Tag Archives: Academy Awards

THE WHALE (2022) – Brendan Fraser Gives Oscar-Worthy Performance in Thought-Provoking Film

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THE WHALE (2022) is a difficult movie to like.

This is by design.

The movie opens with massively obese English professor Charlie (Brendan Fraser) masturbating to gay porn. Not exactly an image designed to get folks feeling warm and comfy in their seats. In fact, later Charlie demands from another character, “Do you find me disgusting?” and the character’s answer is yes.

On its surface, THE WHALE is about a dying housebound man trying to spend the last week of his life getting to know his estranged teenage daughter. But beneath the surface, the main theme of this movie, which is hammered home a little bit too hard, is that people in spite of how much they say they hate, really do care about other people. As Charlie says, “people are amazing!”

The problem is that nearly every character in this movie is full of hate, which is the point, of course, as Charlie says, that even these people really care. But it makes for challenging viewing because there’s just so much ugliness abound. THE WHALE is a thought-provoking movie, the type of which I really enjoy, because I prefer movies that challenge its audience to think, but that being said, it was a challenge to sit through, and I have to admit, I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

There’s also a strong connection to Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick, hence the title THE WHALE, which is also a reference to Charlie’s weight, and this connection becomes stronger as the movie moves towards its conclusion.

In THE WHALE, Brendan Fraser, who was just nominated for an Oscar for this performance, plays English professor Charlie who teachers online writing classes, and because he is so obese, he keeps his camera off during these computer sessions. As he teaches, he constantly pleads with his students that the most important thing they need to do in their writing is to keep it honest, which is great advice. Charlie is in really bad shape. He’s insanely obese, can’t stand up or move without the help of a walker and eats nonstop. His friend and caregiver, Liz (Hong Chau) tells him the bad news that unless he gets himself to a hospital immediately, he will die by week’s end. Charlie pushes back, saying he has no money, and no health insurance, and he refuses to put himself in debt just to seek medical attention, so he accepts the fact that he will die within days.

As such, he does something he’s not supposed to do, which is he reaches out to his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) hoping to make amends. Ellie is a fiery force to be reckoned with, and Charlie learns that she is failing high school, she doesn’t want to graduate, she’s been suspended, and she’s full of hate towards him. Charlie offers to pay her to visit him this week, and to write her essays for her so she can pass her class. This piques her interest, and she agrees to come back to visit him under those conditions.

Meanwhile, a young preacher named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) begins visiting Charlie, believing that it’s his destiny to save the ailing teacher before he dies. When Ellie meets Thomas, she decides to have fun with him at his expense and engages in behavior which at first seems like she is out to ruin him, as she seems to do with everyone she meets, since she hates everybody, including her father. But Charlie doesn’t believe this about his daughter and in his final days tries to connect with her and teach her that she’s not a hateful person.

There’s a lot going on in THE WHALE, most of it as uncomfortable as watching a naked obese man take a shower. But it pushes its theme forward, that people really do care about other people, in spite of the hate spewing from their mouths, which is at the end of the day, a worthwhile and inspiring message to be sure.

Samuel D. Hunter wrote the screenplay, based on his play, and this film for the most part feels like a stage play. It primarily takes place inside Charlie’s home, and it’s very talky. In fact, it’s a little too talky. At times I thought I was watching a play, not a cinematic movie.

Director Darren Aronofsky, who also directed the controversial movie MOTHER (2017), a film I liked, NOAH (2014), and BLACK SWAN (2010) keeps things simple, and as I said, there’s not a lot of cinematic showmanship going on here from the director’s chair. Although the ending is neatly done, and very dramatic.

The best part of this one are the two main performances by Brendan Fraser and Sadie Sink.

I used to enjoy Brendan Fraser’s work back in the day, and while he’s been making movies and TV shows regularly, he hasn’t really done anything major in a very long time. He was memorable in a supporting role in Steven Soderbergh’s crime thriller NO SUDDEN MOVE (2021), but here in THE WHALE, he’s the lead, and he’s really, really good. Working under heavy prosthetic make-up to make him appear gigantic, Fraser delivers the one soft-spoken and sensitive performance in a movie filled with people who are anything but. He deserves his recently announced Oscar nod.

Sadie Sink is also tremendous as his troubled fiery daughter, Ellie. Sink, of course, is known for her role as Max on the hit Netflix TV show STRANGER THINGS (2016-present). Since she joined the show in its second season, she’s consistently been one of its best performers, and she had two of the best scenes in the series last season. In THE WHALE, Charlie keeps calling his daughter “amazing!” and really, the same can be said of Sadie Sink’s performance here. She’s lively, spiteful, funny, and completely unpredictable. I hope that Sink continues to get more movie roles, and that they become larger and more significant. She’s a promising talent.

Ty Simpkins plays the very white Wonder Bread preacher, and he gets bossed around and dominated by nearly every character in this film, especially by Ellie. Simpkins, as a child actor, played young Dalton who gets abducted by a demon in one of my favorite horror movies of the past twenty years, INSIDIOUS (2010). Simpkins also played the boy who Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark befriends in IRON MAN 3 (2013).

Hong Chau (also just nominated for an Oscar) is very good as Charlie’s friend and caretaker, Liz. Later in the movie we learn why she is so close to Charlie, as they are connected by another tragedy. This is the second straight strong performance by Chau, as we just saw her in THE MENU (2022), where she was outstanding as Elsa, the loyal right-hand person to Ralph Fiennes’s fanatical Chef Slowik.

And Samantha Morton is memorable as Charlie’s ex-wife and Ellie’s mom, Mary, another character who spews hate with her words and actually calls her daughter, “evil.” While Morton plays a somewhat coarse character here, the role is nowhere near as dark as the role she played on THE WALKING DEAD (2010-2022), where she played the murderous Alpha.

One thing the film doesn’t speak much on is obesity itself. This isn’t the point of the movie, and so Charlie eats tremendous portions of extremely unhealthy foods unchecked. Even Liz continually brings him fattening subs and sandwiches, with no discussion about healthier eating. But I think this is pretty much understood. For example, there’s a scene where Charlie is voraciously chowing down nonstop on two large pizzas, shoving slice after slice into his mouth, and I’m sitting there watching doing the same with a bucket of popcorn. I had to push the bucket away.

The connection to Moby Dick is an interesting one and stems from an essay which Charlie repeatedly reads throughout the movie. The writer of the essay is refreshingly honest in their understanding of the novel, which is one of the reasons Charlie keeps reading it, and one of its sentiments is that the writer feels sad for Ahab who believes wrongly that he can only be made happy by killing the whale, and also for the whale, who has done nothing wrong but is victimized by the obsessed Ahab. The writer then says that the long chapters in the novel which are just facts about whales were written because the author, Melville, was too sad to return to the story.

Like Ahab, people mistake what they need for happiness. Like the whale, people are victimized for no apparent reason. And like Melville, people often abandon things because they are too sad to continue.

Charlie sees all this in the essay, and he tries to get his daughter to see this as well, especially in terms of why he left her and her mother, and then stayed away, because the tragedies in his life made him too sad to continue.

While THE WHALE may not be easy viewing for most people, its thought-provoking story has a lot to offer its viewers. When asked by Charlie, “do you find me disgusting?” you have to be willing to answer no.

And mean it.

I give THE WHALE three stars.

—END—

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars- Excellent

Three stars- Very Good

Two stars- Fair

One star- Poor

Zero Stars- Awful

NOPE (2022) – Jordan Peele’s Latest Labors as It Tries Too Hard to be Clever

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Sometimes movies try too hard to be clever.

NOPE (2022), the latest genre movie by Jordan Peele, the man who brought us GET OUT (2017) and US (2019), goes out of its way to be puzzling and thought-provoking, but this creative zeal often gets in the way of its storytelling, to the point where its narrative never really flows, instead laboring from start to finish as it works through an otherwise interesting story.

In NOPE, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) operate a ranch in California where they train horses to appear in movies and television, so right off the bat you have an interesting premise just with the main characters’ occupation, as this isn’t something we see in movies all that often. OJ hasn’t been right since the tragic death of his father Otis (Keith David), who was killed in a bizarre accident when he was struck by random debris which fell from a passing plane. But OJ was there that day, and he never saw a passing plane in the sky, although there was thick cloud cover and some strange noises overhead.

Soon OJ is hearing and seeing strange things through the clouds which seem to always permeate the sky above their farmhouse. When computer geek Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) arrives to help them set up surveillance cameras, he joins them on their quest to find out what is going on in the sky above their home. And when OJ gets a closer look at the phenomenon, he tells his sister that it didn’t move like a ship, implying that while it seems to be a UFO, it might be something different…

And that’s the premise of NOPE, as the main characters try to unravel the mystery in the skies above their home.

As stories go, I liked the one told in NOPE, but as I said, the way Jordan Peele tells it comes across as more labored than polished. Peele obviously chose to tell the story in this way to be more creative and innovative. Scenes often end in the middle, effectively teasing the audience, not letting them know answers and information needed to figure things out. The movie also opens bizarrely, with a scene from a cancelled sitcom after a tragedy struck.

We find out later that former child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) who runs a western show not far from OJ’s ranch, was on the set of that sitcom when the tragedy ensued, something that scarred him greatly. Ricky’s story ties in directly with the main one in the movie because he too has seen the strange phenomenon in the sky, but his take on it is different from OJ’s, and a lot of his interpretation is based on his childhood trauma. So, it all connects. Eventually.

As does the plot point about OJ’s relationship with his horses. Everything that happens in this story is there for a reason. I don’t have a problem with that. But the convoluted way Peele goes about telling his story gets in the way of effective storytelling, and as a result, I had a difficult time warming up to this one.

It also gets in the way of the characterizations. No one in this movie really comes to life, in spite of some nifty acting performances.

Daniel Kaluuya, who won the Oscar last year for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021), and who was also nominated for Best Actor for his work in GET OUT, is a terrific actor, and his talents are on full display here in NOPE. He plays OJ as a brooding, grieving son who is not yet over the death of his father. He’s also the strong, silent type, and barely says much of anything throughout the movie. OJ’s personality reflects the feel of the entire movie: quiet, brooding, and not that exciting.

Keke Palmer as OJ’s sister Emerald is the opposite of her brother, as she is lively, outspoken, and anything but introspective.

I also enjoyed Steven Yeun’s performance as Ricky, the former child actor now running a family friendly western show in the middle of California nowhere. Yeun is very good in a role that at first seems tangent to everything else that is going on in the movie, but when the big reveal is made near the end, it makes sense at that moment how his story ties into the main one. Yeun, who played Glenn on THE WALKING DEAD (2010-2020) was also nominated for an Oscar last year for Best Actor in MINARI (2020).

It was fun to see Keith David for a couple of seconds (should have been more!) as OJ’s dad Otis. David has enjoyed a long career going all the way back to his performance as Childs in John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982).

Brandon Perea as geek Angel Torres primarily provides the comic relief throughout the movie, and Michael Wincott plays a dedicated cameraman who agrees to help them film what’s going on in the skies above their home to give them proof, in a role that should have been much more interesting than it ultimately was. While Wincott is fine, the writing is not.

Jordan Peele wrote the screenplay, and with the exception of OJ, the characters in this one do not come to life. Michael Wincott’s cameraman character, specifically, is left dangling in the wind. He comes in and does his thing, yet we know nothing about him. The other characters are shallow as well.

While the story is clever and creative, and the reveal is satisfying, the execution here is not. Peele seems to have decided that he wanted to make this movie feel like a puzzle, something for audiences to think on and figure out, and for the most part, that’s what NOPE is. But it gets in the way of the narrative, and it reminded me of a work in progress, where another draft of the screenplay was needed, one where things would be polished, to hammer points home and make sure the story works, because ultimately, it doesn’t work completely. Why not? The number one reason is there’s little or no emotional connection with the characters.

I liked NOPE better than Peele’s previous outing, US, which I didn’t like at all, but I still strongly prefer GET OUT to this latest outing by Peele.

It has its moments. Like one where OJ is terrified of something he’s seeing, and he turns away shaking his head muttering, “Nope!” which was a genuine laugh-out-loud moment, as well as a light bulb moment for the meaning of the title, and there are flashes of genuine suspense and intrigue, but more often than not, there are long periods of labored exposition and scenes that end before they should to keep audiences guessing, but when you do this too much, audiences lose interest in guessing.

I liked the reveal, but after this, the third act of the film continues to drudge through a long climax which strangely was the least exciting part of the movie, mostly because we were watching superficial characters deal with a somewhat interesting but never horrifying threat.

In its defense, NOPE has a worthwhile theme, and the story it tells is actually a good one, but the way it tells it doesn’t do it any favors. Simply put, it can’t get out of its own way.

I liked NOPE, but I didn’t love it.

It’s thought-provoking science fiction. It’s a fairly creepy horror tale. But is it an engrossing movie that I am going to want to watch over and over again?

In a word:

Nope.

—END—

KING RICHARD (2021) – Will Smith’s Best Actor Oscar is Well-Deserved

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I finally caught up with KING RICHARD (2021) the other day, the film in which Will Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as tennis stars’ Venus and Serena Williams’ controversial father, Richard Williams.

And no, I didn’t decide to watch it because of the “slap” at the Oscars and all that has happened and continues to happen after it, but admittedly, I did decide to watch it because Smith won the Oscar. I initially passed on it when it premiered this past November, mostly because I’m not a fan of the work of Will Smith, which makes the “slap” incident all the more unfortunate, because Smith delivers a heck of a performance which is by far the best part of the movie.

In KING RICHARD, Will Smith plays Richard Williams as a driven, determined man who has a “plan” to make his daughters Venus and Serena tennis stars. In an early voice over, he explains how it is a financial decision, as he knows how much money tennis champions make, and he sets out to see that his daughters become just that. Lost in the screenplay by Zach Baylin is why tennis? There are lots of ways to make money and become successful, but why Richard set his sights on tennis is never clearly explained.

So Richard and his wife Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis) who is in lock step with her husband regarding his plan for his daughters, work their daughters hard, practicing every day, so much so that they raise the ire of their neighbor who thinks they are working their daughters too hard and even goes so far at one point to call the police on them. But Richard is no slave driver. In fact, he stresses throughout the movie that he wants his daughters to have fun most of all, and he refuses to put too much pressure on them, all the while stressing the importance of their academic endeavors with the thinking being once their tennis careers are over, they will have to fall back on something else which is why they need an education.

Richard also sets out to find a coach who will work with his daughters for free, and after boldly approaching Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn), who at the time was coaching Pete Sampras and John McEnroe, he strikes gold when Cohen is indeed impressed by watching Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) play, and he agrees to coach— but just one of the daughters for free.

This arrangement works well until Richard decides to pull his daughters from playing in the Juniors tournament because he sees the stress of what happens to the other girls at this young age level, a decision which is highly controversial and leads to his decision to walk away from Cohen. Eventually, Richard secures another top coach for the girls, Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), and while Richard’s unconventional methods continue, to the point where even his wife Brandy calls him out, they don’t get in the way of his daughters’ success, and the rest is history.

I enjoyed KING RICHARD quite a bit, and I have to say, the main reason I enjoyed it so much was indeed Will Smith’s performance as Richard Williams. His depiction of Williams is as a tireless, devoted father to his girls, who has a plan for their success which most others feel is laughable. But he sticks with it, and they become the best tennis players in the world. In spite of his insistence on doing things “his way” what’s admirable about the character is he never deviates from putting his daughter’s best interests at the forefront. Of course, in reality, there are different opinions about the behavior and motives of the real Richard Williams, but in the movie, he’s an unconventional but stand-up guy who really is all about protecting his daughters while they work their way to success, fame, and fortune.

And Will Smith captures this brilliantly. As I said, I am not a fan of the work of WiIl Smith. With the exception of his portrayal of Deadshot in the flawed and uneven DC superhero film SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) I just haven’t enjoyed his performances or movies all that much. I’m not a big fan of the BAD BOYS or MEN IN BLACK movies. I did enjoy his performance as Muhammad Ali in ALI (2001), but I liked his work here in KING RICHARD better. So, for my money, the Oscar is well-deserved, because it’s the best performance I’ve seen Smith deliver. Which makes his actions on stage at the Oscars going after Chris Rock even sadder.

I also enjoyed Aunjanue Ellis as Brandy Williams, and Jon Bernthal as coach Macci. It was fun to see Bernthal cast against type and not play his usual tough guy role. Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton were also solid as Venus and Serena Williams.

KING RICHARD was directed by Reinaldo Marcu Green with little fanfare or overdramatic gusto. The tennis sequences oddly fall flat, and hardly generate much excitement. The story here really, as its title says, is about Richard Williams. Everything that happens is viewed through his eyes, and his perspective is brilliantly captured by Will Smith.

Smith’s Oscar, in spite of his misguided behavior on stage, is well-deserved.

—END—

MUDBOUND (2017) – Story of Two Farm Families & Racism in 1940s Mississippi Builds To Compelling Final Act

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mudbound

MUDBOUND (2017) is a Netflix original movie from 2017 that tells the story of two families, one white and one black, who live and work on the same farm in the days following World War II. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Mary J. Blige, and Best Adapted Screenplay, but it didn’t win any.

In MUDBOUND, stoic and often cold Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) moves his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) and their young children to Mississippi to fulfill his dream of owning and operating a farm. Included in the move is his racist father Pappy (Jonathan Banks) who makes no secret of his hatred of blacks. When Henry realizes his deal to rent a farmhouse off the property of the farm was phony, and that he was swindled, he’s forced to move his family onto a much less attractive home on the actual farm, within walking distance of the black family who live there and work on the property.

This family belongs to Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence Jackson (Mary J. Blige), who along with their children, all work on the farm. The stories and interactions of these two families are told through a variety of perspectives, as each character spends time in the movie as a first person narrator.

Two of the characters, Henry’s playboy brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and Hap’s oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) both serve in World War II and see combat, bloody scarring combat, and when they return after the war they form a friendship which crosses the racial divides of the time.

I liked MUDBOUND well enough, but for most of the movie’s two-hour and fourteen minute running time I found it watchable but seldom compelling, until the film’s final act, when the story focuses on the friendship between Jamie and Ronsel, and leads to the film’s brutal climax, the one moment in the movie that lifts it to a higher level. It’s a moment that is exceedingly disturbing yet equally powerful and captures the racial hatred of the time in a way that the rest of the movie only hints at.

One of the reasons I didn’t love MUDBOUND is the screenplay by Virgil Williams and director Dee Rees, based on the novel by Hillary Jordan, utilized the method of having multiple characters narrate the movie from their individual perspectives. While this seems very creative, it prevented the film from having a main narrative voice, that one character who as a viewer you could latch onto, buy into their story, and go along with them for the ride. This doesn’t really happen until the film’s final act, with the story of Jamie’s and Ronsel’s friendship, and the tragedy which ensues because of it.

Neither family, the McAllans or the Jacksons, really come to life. They each have their moments, and the film chronicles the often uncomfortable ways they have to deal with each other, because of the McAllan’s racist attitudes, but there are few moments that really stand out.

The film looks good, and with a title like MUDBOUND is sufficiently muddy. Director Dee Rees successfully captures the climate of rural Mississippi, with hard long rains, and thick soggy farmland. And while the story of the two families works, it never gets as emotional as I expected it to, except towards the end. The biggest reason for this lack of emotion was the lack of a main character to latch onto.

The acting in MUDBOUND is all very good. The two best performances were by Garret Hedlund as Jamie and Jason Mitchell as Rondell, and the story of their friendship is the best part of the movie. I especially thought Jason Mitchell knocked it out of the park.

As I said, Mary J. Blige was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Jackson matriarch Florence, and Blige does give a noteworthy performance. She especially enjoys some key moments where she reflects on her role as a mother, like when she is called to care for the McAllan children who have developed whooping-cough, and she realizes what it would mean for her entire family if she were to fail and these children were to get worse or die.

I also really enjoyed Carey Mulligan as Henry’s long-suffering wife Laura. She too has some notable scenes, and she’s often the character who can see past her family’s racist views but knows she’s in no position to do anything about it. I hadn’t seen Mulligan in a while. She has delivered some very memorable performances in such films as THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) where she played Daisy Buchanan, and DRIVE (2011). Here, Mulligan is plain and down to earth, a farmer’s wife, which is a far cry from some of the more glamorous roles she’s played in the past.

Interestingly enough, her co-star here Jason Clarke, who plays her husband Henry, also starred in THE GREAT GATSBY as George Wilson. Clarke is fine here as hubby Henry, a man most in the audience will ultimately not like.

Rob Morgan does a commendable job as Hap Jackson, and Jonathan Banks is at his vile best as the extremely racist Pappy. If there’s one character who draws out an emotional reaction throughout, it’s Pappy, and Banks is excellent in the role. He’ll turn your stomach.

MUDBOUND was the first of the non-documentary Netflix movies to be nominated for an Academy Award, and all four of its nominations were for female nominees.

MUDBOUND tells a noteworthy and often disturbing story of racism in Mississippi in the days following World War II, and it tells this story through the lens of two families living on the same farm, one white and one black.

And while it’s not always as evocative and emotional as one would expect, it does build to a very disturbing conclusion that sears into its audience’s memory some rather horrific images, in a climax that lifts this film from historical narrative to tear-inducing drama.

It takes a while for this to happen, but overall, it’s worth the wait, as before the end credits role, the ugliness of racism rears its putrid head and reminds us why ultimately stories like this need to be told.

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DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (2019) – Comedic Bio-Pic Features Eddie Murphy At His Best

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Conventional wisdom is that Eddie Murphy deserved an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Rudy Ray Moore in the Netflix film DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (2019).

After finally catching up with this one, I heartily agree.  This is Murphy’s best work in years. That being said, while I agree that Murphy could easily have been nominated, I’m still glad Joaquin Phoenix won the award for his lead role in JOKER (2019), as for me, his was the best performance of the year.

But back to DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, a movie I liked a lot. It’s a bio pic of Rudy Ray Moore, who after years of struggling to make his name in show business, changed his name and took on a new persona, Dolemite, leading to best-selling comedy albums and eventually a string of successful 1970s blaxploitation movies. As such, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is also quite funny, because Rudy was a funny guy, as were his antics.

When DOLEMITE IS MY NAME opens, Rudy (Eddie Murphy) is stuck working in a record store and can’t get his own records played on the radio to save his life. He feels increasingly frustrated that he has worked his butt off with nothing to show for it. But when he hears a street person telling a series of jokes in a sing-song fashion, he realizes that this man and others like him are a treasure trove for material. So Rudy visits them on the streets and writes down their stories and their jokes, and he turns their source material into his own original act, creating a new character in the process, the charismatic Dolemite.

He’s an instant sensation at his local stand-up comedy venue, and then things just take off from there, leading to comedic record deals, and eventually movies.

Eddie Murphy is right at home playing Rudy Ray Moore and his alter ego Dolemite. Murphy is a natural at capturing Rudy’s raunchy comedic style since it fits right into Murphy’s own style of comedy back in his heyday. Better yet, Murphy nails the dramatic elements here as well. Early on, he does a great job showing Rudy’s frustrations with life, that he just can’t seem to catch a break, and he isn’t getting any younger. Likewise, after he has achieved success and has become a “star,” Murphy portrays Rudy as a man who never forgot his roots. He doesn’t become a jerk, and he treats his fans well. Murphy’s Rudy is a guy to be admired.

Wesley Snipes and Chris Rock are also in the cast and their presence is felt. This is actually the first time that Murphy and Snipes have ever made a movie together. They share some fun moments, as Snipes plays D’Urville Martin, who directed Dolemite’s first movie, and the two don’t always see eye to eye, which makes for some entertaining sequences.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph gives one of the best performances in the movie as Lady Reed, a performer who Rudy “discovers.” Their scenes together are some of the best in the film. Randolph enjoys lots of comedic moments and some dramatic ones, like when she thanks Rudy for giving her a chance, grateful that he overlooked her large size and didn’t let that stop him from promoting her.

Kodi Smit-McPhee is the film student Rudy hires to be his director of photography. Smit-McPhee has been in a bunch of movies in his young career, and my favorite remains his portrayal of the boy Owen in the exceptional vampire movie LET ME IN (2010) starring Chloe Grace-Moretz and directed by Matt Reeves. Sure, it’s a remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008), which many people prefer, but I like LET ME IN a lot. Smit-McPhee is excellent in it, and plus it’s a Hammer Film!

Director Craig Brewer really gives this one a 1970s look and feel and successfully recaptures the essence of Rudy’s original Dolemite movies. Things slow down a bit during the film’s second half, but other than this, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is an enjoyable piece of filmmaking, as long as you don’t mind lots of vulgar language.

The screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski is ripe with coarse language, and there’s plenty of nudity as well, all capturing the 1970s blaxploitation feel. It also tells a noteworthy story and portrays Rudy Ray Moore as decent guy whose years of hard work eventually pay off. The movie is also hilariously funny.

I liked DOLEMITE IS MY NAME a lot. It tells a worthwhile story, features one of Eddie Murphy’s best performances in years, and in addition to being an informative biography of Rudy Ray Moore is exceedingly funny as well.

If you’re indoors social distancing looking for a movie to watch, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME is a worthy addition to your movie queue.

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MARRIAGE STORY (2019) – Painfully Authentic Depiction of Divorce

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I finally caught up with MARRIAGE STORY (2019) the other night, the only 2019 Best Picture nominee that I had not seen before the Oscars aired last week.

I had heard that its depiction of divorce was depressingly realistic, and after finally having seen it,  I have to agree. MARRIAGE STORY gets the emotions right.

MARRIAGE STORY opens with a voice-over by Charlie (Adam Driver) describing all the reasons why he fell in love with his wife Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), and these reasons play out in little vignettes shown on-screen. Then it’s Nicole’s turn as she describes why she fell in love with Charlie, again in a voice-over narration with the accompanying vignettes. It turns out these were written by Charlie and Nicole as part of their mediation process, and when Nicole refuses to read out loud what she wrote, she walks out of the mediation meeting, and thus MARRIAGE STORY begins.

Charlie runs a very successful theater group in New York City, he as the director, and Nicole as the lead actress, but Nicole has always longed to return to Los Angeles where her family lives, but Charlie has never been interested in that idea, which has caused Nicole stress over the years. When Nicole accepts a role in a TV pilot, she moves to LA with their eight year-old son Henry (Azhy Robertston), a move that Charlie believes is temporary.

But once there, Nicole hires divorce attorney Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) who reminds Nicole that this process is about her getting what she wants and that there is no reason why she has to settle for things she doesn’t want, a la things that Charlie wants. When Charlie arrives in LA, he’s served the divorce papers, and he feels blindsided and betrayed by Nicole as he was under the impression that they were not going to hire lawyers, but Nicole makes it clear that she is unhappy and this is the only way she is going to get what she wants.

Charlie hires a more sensitive attorney Bert Spitz (Alan Alda), but after losing continually to Nora’s hardball tactics, he hires a tougher attorney, Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta) because as he tells Nicole, “I needed my own assh*le.”

As things get uglier and nastier, Nicole and Charlie have to deal with all their emotions even as they realize they don’t really want to hurt each other, in spite of the fact that their marriage is over and their divorce is imminent.

I really liked MARRIAGE STORY, even though watching it was a very uncomfortable experience.  As I said, it gets the emotions right. Through Nicole and Charlie, we witness the pain of watching one’s family and way of life disintegrate before one’s eyes, the frustration of suddenly being adversaries with the very person they’d been in love with, having to keep it together in front of their child, having to deal with their child’s emotions, but as a parent working alone. It makes them say things they simply don’t mean, as the whole ordeal gets inside their heads and changes them, scars them.

All of this is depicted very accurately in MARRIAGE STORY, as well as the sense that even while the divorce is happening, there’s the feeling that Nicole and Charlie don’t really want it to happen. That they love each other and don’t really want to hurt each other, but yet the marriage is over, and so there’s this weird mix of fighting for what you want and need vs. wanting on some level to keep that sense of family together even as the actual family is now separate.

So, kudos to writer/director Noah Baumbach for creating such a genuine portrait of divorce. The screenplay is outstanding.

As is the acting, especially by the two leads. Adam Driver continues to impress me as an actor. Sure, he plays Kylo Ren in the new STAR WARS movies, and he’s very good in the role, but he’s been better in other movies, in films like LOGAN LUCKY (2017) and BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018). His work here in MARRIAGE STORY is best of all.

Driver makes Charlie a self-absorbed character who is totally at home directing for the stage and perfectly content in that world, but it blinds him to the needs of his wife. He enjoys some powerful scenes, especially with Johansson, as their arguments are fiery and agonizing. Driver’s best moment comes when Charlie unleashes upon Nicole wishing her deader than dead, and then he just collapses, overcome with emotion, before apologizing for what he said.

Scarlett Johansson is just as good. As Nicole, she’s the one who seeks the divorce, but she’s also the one who needs the change, as Charlie is so stuck in his own world nothing she has said or done so far had been able to reach him. When she files for divorce, and Charlie tries to reconcile, in her eyes, it’s already too late. She believes if she goes back it’ll be the same, and she wants more for her life.

Johansson was equally as good as another mother Rosie in JOJO RABBIT (2019), which means 2019 was a pretty darn good year for Johansson.

Laura Dern won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role here as divorce attorney Nora Fanshaw. Dern is excellent, no question, although I thought both Florence Pugh in LITTLE WOMEN (2019) and Kathy Bates in RICHARD JEWELL (2019) gave better performances. That’s not to take anything away from Dern, who like Johansson, also enjoyed a stellar 2019. Dern was also in LITTLE WOMEN, as matriarch Marmee March, and she’s excellent in both films. In fact, these two performances are among Dern’s best ever. She’s been making movies for a long time, and so I for one was happy she won the Oscar. And I’m old enough to remember one of her earliest movies, SMOOTH TALK (1985), which I saw at the movies. She impressed me then and has continued to do so ever since.

But the main reason to see MARRIAGE STORY is to watch Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson performing at the top of their game. As good as the script is, MARRIAGE STORY ultimately works because of Driver and Johansson. They nail their roles, and the emotions that go along with them.

MARRIAGE STORY is not a fun movie, but it is an accurate one. Its depiction of divorce is painfully spot-on.

As such, it’s one of the finest dramas of 2019.

—END—

 

 

 

PARASITE (2019) – Gripping Tale of Haves and Have-Nots Comedic One Moment, Horrific The Next

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So-dam Park and Woo-sik Choi in PARASITE (2019).

Usually when a movie can’t be pigeonholed into one genre, the common refrain is that it can’t make up its mind what kind of movie it wants to be.

Not so with PARASITE (2019), a drama that hails from South Korea that is frequently comedic even as it flirts with undertones of a harsh reality, before it explodes into a full-blown horrific nightmare.

PARASITE has been quietly gaining momentum as a dark horse Best Picture contender, and while I certainly really liked this one, I’m not sure it would have made it into my Top Ten list for Best Movies of 2019.

That being said, I still really liked it.

PARASITE is the story of a destitute family, Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song), his wife Chung-sook (Hye-jin Jang), their 20-something daughter Ki-jung (So-dam Park) and college-aged son Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi). They are all unemployed and live in a decrepit basement dwelling.

But when Ki-woo’s college friend recommends him to take over his private tutoring position while he studies abroad, Ki-woo suddenly finds himself hired to tutor the high school daughter of a very wealthy family and as a result he’s handsomely paid. He then comes up with a scheme to have his sister impersonate an art therapy tutor to help the family’s youngest son, and once she’s hired, now there are two members of Ki-woo’s family working and getting paid amazingly well.

So, why stop there? The comedic plot thickens as the family schemes to get Ki-taek and Chung-sook hired there as well, and so they all find themselves pretending to be people they are not working for the family led by Dong-ik Park (Sun-kyun Lee) and his wife Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo). And while life is good for a while, as the two families interact, it becomes increasingly clear how much of a divide exists between the likes of Ki-taek’s family and Dong-ik’s, who hold the poor in contempt. And so there is this undercurrent of a painful divide which is there and seemingly on the verge of exploding yet never does.

Until something completely unexpected happens which turns everything that has occurred thus far on its head.

THE PARASITE is a gripping, captivating story that is as entertaining as it is disturbing. You’ll find yourself smiling and laughing along for one moment and then grimacing in horror the next. And the best part is these seemingly opposite emotions really work here, and they work because they are both based on truth. The truth of the matter is in the here and now, we are seeing a greater and greater divide between the haves and the have-nots, and while here the antics of the have-nots to make do can be light and humorous, when push comes to shove, and the realization hits that the have-nots are never going to be the haves, the pleasant comedic balance ends. Things get dark real fast.

THE PARASITE was written and directed by Bong Joon Ho, who has made a couple of other highly regarded movies, films like SNOWPIERCER (2013) and THE HOST (2006). The script captures the class differences perfectly, as does the camera, as we see entirely different worlds, the elegant and opulent home of Dong-ik and the shanty poverty-stricken dwelling of Ki-taek, which when there is a flood, not only has to contend with the flood waters, but all the back-up sewage water which erupts through their plumbing.

The cast is excellent, especially Kang-ho Song, Hye-jin Jang, Woo-sik Choi, and So-dam Park as the four members of the Kim family.

The best part of THE PARASITE is that it mixes its emotions perfectly, and while at times it can be jarring to go from light laughter to brutal horror, in terms of the story it’s telling, it makes perfect sense and it works.

Sadly, the divisions between classes continues to grow. The rich seem to grow richer while the poor grow poorer.

The emotions in THE PARASITE capture and reflect this sad reality. In short, in these present conditions, you can only laugh for so long. Eventually you’ll be crying.

—-END—

 

MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES: ROCKY (1976)

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Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire in ROCKY 1976)

Welcome back to MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES, that column where we look at memorable quotes from classic movies. Up today it’s ROCKY (1976).

It’s easy to forget because of the trajectory that Sylvester Stallone’s career would ultimately take— lots of testosterone-filled action films, most of them not all that good—just how good the original ROCKY (1976) really is.

There’s a reason it won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1976, beating out such notable movies like ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, NETWORK, and TAXI DRIVER. It’s that good!

And I know a lot of people don’t think highly of Stallone, but I’m a big fan, and I’ve enjoyed most of his movies, even the bad ones. I’d even argue that most of his films are better than critics have given them credit for. Okay, some, like STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT! (1992) are not.

But his ROCKY movies are all grand entertainment, and the original ROCKY is a genuine cinematic classic. Stallone not only starred as boxer Rocky Balboa, but he also wrote the screenplay, which was also nominated for an Oscar in 1976 but didn’t win.

ROCKY is chock full of memorable lines and conversations. Let’s get right to them.

Yo, Adrian!

Hear that line and you know exactly who’s talking. Not exactly a catchphrase, but those two words are instantly associated with Rocky Balboa.

One of the recurring themes in ROCKY is self-worth, as Rocky is constantly trying to overcome the notion that he’s a bum and that his life isn’t worth anything. In one conversation with his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), Mickey says as much:

MICKEY: You’re a bum, Rock. You’re a bum.

ROCKY: I ain’t no bum, Mick. I ain’t no bum.

 

And again when Mickey takes issue with Rocky’s decision to work as an enforcer for a small time hood rather than work on his boxing skills:

ROCKY: I been coming here for six years, and for six years ya been sticking it to me, and I wanna know how come!

MICKEY: You don’t wanna know!

ROCKY: I wanna know how come!

MICKEY: You wanna know?

ROCKY: I wanna know how!

MICKEY: Okay, I’m gonna tell you! You had the talent to become a good fighter, but instead of that, you become a legbreaker to some cheap, second-rate loan shark!

ROCKY: It’s a living.

MICKEY: It’s a waste of life!

 

Rocky has a similar conversation with Adrian (Talia Shire):

ROCKY: I can’t do it.

ADRIAN: What?

ROCKY: I can’t beat him.

ADRIAN: Apollo?

ROCKY: Yeah. I been out there walking around, thinking. I mean, who am I kidding? I ain’t even in the guy’s league.

ADRIAN: What are we going to do?

ROCKY: I don’t know.

ADRIAN: You worked so hard.

ROCKY: Yeah, that don’t matter. ‘Cause I was nobody before.

ADRIAN: Don’t say that.

ROCKY: Ah come on, Adrian, it’s true. I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

 

This pretty much becomes the driving force behind the movie, Rocky’s need to prove himself, not by winning the fight, but simply by not backing down, and going the distance with Creed, something that so far no one else had done.

ROCKY also has its share of comedic lines, like this one by Rocky’s trainer Mickey, one of my favorite lines in the movie, as he tries to light a fire under Rocky to get him to train harder:

MICKEY: You’re gonna eat lightnin’ and you’re gonna crap thunder!

 

And this exchange between fighter and trainer:

MICKEY: Your nose is broken.

ROCKY: How does it look?

MICKEY: Ah, it’s an improvement.

 

And this between Rocky and Adrian:

ADRIAN: It’s Thanksgiving.

ROCKY: Yeah, to you it’s Thanksgiving; to me it’s Thursday.

 

Even Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) gets in on the fun:

APOLLO: Apollo Creed vs. the Italian Stallion. Sounds like a damn monster movie!

 

Getting back to the theme of self-worth, it’s not just about Rocky, either. Adrian has her own issues with self-esteem, especially when she has to deal with her brother Paulie (Burt Young). This is on display here in one of the film’s most dramatic moments that hasn’t anything to do with boxing:

PAULIE:  I don’t want nothin’ from you. I don’t want nothin’ from you. This ain’t no charity case. Get outta my house.

ADRIAN: It’s not just your house.

PAULIE: (to ROCKY): You ain’t no friend no more. Get outta my house, I just says.

ADRIAN: Don’t talk to him like that.

PAULIE: Both of you get out of my house.

ROCKY: Yo… It’s cold outside, Paulie.

[PAULIE grabs a bat]

PAULIE: I don’t want you messin’ her, and I don’t raise you to go with this scum bum! Yeah? Come on! You wanna hit on me? Come on! I’ll break both your arms so they don’t work for ya!

(PAULIE smashes a lamp and then a dinner tray. Adrian screams)

PAULIE: That’s right! I’m not good enough to meet with Gazzo…

(PAULIE spits)

PAULIE: That’s what I think of Gazzo! Now you’re a big-shot fighter on your way up, you don’t even throw a crumb to your friend Paulie! When I go out and get your meat every morning! You forgot that! Then I even give you my sister, too!

ADRIAN: Only a pig would say that!

PAULIE: I’m a pig? A pig gives you the best? (He smashes a coffee set) You’re such a loser! I don’t get married because of you! You can’t live by yourself! I put you two together! And you – don’t you forget it! You owe me! You owe me!

ADRIAN:What do I owe you?

PAULIE:You’re supposed to be good to me!

ADRIAN: What do I owe you, Paulie? What do I owe you?  I treat you good! I cook for you! I cleaned for you! I pick up your dirty clothes! I take care of ya, Paulie! I don’t owe you nothin’! And you made me feel like a loser! I’m not a loser!

Strangely, as annoying Paulie can be, he ends up being one of the more endearing characters in the entire series, mostly because through everything, he does stay by Rocky and Adrian’s side. But early on, things are different. He’s like that family member you can’t get away from fast enough. Like in this conversation where he’s talking to Rocky about his sister, Adrian:

PAULIE: You like her?

ROCKY: Sure, I like her.

PAULIE: What’s the attraction?

ROCKY: I dunno… she fills gaps.

PAULIE: What’s ‘gaps’?

ROCKY: I dunno, she’s got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.

PAULIE: Are you ballin’ her?

ROCKY: Hey.

(He punches Paulie in the shoulder.)

ROCKY: Hey, you don’t talk dirty about your sister.

PAULIE: Are you screwing my sister?

ROCKY: You see, that’s why I can’t connect you with Gazzo. You know that, Paulie. Because you got a big mouth. You know, you just talk too much.

 

And that’s also why ROCKY has such a good screenplay, as it has realistic dialogue that remains relevant today all these years later. The dialogue isn’t really all that dated.

While its final lines aren’t literary masterpieces, they are certainly memorable, as Rocky screams into the crowd after his bout with Apollo, calling to Adrian repeatedly.

ROCKY: Adrian!!!

As endings go, it’s a keeper.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES and join me again next time when we look at cool quotes from other memorable movies.

As always, thanks for reading!

Michael

GREEN BOOK (2018) – Oscar Contender Worth A Trip to the Theater

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It took a while for GREEN BOOK (2018) to make it to the theaters in my neck of the woods, and so I was only able to see it recently.

This Oscar contender, nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Original Screenplay is both worthy of these nominations and a trip to the theater. Had I seen this movie before I had comprised my List of Top 10 movies for 2018, it most certainly would have made the cut.

GREEN BOOK (2018), based on a true story, takes place in 1962 and chronicles the unlikely friendship between an eccentric African-American classical pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and a rough and tough Italian bouncer from Brooklyn, Tony LIp (Viggo Mortensen) who are brought together when Shirley hires Tony to be his personal driver on a concert tour which will take him into the Deep South.

In terms of story construct, the one told in GREEN BOOK is one you’ve seen many times before. Yes, it’s a “buddy story,” that plot where two very different characters spend time together, especially on the road, and eventually they form an unlikely friendship.  It’s been done a million times, from classics back in the day like MIDNIGHT RUN (1988) and PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES (1987) to more recent fare like DUE DATE (2010) and THE HEAT (2013).

But what makes GREEN BOOK different and a cut above the standard “buddy movie” is its dueling themes of racism and racial acceptance.

Shirley’s concert tour is bringing him to the Deep South, as far as Mississippi, not a safe place for a black man in 1962. And that’s where the titular “Green Book” comes in, as it refers to The Negro Motorist Green Book, a publication which listed places which were safe for blacks to visit. Hence, on the road in the south, Shirley and Tony stay at separate hotels, as Shirley has to stay at hotels which accept Negroes, and these are usually poor decrepit places.

And when Shirley is performing inside the elegant establishments of the wealthy white audiences, who give him rousing applause, he is not allowed to use the bathroom inside these places, nor can he dine there.

Tony Lip, while not from the south, initially holds views that are just as racist. He and his fellow Bronx Italians use racial slurs when speaking of blacks, and when his wife hires two black repairmen, and Tony observes  her giving them something to drink after they’ve finished their job, he takes the empty glasses they drank from and tosses them into the trash.

Yet, when asked by Shirley if he would have trouble working for a black man, Tony says no, and since Tony is a man of his word, it turns out to be true, and as the story goes along, and he observes the way Shirley is treated, he becomes more and more protective of his employer.

The story also takes things a step further. Don Shirley is a man alone. He’s wealthy and educated, and he doesn’t identify with what he sees as his fellow black brethren. He’s more similar in class to the wealthy whites he plays music for, but he certainly doesn’t identify with them.  And then there’s his sexual orientation. By all accounts, Shirley is alone and he’s miserable, and in one of the movie’s best scenes, he breaks down and laments to Tony that he hasn’t been able to find any community that wants him in it.

The script, nominated for an Oscar, by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, and Peter Farrelly does a masterful job at showing not only the racism Don Shirley faced but also the pain he felt at being so isolated from seemingly all walks of life. It also makes Tony Lip the face of white acceptance. At first, Tony may have suppressed any racist feelings just so he could take the job, but later, he truly comes to like and accept Shirley as a person, and his words and actions back that up.

The script also gives Tony the best moments in the film, especially the laugh out loud ones. Indeed, why this movie is also listed as a comedy has to do entirely with Tony. He’s got the best lines in the film, such as when he tries to quote JFK’s “ask not what your country can do for you—” speech, but completely botches it and finishes with “Ask what you do for yourself,” and he has the funniest scenes, like when he introduces Shirley to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The best part of the script is that none of it comes off as superficial or preachy. It makes its points on race simply by allowing its story to unfold. Likewise, the bond between Shirley and Tony is not forced or phony. It’s convincing and natural. The whole story works.

As I said, Mahershala Ali has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Dr. Don Shirley, and it’s certainly a powerful performance.

However, GREEN BOOK belongs more to Viggo Mortensen and his portrayal of Tony Lip. Tony is the larger role, and the story mainly focuses on his reaction to racism. In terms of acting, it’s one of the best performances I’ve seen Mortensen give. He plays the Bronx bouncer so effortlessly. And like Ali, Mortensen has also been nominated, for Best Actor.

GREEN BOOK has also been nominated for Best Picture, although it’s not expected to win. Of its four major nominations, according to the experts, Mahershala Ali has the best chance of winning Best Supporting Actor.

GREEN BOOK was directed by Peter Farrelly, of Farrelly Brothers fame. He successfully captures the 1962 setting. There’s a nice contrast of colors, between the bright and opulent upper class white southern establishments and the dark and dreary poverty-laden black establishments.

And one of my favorite scenes brings both worlds together, when Shirley takes Tony into a black friendly restaurant, and Shirley is invited to play piano and ends up jamming with the jazz musicians there. It’s one of the liveliest scenes in the movie, and it allows Shirley for the first time to feel some camaraderie with a culture he had thus far felt alienated from.

I really enjoyed GREEN BOOK. It has a lot to say about racism, using the south in 1962 as its canvas, and it makes its point while not always being heavy-handed. In fact, its tone is quite the opposite. For most of the movie, thanks to Viggo Mortensen’s performance as Tony Lip, you’ll be laughing. Tony is a likeable character who may not be as skilled and as polished as Dr. Don Shirley, but his heart is in the right place, as is his head. He befriends Shirley not only because he likes him but also because deep down he knows that the color of Shirley’s skin has no bearing on what kind of person he is.

GREEN BOOK is a thoroughly satisfying movie that speaks on racism and entertains at the same time. It’s not to be missed.

—END—

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorable Movie Quotes: ANNIE HALL (1977)

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Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in ANNIE HALL (1977).

One of my favorite Woody Allen films is ANNIE HALL (1977), which just might be the quintessential Woody Allen movie.

I didn’t always feel this way.  I remember feeling quite bitter as a 13 year-old when ANNIE HALL bested my beloved STAR WARS (1977) for Best Picture that year.  Grrrr!!!

But it didn’t take me long to come around, as by the time I was in college I had watched ANNIE HALL multiple times and absolutely loved it. The jokes are nonstop and nearly all of them work, making ANNIE HALL the perfect subject for today’s MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES column, the column where we look at noteworthy quotes from some truly memorable movies.

ANNIE HALL works so well because Allen nails many of the truths that go along with relationships, and he finds humor in even their darkest moments. There’s an honesty in ANNIE HALL that lifts the humor to a whole other level.  There are enough memorable quotes in ANNIE HALL for several columns.  Today we’ll look at just a few of them.

The film opens with a memorable quote, as Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer addresses the camera:

ALVY SINGER: There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life – full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly. The… the other important joke, for me, is one that’s usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious,” and it goes like this – I’m paraphrasing – um, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” That’s the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

 

There are a ton of hilarious quips regarding the relationship between Allen’s Alvy Singer and Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall, like this split-screen exchange when they’re each seeing their respective therapists:

ALVY SINGER’S THERAPIST: How often do you sleep together?

ANNIE HALL’S THERAPIST: Do you have sex often?

ALVY SINGER (complaining): Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week.

ANNIE HALL (annoyed): Constantly. I’d say three times a week.

 

And this conversation:

ALVY SINGER: Hey listen, gimme a kiss.

ANNIE HALL: Really?

ALVY SINGER: Yeah, why not, because we’re just gonna go home later, right, and then there’s gonna be all that tension, we’ve never kissed before and I’ll never know when to make the right move or anything. So we’ll kiss now and get it over with, and then we’ll go eat. We’ll digest our food better.

 

And here’s one of my favorite jokes in the film, where Alvy confronts Annie about having an affair:

ALVY SINGER: Well, I didn’t start out spying. I thought I’d surprise you. Pick you up after school.

ANNIE HALL: Yeah, but you wanted to keep the relationship flexible. Remember, it’s your phrase.

ALVY SINGER: Oh stop it, you’re having an affair with your college professor, that jerk that teaches that incredible crap course, Contemporary Crisis in Western Man…

ANNIE HALL:  Existential Motifs in Russian Literature. You’re really close.

ALVY SINGER; What’s the difference? It’s all mental masturbation.

ANNIE HALL: Oh, well, now we’re finally getting to a subject you know something about.

ALVY SINGER: Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.

 

Then there’s this observation on relationships:

ALVY SINGER: A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.

 

And of course there are jokes that have nothing to do with relationships that are flat-out hilarious in ANNIE HALL, like this comment by Alvy on California when he and Annie are visiting The Golden State:

ANNIE HALL:  It’s so clean out here.

ALVY SINGER: That’s because they don’t throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows.

 

Another of my favorite bits involves a scene with Christopher Walker as Duane.

DUANE:  Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist, I think you’ll understand. Sometimes when I’m driving… on the road at night… I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The… flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.

ALVY SINGER: Right. Well, I have to – I have to go now, Duane, because I, I’m due back on the planet Earth.

 

And like it begins, ANNIE HALL ends with another memorable set of lines, once more spoken by Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer, to close out the film:

ALVY SINGER: After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I… I realized what a terrific person she was, and… and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I… I, I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y’know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and… but, uh, I guess we keep goin’ through it because, uh, most of us… need the eggs.

 

As I said earlier, there are so many more memorable quotes and jokes in ANNIE HALL, there’s enough to fill an entire second and third column. But that’s it for today.  I hope you enjoyed today’s MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES column and join me again next time when I look at cool quotes from another classic movie.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael