Friday, February 7, 2025

Over the Rainbow: “The Florida Project”

My enthusiasm for Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or- winning Anora led me to wonder about Baker’s earlier films. At fifty-three, he’s not exactly a boy wonder, but until now his work has mostly been seen on the indie circuit. Starting in 2000, he’s been writing, directing, and editing small films that explore the lives of marginalized Americans of all stripes. He seems to have particular sympathy for undocumented immigrants and sex workers, and has placed them at the center of many of his stories. He also relishes using non-actors in central roles that reflect their own shaky situation in life. 

Years ago, I couldn’t resist watching Tangerine (2015), after I found out how it was made. This Christmas-eve tale of a transgender sex worker who’s being cheated on by her lover/pimp was shot on the mean streets of Hollywood by Baker and his crew using (instead of conventional cameras) three iPhone smartphones. Remarkably, it worked. Though the story sounds impossibly grim, there are also moments of great poignancy and even humor in Tangerine. This, Baker’s fifth film, brought him major attention from critics’ groups like the Independent Spirt Awards. The Palm Springs Independent Film Festival, for one, named him a Director to Watch.

Baker’s sixth feature, The Florida Project (2017) was filmed more conventionally, and debuted in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, It was the first of Baker’s films to feature a major Hollywood actor, Willem Dafoe, but the film’s real star is Brooklynn Prince, a veteran actress who began her career at age 2. She was about 7 when she starred in The Florida Project as Moonee, a plucky kid who lives with her mom in a cheap motel managed by Dafoe’s sympathetic but often frustrated landlord. 

Moonee’s mom Halley was played by first-timer Bria Vinaite. Halley is a well-tattooed ex-stripper who’ll try just about anything—including drug sales, larceny, and prostitution—to house and feed herself and her daughter. (Needless to say, there’s no dad around.) She’s an angry young woman with a talent for scrounging and a very foul mouth, but at the same time she’s a loving mom who, when in a rare good mood, can delight Moonee with offbeat adventures. 

The Florida Project, named for an early codeword for Disney World, wants us  to see life chiefly from Moonee’s youthful perspective. For her and the other kids who live in the seedy but colorful Magic Castle Motel, there’s always time for fun, especially in summer. They try spitting on cars from the motel’s second- floor walkway; they gawk at the lady who sunbathes topless near the motel pool; they start a small fire that nearly destroys an abandoned housing project. Adult supervision is almost nil, and Moonee’s future may be bleak.  But meanwhile she’s enjoying her freedom.

The slow, relaxed pace of the storytelling encourages us to revel in the gorgeous Florida landscape. The film—dazzling in its sunny cinematography--was shot in Kissimmee, a stone’s throw from Walt Disney World, and a would-be fantasy environment hangs over everything. Moonee’s motel ($38 a night) is a startling shade of lavender, and the nearby Futureland Motel, home of new buddy Jancey, is painted pink and turquoise. We’re on the outskirts of Disney’s sprawling theme park, but a good distance from the well-curated fantasy venue enjoyed by well-heeled tourists. In recompense, Moony and her friends enjoy brilliant sunsets, dramatic rainstorms, lush foliage, and exotic waterfowl. The film’s endling essentially slips into their romantic dreams.  Too bad they will one day have to grow up and discover the harsher, darker world their parents know. 



 

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Creeping Through a House, Darkly

Does Neil LaBute dislike women? A common complaint about this award-winning playwright and film director is that he’s a total misogynist who goes out of his way to vent hostility toward what used to be called “the fair sex.” I don’t agree with this assessment: yes, his view of humanity is dark indeed, but I don’t think (judging from what I know of his body of work) that he favors one gender over the other. His characters can be brutal—and sexuality can be the spark that ignites their rage against one another—but he’s an equal opportunity misanthrope. From what I’ve seen, on the screen and in theatres, he doesn’t like anybody very much.

This is not to say that LaBute is a brute in real life. He is married, he has children; for all I know he’s a reliable friend and neighbor. Formerly, during his college years at Brigham Young University, he apparently became (like several good friends of mine) a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Though I’ve corresponded briefly with Neil, I can’t pretend to have anything like a close connection with him. I gather, though, that the sunny optimism of the Mormons in my life doesn’t entirely mesh with his outlook, or with the thrust of his writing and directing career.  

I think what fascinates LaBute is dominance: the way people are prone to seek control over those around them. And, at times, the way the victims contribute to their own subjugation. Those who suffer most usually deserve what they get, either because they’re naïve or because they’re greedy for something to which they’re not really entitled. The latter possibility shows up in the 2022 film I’ve just seen, one that LaBute both wrote and directed. House of Darkness seems ominous from the beginning, when a car pulls up in front of a creepy mansion in the woods. It’s late at night, of course, and no one is around except for the car’s occupants. Hap (Justin Long) is an ultra-cool finance bro, full of quips and self-confidence. Mina (Kate Bosworth) looks angelic, with her filmy white dress and long golden tresses. They’ve just met at a bar in the city, quickly bonded, and he gladly agreed when she asked for a ride home. It’s absolutely clear what’s on his mind, and this is confirmed when (as she goes off to fix some drinks) he has a cellphone chat with the buddy he left behind. He’s gloating about his good fortune . . . but his high spirits don’t last long. 

LaBute likes chamber pieces, in which a very few actors (often in an enclosed space) carry the film. This aesthetic preference also makes good sense: it’s certainly much easier to finance and produce a movie with a small cast and a single location. About half of House of Darkness takes place in what seems to be a mating dance between Hap and Mina, but then several new arrivals appear, changing everything. Mina’s name should give us a clue, but the sudden emergence of someone named Lucy makes it obvious: LaBute is playing with the dramatis personae surrounding Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I love the fact that in LaBute’s film these are tantalizing women in charge of their own destinies. The classic cinematic view of Dracula comes to us by way of Bela Lugosi’s 1931 film portrayal. In the movies, he’s a sexy man who lures innocent young women to a fate worse than death. Here LaBute has fun flipping the script, but Hap deserves (almost) everything he gets. 


 

Friday, January 31, 2025

Liza Minnelli: Getting By With a Little Help from Her Friends

I have a faint recollection of seeing Liza Minnelli perform on television when she was a mere teenager. She was coltish, even gawky, and I suspected that she owed her spot on the tube to her legendary parents, singer/actress Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli. It’s certainly true that Liza has had, all her life, the twin advantages of money and connections. But the label of Poor Little Rich Girl truly fits her. She was all of twenty-three when her mother died of a barbiturate overdose. True to form, she jumped in to make the necessary arrangements, while also taking in hand her younger half-sister and half-brother.

Bruce David Klein’s new documentary, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, captures the now seventy-eight-year-old Minnelli in all her ebullient glory. We see her as she is now, still chain-smoking, still belting out that memorable cackle, still enjoying life to the fullest, and we also catch glimpses of her back when she was just starting out. Klein is a veteran TV writer, director, and producer whose work has explored a number of wildly assorted topics. I heard him speak at a screening presided over by my long-ago UCLA film critic buddy, Stephen Farber, and it was clear that Klein—like most of the world—had fallen under Liza’s spell. 

In crawling out from her mother’s shadow, Liza was blessed by a series of formative friendships. Always modest about her own accomplishments, she does credit herself with a talent for choosing mentors. Her godmother,  Kay Thompson, helped teach her to put pizzazz into her life. (Thompson, known for her “Think Pink” role in the film Funny Face, was also the author of the Eloise books about a precocious child who lives at New York’s Plaza Hotel. Minnelli herself is often considered one model for this supremely self-assured tyke.) The musical theatre team of John Kander and Fred Ebb were strong influences on her performance style, leading to her Oscar-winning performance in the film Cabaret as well as the much-lauded TV special, Liza with a Z. Bob Fosse served as her choreographer, finding unique ways to showcase her dance skills. When she needed to develop a personal style that distinguished her from her mother, Halston was on hand to create for her the glittery costumes that showed off her long dancer’s legs. (I learned from Klein that Liza, when on stage before a live audience, performs with such intensity that she tends to get sweaty. That’s why Halston turned to sequins to detract, with their sparkle, from her inevitable perspiration.)  

Though Liza’s circle of friends may seem glamorous, she doesn’t only hobnob with fellow celebrities, Much featured in the documentary are a retired dentist and his wife who’ve been close friends of Liza’s for decades. Over the years, she’s been closely connected with their children as well, and everyone who knows her speaks of her generosity. An example: when one Kander and Ebb musical, Chicago, was playing in its original Broadway run, star Gwen Verdon had to leave the production for several weeks to undergo surgery. There was a very real chance that her absence would cause the show to close. When she learned of the situation, Minnelli jetted in from Europe to play the Roxie Hart role, but insisted there be no big press release to tout her appearance. This was simply, in her mind, something she wanted to do to help friends who had always been there for her.  

Minnelli’s instruction  to documentarian Klein: “Don’t put in anything foolish.” What we see is the unvarnished Liza, not foolish at all. 


Tuesday, January 28, 2025

“Nickel Boys”: Style Over Substance

I was looking forward to seeing the cinematic adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed 2019 novel about two young Black men stuck in a brutal reform school in 1960s Florida. (The Nickel Academy is modeled on an actual Florida school, now thankfully closed, at which students—especially those of color –were long badly mistreated, sometimes sexually assaulted, and even murdered.) 

The story of Nickel Boys seemed an important one, and I was fascinated by reports that the film was shot entirely through what filmmakers call POV (or point of view), so that the world of young Elwood and Turner was shown exclusively through their eyes. In other words, the audience would see precisely what the characters themselves were seeing, as a way of drawing us into their lived experience. Movies have included this technique almost from the beginning: when the hero is gazing at a lovely vista, or a pretty girl, or a herd of bison, we briefly glimpse these things as though we shared his exact perspective. But, under the direction of RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys pushes this conceit a great deal further, telling virtually his entire story subjectively.

Clearly, Ross’s goal is to pull us in to the lives of two unfortunate young men by immersing us in the sights and sounds of what they experience. Critics have responded to his attempt with enthusiasm, nominating Nickel Boys for many awards. The Film Academy too was suitably impressed, placing the film among its ten nominees for Best Picture. I gather that—for whatever reason—the Directors Guild was less admiring. Ross was not among the five nominees for the Guild’s top award this year, nor was he chosen by the Academy’s directors branch as one of the five up for the Best Director Oscar. 

I saw Nickel Boys in the company of three other moviegoers. One had read the novel; two had not. Though I had not read Whitehead’s work, I did have a sense of what the novel was about and what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish. All of us came away frustrated, feeling that we’d been bombarded by visuals that didn’t always make sense, and that the basic storyline had eluded us. Yes, there were things to admire, particularly in Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s sympathetic portrayal of Elwood’s grandmother. And I see why it was an attractive challenge to show Elwood overwhelmed by the world around him, including televised shots of freedom riders and Martin Luther King’s soaring speeches. Mostly, though, I found myself constantly aware of the camera’s tricks, of how the film relied on mirrors and shiny surfaces to occasionally let us see the two Nickel Boys of the story rather than just hearing them speak. Frankly, it all made me a bit dizzy. 

There’s a major scene near the end, one that’s setting up what is going to be a key revelation. It takes place in a bar, and the two characters in conversation are both older now—and both survivors of the hellish Nickel Academy. They’re surprised (and not entirely glad) to recognize one another, though both seem to be painfully making their way in the outside world.  For reasons that come clear only later, one has his back to the camera throughout the entire conversation. Was I paying attention to what they were saying? Or to the emotion beneath their words? Well, I tried to. But I kept being distracted by struggling to figure out whose point of view we were sharing, through whose eyes we were seeing this. That’s what happens when a movie puts style ahead of substance.  

 


 

Friday, January 24, 2025

Everything But the Bathroom Sink: “The Brutalist”

You can’t say that writer/director Brady Corbet lacks ambition. During the three hours and thirty-five minutes of screentime that make up The Brutalist, he shoehorns in such pressing topics as racial and ethnic bias, religious intolerance, drug addiction, sexual perversity, and what it feels like to be an artist in thrall to a wealthy businessman. I’d heard that The Brutalist is the story of a Holocaust survivor, and so it is. But for the Hungarian architect László Tóth, a proud product of Bauhaus training before Hitler came to power, America is not much of an improvement over Nazi Germany. In fact, the movie as a whole turns out to be an unrelieved diatribe against American life disguised as an immigrant saga.

Brutalism, as the film never gets around to explaining, is a school of design that became popular in the postwar years, one that features massive forms and heavy, raw materials like concrete. This is the style of the building project that dominates the film: Tóth’s design for an elaborate community center complete with library and chapel. The ideas are his (and a brief laudatory moment in the film’s epilogue finally makes clear to us how impressive they are). But the money comes from an impulsive and irascible tycoon who likes to be viewed (when it suits him) as a champion of modern art. He’s Harrison Lee Van Buren, and the name itself seems a ham-fisted way of reminding us that he’s American to the core. And, especially in a late-in-the-film scene where he’s truly—and unconvincingly—vicious to his protégé, he can be considered a brutalist too. 

The two main actors in this epic drama deserve praise. Adrien Brody, who won an Oscar back in 2002 for portraying a Polish Holocaust victim in The Pianist, is the ideal choice to play the long-suffering László. Tall and thin, with unkempt hair and a wild look in his eye, he seems about to cry even in moments when he’s genuinely happy. I was also impressed by Guy Pearce as the proud, mercurial rich man who holds László’s future in his hands. (I recall I first discovered Pearce, in a very different mood, as a drag queen in Australia’s 1994 hit, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.)  But in the key role of László’s wife, an invalid who is unable to reunite with her beloved spouse until the film is half over, the usually reliable Felicity Jones struck me as unconvincing. Her accent, for one thing, seems effortful. But she’s also been asked by the script to behave in ways that seem well outside the range of what’s possible for her. 

That’s my number-one problem with The Brutalist. The central characters in the film quite often behave not like human beings but like symbols I could cite many examples: moments of extreme love and extreme hate appear in the story not because they’re consistent with a character’s inner workings but because they make a point that the director (who’s also the writer) deems important. For instance, while I can understand László’s ardent natural sexuality coming to the fore at inappropriate times, what we see on screen always seems to be a message from Corbet to the viewer. 

My moviegoing companion— someone who shared my experience of this long, drawn-out, rather lugubrious story (thank heavens for that intermission!)—commented later that it was much more enjoyable to discuss the film afterwards than it was to sit through it. Yes, The Brutalist can’t be faulted for the strength of its ideas. But I couldn’t get past the clashing of all those symbols.  


 

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Dancing through Time: “Wicked”

Time marches on? Time dances on? I only know that I seem to have become too grown-up to thoroughly enjoy Wicked. Yes, of course I still love watching what happens to Dorothy and her pals when they journey from Munchkinland to the Emerald City in the classic 1939 film. It’s a movie I’ve adored since childhood when, months before I actually got taken to see it, I pasted a newspaper photo of Glinda and Dorothy in my scrapbook. The screening I was so excited about was, of course, an encore presentation. The film’s debut occurred long before I was born—and long before the movie industry had adopted basic safety practices to protect actors from harm. I strongly recommend Aljean Harmetz’s The Making of the Wizard of Oz, first published in 1977 and now available in an illustrated anniversary edition, to anyone who wants to read hair-raising stories of the dangerous conditions on that set. 

The 1939 production was hardly the first attempt to film L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s tale. I’m told there’s a silent version dating back to 1925. But after the success of the Judy Garland vehicle, Hollywood tried several times to film other of Baum’s Oz books, with mixed results. (Does anyone remember Fairuza Balk in 1985’s Return to Oz?) More inspiring was the screen version of the Broadway hit, The Wiz, in which the familiar story of Dorothy and her friends is re-imagined in an African-American context, with such stars as Diana Ross (Dorothy), Michael Jackson (as the Scarecrow), Lena Horne (Glinda), and Richard Pryor (The Wizard of Oz) giving an urban twist to the saga, which starts on the mean streets of Harlem instead of on the Kansas prairies.  

I’ll say this for Wicked: it’s a thorough rethinking of Baum’s original story. Wicked began as a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, subtitled The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I found its prose rather ponderous, but it cleverly explores the nature of evil by looking at the evolution of a young woman named Elphaba from pathetic misfit to incarnation of all things witchy. The novel became a 2003 hit musical, thanks at least in part to Stephen Schwartz’s songs, with a big assist from the performances of Adina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. (Both get nice little cameos in the film version.)

The new movie, which is certainly doing its share of saving the financially precarious film industry, is actually Wicked, Part I. It’s also, I trust, introducing a new generation to the joys of movie musicals. Under the direction of Jon M. Chu, who had previously scored with Crazy Rich Asians and the Lin Manuel Miranda musical, In the Heights, it is visually impressive, with the palace of Oz, the complicated hair-do of Madam Morrible, and the frilly all-pink wardrobe of Galinda all given loving attention. The singers really sing; the dancers really dance. And Chu’s openness to casting actors of many backgrounds—especially Cynthia Erivo as the green-skinned Elphaba—adds a nice subliminal message about society’s scorn for those whose skin is a different shade. 

So what’s not to like? I guess for me (but not for the younger folks with me, including a starry-eyed ten-year-old) the movie felt overly long and overly effortful. The very earnestness of the film’s social issues (which get tangled up with a subplot about the mistreatment of animals) seemed overwrought to the point of dullness. Yes, I loved Ariana Grande’s rendition of the show’s best song, “Popular,” But I’m not counting the days until we get to see Wicked, Part II


 

Friday, January 17, 2025

Whatever Happened to Vera Miles?

Vera Miles? Whatever happened to her? And who was she, anyway? Miles, who’s alive and well at 95, was an Oklahoma-born, Kansas-bred beauty pageant winner who found her way to Hollywood in 1949. She played key supporting parts in films directed by John Ford (The Searchers) and Alfred Hitchcock (The Wrong Man, in which she was the wife of Henry Fonda, playing a real-life jazz musician falsely accused of robbery). She also was several times cast by the Disney folks as a lovable wife and mom, often in tandem with Fred MacMurray or Brian Keith, perhaps reflecting her own real-life role as the mother of four children. She also regularly appeared in featured roles on television. Despite all this, in her forty-five year career she never truly moved beyond second-tier stardom. 

Things might have turned out differently in the late Fifties if Miles, who was then under personal contract to Alfred Hitchcock, had gone through with Hitchcock’s plan to star her as the female lead in Vertigo. Hitchcock favorite Grace Kelly had moved from the soundstages of L.A. to the throne of Monaco, and Miles was singled out as a suitable replacement. Said the Master of Suspense, “Miss Miles is going to be one of the biggest stars of Hollywood because she has understanding and depth and ability and lovely legs.”  To that end, he ordered a fabulous wardrobe for Miles, and cranked up the Hollywood publicity machine. But life intervened. Hitchcock’s need for gall bladder surgery delayed the production, as did time-off requested by the hard-working male lead James Stewart. And then Miles had the nerve to become pregnant with her third child, a move that Hitchcock considered something of a personal insult. (He was to say in later years, “I hate pregnant women because then they have children.”)  So Kim Novak got the plum dual role of Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton instead, though Hitchcock did feature Miles in his television dramas and in a key supporting part as Marion Crane’s sister in Psycho.

I know all the above because of Christopher McKittrick’s new biography, Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away, coming in March from University Press of Kentucky. There’s no question that McKittrick has done his homework. Though he never had the opportunity to speak to Miles directly, he seems to know everything there is to know about her life and times, and in passing fills us in on everyone with whom she ever connected. Though it’s interesting seeing her on the set of masterworks like Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I was most impressed with Miles’ evolution in later years into a woman who knew how to stand up for herself, one who clearly saw the lack of meaty roles for women and became determined to do something about it. (I’d love to know what she thinks about the current crop of films like Anora, The Substance, and Emilia Pérez—as well as last year’s Poor Things—whereby today’s actresses are coming to dominate the industry in which she once played a significant part. As someone always considered ladylike, she might not be pleased by the outrageous roles Hollywood’s women are now undertaking.) 

McKittrick considers it refreshing that Miles, far from becoming a burned-out Hollywood cautionary tale, largely ran her career on her own terms. As he puts it, “If opportunities like that of Vertigo passed her by because she chose other, more personally fulfilling paths for her life, those were decisions she was happy to make and has continued to stand by in her retirement.”