Category Archives: Movies

The Irishman.

Movies

 

 

I am not a big Martin Scorsese fan. I know that makes me a Cretin, but there it is. I liked some of Scorsese’s early films, but most of the later films leave me cold.

The Irishman tells the story of Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran a Philadelphia mob hit man reputedly involved in the mysterious disappearance of the Teamsters’ union boss Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. It’s a movie about ‘ordinary’ mobsters growing old and loosing their claws. It stars some of our favorite actors also growing old. It took nearly an hour of watching the film before I started to warm to it.

I think I started to like it about when Jimmy Hoffa remarked, “The government and big business are coming after us when we need unity. We need solidarity.” Mobsters and corrupt union bosses may be of dubious character, but they need to get along with others. Their lives depend on it. At least so they think.

Technically, like any Scorsese film, it is brilliant. It is a period piece that really feels like it belongs to its era while speaking for all times. it employs some great technology to make some of the actors look a lot younger or older than they are. That was pretty neat. Before the film is over, all the old men are dead or in jail. Frank’s daughter who witnessed him explode at a grocer who had in his view been disrespectful to Sheeran’s young daughter was obviously scared of her own father. After that she felt she could not come to him for help. It was too likely to turn violent.

The mobsters are family men. Is that enough for us to have fellow feeling for them? It helps, but is it sufficient? The mobsters are kind to each other’s children and spouses. Does that make them good people? I don’t think so. These are family men who can kill ruthlessly.

In one scene, old Frank, went in a wheel chair to pick out a casket. He bought a green casket. Does that signify renewal? I admit I did not find much regenerative in this film. Scorsese showed the mobsters as ordinary people, with wives, children, girlfriends and friends, but was not able to put a lot of life into this film.

After Hoffa disappears the cops question Frank as to his involvement and he refuses to speak. Frank says, “I can’t.” He can’t rat out anyone. It is not in his DNA. The Code of the Mobster is too strong, even when there is no reason to be bound by it anymore.

When he is old and in personal care home, he asks the nurse, “I’m still alive?”  The nurse responds positively and Frank replies, “It’s good to know.”  Sometimes it is difficult to know if he is alive or not. Sometimes he sees to be part of the living dead now that he no longer has claws at least.

At the end of it all, his daughter asks him, ‘What’s the point?’  That’s the point.

I was intrigued by the conversation between the hit man and the mobster. They talked in Code. Like Trump and his people. They always talk in code so they have deniability. Like a judge or jury we are expected to make reasonable inferences about what is going on. Like when Trump asks the leader of the Ukraine to do him a favor when they are discussing the military aid he held back. He always wants to maintain deniability. That way the mobster can always claim, “The conversation was perfect.” But we all know what happened.

In the end, the old men have learned nothing. Frank refuses to rat out anyone, even though all his friends are dead. Even though it would make no difference he can’t rat them out.

The movie was worth seeing, but I would not say it was great.

Little Women

Movies

The movie Little Women was written and directed by the very brilliant film maker,  Greta Gerwig.  A while back I blogged about undergoing a sex change operation. I suggested my name had been changed to Johanna. Now I will add fuel to that fire.  Here it is:  I enjoyed the movie Little Women more than any action movie I have seen in the last 5 years! There it is. I am out of the closet!

This film had some important things to say and it did so in an entertaining way. It reminded us that women often recognize that love is important, even very important, but so is the life of the mind and there is no reason why women should not participate in that life as much as any man.  I also liked what one of the sisters, Meg, said to her sister Jo: “Just because my dreams are different from yours doesn’t mean they’re not important.” Women  have the right to resist being put into boxes they are pressured to stay inside. This is an important lesson for men and women of all ages. It is easy to succumb to such pressures. It is brave to resist.

We also had an interesting experience in the theatre.  There were only 6 people watching the film.  And 2 of them sat right beside us. These were 2 women. Not only that, but they chatted or commented annoyingly throughout the film. Why did they do that? Then, near the end of the film 2 more women walked in  and one of them stopped right in front of Chris and asked her if she was in the right seat, implying that Chris was in her seat. Chris responded by waving her away and saying yes she had been sitting in her assigned seat for the entire film. The woman was obviously coming in too early for the next show. The lesson I learned: Yes women can be brave, but they can also be a pain in the ass.

 

Montreal Massacre: Not a Mad man

Male Dominance, Movies, violence

I watched the film Polytechnique as part of a local event reminding us of the Montreal Massacre of 30years ago. The film is a powerful re-enactment of the horrific event at the  Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989.

There was an interesting disjunction that evening.  Our Member of Parliament, Ted Falk, failed to attend, but did send a written, well written in fact, comment. But in it he referred to the killer, who killed  himself when he was done, as a “madman.”  During the film the killer called himself “a rational person.”  This may surprise, but I think the killer was right. Our MP was wrong. He was not a madman. And that is the real chilling aspect of this case. He was not mad. He was not errant. He was the natural product of more than a century of male dominance. He was the logical conclusion of that dominance.

People who have power rarely give it up gently. In fact, people who have power see any opposition to that power as deeply irrational. It does not make sense, because their power makes perfect sense. They deserve the power. So invariably they believe. That is true of tyrants and it is equally true of ordinary male supremacists. They can’t even see the incongruity.   White male power is natural. Many even claim it is endorsed by God. Just goes to show you how irrational men can be.

All too often men who see their power slipping away react badly. Sometimes, as in the case of Marc Lepine, the Montreal mass killer, their resentment explodes into irrational rage.  No I don’t think Lepine was a madman. I wish he was. It would be easier to deal with than the truth.

 

Aretha’s Amazing Grace

Movies, religion

 

Although it was only released in 2018, in 1972 a professional film crew filmed an amazing 2 concerts in a small  Baptist church in Los Angeles, where Aretha Franklin decided to return to her roots as a gospel singer.  The film is called Amazing Grace. This was no mega-church. Franklin had starred as a gospel singer from a very young age. She started out accompanying her father on his traveling religious revival shows and later she began recording songs in his church as the age of 14.

The 1972 concert was delivered at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts a suburb of Los Angeles California, and was backed by the Southern California Community Choir. As the leader of the choir and singer in his own right, James Cleveland said, it was not a concert it was a religious service. To me there is no finer religious music than southern African-America gospel. That is what religion is all about. That is why I like the gospel hour every Sunday during the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

Despite the fact that the film was directed by Oscar award wining Sydney Pollack, who appears from time to time in the film, the filming was botched and the words were not properly synchronized with the images. Yet despite that, the night was (in my opinion) a miracle, and a second miracle occurred more than 40 years later when producer Alan Elliot worked out the technical problems and released the film in 2018. In the film there’s even a brief glimpse of a young Mick Jagger catching the Holy Spirit. Apparently Charlie Watts was also in the film, but I failed to recognize him. Perhaps that was because he did not yet show the years of his own heavy abuses.

The cinematography is simple or even amateurish, devoid of tricks or magic. But magic was not needed. The voice was all the magic anyone needed. Let me acknowledge at the outset that not all agreed with my enthusiasm. I saw it with my lovely wife and 4 friends.  Some of our group were not as impressed as I was. But they can write their own blogs. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone Magazine agreed with me.  He wrote, “And here she is, barely saying a word to the congregation, knowing instinctively that her singing is all that matters when the time comes to worship and to preach. That truly is amazing grace. How sweet the sound.”

Some of our group was disconcerted by Aretha’s passivity in front of her father. Why was she so passive? She said hardly a word. It is one thing to let your singing voice do your talking but was there more to it than that. At one point during the performance, her father, leaped onto stage to wipe her face because she was sweating so profusely. Aretha on the other hand was entirely meek and mild. All except her glorious voice. It rang loud and true.

Some of our party were disturbed when thanks to Professor Google we learned that Aretha’s father the Baptist Minister, C.L. Franklin, was ushered into the church to fawning applause. He was treated not as a minister, but a God. And we all know by now what happens when religious leaders are treated like gods. Exploitation or abuse is often quick to follow. Apparently that is what happened with Aretha’s father.

According to Aretha’s biographer, David Ritz, her father, a sweetly smooth talking Baptist Minister had more than a roving eye, particularly for young girls. It was said that the people of his congregation adored him, but kept a close eye on their young daughters when he was around. Ritz claimed in his book Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, that his church services often transformed into bacchanalian orgies. “It was the point where Saturday night merged into Sunday morning and sin met salvation at the crossroads of African American musical culture. High on the Holy Ghost, dancing in the aisles of New Bethel, the saints celebrated the love of Christ,” Ritz wrote. “High on wine and weed, the party people celebrated the love of the flesh.”The Washington Post, reported it this way:  “Ray Charles once visited the church and, despite his own propensity for promiscuous sexual experiences, was shocked, according to Ritz”.

Did an overbearing if not abusive father cow Franklin into submission? I don’t know.  What I know, is that, Aretha Franklin, the legitimate Queen of Soul, had a voice that allowed her to escape any attempt to constrain her. Remember though that I know nothing about music. I just know I liked it a lot. Watching her perform, I agreed with what Travers said, “It’s the closest thing to witnessing a miracle — just some cameras, a crowd and a voice touched by God.”

The congregation and guests were also worth seeing. The guests included the voluptuous African-American singer Clara Ward proudly strutting into the church dressed to the nines and absurdly covered by a heavy mink coat on a hot L.A. night. I enjoyed watching the choir leader who was a close match for Franklin’s rational exuberance and some of the dancers were so good, to use a phrase of W, B. Yeats and Don Henley we could not tell the dancer from the dance. The members of the congregation and choir were often off their seats waving, dancing, and singing with joy.

If you want to see a miracle go see the film at Cinematheque in Winnipeg or a good theatre near you.

Free  Solo

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Movies, Rebel, Sport, World of ideas

 

 

I watched the documentary film Free Solo about the promise of Alex Honnold to climb a massive slab of granite called El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It is a granite monolith about 3,000 ft. (900 m.) from base to summit. It is a massive hunk of rock. Free solo is a mountain or rock climbing technique that means the climber ventures forth entirely without safety equipment of any sort.

At the outset let me say it: I am a chicken. I would never do anything remotely like what Alex Honnold did. I have not the slightest desire to even try.  I also want to admit at the outset that I am fearfully afraid of heights. I get queasy just thinking about what he did. I got queasy watching rock climbers with ropes and equipment climb a rock mountain in Zion National Park 2 years ago. For me, I would have a hard time standing near the edge of the summit, let alone anywhere on the face without ropes or equipment.

I was scared of watching the film because I had been told that anyone who was scared of heights probably should not watch. I wondered what might happen to me from the comfort of my couch as I watched it. How cowardly is that?

I have only seen rock climbers once. That was 2 years ago in Zion National Park. We were beside what I thought was a massive monolith. We saw the climbers from the ground and looking up they appeared as miniscule people. Frankly, I could hardly watch them from down on the ground. I thought the climbers were nuts. And they all had ropes.  In the movie Free Solo I learned that this free solo climb in Zion was an easy preparation for El Cap. Nothing to it was Honnold’s attitude. To me that seemed incomprehensible.

It is interesting to note that Honnold was going to climb with a film crew following every step, often from a safe distance. That must have added to the pressure.

I found one thing very interesting in the film. Alex said, “in free soloing you come as close to perfection as you will ever get, because even the slightest mistake means you will die.” I always think the pursuit of perfection is insane. This type of perfection is even crazier. Perfection, as they say is the enemy of the good. I would add it is the enemy of sanity.

I admit to some unease about the film interviews with Alex. Was the purpose to glorify the attempt? If so I do not want to be a part of it. I think it is a crazy thing to try. No it is an insanething to try. I hope the film does not lead others to try it too to grab some glory. The glory could be short-lived.

The first person to climb El Capitan climbed it together with a partner  in 47 days using “siege” tactics. This means they climbed expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route linking established camps along the way and using  aid climbing with ropes, pitons, and expansion bolts to make it to the summit. Even then it took nearly 2 months.

It was ascended again 2 years later by a group of 4 in 7 days. Today it usually takes a group of fit climbers about 4 to 5 days to do it. In 1975 a group of 3 climbers did it in 1 day.

The first solo ascent (not free solo) was accomplished in 10 days in 1968. In time some climbers sought ways to climb El Cap either free or with minimal aid. On June 3, 2017 Alex Honnold completed the first free solo climb of El Capitan without any protective equipment whatsoever. The film is about that climb. He ascended the Freerider route in 3 hours and 56 minutes.

The filming was spectacular with some fabulous 360°shots.  A number of times I was almost ill watching. Remember I’m a chicken.  It was that intense when he made some moves that required stunning body twists and holding himself with a thumb or a couple of fingers and a quick movement of a foot for a slight toe-hold from one tiny ledge to another. Imagine holding yourself up with a thumb? Or a toe? It really seemed like an impossible achievement.

Even though the cameramen at times had to look away as well, one of them said, “Alex is having the best day of his life.” Was he? Why? I really don’t get it.

I personally have no need to seek out thrills.  I don’t want to support it (even though I paid to see the film). I would not want to encourage anyone to take such chances for no real purpose.

Now I know there is nothing gained by me going to photograph wild flowers, or writing this silly blog, but at least I am not putting my life in danger. I get lots of excitement from traveling the world of ideas. I would rather venture forth in the world of ideas than climb a mountain, or walk across Antarctica, or run 29 miles in the Sahara desert. Each to our own. I don’t say my puny achievements are better. They are just better for me.

It was interesting to me that no one in the film encouraged Alex to climb the mountain free solo. Not one person. His girlfriend clearly would have preferred him not to do it, but I also felt perhaps she enjoyed soaking up some of the glory surrounding Alex. She did not stick around to watch him climb. Alex admitted he did not have to do it.  He chose to do it. Even after months of preparation by him and the film crew he said, “I know I could walk away from it, but I just don’t want to.”  He wanted to try it, knowing he might die in the attempt. But he gave no powerful reason for doing it.

What is the morality of a person doing something as crazy as this so we might behold his achievement? I don’t know. I don’t think I want to encourage it, but I guess I did. I don’t know why. Chris did not want to see the film because that would be like encouragement to others to try it too.

Honnold also said he did not want to die in front of his friends who were filming him. None of them wanted to do anything to distract him. They were very careful to avoid that while filming him. It must have added a serious element of extra danger to do what Honnold did with a film crew constantly around him. He even said he was tempted to just do it all alone one day without all the fuss. Just sneak out int he morning and do it. But then no one would know you did it. Why should that matter?

Honnold also claimed he was doing it “for all the right reasons”. What could that possibly mean? He did not explain. Can you conceive of a right reason? I can’t. Even Honnold admitted that it seemed odd to him to say he was doing it for the right reasons when he was climbing with an entourage of a crew.

At the end Alex said, “What a journey.”  That was his summation. That is a pretty prosaic statement for such an amazing achievement. That leads me to think that the entire effort was actually entirely banal. There was no good reason to do. He could not explain one. I don’t think there was one. Hannah Arendt wrote when she covered the Nuremberg Nazi trials after World War II that evil was banal. Sometimes that is true.  But I would add that so is spectacle. Spectacle is banal. Sports achievements are all ultimately banal. It may be briefly fun. But there is no important reason for them. There is no good reason, other than to have some fun and get in shape and experience some competition. Extreme sports achievements are all, in my opinion, banal.

         I know you have to be brave to do what Alex Honnold did. I don’t have that kind of courage. None of it to be precise. But you also have to be brave to dissent from the almost unanimous opinions of your friends or community. You have to be brave to strike out on your own on new lines of thought. You have to be brave to speak up when someone else is espousing racist views. You have to be brave to attack your own convictions because you never know where that will lead you.  That is the kind of bravery I wish I had.

Academy Awards 2019

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Movies

 

This is probably one of the stupidest posts I have ever made. And that is saying a lot in view of some of my really stupid posts.  I have seen all the films nominated for Academy Awards plus one other that is relevant, If Beale Street Could Talk.  So based on this limited knowledge I will predict the Best from some fo the top categories that I have seen.  As a result I can’t predict Glen Close because I did not see the film she appeared in but today I heard an expert say she was a lock.

Cinematography—A Star is Born

Sound Editing–Black Panther

Sound Mixing– Black Panther

Production Design–Black Panther

Costume Design–Black Panther

Best Original Song–Shallow, A Star is Born

Best Document Feature–RBG (the only one I saw, but I liked it a lot)

Best Foreign Language Film–Roma

Film Editing–Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Original Screenplay–Roma

Best Original Score– Black Panther

Best Adapted Screenplay–If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Original Screenplay–Roma

Best Supporting Actor–Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansmen

Best Supporting Actress–Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Actor–Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Actress–Lady Gaga, A Star is Born (I liked her best of all the films I saw)

Best Director–Roma  Cuaron

Best Picture–Roma

 

 

 

Black Panther

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Movies

 

I know this movie is hugely popular. Even the critics liked it. But I just didn’t like it. I know I was prejudiced going in. I really don’t like superhero movies. I know that is heresy, but there it is. I am sick of computer generated films and, this is genuine apostasy, I am getting tired of action movies. I grew up on action movies, but I can’t remember the last one I liked. I think action movies have run their course. Time for something new.

I understand that this film is one in a long series of movies based on Marvel comics. I don’t think I have seen any of them. Based on this movie, the best of the series I am told, I don’t want to see anymore. I’m done.

I know this movie was made largely by African-Americans. That is wonderful. Now I know that they can make movies that are just as bad as  movies made why whites.

Chris and I have been on a wonderful project: to see all the films nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. The beauty of such a project is that we watched some movies we might not have watched except for that. This was the last one we saw. In my opinion it was also the least worth seeing.

Super heroes never die; Super hero movies should die.

BlacKkKlansman

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Extremism, Movies, racism, Trump

 

 

 

The film BlacKkKlansman written by Spike Lee and others and also directed by Lee, is based on a memoir written by Ron Stallworth in 2014. The film is set in the early 1970s and tells the story of Stallworth who was the first black African-American detective in Colorado Springs. Amazingly Stallworth infiltrated the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan (‘KKK’) by posing as a white supremacist on the telephone. When face-to-face meetings were necessary his colleague at the Police Department, also amazingly, was  a Jew, but nonetheless stepped in to help out posing as Stallworth.  He showed up at meetings in the basement of a KKK member whose wife served cheese and crackers to those planning racially based attacks.

The portrait of the Klan members is not flattering. Their racism seems impossible. How could people have the crazy ideas they had? I kept thinking that Lee ought to have made a film about covert racism instead of the easy target of the KKK. After all there can’t be any racists like that anymore, I thought.  Yet the more I thought about the film the more I realized that is not true.  Many of the Klan members expressed views that seem to have come directly from Trump. They said that they just wanted American First and wanted to make it great again. By which of course they meant they white and non-Jewish.

Stallworth said the US would never elect someone “like Duke”, the leader of the Klan.  We as the audience experienced a hush at this point, knowing how in 2016 they did exactly that. Such racism is alive and “well” in the U.S as it is in Canada. Canada just picks a different target–indigenous people.

I was particularly affected by the racism of the women in the film.  One of the KKK members was affectionately hugging his spouse while she coos about how grateful she is that after all these years they are finally going to “kill some niggers.” She loves her husband for giving her this glorious opportunity. And then there were women watching a racist film at a Klan meeting who responded viscerally to a scene where a black man was lynched by a “brave” mob of whites. Watching it, as we cringed, she yelled, “String em up,” reminding me of how Trump’s female supporters would shout out at Trump rallies at the mention of Hillary Clinton, “Lock her up.”

The film ends with a shock. Lee included actual video footage from the 2017 Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville where various white supremacists, including David Duke the Klan leader, marched the streets of the city Virginia. The march included self-identified members of the far-right, alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and others. The white supremacist marchers chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, carried semi-automatic rifles (Virginia is an open carry state), Nazi symbols including the swastika, and of course, Confederate flags. Many wore Trump “Make America Great Again” hats.

The footage of the rampage was shocking. It showed men violently attacking counter protesters and a car mowing down pedestrians. About 40 of the counter protesters were injured and 1 was killed. One of them was paralyzed as a result of the attacks.

Not that all the counter protesters were without blemish. Some of them egged on the supremacists. These days it is sadly not uncommon for Leftists to forget that people who disagree with them also have freedom of speech.

After that the film switched to a few of Trump’s reactions to the events. Trump did not clearly criticize the white supremacists, but instead said, “There were good people on both sides.” The two sides were hardly equivalent.

It’s not surprising that after Trump’s comments Duke the KK leader  responded by calling the protests “a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.” After Trump’s subsequent tweets Duke thanked Trump for telling the truth and the fact that he “condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Anitfa.” Later when Trump did finally criticize the white supremacists, Duke reminded Trump to  “take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.” Duke knows a racist when he sees one, even if millions of Trump supporters either don’t or don’t care.

I was wrong.  This is  an important movie. Clearly such blatant racism is not a thing of the past. It is the “history of the present” to use an expression by Pankaj Mishra.

The film closed quietly with a simple but dramatic image: the American flag lying upside down, gradually turning from full color to black and white. As seems to be happening so much in America (and Canada too), many people don’t seem to see in colour any more. Everything is black and white. The extremes are winning. I hope I am wrong about that.