The Words On Flicks Show July 2022: Chi-Town On Film

Sweet Home Chicago! 

Returning to a celebration of U.S. cities in the movies, the Words On Flicks Show is saluting Chicago and its environs this month with special guest (and Chicago native), veteran journalist Demetrius Patterson.  We have a special place in our hearts for the Second City, especially in the wake of the Highland Park shooting on July 4.

Demetrius Patterson (aka D.E. Malik Patterson), is a native Chicagoan (evidenced by the fedora and Kangol hats he wears for just about every occasion), is an award-winning investigative/business journalist for various daily newspapers throughout the country, senior staff writer for the Chicago Defender, jazz music columnist, reviewer of high-end audiophile equipment, and entertainment media consultant (among other titles within the profession).

D.E. has over 25 years of journalism and media consulting experience. Writing about music for various publications, Patterson’s area of expertise focused mainly on jazz. In the ‘90s and early ‘00s, his syndicated jazz column on the Gannett News Service wire was highly received by professional musicians and connoisseurs alike within the genre. He also served as senior staff writer for iRock Jazz magazine; contributing writer for Black Radio Exclusive magazine (BRE); senior staff writer and music columnist for N’Digo magazine; and contributer for Jazziz, among other publications.

In addition, Patterson became an invited contributor to Harvard University/Oxford University Press’ African American National Biography (AANB) series of reference books on the who’s who of Black American culture.

As a senior staff writer for the Chicago Defender (and the Black Press of America news wire service), one of Patterson’s main beats was covering then Illinois U.S. Senator Barack Obama. Patterson had the inside coverage on Mr. Obama during beginning speculation that the senator might run for president of the United States. Nationally, however, few people throughout the nation knew much about the senator. Patterson’s stories gave insights into who the young Black presidential hopeful was and what his agenda might be. Patterson’s coverage on soon-to-be President Barack Obama were quoted in some of the largest newspapers in the country (including the L.A. Times and Washington Post).

Back in the music world, Patterson seemingly has been at the right place most of the time to have chance meetings in scoring some interviews with some of the greatest musicians of our time. Notable interviews include Luther Vandross, Ernie Isley, Nancy Wilson, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Joe Henderson, Randy Weston, Horace Silver, Von Freeman, Chico Freeman, George Benson, Kyle Eastwood, George Duke, Brian Blade, Regina Carter, Michael Franks, Phyllis Hyman, Larry Willis, Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Clarke, Lester Bowie, Michael Franks and Pat Metheny among others.

Today, Patterson writes about and engages in enriching conversations regarding all aspects of Black American cultural influences (including exploring all contributions from the African Diaspora).

Listen to the show here: The Words On Flicks Show: Chi-Town On Film 07/17 by E Water Radio | Entertainment (blogtalkradio.com)

 

The Words On Flicks Show June 2022: Father's Day Special Guests

Celebrating fathers at the movies, in the movies, and for the movies this month on 

The Words On Flicks Show podcast!

Listen starting Sunday, June 12, 2022 at 3pm ET/12 noon PT here.

Here's the lowdown on our very special guests: 

Digital media and entertainment executive Juliana J. Bolden leads the creation of digital products, social media strategy, and the production of TV/film/digital content for brands like Wells Fargo, the Emmys, AT&T, the NAACP and NAACP Image Awards, Grey Goose, BlackTree TV, and served on the 2016 Democratic National Convention Committee Specialty Media team. In 2009, the San Francisco Bay Area native played a key role in building Emmys.com (the Television Academy’s very first consumer-facing website). Later that year, Bolden launched the Emmy Publications video/film production division. She began her television/digital career at ABC Family Channel/Disney, working on such long- and short-form programming as the ubiquitous Power Rangers series, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from San Diego State University. She is also currently the Exec Producer & Sr. Entertainment Correspondent for Hollywood Post Network/BlackTree TV Group.

A. Scott Galloway is a prolific Los Angeles-based Music Journalist who has been writing about music since 1988 for magazines that include Urban Network, Wax Poetics and the U.K.’s Blues & Soul – interviewing artists from Max Roach to Maxwell. His specialty niche is composing liner note essays for reissues and compilations of classic recordings for which he has written over 300. As it relates to history in Black Film, those credits include the 25th anniversary Deluxe 2-CD reissue of Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly,” “The Reel Quincy Jones” compilation of the composer/conductor’s film music, “The Best of Shaft” compilation of songs and cues from the “Shaft” film trilogy, the golden era Motown time capsule “Cooley High,” a pairing of Gladys Knight & The Pips’ “Claudine” w/ “Pipe Dreams,” and the various artists compilation “Super Bad On Celluloid.” Mr. Galloway is also the Editor of the 2013 Hal Leonard deluxe coffee table book “Down The Rhodes: The Fender Rhodes Story.” And he wrote the foreword for Les McCann’s book of photography “Invitation to Openness.”

Harlem native Michael A. Gonzales is a cultural critic, short story scribe and essayist who has written for The Paris Review, The Village Voice, Wax Poetics, The Wire UK, Maggot Brain and Pitchfork. His fiction has appeared in Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression edited by S.A. Cosby, Taint Taint Taint, Dead-End Jobs: A Hit Man Anthology edited by Andrew J. Rausch, Black Pulp edited by Gary Phillips and The Root. Upcoming stories will appear in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Get Up Offa That Thing: Crime Fiction Inspired by James Brown edited by Gary Phillips, Killens Review of Arts & Letters and Obsidian Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.

Leslie Hunter-Gadsden is a journalist and educator with more than 30 years of experience writing for print and online publications, including Next Avenue, Purple Clover, Black Enterprise and Forbes.com.  A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, she has written on a variety of topics including business, women in the workplace, motherhood, education, dance, theater, science, race relations and family ancestry.  The mother of two grown children, storytelling has always been her passion, whether through spoken word, written word, or dance.

Tonya Pendleton is a veteran multimedia journalist in news, sports, lifestyle and entertainment reporting. She’s written for Essence, Ebony, BET.com, The Source, XXL, Jordan Magazine, the Philadelphia Daily News, The Washington Post and more. In her current incarnation as a writer/editor with TheGrio.com and as “Things To Do” curator for NPR affiliate WHYY, she crafts content for a local and global audience. The Philadelphia resident was born and raised in New York City and is a graduate of The New School. 

Karen Thomas has never worked a day in her life. She pursued her passion for 20 years as ESSENCE marketing and special events director, retired, then spent the next 20 years developing a $200 million not-for-profit charter school network that grew from a $1 million investment.  Her idea of retirement is doing whatever the hell she pleases including living in Paris to study art history. Her greatest accomplishments are her children and grandchildren, with whom she hopes never to live.” 

As a native son of Texas, Derrick Thompson spent many of his formative years dreaming of the bright lights of New York City.  An acceptance letter from Columbia University would turn that dream into a reality. Although he earned his Ivy League degree in Urban Studies, it was the music business that brought his professional career to life.  Derrick landed his first music gig as a sales assistant at the now legendary Sleeping Bag Records. There he would cut his teeth in a number of positions including dance music promotion, product management and talent acquisition. Helping the tiny label land its first #1 Billboard album would be his first crowning achievement. Derrick moved on to stints at both Def Jam and EMI working with the likes of LL Cool J and Arrested Development. Eventually Derrick found his way to the newly formed BMG Music Publishing. Starting as a music library coordinator, he would eventually rise to become Senior Vice President of Talent and oversaw the company’s expanding R&B/Hiphop roster. During his successful tenure at BMG , he brought the likes of Mobb Deep , Nelly , Erykah Badu and Lupe Fiasco into the BMG music publishing family.  Derrick serves on the advisory board of the New York based ad agency Sparks & Honey. A past recipient of both the Heroes And Legend Award and the Award of Excellence from Urban Network, Derrick  has embarked on a brand new professional chapter as a content creator.  

Song Snippets*:

"Daddy Could Swear, I Declare," Gladys Knight & the Pips

"Song For My Father," Horace Silver

 "Color Him Father," The Winstons

 "Son of Shaft," The Bar-Kays

 "Papa Don't Take No Mess," by James Brown

 "Your Daddy Loves You," Gil-Scott Heron

 "Dance With My Father," Luther Vandross

 "Dat Dere," Oscar Brown Jr.

 "Papa," Paul Anka Live

*I was determined not to use The Temptations’ “Papa Was  A Rolling Stone”

All Buckle, No Swash: This "Cyrano" Disappoints

 Cyrano
directed by Joe Wright
starring Peter Dinklage, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Haley Bennett, Ben Mendelsohn 

I have said it before and I will say it again: I love musicals. I grew up on a steady diet of Lerner & Lowe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Frank Loesser. These were the standards set for the American style musical from the 1920s through the mid 1960s, and I am a product of my Baby Boom generation, and I swallowed them, hook, line and sinker. The next generation of musicals -- particularly the jukebox style and the rock opera -- have also gained my affection. The combination of storytelling with the emotion of clever lyrics wedded to powerful melodies, performed by incredible talents, has always been appealing to me.

Musicals have changed a lot over the last two decades -- they have grown into presentations with songs that incorporate rock, soul, blues, opera, hip-hop and today's pop music. Characters have more stream-of-consciousness thoughts set to music and songs don't always have memorable choruses. Today's musicals -- particularly in film -- don't always seem to require fabulous singing voices. Often to their detriment.

The story of Cyrano de Bergerac is a tale of unrequited love a nobleman with a physical deformity has for a young eligible woman, Roxane, who has fallen in love at first sight with Christian de Neuvillette, another soldier. Most of us know this story, or some form of it. First introduced via the 1897 play written by Frenchman Edmond Rostand, the original drama was inspired by a very real author, poet and duelist and written in rhyming couplets. According to this beloved tale, Cyrano believed that no woman could truly love him because of his deformity, his extra-large nose, so he agreed to ghost-write letters for his love-stricken but inarticulate fellow cadet, Christian, to make Roxane fall in love with him. This allows Cyrano to pour out his own feelings for her under the guise of being Christian. 

Cyrano The Musical

Jose Ferrer chews the scenery with gusto in his most famous stage role and on the screen in 1950's first English language version that earned him an Academy Award. A previous musical version, Cyrano, starring Christopher Plummer and directed by Michael Kidd, played just 94 performances on Broadway starting in 1973. Steve Martin translated the idea to a comedy set in Canada with a happy ending in 1987's Roxanne (a very cute and laugh-filled film for the rom-com crowd). A French-language screen version starring Gerard Depardieu did well in 1990. The original play has been restaged dozens of times, and the main themes have been adapted or satirized on the big screen, on stage, and on television. 

Jose Ferrer in the 1950 film

All this brings me to Cyrano, the musical film released by Disney and starring award-winning actor Peter Dinklage in the title role. I am a big fan of Peter Dinklage -- he is an amazing and handsome actor who just happens to have dwarfism. Throughout his career he has been successful at avoiding roles usually reserved for actors of his stature, like fantasy elves, leprechauns, trolls or freaks, and been able to showcase his humanity and range. This Cyrano was crafted especially for him by his wife, Erica Schmidt, who adapted the original material, adding music by the Grammy-winning rock group The National. It's a clever idea -- transferring Cyrano's stumbling block from a facial feature to his stature -- that at first glance works well. It's also nice that the film engages in diverse casting choices, making its young Christian a man of color, played by newcomer Kelvin Harrison Jr.  

Still -- This Cyrano is mopey and dopey. A lot of this Cyrano takes the audience for granted -- we have to take a lot of facts as a matter of course, just because the movie says they are so. I guess Roxanne is beautiful enough to fall in love with at first sight -- she needs a weekend in the sun and a sandwich. And I guess she's clever and intellectual -- her bucking her intended husband, the villainous Duke De Guiche, is evidence. The Cyrano character is supposed to inspire admiration: for his boldness, his brashness, his derring-do, his swordplay both with a sharpened bit of steel and with his tongue. He's supposed to be clever and funny and smart in addition to being secretly lovelorn. But Dinklage doesn't quite carry that off -- he's less swagger and more haggard. He seems bitter and mean instead of clever, hangdog instead of noble, his swordplay is questionable, he's shaggy in a world of foppery (powdered wigs, powdered faces, beauty marks, and high heels are worn by both sexes) and what's worse, his singing voice is ... less than compelling. It doesn't help that many of the songs in this musical are slow, sad, navel-gazing yearnings about love: wanting love, losing love, not being able to declare love, being in love. There's not enough upbeat, celebratory tunes here that make you leave the theater singing. 

Can this love be revealed? Bennett & Dinklage

There are some interesting dance numbers, such as when Christian reprises the song originally crooned by Roxanne (in a lyrical soprano by Haley Bennett) in an earlier scene, when his fellow French army cadets suddenly begin to gyrate, quadrille, and lift each other with deadpan earnestness behind him. Harrison's voice is also less than what a stage actor would muster, and the distracting swooshing of the costumes as the men dance behind him is so disconnected that I was laughing out loud. Again, no joy. Just ludicrousness.

Granted, Cyrano sticks fairly close to the original material. Therefore -- Spoiler -- the ending isn't exactly happy. In the original story, Roxanne and Christian wed but barely have a chance to consummate before Christian is killed in battle, and Cyrano keeps his love for Roxanne a secret until his last dying breath a few years later. So no, he doesn't really get the girl. 

Bennett & Harrison in Cyrano

I wanted to like this Cyrano. It's beautifully shot. The costuming and set design are impeccable. Peter Dinklage is acting and singing his heart out. But so much of this film is off-putting, weird, sad, and disjointed. I literally wanted to stand up in the middle of the movie theater and yell, Wake Up -- This Is A BAD Movie, people!!! But that's just snobbery on my part. Many people seem to love this film and have heaped it with accolades. 

But I have to put a red light on for this Roxanne. 

We Fall Down: Regina Hall Shines In "Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul"

Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul

directed by Adamma Ebo
starring Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown

Thanks to the auspices of the African American Film Critics Association, which I rejoined recently, I was able to view the Syndance Festival hit Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul. Alternately a side-splitting mockumentary, a workplace comedy, an unsparing relationship drama, a scathing critique of organized religion, and a probing examination of our current culture, Honk For Jesus -- which premiered January 23 at the Sundance Film Festival --is a rollercoaster ride that starts with laughter and ends in tears. 

Written and directed by Atlanta newcomer Adamma Ebo and produced by her twin sister Adanne Ebo, Honk For Jesus stars the incredibly committed Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) and the incomparably talented Regina Hall, who both also support the film as producers. Their performances hold the film together so tightly that you get swept up into the story. 

And the story is not unfamiliar, thanks to headlines of fallen or compromised church leaders over the last decade. Whether Honk For Jesus evokes laughter, ridicule, compassion, or ire is an open question as the film winds to its conclusion. 

Charismatic pastor Lee-Curtis Childs (Brown) and his devoted wife, First Lady Trinitie Childs (Hall) are attempting to rebound from an unnamed scandal that has left their Georgia Southern Baptist megachurch mostly empty of congregants. Desperate but determined to reclaim their pre-scandal glory, the couple engages a mostly unseen documentary film crew to follow them as they attempt to regain their standing in the church community, restore their reputations, and fill their pews once more. Of course, the cameras capture more than the Childs bargained for, not only recording their fake-pious assurances that God will see them through their current woes, but their unbridled materialism, their intense competition with a local couple who pastor a rival church, their marital squabbles, their hypocrisy, and their delusional belief that the scandal will melt away once they throw enough money at the problem and put on a happy face. Some of the moments with the Childs are not seen through the documentarists' lens, as in an intimate scene when the couple has sex and it is obvious that Pastor Childs has certain ... preferences. 

There are some laughs, as when the couple cluelessly gives a tour of the church's expansive wardrobe area, where Lee-Curtis and Trinitie revel in the sheer number of pricey designer outfits available for Sunday wear; an erstwhile service where Pastor Lee-Curtis decides to strip down in front of a handful of remaining parishioners to plunge into the baptism pool in a misguided attempt to cleanse himself of his transgressions, only to have a tiff with Trinitie over the proper way to say "Amen"; and when Trinitie goes to the mall to shop for an expensive Church Lady Hat only to be confronted by a former parishioner in a fraught and fake exchange about the rival church's plans. 

Though the nature of the scandal the couple faces is never spelled out in so many words, we get numerous clues about sexual misconduct with male minors from Pastor Lee-Curtis's encounters: on the phone with his lawyer, with a young cameraman from the documentary crew, and in an ugly exchange with a young man who was a former parishioner. For his part, a narcissistic Lee-Curtis is mostly unwilling to acknowledge his particular demons, or to truly apologize to his parishioners or indeed his wife for his behavior. As the film continues, we see that Trinitie's determined smiles, spousal pep talks, assurances to the camera that their devoted ministry will go on, and willingness to publicly humiliate herself to regain their status are literally a (praise mime dancing) mask for all the humiliations she faces as the wife of a compromised man of God. Ultimately, the mask slips as the couple's plans for a grand reopening of their church on Easter Sunday seem more and more compromised,

In the end, after consulting her faithful mother, Trinitie is resolute in her commitment to the man she married and to his vision of the Wander to Greater Paths Church (a name that itself begs for a stream of jokes). As the film draws to a close, we are left to wonder about just how much Trinitie's faith in both her God and her husband can endure.

While there have been numerous television shows and series that address the business of religion and the hypocrisy of church leaders, I expect Honk For Jesus to strike a nerve in the community. I was impressed by the performances of these two actors, but most especially by Hall, who elicits sympathy as a woman who sees through the B.S. but remains committed. 

You can watch my interaction with Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown at the AAFCA Roundtable about this film here: 

Loosey Gucci and Our Lady of Perpetual Drama: "House of Gucci"

 House of Gucci
directed by Ridley Scott
starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto 

Oh! to be a gold digger, a social climber, an arriviste with a taste for the finer things. To possess such a burning sense of entitlement that it fuels the ability to manipulate others and bend them to your will. I wasn't born with those genes, apparently. But for Patrizia Reggiani, a truck driver's daughter who married Maurizio, the scion of the Gucci fashion house in 1979, these attributes came all too naturally and proved to be her Achilles heel. 

House of Gucci is (purportedly) a true story, a sad story, but not an altogether unfamiliar story. The somewhat naive young man of means (Maurizo Gucci, played by Adam Driver) falls in love with a brash young girl from the working class (Lady Gaga). They marry over the father's objections, and now the ambitious young wife pushes her husband into grabbing more and more power within the family business -- through both legal and below-board means involving the sale and ownership of shares. With the husband's success come inevitable resentments and recriminations: His once beloved family members -- most notably his uncle (Al Pacino) and cousin (Jared Leto, in heavy prosthetics), as well as his father (Jeremy Irons) -- are betrayed, estranged and ultimately disenfranchised. The husband, who does elevate the brand with new style and new energy, bringing in designer Tom Ford, becomes drunk with power and goes on a spending spree that imperils the financial wellbeing of the company. 

The husband also indulges in a blonde mistress, who is nothing like The Missus, who has evolved into a nagging, jealous, manipulative, emotionally volatile problem whom he has come to disdain. A ski lodge scene where he mildly but pointedly belittles her in front of his bourgeois friends seems the beginning of the end. In a stunningly matter-of-fact and unanticipated move that may be common to the elite, Maurizio leaves for a business trip and simply never returns. 

Oh Italy, land of passion and Amore, Amore! Of chest-pounding operatic declarations and the deep-seated dark traditions of vendettas! Patrizia is Italian to her core and Drama is her middle name. Now a mother, she will not be forgotten, dismissed, or disregarded (I'm not going to be IGNORED, Dan!). Despite the fact that Maurizio is willing to make a clean break and give her financial support, Patrizia is of the "If I Can't Have Him, No One Will" school. In a heartrending scene where she follows Maurizio to his apartment with an album of family photos and begs him to return to her, a cold Maurizio refuses to engage and closes the door in her face. 

In these moments, an Italian diva wife's thoughts turn, naturally, to ... murder for hire. Through her friendship with a popular TV psychic and fortune teller, played by Salma Hayek, Patrizia orders up a hit as though ordering delivery pizza. The Sicilian hitmen prove more capable than they appear, and the rest, as they say, is history.  

Lady Gaga does wonders with this role, letting us see the insecurity and vulnerability driving Patrizia's desire for more power, more status, and more love. And as scheming a character as she is, Gaga also gives her a well of childish naivete, as in her belief that the fairy tale should rightfully be hers. There's a fearlessness to her ability to embody this woman, so that when she loves, we feel her joy, when she smolders, we feel her sting, and when she is threatened, we feel the enormity and inherent danger of her desperation. On the surface, Patrizia is beautiful, sharp, and engaging; Gaga's charm works so we see how easily but stealthily she insinuates herself into the confidence of Maurizio's uncle Aldo, co-founding partner of the Gucci empire, and his son, frustrated designer Paolo, before getting her husband to stab them in the back. 

I love Adam Driver as an actor, and he looks damn good in the 1970s feathered hair, designer suits, and squared off aviator glasses, but Maurizio is a coddled, mild-mannered, self-centered character in director Ridley Scott's version of things, so his performance is mostly low-key. The other cast members revel in their chance to employ florid Italian accents and talk with their hands. Jared Leto, almost unrecognizable under makeup and a frizzy half-bald pate, seems to be in another movie altogether, taking his character's lunkheadedness and whining self-pity to parodic levels. 

As a film, this is a standard tale of love gone wrong at the highest level of society, nothing more than a Milanese-set episode of "Snapped." I wouldn't call it a Must See movie, but it's not bad, more notable for reviving a famous murder case and stirring up bad feelings among the remaining Guccis and others who say that the film is far from accurate. 

Accurate or not, House of Gucci is really House of Gaga -- a showcase for Stephanie Germanotta's prodigious talents as a screen actress. And I say: Brava, Gaga! 

The French Dispatch: Topics in Faux Lit and French Letters*

Directed by Wes Anderson Starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright et al

 

(*extra credit if you know what a French letter is. Hardy har.) 

 As a writer, I'm familiar with the history of several literary-leaning magazines and writers whose work has become part of the canon. But I say "familiar" as in "I've heard of"; I'm no expert. I have never subscribed to The New Yorker magazine, though I have read a few articles over the years and respect its reputation for longform literary reporting. 

 In my opinion, you need to have more than a passing acquaintance with the heyday of The New Yorker Magazine and its merry band of 1950s and 60s writing luminaries, not to mention some knowledge of the inner workings of a publication, to fully appreciate the over-the-top storytelling, arch satire, and numerous inside jokes bulging from director Wes Anderson's towering tribute The French Dispatch.

 What brought me to The French Dispatch is an appreciation for the storybook framing and mildly-to-wildly comic tone of his previous films, such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and Bottle Rocket (I missed The Darjeeling Limited), and animated features The Isle of Dogs and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. It seems that with each new film, Anderson ups the ante on everything he's become known for as a filmmaker, and The French Dispatch is Anderson at his most Anderson: The incredibly detailed sets, the use of color, the number of characters and the high-profile casting, the intricate plot(s), the rapid pace and often matter-of-fact delivery of dialog, the frequently wide and static camera shots. In this film, more is ... more. 

 A viewer who has no knowledge of the film's paean to a past literary age can view it on its own terms, a rapidfire succession of oddball personalities doing oddball things. The plot is difficult to describe. It centers on a weekly newspaper insert of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun that covers world politics, art, and lifestyle. Based in France, in the fictional city of Ennui-Sur-Blase (a name that guarantees giggles), the paper was founded and published by an American trailblazer played by Anderson regular Bill Murray (feel free to look up who the publisher and his staff are inspired by in real life, it's too exhausting to fully describe here). 

The film begins with an Anjelica Huston voiceover describing the magazine's history and the fact that its publisher has died and decreed that the magazine end publication upon his death. And thus, we are privy to anthology of the very last issue, which includes a prologue and three stories from the paper's previous issues. The French Dispatch begins with a profile of the town of Ennui, a hilarious bit of dark reporting from Owen Wilson on a bicycle. The film then proceeds to three main stories. 

 The first is the best, in my opinion. The magnificent Benicio Del Toro plays a taciturn psychotic murderer confined to a French prison, who develops a talent for art, inspired by his muse and eventual lover, a frosty prison guard played by Lea Seydoux (who doesn't mind being fully nude on film). His paintings come to the attention of fellow prisoner and art dealer (Adrien Brody) desperate to find and exploit a new talent. Released from prison, the dealer ultimately convinces the recalcitrant artist to create a major masterpiece to unveil before a reception of rich international investors and art critics -- at the prison. The story includes sex, violence, near suicide, electrocution, a prison break, and a spectacular brawl frozen mid-action and photographed as a still tableau. Along the way, the dialog pillories the art world and its inhabitants. 

The second chapter is less interesting but no less frenetic. It revolves around a journalist played by Oscar winner Frances McDormand who covers a university student protest (much as real-life New Yorker writer Mavis Gallant covered the student uprisings in 1968 Paris). She interviews one of its young leaders (Timothee Chalamet, looking not unlike a bladeless Edward Scissorhands) and is soon embedded (and in bed) with the movement. This chapter's flavor is inspired by the French New Wave and the European ideal of older women priming younger men for romance, as the young revolutionary ultimately zooms off with a young lady on the back of his motorbike. (This is the chapter that made me consider leaving the theater in the middle of the flick, something I rarely do).

The last chapter is more engaging, but also with a complicated plot. It begins with French Dispatch food writer Roebuck Wright, played by a James Baldwin-esque Jeffrey Wright, being interviewed on a talk show (the host played by an unctious Lieb Schreiber). While on the show, Wright demonstrates to the studio audience his ability to recount, word for word, his most famous Dispatch article -- which is then reenacted in live action and eventually animation. The piece covers his quest to interview Lt. Nescoffier, a brilliant chef who creates ingenious meals for the police elite. Just as Wright sits down to sample the culinary skills at an exclusive precinct meal, the police commissioner is informed that his young son has been kidnapped. The story ramps up into the effort to rescue Junior from the clutches of a desperate gang and how the chef himself (Steve Park) makes the ultimately sacrifice to save the boy. There are two poignant moments in this tale: Wright recalls when he was arrested for being homosexual, and the publisher of The French Dispatch bailed him out and gave him a job; and when Wright and the Asian chef briefly comment on being foreigners in French society. 

The film is stuffed with clever banter, literary allusions, visual jokes, and beautifully detailed set design. For those who don't get all the jokes, this is still an incredible viewing experience. In addition to those mentioned, the cast includes Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Bob Balaban, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Henry Winkler, and Lois Smith. Some of these folks are only on screen for a few minutes. 

 The French Dispatch is really designed for a very distinct and discriminating audience, which is to say that it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. Those who love Wes Anderson and truly get his intention, which was to create "a love letter to journalism," will adore this movie. It is an incredible piece of filmmaking. My appreciation of it is more aesthetic at this point; perhaps subsequent viewings (which the piece seems to demand) will reveal more of its charms. But among a series of Anderson films that have often been called "twee," "fey," "precious," and "outlandish," this one tops them all.

Cry Uncle! "The Many Saints of Newark"

The Many Saints of Newark
directed by Alan Taylor
written by David Chase and Lawrence Konner

I just watched The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel to The Sopranos, and while it had its moments, I'm not sure it really needed to be made. It's not exactly an origin story, but it's in The Sopranos Universe.

As a fan of that the long-running HBO series about the modern-day New Jersey mob capo who tried to manage family, love, and the often murderous flow of criminal business by visiting a shrink, I was interested in this film. I thought I would be seeing how the young and at one point presumably innocent Tony Soprano became big smart sexy scary sinister screwed-up Tony Soprano. But that's not what this film is about.

The clue that the film is about the many moral failings of Tony's psochopathic uncle Dickie Moltisanti is in the title: Moltisanti means "many saints" in Italian. This is explained in the early voiceover from beyond the grave by murdered Sopranos character Christopher Moltisanti, voiced once more by The Sopranos star Michael Imperioli (in a narrative nod to such films as Sunset Boulevard, where the narrator is already dead when the film begins).

It takes a while for the story to settle in after reacquainting us with the Molitsantis, Sopranos, and the others who frequent Satriale's Pork Store in 1960s Newark. Handsome and charismatic Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) is the boss, running a profitable numbers game in the hood with the help of Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom, Jr.) with whom he went to high school. But racial tensions run high during that era, as civil rights legislation may have been enacted but holds no sway among the bigoted working-class Italians who remain in the city even as white flight has turned Newark into a largely black city. Tensions escalate when Harold decides he's had enough of being Dickie's errand boy and wants to run things himself, while simultaneously the streets erupt with protests then four days of rioting, looting, and burning in the historic 1967 Newark Riots, after a black cab driver is beaten and believed killed by the police. The riots give Dickie a cover for his own ghastly and impulsive act of violence.

Actor Alessandro Nivola looks the part, but he never really finds a rhythm as Dickie Moltisanti, who cycles between good intentions, criminal activity, family devotion, murder, and repentance. He's a seemingly good guy with some serious emotional issues. But do we root for him?
As Tony Soprano, the late actor James Gandolfini had several seasons in which to build an intensely compelling character who was both sympathetic and repellant; in this one-off prequel, Nivola doesn't get to dig as deep, so I found myself not really caring what becomes of him. (Not to mention the fact that to me, he looks a lot like Milo Ventimiglia, the good guy dad from TV's This Is Us). Maybe we're not supposed to care.

Actor Leslie Odom Jr., who portrays Harold McBrayer, Dickie's flunky-turned-adversary, fares far better in the narrative, having no equivalent in the Sopranos series and demonstrating the Black Power ethos of the era. One of the strengths of the film is that it gives so much attention, historically and culturally, to the considerable racial tensions from a ground-level point of view, without painting African Americans in a negative light. That's quite a trick, considering that Harold proves to be as cunning, dangerous, and quick on the trigger as Dickie.

The women in this film get short shrift. We don't get to see how Livia (Vera Farmiga) turns into the monster mother of adult Tony's nightmares, but we get a glimmer. But from the moment Dickie's father, Hollywood Dick, brings home Giuseppina (Michela de Rossi), his prized soon-to-be trophy wife from Italy, we know she will be the femme fatale of the piece. Looking like an Italian Penelope Cruz, Giuseppina is the very attractive fly in the ointment, the naive undoing of everyone around her.

Though we do see younger versions of familiar figures from The Sopranos universe, including Tony's lunkhead father Johnny, sister Janice, and narcissist mother Livia; soldier Paulie and consigliere Silvio; an arch and vindictive Uncle Junior (Corey Stoll); and fleeting looks at a young Carmela and a young Christopher, they are mere ciphers. In this plot, teenaged Tony's character is there to react as his favorite uncle Dickie at first grooms and counsels him, then emotionally and ultimately physically abandons him. Played by Michael Gandolfini, the lookalike son of James Gandolfini, young Tony Soprano loves rock music, wants to play football, and only has vague ideas of what his father and other relatives are really up to in the wee hours of the night. Losing Uncle Dickie is one of Tony Soprano's steps toward understanding the high price of "this thing of ours."

Given the ending, which offers something of a twist, I couldn't help noticing the film's zigzag pattern of uncles and their roles in this extended web of mob families. Unseen but shadowing the entire tale is the bitterness of the deceased Christopher Moltisanti, who bears a justifiable grudge against his "uncle" Tony Soprano for deeds that will come decades later; after the death of his father, Dickie Moltisanti seeks counsel and a kind of moral benediction from his imprisoned uncle, Sally (Ray Liotta, who also plays Dickie's father), to whom he nevertheless lies about his misdeeds; teenaged Tony is hurt and angry about being inexplicably snubbed by his uncle Dickie; and Uncle Junior ...? Well, though we don't see much of him in this film, we're abruptly reminded that he's the same touchy, merciless sociopath he's always been.

Maybe it should have been called "The Many Uncles of Newark."

Though the story created by The Sopranos originator David Chase can stand on its own, The Many Saints of Newark suffers from its comparison to The Sopranos. Were you really expecting a Mafia psychodrama that reaches the same heights as the beloved HBO series? Fuhggeddaboutit.