52 Pick-Up # 34 – Sound of Metal (2019)

Welcome back once again as August comes to a photo finish for 52 Pick-Up.

The timing wasn't how I would have wanted it, but I can't pretend the lineup wasn't strong at least. With that in mind, I can't say we're closing out the month with a happy ending, but it's at least going to be a little more upbeat than last entry would have been.

This is another that has been on my list that also falls under 'escaped my Oscar to do list' the year it came out. In hindsight, I'm still surprised I put this one off this long, particularly as Riz Ahmed has been one of those actors I've been interested in the career arc for since Nightcrawler, and it's great to see him get a lead role like this and carry it as well as he does.

But, I get ahead of myself. Let's go for the pitch, shall we?

Sound of Metal follows Ahmed as Ruben, a drummer performing as part of a metal act with his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke.) The couple are touring as Ruben notices he's having troubles with his hearing. On performing some tests, it is confirmed this is not a temporary condition. In fact, his doctors advise him to avoid loud noises in order to preserve the hearing he still has while he works out his next plans. For Ruben, the solution is in the form of cochlear implants that can aid with his hearing, but are outside of his ability to afford. As he tries to maintain his life as it was before the loss, and starts showing signs of relapsing behavior to former addictions, Lou becomes worried and gets him in touch with a shelter specifically for deaf addicts. There, a reluctant Ruben is introduced to Joe (Paul Raci) a gruff, but empathetic veteran who runs the shelter and wants to help Ruben learn to adjust to the changes in his life, even if Ruben is still determined to get back to his old life.

That last part is one of the things that really got me on this watch. The way this movie presents Ruben and how he's processing what he's going through isn't a clean, feel good journey. He frequently butts up against what is becoming an increasing inevitability, often leading to less than admirable actions. Despite this, the movie doesn't actively paint him as a bad guy any more than it presents him as saintly. It's a very flawed, human look at how people can process something as big as the idea of 'your body is changing in a way that will alter how you live your life from this day forward.' Conversely, the movie is also very sympathetic in how it presents those around Ruben. Both Lou and Joe are presented as people who the movie makes clear genuinely do care about Ruben's well-being, even if they don't share his drive for getting the implants. 

Additionally, the implants are another area where the movie presents a welcome nuance. We see how early on Ruben's life is built around sound and his music, so we get why he doesn't want to give up on hearing. At the same time, the movie, through Joe and his shelter, does help show that a changed life isn't the same thing as a ruined or lost life. Even as Ruben still pursues the implants, at times doing things that make him a more checkered protagonist, we see him living around both the recovering addicts and deaf children (who Ruben learns ASL alongside) and seeing that they are still living full, regular lives.

In coming to this off of In the Bedroom, there was the half in jest question of if this was going to be a mood lift or a similar downer. The answer in this case is – a little of both. Ultimately, the movie comes to a better place by the end, and that final scene is one I can tell is going to stay with me in a good way, but it is also a very bittersweet movie in a number of ways. For as messy as Ruben's journey is at times, and the mistakes he makes, ultimately he ends the movie in a positive place after some of rough patches he took getting there. It sounds odd to put into words, but there is something refreshing about seeing a movie approach this from that nuanced area where you can sympathize both with wanting to hear and also with recognizing it's okay to come to terms with this change.

Also, before I finish this, I do have to say one more thing – VERY well earned Oscar win for the sound design on this. Seeing the movie adjusting the sound to reflect how Ruben is hearing things at points, to further underscore how this is effecting him, is a great aspect to this movie both as an idea and in its execution, and I'm pleased to see it got acknowledged. Best Sound can be a real weird category some years where, to borrow a statement have heard from others, it can be less a case of 'best' and more a case of 'most.' With this in mind, this is one where I'm glad the craft was recognized and how much the movie is enhanced sometimes by the choice of when not to use sound as much as when to use it.

Yeah, not quite part of my main point, but I did want to give the shout out. Seriously, the movie is all around a strong entry in terms of script, performances, and direction, but the sound really does some spectacular work adding to those elements. 

If you missed this one when it came out, I'd recommend seeking it out.

And with that, I'm back on track as September rolls in.

So, next week I'm kicking off a new month with a long overdue entry, both as a movie and for a lead performer I'm surprised I have not had come up here yet. Until next time with 2003's American Splendor.

Till then

52 Pick-Up #33 – In the Bedroom (2001)

Welcome back to 52 Pick-Up in the middle of a Dog Days of Summer wrap-up before resuming the weekly rollout again in September.

Ah, end of summer. A magical time as the season starts to change, things start to cool and people are getting their last vacations and hurrahs in before fall starts and it's back to business.

And what has the shuffle chosen for this period in the season?

Oh.

Oh dear.

I mean, this is damn good, but tonally oh dear.

If there's one thing I have learned from this project for future use it's maybe seeing about trying to curate these pools a bit per time of year. Still try to keep them big enough for proper chance, but at least try and focus generally.

Okay, total disclosure – I will be doing a weighted month coming up, but there's no real points for guessing which month or in what way cause it'll be pretty obvious when it gets here.

ANYWAY, larger arc of the month aside, this is one of those that's been on my to do list for a long time. Like I said last time, I missed this at the time as I was, I will admit, not as good with keeping up with a lot of the awards circuit releases in the early aughts. From there, it occasionally flitted its way back up to the surface as a 'I should get to that' before fully locking itself back on there a few years back with the release of Tár and reviewing Todd Field's short, but impressive directorial list.

With that as a point of reference, and a loose idea of this movie's inciting incident, I went in actively trying to know as little as possible. With that in mind, it was hard not to get at least some expectations given the nature of the story.

I say this purely to add that I was pleasantly surprised when this movie actually eluded and/or exceeded my expectations on several levels. One of which is the main point I'll be going with for this.

But, before I get into that, let's start with the pitch.

In the Bedroom follows the Fowlers, a family in Maine consisting of Matt (Tom Wilkinson), Ruth (Sissy Spacek), and their adult son Frank (Nick Stahl.) Nick is back home for the summer following college and gearing up for grad school. This path, however, is left in doubt as Frank has fallen hard for for Natalie (Marisa Tomei), an older, divorced woman with two kids and a husband who isn't ready to let things go. The family is torn on how to feel on this as both Ruth and Matt discuss if this is just a phase or if they need to put their foot down. Unfortunately, as they discuss this, Natalie's ex begins becoming more violent, finally culminating in a confrontation with Frank that leaves the younger man dead.

This is all in roughly the first act of the movie, by the way, so don't worry about that as spoiler. It's the inciting incident more than anything and the bulk of the movie is more dedicated to the family processing everything that happened and how they choose to process and act on their grief.

Like I said above, I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie against what I was expecting. I had overall good expectations, but again, this actually went beyond what I was hoping for, in large part on the basis of the execution.

Between this and Tár, one thing I find myself appreciating in Field's work as a director is the sense of restraint in how things are presented. This is a story that deals with a number of emotionally heavy subjects, and especially given this was a film that became a major acting contender with the Oscars that year, it's hard not to expect the archetypal 'big' performances the Academy often goes for. Instead, this movie, and its leads, are built around a very emotionally restrained approach. 

Even before tragedy strikes, both Matt and Ruth are reluctant to be up front with Frank about their misgivings about his relationship and where they see it going. For Ruth, this leads to being very guarded and cut off, while Matt keeps being reluctantly indulgent in Frank, assuming this will all work itself out. When everything finally goes wrong, both are unclear how to approach one another over what happened. Even the moment when they finally come to a confrontation is not presented as a screaming match or a big blow out – in fact, there's even some acknowledgment that they can't seem to have the big blow out moment and that this is something of a frustration. That it's presented instead as two people who, even in grief and anger, feel they have to somehow hold back makes it feel even more powerful. What is two people pouring their hearts out about the pain they've internalized still has to be held back in how they express it just by their very natures.

The restraint also plays into the overall direction of the movie. Beyond the performances, the way the movie handles several of its major action beats is very controlled. Frank's two encounters with Natalie's ex-husband, for example, rely on what is unseen. The first of these we only see in the aftermath, care of the bruises Frank has from the confrontation. Their subsequent moment we only get in voices from another room, the emotional heft of the scene in Tomei's fear and then anguish as she hears it all play out.

These combined degrees of restraint are each effective on their own. Combined, they lead to a genuinely chilling payoff in the movie's final act. I won't go into too much detail on this here, tempted as I am. What I will say is there is no grand twist to come from this. There isn't any single revelation that completely upends the movie. There is some degree of uncertainty to which path it is going down, but it is not an ending that is made or broken by the reveal. But even with that said, it's still more effective if you don't know the way and just let the movie lead you their at its own slow, careful pace, steeping in the uncertainty of what is coming and how it gets there.

That uncertainty is also one of the feelings that resonates the most when the movie ends. Again, there is no big shock to be had here. When everything unfolds, it makes sense and feels reasonable as a course of events, but in the end, it doesn't feel neat or convenient. There's a lot that feels unresolved or unclear.

This is by design. This isn't a subject one can wrap up and put away. The audience, like Matt and Ruth, are going to be left to process just what happened after what should be a 'the end' moment. The story is over, but the feeling remains.

Hell, I feel like this is gonna be one of the first time watches from this that is gonna stick with me longer than most, and I am glad that it got drawn for this.

With that, the end of August is coming up fast and I've got one more on deck to go.

This will likely be a less haunting watch, but also connected as an Oscar nominee. I'll be jumping ahead a decade and change for 2019's Sound of Metal.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 32 – Mandabi (1968)

Back already?
 

Sorry. Had to. Like I said before, this is on me.

Anyway, welcome back to 52 Pick-Up as I work on getting caught up for the month of August now that things are winding down for the season.

Like I said last time, thanks to the will of shuffle, we're going in a different direction from last week. A different time, a different place, a different language.

But, the quality remains good, if slightly less feel good compared to last time. That's colonialism for you.

As promised before, this time I'm coming back to the films of Ousmane Sembène for the first time since watching Black Girl for the first time several years back. This time, in his follow up movie, he takes a bit more of a comedic tone, but his view of colonization is no less favorable in Mandabi.

In going into the pitch for this, I'll start with a quick note – the title of this movie translates to 'The Money Order.' The titular order being received by one Ibrahima (Makhourédia Guèye), a proud patriarch to two wives and seven children. The order comes from his his nephew working abroad, sending 25,000 francs he has earned to be divided among the family. Things are looking up for Ibrahima and his clan – until he goes to cash it and finds he's being declined because he lacks valid identification (and to add complications to getting one, he is illiterate). What follows is a bureaucratic labyrinth as Ibrahima tries to get all his paperwork in order so he can get the money order cashed before too much time passes and the money goes back to his nephew. All the while dealing with various debts being either called in or accumulating as he tries to get this all sorted out and settled up.

Why yes, this DID feel more than a little sadly familiar over half a century and half a world away, but that wasn't really the intent of the movie, so I will defer there.

There's a number of things this movie is commenting on, but in particular the way Sembène frames postcolonial Senegal here was the one that really hit me. Like last entry, this gave me something of a compare and contrast feeling, but in this case it was to Sembène's earlier movie, Black Girl. The similarity is, admittedly, more in the broad strokes already stated, this is definitely commenting on the impact of how colonialism has effected Senegal and the people there. The big differences come in how it's presented here.

For starters, Ibrahima is a different sort of focus compared to Diouana. Where she is taken out of her element and on the short end of the power dynamics, Ibrahima comes into this in more of a position of relative power. He even seems aware of this himself, as a recurring element of his character is in how he postures and adjusts his robes. This is a man who's used to calling the shots within his walk of life, and even moreso with the prospect of the financial windfall to come. Despite having more going for him, Ibrahima isn't any luckier when the dust settles. Diouana is left isolated and ultimately crushed by a world that is uncaring and unfamiliar. Ibrahima, meanwhile, watches as the world he's been so confident in is ultimately twisted against him as he finds himself repeatedly being out done by pencil pushers, debt collectors, and ultimately his own nephew (not the same nephew as before).

In Ibrahima's case, it's hard not to see the influence of France's colonization in his misery. Yes, it technically provided the initial good fortune as it was his nephew working in France that saved up the money, but it's also their systems that we see bogging everything down in bureaucracy at every turn. It's their influence we see in moments like Ibrahima watching government workers discussing the merits of living on credit bolstered by other credit. It's even that colonial influence in the form of nephew Mbaye, dressed in stylish European attire, who ultimately swindles his uncle.

By the end, I was still feeling the compare and contrast, particularly in the ways both of these movies, whether expressly or just as a result of how they're presented, seem to be targeting part of their message specifically at the colonial element of the audience. In the case of Black Girl, it came across as more explicitly damning – a reminder that some money or an apology can't undo lives destroyed by careless or outright malicious intentions of colonial power. In the case of Mandabi, it reads less as a 'this isn't something you can magically wipe away' and more presenting this morass of bureaucracy, debt hustling, usury and straight up 'everyone for themselves' betrayal and seeming to ask 'This is the civilizing you're so proud to have done?'

I have to admit, I'm still wondering how much of that particular tone was intentional and how much was me reading in more here based on my one prior encounter with Sembène. In the meantime, as I turn this over, it's giving me more incentive to keep an eye out for more of his movies. So far he's two for two and I am intrigued to see more.

But, that will have to be for another time. The days roll on and I've got two more titles left to close out August, which means another week of catch up before I'm back to the regular schedule.

So, I hope you all have a good weekend, and I'll be back here early next week with a movie that's been among the gaps I've been filling from before I really went out of the way to check out the Oscar heavies ahead of the big night. In this case, Todd Field's In the Bedroom.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 31 – Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Welcome back to 52 Pick Up.

First up, I'd like to extend an apology for the delay on this one. This summer has had some unexpectedly busy spikes off and on, particularly as planning with family went and it wound up catching up with me.

With that said, consider this the start of a catch up run of multiple entries in short succession to get back up to speed.

So, without further ado...

I had considered a number of tasteful ways to start this entry up.

Considered, and then realized I couldn't not do this instead - 

Well, Uncharted Waters is over. It's been a good run. But though the John Waters films may be done in this project, their spirit lives on in other filmmakers' ambition, creativity, and in cases such as today's full frontal nudity.

I know, that's not the primary point for this movie. In fact, there's a lot to recommend in this movie in general. This is just one where I had to make some joking acknowledgment of this, given how several people, including my wife who referred to herself as a 'pervert gremlin teenager' (her words) came to this movie – the promise of being part of Ewan McGregor's early cinematic reputation for dropping trou.

I'm sure there's a weirder way to set up that this week's entry is for Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine, but damned if I know it.

But, as I said before, this is a movie that has a lot more going for it beyond the notable celebrity nudity, though if that's your thing, yes, it is here. For my part, as someone who had known Haynes before this for his Sirk-coded Far From Heaven and 2023's May December, the idea of him taking on the glam rock era had me intrigued. It also has me realizing I need to see more of his movies, but that's for another time.

For today, let's get to the pitch.

The movie starts us with an introduction to the very theatrical (and yes, very David Bowie-coded) glam rock artist Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) an artist on a meteoric rise that culminated one night at a fateful concert where he predicted he would be assassinated. From there, the movie jumps in time and perspective to the 1980s and journalist Arthur (Christian Bale), a man who was among those following the glam movement Slade was part of – so much so that he witnessed the notorious concert in the prologue, where the attack was revealed to be a staged publicity stunt that effectively destroyed Slade's career. Years later, Arthur has been given an assignment to try and find out just what happened to the embattled singer following his disappearance from public life. What follows is a movie very much in a vein akin to Citizen Kane, as Arthur learns more of the story of the real Slade from the singer's ex-wife (Toni Collette) and his manager (Michael Feast.)

In terms of what stuck out for me, the Kane comparison was a big point – less so for the parts that are similar as the areas where Haynes differs and how that works to this movie's benefit. Both start, as established above, in a similar area – a fictional figure of fame overtly inspired by a real life individual (in this movie's case, Haynes takes from a number of artists for inspiration for Slade, but Bowie is easily one of the biggest, additionally Ewan McGregor is playing a role who is an amalgamation of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed) and hang a mystery over them that drives the story. Said protagonist slowly pieces together the famous person's life from those who knew the person directly, peeling back the celebrity story for the complicated, messy figure underneath. From this point, Haynes makes two particular deviations from what Welles did before (and I should give a heads-up, one of these will get into a spoiler, I will mark accordingly.)

The most pronounced split in this case comes in the form of the investigative figure, Arthur. In the case of Kane, the reporter is ultimately a framing figure. He's the one tasked with solving the mystery of Rosebud, but the story itself starts and ends with Charles Foster Kane. The reporter is there to get people talking about the man beyond the newsreels. In the case of Velvet Goldmine, Haynes makes this story as much about Arthur as it is about Slade. In fact, the movie even starts from the premise of their journeys being intertwined in the decision to introduce us to Arthur on the night of the fateful concert that sent Slade into self-imposed exile. As Arthur digs into the story, we are also treated to flashbacks into his own life and how his own interest in Slade led him to the concert that changed it all. In particular, we see how the advent of the glam rock scene became a sexual awakening for Arthur, eventually leading to him leaving his past behind and finding himself through the music. That their connection comes to a head on the fateful night that destroyed Slade's career even adding to it in a way as a sort of 'rising and falling' contrast. Granted, one can't quite call Arthur's trajectory a rise on the level of Slade's, but as he comes more into his own, it still works. Especially for the part that comes next.

Because, like many of my generation, my brain is wired for
The Simpsons quotes:
"He's not dead!"
"No, but his career is."

Okay, here's something I haven't had to do in a while, but like I said above, there was a bit of a spoiler point. I had considered how to write around this, but there was no way to really do it without becoming maddeningly vague, so I'm just gonna go for it. For those who've seen the movie or don't mind the spoilers, read on. For those who haven't and are interested but don't want the spoiler, just scroll down till you see...well, I can't show you McGregor letting it hang out, but I can at least give you the lead-in. Then you can tag back in.

Okay?

Okay.

So, going on the idea of the compare and contrast with Arthur and Slade, there is one particular detail that really stuck out to me, even more so as I wrote this out. This is referring to the movie's final reveal – Arthur discovers that, following his exile in disgrace, Slade returned to the music scene with a new name and face – as a conservative pop idol by the name of Tommy Stone. This in itself is already one Hell of a reveal just as far as Slade's story goes, both for the question of if this complete 180 was simply the one way he could come back without any suspicion or, much more likely, the question of how much of the Brian Slade figure was a case of a chameleon adjusting himself to the needs of his art and career and Tommy Stone is just the latest cynical development of this. It's an interesting question, particularly with regards to Arthur and the one figure in particular who links him to Slade more than anyone else – McGregor's Curt Wild. Playing off the question of Slade's authenticity, Wild serves as another sort of counter figure – a man incredibly at peace with who he is and what he does and, as pertains to this, who he loves.

Both Slade and Arthur have life changing encounters with Wild. While Slade's is the longer relationship, it's also the more erratic, with the breakup marking the beginning of the end of his career career. By comparison, Arthur only has one night with Wild, but it is presented as not a flashy affair, but a moment of genuine emotional connection as well as physical – Wild makes Arthur feel seen, validated on a whole other level than he did as a fan of Slade, and even though they only have that one encounter, it further lends to the idea of this chapter in Arthur's life being where he truly discovers himself.

Again, going back to the rise and fall, it is interesting how Wild inadvertently helps usher the destruction of one personality in one man and then helps the other come into his own. It also helps add to the ending for me in the light of the Tommy Stone revelation. Yes, the implication is that Slade sold out the ideals that he helped to define in the 70s in exchange for getting back into the limelight. At the same time, this doesn't make a bitter or cynical end for Arthur, because even as Slade the person is compromised, it doesn't diminish the impact his music had on Arthur and helping him figure himself out.

Okay, everyone back in.

Saying I was pleasantly surprised by this is an understatement. Like I said above, I came into this for the glam rock and overall good past experiences with Todd Haynes movies. Even with that bar, I really was taken with how what this movie did, particularly with the ideas of the art, the artist, and how both can influence people. There's a lot to unpack here, and I feel like I'll be coming back to this one down the line, and I'm glad I gave it a shot.

I'm also adding some other Haynes titles that I'd been putting off on this list as well, so let's see if any of them come up in the months ahead.

But, like I said up top, it's time for the end of summer catch up as I intend to get everything up to speed in time for September, so other next title is coming up fast on the heels of this.

We're taking a major shift next time in era, themes, and language here. I'm coming back to a director I first crossed paths with during an earlier write-up run here a few years back. Part of me would be tempted to leave that as a hint, but I feel like the turnaround is too short and, frankly, it would be breaking format here, so let's just say it.

I'll be back here real soon with Ousmane Sembène's 1968 follow-up to Black Girl, Mandabi.

Till then

52 Pick-Up # 30 – Pecker (1998) (with special bonus!)

Welcome back for a filthy, but strangely heartfelt installment of 52 Pick-Up.

Well, I knew this day was coming. Now that it's here, it's strange to accept.

This week marks the final entry in the series Uncharted Waters. With this, I can now say I have seen every feature length movie directed by John Waters (to date, fingers crossed.) It's been a weird, wild, often fun, often filthy journey to this point.

Following the arc that has been going over the last few entries in this particular series, Pecker feels like a suitable choice to go out on.

So, the pitch - 

The movie concerns Pecker (Edward Furlong) an aspiring shutterbug with a beat up old camera who, when he's not working at a local sandwich shop, is affectionately documenting the lives and eccentricities of his friends and neighbors. His work he proudly features in impromptu shows at his job where the locals are supportive but they seldom sell. Then, by chance, his work catches the eye of a New York art dealer (Lili Taylor.) Suddenly, Pecker finds himself the talk of the New York art scene and an overnight sensation. It's a nice time at first.
At first.

Movies like this are always a fun side of the Waters filmography. Often, when people think of John Waters, thoughts immediately go to the transgressive nature of a lot of his movies. The man named 'the Pope of Trash' evokes images of his constant impish energy and how it played into movies like Pink Flamingos that were designed to shock as much as entertain. Those movies are fun. VERY fun, in fact. But it's also movies like this that remind part of why his films work is because along with the filth, Waters is a filmmaker with a lot of heart. Sometimes it's pretty apparent, such as in movies like this and Hairspray. It does also find ways into some of his other films as well, often in his tendency to sympathize with the outsiders and the weirdos that most other filmmakers wouldn't quite be able to crack. Polyester, for example, works as well as it does in part for the work that both Waters and Divine do in making Francine both a classic Waters over-the-top character but not a broad cartoon. Even as she has a full blown comedic breakdown and bender, the audience has a degree of sympathy for her and want to see her get that happy ending.

Pecker, as I said above, is definitely in this vein. Not just the character of Pecker, but the world he lives in. The movie's opening, where we're introduced to Pecker and the people who make up his world and his art has a genuine sense of affection for everyone featured. Whether it's Pecker's Memama (Jean Schertler, equal parts sweet and funny) and her talking Virgin Mary, his older sister (Martha Plimpton) who emcees at a gay strip club with the kind of love for her job many would kill for, or his younger sister (a hilarious Lauren Hulsey) whose love of sugar borders on pathology, everyone in Pecker's orbit lives a strange life and they love living it. By extension, we can see Pecker's love for all of these people in how he interacts with them and presents them in his art. The larger world, as we see, looks down on these people, and sees Pecker's work as a sort of sideshow appeal/poverty porn in a way the movie has already established he doesn't.

"Full of grace! Full of grace!"

Which brings up the other interesting part of closing the run with this movie – in the larger cinematic work of John Waters, Pecker might be one of his most personal movies. It's certainly not a 1:1 in any sense of the word, but it's hard not to look at Pecker's love for the shaggy, weird world of his Baltimore neighborhood and not see a lot of the genuine affection Waters has for the world he came from. Even when Pecker is getting pictures of things like, say, a stripper's pubic hair, or a strip club patron's experience being easily teabagged, there is nothing of a sense of leering or acting like he's above what he's documenting. For Pecker, this is life in his neighborhood and he's happy to share it with the world. To paraphrase the words of his girlfriend early on (Christina Ricci) – Pecker sees the beauty in everything. It even leads to a moment that is equal parts sweet and funny as he helps her to see the beauty in the seemingly mundane discussing the stains she deals with in her laundromat job. It's the kind of moment that could, in another person's hands, be cloyingly sweet of overly twee. In Waters's hands, it becomes an escalation of the different kinds of filth and all the ways one can see something artistic in it. It's a challenging needle to thread and he finds a way to do it.

I know this isn't the last movie in Waters's filmography, with Cecil B. Demented and A Dirty Shame made after it. Despite that, this feels like a nice note to close out on for what it says for Waters as a filmmaker – this is a man who, over the course of several decades, has stayed true to his own unique vision and voice, not just in his films, but also in his writing and spoken word appearances. The end of this movie seeming to assure you might be able to take the artist out of the weird side of Baltimore, but you'll never take that Baltimore out of the artist. It doesn't have the same almost defiant tone of the movies that came after, but in turn, it seems to be saying 'This is who I am and this is who I'm always gonna be.'

"...it's just plain illegal."

So, again, actually a great heartfelt note to end the series on.

Normally, this is where I'd be setting up next week's movie. But I'm gonna have to stop things for a minute first.

As this marks the end of a dive into all of John Waters's directorial effort – and because I have been picking at this for a while now, let's close out with something I haven't done here since the Hellraiser run a few years back.

That's right – time for a John Waters ranking.

Goes without saying, these are all just personal opinion and take as such. Strictly speaking, even being lower down on this list isn't automatically a bad thing. Even a lesser John Waters movie is still a good time.

So, without further ado, I give you, the Dirty Dozen

Female Trouble – The champion remains undefeated. There is something about this one that just hits a perfect sweet spot for me. It's not like it's completely isolated in terms of Waters's work, given it plays into his fascinations with moral panic and true crime (he was into it before it was cool) and by extension the idea of crime as a form of celebrity, but the particular balance here is incredibly entertaining to me. At the center, Divine is sporting the same 'force of nature' energy she had honed over Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos to deliver a delightfully insane turn as Dawn Davenport, a thief and a shit-kicker who'd like to be famous.

Serial Mom – Over a decade later, Waters came back to his exploration of the 'criminal as celebrity' idea. This time, however, the bloodshed is coming not in the form of your classic 'good girl gone wrong' but instead in the form of the model of modern suburbia (embodied in a show-stopping Kathleen Turner, dispatching her victims with just the right level of moderated enjoyment.) The change in venue, as well as the new figure at the center, feels even more prescient now watched in the light of the past decade's love with the true crime industry.

Cecil B. Demented – Speaking of Waters's cinematic prescience, hot damn, did he wind up calling Hollywood's shot here. Watching this for the first time during this project, I was reminded of the story from a few years back where the writers of Veep said they decided to end their show early because reality was getting too absurd for them to keep up with. Seeing Cecil and his merry band of Sprocket Holes declare war on what was, at the time, seen as a comedic exaggeration of the risk-averse, creatively bankrupt Hollywood machine, it's hard not to notice how several of the things called out in this movie only got worse after he made it. Of course, even without that prescience, the end result is still a very fun middle finger to the industry as delivered with full zeal by Stephen Dorff and Melanie Griffith.

Polyester – This was among my first Waters, and damn if it doesn't still hold up. I know I had already spoken about this some years back, but it bears repeating – I was sold this as 'John Waters does Douglas Sirk' and I think one of the most entertaining parts for me was just how much Waters understood the assignment while also making it his own thing. A wonderfully insane take on a melodrama with arguably one of Divine's best performances: the unique challenge of playing the one 'sane' person in a John Waters movie where everyone else is swinging for full tilt crazy.

Pink Flamingos – The audacity. The sheer bugfuck crazy audacity. There's a lot of films that get the reputation talked up to such a degree that the finished product feels like it fails to live up to the hype. Pink Flamingos arguably might be one of the few that can match the buzz.

Pecker – See my comments above. A lot of Waters films have heart, but few really get to put it front and center like this. It speaks to his skills that he can balance that heart with raunch and not have the film feel uneven when it all settles.

Hairspray – Again, when Waters wants heart, he can do it. In this case, it doesn't get quite as raunchy as Pecker, but it makes up for it with Waters's stylistic sensibilities and his penchant for championing the outsider in his own way.

A Dirty Shame – I feel bad putting this this low because I repeat what I said – Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville are both doing phenomenal work here. Unfortunately the finished movie doesn't really quite work despite their best efforts. Still makes for an interesting (currently) closing statement for Waters at least – filth never dies, it just gets more creative.

Desperate Living – On the one hand, the full movie is kind of uneven, with some fun characters doing the best they can with a plot that gets lost in itself more than it should. On the other, Goddamn, that is a GREAT opening sequence and quite possibly Mink Stole's finest hour as a Dreamlander.

Multiple Maniacs – Once again, I'm gonna pull from the writeup I did on this a few months back – Multiple Maniacs walked so Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble could charge forward like an unhinged extra from Weapons.

Cry-Baby – The movie isn't without its charms. Waters has a fun sense for the 50s style and he has a likable, charming cast in his arsenal. Having said that, I also have a hard time looking past the fact this is a movie musical where, with the exception of Please, Mr. Jailer, most of the songs are pretty forgettable.

Mondo Trasho – I'd still say this is worth watching at least once for its role as the first John Waters feature. It will probably never get an official release, but luckily it enjoys a healthy life on the bootleg circuit. Has its moments, but it really feels uneven compared to Waters's next effort in Multiple Maniacs.

Holy crap. You guys are still here.

Well, that makes a wrap on John Waters (for now, fingers crossed) but 52 Pick Up keeps dealing out movies as I roll into August.

With that said, next month is coming in in style – I'm kicking off August with Velvet Goldmine.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up #29 – Redline (2009)

Readers...START...YOUR...ENGINES

Cause it's time for another installment of 52 Pick-Up!

Okay. That was a little underwhelming. Hey, can't win 'em all. For those just jumping in for the first time, this is my year long project to keep writing and keep expanding the cinematic horizons with 52 first time movie watches.

The summer is flying and as we work into the big spectacle of the summer movie season, it feels fitting to roll a movie that would be considered as going big to match.

In some ways, Redline might not be considered this. Rather than being a huge studio offering, the movie was the years-in-the-making hand drawn passion project of Takeshi Koike and animation studio Madhouse. On the other, this is a movie that goes big, loud, and as a result it is an incredibly fun ride that I now hope someone sorts out the distribution for, because I would love a chance to see this on a big screen.

So what is Redline?

I'm gonna give two pitches here – one that is the actual story, the other that is the vibe of said story.

The story – It is your proverbial far away galaxy in time and space. As the opening crawl states, even with advances in technology, racing still continues to be a thing. This is best embodied in the galaxy's most popular race, the Redline – a high stakes, traveling race that moves from planet to planet. The movie starts by introducing us to our hero, Sweet JP, during the last round of eliminations to qualify for Redline. JP is a skilled driver, but also a professional spoiler – he races just well enough to skew the odds, then is prevented from winning to allow the mob to cash out on anyone who bet on him. Following his being taken out of the eliminations, it looks like JP will be sitting out the Redline, until he is informed he qualifies from a mix of popular demand and the fact two other racers dropped out.
Why did those other racers drop out? Because this time the race is slated to be held in the demilitarized moon of a planet called Roboworld: a world where the inhabitants are technologically enhanced, armed to the teeth and have NO interest in hosting Redline. So, JP and a roster of various other colorful racers now find themselves pitting against each other and an increasingly hostile military force in a winner-take-all race for the grand prize.

The vibe pitch? You're a studio exec. You pitch the idea of a big budget remake of the cartoon Wacky Races. For your creative team? The staff of acclaimed cult genre magazine Heavy Metal. Their payment? Cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine.

If that sounds insane in a fun way, it's because it is.

I'll admit to some transparency here. Part of why I took a while getting around to watching this was for years I mainly heard its reputation purely in the technical terms. Talk of how this was seven years of hand drawn animation. Which sounds impressive, but at the time initially had me wondering if this would just be a case of a movie that was technically impressive but otherwise pretty forgettable.

Having now watched it, let me just say this is some of the tastiest crow I have eaten in a LONG time. Yes, the movie is visually stunning and a technical marvel, and that is well worth singing the praises of. But alongside that, the movie is also bolstered by an incredibly fun, outlandish sense of style. The galaxy of Redline feels like a weird, wild, wonderful place that would be a fun time just to wander around in and see all the things going on in the background.

Which isn't to diminish the race itself. As much as I joked about it with my vibe description above, the full throttle energy at play in the Redline race itself is incredibly fun to watch. Where it's seeing a car piloted by two idol singers turn into a robot and start fighting against military intervention (no, this is not exaggeration) or a grudge between one of the Roboworld soldiers and a racing team played out as a car to car argument of Looney Tunes-level proportions, there is no line seen as too over the top to play. Every racer has their weird element and storyline to play out over the course and they all get their chances to shine as they speed and fight to the finish.

I can't rightly say I have any complaints for this one. At least as far as the movie itself goes. In terms of a release, I'm a bit surprised there isn't a more recent release for it. There was a Blu-Ray back in 2012, but it looks like it's no longer in print, and while not prohibitively expensive on the second hand market, it's gonna run up a bit of a cost (the DVD can be obtained cheaper, but a movie like this definitely calls for the better visual quality.) It can still be watched online thanks to the good folks at Tubi, but I would gladly welcome a good 4k release if one comes down the line.

I'm sticking to just screenshots, but I would say look up some clips
to really appreciate this. The stills are nice, but they can't
beat seeing this all in motion.

What can I say? I had a lot of fun with this.

Said fun also stands to continue next week, albeit with a bit of a possible bittersweet tinge. Next week, we come to the end of the sub-series Uncharted Waters as I dig into the last unwatched John Waters movie from my to do list, his 1998 feature Pecker.

See you back here next week for that, and, as a bonus, my overall John Waters rankings.

Till then.

52 Pick-Up # 28 – Hunt For the Wilderpeople (2016)

Welcome back to another installment of 52 Pick--

Huh?

Oh. Right.

So, I should probably explain myself.

As anyone who's been following this week to week, or at least read last week's entry, might recall, the initial pick for this week's was going to be Takeshi Koike's Redline.

Let me be clear: that entry is still happening. The movie has been watched and the post is underway to go up next week.

So why the change-up?

Let's call this a special emergency episode for lack of a better way to put it. Or, if you prefer the less urgent, I can call this 'A Very Special Episode.'

By this point, chances are some of you have already figured out exactly where I'm going with this – for anyone who didn't: this was a late tag-in to commemorate the recent death of Sam Neill. Talking over his work, it came up that I had never seen this title before, and it felt like a fitting tribute, seeing as this is considered one of the best of his latter movies.

Initially I hadn't planned for this to be an entry, but hey, the more I thought about it, I liked the idea.

So, keep your engines idling for next week. Until then, time to discuss a great movie from an all around class act of a performer.

It was this or Possession. 
While I still plan to see that, I feel like this might be the nicer title to bid a farewell with.

With that, said, let's get to the pitch.

Hunt For the Wilderpeople introduces us to Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), a child in foster care who is brought to what he is told is his home of last resort. There he meets Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her husband Hector, aka Hec (Sam Neill). Bella is warm and outgoing and quickly helps Ricky feel at home, winning him over even as he comes in guarded. By comparison, Hector is gruff and quiet, and just wants to be left alone. Despite that, things seem to be going well...until Bella dies of a stroke. Wracked with grief, Hector disappears, first into his own pain, then into the woods. Not wanting to go back into the foster system, and quite likely juvenile detention, Ricky fakes his death and runs into the woods himself. What starts as a half-cocked plan to run away soon turns into him running into Hector again. After a rocky initial encounter (pun half intentional) the two develop a rapport, as Hector starts to open up about himself and Ricky begins to learn how to hold his own out in the wild. Back in civilization, however, the remains of Ricky's plan have been found and misinterpreted as a kidnapping plot. So the two now unlikely friends soon go from finding their way back to society to staying one step ahead of the law.

The kind of wholesome family adventure you come to expect from Taika Waititi.

I'll admit that I mainly intended to make this about praising Sam Neill, both in general and for this particular role. That will be the bulk of this, but there are other things I did want to point out first.

I'm now wondering if one could put together a retrospective
around Sam Neill playing grouches who learn to like
kids. I mean, even if it's just the two movies, it's one
Hell of a double feature.

First, as good as Neill is, he's not carrying the whole movie on his back. As the lead he plays off for most of the film, Dennison is a welcome presence. He plays Ricky with a level of teenager swagger that can either serve as expression of confidence or shield as the moment calls for it. It's a detail we don't see him fully shed and the way Dennison pivots it from scene to scene is a great touch that helps make Ricky endearing. While no one else gets quite the level of focus, the rest of the cast are all still delivering good work, with particular standouts going to Rhys Darby as an erratic, if harmless backwoods loner and Rachel House as the foster care agent whose dedication to her job helps the situation spiral from a runaway to a manhunt. The latter is another case of the movie knowing just how to balance a character, with House playing someone who could have been more explicitly villainous but instead is presented as just FAR too zealous about what she does to realize she's completely overdoing the situation (contrasted well with Oscar Kightley as an increasingly exasperated police officer.)

As to the tone balance, part of this also goes to Waititi as the writer and director. It was a little strange at first to watch this and remember that, while he had been working for over a decade, at this point he was only just breaking out on the success of his earlier What We Do in the Shadows. This came in without much of the expectation that would come to define much of Hollywood's drive for the man and his various projects and attempted projects that followed (I'm still hoping his attempt to adapt Jodorowsky's The Incal happens, because he feels like a good fit there.) Remembering how hard Hollywood went in for him following this period, there's something about the low-key warmth and charm of this that feels refreshing, even as this has many moments that skew darker in their humor. Okay, maybe darker isn't quite the right term for all of it. Perhaps grounded? In any case, it's that sense that in many moments this could have gone a lighter, more whimsical approach, especially in the movie's back half, but Waititi still opted to keep one foot planted in a reality of sorts.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to put this without spoilers. I think the best vague way I can put it goes into what I was saying about the escalation. The stakes Waititi sets as Ricky and Hec's journey on the lam goes on become on one hand funny in his style for how serious House's foster agent is taking this, but also leads to stakes that can't simply be wiped clean. In the end, Waititi finds a way to end it that feels believable while also keeping the movie from tilting into a full downer. It's a balancing act he accomplishes several times in the movie and it's impressive how it never seems to tip too far to one extreme or the other.

Okay. Now back to Sam Neill, the reason for this surprise addition.

I do want to anchor all of this in just this role, but first I want to say, like a lot of people, I have many good associations with this man's work over the years. Some of it I've already touched on here in previous years (such as during my earlier October franchise runs where I discussed his work in both The Final Conflict and In the Mouth of Madness.) In general, he was a constantly welcome presence, having a general demeanor that he could easily tilt from abrasive and prickly to calm and collected to genuine warmth, often in the same roles and to great effect. It made him a constantly welcome presence on screen, and from all reports, a genuinely warm, likable person off camera as well.

In the case of Wilderpeople, he plays the poles of prickly and warm off each other beautifully. Like Dennison with Ricky, his Hec is a guarded person who has been marked by his initial negative encounters with people. There's a great moment from Neill early on with this after Bella's death where Hec talks to Ricky about her. In explaining his relationship to her, he perfectly underscores that, for their differences, he and Ricky are at their core similar people: two people used to being hurt united by someone who took to them and showed them genuine care and love when it seemed like no one else would. It's the kind of moment that an actor could easily risk overplaying and making maudlin, but Neill comes to with the right level of restraint to make it land. That restraint also works into his growth as the two come to understand one another. We see Hec warming up to Ricky, but it's not in such a way that it feels like a light switch was flipped – he puts his trust in him and respects him, but we also see he still has moments of being frustrated with Ricky's stubbornness and sometimes rash choices. 

The final act of the movie represents this well with regards to my earlier comments about the situation escalating to the point they can't simply act like nothing happened. At the start of the movie, Hec is keeping himself distanced from Ricky. At first this reads as just him not being good with children, later being too caught up in his own grief before finally coming around. By the end, his attempts to distance from Ricky return, not out of a desire to be rid of the child, but simply from seeing things have become so out of hand that he can tell running is just going to make things worse. Again, as a performer, it's the kind of shift Neill can handle without it feeling forced or unearned, and still allowing the audience to care for this gruff old grouch of a man as we can see how conflicted he is even as he tries to make Ricky understand.

This really feels like a perfect choice movie for remembering Sam Neill. Yes, it's not as iconic as, say, Jurassic Park (I can't even pretend to lie and say that would have been a first for this,) but it's a perfect showcase of a lot of what made Neill so endearing and enduring as an actor. I know he had work after this, but if this had been his final performance, it would have made a perfect note to go out on – at times rough, funny, complicated, but under it all, full of heart.

Rest in peace, Sam, and thanks for all the great work.

So...yeah.

Next week. Redline. Till then,