Category Archives: Just Sayin’

12.30.18
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The Chair’s Must See Movies 2018

This is NOT a 10 best list.  Frankly, this year one would be hard pressed to talk about the best, as in:

We’ve got THE BEST MOVIES.

It would sound too much like that doll-haired huckster on TV shouting, with far too much certainty, things like:

I’ve got the best people…

I’ve got the best brain….

I’ve got the best words…

(Note to self:  Whenever someone has been reduced to telling you about their WORDS, run…don’t walk…to the exit).

My final thoughts on Electoral POTUS for 2018 #2019isMuellerTime

We like to say movies are all about images but what they really are is a combination of pictures AND words, mostly said by actual human beings, These two essentials are then arranged, ordered, stretched, edited, cut and re-interpreted to the point where they:

TELL A STORY.

But not just any story.  The most memorable must sees of any year show you people engaged on a journey that in some way is so unexpected, or familiar, that it grabs you and holds you even when you have to go to the bathroom and desperately want to let go.

Yup.  Must see movies have that kind of power and I’m just the middle-aged guy to personally testify to that fact.  Because if they’re done right you have a tough time breaking their spell despite what your body is pleading with you to do.

But even more difficult is getting them out of your mind.

Of course, this doesn’t mean they’re THE BEST in any given year.  After all, what is best at this point in time is starting 2019.   (Note: Hopefully.)

PLUS THE LAST AVENGERS MOVIE IN 2019!! (It is the last right? Right? RIGHT?)

Instead it means that in a time when pretty much everything FEELS and IS more important than any one movie, these films would NOT..LET…GO.  They held us, well me, to OUR CHAIR.  #ShamelessSelfPromotion

So screw the critics who want to make you feel dumb or out of it when you think to yourself things like:

Getcha glasses, here comes the shade

– I thought The Favourite was ridiculous and mean, as great as those three actresses were. 

– I felt Mary Poppins Returns was sacrilege and a sad excuse for Disney to make money.

– Nothing about Dick Cheney is remotely amusing, especially when one of our most handsome actors has to so ugly up his person to play him in Vice.

And —

– I wish Clint Eastwood would just STOP.   Or simply make a movie with an animal again.

The 2018 MUST SEES, in no particular order:

Three Identical Strangers

Do not adjust your screens, this is not three Andy Cohens

You know how you turned on the news most days in 2018 and thought/said – you can’t make this stuff up?  Well, no screenwriter could convincingly concoct this story and have it resonate the way it does – which is why it IS absolutely true.

A documentary about three wooly-haired Jewish triplets is crazy enough but what happens when they’re separated at birth, find each other in college and then….

It’s not fair to reveal more than the trailer.  Suffice it to say the story becomes bigger than the three boys and takes you on a JOURNEY…JOURNIES.  No excuses, it’s #Streaming.

Black Panther

Take me to Wakanda

Many of us weren’t interested in superhero comics as kids and even more of us have little interest in superhero movies now.  This does NOT mean we dislike them.  Like many adults, we are simply indifferent.

What the team behind Black Panther did in the most in the most subversive way was to NOT treat the film based on a somewhat obscure Marvel comic from the 1970s as SPECIAL  It was smart enough to know that with the first Black  Superhero Film EVER all that was needed was to tell a STORY that rang true and they could create the most meaningful movie of the genre to date.  That they did, and then some.

Does it suffer a few lags in the middle, a couple of confusing plot twists and several overly long action sequences?  Maybe.  But it also brought suspense and depth to an overdone genre not by adding another star villain but simply by being the best version of itself.

The Other Side of the Wind/They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

Redeeming Orson

This is the newly finished final cut of the unfinished film Orson Welles started shooting more than 40 years ago and a documentary on the making of said film and of Welles’ final journey of incompletion.

There are more than a few moments of brilliance in Welles’ imperfectly perfect last film.  More than anything, this seriocomic mockumentary of itself and its real life filmmaker shows us once again how far ahead of his time Welles truly was (Note: Decades before reality TV) and just how deep his love-hate relationship with Hollywood ran.

The actual documentary on the making of the movie confirms most of what any movie fan could guess about the filmmaker and his subjects.  It plays as equal parts loving tribute, cautionary tale and historical document of the Hollywood filmmaking community.

There is no other filmmaker who can bridge the gap from the 1930s, up through the 1970s, and then just time into the 21st century so seamlessly.  The fact that Welles does it in two films via Netflix feels like his final middle finger to the town that lauded and then dumped him.  And after watching both pieces of work, that seems more than justified.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Let the Oscar buzz begin

What was the last film you saw featuring a nasty middle aged lesbian writer and an even older gay male party boy who strike up an unlikely friendship in 1970s/80s New York City?  Based on a true story?  Where they bilk collectors out of money by selling fake literary letters while blithely insulting all of the pretentious people you yourself are not fast enough to one-up in real life?

Hmm.  Never.  Though sounds like a typical Saturday for me.  Which is one of the many reasons I LOVED this film and it’s a must see.

The other is the surprisingly multi-layered, in-depth performance of Melissa McCarthy in the lead.  What a pleasure not seeing her spitting out a piece of pie to the camera, going to the bathroom in the middle of the road or flying through the air and squashing someone on her way down.

She and her co-star Richard E. Grant should both get Oscar nominations and every writer, or anyone who thinks they truly understand the writing life, or has ever written or read a book, should see it.  And not look at box-office figures or read the reviews. #GiveMeABreak

BlackKlansman

Talk about a good poster

Speaking of the Oscars, do you know Spike Lee has never even been NOMINATED for an Academy Award as best director??  Hopefully that changes this year.  It’s hard to imagine anyone but Lee bringing the right mix of comedy, irony and politics to what amounts to a story about race in our country.

Yeah, a real Black policeman in the 1970s DID pretend to be an aspiring member of the KKK on the phone to some real KKK members and actually began to rise through the ranks of  his local racists via the white Jewish  detective he got to pose as his physical self.

It’s so strange it works and so specifically scary that it resonates in 2018 politics.  One more reason it’s one of the must-sees of a year that will not have ended a bit too soon.  #DidIAlreadySayThat?

The Cold War

From the Director of IDA

It’s 89 minutes and as special as ANY movie you will see in 2018 or any year.  Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski has gifted us the story of his parents’ turbulent romantic relationship set against the 1950s Cold War in Poland.  But don’t let the title or the poster fool you. Unlike its title, it is intensely romantic, bizarrely strange, tragically quirky and so musically eclectic as to be right on the border of camp.

It is a pleasure to report that a filmmaker can tell a story with giant gaps in time and not confuse his audience; move arcs of characters in completely odd directions that feel perfectly understandable; and get us to buy it all in Polish and French with only English subtitles to guide us.  That and an unwavering bullsh-t detector that never allows for a single false moment.

If there is a film of the year, THIS ONE would be IT.

Ella Fitzgerald – “The Best is Yet to Come”

11.11.18
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Hold On

Hollywood, CA – Nov. 10, 2018:

Yes, the Malibu fires ARE that bad.  Put it this way, I live in the hills of Hollywood – way, way, waaaay on the other side of town from the beach – and I can smell the smoke INSIDE my house.

Boo hoo, hoo, says our Electoral College POTUS.

This is me restrained… VERY restrained #srsly #heistheWORST

That threat came hours after the fire became unsustainable, destroying at last count 70,000 acres of land and 67,000 structures as it killed 11 people (note: now 25) not lucky enough to be among the 250,000 evacuated from their homes.

Oh, and as of this writing, that fire is still only 20% contained.

California beach community Congressman Ted Lieu quickly responded to the person we Californians now at best refer to as the vile sociopath.

You know.. just the basics about the government YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF

Okay, fine, perhaps the vile sociopath phrase is mine.  But at the moment it’s safe to say I speak for the majority of the state.  And then some.

Sensing he was in the crosshairs as he jetted to Paris, where he decided to skip the ceremony he came for that honored military sacrifices in WWI, the VS (Note: Or  someone) tweeted this 15 hours later:

Of course, that’s how it goes with VSes (Note:  All right, my phrase, but feel free to appropriate).  The only thing greater than the lie is the non-apology fix soon afterwards when they fear they’ve been caught showing their true selves.

Yet I, for one, am hopeful.  There are almost three dozen new women coming to our rescue on Capitol Hill by way of the 2019 Congress, the overwhelming number of whom are Democrats fed up with the VS’s insults and illogic.  It should be noted that’s A LOT more than the mere 24 who came to town in 1992, which was dubbed The Year of the Woman.

Having been raised essentially by strong women this remains unsurprising to me.  The gals/ladies/females/smarter sex are used to cleaning up the messes that we boys make and they do it quite effectively.

Here she comes #WATCHOUTBOYS

I was going to write they occasionally even do it dancing backwards in heels in reference to the old Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire trope, but even in jest that felt pejorative.  Especially since among these women are a CIA agent, a nuclear engineer and a nurse.  Not that they don’t dance or wear high heels, but still…

Of course, my favorite is Kansas’s Sharice Davids, a Native American lesbian who is also a mixed martial arts champ.  She’s someone who can literally kick some ass, and hopefully she’ll do it in heels.

BADASS

Meanwhile, it is also worth noting that at last count a whopping 58% of the candidates Barack Obama endorsed WON on Election Day vs. 28% of the ones our VS-in-chief spoke up for.  And that is before the two recounts in Florida for senator AND governor, as well as the potential runoff for the governorship in Georgia.

While we’re noting, let’s also remind ourselves that the Democratic challenger for governor in Florida, Andrew Gillum, is Black, as is Georgia’s potential governor, Stacey Abrams.  Let’s also be aware that both state’s elections have been rife with accusations of voter suppression, voter roll purging and just failure to count all of the ballots in heavily Democratic and/or Black neighborhoods.

Here’s a photo of a box of provisional ballots left in the closet of an elementary school in Florida’s heavily Democratic Broward County.  It was found there by an elementary school teacher two days after Election Day.  And yes, the teacher was female.

Oh hello there. #isthisreallife #TVepisodeplot

You might remember Broward County as the scene of many election debacles in decades past #BushVGore.  MSNBC’s Joy Reid, a former 14 year Florida resident, says one reason is that Broward is heavily Dem, and in a fairly Republican state like Florida it gets the dregs of voting attention by the electoral powers-that-be.

On the other hand, people do make mistakes.

The 2016 election was one of those.   And then some.

Melissa Etheridge – “Hold On, I’m Coming”