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Movie- All In: The Fight for Democracy

Stacey Abrams

The documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy is very good. And quite infuriating. As the New York Times subtitle of the review notes, “with snapshots and stories of voter suppression yesterday and today, [it] carries an urgent message: Vote!”

But they don’t make it easy. “The broad strokes of the history in the film are likely to be familiar to viewers, but some of the details may not be… The recurring theme is that every major advancement for voting rights in the United States has been met with a counterreaction that hollows out those rights.”

Yet the Constitution points to a broadening of the right. Read amendments 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, and 26, and arguably others.

The movie describes the Florida debacle., where the citizens voted to allow ex-felons to vote, but the state essentially reneged. I wrote about that here.

Stacey Abrams

The Stacey Abrams experience is mentioned early. She was the Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia in 2018, running against Republican Brian Kemp. Tens of thousands of voters were disenfranchised by the state Secretary of State, who was Brian Kemp. It was like playing tennis with the chair umpire.

“Abrams’s sections of the film are also a memoir: She remembers her grandmother telling her about casting her first vote, after the Voting Rights Act passed, and how she still felt terrified to exercise her franchise. At another point, Abrams notes that chronic voter suppression has had a ‘pernicious’ effect: ‘It convinces you that maybe it’s not worth trying again,’ she says.

“In its shifting of topics and breadth of material, “All In” gives the impression of being a movie that the directors, Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés, rushed to complete to meet the moment. (There is footage of Wisconsinites voting during the pandemic in April.) In a sense, it’s less a documentary for posterity than an urgent broadcast.”

Voter Suppression

The Times article refers to Carol Anderson, “a professor of African American studies at Emory, as “one of the most engaging interviewees.” She “relates the story of Maceo Snipes, a World War II veteran in Georgia who was the only African-American to vote in his area in 1946.” He was shot and killed for his effort.

She and “journalist Ari Berman…discuss… Chief Justice John G. Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in [the evil] Shelby County v. Holder” case. That’s the “2013 decision that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act,” from which a lot of new disenfranchisement stemmed. Roberts “had been a foe of the act as a young lawyer.”

Oh, check out this related website to find out how to register and vote.

Thumbs way up

The 62 critics who reviewed All In at Rotten Tomatoes were unanimous in their praise of the film. It addresses “barriers to voting that most people don’t even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens.” “A thorough but accessible guide to the history of voting in the US and what that history means for the electorate today.”

This definitely rings true: “The dismaying ebb and flow of justice is a major point in the film, with multiple pundits noting that periods of swift progress are often followed by equally if not more stringent rollbacks.” And it “makes a very convincing argument that the right to vote needs to be protected, and that democracy itself is under siege.”

More yin and yang: Stacey Abrams, a producer of the film, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to expand access to the right to vote. And Republicans have ALREADY introduced over 100 voter suppression bills in 2021.

Movie review: Sound of Metal

Metalhead

Sound of Metal is a movie in three acts. The first section involved punk-metal drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) playing a series of one-night gigs. He’s crossing the country with his bandmate and girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) in their Airstream vehicle.

Darius starts experiencing severe hearing loss. A doctor tells him that his condition will rapidly worsen, especially if he continues to perform. What is a musician if he can’t hear? Lou rightly fears that this trauma will destroy his four-year record of sobriety.

In Act 2, Lou checks the reluctant Ruben into a secluded sober house for the deaf. The hope is that he will learn to adapt to his new situation. The place is run by a no-BS fellow addict and Vietnam vet named Joe (Paul Raci). He is welcomed into the community, and in fact, makes some strides with signing and teaching drumming to deaf children, generally fitting in.

In the final section, Ruben chooses between his old life and his new one.

Based on…

The movie was based on an unfinished 2009 project by director Derek Cianfrance called Metalhead, based on a drummer who actually did blow his ears out and had to adapt to silence. First-time director Darius Marder received Cianfrance’s blessing to complete it.

The Sound of Metal succeeds because it rings true. As this Den of Geek article explains, Marder required Ahmad to learn to play the drums for real, “without resorting to cutaway shots or using another drummer’s hands or feet for the close-ups.

“The actors would also perform live at a real-life club (the Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts) in front of a real audience of, as Marder puts it, ‘actual music lovers that are specific to this subset of music..’ His plan was to make the music sequences ‘impossible to fake.'”

More impressive was Ahmed’s “living with deafness and becoming part of the deaf community.” Early in that section of the film, folks at the house were signing to each other. The character Ruben at that point hadn’t learned American Sign Language and was baffled by what was going on. And so was the movie viewer.

Marder also used “startling, innovative sound design techniques” to “vividly recreate his journey into a rarely examined world.”

“Another crucial piece of the puzzle was finding an actor to play Joe… ‘Finding Paul [Raci] was really hard,’ reveals Marder. ‘Not only is he a two-time Vietnam War veteran and has dealt with addiction and taught deaf AA groups, but the man’s been acting for 30 years.'”

Adding to the verisimilitude of Sound of Metal was the deaf teacher Diane, played by Lauren Ridloff. She was a former teacher, and the-then Lauren Teruel was a former Miss Deaf America (2000 – 2002).

The critics liked the movie, giving it a 97% positive rating. The audience agreed, with 89% positive responses. Rotten Tomatoes said it was the 47th best film this past year. I watched it on Amazon Prime., and was very impressed, especially with the middle section.

Movie review: The Vast of Night

Cayuga, NM

The Vast of Night made it onto Ty Burr’s 10 movies to watch. He writes: “Andrew Patterson’s first film is a crowd-sourced labor of love about two high school kids discovering strange doings in the skies over 1950s New Mexico.

“It’s an example of the most movie that can be squeezed from the least amount of resources, with beguiling performances from Jake Horowitz and Sierra McCormick in the leads.”

It “premiered at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival in January 2019. Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film and released it on May 29, 2020, including drive-in theaters in the United States and via video-on-demand on Prime Video,” which is how I saw it.

This movie is clearly influenced by the TV series The Twilight Zone. The setting is Cayuga, NM. Cayuga Productions was the name of Rod Serling’s production company…

“The name was taken from Cayuga Lake, one of New York’s ‘Finger Lakes.’ The lake is about an hour drive northwest of Binghamton, and was where Rod and his family had a summer home.”

The Vast of Night is very much dialogue-driven. Initially, I found the radio DJ (Horowitz) a bit obnoxious, but I really liked the teen switchboard operator (McCormick) from the start.

As the mystery unfolded, I found myself rooting for them both. And the witnesses they spoke with were convincing. The film had the right atmospherics to keep me watching these two, who wanted to get out of town and follow their dreams.

And then…

I’m afraid the great failing for me is the conclusion. It lacked a satisfying resolution, that part in TZ where you hear Serling wrap up the story. Nevertheless, it may well be the opening salvo of Patterson’s directorial career.

The Vast of Night is on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of best films of 2020 at #97, with 92% positive reviews from the critics. The audience reviews were less favorable, at 65%.

Where do I go when it’s safe?

food and film

Kevin, who is from my home county, though I don’t think we met until college, asks what should be a simple question:

Where is the first place you are going when it’s safe to go out?

Of course, not everything will open up at the same time. The thing I miss the most, singing in the choir, is going to take a while longer than other activities. So, it’s a toss-up between going to the movies and going indoors to a sit-down restaurant.

Now there have been some cinemas open around here with a limited capacity. I’m not feeling at all comfortable with attending. Maybe by the time I take my second COVID shot, I’ll feel differently. Yet, watching movies from home is a lesser experience.

I have some HBO channels, though not MAX; Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. So I have the capacity to see films at home. I just don’t have the discipline to treat films at home as I treat movies in a place I have to sit in a dark room with strangers. And it’s been true for over 40 years.

As for restaurants, I’m not doing that indoors either. Or for that matter, outdoors. When the weather was decent, there was a row of outdoor dining options at the end of Madison Avenue, only a couple blocks from here. Not only did I never patronize them, when I needed to go to the local CVS, but I also made a point of walking on the other side of the restaurants.

Now, I did do takeout occasionally, and sometimes I’ve been anxious about buying THAT, depending on the size of the unmasked crowd I had to wade through. Besides, takeout is not sitting in a restaurant, with its ambiance. There’s a huge difference between being served by a waitperson and taking food home in metal containers.

Hometown

Right before the lockdown, I was planning a trip to my hometown of Binghamton, NY in late March. I wanted to see the court transcripts of the trial involving my grandmother Agatha Walker (later, Green), who levied charges against my biological paternal grandfather, Raymond Cone. These records are only available in paper form, not electronically.

Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia

Directed by Spike Lee

American Utopia

Flicking through the channels in late December, which I seldom do, I came across something amazing. It was David Byrne and a troupe of like-dressed men and women. This must be the film of his American Utopia show on Broadway. They are performing Janelle Monae’s astonishing “Hell You Talmbout”, complete with images of murdered Black men and women.

Then some other songs, including Road to Nowhere, the Talking Heads tune. This involved the cast literally marching around the theater. My, I need to see this in its entirety, which I did on HBO about a week later.

Like the Stop Making Sense tour, where I saw Talking Heads at SPAC in the early 1980s, this show adds layers. First Byrne, then the two folks, a black woman and a white man, I describe as “interpreters.” They sing, but they also enact choreographed movements. The ensemble builds with keyboards, guitar, and percussion – a lot of percussion.

Peppered between the 20 Talking Heads and solo songs are Byrne’s musings, about the nature of things – how the brain develops. The show is political. Not capital P political, except for the Monae song. But he notes that most of the cast are immigrants, including himself, born in Scotland. He asks people to vote, though he does not say for whom.

One of the facets that made this show work so well is the technology. Everyone moves around the stage, in different arrangements. The instruments are all hand-held and wireless. It is a very freeing experience.

The right thing

The movie’s director is Spike Lee. Per NPR, he “works right alongside Byrne, bringing viewers into the show…, putting us right on stage with these talented artists, and transcending a mere recording of a live event.” He must have placed cameras all over. My favorite shot might be from above the stage, the musicians in the configuration of a pinwheel marching band.

I LOVED this movie. As RogerEbert.com notes, “David Byrne’s American Utopia is a joyous expression of art, empathy, and compassion.” The end credits feature Everybody’s Coming To My House by the Detroit School of Arts. It’s a better version than his version, Byrne opines.