Congrats to Ted Lasso‘s Jason Sudeikis for having won a 2021 Emmy for Best Lead Actor, Comedy. Speaking as a Lasso latecomer, I have to say that I’m not a fan of his Midwestern yokel accent. An American football coach hired to coach a British soccer team, Lasso is regarded as a primitive if not a simpleton. Sudeikis should have played Lasso with his own natural speaking voice — that would’ve sufficed. The accent is irksome.
Like lemmings and barking seals, entertainment commentators and columnists have been celebrating Kenneth Branagh‘s Belfast, the winner of TIFF’s audience award and therefore a locked-down Best Picture nominee…joy and rapture and confetti in the air! Is HE the only outlet saying “wait a minute, hold on, it isn’t that great”?
HE to Phantom, a guy who wants very much to love Belfast and who thinks I’ve been cruel toward Branagh’s film: “I know this will upset you, but there really are people out there — nice, friendly, good-hearted people — who are just too easily taken in by emotionally pandering movies. It’s just the way it is out there.”
Billy Casper to HE: “Emotionally pandering movies? Like Green Book, you mean?”
HE to Casper: “Green Book captures emotional moments and assembles the elements just so. It’s much craftier than and delivers way above the level of Belfast.”
Casper to HE: “But other people believe that Belfast renders emotional moments and delivers just so. It’s bizarre that, after everything that happened in the 2018 campaign, you’re going to appropriate the Guy Lodge playbook. You’ve become the oppressor…sad.”
Phantom to HE: “I am fully aware of the type who is ‘too easily taken in by emotionally pandering movies’ but guess what — that doesn’t make them any less smart or any less discerning. Your insult was condescending, ignorant, unfair, unwarranted. I know this will upset you but films are still subjective. It won’t make you any less or any more if you love / hate any of them.”
HE to Phantom: “No — Belfast pours on the emotional syrup and charm and attempts at poignancy, and — this is key — without the necessary restraint and finesse. Branagh doesn’t trust his audience to tally the meaningful moments and emotional sink-ins on their own and arrive at a possibly profound finale. He keeps nudging and trying to neck-massage you to death. You can spot his scheme right away.
“The color introduction, for example, is designed to engage and comfort those viewers who have a slight problem with black and white. Branagh seems to be saying ‘we’re going with monochrome cinematography to convey a sense of the past, even though we know some of you aren’t that charmed by it. So before we begin the story here’s a segment that shows you what the city of Belfast is like today, and in robust, luminous color. Nice, huh? Okay, now that you’ve immersed yourself…’
“Within the first five minutes there’s a shot of young Jude Hill reacting to neighborhood political violence, and Branagh overcooks it — poor Hill has been goaded to explicitly convey shock and fear and to hold that look on his face. Kids (I was once eight years old) generally tend to be more startled and oddly excited when it comes to big turbulent traumas, but Hill’s expression relentlessly says “oh, my God!…this is so scary and threatening and terrifying!” On top of which Branagh doubles down by shooting Hill with a relentless 360 degree shot, around and around. The movie has just begun and the overkill is already in full throttle mode.”
Jordan Ruimy: “The movie lost me at the very start. It felt so overcooked and deliberately manipulated by Branagh.”
You’re watching this trailer for Stephen Karam‘s The Humans (A24, 11.24), an adaptation of his own 2016 Tony award-winning, one-act play, and waiting for the default conveyance…obviously a family ensemble piece but what’s the angle, the basic shot? And it never comes.
So you read two or three reviews, and this ensemble piece is described as some kind of metaphorical, supernatural creepshow, set in a pre-war Chinatown apartment.
The players are Beanie Feldstein, Richard Jenkins, Jayne Houdyshell, Amy Schumer, Steven Yeun and June Squibb.
Straight question, fair to ask: Does anyone find it palatable that Feldstein and Yeun are a romantic couple? If you were a guy who looked like South Korea’s answer to Brad Pitt, would you get into a serious relationship with someone of Feldstein’s league? Do birds of a feather not flock together?
The Guardian‘s Benjamin Lee: “Karam treats his family drama like it’s a horror [and] the new home becomes a haunted house of sorts, and like the very best examples within genre fiction, it brings the fears of the characters simmering to the surface, [and] there’s not one false note among his ensemble.
“There are references to a culture shift, an age gap, a difference in class and religion but Karam never positions his drama as the one We Need Right Now. It’s of a time and a place but comfortably, quietly, confidently so. There’s something both reassuring and terrifying about it all, the family’s resilient warmth and togetherness providing comfort as the existential horror of what it all amounts to chills us simultaneously.”
Come again?
Jordan Ruimy: “It’s overdirected. A coldly detached story more interested in stylized framing than the characters it depicts.”
In Pablo Larrain‘s Spencer (Neon, 11.5), Kristen Stewart‘s performance as Diana, Princess of Wales, has won raves from nearly everyone, and will most likely result in a Best Actress nomination.
Likewise, some believe that Steven Knight‘s screenplay might also lasso a trophy or two. And yet Spencer contains a line that I absolutely abhor.
In a reference to her fame and striking blue eyes and aura of royal glamour, Diana remarks that “beauty is useless, beauty is clothing.”
That is one of the most full-of-shit lines I’ve ever heard in a film…hell, in my entire life on this planet.
We all understand that good looks won’t do much for a person unless accompanied by sufficient smarts, social skills, a healthy lifestyle and some sort of gift or ability that can be understood and appreciated in the marketplace. But when you’re young and just starting out in whatever field (and even after you’ve gotten going), good looks are a golden passport, and they always have been. They open doors, turn people on, pave the way.
Diana became Prince Charles‘ bride because of her looks plus all the other alluring qualities. But definitely because of her looks. I mean no disrespect when I say that Charles would have never proposed if Diana had looked like, say, the quietly attractive Sally Hawkins.
If Paul McCartney had looked like Gerry Marsden (of Gerry and the Pacemakers) and John Lennon had looked like Ed Sheeran, the Beatles would have had a much tougher time of it…okay?
I really hate having to explain this, much less argue it, but there are some out there who seem to sincerely believe that looks aren’t necessarily a ticket to ride. They’re actually offended by the notion that attractiveness matters.
Five years ago IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich shrieked like a p.c. banshee when I tweeted to Jessica Chastain that an aspiring film critic not only needs to be talented, tenacious and willing to eat shit, but that it would “help” if he/she is “fetching.”
Ehrlich was appalled that anyone would even suggest that an attractive appearance might have something to do with how you’re received in mixed company or by potential employers. I called him a delusional little bitch, of course.
Bill Maher on 5.4.18: “News flash: People just like the physically attractive better. Sorry. The taller candidate usually wins the election. Studies show that the better-looking person, all things being equal, usually gets the job. Even babies prefer to look at attractive faces.”
As most HE readers know, I got “Scarlet Letter”-ed last March when Critics Choice honchos Joey Berlin and John DeSimio booted me out of their organization after being pressured by hysterical wokesters after I posted a sentence written by someone other than myself — a statement which sat on HE for an hour or less before I took it down.
The sentence alluded to the Atlanta massage parlor killings (the victims of which were Asian woman, although Robert Aaron Long‘s motivation wasn’t racial as much as an “intersection of gender-based violence, misogyny and xenophobia,” according to state Rep. Bee Nguyen) and how this tragedy might have affected Oscar voter sentiments.
The sentence read as follows: “If there was one millionth of a chance in hell that Chloé Zhao and Nomadland weren’t going to win Oscars, the Atlanta massage parlor killings just snuffed out that chance.” Not my thought and or a view I believed in or cared about, but for one fleeting moment I thought “wow, that’s a hot-button statement that readers might want to kick around.” Throw him to the wolves!
Certain publicists who didn’t like me to begin with for my bluntly worded opinions seized upon the CCA eviction as an excuse to take me off their screening invite lists, etc. Six weeks ago I wrote Joey Berlin and John DeSimio a letter about this incident and gave them what-for.
Not long after the article appeared HE regular Bobby Peru posted the following:
I’ve pointed this out before, but three similar incidents (tragic news affecting Oscar fortunes) happened within the last eight years.