closer to reality.
Utopian writing doesn’t need to create a masterpiece society in order to inspire us to build a better tomorrow. At its core, utopia is just the idea that we can work together to create something wonderful.
If we are to create fictional utopias, how to achieve them has to be part of the story, or else their inspirational nature is lost. We see this kind of balanced, politically-minded futurism in The Expanse, which isn’t a dystopia or a utopia, but somewhere in between. Black Panther also toyed with this idea, showing us the idealistic Wakanda in contrast to the oppression taking place elsewhere in the world—and proving that even Wakanda, a relatively utopian society, can always improve itself. (io9, link left for complete article)
POSTED JANUARY 29, 2019
POSTED FEBRUARY 26, 2019
POSTED SEP 13, 2019/UPDATED SEP 23, 2019
The speech is acknowledged to have helped steer the development of what was still a young medium, though some might argue that television is even more violent and bloody than it was 55 years ago–Minow had never seen Game of Thrones, after all. While the mayhem would endure, educational and informative programming, like the network news, advanced in scope during Minow’s tenure...In 2011, Minow told AdvertisingAge that greater consumer choice was the most important improvement in television in the decades that had elapsed since his speech—that by getting “vaster,” television was necessarily less of a wasteland.
POSTED DECEMBER 15, 2019
POSTED MARCH 24, 2020
The Dixie Chicks have released a new single from their first studio album in 14 years. Like Colin Kaepernick, they are a reminder that not only those in the political arena are slandered when they take a stand on injustice, oppose an unjust war, or just hold unpopular opinions. Like Kaepernick, the Dixie Chicks have paid the price for speaking truth to power.
In a London concert on March 10, 2003, as the Bush Administration was preparing to invade Iraq on the WMD lie, singer Natalie Maines said to the audience, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” Most of the world opposed that war seeing the deception that led to it. Not so country music fans. The anti-Dixie Chicks backlash began with "thousands of phone calls flooding country-music radio stations ...demanding that the Dixie Chicks be removed from the stations’ playlists. Soon some of those same stations were calling for a boycott of the recent Dixie Chicks’ album and of their upcoming U.S. tour." (1)
The Dixie Chicks were right in their stand against the war. The Iraq War and Occupation resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilized the Middle East, and will eventually cost as much as 7 trillion dollars. But those words "prompted most of their country music fan base and industry to boycott their albums and blacklist them from the airwaves." Their career was essentially done. Although the Dixie Chicks appeared sporadically in concerts and on various tracks over the years, Gaslighter will be their first studio album since 2006's Taking the Long Way." (2)
More insidious than the blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks were the McCarthy-era blacklists of entertainers, writers, movie directors, producers, and educators. From the early 1950s to the mid-1960s, many were prevented from working because of their political associations. At the time, the government was the driving force behind the suppression. But "the blacklist would never have had the reach it did—not merely in Hollywood [and our nation's colleges and universities], but throughout virtually every industry in the United States—had it not attracted a wide range of men and women to its cause."(3) For an eye-opening look at those times, see "The Beauty of the Blacklist: In Memory of Pete Seeger" in the sidebar. Seeger, unlike others brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee, chose to express his opposition to the Committee's witch hunt by citing the First (not the Fifth) Amendment.
The title single from Gaslighter was released earlier this month (link right). The album will be released May 1.
(And no...the Gaslighter of the title is not Donald Trump.)
(1) History.com
(2) Entertainment Weekly (link in sidebar)
(3) Crooked Timber website (link in sidebar)
POSTED SEPTEMBER 21, 2020
"The hit Canadian comedy "Schitt's Creek" made history on a very weird Emmy Awards night Sunday, sweeping the comedy categories, while "Watchmen" took best limited series and "Succession won four honors, including best drama. "Schitt's Creek" became the first TV show in Emmys history – comedy or drama – to sweep its night. It took seven honors including best comedy series, lead actor and actress for Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, and supporting actor and best writing for Daniel Levy." (USA Today and below left)
"Schitt's Creek," which premiered in January 2015, follows the formerly rich Rose family as they find themselves forced to give up their lavish lifestyle and move to a town in the middle of nowhere called Schitt's Creek. While at first rejecting their new normal, they eventually adjust, reconnecting and rediscovering the love they have for one another." (GMA and below right)
POSTED OCTOBER 15, 2020
POSTED DEC 3, 2020
POSTED MARCH 5, 2021
On August 23, 1968, I was one of 18,000 fans at the Singer Bowl in Flushing, New York, enjoying one of the greatest rock concerts of all-time. Two of the superstars of the era - Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix - had joined the Chambers Brothers whose "Time Has Come Today" had made it to #11 on Billboard.
The concert was just three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which would explode into a police riot with Mayor Daley's cops bashing antiwar protesters on national television. The year had already been one of tragedy with the assassinations of Martin Luther King in April and Bobby Kennedy in June. But, for this one mild summer night halfway between the Summer of Love and the Woodstock Music Festival, we were transported and energized by music to a more carefree and hopeful place.
I was unable to find any footage of the concert on YouTube, but did learn that a ticket for the concert is now selling for $725 on ebay. Here, then, are videos of Janis, Jimi, and the Chamber Brothers from other venues.
Left to right from the top: Janis Joplin in Frankfurt Germany 1969; album version of Me & Bobby McGee; Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" at the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival; his iconoclastic "National Anthem" at Woodstock; album version of Chambers Brothers "Time Has Come Today" - one of the landmark rock songs of the psychedelic era; promotional demo of Chambers Brothers "People Get Ready".
Post-script: In 1970, slightly more than two years after the Singer Bowl concert, tragedy struck again with the way-too-soon, drug-related deaths of Jimi Hendrix on September 18 and Janis Joplin on October 4. Both were just 27.
Three of the films nominated by the Academy for Best Picture feature characters from my generation - the post WWII baby boomers. Two of the nominees, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Judas and the Black Messiah, are based on historical events from 50 years ago. The winner, Nomadland, is based on a 2017 non-fiction book by journalist Jessica Bruder about the phenomenon of older Americans who, following the Great Recession (2007 to 2009), adopt transient lifestyles travelling around the United States in search of seasonal work.
Taken together, the three films give a somewhat damning picture of late twentieth and early twenty-first century America.
Nomadland
Let's start with the winner. I am glad I gave Nomadland a second chance. The beginning of the film set a scene so depressing, which included the desolation of an abandoned Nevada factory town and a lesson on how to get rid of bodily wastes while in a van, that I stopped watching it. In my second attempt, the expanses of the American West and the vignettes of these decent people down on their luck won me over.
Some of the most memorable scenes were Fern's (Best Actress winner Frances McDormand) conversations. Here are two which had she done nothing else in the film might have won her the Oscar.
Seeing a young man who had begun traveling with the nomads, Fern walks over, asks if he's hungry and offers him a sandwich. "Where are your mom and dad?"..."Back home in Wisconsin"..."You think they worry about you?" Fern then asks if he ever gets lonely, if he has a girl friend. He relates that he does and that she is living happily on a small farm in the North Country. He writes but she never answers his letters. "I just can't ever write about anything I reckon she'd care about"..."You ever write poems?"..."I can't say a know a one. You know any?"..."How about one I used for my wedding vow when I was not much older than you"..."Mind if I hear it?" Fern then begins a Shakespearean sonnet, one of the most beautiful poems ever written, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..."
It's the morning after a remembrance service for one of their fellow travelers, who had recently died back home. Fern tells Bob, who had been on the road for longer than most and who was one of the "leaders"' of the group, why she never left Empire after her husband Bo died. "If I didn't stay, if I left, it would be like he never existed...Same town, same house. It's like my dad used to say What's remembered lives" ...Bob then opens up about the tragedy that led him to life on the road - the death of his 28 year old son. "Today would have been his thirty-third birthday...And for a long time, the question was 'How can I be alive on this earth when he is not?' And I didn't have an answer. But I realized that I could honor him by helping people, and serving people. It gives me a reason to go through the day. Somedays that's all I've got." Their conversation ends with Bob telling what he most loves about this life on the road. "There's no final goodbye...I don't ever say a final goodbye...I always just say, "I'll see you down the road."
One character in the film suggests that Fern is fortunate because she, as well as the other nomads, can go anywhere they want. Rather than making me feel happy for Fern being so liberated, it reminded me of Kris Kristofferson's lyric, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." These men and women have experienced so much and done so much in their lives. Was this the best the American brand of neoliberal capitalism could offer?
The excellent review of Nomadland at the Irish Times [link below right] touches on this:
Playing out in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash, the picture encounters no whispers of nascent Trumpism among the travelling disenfranchised.
But there is unquestionably a sense here that the United States has left too many of its citizens behind...Communicating in an evasive murmur that conceals more than it reveals, [Fern, Frances McDormand] forms a stable core around which the largely superannuated eccentrics can safely rotate. Tensions are rare. Disagreements are contained. Yet the economic realities offer a constant threat. It is hard to imagine Nomadland working in any other contemporary democracy. That is partly to do with the overpowering landscape. It is partly to do with the particular outrages of American capitalism. But there is also a sense of Fern standing in for a unique class of individualist you find only in certain parts of the United States.
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Nomadland raises a good question: Why can't the richest nation the world has ever seen provide for all its people?
The answer is found, in part, in the peculiar American world view that eventually led to The Trial of Chicago 7. The Cold War era was one of rabid anti-communism, and, like all eras since WWII, it was characterized by huge defense expenditures supported by Congressional members of both parties. This peculiar world view is still with us:
The rabid anti-communism morphed into a form that now scares people by claiming programs designed to help the vulnerable and the at- risk members of society are "socialist." As a result, the United States has one of the weakest social safety nets of the Western democracies.
Defense expenditures continue to take enormous amounts of money from domestic programs. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe in WWII, said: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." Biden's 2022 defense budget calls for $753 billion - an increase of 1.6 percent.
The misguided Cold War era "Domino Theory " led us into Vietnam, a foreign policy fiasco even greater than the Iraq Invasion. In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. [1] Total US deaths in the Vietnam War numbered 58,000.
The protests in Chicago were protests against that war. The Chicago 7 were indicted because of their role in antiwar demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The clashes between police and protesters at the DNC was termed a "police riot" in the official report on the violence (The Walker Report). Nevertheless the incoming Nixon administration successfully pushed for the purported ringleaders of the protest – including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis – to be charged with conspiracy to incite a riot. On the opening day, the New York Times said on the front page: "This is the most significant political trial in American history."
The powerful closing scene in the movie has Tom Hayden reading the names of the US servicemen who had died in the war since the trial began. That the convictions were overturned does not detract from the wrongness of the Nixon Administration's prosecution of the protesters or from Judge Hoffman's biased handling of the case.
[1] Britannica
Judas and the Black Messiah
The Trial of the Chicago 7 began with eight defendants. Partway through the trial, the prosecution of Black Panther Bobby Seale was severed from the trial. The event leading to this was the killing of Fred Hampton. Bobby Seale's outrage at the killing and his courtroom reaction had Judge Hoffman order Seale bound and gagged. The Federal prosecutors decided this would surely lead to a mistrial and decided to sever Seale's case from the other seven defendants.
Judas and the Black Messiah is a film about the betrayal of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party at the hands of an FBI informant. It's also a story about police violence.
On December 4, 1969, fourteen plainclothes Chicago Police officers quietly filed out of an undercover truck, armed with pistols, a shotgun, a machine gun, and a detailed map of their target, an apartment occupied by leaders of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. Two were killed and four were critically wounded. One of the dead was Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, gunned down in his bed as he slept beside his eight month pregnant fiancée. [below right]
Black people are still being killed by police in their homes and on the streets. The Academy Awards were presented on the Sunday after Derek Chauvin was convicted in the murder of George Floyd. Several of the nominees and winners spoke about the America of 2021.
Regina King, who directed this year's Oscar-nominated film One Night in Miami, in her opening speech at this year's Academy Awards: "It has been quite a year, and we are still smack dab in the middle of it," she said, acknowledging the difficult year the country (and world) has faced during the coronavirus pandemic...[She] also referenced the recent verdict of Derek Chauvin..."We are mourning the loss of so many, and I have to be honest, if things had gone differently this past week in Minneapolis I may have traded in my heels for marching boots...I know that a lot of you people at home want to reach for your remote when you feel like Hollywood is preaching to you, but as a mother of a Black son I know the fear that so many live with, and no amount of fame or fortune changes that, OK? (USA Today, Apr 25)
Co-directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe won the Best Live Action Short Oscar for their film Two Distant Strangers, the story of a Black man stuck in a time loop forcing him to relive a fatal interaction with a cop. Travon Free's acceptance speech was one of the most powerful moments of the night. "Today the police will kill three people. And tomorrow the police will kill three people. And the day after that, the police will kill three people because on average the police in America every day kill three people, which amounts to about a thousand people a year. And those people happen to disproportionately be Black people." The filmmaker continued his speech with the James Baldwin quote "The most despicable thing a person can be is indifferent to other people's pain," and concluded by saying, "I just ask that you please not be indifferent. Please don't be indifferent to our pain." (Entertainment Weekly, Apr 25)
POSTED AUGUST 26, 2021
On Tuesday, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts passed away in a London hospital surrounded by his family.
He was the quiet one. There from the very beginnings of the most iconic band in rock and roll history, Charlie Watts gave the Rolling Stones its signature driving sound. Without him, the Stones, even with the histrionic performances of Jagger and Richards, might not have achieved their legendary status or kept the continuing appeal of their distinctive sound that somehow never seems dated.
Tributes to Charlie Watts and his music poured in from musicians around the world.
Mick Jagger posted a photo on Twitter of a smiling Watts seated behind a drum. Lead guitarist Keith Richards shared a picture of a drum set with a hanging “Closed” sign. Guitarist Ronnie Wood posted a photo of himself and his late bandmate captioned “I love you my fellow Gemini - I will dearly miss you - you are the best.” On Rollingstones.com, only a black-silhouetted portrait of Watts appeared. [link in sidebar]
Elton John called him "the ultimate drummer", while Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello tweeted: "Rock n roll would not be rock n roll without the rhythm, the style, the VIBE of this incredible musician. Rest In Peace #CharlieWatts, one of the greatest and most important architects of the music we love."
The Guardian's rock and pop music critic Alexis Petridis calls Charlie Watts "the calm, brilliant eye of the Rolling Stones’ rock’n’roll storm" in an excellent piece replete with anecdotes and insights on Watts' musicianship. Petridis also relates that Watts' first love was jazz and by his own admission didn't much care for rock'n'roll. At first, the other Rolling Stones "wondered if Watts was capable of even playing the music they wanted to play...Watts not only learned to rock, but came to be hailed as one of the greatest drummers in rock history...Both Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood suggested the Rolling Stones simply couldn’t continue without him. “Charlie’s the engine,” said Wood in 2003. “And we don’t go anywhere without the engine.” [link in sidebar]
The Ultimate Classic Rock website [link sidebar] introduces its post on the top 10 Charlie Watts songs with this: "Watts had quietly anchored the Rolling Stones for more than five decades, serving as their terrific rhythm section's key component, a solid and understated drummer whose love of jazz informed nearly every one of his professionally played beats."
Below are videos of live performances of some of my favorite Stones' songs. Focus on Charlie Watts' drumming. Now try to imagine those songs without Charlie Watts on drums. Impossible, right?
The Stones have been rocking for almost 60 years now. Twenty-seven years ago, in August 1994, my wife and I rushed to get tickets to a Giants' Stadium concert on the Stones' Voodoo Lounge tour. After all, this might be the last time they tour. How wrong we were!
The staid Encyclopedia Britannica sums it up well:
No rock band has sustained consistent activity and global popularity for so long a period as the Rolling Stones, still capable, more than 50 years after their formation, of filling the largest stadia in the world....the Rolling Stones’ nucleus of singer Jagger, guitarist Richards, and drummer Watts remains rock’s most durable ongoing partnership.
R.I.P. Charlie Watts.
Tumbling Dice (Some Girls - Live In Texas 1978)
Gimme Shelter (Live) - Official promo
Start Me Up (Copacabana Beach 2006)
You Got Me Rocking (Live) - Official promo
POSTED MARCH 30, 2022
I watched three of the nine films nominated for the Academy Awards' Best Picture: Don't Look Up, Dune, and CODA. A comedy/disaster film, a blockbuster sci-fi mega-production, and the award winner, a coming-of-age family drama.
CODA won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Troy Kotsur). Dune won Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects. Don't Look Up was nominated for four awards but took home zero.
Each was engrossing throughout. On an emotional level, CODA was the clear winner, and, though I did not watch the majority of the films up for Best Picture, CODA appears to have richly deserved the award.
So let's start with the winner.
CODA
CODA is both the acronym for Children of Deaf Adults and, in music, the passage that brings an end to a musical piece. The title works on three levels. Not only is the 17 year old daughter a hearing child of two deaf parents, she is also musically talented, and the coming of age story is, of course, a story about the end of childhood.
Written and directed by Sian Heder, CODA is based on the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier. The English-language remake centers on Ruby Rossi, the only hearing member of a Deaf family, who struggles to balance family obligations and her love of music.
Unlike La Famille Bélier, the actors who play Ruby's deaf mother, father and brother are indeed deaf. One of the challenges for the film crew was learning ASL (American Sign Language), and one of the most poignant moments in the film was the film's sound turning off as Ruby's parents watched her sing at a high school concert.
As her best friend drives her to Boston, Ruby turns and signs her parents. "I love you." Not at all obvious to one such as myself who does not know ASL, it is a reminder of the difficulty the Deaf face in communicating.
CNN [below] explains how involving deaf creators at every step of the production process – from ASL coaches for actors to consultants on story elements and blocking– improves both the story and the production. NPR calls the film "a triumph for the Deaf community." An estimated 1 million Americans cannot hear and an additional 10 million have serious difficulty hearing.
Dune
Great science fiction requires great world building, the creation of an immersive universe in which the story unfolds. In science fiction, including that brought to the screen, story is king and a well-built world can mean the difference between an epic and a disappointing read. Frank Herbert, Dune's creator, was a story teller and world builder par excellence.
It's been a long time since I read Frank Herbert's original novels and played the board game based on them. (The original Avalon Hill board game from 1979 is selling online for prices up to $240. Another epic science fiction series, The Expanse by James S.A. Corey, started out as an idea for a board game, turned into 10 novels and then 6 seasons streaming on Amazon.) Even if you've seen Dune (and its announced sequel), if you are a sci-fi fan who somehow hasn't yet read the Dune books, you should run (or navigate) to your favorite bookstore or library and begin the journey.
Dune is set in the far future, the year 10191 to be exact. Mankind has spread from Earth and colonized planets throughout the universe. The spice, melange, makes interstellar travel possible and is found on only one planet - the desert world of Arrakis inhabited by the nomadic Fremen and the 400-meter long Sandworms that make the spice. Needless to say the Imperium desires to control the spice and sends Great Families to govern the planet.
Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune is also a remake of the 1984 cult classic by David Lynch. Hard to compare the two since there's at least one sequel coming, but from what I remember the latest effort is the better film. Film technology has come a long way since 1984 and that may be part of it. Having said that, it is notable that Villeneuve's film won 6 Academy Awards and was nominated for 10.
Villeneuve's film covers about half of the first book. The story opens with the young Paul Atreides traveling with his family to Arrakis from their home world. For more on the complex far-future world created by Frank Herbert, see the "no spoiler" introduction to the film by Insider. [link below]
Don't Look Up
Don't Look Up is a genre-busting comedy-disaster film in the vein of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Like that Cold War satire about an insane general who launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, Don't Look Up received four Academy Award nominations but no win.
A stellar cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio as an anxiety-ridden astronomer, Jennifer Lawrence as his graduate student assistant, and Meryl Streep as a self-obsessed President of the United States who has installed her less than sharp son as her Chief of Staff.
A satire about the politicization of science (think "climate crisis" and "Covid"), the movie's focal point is a comet hurtling through space on a direct path to Earth. Two scientists alert the US government — "a clown town operation being helmed by a ridiculous president and her son, played by Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill — about the urgency of an event that could result in mass extinction but are repeatedly disregarded." (The Verge)
Besides the Trumpy President, the movie takes aim at other aspects of 21st life - among them, what floods the airwaves masquerading as news in the era of YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter; a Pentagon general who charges $20 apiece for snacks from a vending machine in the White House, a tech billionaire whose Plan B includes escaping in a private rocket, and a smartphone that senses your mood and vitals, automatically schedules therapy sessions and lets you live "Life, without the stress of living."
Although it did not win any Oscars, Don't Look Up ranks second on Netflix’s most popular film debuts. The official trailer is below.