A lot of people find The Zone of Interest to be a powerful, unsettling movie. Five Oscar nominations, including Picture, International Feature, Director, and Adapted Screenplay (as well as Sound, which I think is appropriate). Winner of four awards at Cannes, 43 wins and counting overall. A 91/100 Metascore at Metacritic.
I didn't care for it.
The subject matter is important (banality of evil in Nazi Germany). The approach is intriguing (the commandant at Auschwitz and his family live next door to the camp). The use of sound is brilliant (the family might ignore what's going on over the wall, but we can always hear noises). Clearly, much of the audience is getting something from the movie. But I found the insistence on banality to ultimately be so banal that it was boring. And that might be the point, but it's always hard to portray boring on screen without succumbing to being a boring movie. The Zone of Interest isn't boring, because it's about Auschwitz.
But some of Glazer's decisions are puzzling. On occasion, the picture turns into a kind of negative image ... it looks almost like rotoscoping ... and I guess I'm dense, but I never understood why Glazer did that. Maybe I'm just not on Glazer's wavelength ... I hated his Sexy Beast, and didn't care for Under the Skin. As I once wrote, "I found little to like as I watched Under the Skin, although afterwards, I felt more kindly, blaming myself for not liking it instead of blaming the movie for being bad." The Zone of Interest is not bad, but I'm less ready to blame myself, having now seen three of Glazer's movies and not liking any of them. I've now seen 9 of the 10 Best Picture Oscar nominations, and I liked the other 8 more than I liked The Zone of Interest (to say nothing of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Boy and the Heron, or Godzilla Minus One).
This is the twentieth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-24", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 9th annual challenge, and my fifth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", and "2022-23"). Week 20 is called "The Female Gaze Week":
The numbers, as you can probably imagine, are terrible. The Celluloid Ceiling reports that only 7% of the top 250 highest-grossing movies in 2022 employed female cinematographers. A lousy seven percent! Hearteningly, women continue making slow but steady inroads into the industry, but still, it could be a lot better. After all, a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences make for a far more varied and rewarding cinematic landscape; we should all consider ourselves blessed to see the world through someone else's eyes.
Chloë Grace Moretz has snuck up on me. I don't think of her as one of my favorites, although I loved her so much in Kick-Ass that I made her my Facebook avatar. But The Miseducation of Cameron Post is the 7th movie with Moretz I have seen, and while she's not always the lead, the movies are often quite good, and she usually stands out. About Kick-Ass, I wrote, "the #1 reason to watch Kick-Ass is Chloë Grace Moretz." She was one of the best things in Scorsese's Hugo, and she carries the action movie Shadow in the Cloud.
Moretz is the titular Cameron Post, a teenager caught making out with another girl at her prom, who is sent to a "conversion" camp. The film is more low-key than you'd expect ... the "camp" is creepy and quietly abusive of the kids, but the film is more a character study of young people than it is a diatribe against conversion therapy. In a scene where Cameron is questioned by an investigator after one of the kids tries to kill himself, she explains how the camp works on the teens. She says she feels safe, but that she doesn't trust the staff members. Asked if she thinks the staff has her best interests in mind, she replies, "No one's, you know, beating us. But you asked me if I trust them. And sure, I trust them to drive the van safely, and I trust them to buy food." Told that the investigator isn't there to examine the mission of the facility "unless that includes abuse or neglect", Cameron asks, "Yeah, but what about emotional abuse?" Moretz speaks softly, but her face speaks loudly ... she wears that emotional abuse where we can see it.
The challenge this week was to watch a film with a female cinematographers, and the reference to a female gaze is appropriate. But the collaborative nature of film making means I can't always separate the contributions of the various crew members from the writer and director. Director Desiree Akhavan co-wrote the screenplay with Cecilia Frugiuele, from a novel by Emily M. Danforth, with Ashley Connor as cinematographer. Who is ultimately responsible for the film? All of them, although it's the standard that we start with the director (this was Akhavan's second feature, although she has worked frequently in television). I think a director's job is partly to elicit good performances from the cast, and you get that here, not just from Moretz, but from almost everyone (Jennifer Ehle is a bit stereotypical as the villain).
The Miseducation of Cameron Post won't beat you over the head, and some might wish there was more of that kind of style. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, but there was no big fight to get distribution rights, and it wasn't ever shown much in theaters, meaning it lost money, even with a budget of under $1 million. It deserves more attention than it got. The Miseducation of Cameron Post hides in that place between good and great movies, it's worth seeing, and Moretz is once again a standout.
James Whale once again lends his particular brand of horror to Universal, following Frankenstein and The Old Dark House with The Invisible Man. This latest film looks ahead to The Bride of Frankenstein, although to my taste Whale overdoes the humor here. The Bride is many things, funny being only one of them, while The Invisible Man is mostly special effects that still impress 90 years later and some over-the-top comedic acting.
Claude Rains makes what is effectively his screen debut. I don't think of him as having a particularly recognizable voice, yet from the moment the Invisible Man speaks, you know it's Rains. Una O'Connor is basically comic relief, and a little goes a long way, but she makes more sense ... when Rains is goofing, it makes the movie less horror than slapstick, while O'Connor is only there for the laughs.
There's nothing really noteworthy about the movie in the end, beyond those special effects. Gloria Stuart has the female lead, and she had a fascinating career (no, a fascinating life ... among other things, she lived to be 100), culminating when she played old Kate Winslet in Titanic and got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. The Invisible Man is worth a watch if you haven't seen it, nothing more. It does have a surprisingly large kill count, if that matters to you.
Paul Giamatti is one of our best actors, and in The Holdovers, he teams up again with Alexander Payne ... the two made Sideways together. I've liked most of the Payne movies I have seen (exception: About Schmidt). There's an Oscar-nominated performance from Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Giamatti is also nominated), and an excellent debut from young newcomer Dominic Sessa. Payne and his team, including cinematographer Eigil Bryld, took great care to recreate not just the look of 1970, but the look of films made in 1970. There is a lot of impressive work going on in The Holdovers, work you can see as you are watching.
So why didn't I like it all that much? I feel bad criticizing it ... I wouldn't be surprised if it won an Oscar or two, and I imagine it's crowd pleasing (watching it might become one of those annual Xmas traditions). I feel as curmudgeonly as the prep school teacher Giamatti plays in the film.
And I might have hit on my problem with The Holdovers, one that is entirely on me. I didn't like Giamatti's teacher ... at the beginning, at least, we aren't supposed to like him. But part of my dislike had less to do with how the character is written and more to do with the ways he reminded me of the negative aspects of myself. It's a standard Your Mileage May Vary. No one else should take my reaction to the film as anything beyond personal.
Beyond my subjective response, the script by David Hemingson (also nominated for an Oscar) is too formulaic. You know that somehow the teacher will be redeemed by the end of the movie. Certain specifics about the lives of characters are withheld until they can have the maximum impact, which isn't how life works. (The teacher has a secret from his past, Sessa's student has a troubled history with his family.) Everything moves along in an efficient way, but I never believed any of these characters were real people, yet I felt we were supposed to be responding to them as if they were authentic.
So I can imagine an audience for The Holdovers, even an audience that will return to the film frequently over the years. But I don't need to see it again.
Rod Stewart, "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)". I didn't get around to seeing Rod live until the end of 1977, which was far too late. A Night on the Town was the last time it didn't embarrass me to listen to him, but in truth, he was already a few years and a few albums past his magnificent peak.
The Manhattans, "Kiss and Say Goodbye". The biggest hit for this group, who had been recording since 1964. Legend is that when Winfred "Blue" Lovett wrote the song, he thought it would be a good one for Glen Campbell to record.
Diana Ross, "Love Hangover". The Supremes were my least favorite of the major Motown groups, which doesn't mean I didn't like them. But my taste always ran more to the Southern soul of Aretha and Otis, and so I preferred Martha and the Vandellas to the Supremes. Ross didn't do much for me on her own, either, but there's no denying "Love Hangover".
"Don't Leave Me This Way" was intended as the follow-up to "Love Hangover" (they sound a lot alike), but it was given to Thelma Houston, for which I thank the powers that be, because this is one of my all-time favorite songs.
Maestro gets so many things right, I'm not sure the wrong stuff matters. Some of that stuff is about omissions ... while Bernstein's bisexuality is an ongoing part of the narrative, there's not a lot of actual sex on the screen, and the political activism of Leonard and Felicia (immortalized by Tom Wolfe in his hit piece "These Radical Chic Evenings") is barely mentioned. In fact, for the most part, even music is presented in an oddly peripheral way. We see how the music affects Bernstein, and we see how his passion for music affects audiences, but the passion is the focus more than is the music.
And there is nothing wrong with this. Maestro is more a character study than a biopic, and as someone who isn't usually a fan of biopics, I think it's a smart move.
Cooper demonstrates a good feel for his fellow actors. Carey Mulligan is the best thing about the movie. Cooper himself at times comes across as Oscar bait ... he directed it, he produced it, he wrote it, he starred in it, of course he's going to have some big scenes. And he's fine. His directing decisions are puzzling, though. The film switches from color to black and white and back again, and the aspect ratio changes, and I'm sure Cooper has his reasons, but in interviews those reasons don't convince me the changes are necessary. But neither are they deal-breakers.
Ultimately, Maestro is very good as you watch it, but looking back, I find myself with more questions than hosannahs. It's a worthy film, with a great performance by Mulligan, and that's more than enough.
The film has been nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. I've seen 7 of the 10 nominees, and I liked all of the others more than Maestro, but again, that doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's no crime to be good but not up to the standard of Anatomy of a Fall or Past Lives.
My current Top 10 of 2023 (haven't seen American Fiction, The Holdovers, or The Zone of Interest, all of which got Best Picture Oscar nominations):
This is the nineteenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2023-24", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is the 9th annual challenge, and my fifth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", and "2022-23"). Week 19 is called "Contemporary Performers: Michelle Yeoh Week":
Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh began her career in Hong Kong action films. She became an international star after appearing in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She has continued to appear in action, sci-fi, and comedy films, combining all three with her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once, for which she became the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress.
This week's challenge is to watch a film starring Michelle Yeoh.
It isn't a very big challenge to get me to watch a Michelle Yeoh movie. I'm a big fan ...Magnificent Warriors (also known as Dynamite Fighters) marks the 17th Michelle Yeoh movie I've seen. A biographical summary of Yeoh's career is complicated. She was only 22 when she made her first movie, going under the name "Michelle Khan", a name change suggested by the studio D&B Films. She broke out with her second film, Yes Madam, which was followed by Royal Warriors, and then Magnificent Warriors ... the latter two had the same director (In the credits for the version we saw, on the Criterion Channel, she was listed as "Michelle Kheng"... her name at birth was "Yeoh Choo Kheng"). She made one more movie, then married Dickson Poon (the D of D&B) and retired from acting. She was 25.
Five years later, she got a divorce and returned to movies. She made some of her best movies then, including Police Story 3: Super Cop, The Heroic Trio, and Wing Chun. All that was left was to conquer Hollywood, which she did in 1997 with the James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies (finally listed in the credits as Michelle Yeoh). Her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon solidified her place on the world stage. Finally came Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar.
Magnificent Warriors, with its Indiana Jones feel, is about even with Royal Warriors in terms of quality. Those two, and Yes Madam, are all fun to watch, and Yeoh/Khan/Kheng has clear screen charisma. If you are going to start your Michelle Yeoh marathon, though, start with the post-retirement films, enjoy the "famous " ones next, and then you're on your own. Even a bad movie is made better by her presence.
This is appropriately moody, and Boris Karloff is typically excellent. The problem is that the Mummy isn’t the most fascinating monster Universal came up with in their glory years. He’s not a vampire, he’s not a man-made creature, he’s not a werewolf, he’s just a guy in a tattered outfit with a jones for his lady love of 3700 years ago. It’s probably true that this is the best Mummy movie ever made. That’s just not as big a compliment as it sounds.
Watching it again, I'd say I understated the interest the Mummy evokes in us. Truthfully, he's at least as fascinating as Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. But he's not very scary.
Director Karl Freund is a legendary figure in film history, although not for his directing. Freund was a cinematographer, one of the most innovative of his time. Later in his career, he was the cinematographer for I Love Lucy, also innovative in its day. Apparently, being nice to Zita Johann was not one of his finer points ... Johann, who played the reincarnation of the Mummy's love (or something like that), did not get along with Freund (or vice versa). There are numerous stories that Freund mistreated her during the filming of the movie. It doesn't show up on the screen, for what it's worth.
We bought our house in 1987. When we moved here, we brought our cat, Mr. Kitty. He quickly found a girl cat he liked, brought her home to us, knocked her up, and disappeared. (Men!) Mrs. Kitty (and their son, Little Mr. Kitty) lived here until 2005 or so. When Mrs. Kitty was at the end of her life, we got Starbuck ... the next year, we got Six and Boomer. Thus, there has never been a cat-free day at this house since we got here more than 36 years ago.
But now Six, Starbuck, and finally Boomer are gone. We won't get new cats until May, as we are hoping to be in Spain during April. It's an empty house tonight.
Glen Campbell, "Rhinestone Cowboy". I admit I never quite connected with Campbell, but I respected what he did. His work as a studio musician (and Shindig! semi-regular) was impressive.
Ohio Players, "Love Rollercoaster". The Ohio Players were known for their "risque" (i.e. sexist) album covers. Their style of funk was very popular for a few years in the mid-70s.
Minnie Riperton, "Lovin' You". Early in her career, she was a singer for Rotary Connection, a band that combined psychedelia and soul. Her uncanny vocal gymnastics peaked with "Lovin' You" ... by 1979, she was dead from cancer at the age of 31. Maya Rudolph was her daughter. (You can hear Riperton quietly serenading Rudolph at the very end of her hit.)
Bonus: Maya Rudolph shows off her own pipes in what may be her most famous musical performance: