On this date in 1995, we saw the first of two Bruce Springsteen shows on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour. It was only the fourth show of the tour. He opened with this song on both nights, seen here on The Tonight Show:
Rage Against the Machine recorded a powerful cover of the song in 1997. Many years later, Rage guitarist Tom Morello joined the E Street Band for several live performances when Steven Van Zandt was unavailable, resulting in what you might say is Bruce covering one of his own songs. Morello made quite an impact, and this is the version I go to now. It turned up on recordings in 2008, they played it at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, Morello rejoined the band in 2013 where the song featured again, and finally, it turned up on Bruce's 2014 album High Hopes. Here is one of the live performances:
Conclave is receiving a lot of Oscar buzz. It's already picked up a handful of awards on the festival circuit, with the acting in particular getting notice ... an ensemble award at Palm Springs, individual honors to Ralph Fiennes at Santa Barbara. Conclave is also the kind of serious drama that might seem particularly respectable come Oscars time ... I don't think it's better than movies such as My Old Ass, Love Lies Bleeding, or The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, but Conclavesounds like an Oscar movie.
And as prestigious Oscar movies go, Conclave is pretty good. The acting is indeed strong, and the film looks great, with what looks to my clueless eyes to be a remarkable recreation of the Sistine Chapel at Cinecittà Studios.
But the plot itself is too mundane for such grandiose possibilities. Conclave is in essence a mystery story about the politics underlying the selection of a new Pope, which sounds engrossing. But the film relies on stock narrative devices, such as the withholding of information until it will have the maximum impact on the audience, and the ways in which the various Cardinals fit into standard stereotypical roles: the devious one, the ambitious one, the humble one, and the unknown late-arriving one. The pieces fit together well enough to be noticeable, and I wanted to be more surprised. The final revelation also felt tacked on, as if to prove that the story wasn't as ordinary as we might have thought.
Conclave is not as bad as it might sound. It isn't boring, the acting draws you in, and even stock plot turns often work. When I say it's no better than My Old Ass, I don't mean it's worse. But it's got prestige, and that only goes so far.
This is the thirteenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 13 is called "Movie Nom-noms Week":
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
- Aphorism IV, Physiologie du goût, by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Even though film cannot convey two of food's most fundamental properties, taste and smell, there's still something powerfully appetizing about food in the movies. Food is the great unifier, one of the few things our biology requires, tying us together, no matter our language, gender, nationality, ancestry, or beliefs. And yet, food is a significant differentiator, highly specific to the culture from which we spring and further distilled by our distinctive, personal tastes. That contrast makes cuisine in cinema extra special: it's not just about vital sustenance but also about exploring community, identity, heritage, and artistry, subjects ideally suited to film and made even more memorable when viewed through the unique lens of food.
This week's challenge is to tuck into a title from Ian Casocot's Films in Celebration of Food [and Where to Watch Them]. Whether you pair it with good old popcorn or something more epicurean, you can't go wrong munching along to films with fare as enticing as this. C'est trop bon!
I admit I found the food angle in Waitress a bit unbelievable. It takes place in Joe's Pie Diner, and pie and coffee seems to be just about all they serve. The title character, Jenna (Keri Russell) is the primary pie maker, and by "primary" I mean she appears to be the only pie maker. And she waits tables. And they have lots of varieties of pies, including one she invents every day. I'm not a pie maker, but that seems like too much work for one person to do in a day.
It doesn't matter, of course, because Waitress is a delight. It will forever be known as the last film of Adrienne Shelly, an actress who moved into writing and directing (she does all of those things in Waitress, writing, directing, and co-starring). Shelly was murdered before the film's release. Since Waitress was a true blossoming of a fine multi-skilled talent, it is now remembered for the "What If?" angle.
This is unfair, because the film stands on its own ... it doesn't need our sympathy. Jenna finds herself pregnant at the beginning of the film. She is unhappy in her marriage, and she develops a serious crush on her married doctor (Nathan Fillion), which he returns. The events that follow could be standard, but Shelly, in her writing and in her directing of actors, makes each character believable without forcing them to act in the usual rom-com ways. It's not that there are plot twists, exactly, but the characters do act in unexpected (but realistic) ways.
Waitress snuck up on me. I expected something mildly pleasant, and was glad to find it surpassed my low expectations. And it lingers in the mind, so that I like it more now than I did when I watched it yesterday. Besides Russell, Fillion, and Shelly, the cast includes Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, and a delightful turn from Andy Griffith as the cranky owner of the pie diner.
This is the fourth bonus film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Bonus Week 4 is called ""I've been meaning to get to it..." Week":
Making appearances in LSC 4, 6, and 7 this theme is all about catching up on a recent movie that has just slipped through the cracks of all the other great cinema out there to consume. Specifically, this week is about rectifying an unseen film from last year, 2023.
This bonus challenge is to watch a movie that you haven't seen yet that was released in 2023.
I watched this on the heels of The Hangover, which I really didn't like. Both are modern raunchy comedies ... how come I kinda liked No Hard Feelings, especially compared to The Hangover?
I'd say the two leads, Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. I'd only seen Feldman once ... he had a bit part as "Student" in White Noise. Jennifer Lawrence is a different story. I've seen her in a lot of movies, liked all of them, especially Winter's Bone, which I think is a modern classic. We know from her off-screen appearances that Lawrence can be very funny in a unique way, and this was the first time I saw her in a straight-up comedy. Of course she was good. The plot was stupid ... Feldman plays a 19-year-old, Percy, who lacks social skills, Lawrence plays Maddie, a woman in her 30s who is hired by Percy's rich parents to bring the kid's social skills up to speed before he enters Princeton ("up to speed" meaning to get him laid). The stars do what they can to coast past the silliness of the premise, with both of them having the screen charm to make the raunchy scenes fun, if not hilarious. The plot takes something of an unexpected turn ... it becomes a made-for-TV coming-of-age story, not very raunchy at all, and it's no more special than the opening premise. But something about the combination of the premise and the plot turn helps the film escape the nothingness of something like The Hangover. There is actual character development with Percy and Maddie, together and separately, that is satisfying.
No Hard Feelings is not a masterpiece, not even close. But I didn't feel like crap while watching it, my love and admiration for Jennifer Lawrence remains constant, and I look forward to seeing Andrew Barth Feldman in the future.
We saw Lou Reed many times over the years, the first being on this date in 1974, at Winterland. Earlier in 1974, he released the still-classic live album, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, which eventually went gold. Of course, he had an actual hit in late 1972 with "Walk on the Wild Side", so his record company must have been happy to have this artist, who famously never sold any records as a member of the great Velvet Underground. The audiences for Lou's 1974 concerts understandably hoped for more of the Rock 'n' Roll Animal fireworks, but Lou now had a different band. In September of 1974, he released Sally Can't Dance. Critics weren't exactly overwhelmed, but the album became Lou's first top-ten success.
This didn't impress Lou ... as Wikipedia notes, "While the record was a hit and elevated Reed's status as a star, he reportedly was disappointed in its production (in which he took a largely passive role) and the treatment of the songs. Reed remarked, 'It seems like the less I'm involved with a record, the bigger a hit it becomes. If I weren't on the record at all next time around, it might go to Number One.' In a 1976 interview, Reed stated that Sally Can't Dance was 'a piece of shit from beginning to end.'" Hoping to keep the hot streak going, the label released another live album taken from the same Rock 'n' Roll Animal concert. At that point, I guess Lou took a more active part in his career, releasing a double-record set, Metal Machine Music, which mostly pissed off people who bought it and played it, while critics mostly dismissed it. Here is a brief excerpt ... the entire thing totaled 64 minutes and 11 seconds, and it all sounded like this:
Here's an example of Lou in 1974 ... this is similar to what we heard at Winterland:
Here is Lou being interviewed that year:
Here is a favorite of mine ... he explained this one of the times we saw him in a club:
This is the twelfth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 12 is called "And Now For Something Completely Vulgar Week":
On the heels of American Pie's success in 1999, the 2000s ushered in a new era of comedy. The likes of Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, and Eddie Murphy were on the way out, while big stars like Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Jack Black flourished. Judd Apatow and Edgar Wright, with collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, came onto the scene in a big way and who could forget the huge cultural juggernauts that were Borat and The Hangover! And since women have always been funny movies like Mean Girls, Mamma Mia!, Legally Blonde, Bend It Like Beckham, and Juno are regarded as some of the best of the decade.
This week let's have a good old-fashioned laugh and watch a comedy from the 2000s (2000-2009). Here and here are a couple of lists to help you get started.
I have watched 190 movies from the 2000s that Letterboxd categorizes as a comedy. My favorite is American Splendor. Using the Letterboxd 5-star rating system, I have given 88 of those comedies at least 3 1/2 stars, meaning I at least liked them ... about half. I mention this because when I can, I try to watch movies I think I will like, and so my overall average is higher than 3 1/2 stars ... I avoid the bad ones (and that's before we consider grade inflation). Thus, the fact that I found more than half of the comedies from that decade somewhat less than likable tells you something about my taste preferences, and it also tells you The Hangover is probably not quite up my alley.
The Hangover was a popular movie that took in more than $450 million at the box office on a budget of $35 million. At the time, it was the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever in the USA (don't know if that is still true). It was even generally well-received by critics (Metascore: 73/100). It spawned two sequels ... the three movies combined have grossed $1.4 billion-with-a-B worldwide, although the sequels weren't as highly-regarded by critics.
I'm falling back on statistics because I have nothing of my own to say about The Hangover. I didn't find it funny. I wasn't enraptured by its representation of male camaraderie. There was a reason I had never seen this popular movie in the fifteen years since its release. It wasn't for me. These are precisely the kinds of movies that make The Challenge so worthwhile, because I am taken out of my comfort zone. But that doesn't mean I'm going to like what I see, and having now seen 15 movies in this year's Challenge, I can say that only one of them was worse, IMO, than The Hangover, and that was Terror of Mechagodzilla.
It's the return of Geezer Cinema! And I'm welcoming the return with a lot of spoilers here, so you've been warned.
Anora is one of the more buzz-worthy films out right now, and I'd been looking forward to it for a while. I'm a fan of Mikey Madison's work in Better Things and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and while this is only the third Sean Baker movie I've seen, I liked the others, especially The Florida Project. I was never less than engrossed in Anora, but I admit about halfway through I wondered if anything was "going to happen". Ultimately, that first half worked as a setup for what followed, but the film is a bit long and Baker could have done some trimming in those earlier segments.
Still, they established the basics about the titular Anora (who perfers to be called Ani), a young sex worker who partners with a rich, also young, customer, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). The portrait of Ani is nuanced, for which we can thank both Baker and Madison. Ani is never shown as being coerced ... she seems to enjoy her job, it gives her a feeling of control over her customers without making that job be overly sweet/cool. In fact, Baker is steadfastly non-judgmental about sex work. What gradually makes the story progress is something else, something that is clear with hindsight, but something that presents itself gradually. Because Anora is basically about class.
Ani's problems don't arise out of her occupation, but out of the difference between her class status and that of her rich customer (who becomes her rich husband). There is a Cinderella aspect to how Ani views her relationship with Ivan, and while she is clear-eyed when it comes to her job, she gets blinded by the damage class difference will cause. When Ivan's family intercedes in the marriage, Ani at first thinks they will understand she and Ivan are in love, and even if they don't come around, the ring on her finger makes the romance real. But in the end, Ivan is just a spoiled rich kid. The family wins out, Ani is bought off, the marriage is annulled, and to an extent we are back to where we were at the beginning. Ani is quite clear-eyed about class by this point ... what she thought was a romance turned out to be instructional for her.
In the heartbreaking final scene, Ani seems to be returning to her old self. But then she bursts into tears. They aren't tears of regret about her job. They are tears of regret about her naivety regarding class, tears of recognition that Cinderella romances don't happen in real life, that the rich are different from you and me, and not just because they have more money.
One area where I was missing elements of Anora is that it is apparently a comedy. The audience in the theater laughed quite often, and many reviews have focused on the comedic aspect of the film. It's not that I don't understand the notion that it is a comedy, it's that I seem constitutionally incapable of finding humor in modern movies. I never thought Anora was stupid ... I wasn't bothered at its attempts at humor, because I didn't realize they were there. So put that on me when I say that I liked Anora quite a lot without being as taken with it as those critics who are offering overwhelming praise (a Metascore of 91, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes).
My fifth Melville movie, and this guy is amazing. It's not just that there are no duds ... they are all at the least very good. The consistency is remarkable. Le Doulos is confusing in a lot of ways. David Thomson usefully compared it to The Big Sleep, saying that movie showed that oftentimes, explanations are tedious. Jean-Paul Belmondo, who plays a thief and perhaps an informer (the title makes reference to the stool pigeon's role), is given a scene near the end in which he "explains" everything we've seen, but who can trust him? Best to greet that speech with a shrug that says, I don't care, I was enjoying myself.
The plot concerns stolen jewels and shaky friendships and betrayals and codes of honor, and we're confused enough that while specific actions are fairly clear, motivations seem variable. Just when you think one character is "good" or "bad", they do something that changes your mind. Yet Melville manages to make things flow, the performers are either good, perfectly cast, or both, and by the end of the film, you've been sucked into its world.
There aren't many women in that world, and Melville isn't impressed by them, anyway. (According to Roger Ebert, Melville claimed he "did not mistreat the women, his characters did." OK, but as he says, they are his characters.) Melville's best films have an intense focus that wouldn't fit here, and that's one reason I don't think Le Doulos is one of his best. But most film makers would kill for a Le Doulos on their resume.
I watched this, called The Endless Trench in English, because it was said to feature Andalusian Spanish. Good call. The idea with these movies is I watch them in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Hopefully I improve my Spanish comprehension, and I enjoy the Andalusian accent of my family.
Directed by three Basque film makers, The Endless Trench is based on the true stories of men on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War who rightfully feared reprisals from Franco's representatives. These men, "topos" (moles), used hiding places in their homes to avoid capture for 30 years, until amnesty was announced. The Endless Trench tells the story of one of those men, Higinio.
There is excruciating tension, but the film makers manage to expand the story beyond the trench, as we see not only how this exile affects Higinio, but how it affects his family. Higinio lives underground for so long it becomes normal to him, even as he curses his fate. We are with him in his shelter ... we learn the logistics of his life. We experience the quasi-freedom when he is able to roam throughout his house, and with him we come to grips with the difficulties his family faces in trying to live their lives while protecting him.
It all sounds like an oppressive film to view, and it is, in some ways. There is less of the "triumph of the human spirit" than I expected ... the life of Higinio is not an easy one. And at 2 1/2 hours, it sometimes feels like we're in that trench for 30 years along with Higinio. But the overall impact is powerful, and if you don't know the story of Los Topos, it's instructive as well.