Steven Rubio's Online Life

a complete unknown (james mangold, 2024)

I am generally not a big fan of biopics. There have rarely been great ones ... I guess if you count Bonnie and Clyde as a biopic, that one is great. There are some good ones about musicians ... I was partial to Ray, Love and Mercy, and Elvis, as opposed to tripe like Rocketman. There are potential positives to a biopic: it's about someone we care about (or at least know about), and it's always possible a film (or more specifically, an acting performance) can show us a deeper understanding of the artist in question. For me, the best approach is usually to offer a fictionalized version of a real story. I don't know how interesting a biopic of Mick Jagger would be, but Performance is one of my all-time favorite movies. Bob Dylan sits astride popular culture like a colossus, and many have tried to show in film what Dylan "means". Sometimes you get documentaries (Don't Look Back being the obvious, plus two by Scorsese, No Direction Home and Rolling Thunder Revue, and the hard-to-see Eat the Document/Something Is Happening). I'm Not There uses six actors to play Dylan at various times in his career (none of the characters are actually called "Dylan"). The best is likely Inside Llewyn Davis, because it's all made up, not beholden to "facts" but able to create the feel of its times.

Biopics tend to falter in part because the facts are known, and if you don't get them right, people will call you on it. But the facts of a real person's life are not inherently dramatic, and so inevitably some things are fudged to make a better story. How much fudging affects how good such movies are ... if you do too much fudging, you might as well have made a fictionalized version, if you don't fudge enough, you are liable to get something that is accurate but boring.

A Complete Unknown lies somewhere in the middle of all this. James Mangold errs in areas of opinion ... there are legends, there are truths, he usually picks the legend if he has to, but he sticks close enough to what "really happened" that the damage he does is less about accuracy and more about interpretation. So the film builds to Dylan "going electric" at the Newport Folk Festival, which happened, but which has become legendary, meaning Mangold can work with the legend even when the legend isn't quite true. It's not that Dylan never plugged in his guitar at Newport, but Mangold emphasizes the crowd's outrage in order to make a better story, and he can do this in part because the legend is a lot like what Mangold shows. He even adds some artistic license, by inserting another famous moment, when someone in the crowd shouts out "Judas!", and Dylan says "I don't believe you" and tells the band to "play fucking loud", all of which happened, but in a different time and place with a different band. It works, but it's also a bit false.

I'm sure these things don't matter to people who are going to see Timothée Chalamet play an iconic figure. Chalamet is fine, he doesn't embarrass himself, although the script doesn't do him many favors ... the Dylan of A Complete Unknown is almost constantly inward and morose, and he is indeed a complete unknown to us by the end of the movie. Austin Butler in Elvis was allowed to shine ... we saw the warts, but we also saw why Elvis connected with an audience.

There's also the problem of trying to capture people that are real to us without competing with our prior understand of those people. Chalamet sounds enough like Dylan (who can't do a decent Dylan imitation?), while Monica Barbaro, who has a lovely voice, doesn't sound a lot like Joan Baez (because who can imitate that remarkable voice?). Barbaro is one of the best things about the film ... Baez is fleshed out effectively, giving Barbaro something to work with. Meanwhile, Suze Rotolo is dumped on. First, the movie doesn't use her real name (they call her "Sylvie Russo"). Then, the usually-fine Elle Fanning is saddled with a stock role of the woman who is left behind. (Rotolo's memoir, A Freewheelin' Time, is a fascinating read, and not just because Dylan is within the pages.) Finally, as is often the case in biopics, celebrities we know are name dropped, often given a line or two, or even have their role in the story exaggerated for dramatic effect. (Examples here include Dave Van Ronk, a crucial figure who pops up, nameless as I recall, for one brief scene, Johnny Cash, an important person to Dylan but not necessarily during the time of the movie, or Maria Muldaur, who I didn't even know was a character until I saw the credits.)

Ultimately, A Complete Unknown was not nearly as bad as I feared it would be. As a Dylan fan since the 1960s, I'm glad I saw it. But when it is over, you still have no insight into how Bob Dylan wrote the anthem of his times, "Like a Rolling Stone". Perhaps, as my wife said, that insight is impossible to acquire.

Here is Dylan singing "Like a Rolling Stone" at Newport:

And here is his cataclysmic performance of the song in England in 1966:

music friday: howlin' wolf

One of the true titans of American blues. It's impossible to pick the best from Wolf's enormous output. His recording of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster", among others, got the attention of The Rolling Stones, whose version of the song hit the top of the British pop charts. When the Stones appeared on the U.S. television series Shindig!, they helped get their inspiration on as a guest, performing "How Many More Years" for all the American teenyboppers:

As I say, you can't pick just one of his recordings, but I admit I'm partial to this one:

One more:

Howlin' Wolf died on this date in 1976.

white mane (albert lamorisse, 1953)

I'm taking on another challenge. This one is The Criterion Challenge 2025. It's the fifth annual, my first try. "There are 52 categories. The goal is to watch any Criterion released film based on the categories ... between 1/1/25-12/31/25." There is no specified order, so I'll watch them as I get to them. My second category is "Watch a film from the year you were born".

White Mane is a classic short from Albert Lamorisse. His next film, The Red Balloon, also a short, won an Oscar. Both films are beautiful shot ... White Mane is lyrical in its approach to a story about the friendship between a young boy and a wild horse. I feel a bit curmudgeonly that while I appreciate these movies, and am happy to add my praise to the piles that have heaped upon them in the past, I don't feel the need to watch again. Charming, something you can show to children but also something adults will appreciate, and there aren't enough films like that.

geezer cinema: wicked (john m. chu, 2024)

Not for me.

I could go on about why I didn't like this movie, but it would say more about me than about the film. So I'll just note that I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it, and I was right, and maybe that kind of pre-judging is wrong, but I mostly don't like modern musicals and I mostly don't like Broadway show tunes and I am clueless about the entire genre, so even though there are special showings of this movie where the audience sings along, thus demonstrating that a lot of people know these songs by heart, I couldn't sing five words of any of the songs within five minutes of seeing the movie. It was pretty, the cast was OK, if it wins a bunch of awards I will understand, but I hope I never see it again.

african-american directors series: rodney king (spike lee, 2017)

This is the seventeenth 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 17 is called "True Crime Week":

If you listened to any podcasts over the winter break, there's a good chance some of them were true crime. Truman Capote's groundbreaking non-fiction novel In Cold Blood is generally credited with creating the modern true crime genre, and the genre has seen a resurgence in the past decade, particularly with podcasts like Serial and My Favorite Murder. They've gotten so popular that we're now seeing fictional stories about true crime podcasts, like the show Only Murders in the Building or the novel Devil House. There have also been countless new movies and shows, as well as controversy regarding the sensationalizing of real tragedies. Murders, crimes, journalism, and investigations fascinate us, and this week we're on the hunt for the best examples in film. This list may be a good place to start.

This week's challenge is to watch a previously unseen true crime film.

This film has the imprimatur of Spike Lee, but it's not clear how much he "directed" Rodney King. The film documents the one-man show, written by and starring Roger Guenveur Smith, and it's Smith who appears to be the real auteur. There's no point in evaluating it as a film ... it's a stage presentation with few frills. Smith's powerful performance makes it all worthwhile. He adopts several voices over the course of the film while relying on research he did about King, the case, and the social ramifications. We don't really get to know the man Rodney King ... in fact, Smith shows that "Rodney King" is almost a blank slate onto which people project their opinions. It must be hard to be that blank slate, and King is a sympathetic figure here, but Smith goes at it from the outside, which is how most people reference Rodney King to this day. Smith opens with the words of Texas rapper Willie D, from his song "Rodney K":

Fuck Rodney King in his ass
When I see tha mothafucka I'mma blast
Boom in his head, boom, boom in his back
Just like that

People who don't recognize this as the lyrics to a song will be shocked into the film's beginning, as Smith doesn't specify that he is quoting from someone else. It's use here shows that Smith is going to look at King from a variety of perspectives. All the while, Smith's work as an actor is superb, as he works up a sweat, gets emotionally involved, puts us in the shoes of King and everyone else. At these times, the lack of artifice in the film making might actually help.

african-american directors series/film fatales #219: love & basketball (gina prince-bythewood, 2000)

Here I go again. I'm taking on another challenge. This one is The Criterion Challenge 2025. It's the fifth annual, my first try. "There are 52 categories. The goal is to watch any Criterion released film based on the categories ... between 1/1/25-12/31/25." There is no specified order, so I'll watch them as I get to them. The first category is "Watch a film from the CC40 Boxset."

This was an interesting way to begin the Challenge. The CC40 Boxset was produced by Criterion to celebrate their 40 years in the collection business, and features 40 films of all sorts. I had never seen Love & Basketball, but was definitely looking forward to it. It made Slate's New Black Film Canon, and is #493 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century. I have liked the films I have seen from Gina Prince-Bythewood, especially The Woman King, and was happy to see her debut.

Love & Basketball is another strong film from the writer-director. It follows the life of two neighbors from childhood through adulthood. Both love basketball, but while one (Quincy, played by Omar Epps) has a fairly straightforward path, since he is male and his father is an NBA star, Monica (Sanaa Lathan) must fight both the social stigma of being a female athlete and the fewer potential options open to her when she becomes an adult. Prince-Bythewood efficiently blends both angles in the title. The love story and the sports story both land within the norms of their respective genres, but the even balance in the film benefits both, plus the title shows an additional angle, for the love is not just between the leads, but also between each of them and the sport.

The cast is filled with recognizable names who are fun to see when they were all 25 years younger than today: Alfre Woodard, Regina Hall, Harry Lennix, Dennis Haysbert, Gabrielle Union, Tyra Banks, Boris Kodjoe. But the film is rightfully carried by the two leads, who have good charisma, on their own and together. Lathan might be the most impressive, in that she had never played basketball before, yet is acceptably talented in the movie. (The IMDB gives a related anecdote. "Producer Spike Lee believed the female lead should have believable basketball skills. Gina Prince-Bythewood said in an interview 'I saw over 700 people for the part: actors, ballplayers, people who had never acted before in their life. It finally came down to Sanaa Lathan and Niesha Butler [a star player at Georgia Tech and 1999 Atlantic Coast Conference rookie of the year]. I put Sanaa with a basketball coach for two months and Niesha with an acting coach.'")

insomnia (erik skjoldbjærg, 1997)

I liked Christopher Nolan's remake with Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank, but that was more than 20 years ago so I have to look at what I wrote at the time just to remember having seen it. (I liked the acting, especially the way Pacino and Williams were relatively muted.) Then, I noted that since I hadn't seen the original, I couldn't make a comparison. Now I've seen the original, but since I can't really remember the remake, a comparison would be pointless once again.

Stellan Skarsgård is impressive as what amount to the title character. His cop-with-insomnia makes sense partly because the film takes place in the land of the midnight sun. It's always daytime during the film, and the cop can't sleep. That's the physical explanation, but the cop is also troubled by his own actions, messing with evidence to protect himself and burnish his reputation as a brilliant detective. The midnight sun is a visual representation for his angst, and the cinematography of Erling Thurmann-Andersen drives this home effectively.

Everything in Insomnia is done well, and I have no real complaints. But the whole thing feels a bit like an exercise ... I was impressed but not engrossed, found it to be a good movie but not a classic. This was the feature debut for Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjærg, and it shows promise, although I haven't seen any of his subsequent movies, and admit I have only even heard of one of them (Prozac Nation, with Christina Ricci). I'd say he is a subject for future examination, but I have a feeling that since it took me almost 30 years to see his debut, I might not participate in those exams.

music friday: the avengers

I'm repeating myself, I'm sure, but as this blog closes in on its 23rd birthday, I'm running out of fresh material. On January 14, 1978, I saw The Avengers as one of the opening acts for the Sex Pistols concert. The next day, our daughter was born. Fast forward quite a few years, and my daughter says she was hanging with someone I might know of, said she used to be a punk rocker, her name was Penelope. Penelope Houston, I said? Well, next time you see her, tell her your dad saw her in concert the day before you were born.

Here's the full set by The Avengers.

colorado territory (raoul walsh, 1949)

A remake of Raoul Walsh's High Sierra from earlier in the decade. The gangster plot transfers nicely into a western. High Sierra is historically important as the film that pushed Humphrey Bogart to stardom, and it's a decent film, but no more than that. I'm not sure why Walsh remade that one ... I guess the plot gets someone's attention (it was remade again in the 50s with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters). This one stars Joel McCrea, a favorite of mine, and he is the best thing about the movie. His career spanned decades ... he worked with everyone from Hitchcock to Peckinpah, and starred in the classic Sullivan's Travels. I also like him in the old-time radio series Tales of the Texas Rangers, which ran for two years and almost 100 episodes in the early 50s. He's well-cast in Colorado Territory, because audiences think of him as a good guy, and that makes his outlaw in this one appealing ... we're on his side. The cast is filled with the usual recognizable people, including future Oscar winner Dorothy Malone, and Virginia Mayo, once called the most beautiful blonde in the world. Mayo plays a woman who is half Native American ... as the IMDB notes, "To make her look part Native American, Virginia Mayo had brownish makeup on her face, which contrasted with her arms, neck and chest area, which was her natural, lighter color." I guess they ran out of makeup after they'd done her face.

geezer cinema/film fatales #218: the outrun (nora fingscheidt, 2024)

It's easier to list the things that are good about The Outrun than it is to explain why it didn't quite make it for me, so I'll start there. And there really is nowhere to start other than with Saoirse Ronan. She's been nominated for four Oscars, and this should be her fifth, although I suspect she will fall short of winning once again. She has matched well in the past with Greta Gerwig, but she shines with other directors as well. She tends to be the best thing in any movie in which she appears, which is to say, she is better than her films (at least the ones not directed by Gerwig). Here she plays an alcoholic, Rona, which is always good for Oscar attention, and she finds interesting ways to make the character different from all the other alkies we've seen. She is convincingly an individual, not just a stereotype.

The setting is crucial and impressive ... director Nora Fingscheidt and cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer make great use of the Orkney Islands, an imposing location both inspiring and frightening (and thus a perfect place to work out one's alcoholism). The film is based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot, who worked on the picture and who knows the Islands well.

There is a bit of an inevitability to the narrative ... woman is an addict, she falls, she gets sober, she falls again. Fingscheidt addresses this with a non-chronological approach that simulates forward movement, but I found it more jarring than anything. It wasn't confusing, but neither did it seem necessary.

Having just seen Blitz, where Ronan's blonde hair stood out among a fairly drab-looking setting, it was interesting to see how in The Outrun, Ronan is often stripped of makeup, as if to emphasize how her drinking brings down whatever natural effervescence she might have. Rona frequently changes her hair color, and each time it marks her attempt to rescue that effervescence.

I can't find much in what I have written to explain why I wasn't overwhelmed by The Outrun. It's a worthy picture, about as good as the much different Blitz, but unlike her movies with Gerwig, I don't imagine returning to The Outrun for a taste of Saoirse Ronan. Don't get me wrong, though, she'll deserve that Oscar nomination.