Monthly Archives: December 2015

hateful eight stagecoach

Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight Review

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Hateful Eight: Horror in the Wild West

By HelenHighly
"The Hateful Eight" with Cowboy Font
“The Hateful Eight” with Cowboy Font

I will follow Quentin Tarantino’s lead, and like this movie, The Hateful Eight, I will allow this review to be indulgently long. And like Tarantino, I will break it into “chapters,” using titled headers.

[Note: This review was originally published in 2015 but is being updated 5/2019 because of the new, Netflix release of The Hateful Eight Extended Version as a miniseries, now available for streaming.]

Prelude: It’s dreadful and wonderful

 “Damn. Tarantino never fails to amaze,” I wrote in my book, breathless (having just gasped my heart into my lungs). It was only intermission, and I was already getting high off the crazy-violent depravity-fumes that Tarantino was releasing into the theater. I was glad for the break, to get some fresh air. But hey, he went more than an hour and a half (the running time of most other films) before a shot was even fired. He (and Samuel Jackson) made us wait. And it was hot-blooded, high-tension waiting – like the most highly-charged sexual foreplay that brings you right up to the edge of the cliff, and then, still not giving what you crave, hangs you perilously over the side, where you are clutching for your life and consummation. It’s dreadful and wonderful.

Part One: The Eighth Movie by Quentin Tarantino

First there is an orchestral overture. This movie is being presented as an old-fashioned 70-mm cinematic roadshow, complete with overture and intermission – in limited release. (Only about 40 venues will get this added razzle-dazzle, which adds up to 3+ hours. Most theaters will show the 35-mm version, without the intermission, and slightly shorter.) The grand-opening music is by Ennio Morricone, the legendary Sergio Leone collaborator and the iconic master of scores for the most famous old Westerns (including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Fistful of Dollars). The much-discussed twist of the movie is its underlying mystery plot, but the biggest mystery might be how Tarantino got this musical giant, who is now pushing 90 years old, to create a score for one of Tarantino’s unabashedly bad-taste, gore-fest films. For this alone, Tarantino is amazing.  

The film opens big – a sprawling view of snow-covered mountains as wide and vivid as you’ve ever seen. And a six-horse stage coach is racing across the white, barren landscape, trying to outrun the howling blizzard that pursues it. Tarantino got at least this one epic shot from his much-touted, Ultra-Panavision 70mm-format camera. (“These are not the same kind of lenses used to shoot Ben-Hur; they are the same lenses,” Tarantino has boasted.)

Click: More about the 70-mm format, from Tarantino, including, “Man, that is going to the movies, and that is worth saving, and we need to see more of that.” – interview with Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline Hollywood (2nd paragraph)

Click: What Is 70-mm Film, and Why Is It Worth Seeing on the Big Screen? by Sarah Gorr

When the opening credits are plastered up on the screen – static, not scrolling, they are bold red and black, vintage, cowboy-movie lettering against a bright white background, like an old-style movie poster. The Hateful Eight (nod to Leone), along with an intro line: “The 8th Movie by Quentin Tarantino.” Wow. This guy is proud of himself, and in addition: This guy loves movies! He is putting himself all-in and relishing every classic going-to-the-movies moment. And it works; I start off excited, like I am going on a cinematic adventure, led by someone who definitely knows the way.

"The Hateful Eight" with Tarantino
“The Hateful Eight” with Tarantino

So: The dazzling, white-snow wide-shot is held for a long time – plenty of time to take it all in, and then he cuts to a tight close-up of an old, rotting skeleton hanging from a wooden cross (in 70-mm vibrant enormity). Snow blows across the skull as Tarantino pulls the camera out very, very slowly, finally showing the cross standing isolated against the immense, empty landscape. “Think about it,” I can almost hear him saying. “It’s a skeleton, and a cross, and snow – primal.” (Tarantino does actually take to narrating his own film in the second half, which is surprising and quirky.)

"The Hateful Eight," a rare extrerior shot
“The Hateful Eight,” a rare extrerior shot

Part Two: The Door is Nailed Shut

What follows the grandiose and traditional opening is a crazed mash-up of Wild-West cowboy-hats-and-shotguns (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and an Agatha Christie whodunit-mystery (And Then There Were None), an over-the-top blood-splattered horror flick (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), plus another blood-soaked film for good measure (the revenge-horror classic, Carrie), lines of dialogue as witty and well-crafted as Shakespeare (let’s go with Titus Andronicus, his bloodiest tragedy), and Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential play No Exit.

About the latter: Characters are punished by being locked in a room together for eternity. The original title of this 1944 French play is actually the French equivalent of the legal term “in camera,” referring to a private discussion behind closed doors. English translations have also been performed under the titles No Way Out, Vicious Circle, and Dead End, all of which would have been appropriate titles for this movie.

“Hell is other people” – Sartre

The movie begins vast and spacious, as I have described, and then quickly goes indoors and claustrophobic. The travelers from the stage coach take shelter from the storm in a remote, one-room roadhouse, which already holds some questionable characters and is now filled with a motley assortment of killers (some outlaws, some lawful). The beloved owner of the roadhouse is suspiciously absent, and the only door is literally nailed shut. (The latch has recently been broken, so wood planks must be nailed across the door and the wall, to keep the blizzard winds from blowing in.) No one can enter or exit without breaking the boards away from the door. And it’s a full house. Sartre’s famous line, “Hell is other people” might as well have been painted on the cabin wall in blood – Charlie Manson-style.

And this is the brilliant and evil genius of the film. It starts as a customary, wide-screen Western (with what one would wrongly assume are stoic and laconic cowboys) and converts to a theatrical, dialogue-driven parlor drama (with a sadistic twist). And that spectacular 70-mm camera, made for the broad, epic outdoors, is used to create a small, interior, human-face epic, depicting a brutal, cabin-fever-dream that is sweating with saturated details.

Does this story offer an insightful socio-political look into the heart of America – then and now? Is it saying, as Matt Singer writes, at Screen Crush, that America is “a melting pot where everyone gets burned”? Or is it a giddy, gruesome mess full of miserable mayhem, that goes on for way too long? Yes. And Yes. And toss in a few more theories, and it’s those as well. It’s a gluttonous feast of rich genres and saucy conceits– just in time for the holidays, where gluttonous feasts are the way we roll.

Click: Tarantino talks about how TV Westerns were his inspiration, more than movies, especially in terms of the guys-trapped-in-a-room storyline. – interview at Deadline (4th paragraph)

Part Three: Abraham Lincoln is a BFF

Introduce Samuel Jackson and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and you need not even mention any of the other excellent cast members (although they all kick ass); these two steal the show. One highlight is when Samuel Jackson delivers a long, slow (+ slower, + longer) monologue that is increasingly horrifying and devastating and ultimately beyond-beyond shocking and unbearable. And it is magnificent. I don’t think I can reveal the big, shocking element without spoiling it. But I will say that it is a deadly monologue. Jackson literally destroys a man with these words. And you see that man – a one-time great army General, melt down in front of Jackson, like the Wicked Witch melted and burned when Dorothy poured the lethal bucket of water on her. It’s one of the most astonishing speeches I can remember hearing – masterfully written and masterfully delivered.

Samuel Jackson in "The Hateful Eight"
Samuel Jackson in “The Hateful Eight”

I don’t think I will be spoiling anything by revealing that Jackson’s character, Major Marquis Warren, a Civil War ex-Union officer turned bounty hunter, is a brutal and pitiless man. We learn early on how he burned down an entire jailhouse where he was imprisoned, killing both his captors and his fellow soldiers, so that he himself could escape. And this Major Warren carries with him, throughout this Civil War interbellum (turmoil-continues) story, a letter written to him by Abraham Lincoln. That letter is reverently kept inside Warren’s breast pocket, close to his heart.

During the course of the film, the letter is admired, spit on, chased through the snow, and so on. Then, in what I will call the last great moment of the film, after Warren has completed a series of bloody, ruthless acts, the full letter is read aloud. And as I watched Jackson’s face – silent and listening, I felt myself tear up. Minutes before, Jackson had wreaked ferocious havoc, and with a quick shift, I was deeply moved by and for him (and by Tarantino’s poetic writing). That’s the way this movie goes; it is savage and then touching and then hilarious. And Samuel Jackson plays a major role in all of those emotional leaps and pirouettes. It is a stunning performance.

“It’s a big, splashy thriller, and a wild ride.”

And then there is Jennifer Jason Leigh. If she doesn’t win an Academy Award for this role (and she won’t), there is simply no justice in the world (a truth that Tarantino woefully keeps telling). She plays Daisy Domergue, a spitting, snarling, murderous outlaw-turned-prisoner who begins the movie with a swollen eye that has been punched purple. Kept in chains, she continues to be arbitrarily and mercilessly beaten and abused throughout the movie; her teeth are knocked out, her nose is broken, and her jaw is fractured. Eventually, she is covered in blood – both her own and the blood of others, and even has some brains splattered on her, yet she remains magically (black-magically) defiant. She can take a punch and come back seething. She is terrifying, she is sympathetic, and she is funny.  And no, I don’t believe that because Tarantino makes the only female character the punching bag of the movie, he is a misogynist. Daisy is the smartest character in the movie. And the most fascinating. And Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the Hell out of her.

Just for fun: Compare Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hateful Eight to Sissy Spacek in Carrie. below:

Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Hateful Eight" and Sissy Spacek in "Carrie"
HelenHighly compares Jennifer Jason Leigh in “Hateful Eight” and Sissy Spacek in “Carrie”

Click: There is an actual thing called Quentin Blood! Fake movie blood is a niche specialty. Ethan Sacks at New York Daily News explains the range of colors and viscosity that different directors want in different films and for different purposes.

Click: A Brief History of Fake Blood, including a pro’s movie-blood recipe, plus Tarantino asking for “Samurai blood” in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. – Forrest Wickman, Slate

Part Four: The Bull Doesn’t Really Die

The details of who kills whom and when and how and why… it’s Quentin Tarantino. Why say more? People will always argue about the issue of gratuitous violence in Tarantino’s movies, no matter what. Nonetheless, I want to add: It’s no spoiler alert to say that far more people die in the new Star Wars movie than in Hateful Eight. But no one will ever accuse Star Wars of being overly violent.

Yet, more-criticized, the violence in Hateful Eight is better, because it is cathartic. It’s stylized and perverse and comically outrageous, but still – you feel it, and deeply. (That’s why it’s so repulsive to so many people.) Spaceship battles in the sky may be entertaining, but they are not cathartic. In Tarantino’s film, blood gets on you. And that redeems it. It elevates the film (despite its apparent depravity).

"The Hateful Eight" have trails of blood.
“The Hateful Eight” have trails of blood.

Let’s review our Aristotle: Catharsis is an emotional purge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety and stress. By watching an exhibition or imitation of fear and violence the audience is able to cleanse themselves of their own repressed fear and violence. Aristotle used the term to explain the impact of tragedy on audiences, saying that catharsis was the ultimate end of a tragic artistic work and marked its quality.

For me, Tarantino is like a watching a bullfight. Consider the bazaar, stylized reality of a prized bull being stabbed for mass entertainment, and bleeding and falling and dramatically dying. And yes, bullfights are controversial too, largely because there is never any doubt that the bull will die; it doesn’t have a chance. It’s the same. There is never any doubt that people will die in a Tarantino film; it’s only a matter of how and when. And it may indeed be unfair to the bull, and inappropriate for modern life, but I don’t think a solid argument can be made against the tragic catharsis that the audience experiences at a bullfight. It’s something that people have felt and acknowledged for centuries. However, the wonder of art is that you can imitate violence and get the same emotional cleansing. In a movie, the bull doesn’t really die.

“There is an actual thing called Quentin Blood!”

And no one understands this better than Quentin Tarantino, who is constantly reminding his audiences that they are watching a movie; what you are seeing is not real. It is a make-believe game that nonetheless has powerful effect. And Tarantino loves to play with that paradox – the tension between what you know is not real and what you really feel. And he takes that to the most extreme and extraordinary places he can go. He’s outrageous, but he’s mindfully so; he knows what he’s doing. And that’s what his fans love about him. He’s smart. His movies are smart, even when they are low and dirty and ugly. (And yes, even because they are low, etc.)

Plus, in modern American life, we have “evolved” to a point where we are numb to so much ordinary and expected violence. It has lost its potency. So we need something more frightening and more terrible to help us achieve that catharsis. And art can offer that, while still being safe.

"The Hateful Eight" is Violent
“The Hateful Eight” is Violent

So, when Tarantino stages a bullfight, you feel as if you are right there, watching the real thing, and then, just as the bull is about to die… suddenly the most unpredictable and terrifying and absurd thing – the thing you could never imagine… happens. And that’s when you get that crazy, horrifying-and-also-satisfying shock; that’s when you gasp your heart into your lungs. And I challenge anyone to watch The Hateful Eight and not gasp in full at least twice.

Conclusion: It’s Sexy

HelenHighly: I'm just saying.
HelenHighly: I’m just saying.

I’ll go one step further and say, not only is it cathartic…  it’s sexy. This is not late-breaking news: sex and death go very well together. And even though the movie has no actual sex in it whatsoever, I think it’s a turn-on. It’s hot. And, btw, there was nothing sexy about Star Wars – romantic maybe, but not visceral. I’m just saying.

Epilogue: Killer Coffee Pot?

HelenHighly is Highly interested in the things in movies. I love it when an object becomes a key part of a film plot, or when it makes such an indelible impression that it changes the way people think of or feel about that thing.

Click: See my commentary on “Holiday Shopping in the Movies: Where to get the goods to make your classic Christmas-movie memories come alive,” in which I write about iconic Christmas gifts that were defined by movies.

In Hateful Eight, there is an object that is central to the plot – the blue-speckled cowboy-style coffee pot, and investigation uncovers an amusing irony. I won’t say exactly how the pot enters into the film’s intrigue, but I will wonder aloud if the pot’s infamous history was an inspiration for that detail of the story (and I’ll give a small clue).

“People started to become suspicious of poisonous ingredients.”

Cowboy Coffee Pot: Enamelware
Cowboy Coffee Pot: Enamelware

The type of pot used in the movie, which was historically accurate, is called enamelware. It was invented in the mid-1800s, when people wanted a way of coating iron to stop metallic tastes or rust from getting into food. They wanted something acid-resistant and easy to clean without laborious scouring, and something more durable than the tin linings used inside copper. So, manufacturers of kitchenware started coating everything from cast iron to steel with enamel. When fired, the enamel glazed, creating a non-porous surface that was easier to clean than exposed metal. Plus, it had a smooth, glossy finish that looked appealing. Originally, enamelware was bright white because it looked most sanitary. Then, speckled blue became popular because it was more cheerful.

But: Were enamel-lined pots really as clean and safe as they seemed? After a while (actually, Helen is Highly amazed at how many years it took) people started to become suspicious of poisonous ingredients leaching into their food. Unfortunately, it turned out, enamel surfaces were prone to cracking, which would expose the metal beneath, causing it to rust. Ultimately, consumers were scared away from both the metal and the enamel, due to claims of lead, antimony, and arsenic turning up in their food and coffee.

Today, modern science has solved the poison problem, and enamelware is still used in country kitchens and vintage-chic homes. And because they can handle a direct flame and don’t require electricity, enameled coffee pots are still a staple at well-equipped camp sites. (Just don’t ever let Quentin Tarantino anywhere near your coffee pot.)

Finally

Yes, we have just crossed the three-hour mark. And I will stop writing. But Helen Highly encourages YOU to drink some strong coffee (maybe with a shot of booze in it) and high-tail it over to your local theater and see The Hateful Eight. It’s a big, splashy thriller, and a wild ride. 

Click for News (2019): The Hateful Eight Extended Version is now a Netflix Miniseries, available for streaming

Click for News: The Hateful Eight Opens Big with $1.9 million on Christmas Day

Click for News: Hive CM8 Leak Pirated Copies, Then Apologize (sort of)

Click for News: Hateful Tweets About Hateful Eight 70mm Roadshow Projection Problems

Cate Blanchett, Perfection as Carol

Best Film Review: “Carol” vs “Brooklyn”

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HelenHighly Critiques the Film Carol and Compares it to the film Brooklyn

Cate Blanchett in "Carol"
Cate Blanchett in “Carol”

The movie Carol, a lesbian romantic drama that is based on the book The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, is getting named Best Film of the Year by just about everyone, it seems, and making all the award short-lists. And Helen is Highly disappointed. Let me add up front that the film was costumed by Sandy Powell, art directed by Jesse Rosenthal, and filmed by Edward Lachman, who will all likely (and deservingly) receive awards for their work here. But in this review, I have issues with director Todd Haynes and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy.

Mundane, overly precious, pointlessly detailed movie.

I saw Carol at the 53rd New York Film Festival, where just about every film was more interesting than this gigantic slice of Boring. After watching the film, I assumed most people would dislike it as much as I did, so I was shocked when I did a quick Google search and saw the Variety review pop up saying “High expectations don’t quite prepare you for the startling impact of Carol, exquisitely drawn, deeply felt…” No way! (I usually like Justin Chang, but I disagree with him and nearly everyone else about this film.) My first order of business is to change Variety’s intro line: “High expectations don’t quite prepare you for”: the slow emptiness of this mundane, overly precious, pointlessly detailed movie.

Listen, I adore Cate Blanchett as much as anyone. And no one can say she is not gorgeous. At one point in the film – at a party, her estranged husband concedes to her that she is the most beautiful woman in the room. Well, that never changes. She is the most beautiful and the best dressed and best accessorized and best groomed person in every scene. So, let’s all agree to put Cate Blanchett’s face in the dictionary under the word Perfection, and then we can all go home and save ourselves two hours of lifeless artifice. And if Cate were selling lipstick, or stockings, or fur coats, I would buy them all. But I would not recommend this movie to anyone.

I’m happy for Blanchett that she got such a glamorous star vehicle in which to show off. But why is no one else stating the obvious – that this is essentially a vanity project for Cate Blanchett? Unfortunately however, in this movie, we cannot see Cate’s rich inner life through the heavy cover of makeup and fur.

Blanchett as “Carol,” in fur

Remember the final season’s opening episode on Mad Men, where Don Draper is trying desperately to find the ideal,  alluring model to put in his fur coat ad?* Todd Haynes’ Cate Blanchett should get that job! She is precisely what Don was looking for – an impossibly beautiful fantasy of aspirational glamour and exquisite opulence. Women want to be her and men want to have her, exactly because she is so flawless and empty; you feel nothing for her or from her as a character – no complicated emotions to ruin the high-gloss facade. And honestly, Cate, you are better than this; you don’t need to advertise your quintessential (surface) beauty. That Don Draper gig, and this movie, are beneath you; you can act.

The book was ground-breaking and radical; the movie is strictly conventional and banal.

This brings me to the lesbian theme of the story. Helen Highly objects to Haynes’ portrayal of Carol and her younger lover (played by Rooney Mara) as a Hollywood male fantasy of woman-on-woman sexuality. Due to Haynes’ decision to maintain the look-and-feel of a 1950s flick, the movie refrains from overtly explicit sex scenes, but still it has the tone of cheesy pin-up porn – made for men, and not about real-life women who have ambiguous thoughts and difficult feelings. Highsmith’s 1953 book, The Price of Salt, became a lesbian-love cult-novel, due largely to its being the first authentic expression of a lesbian relationship that did not have the punishing ending that was prescribed by 1950s morality. Highsmith was a lesbian herself (a fact she denied throughout most of her career), and this story is semi-autobiographical, telling the tale of when she was a shop girl who fell into a romantic obsession over an older married woman who was a customer at the store. But let’s stop there for a moment. (Well, there’s not much else to tell; the movie mostly repeats variations of the same scene.)

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in "Carol"
Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in Carol

Part of Helen being Highly annoyed is that so many people are eager to say how this film is “important for women” – as if it were still the act of sexual bravery and social revelation it was in the 1950s. And that is simply not the case. Today, the storyline reads as old news and naively obvious. The book was ground-breaking and radical; the movie is strictly conventional and banal. And this is the fault of the screenplay and the direction, which do not capture the emotional intensity or poetic eroticism of the book. (Watch Dec. 19th’s Saturday Night Live and see their skit about how a male director is ruining an otherwise good 1950’s movie about two lesbians. Ha.)

Blanchett gazes
Blanchett gazes

The book meticulously detailed the inner lives of these two, passionate yet confused women; the film, instead, meticulously (and ploddingly) details a story that was only loosely referenced in the book — because Highsmith was interested in tortuous desire and fearful loneliness, not a who-gets-the-kid divorce case. In the movie that Nagy and Haynes made, the tale becomes a simplistic, self-righteous, politically-correct after-school-special. Haynes attempts, it seems, to depict the women’s emotions with an endless series of long, silent gazes. The film becomes tedious quickly, as we see the same posed, passive expressions played over and over – against a range of sumptuous backgrounds. And so it seems that Haynes cares more about his visual style than he does the psychology of his characters.

Todd Haynes is no Hitchcock.

Now, because of all the unwarranted hoopla about this movie, it becomes important to discuss Highsmith’s other books, several of which were made into highly successful movies, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train among them. Highsmith published The Price of Salt under another name and disowned the book for many years, not wanting to derail her career as a successful mystery writer. Other than this one-off erotic lesbian tale,  Highsmith wrote thrillers. Margaret Talbot, at the New Yorker, recently wrote a fascinating article about the background of the movie, in which she explained: “In 1952, Coward-McCann published The Price of Salt. Harpers & Bros., which had released Strangers on a Train two years earlier, turned it down, perhaps because it wasn’t another thriller.” So, for all you devoted Highsmith fans, just be aware: this one is not like the others — not the book, and definitely not the film. By the way, The New Yorker article is very worth reading and includes many quotes from the book, which are strikingly different from the minimal, stilted language of the film.

 And to my smart-yet-in-this-case-incorrect friend, and others, who like to say that Carol is comparable to the brilliant and classic Strangers on a Train, I say two things:

1) Haynes is no Hitchcock. Yes, Hitchcock and Highsmith shared an affection for frosty blondes (and perhaps Todd Haynes does as well). But Hitchcock was a master. He knew how to make an ice-queen come alive on the screen.

2) Carol is no thriller. Hitchcock also understood plot; he knew what was a compelling story and what was not. Carol is not.

So, Cate Blanchett and Todd Haynes can wish she were Grace Kelly or Kim Novak all day long, but she’s not going to touch a hair of their blonde locks with this script and this director.

It takes a drag-queen to understand what is wrong with this movie!

The other night, taking a break from writing this review, I went to Joes’ Pub at the Public Theater to see a wacky Christmas cabaret by Justin Vivian Bond, called Angels We Have Heard When High (HelenHighly was highly intrigued.)

Justin Vivian Bond
Justin Vivian Bond

To my surprise and delight, much of the comic element of the show was based on the movie Carol. It takes a drag-queen to understand what is wrong with this movie! Bond smartly comments at one point, “The Price of Salt was at least based on something real.” Bond scoffs at the notion that there is anything true or sexy in the film and hilariously explains that despite the director’s meticulous efforts to create 1950s verisimilitude, he neglects the important detail of Cate Blanchett’s fingernails.

Bond says that it’s clearly apparent that Carol has a gel manicure – something only recently invented and very different from the nail polish the character would have worn in her day. Ha! That is so true! (Gel “no-chip” polish and processing essentially bake the color onto the nails and have been a game-changer in the world of manicures. The color lasts for weeks instead of days and is a major 21st-century advancement, which would have been nothing but a sci-fi fantasy to any 1950s woman.) Bond goes on to insist that at least during the several-day-long road trip, where Carol is living out of a suitcase, she would have had a couple chips in her perfect nail color. But Haynes did not allow that, keeping Carol a phony character instead.

Bond also bemoans the film’s false portrayal of the “May-December romance” (which is important in the book). Mx Viv is all for older men or women getting it on with young, hot things, but alas she was once the May and is now the December part of that equation. And she knows what that feels like and looks like (and so does HelenHighly), and there is no way that “December” looks like Cate Blanchett’s perfection. Bond resents now having to live up to Todd Haynes’ unrealistic depiction of a December lover. Once again: Helen Highly agrees!

In Brooklyn, the design supports the characters instead of glossing over them.

While watching the screening of Carol at the New York Film Festival, I made very few notes in my book, because there was nothing interesting to write down (IMHO). But soon after, there was a screening of the film Brooklyn, another historically-accurate, sentimental love story that was adapted from an acclaimed book (screenplay by Nick Hornby). I made quite a few notes about that movie. Remarkably, the two films take place in the same year and in the same city (New York and its environs) and both generally deal with the problems of pulled-in-two-directions love and related family pressure. The big difference: I care about the characters in Brooklyn!

"Brooklyn" movie poster.
Brooklyn movie poster.

 In the movie Brooklyn, the main character is Ellis Lacey (played with heart by Saoirse Ronan), and like Carol, she struggles with a love dilemma and is nearly torn apart by it. Both stories also include a theme about secrets and spies who reveal those secrets, plus the themes of betrayal and nasty gossip. Watching Ellis, I ached for her. Carol’s plight left me cold.

Both films have been critically applauded for their lush cinematography and vivid, vintage design. But in Brooklyn, the design supports the characters instead of glossing over them. Interestingly, in an interview after the screening, director John Crowley explained that he wanted the film to “seem artless,” and he did not cast the roles “for looks,” but rather for “inner truth.” And that inner truth is indeed expressed in the film, which rises above its sentimentality by letting the characters earn their emotions. Crowley brings the audience close and lets us follow the inner workings of the characters. Haynes maintains a passive distance throughout.

"Brooklyn" looks real.
“Brooklyn” looks real.

There is a scene in Brooklyn where Ellis takes her first trip to the beach at Coney Island, and when she comes out from behind her towel and reveals her “swim costume,” it is a glorious moment. I felt myself beaming for her. I wrote in my notes, “Rapture!” And the feeling of rapture is exactly what was needed and missing from Carol. When Ellis’ sister dies, I was devastated. I felt her pain. For Carol, I could only yawn (and sneer at suffering that seemed so fake).

Todd Haynes, I know you are a skilled and well-regarded filmmaker (and thank you for the movie I’m Not There, where Cate Blanchett is put to much better use, btw), but Helen Highly suggests that you watch the movie Brooklyn and take a few notes.

///

* And just for fun, here’s that Mad Men scene with the fur. Listen to Don “direct” the performance. Don’t you think Cate’s Carol is made for this role?

 

 

 

“5 Flights Up” Review, with Helen-Gets-a-New-TV Commentary AND Holiday Greeting to My Readers

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5 Flights Up Film Review, with Helen-Gets-a-New-TV Commentary AND a Holiday Greeting to my Readers

by HelenHighly
Diane Keaton and her dog.
Diane Keaton and her dog.

I recently got a new television. My friend helped me set it up but didn’t have patience to go through all the detailed settings with me.

So, one day, the day after Thanksgiving, it was quiet and peaceful, even in my apartment where it is usually busy and stressful and has got me constantly popping delta 9 gummies from Budder to cope. And I took the time to carefully, meticulously yet leisurely, adjust the complex color settings in order to get my ideal picture on my new TV.

I sat in my newly furnished, all-white bedroom, in my TV-watching seat — the sleek white leather-and-chrome chair I have in my “parlor area.” And I put my feet up on my new big furry ottoman – covered in grey-and-white super-long fake-animal hair, standing on lucite legs. That was the first time I’d sat there for more than five minutes. But that day, I sat for hours and watched a whole movie. It just came onto TV while I was flipping channels. I’d never heard of it and had no idea what I was watching at first (and I missed the first few minutes).

The movie was 5 Flights Up, with Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton, and it was shot in New York and is about living in Brooklyn, and maybe moving to Manhattan. So despite not being a commercially well-received film (or I would have heard of it, right?) I thought it was perfect for me, who just moved to New York. It’s a movie about a borderline-elderly couple (where does one draw the line?) who put their apartment up for sale – a classic, old, 5-story walk-up in Brooklyn. (My uncle, who is beyond borderline and is fully elderly, explained to me that long ago there was a law dictating that any residential building over five stories must have an elevator. Thus all those 5-story walk-ups — the max allowed without an expensive elevator.) Morgan and Diane – who, it seemed to me, didn’t bother to play characters and were just themselves – have lived in that apartment all their married lives, from the time they were college kids together. So it’s a sentimental tale about Brooklyn and the idea of “home” and how an apartment itself becomes a member of the family.

“Thanks Diane Keaton for looking beautiful and real.”

I enjoyed the movie, despite it being unambitious  and overly sweet. In addition to the topic that was personally relevant to me, I have always liked both those actors – Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton, and it was good to see that they have both grown old gracefully. They have no visible signs of plastic surgery, and they both have a comfortable calm about them that comes from having lived long, accomplished lives. Now I have Googled 5 Flights Up and found these quotes that say what I might have written about the film except that someone else already has:

“5 Flights Up would be nothing without its stars (very true), whose humanity warms up a movie that otherwise portrays New Yorkers as coldblooded, slightly crazy, hypercompetitive sharks.”
Stephen Holden, New York Times. Click for full review.

I agree with Holden about the actors, and my impulse is to also agree about his objection to the portrayal of stereotypical New Yorkers. But a new friend who is a longtime New Yorker keeps telling me how hyper-competitive New York is, and how I better be ready. So I will consider the possibility that he and these filmmakers are correct. Although, of course my friend is intensely competitive himself, and insists he must be in order to “make it” here, so even if the competitive environment is a figment of his imagination, he helps to make it true just by believing it’s true and behaving in a coldblooded manner. But that’s another subject.

“Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton have unexpectedly great chemistry in this warm and funny comedy.”
Lou Lumenick, New York Post. Click for full review.

Yes, they are a pleasure to watch together, and they helped me to calm down and sit quietly and watch this very pleasant movie.

“It weasels its way into your heart and ultimately claims sweet, sentimental victory over your better judgment.”
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post. Click for full review.

Yes, normally this is the kind of movie I would dislike on premise. But… right time right place and it worked for me.

BUT… my point – and I do have one, is that I used the natural, soft and variable face of Diane Keaton, with her multi-faceted expressions and nuanced, dynamic complexion, to set the picture features of my new Vizio TV. And I am pleased that I got to do that. I think that now I do indeed have a subtly refined Perfect Picture on my television screen. So, thanks Diane Keaton for looking beautiful and real. And I want to point out just how complex and intricate those screen settings are.

I have outlined a list of each feature about which I was able to individually make a choice (and not just an on-or-off binary choice – usually multiple or full-spectrum choices). The list below has more than 50 lines – 50 options and choices to make about my Vizio television picture. And keep in mind that as one changes one option, one needs to go back and adjust the previous options, because they now look different. I recall now that a friend of mine once hired a specialist, paying him $150., to come to his home and program his new TV screen for him. Now that is beginning to make sense to me. Perhaps the concept of a fine-tuned screen picture has become an industry in itself. I wonder if that is intentional.

Anyway. Here is the list of options that I leisurely strolled through, with Diane Keaton’s face on freeze-frame, watching her appearance subtly shift, as she contemplated her existence in New York while I also contemplated mine.

“The better to see you with, my dear Diane.”

Picture:

Mode

Standard

Calibrated (I chose this one.)

Calibrated Dark

Vivid

Game

Computer

Auto-Brightnesss

Off

On (I chose on.)

High

Med (Went with medium.)

Low

Backlight (Number range: I chose 95 out of 100)

Brightness (Number range: 50)

Contrast (80)

Color (50. But when I adjust one option, then all the others look different, and I am compelled to go back and adjust them again.)

Tint (0)

Sharpness (50)

More (Yes of course, more.)

Color Temperature

Normal (I want to be unconventional, but Normal is the only reasonable selection here.)

Color

Computer

Black Detail (Must research what this is and come back.)

Off

On

Low

Medium

High

Active LED Zones

On (Hell yes; this was the reason I selected this Vizio TV – for it’s much-touted “active LED zones.”)

Off

Clear Action

On

Off (I chose off. I’m getting tired, and I think this is a sports thing.)

Reduce Noise (Again, not sure and losing interest.)

Reduce Significant Noise

Low

Medium

High

Reduce Block Noise

Low

Medium

High

Picture Size and Position (It’s fine the way it is.)

Film Mode

Auto (Ok. Whatever.)

Off

Gamma (Really?!)

1.8

2.0

2.1

2.2 (Chose this. Don’t ask me why.)

2.4

Wow. What a complex ecosystem my TV screen is. The better to see you with, my dear Diane. Ms Keaton, I hope your real life is as lovely and happy as your life in this movie. And I hope the same for me. My new life in Manhattan (not Brooklyn), among the sharks, should be warm and interesting like Diane Keaton’s, as well as bright and active and clear, with deep blacks and bright whites. This sounds like a holiday wish on a greeting card. So, I say to you, patient reader:

May your new year (and your TV screen) be bright and active and clear, with deep blacks and bright whites. And may you always have the best Gamma value.