Thanks to work paying for our tickets, we got to see Mr. Coates talk about his new book the Water Dancer. There was also supposedly a copy of the book we could all read, but I never saw it.
I’ll track it down, though. I enjoy his writing.
Julia Hart directs and Lily Rabe inhabits Miss Stevens and together they create a story about the parts of teaching that don’t have to do with standing in the front of a classroom. Lily Rabe is a complex Miss Stevens* and watching her students watch her make the choices she does is only part of the fun. At times, the movie balances the teacher/student relationships on a knife’s edge and the tension is in seeing how Miss Stevens will react; in addition, Timothée Chalemet pushes the envelope the most in an excellent performance.**
Cost: free via Kanopy
Where watched: at home
*I was captivated by her performance. She has a really interesting face: lots of emotion and she looks different from every angle.
**That at one point tips over to “too big” but otherwise is exemplary.
The headrests on the front seats of Miss Stevens’ car are incorrectly positioned, causing a safety issue where a crash could potentially lead to the decapitation of the driver and front passenger.
(Oh internet comments. Sometimes I love you so much.)
It’s a gentle comedy, Cedar Rapids is, and Miguel Arteta does his best to make an amusing and sweet movie.* Ed Helms perfectly embodies the somewhat emotionally stunted, completely tight-laced, Midwestern,** small-town insurance agent suddenly tapped to travel to Cedar Rapids for the big insurance conference. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock Jr.*** make great mentors, and the rest of the cast is stuffed with a laundry list of, “Hey, it was that guy**** who was in that thing.”
Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home
*It’s a Sunday Afternoon Movie—one that provides you with one last gasp of trouble-free weekend before the windup to the work week begins.
**In bearing, he very much reminded me of a co-worker.
***Who charmed me by describing himself as being married to his insurance business, but also that he takes part in community theater and enjoys the HBO program, The Wire.
****There are nearly no women in this movie.
Isiah Whitlock Jr.’s character Ronald Wilkes references the character Omar from the TV show The Wire. He played the character State Sen. R. Clayton ‘Clay’ Davis on the TV series. According to Whitlock, the Wire references were in the script before he was cast, and they decided to keep them in place as an in-joke for fans of both Whitlock and his former show.
Sixty-five years later, Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront remains a potent tale of doing the right thing. All the cast members, but Marlon Brando in particular,* excel at showing the choices that are made when there aren’t many good choices to be had. Aside from Brando being Brando (back when that was a good thing) Karl Malden is excellent as a priest determined to make a difference, and Eva Marie Saint was incredible—especially given the era-specific limitations of her role.**
Cost: free from MCL
Where watched: at home
*Most of my exposure to Brando has been after 1980, which is far from peak Brando, so you can image how different he seemed to me in this film. One interesting observation: how he presents as very uber-male, but at times, his movement and expressions also present to my 21st century viewing eyes as effeminate (or, to use the 80s term: faggy). I think it’s because of the placidity of his face, and the amount of emotion that rolls off of him. Actors today playing straight male roles are less fluid in both their body movements–probably because they carry a lot more muscle–and their facial expressions.
**I think of her in comparison to Grace Kelly in High Noon. Saint is a bubbling factory of emotion, while Kelly is wooden.
Sam Spiegel forgot to pay for rear-projection equipment, hence the reason why the cab where Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger play out the film’s most famous scene has blinds.
Matt has been attending a small-business startup seminar at Mercy Corps and he met Del, who is an artist.
We got to see Del and his art in an exhibit that also included a talk about how the piece was created.
There are some great trees near the office that explode into my favorite color every autumn. And then there are the trees that are still solidly green.
Not completely solidly as it turns out.
Despite excellent performances, Sam Mendes’ American Beauty has not aged well, thanks to a social movement that calls out how women have to live in the world* and its lead actor’s real life.** On the one hand, we’ve got someone who has a goal, knows why the goal exists, and is working toward a life that is good; on the other hand we have someone who is floating along unhappy and only inappropriate desire can rouse him from the slumber.*** The film was also quite slow; the line readings had me wanting to snap my fingers telling them to speed it up!
Cost: free via Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home
*#MeToo
**There’s a scene where Kevin Spacey threatens a sexual harassment suit against his male boss. Lo, nearly 20 years later Kevin Spacey would be the person being accused.
***Dude, you don’t like your life? Fine, change it. You think your wife is a phony? Examine why you are still with her and perhaps talk to her about it. You hate your marriage? Get a divorce or fix it. You feel sad that your daughter is so distant? Maybe ask her some questions. You want to sleep with your underage daughter’s best friend? You can’t. It’s illegal.****
****For the love of god, don’t blame everything on your wife. Have some agency. This movie was very much a last gasp (I hope) of the baby boomer mid-life crisis movie—right down to the cliched music.
According to his Oscar speech, screenwriter Alan Ball was sitting at the World Trade Center Plaza when he saw a paper bag floating in the wind and was inspired by it to write the film, which was originally conceived as a stage play.
Rupert Goold directs Judy, a tenderly sad movie—because what other kind of Judy Garland movie can there be?—with a masterful performance by Renee Zellweger. This movie got me thinking about what we expect of our performers—is it not enough to have the amazing singing voice?*—and how hard it is to reconcile those expectations with real life. This is also a film that captures the 60’s quite nicely, and not with the usual cliches.
Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater
A star is Born (’18)
A star is Born (’54)
The Runaways
Love and Mercy
*The answer was no when Judy Garland was a girl, and is still no today.
Renée Zellweger was born the same year that Judy Garland died: 1969.
I was worried that the construction company was going to tape over all the windows and leave them for weeks, but I worried for nothing. They did one side of the building at a time, and the windows were only covered for one day.
One interesting part of this process was that I learned there is a roller-type tool that is utilized to stick the blue tape on. With that tool, it was a very fast process.
And then, one morning they were painting just as the sun was coming up and I got this silhouette.
I last wrote about this broken locker in April and you can see that the sign has been upgraded and caution tape has been added.
Will the locker ever be fixed? It remains to be seen.
