May 2021 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: Mank (as in Herman)

Herman Mankiewicz

The first movie I saw in an actual cinema was Mank. I viewed it at Landmark’s Spectrum 8 in Albany the Thursday before the Oscars. Only some of the seats were available, for COVID reasons. I’ve been vaccinated so I was feeling reasonably comfortable.

I had been looking forward to seeing this film since Ben Mankiewicz, a host on Turner Classic Movies, talked about it several months earlier on CBS Sunday Morning.

Ben’s interest was not just cinematic, though. He is a grandson of the topic of the film, Herman Mankiewicz, a noted writer for newspapers and magazines, who famously may have co-written as many as 40 films.

The movie is about “1930’s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane (1941),” the only movie for which he was, with Welles, actually credited with writing.

Didn’t love it

This was a story I knew something about. Mank’s peculiar platonic relationship with actress Marion Davies (a very good Amanda Seyfried), who was the paramour of William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). Mank’s long-suffering wife Sara (Tuppence Middleton) explains why she stays with her husband: “It’s never boring.”

But despite the cool black and white details, I found the narrative frustratingly jumbled. The review in Jacobin magazine addresses much of it. “The ‘Mank’ story hardly needs embellishment, but the Finchers, father, and son, give it plenty anyway. There are about fifty published posts out there that explain which parts of Mank are factual and which are made up.”

“The dinner party scene is a garbled mess, though [director David] Fincher seems to have lavished elaborate care upon it.” It’s set up as Important but it felt oddly flat.

“The way it’s filmed is so blandly unmemorable, it would’ve done much to undercut it. The film’s lax flashback structure from Mankiewicz’s point-of-view seems to be in contrast to Citizen Kane’s dynamic flashback structure from multiple, contradictory points of view.” While the chronology was noted throughout, the need for jumping back and forth in time was lost on me.

Or maybe I just missed it

Think Christian suggests that in the “Oscar-nominated film, Gary Oldman plays a truth-teller in a gadfly’s clothing.” So “Mank repeatedly lampoons the latent hypocrisy and brutal inhumanity of Hollywood’s dream machine. In doing so, this self-described ‘washed-up’ screenwriter impishly reminds viewers that, flaws and all, great prophets (and artists) courageously speak truth to power.”

For instance, “Mank witnesses Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard) earnestly plead with his MGM employees to accept a fifty-percent pay cut so the studio may survive the Great Depression intact… Knowing Mayer’s self-serving nature and deep pockets, Mank sardonically observes, ‘Not even the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen.’” But he doesn’t say this to Mayer, so…

Still, “whereas Mayer feigns caring but lives indifference, Mank takes the opposite path.” Mank’s transcriber Rita Alexander (Lily Collins) works with him on the Kane script as he recovers from a car accident.

“When asked [by Rita] to defend her loyalty to her alcoholic and antisocial patient, Mank’s German caregiver, Fraulein Freda (Monika Gossmann), reveals that he secretly donated the funds necessary to save 100 Jewish residents in her village from Nazis. Confronted with his altruism, Mank replies, ‘Dear Freda. What’s German for blabbermouth?’

Perhaps all of the goodness of the movie is there somewhere. The critics gave it an 83% positive review, though only 60% of the general audience agreed. Or maybe I wanted to like my first cinematic experience in 14 months too much. Having finally seen all of the nominated films for Best Picture this season, Mank might be my least favorite; ah, well.

“So many blacks in ads” redux

change

Way back in May 2017, a local blogger named Frank wrote about “Why so many blacks in ads?” I signed up for the comments to his post, and they were numerous. And usually awful. I wrote a reply piece, which generated some bigoted responses.

But not nearly as many as the original post did. And DOES. More than a dozen in 2021 alone. One Anonymous respondent posted: “Did you ever imagine you would create a hate magnet? I’m not saying you are a hater. You asked a reasonable question. But very few replies even attempt to answer the question. They just come here to post hate.”

Another one wrote: “Oh yeah, I am going to print this to a .PDF file and start distributing it on-line every week to the major White Supremacist web sites. Don’t worry, you’ll get full credit. You can try to block me, but as long as this is up I’ll use it. Thanks in advance. Did you realize that there is 137 pages of this racist gold?”

To which, the blogger replied: “Yes, Anonymous, I was trying to seriously discuss an actual question, and was stunned at the volume of comments — far more than on any of my other 1000+ blog posts in 12+ years — with practically all the comments embodying the crudest of race hate. What gets me is how these people actually think they represent a ‘superior’ race when their comments prove they themselves are the inferior ones.

Backlash of fear

I should note that I know Frank in passing and I do believe he was asking an honest question. Even at the time, I thought the query was naive, and that the responses would reflect the venom that exists out there. Still, it has been instructive, sometimes painfully so.

But I think that the premise of the question is fuzzy. There are data on Statista. “During a June 2020 survey conducted among adults in the United States, it was found that 17 percent of responding Hispanics said that they never saw anybody who represented their racial or ethnic background in advertising. The same was true for 10 percent of White and African American survey participants.”

Assuming the accuracy of the perception, it seems that some people are seeing a demographic eclipse. A majority is becoming a minority. And “the fundamental dividing line… is between those who welcome and those who fear the way America is changing.”

I understand that change can be scary, difficult, annoying. Negotiating change feels treacherous, especially if you’re on social media. But it can also be therapeutic. I’ve noticed that in my own circle of friends and churchmates, there are a lot of “aha!” moments. The things they didn’t understand or had never heard of.

I remain cautiously optimistic about the human condition, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Documentary movie review: 76 Days

Anonymous, and others

Covid-19 started in the Wuhan province of China, with a population of 11 million, late in 2019. The film 76 Days documents how the hospitals there dealt with the pandemic in early 2020.

Initially, it was a rather brutalizing situation, with hospital staff dealing with a surge of patients literally trying to force their way in. The doctors and nurses covered with protective equipment from head to toe, the filmmakers kindly inserting names via subtitles.

Just as we saw in the American news coverage, these hospital workers were engaged in important, and exhausting, work. It was often raw and somewhat chaotic. Some got discharged, some didn’t make it.

Over time, fortunately, the viewer sees a sense of hope, and even humor, emerge. There was no narrative thrust to the film per se, particularly early on. Eventually, there were certain characters you start to identify.

The fisherman wants to go home before it’s safe for him and especially his family. The married couple is isolated in separate male and female wings. The new parents are waiting for their baby to finally come home.

The viewer also sees brief scenes outside of the hospital of people in lockdown, adjusting to the new situation. And finally, on April 4, 2020, horns blaring to mourn the dead.

Thumbs up

The documentary received 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It was made by Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and Anonymous. To read how the film was made and why one creator is not identified, read this interesting article in Variety.

76 Days is a remarkable, and fortuitous, documenting of a historic, albeit awful, event. It’s less terrible when we see the bravery and compassion of the staff. And the final scene, in many ways, is the most touching.

This film is available on Paramount +, free with the subscription, or on Amazon Prime, for an additional fee.

Thinking of other people’s moms

the godparent connection

When I was growing up in Binghamton back in the 1960s, I often appreciated the grace of other people’s moms.

One of my favorites is the woman to the left in the picture. Of all of my classmates’ moms, Mrs. B was probably my favorite. I don’t remember the particular event, or even if I were there, although that looks like my 6th-grade teacher Mr. Peca in the window.

The thing is that she was always hosting events such as this. And her family owned a cottage on a lake and she hosted a motley crew of us down there.

When I was 19, she told me that I could call her by her first name. No way I was going to do that. She’s still around and I still wouldn’t.

Another mom I was fond of was Mrs. Lia. I wrote about her when she died in 2020. Coincidentally, she and Mrs. B. lived fairly close together on the same street.

Mrs. Hamlin, first name Marcheta, who died in 2015, I wrote about here. Besides her being the organist at my church, she and her sister Pat Jones were quite possibly the only black moms I knew from my K-9 school, Daniel Dickinson. And they lived a block or so from the school.

In fact, my parents were Pat’s son Walter’s godparents. I inherited my newspaper route and my library page job from Walter. And the Whitfields, the parents of Marcheta Hamlin and Pat Jones, were my godparents.

But I was in the Hamlin house much more often, spending a year trying, and failing, to learn piano. Incidentally, Mr. and Mrs. Hamlin are buried in Spring Forest Cemetery, about as close to their home as my grandmother Gertrude Williams is from her home to her plot in that cemetery.

MIL

Since my mom died in 2011, it’s been especially nice having a smart and good mother-in-law. We get along well much of the time and agree on most topics, especially theology. Much of the recent Saturday conversations on Zoom involve the family finally planning the funeral of her late husband Richard.

This means us writing the obituary and creating the service, although the pastor has, in Richard’s handwriting, what he had wanted to happen. Undoubtedly, he hadn’t counted on a pandemic. On the other hand, more people may be able to attend virtually, notably his elderly siblings.

And my mother-in-law may be selling her house in Oneonta and moving to the Albany area in the coming months. Which’ll mean she’ll be 15 minutes away, rather than 75. That would be nice.

Ersatz title songs of albums #3

Go ask Alice

Here are more ersatz title songs of albums. They are not the actual title songs. But because they contain the title in the lyrics, they are ersatz title songs.

There are, I’ve now discovered, LOTS of these. Expect, over the course of the year, several more of these lists.

Closing Time – The Cardigans. Album: Life. Lyrics: “It’s closing time, and a well-known fact Is that life is very short.”
03.45: No Sleep – The Cardigans. Album: Long Gone Before Daylight. Lyrics: “The comfort of fireflies Long gone before daylight.”
Holy Love – The Cardigans. Album: SUPER EXTRA GRAVITY. Lyrics: “Love makes me feel the super extra gravity of God.”

Invocation, and Benediction – Carpenters. Album: Offering, their 1969 debut album which was reissued as “Ticket to Ride”. Lyrics: “Nothing can impair the perfect love I bring In a simple offering” and “Through the song we sing an offering.”
I Can Dream, Can’t I – Carpenters. Album: Horizon. Lyrics: “As we eye the blue horizon’s bend”

Chasing What’s Already Gone – Mary Chapin Carpenter. Album: Ashes and Roses. Lyrics: “It’s ashes and roses and time that burns When you’re chasing what’s already gone”

A Different Kind Of Love Song – Cher. Album: Living Proof Lyrics: “We have living proof There is some kind of light that flows through everything”
I Walk Alone – Cher. Album: Closer To The Truth. Lyrics: “And there’s an anger as I get closer to the truth.”

Vincent Furnier

Del Gato – Gene Clark and Carla Olson. Album: So Rebellious A Lover. Lyrics: “So rebellious a lover Don Juan as my cover

Washington Bullets – the Clash. Album: Sandinista! Lyrics: “With no Washington bullets what else could he do? Sandinista.” Whoever put this on a list ONLY noted the album title. No group, no song. Fortunately, I bought this LP when it was brand new.

Minotaur – Clutch. Album: Strange Cousins From The West. Lyrics: “Strange cousins from the West Overstay their welcome.”

Long Way To Go – Alice Cooper. Album: Love it to death. Lyrics: “I guess I love it. I love it to death.”
Freedom – Alice Cooper. Album: Raise Your Fist And Yell. Lyrics: “Freedom, raise your fist and yell”
Who Do You Think We Are – Alice Cooper. Album: Special Forces. Lyrics: “Who do you think we are, Special forces in an armoured car.”
I Better Be Good – Alice Cooper. Album: Zipper Catches Skin: Lyrics: “If zipper grabs skin.” [Close enough]

Talk On Corners – the Corrs. Album: Talk On Corners. Lyrics: “And her friends they talk on corners.”
Give Me A Reason – the Corrs. Album: In Blue. Lyrics: “It’s not romantic here in blue. Swimming, swimming in blue.”

Declan MacManus

The Greatest Thing – Elvis Costello and The Attractions. Album: Punch the Clock. Lyrics: “Punch the clock and in time you’ll get pulled apart.”
Crawling To The U.S.A. – Elvis Costello. album: Taking Liberties. Lyrics: “She said, ‘I catch you taking liberties and they do not impress me.'”
Brilliant Mistake – Elvis Costello. Album: King Of America. Lyrics: “He thought he was the King of America.”
Uncomplicated – Elvis Costello. Album: Blood and Chocolate. Lyrics: “Blood and chocolate. I hope you`re satisfied what you have done.”
Favourite Hour – Elvis Costello. Album: Brutal Youth. Lyrics: “Now there’s a tragic waste of brutal youth.”
I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea – Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Album: This Year’s Model. Lyrics: ” Capital punishment, she’s last year’s model.” [Close enough] Alison – Elvis Costello. Album: My Aim Is True. Lyrics: “Oh, Alison, my aim is true.” I own King of America and Brutal Youth on CD, and a number of early albums on vinyl.

High Life – Counting Crows. Album: This Desert Life. Lyrics: “But oh, this desert life, this high life. Here at the dying end of the day.”

Lots more!