Tolkien

***

Could you write five thousand words on the influence of Norse elements in Gawain?

This movie really reminded me of The Imitation Game. I couldn’t remember that movie title, so I wrote “The Enigma Machine”, and that is not as crazy as you might think. If you type “Enigma” into IMDb’s search the second option that drops down is The Imitation Game. A movie that I found to be generally overrated. It’s good, but not great. In Tolkien Nicholas Hoult does his Benedict Cumberbatch impression of an awkward genius and the result is fine. Substitute World War I for World War II and then the movies are even closer. The reasons for the existence of these two films are what I find truly interesting.

The Imitation Game is an apology to the memory of an important figure in human history, Alan Turing. We watch that film with a sense of guilt. The film serves as a warning, that when we mistreat society’s outcasts, we might be mistreating the ones we need to save us. It is a selfish message, but by making it feel personal, the audiences reacted strongly to it. Tolkien taps into those same feelings, through World War I, and the importance of relationships, but the major difference is what brought us into this movie – love. I love The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. According to the special features on the Lord of the Rings films, The Lord of the Rings is the second most read book of all-time, after the Bible. The guilt the audience feels in this film stems from how much happier our lives are than J.R.R. Tolkien’s. We are shown where Sauron comes from. Where Tolkien’s love of lore comes from. Both of those are places of great pain. The film says, had Tolkien not suffered, he would not have created the things that we love. Although, in the end he shares and expands his creations out of love.

Director Dome Karukoski made the film for $20M and it looks great for such a low budget, particularly considering that it includes war scenes. That it did not earn that money back is unfortunate, because the movie was very competently composed and presented. Hopefully he gets another shot with another English language film. The other comments I have are that Lily Collins was very good as Edith Bratt, Tolkien’s future wife. That Derek Jacobi was perfectly cast as the expert, hard-ass professor. And that Colm Meaney—Star Trek’s Chief O’Brien—was, as always, a treat.

Ford v Ferrari

***

Hear that? That’s the sound of the Ford Motor Company out of business. Here’s what I want you to do. Walk home. While you’re walking, I want you to ruminate. Man comes to my office with an idea, that man keeps his job. Rest of you, second-best losers… stay home. You don’t belong at Ford.

I was shocked to see that this is, at present, #197 on IMDb’s Top 250. Equally shocking is seeing that it had been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s not that the movie didn’t look good. It looked good. It’s not that the driving wasn’t exciting. It was. It’s not that the performances were bad. Matt Damon and Christian Bale are excellent actors and were predictably very good. The reason I am surprised to find it on the top 250 and to find it nominated for Best Picture can be summed up by one question that this film fails to sufficiently answer – Why should I care?

#196 is an Ingmar Bergman film called Persona, which I have not seen. #198 is How to Train Your Dragon. I cared more about the fate of a cartoon dragon with zero lines of dialogue than anyone in this movie, because that dragon was misunderstood and, at its core, a hero. There are no heroes here, only a charming Matt Damon and a prickly Christian Bale whose story is labeled Ford versus Ferrari. Christian Bale plays Ferrari and Damon plays Ford, right? Nope. Matt Damon plays Carroll Shelby. Christian Bale plays Ken Miles. So the film really is Shelby tries to help Miles so that Ford can win a race Ford II never cared about against an Italian he’s never met. The film asks us to root for Henry Ford II, who is well played by Tracy Letts. In the opening scene he provides the quote I chose. Ford II is a man living in his father’s shadow, but the original Henry Ford was a bad person and caring about his shadow, without addressing that it’s just the shadow of a huge pile of cow manure, is like trying to appreciate the shade while overwhelmed by the stench of feces. Ferrari uses Ford to increase the price of his company before he sells to Fiat. From a capitalist perspective, which is the only one where Ford II could be seen as anything other than a villain after that first scene, Ferrari should be the hero for making more money.

The best part about this movie is that I finally understood the Shelby-Ford relationship, because I thought that there was a Ford Mustang version named for the Shelby Cobra. Now I know that Shelby had his own company first and the Cobra was a model of car. Then he was in charge of Ford’s racing division. Apparently the attention to detail and the technical accuracy made this movie stand out. I appreciate when a film tries to be honest with its audience, but other than showing how jarring riding in a race car would be for a normal person, it’s honest in pretty boring places.

Dolemite Is My Name

****
Well, I don’t know if it was tender and I don’t know if it was sexy, but it was funny as fuck.

From the get go, I felt like this would be a tough sell. From Snoop Dogg living in the 1970s, no matter how much he loved Parliament, to Eddie Murphy’s wig. The writing in this movie, profanity aside, was really good. The cinematography is interesting, with a lot of movement, and closeups, like a hybrid between TV and traditional cinema. There’s an interesting irony in shooting a movie like this in a modern, professional way, when the subject matter is how Rudy Ray Moore made Dolemite with stolen electricity and loans from a record company.

The story of Rudy Ray Moore cannot be told without focusing on Dolemite, the character he pilfered from a homeless man. As much as this movie is about Moore’s ascension, it also shows that he had more willpower than talent. That is why the film feels honest. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it is a feel good story for people who did not get to have feel good stories in the early 1970s. Eddie Murphy, and his wigs, did a pretty good job so that there were times when I felt for his character and wondered if Moore would make it. That is a challenge because he is Eddie MFing Murphy. And the number of MFs dropped in this movie was approximately 200. That is more than one per minute.

If you enjoyed this film, and most people have, then I direct your attention to Baadaaaaass! That was Mario Van Peebles’ homage to his father’s self-made blacksploitation film from the 1970s.

6 Underground

**½

Payman Maadi deserves better than this crap. That was my first thought when he appeared on the TV in this Netflix movie. Well, not my first thought, but it was the first thought I had after looking him up and realizing that he had been the lead male actor in A Separation. My sentiment is, of course, silly. Netflix clearly spent money on this movie, so he was hopefully paid well for a few days of work in his chosen profession and got to travel a little.

Speaking of Netflix spending money, I was shocked at the amount of practical effects being used for an unduly long car chase that was shot on location(!) in Italy(!!) and had a helicopter(!!!) and several explosive stunts(!!!!). I am no expert, but even I couldn’t help but imagine the tens millions of dollars being spent every minute on a straight to Netflix release from some Michael Bay wannabe. Plus they paid for Ryan Reynolds to be in this junk, so that must’ve been very expensive too. According to IMDb the budget was actually $150M. As the film continued it became clear that this was no Michael Bay knock-off, but the real deal! As much fun as it is to criticize Michael Bay for his soulless movies of wanton destruction, he is an auteur with a distinct style. He is the Bacardi 151 of movies. It might taste disgusting and be highly flammable, but it’s a little more expensive, people certainly recognize it and keep buying it.*

*A Google search has revealed that Bacardi 151 was discontinued in 2016. I am not changing my analogy though.

The story of the film is that Ryan Reynolds’ character, One, was super rich and faked his own death so he could be James Bond/Ethan Hunt/Angel of Death all-in-one. At least Michael Bay leans into the soulless nature of the film by having One set forth rules that are essentially, “never save your comrades” and “don’t bother learning about each other or caring about each other.” That is why everyone gets a number, instead of a name. Of course these rules are quickly and continuously broken in an attempt to make us care about this group of attractive, disparate people. Maadi plays the brother of a dictator whom One wants to install as the new leader of a generic middle eastern-Asian country. Maadi is, of course, reticent to do as his kidnappers wish. This movie tries to traffic in shades of gray, but really sees itself in black and white terms. The film’s stance against the use of chemical weapons seemed a much less controversial one when this film was released earlier this year.

The film ends with Ryan Reynolds narrating, They say that your soul departs when you pass. Well, for us, it was the opposite. The moment nothing to lose, became something to gain. And the whole wide world seemed a little less haunted. I am One… but not done. That means they 100% teased a sequel. That is something I would rather see from a less Michael Bay-ian director, than to have this movie get the Transformers series treatment.