Doomsday's Andrei Tarkovsky Love Fest

Sound of Metal

I would imagine that like myself, most people are only familiar with Riz Ahmed due to Nightcrawler and Rogue One. He never struck me one way or the other and was never an actor I regarded all that much. Sound of Metal has changed that. We've seen movies before where an actor is asked to portray a character with a specific disability and sometimes that performance can be moving and effective, other times it can almost be as over the top as it is celebrated. Ahmed embraces the former as he brings an understated yet intense and heartbreaking portrayal of a drummer who wakes up one morning almost completely deaf. He scrambles to find treatments, answers, community and comfort and ultimately has to decide what kind of new life he wants to create for himself.

I know there has been a lot of talk up until now about actors like Delroy Lindo for Da 5 Bloods, Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and pretty much the entire cast of One Night In Miami being up for awards consideration but in my view Paul Raci outpaces all of them. I was unfamiliar with Raci before Sound of Metal but he steals every scene here, not because he chews it up or gives this bombastic performance, quite the contrary. Raci plays Joe, a deaf man who reads lips and runs a home for disabled addicts. Ruben begrudgingly stays there for a time before making a series of decisions that force Joe to ask Ruben to leave. Raci, apparently someone who knows sign language as he grew up with deaf parents, doesn't even seem like he's acting, he's that convincing as someone who helps and cares for those who experience the world in ways that most others don't. His final scene where he and Ruben part ways isn't just the most emotional part of the movie, it's one of the most moving scenes I've seen in a movie in a long time.

Sound of Metal might not come off as an awards darling at first glance but I think it does have a large measure of passion behind it. I think we're going to hear a lot in the way of Ma Rainey and One Night in Miami but I don't think the performances here should be overlooked nor should the screenplay. I know that it's going to be easier for critics and voters to gravitate towards films that meet certain demographic criteria due to the political climate of 2020 but I'm hoping Sound of Metal doesn't get lost in the shuffle because it's certainly a superior film compared to many others. As for the movie itself, it's one that has really sat with me since watching it a few days ago. It really strikes a nerve in capturing the anguish that sits with Ruben as well as those who try and help him with varying degrees of success. As of now Sound of Metal sits at the top of the list of AFI's 2020 selections. It's a personal and moving film and not many are able to successfully do what Sound of Metal accomplished on an emotional level.

On a side note, it took me a while to place who played Lou. 'Who is she, where have I seen her again?' I looked it up and come to find out it was Olivia Cooke. From Ready Player One. Boy how quickly that movie left my brain.

A- so says Doomsday

One Night In Miami...

It feels like a pretty gutsy move to craft a fictional story about four historic titans all arguing in a room together.  There have been numerous portrayals on film of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali (here as Cassius Clay), Sam Cooke and Jim Brown and each one of them could have entire movies centered solely on them.  Some of them already have on multiple occasions.  One Night In Miami however is not interested in the biographies of each of these characters, it instead puts them all at a certain point in time in a particular place to talk about each of their struggles in the fight against racism.  As a story it works and also brings new perspectives to the approach of discussing racism and while I thought it left some to be desired on a technical level it still delivers a moving and thought-provoking product.

I mentioned when talking about Ma Rainey that it's often very obvious that you're watching a play and it came as no surprise after watching One Night In Miami that this was also based on one, something I didn't know before watching.  I think the highlight of the film is that while it naturally deals with racism it does so in a way that other films don't when talking about the subject.  Instead of directly putting the focus on white racism, the conversation is centered on what each character is doing to fight it and whether those methods are truly effective.  The main conflict comes between Malcolm and Cooke.  One is embroiled in tensions with the Nation of Islam while attempting to bring Clay into the fold and deflects his angst to criticize Cooke as someone who isn't using his fame to help 'the cause.'  Cooke counters by saying that while it seems he's playing the white man's game, he's using his position to help other black artists by giving an example of selling a song he wrote to the Rolling Stones and collecting royalties in perpetuity.  This is the type of conflict that the film centers around and it actually raises some good questions about what people do in the fight for justice.  There are issues with the film however and I think a lot of it comes from being yet another adaptation of a play.  Bearing in mind that I have neither seen nor read the play I can only comment on the film itself but much of it does feel rather uneven.  After giving some brief setups of the characters, one of the earlier scenes in the movie is Ali's fight against Sonny Liston.  Naturally he wins and the four characters converge on the hotel room to start their 'victory party.'  Considering how almost half the movie goes by before we finally get here it feels like a lot of what happens afterward, namely the focal conversation, is unbalanced and sometimes rushed.  This is especially apparent with Jim Brown's character.  He's used here as somewhat of an anchor amongst the four and the only character who doesn't directly provoke one of the other characters.  At the same time though he's underused and doesn't bring much to the story thematically that other characters aren't already carrying themselves.  

While I don't consider One Night In Miami to be top shelf drama, it certainly delivers some thought provoking ideas and is replete with great performances.  Kingsley Ben-Adir (you all know him as the private investigator in the Disney+ hit Noelle) really delivers as Malcolm X and the rest of the cast stand toe to toe with him.  As redundant as it sounds, the 'play' aspects shine through and complement the film in some way but there are some cinematic structures that could have used some polishing.  While it's not something I would consider to be timeless or a towering achievement it does bring a good message and introduces worthy points of discussion.

B so says Doomsday

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR

DA 5 BLOODS

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

MANK

MINARI

NOMADLAND

ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI…

SOUL

SOUND OF METAL

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

No, it's a 2021 film but The Academy moved their eligibility period out to the end of February out of some misguided hope that theaters would be open by now and most of the other award shows followed suit because they're lemmings.  

I think we should have a best picture of 2020. We had winners during WWII, let's just crown something and if it's a shrug-worthy choice like Da 5 Bloods so be it.

Most of the movies from 1942 would have been made in 1941, which is before America got into the war.  There was a definite talent drain going on once the war started and you do see a clear curb in Hollywood's output during 1943-1945 and some of the immediate post-war years.  I think that was secretly part of why they started going to only five nominees for BP around this time.

Yeah, but I think they make more feature films overall in the 2010s than in any time previously.  Remember that most theaters were single screen back then so the studios did not need to fill multiplexes, much less streaming service slates.  

My eye is twitching.

Judas and the Black Messiah

Do any of you ever get that feeling that sometimes you've lost the ability to just sit down and enjoy a movie.  You might watch something good and you might like it but at the same time you might not find yourself 'enjoying' the movie.  Then thoughts flood your brain.  'Maybe I waste my time watching too many movies,' or 'Maybe I should focus more and not take so many pee or text breaks.'  I've had that feeling while watching a lot of this year's AFI movies.  Most of them are perfectly fine and I don't have a whole lot of negative feedback, I just didn't find myself absorbed by them either.  That was me while watching Judas and the Black Messiah, a story about a revolutionary and the FBI informant who followed and befriended him.  It doesn't sound like a terribly original movie, that's because it's not, but it is based on a true story and one of the many movies we've be given of late that uses themes that are very relevant today.  But is that enough to push it over the edge into the territory where really good or even great films reside?  I'm not so sure.

Speaking to the title, the Black Messiah refers to Chicago Black Panther leader 'Chairman' Fred Hampton, his Judas being fellow Panther/FBI informant Bill O'Neal.  Once a low level car thief, O'Neal is picked up by the FBI and arranges with Agent Roy Mitchell to turn snitch in order to be spared a lengthy prison sentence.  O'Neal soon finds himself under the wing of Hampton and before long becomes enraptured by the power of his words and the community he is trying to build for his people.  The FBI won't let him off the hook though and he finds himself betraying his friend and mentor in more savage and extreme circumstances before the battle between Hampton's Panthers and the authorities come to a head.

As I said earlier, I found myself engaged while watching Judas and the Black Messiah so why didn't it hook me like I thought it would.  It's a pretty interesting setup, it has great actors making this yet another terrific ensemble in a recent film, it didn't make any egregious cinematic errors, it just didn't land for me and it took me a second to gather my thoughts and think why that was the case.  I think for most of the movie it was hard to really get a sense of why people were doing what they were doing and what their motivations were.  Namely I'm speaking to the portrayal of the FBI and Martin Sheen's viciously exaggerated performance as J. Edgar Hoover.  It's no secret that Hoover had his hand in investigating all types throughout his long career and many of his targets were civil rights leaders and the groups they led.  In Judas and the Black Messiah however they aren't just agents with an agenda, they are savage, barbaric, bloodthirsty racists.  Hoover rants that Hampton must be locked up at all costs, he lectures Agent Mitchell about what might happen if Mitchell's daughter were to ever bring a black man home, and he openly calls for Hampton's assassination.  There's not a whole lot of nuance here when there probably should have been.  He's basically Michael Fassbender from 12 Years A Slave combined with Blofeld, almost cartoonishly evil.  Alright, if that's the direction the film wants to go then let's go.  Because we've swung so hard in that direction though the portrayal of Hampton is sometimes rather subdued.  That might sound strange considering the number of scenes he has yelling for revolution but we don't really get a sense of why the FBI is desperate to bring this one particular guy down.  He makes speeches from stages, he serves meals to disadvantaged children, he tries to open a medical clinic and gives his love and support to his pregnant girlfriend and his radical views might have been just that, radical, but he certainly wasn't the only one to hold them.  He's actually a very compassionate person much of the time.  So when the movie tries to convince us that this horrible law enforcement wing is trying to bury this political figure no more than 20 years old there just feels like there's a disconnect, like we're watching two opposing forces clearly as far away as they can get from each other when maybe they should have met more toward the middle.  If they had made the FBI less heinous and more conniving, if they had given us a sense as to what might have set Fred Hampton apart in order to warrant his assassination, maybe I would have been able to connect with it a little more.  I'm not saying I needed to see a justification, I just would have liked more of a thread to follow.  Fred's followers do a lot to bring the hammer of the law down but I think it tries too hard to sell the point that they were existing in a time where law enforcement was pure evil.  It certainly wasn't all good nor has it ever been but I don't think it was quite SPECTRE either.  There are some other rather questionable narrative choices as well.  For example, I'm still not sure what they were trying to do with Agent Mitchell's character.  It spends some time trying to paint him as this morally ambiguous person who may be rather shady outside of his role as an FBI agent but that never goes anywhere, he just follows orders.  There are some editorial choices as well that make it feel like characters' motives change without really being prompted and sometimes even come off as confusing (look for the scene where Mitchell tells O'Neal to take off his glasses in the restaurant, it sticks out like a sore thumb).

Now don't get me wrong, Judas and the Black Messiah isn't a bad film, far from it.  In fact I think a lot of my issues with the movie could be based on personal preferences in regards to its narrative.  Those narrative choices however did prevent me from really letting myself get into it as much as I would have liked because it's a movie I was really expecting to enjoy more than I did.  It's certainly not a bad film and has some great things to take away and the injustice it portrays on screen certainly would make any viewer angry.  Ultimately though while it's a film I would recommend, it's just not one that's as good as it thinks it is.

B- so says Doomsday

So looking back at these ten that AFI selected for 2020, it's a bit of a strange year for me.  For the first time in a long while I don't think there are any out of their selections that really blew me away.  Last year I would have rattled off The Irishman or 1917 as those that stood out for me, If Beale Street Could Talk was the movie the year before that but this year it's hard to pick one that I felt really knocked it out of the park.  At a base level almost all of them were good films, the only exception being Da 5 Bloods which I really did not care for at all and found to be heavily flawed.  They were good but were they that good?  Personally the ones that I think were at the higher tier were Sound of Metal and Minari with Nomadland close behind.  The rest I feel are movies that are good to have under your belt but I can't imagine anyone rushing to rewatch.  I wanted to enjoy Mank and Judas and the Black Messiah more than I did and others like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Trial of the Chicago 7 are movies that certainly have something to offer but I just didn't feel transcended to the level of 'wow.'

The reason I bring up this belly-aching from an almost middle aged guy is because it makes me think of the Oscar race and I frankly have no idea what I, or anybody, would put as the frontrunner.  People will probably say 'all the good ones were moved to 2021' and while that might be true for some Oscar-baity contenders like West Side Story is it really the case for that many of them?  I don't know but it's hard for me to really gravitate toward any of them.  Considering how none of these were big theatrical releases and thus don't have a crushing fanbase I can't imagine that the broadcast is really going to hit big ratings.  Heck, maybe the awards frontrunner is some other movie that isn't on this list that I blew by, maybe you guys know better than I do.  All I know is that if Da 5 Bloods wins anything outside of Delroy Lindo then you can put that alongside Green Book and Shape of Water's Best Picture wins as another of the Academy's head-smackingly ludicrous decisions.

Yeah, from a political angle Da 5 Bloods will carry a lot of weight considering the current racial temperature in the US added to the fact that Lee is known for being very vocal about his opinions and gripes to say the least.  Which is too bad because he's made much better films and there are much better films that will be in consideration this year.

From what I'm hearing, the frontrunner is supposed to be Nomadland.