What to Watch When You're Quarantined Week Three

Well, they say the third time is the charm- but I don't think they were referring to shelter-in-place. Three weeks in and I'm trying to figure out how to turn vintage cloth napkins into face masks.

Pandemic 2020: Making You Crafty.

When I wasn't folding cloth with rubber bands so I could go buy Prosecco, here are the movies I watched:


Hud (1963)

If I had to choose someone to be isolated with, Paul Newman would most definitely be at the top of the list. Even with a coronavirus mask on, those eyes would make my spine turn to custard and I wouldn't care if it was a Wednesday or a Friday. Every day would be Paulday.

In Hud, a family of ranchers experience a pandemic of their own- Hoof and Mouth disease. But Hud (swagger-ific Newman) doesn't seem to care if the family's cattle and livelihood are about to be wiped out. He is too busy raising hell in honky-tonks and the bedrooms of bored housewives.

Patriarch Homer (a wonderfully aged Melvyn Douglas) does what he can to set Hud straight- but nothing seems to keep Hud from following his baser instincts. Will young and impressionable nephew Lon (gone-too-soon Brandon De Wilde) follow in his uncle's notorious bootsteps, or is there redemption to be found on the desolate Texas prairie?

The acting performances here are masterful earning Newman, Douglas, and Patricia Neal Oscar noms- with both Douglas and Neal taking home the statues. Also winning an Oscar for his stunning black-and-white cinematography was the legendary James Wong Howe.

Howe's Texas vistas are breathtaking, and his shots of small town life are bleakly tender. A precursor to such lonely, modern westerns as The Last Picture Show (1971) and Days of Heaven (1978), Hud is a feast for the eyes any way you look at it.

The Farewell (2019)

If Ozu and Wes Anderson made a movie, it would be The Farewell. Awkwafina's Nai Nai (the utterly charming Shuzhen Zhao) has three months to live- but in true Chinese cultural fashion, the family has decided not to tell Nai Nai. So a wedding is concocted to bring the family together so that Nai Nai can get all the hugs and scoldings in before she drops dead.

There is space here for raucous family comedy and larger-than-life character, but director Lulu Wang takes it in a quieter, more touching direction. There aren't any explosive Terms of Endearment blow-ups, just typically complicated familial confessions with an underlying tone of mortality. It's simple- and it works.

Awkwafina surprised me, as I was only familiar with her comic reputation from Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Nora from Queens (2020) but she's quite good as the black sheep of the family despondent over the impending loss of the one relationship she could count on.

Wang's focus on heavily constructed shots and atmosphere-enforcing soundtrack overwhelm at times- but the images of fallow Changchun, China are an eerie foretelling of the empty spaces this pandemic has produced not only in China, but around the world.

The High and the Mighty (1954)

In times of disaster, sometimes it's fun to watch films about- well, disaster. And the granddaddy of the "plane danger" genre is 1954's The High and the Mighty. Long before Airport (1970) this doomed flight adventure was taking wing with audiences and making them question whether that six hour flight was really worth the air miles. H&M takes us back to the golden age of flying when your seat was the size of a barcalounger, there were only 21 people on your flight, and you could smoke everywhere- even on the flight deck.

John Wayne as Whistlin' Dan (No, seriously. He whistles a LOT. A drinking game should be played where you quaff each time Dimitri Tiomkin's theme tune is heard) is a co-pilot with baggage and he along with Captain Robert Stack (who parodies this very character in Airplane (1980)) are flying from Honolulu to San Francisco with a cabin filled with disaster movie stereotypes:

Newly married couple- Check! Couple ready for the divorce attorney- Check! Cuckolded married man ready to get revenge on the man who he thinks shtooped his wife- Check! Precocious kid who winds-up sleeping through the whole flight- Check! Insensitive portrayals of Asian, Italians, and Mexicans- Check!

The gang's all here- and with scenery-chewing performances from the likes of Claire Trevor, Sidney Blackmer, and Jan Sterling- you have the perfect group-viewing movie. Zoom it with your favorite cineastes- and don't miss the best line of the film, "I always thought your brain would fit nicely in a demitasse."

I could tell you all about my Netflix binge-viewing of zeitgeist darling Tiger King (2020) or Dark Horse comic to series entry The Umbrella Academy (2019)- but this is a movie blog- and this pandemic won't make me change my rigid blogging standards... but let's see what week 4 brings...

Stay safe faithful LWM readers!

What to Watch When You're Quarantined Weeks One & Two

Hello LWM Fans!

Like many of you, I've been wondering what I can do during this time of social distancing to keep from turning into dull boy Jack Torrance. Working from home keeps me busy, but the weekends stretch out into eternity without people to order drinks from, or Grindr hook-ups to give me now passe STDs

So I thought, "Hey! Why don't I tell people what movies I've been watching and they can add (or not add) them to their pandemic movie viewing queue." "That's a great idea, Lance!" I said- cause I've started talking to myself.

So because I'm a little bit behind- I'm rolling Weeks One and Two of Lance's Werthwhile Coronavirus Movie Diary into one post.

Enjoy... in no particular order.

Parasite (2019)

It was the big spoiler for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards, with jaws dropping everywhere for this first  foreign film Best Picture winner. I'm very fond of director Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer (2013) so I figured Parasite would give me all the Korean feels.

Nope.

This creepy mix of a "house with secrets" thriller and class warfare drama is fine. Ho is adept with visuals and the plot has plenty of twists- but Best Picture? Over Jo-Jo Rabbit (2019) or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)? Sorry. Don't get it. In a world where Fellini, Kurosawa, and Almodovar's foreign films were never even nominated for Best Picture, I don't see how this film pulled off this historical win.

Knives Out (2019)

This picture was not nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards- but it should have been. Not since the trailer for Wes Anderson's latest film has there been such a cast!

Headlined by Daniel Craig and Chris Evans with expert support from Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Colette, Lakeith Stanfield, the always winning Christopher Plummer, and an un-earthed Don Johnson, the cast makes this by-the-book murder mystery an effervescent cocktail of duplicity and snide-ness. Between Craig's eyes and Evans' sweater-sheathed chest- I almost missed whodunnit.

Blonde Venus (1932)

Whenever I need a dirty elegance fix, I love to dig into my Dietrich/von Sternberg box set and relish in von Sternberg's sumptuous shadows and Dietrich's magnetic face. This time I re-watched their teaming in Blonde Venus. Dietrich is a club chanteuse shaking her money-maker to keep her radium-infused hubby (stalwart extraordinaire Herbert Marshall) alive and winds-up falling for playboy Cary Grant. I mean, who wouldn't? Dietrich drags her bonnie lad (cutie patootie Dickie Moore) from gin joint to gin joint until she does the motherly thing and returns her son to his father.

Released six months after Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus doesn't have the rich visual tapestry of that masterpiece. But watching Dietrich monkey around in the highly charged "Hot Voodoo" number is worth the price of admission.






Dark Waters (2019)

Todd Haynes is one of my favorite directors. The Velvet Goldmine (1998), Far From Heaven (2002), I'm Not There (2007), Carol (2015) are all exceptional films (not to mention his early art film Superstar- the Karen Carpenter Story told with Barbie dolls). So I was a little surprised how- well, quiet Dark Waters is. Mark Ruffalo plays an attorney who helps a cow farmer sue Dow chemical for killing all his cattle with their icky runoff. No spoiler alerts necessary- Dow did it- but will the little attorney who could make them pay for poisoning a whole nation?

Haynes is brilliant at steeping his movies in atmosphere- and Dark Waters is no exception with a sickly grey/green patina and dowdy Midwestern touches. But the tension of your typical investigative drama is not present here- leaving you wishing Victor Garber would twirl a mustache or Anne Hathaway would chew some scenery. What fascinated me most was the comparison of this film with early Haynes movie Safe (1995) where Julianne Moore's hypochondriac forces us to question the effects of our poisoned environment on our psyches.

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

I've been working through the Woody Allen films I haven't seen before they're all outlawed and Netflix sent me this much-loved entry. Allen experiments with his own persona by making Diane Keaton the neurotic weirdo he usually plays. When their elderly neighbor dies of a heart attack, Keaton (with flimsy evidence at best) concludes that she was murdered and with the help of cozy pal Alan Alda decides to track down the evidence to bring the deceased's dastardly husband to justice.

Allen works hard to bring some reason to the proceedings (and keep his wife from diddling Alda) but in the end, the joke's on us, because the paranoid neurotic is right. Some good laughs, my beloved city of Manhattan, and Angelica Huston as a sexy authoress make MMM land somewhere in the middle of my Allen film ranking.

Faithless (1932)

Tallulah Bankhead was one of the great notorious figures of American culture. Her libertine hedonism shocked and titillated, resulting in a successful stage and radio career. While the great Tallu also graced the silver screen- her impact there was much less- well, impactful. Her gravel-filled voice and grand, theatrical gestures were overpowering on the screen, but there were a couple cinematic gems where you can see what made her a one-of-a-kind sensation.

Faithless features Bankhead as a spoiled heiress who has the Depression era lesson that "money isn't everything" bludgeoned into her well-coiffed head. The Pre-Code twist is daring, even for today- and hearing her intone, "Sausages! Sausages!! Sausages!!!" makes the creaky morality tale palatable.

So that's what I watched. What movies did you watch?

Quentin Goes to Hollywood

When director Quentin Tarantino announced his ninth film would take place in Hollywood in 1969, it was a given that I would be excited to see the movie. As his PR machine deftly released casting notices, and lurid plot points (Would it or would it not be about the Manson killings- wait, Margot Robbie is playing Sharon Tate- it must be!) I prepared myself to manage my expectations so I wouldn't go in wanting more than Tarantino could give me. I'm happy to report Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) delivers on some of my highest hopes.

As the title suggests Once takes place in Hollywood and follows the intersection of the lives of three people in 1969: fading TV actor Rick Dalton (the not fading Leonardo DiCaprio), aging stuntman and professional best buddy Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt- more on him later), and doomed actress Sharon Tate (the appropriately Sharon, Margot Robbie).

Dalton is watching his career fade away in an angry haze of booze and cigarettes. Booth tries to keep his drunk and emphysema-level hacking friend together enough so Dalton can shoot any number of "heavy" Western roles. Booth is struggling himself though- a stuntman whose rumor-fueled past keeps him from actually stunting. He's a Hollywood appendage who has an unappreciated body of his own.

Tate is Dalton's neighbor and acts as the propellant for the unavoidable ending- a sort of blond tracking shot that leads Dalton and Booth to the historic events on Cielo Drive on August 8, 1969.

Tarantino's evolution as a director is in full flower. His earlier predilection to allow the Tarantino style of cleverness and cultural curation to overwhelm his story is actually used in Once to immerse us in this dizzying, mod world.

Like a pubescent teen who can't shuttup about the latest new thing he's discovered, Tarantino floods the screen with a multitude of 60's uber-specific references: radio ads, TV show footage, movie marquees, neon-signed Hollywood hotspots, eclectic soundtrack, and even dog food cans.

Cool Hollywood cameos are in abundance: Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis), Bruce Lee (hilariously pompous Mike Moh), Mama Cass (Rachel Redleaf), George Spahn (Bruce Dern still giving us acting realness at age 83), and the cast of infamous "hippies" that inhabited the Spahn Ranch.

Tarantino has a field day showing us that no one knows more about this time period than he does. But wisely, these gorgeous details are kept as elements of the setting- like a trippy kaleidoscope that his leads walk through as they navigate their show business destinies.

Tarantino has also learned to master the art of dramatic suspense- not in a thriller sort of way- but as a creeping dread. From the moment we see Tate and Polanski depart the Pan Am airplane, we know what the ending is.

I practically squeezed my theater armrest to shreds imagining how Tarantino was going to shoot the Manson Murders. It allows Tarantino to stretch out the apprehension to sometimes unendurable levels, while at the same time creating fantastic and hilarious moments of subverted expectations.

That dread is mirrored in the lives of Dalton and Booth because as surely as we know the fate of the occupants of 10050 Cielo Drive, we also know Hollywood is about to fall apart and these two showbiz brahs could wind-up as the detritus of a new age.

As Booth, Dalton, and Tate cross paths the tension of what must happen provides enervating fuel, raising the stakes of this oft-told story of unfulfilled and empty Hollywood lives. It's like the first gut-knot inducing scene of Inglorious Basterds (2009) stretched out over a whole, swinging movie.

I also have to give Tarantino credit for giving Brad Pitt a role that fits him like a torn and used glove. Pitt is perfection as a Lebowski-level cool guy who is nonetheless aware that he's a hanger-on. While he isn't really sure what he should be doing- he knows he's wasting himself. Pitt's screen charm is electric and so casual, it's hard to tell he's acting at all. I suspect with the success of this film, Pitt can look for an Oscar nom come next year.

Is the film too long? Yes. Are there long stretches where actors play actors acting? Yes. But the ending of this film is as satisfying as anything I've seen recently. Tarantino believes that movies can redeem and save us. Once graphically illustrates that belief.

The Madness of Joan Crawford- Possessed (1947)

The other day I was watching an old British TV interview of Joan Crawford on YouTube (as one does) when they showed a clip of the climax of the 1947 Crawford starrer Possessed. As Joan screamed out her lover's name over and over I remembered how much I love this performance. After a bottle of Chardonnay in the tub, I re-watched this classic and re-confirmed that Joan Crawford was not just a bitch in an Adrian gown. This woman could act.

Possessed (not to be confused with the 1931 Joan Crawford/Clark Gable film of the same name) was part of Joan's Warner Brothers renaissance. Following up her Oscar-winning turn in Mildred Pierce (1945) and the equally moving role of doomed socialite Helen Wright in Humoresque (1946), Crawford grabbed the part of mentally broken nurse Louise Howell with both gloved hands.

Possessed opens with a stricken Crawford aimlessly wandering the streets sans makeup and finery, calling out for a man named David. The mixture of Perc Westmore's non-makeup makeup and Crawford's vacant stare are a striking opening for the picture- and an uncharacteristic view of Crawford totally stripped of her glamour armor. I mean, she's not even wearing her signature fuck-me pumps!

The ensuing psychotropic drug flashback is a mixture of romantic melodrama and Female Gothic with Louise slowly losing her mind over the love of a man who doesn't want her (the ever-charming Van Heflin) and the new stepdaughter (Geraldine Brooks) he does want. Crawford is at her acting peak- balancing vulnerability and a hard edge as she descends into madness. One minute sweating and shaking as she tries to separate reality from hallucination, and the next slapping her step-daughter down a flight of stairs.

Crawford went to sanitariums and met with mental patients to try and give her performance an air of reality, making Louise more than just a crazed ex-lover who is one donut short of a dozen. And it works. The Crawford image is dulled and then re-shined and then torn apart, in a way, stripping this actress down into the disparate elements that made her such an interesting film star.

Crawford earned her second Oscar nom, but the rest of her stay at Warner Brothers would result in more soap-y fare like the deliciously slap-happy Flamingo Road (1949) and Crawford's least favorite movie This Woman is Dangerous (1952). Possessed is sort of a perfect middle-point for Crawford the actress- between her successful studio career, and the darker victim films she would make after the studio system lost its grip.

Oh Please, Mary!

In order to survive the NYC heatwave this weekend, I dipped my feet in a plastic babypool, shared popsicles with a 19 month old, and sat in front of my AC with a movie that I hoped wouldn't raise my temperature- Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

As those of you who follow me know- I'm a little remake/sequel averse. If a movie is practically perfect in every way, why try to recreate it or stretch it out? More often than not the attempt ruins the recipe and creates a dim reflection of the original. Of course there are exceptions- but that's another blog post... that I'll probably write when Spielberg's West Side Story comes out.

The original Mary Poppins (1964) is an undeniable childhood classic. It's unjaundiced view of imagination and the sparkling impenetrable propriety of its star Julie Andrews is a delight from stem to stern (as Admiral Boom would say). Yes, animation and live action filming techniques have come a long way since 1964, but the freshness of this film's images still retain the glee that audiences first experienced back when Barry Goldwater was running for President.

So why do Mary Poppins Returns 54 years later? Well... Disney's on a re-boot/remake kick. They have had success with a string of animation to live action remakes including this weekend's $185 million box office bonanza, The Lion King (2019)- which pretty much just replaces 1994 animation with 2019 CGI animation... and Beyonce. So it was inevitable that the execs at Disney would bring back the famous umbrella-wielding nanny for a "new generation" of expected box office dollahs.

They get some stuff really right. The cast includes the emotionally vulnerable (and Brit cutie) Ben Whishaw as all grown up Michael Banks, David Warner as the aforementioned land-lubbed Admiral Boom, Meryl Streep in a red wig that Johnny Depp may have turned down for Alice in Wonderland (2010) (another Disney re-make), Colin Firth as the charmingly duplicitous Wilkins, and a couple Supercalifragilisticexpealidocius cameos that I refuse to spoil.

The nostalgic animation style in the "Royal Doulton Music Hall" number is pure golden era Disney. There are flashes of unassailable charm and a couple moments where I got choked-up dreaming of what (or who) I would find in "The Place Where Lost Things Go." So why didn't I love this movie?

The reason Returns wasn't such a jolly holiday with Mary is at the core of the danger of remakes- are you doing something new- or are you literally repeating what worked before? Return can't seem to make up it's mind which one it's doing. Marc Shaiman's songs feel like they were in the final running for the original Mary Poppins. They're good- but almost identical to the originals.

The finale "Nowhere to Go But Up" might as well be "Let's Go Fly a Kite" replacing the item at the end of the string with a balloon. Richard M. Sherman who along with his deceased brother did the original Poppins music was involved in Returns, so maybe his influence was too reverenced to overcome.

The songs aren't the only carbon copies, though. The situations for the numbers follow the original gameplan- almost to the letter. Instead of a song about cleaning up your room, it's one about taking a bath. Mary pops the children into a chinabowl instead of a chalk painting. Instead of visiting an uncle who laughs and floats up to the ceiling (God, I love Ed Wynn), we visit a cousin whose world turns upside down.  Instead of dancing chimneysweeps, we get dancing (and bike-riding) lamplighters. It's as if the writers took whiteout to the old script and filled in new nouns.

But all of this similarity happens in a much darker setting. Gone is the colorful Edwardian Cherry Lane, replaced with a London gripped by the Great Depression. While the first Mary Poppins grappled with a stuffy society that discouraged imagination, Returns focuses on using imagination to deal with the death of your mother and possible homelessness. I mean, whoa. There's a big difference between trying to decide whether to give an old bird lady your tuppence or invest it; and how can I make sure I remember my dead mommy? It's fucking bleak.

It felt like some screenwriting guru whispered "raise the stakes" to Rob Marshall one time too many. I know we live in a much different world now and kids are used to seeing death and destruction in super hero movies and on the news- but the joy of the first Poppins was pure escapism. This one brings along our societal baggage- and it definitely holds more than a coat rack.

As for the stars, Emily Blunt is graceful yet prickly- but her singing chops are nowhere close to La Andrews. Lin-Manuel Miranda as the 30's version of Dick Van Dyke is engaging enough- but his dancing doesn't measure up to his magnetic, sooty forebear (although Kristen Bell would likely disagree with me.)

Returns wants it both ways- "It worked the last time- let's do it again" and "Let's update this classic." In this particular case, it feels like you can't have your candyfloss and eat it too.