GREYHOUND

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

Greyhound brings to mind the 2006 Paul Greengrass film United 93: packed with real-time procedure, a little short on story development. In the case of both films, it really just means it works for a particular type of viewer. It’s just not for everyone.

Would I have gone to see Greyhound were it playing in theaters? Probably; although it’s moderately lacking in many regards, it has a degree of visual detail that would best be seen on a big screen. Or, I suppose, I should just get myself a truly large-screen TV screen one of these days. This film is now available streaming on Apple TV+, where I watched it on my 32” screen.

Probably 95% of 91-minute run time takes place on the open ocean of the Atlantic, the Greyhound of the title being the ship captained by Krause (Tom Hanks), leading an Allied convoy on his first-ever crossing, in early 1942. All of them are being stocked by a German submarine wolf pack, one of them occasionally getting onto their intercom to taunt them, and all of the strategic moves among the convoy are made at Krause’s direction. Some have tragic consequences; some are near misses; some are skilled successes.

And there’s a lot of said direction. The script is written by Tom Hanks himself (his third, after That Thing You Do and Larry Crowne, so this marks a bit of a departure) and based on the 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester. Clearly Hanks has a longstanding interest in World War II, and he must be going for authenticity when he packs what must be more than half the dialog with straight-up repetition: Krause gives an order; the person taking them repeats it back. That person passes along said order; another person repeats it back. I’ve never seen a movie with so many of its lines repeated verbatim in quick succession.

The only back story we get on Krause is the woman he left back home (Elisabeth Shue), whom he asked to come away with her the previous december. There’s a brief scene of this single encounter near the beginning of the film, with quick flashbacks sprinkled through the rest of the movie. We know nothing more about Krause, apart from when we learn of his inexperience; we know even less about the woman. The focus of this film is otherwise entirely on the sea battles and chases between Allied navy ships and German submarines.

To director Aaron Schneider’s credit, these battles are very well staged, and often very well shot. One memorable visual entais a camera sweep from the sea up through the clouds, flashes from bombs still visible beneath them, and the aurora borealis above them. Still, this is also similar to Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017), in that it’s visually impressive but gives us virtually nothing in terms of its characters. At least Dunkirk was a technical marvel; to be honest, occasionally Greyhound shows its seams. Some of its CGI augmentation is fairly obvious.

That doesn’t lessen its degree of engagement, though. Greyhound is fundamentally an action movie; it’s just old-school serious in tone, no witty quips by action heroes. Decisions have consequences, often fatal on a grand scale. Oddly, Hanks’s script doesn’t give himself much to chew on as an actor, as all the suspense and drama here is procedural, only emotional in very subtle ways. He won’t be getting an Oscar nomination for this one. And that’s okay; he has enough of them.

Still, Greyhound is a suitable movie for fans of either Tom Hanks or World War II films, or particularly, both. Even for the casual viewer (that’s me!), it commands attention.

Look out!

Overall: B

ON THE ROCKS

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

It seems Sofia Coppola has a knack for making solid-B movies. They can be very different from each other, though they do all have a certain touch that gives it a vaguely recognizable sensibility specific to her. I didn’t even realize until looking back that every film of hers that I have reviewed, I have given a solid B: Marie Antoinette (2006); Somewhere (2010); The Bling Ring (2013); The Beguiled (2017). Her famous debut, Lost in Translation, came out in 2003, the year before I started reviewing movies—but, after all those that have followed, this year we get On the Rocks, and it would appear the streak remains unbroken.

Which is to say, I’m glad I saw it, and I enjoyed it; others likely will too, but I wouldn’t say it demands to be seen. And there is also “the 2020 effect,” where contrary to what had been the plan once upon a time, the film is not getting seen in movie theaters, but streaming. Granted, Sofia Coppola Films never had the kind of visual command that necessitated big-screen viewing anyway. On the other hand, so many films this year have been diverted to streaming platforms just so they could be seen by audiences, and although a clear majority of them are going to Netflix, which streaming service it goes to is otherwise largely a crap shoot. Amazon Prime Video? Hulu? Disney+? On the Rocks has gone to one of the newest platforms, with far less brand recognition than Disney, and thus arguably the most obscure. I signed up for the free trail week of Apple TV+ just so I could watch this movie.

Would it be worth you going to the trouble? If you already subscribe to Apple TV+, sure, On the Rocks is very much worth your time. If you don’t already subscribe, is it worth the extra trouble? That’s where it gets debatable.

On the Rocks is perfectly pleasant, and sweet, and in many ways a sort of wistful, almost nostalgic hang. Bill Murray basically helped launch Coppola’s career with Lost in Translation, and he returns here, in a somewhat similar part. This is also about an aging man and a much younger woman, although in this case it’s Rashida Jones, playing his daughter. Rashida plays Laura, who is overwhelmed by the scheduling demands of a young mother in New York City, and only slightly paranoid about the fidelity of her husband Dean (Marlon Wayans, an interesting casting choice).

Laura’s dad, Felix (Murray), is an aging playboy who can’t stop himself from flirting with, if not hitting on, virtually every woman he comes across. He fancies himself a man who understands how men’s brains work, and so he manages to fill Laura’s head with ideas of what constitutes so-called evidence of Dean cheating.

What I like most about On the Rocks is how it’s much more about Laura’s relationship with her father than about her relationship with her husband, and that the story doesn’t quite go where you might expect it to, especially for a movie this otherwise conventional, at least by Coppola’s usual standards. There is usually something more extreme about the circumstances in Sofia Coppola’s films, be it the degree of misfit her main characters are, or a fish-out-of-water setting in which the protagonist feels out of place. The trappings of On the Rocks, on the hand, are all very familiar, with very recognizable and regular characters in a present-day American city.

There is one clearly unintended effect, though, as of course no one making this movie would have known during filming that a global pandemic was coming. So, On the Rocks becomes a sort of pleasant time capsule of a time not so long ago, but still very different from now: no social distancing, no masks, just people taking the city of New York for granted. Remember hanging out at bars? Laura and Felix do that a lot in this movie. And even though it takes them on an ill-advised detour to Mexico and back, their journey is one in which they recognize each other’s flaws, and accept them for who they are anyway. It’s a touching thing to see things go that way, much more realistically than when a character goes through some kind of preposterous emotional epiphany. This movie is simply a pleasant watch, a low-key tale that is comforting in its way.

Hey, where’s the ice, anyway?

Overall: B

THE WITCHES

Directing: B-
Acting: B-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B
Special Effects: C+

And here we are again, with yet another remake—at least this time, no one can claim the film being remade was “a masterpiece.” I saw Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book for the first time just a few years ago, and I did not find it particularly memorable on its own. I recall thinking it was . . . fine.

This means a remake in this case is, if not particularly exciting, then also . . . fine. And Robert Zemeckis is a great choice to direct a film like this. In fact, coming in already armed with the knowledge of how mixed the reviews of this 2020 version have been, I spent the first quarter or so of this version of The Wtiches thinking it was going a lot better than I expected. I was quite enjoying myself.

In the first several scenes of this story, we learn the backstory of the orphaned boy whose story this is: his parents killed in a car accident (in a cleverly rotating-camera shot of him still strapped into the backseat of the overturned car), he is taken in by his grandmother (Octavia Spencer). When they realize a local witch has tried to offer him candy in a grocery store, Grandma takes him into hiding at an opulent resort where her cousin is the chef—and where, it turns out, a local conference of witches is convening. What bad luck!

The setting in this iteration is shifted to 1960s Alabama, and there’s something odd about the choice to make the principal characters Black, particularly from that era. The choice itself is not necessarily odd, but there are only two logical approaches here: either keep the characters as they were in the book, or, if the focus will be shifted to a Black family in the Jim Crow-era American South, there should be more direct acknowledgment of very real racial inequities. Minority actors (not to mention female leads, of which this film has both) getting work is always good to see, but pretending their unique real-world experiences don’t exist doesn’t make much sense. The closest we get here is Grandma telling the boy that witches are more prone to prey on “the poor” because their children aren’t as missed when they are gone.

That said, I did very much enjoy Octavia Spencer’s performance in this movie. Anne Hathaway, as the Grand High Witch, is a bit more spotty. There are moments when her delivery has some hilarious subtlety, and also moments when she goes too far over the top. That is when The Witches kind of goes off the rails.

The first half is much better than the last half. The Witches introduces itself with compellingly stylized visuals, and a nice sprinkling of humor. I laughed out loud several times, more than I had expected. The laughs evaporate in the second half, when the story gets overrun with slapstick antics and Zemeckis’s over-fondness for the grotesque: the witches’ hoof-like feet, their clawed hands with only three fingers, Hathaway’s SGI grin so wide on her face she looks like a second-rate Joker. To the credit of the effects team, the look still manages to be genuinely creepy.

I must bring up the effects, however. The cinematography in this film is its best feature, highlighting a production design packed with vibrant colors. The special effects never hit the mark. The Grand High Witch has a cat, which she has amusingly named Hades (mental note: name for a future pet cat of my own?), and rather than deal with a real cat on set, it is entirely rendered in CGI. I don’t know how they allocated this movie’s clearly big budget, but not much of it went to that cat. Even worse is the three talking mice that are also CGI rendered, all of them way more expressive than they need to be, as though literal cartoons inside what is supposed to be a live-action film.

I do go back and forth regarding how well this film works for children themselves. This is a kids’ movie, after all, and such movies have no obligation to speak to adults at the same time—though it’s always convenient when they do. Depending on the age of the child, The Witches might be eye-roll-inducing and dumb; it might be riveting from beginning to end; for younger children it could easily be terrifying. It all depends on the child’s age and maturity level, although I do like the dark places this film is unafraid to go, and that it doesn’t quite offer the type of “happy ending” one might expect—though it is one viewers can live with. It’s the getting there that is definitively a mixed bag.

I mean, okay. That’s a little much.

Overall: B-

REBECCA

Directing: C
Acting: B-
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

Why does anyone bother trying to remake an Alfred Hitchcock Film? The impulse is mystifying. Hitchcock was an unparalleled master of the craft, and it seems telling that it’s never another master of the craft trying to recapture the quality of one of his original films. Ben Wheatley’s 2020 version is so regressive, it might as well have been made in 1940. But guess what? Hitchcock made his version in 1940. Seriously, why not just watch that? That’s what I shall do: I’ve already placed a hold on the DVD at my local library. I suppose you could say I watched this new, clearly inferior version just so that I would enjoy the original that much more. I wouldn’t necessarily say that you should do the same. You could say, rather, that I watched it so you don’t have to.

I mean, what a waste of time, when there is so much better stuff at your fingertips to watch. And this is not the same as the comparison of a film to a book on which it’s based. Those are two different mediums, and I still say a film should be judged on its own merits. But that standard gets muddied when the film has already been made.

It’s kind of shocking how many Hitchcock films have been remade, or gotten sequels Hitchcock himself had nothing to do with. The closest thing to a great filmmaker remaking his work is Gus Van Sant’s 1998, shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, which might just be the most utterly pointless cinematic exercise in history. And yet, even in its pointlessness, it’s more interesting than the 2020 film Rebecca.

With Ben Wheatley at the helm, it’s not that much of a surprise. He directed the 2015 film High-Rise, which was a complete mess. At least it wasn’t dull. Rebecca is the dullest movie I’ve sat through all year. For once I am truly grateful I did not waste the time and money to see it in a theater.

And to think, there was some anticipation for this movie. Rebecca will get no buzz, will get none of the awards attention clearly desired once upon a time. It wouldn’t have even if it had managed a theatrical release. This film would never have made any real box office money. Period pieces of this sort never do anyway anymore, but this one would have been dead on arrival. Wheatley should thank his lucky stars the film is already on Netflix. It will get more viewers than it ever would have in theaters, just by accident.

And who wants to watch an entire film, in 2020, about a woman feeling increasingly helpless after hastily marrying an emotionally distant man? Rebecca is not a movie for our time. It’s a movie for the 1940s, and it should have stayed there. Lily James, in the lead role, seems almost typecast in second-rate movies; she isn’t helped by Armie Hammer as her husband, stripped of any of his usual charisma. It’s always nice to see Ann Dowd, here occupying the early scenes as the woman paying a young lady (James) to be her traveling companion. But, both she and Armie Hammer don’t quite fit here, with their barely-serviceable fake British accents.

If there is anything that makes Rebecca worth watching, it’s Kristin Scott Thomas, as the sinister head housekeeper constantly plotting against the new young wife. Thomas elevates every scene she’s in—an impressive accomplishment—although she still doesn’t much elevate the movie itself. Rebecca is clearly intended to be both romantic and suspenseful, and it manages to be neither. I look forward to watching the original, appropriately placed in the context of its time, with a director who shows how it should be done.

The least you could do is take your shirt off, Armie. I’m bored!

Overall: C+

TIME

Directing: A+
Writing: A
Cinematography: A
Editing: A+

Time is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It’s one of the best films I have ever seen, period. It’s easily the first documentary I ever watched at home and wished I could have seen its beautiful, poetic visuals on the big screen. How often do you see a documentary film this absorbing, this visually arresting? This is generally not a thing that happens.

If only every person in America were required to watch this. I literally just finished watching minutes ago, and I’m still emotional. Will my enthusiasm, right out of the gate, seem hyperbolic over time? I doubt it. This might just be a game-changer in its genre.

And predictably, racist trolls flock to websites where they can contribute terrible scores to this movie just to bring the averages down. “Do the crime, do the time,” says one—and many others. This racist dipshit clearly did not bother to watch the movie, because not only does he miss the point by a mile, but Fox Rich, the truly extraordinary woman at the center of this film, actually addresses that phrase directly during a speech. Do people like this really think she’s never heard that shit before?

This is a woman who, after serving twelve years in prison herself, has developed into a business owner with some real success and legitimacy. Garrett Bradley, the woman who directs Time with a sensitive eye quite possibly never seen on screen before, never belabors this point, or even calls it out directly in any way. She lets these details speak for themselves.

And Fox Rich, she speaks for herself, and her family, and her incarcerated husband, with fierce resolve and passion. “Our prison system is nothing more than slavery,” she says. This is something we’ve all heard many times, thought it doesn’t make it any less true. Then she adds, “And I see myself as an abolitionist.” Truly, we all should.

Rich and her husband, Rob, robbed a bank in their home state of Louisiana in 1997. Fox’s mother is one of the interview subjects, and she’s possibly the most fascinating character here, behind Fox herself. She speaks about how they were both offered a plea deal that would lower their sentencing to twelve years, which Fox accepted, and Rob did not. Time never tells us why he made that choice. I could probably research it, but in this case I am so impressed by the film, I have chosen just to trust the filmmaker’s choices. Even its black and white cinematography is inspired.

The more salient point is that, instead, Rob was sentenced to sixty years in prison. Sixty years. Some people may want to argue the justification of such a sentencing for attempted armed robbery of a bank, but that’s not the conversation we need to be having. What we should be discussing is the clear inequity involved here. There are people serving a fraction of that sentence for murder.

And Fox Rich, once she’s out of prison—and, apparently, one for spending a lot of time recording home movies, from the nineties to the present day—is of single-minded tenacity. She raises her six children to be model citizens (we even see footage of one becoming a dentist). She truly makes something of herself, and becomes an inspiration of others, a picture of hard work and redemption. And through it all, she never stops working at getting her husband out of jail.

For two decades he was in prison, allowed two, two-hour visits with his wife per month. I thought a lot about how that must inevitably weight heavy on their future together once he’s actually home again. Garrett Bradley wisely keeps that out of the narrative here, both because not enough time has passed anyway, and because it’s more effective to end on a joyous note. And trust me on this one: you’ll want to have tissues at the ready.

Time is also an incredible feat of editing, two decades’ worth of footage cut down to a brisk 81 minutes. We see the children grow up, we see Fox get older, and it’s all done with precision and clarity, not a single wasted moment. Occasionally we get a long shot, longer than most. Fox spends a lot of time on the phone, working tenaciously day by day, calling judges’ secretaries about when a ruling will get written, and the like. In one stunning scene, we see her, just once, most from being the picture of calm, to letting her completely understandable fury break through. “These people have no respect for human life,” she says. And she’s right.

And yet, for a movie that could be truly, deeply depressing, the overall tone of Time is one of great uplift. It’s a work of art, and it ends in triumph. Its entire construction is a triumph. Get yourself onto Prime Video and watch it, right now.

Fox Rich is a hero for our age.

Overall: A+

DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA

Directing: A
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A

It’s one of the many sad tragedies of 2020 that Broadway has been shut down for the vast majority of the year. But considering the often insane expense of ticket prices, not to mention limitations of geography, for the vast majority of Americans, it literally makes no difference whatsoever. What does make a difference is skilled filming of these live performances for in-home viewing, from the Independence Day Weekend release of Hamilton on Disney+ to, now, American Utopia on HBO Max. There is no doubt that seeing these shows live is a far better experience, but for the millions for whom that was always impossible, this is far, far better than nothing. I truly hope these recordings of Broadway productions continues even after Broadway can actually open again, helping to bring live theater away from its status as the most elitist of all art forms.

And while I did spend a fair amount of time watching American Utopia thinking about how spectacular it would have been to see live, I sure was grateful to have the chance to see it at home. This show is a pure delight, from beginning to end—and I say that as someone who never much paid attention to The Talking Heads or David Byrne’s music. I can only imagine how delighted true, longtime fans would be, because this presentation is nearly flawless.

As it happens, Byrne hails from a time when it was not nearly as important as it is now, to sound good singing live. In his heyday, musicians made their fortunes on album sales, and often phoned it in for live performances. A noticeable trait of this era was when live performances were broadcast on television, often making them sound even worse. The music industry flipped in the 21st century, with aritsts making virtually no money on album sales and making their fortunes on their touring—so long as they were able to bring it.

David Byrne, clearly, has been the best of both worlds. This man is an exceptional live vocalist, even at the age of 68. I suppose some people back in the day might have written him off for how often he sort of shout-sings his lyrics, but he’s also a skilled lyricist, creating rhymes and melodies like no one else. This is a unique individual, and his singing here is consistently impressive. And even as he pointedly includes a couple of songs with a political message—including one borrowed from Janelle Monáe in which the names of Black victims of police killings are repeated several times (“Say her name!”)—this show, on the whole, is one of electric joy. I had a grin on my face for a majority of its run time.

Lest this film look too much like too many other “concert films,” Spike Lee was brought in to direct this filmed version, and Lee’s hand is always evident. It’s not often easy to make great cinematography for live performance, but cinematographer Ellen Kuras manages surprisingly memorable visuals. And this is all for a very simple stage, the space on which never changes. In the opening sequence. Byrne is seen sitting alone at a table, and steamers slowly raise around him as the three sides of a square (excepting the “fourth wall”—there is an audience there, after all), looking remarkably like waterfalls. Once they reach their full height, they stay put for the duration of the show, serving as de facto exits to backstage, like hanging beads.

And so, there is always just that large square of space, Byrne commanding attention at all times, but also surrounded by a bevy of clearly very talented musicians. He also has just two backup dancers, and it’s almost a miracle how well this works. I once saw the Pet Shop Boys live and they had only two backup dancers, and they were shit, superfluous and pointless. Not these two, a Black woman and what looks like a thirty-something redheaded white man, his face heavy with eye makeup, lipstick and a mustache. Visually, the two could hardly be more different, and yet their dancing is meticulously well rehearsed and perfectly timed, always in sync until the choreography calls for minor variations. Byrne, for his part, also participates in the choreography, and when he does he doesn’t miss a beat

Probably most important of all, the instrumentation is spectacular. The crowd is consistently seen on its feet dancing, and there is never any reason to wonder why. David Byrne remains pretty avant garde, yet there is nothing pretentious or inaccessible about him, or this show. His vocals are the cherry on the cake, and I really can’t recommend it enough.

True to himself and with a universal message: David Byrne & Co.

Overall: A-

TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL

Directing: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

“People have died because of the misinformation. I have absolutely no doubt about that.”

This is said by a doctor in Virginia, a de facto representative for all other doctors like him across America, having first-hand experience with COVID-19 in actual hospitals—not in social media feeds populated with nonsense spouted by people sitting in the comfort of their bedrooms. Totally Under Control takes its title from what President Donald Trump said of the pandemic early on in its development, despite repeated instances of pointed inaction on the part of his administration, when he knew as far back as February, in his very own words recorded on tape, how deadly serious this virus was, and is.

I truly wish everyone would watch this film. Even people who are already on the side of science: you will learn something new, something scary, something shocking, from this examination of how the health care establishment of the United States responded from the start, how it adjusted messaging based on new information, and how the federal government squandered opportunities to save lives at every turn.

And that’s not to say medical professionals never made any mistakes in all of this. This film makes it clear, they absolutely did. The key difference is between them and those who refuse to learn from their mistakes. Another interview subject here, all of whom are medical professionals, marvels that the simple act of mask wearing became politicized, how refusing to wear one became a battle cry for supporters of a science-denying president.

Not one of the interview subjects here is a politician. Some people might declare that an unfair bias on the part of the film makers (which includes a four-person team of directors), and those people would be dipshits. What relevance do politicans have here? This film puts the medical professionals front and center because that’s what the politicians should have done from the start. Were any politician interviewed for this, all they would do is spew the same sorry excuses they have already been feeding the media for months. This film offers real, useful information, about the experience of these scientists, how much effort they made at getting the relevant information to the highest levels of government, and how the government generally dismissed them.

That said, Totally Under Control does get one outlier of an interview subject: Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, the family practitioner from upstate New York who touted the unsubstantiated effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, to the point of getting the President’s attention. As Zelenko states here, “I haven’t done any research” (he might be on to something there), all he knows is, when he treated patients, “they stopped dying.” There is also a man who, after being the only person in the doc to reveal—unsolicited—that he voted for Trump, declares what Trump had said about the the government response to be “complete bullshit.”

This documentary is also a fascinating specimen from a technical standpoint, the editors keeping in snippets of footage of each interview subject as they come in to sit where they are to be interviewed, remotely but with a camera man present. In each case, the wall is partitioned by a wall of plastic, the camera set into a cut-out portion of the plastic, so the subjects can take off their face masks. By and large they are impressed with the setup, one of them even saying “You’re hardcore.” It’s clear a lot more had to go into the production of this film than had been the case before the pandemic turned the world upside-down. In fact, this is almost certainly the first film I’ve seen whose entire production occurred during the pandemic—as it is also the first film I’ve seen about the pandemic.

And of course, there will inevitably be countless more to come over time, as is the case with every story imaginable swirling around the Trump Administration. It may even be a fair criticism to note that the film really doesn’t offer much that isn’t already widely available in countless media reports. My counter-argument is that those media reports are also obscured by a constant avalanche of media reports about all manner of shocking and horrible things, easily lost in all the white noise, desensitizing us to the chaos of the world in 2020. Totally Under Control distills this particular, particularly vital narrative in a way no one else has, which is why what I wrote early in this review about learning something new still holds true. If you want things to be given to you straight, then get off Facebook and Twitter and listen to the people featured here.

[Available on demand.]

“Totally under control”? It’s called irony.

B+

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

Directing: B
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is all but certain to get some level of Oscar buzz, such as it can exist in the glad-handling vacuum of a global pandemic. I’m already wondering whether said vacuum might work to its advantage, and if that will even be quite deserved. Time will tell. But, as it stands today, the film appeared on Netflix today, one of many titles originally planned for theatrical release diverted to streaming platforms, likely a large majority of them to Netflix.

And this puts into new context a question I often ask myself about a movie: would I recommend going to a theater to see it, or is it fine to wait for it to be available on demand or streaming? Today that question is moot, except to say that I absolutely would have found this worth seeing in a theater under normal circumstances, but might not have expected many others to feel the same. This film is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the second of his directorial features after Molly’s Game in 2017. This is a noticeable step up from that, but it still has a couple of glaring flaws.

And to be clear, I enjoyed The Trial of the Chicago 7 very much, and highly recommend it—esepcially given how easily accessible it is now, upon the very moment of its release. I just really hated its final scene. To be fair, the surge of uplift, triumph over diversity, the score’s crescendo while a huge audience applauds: it’s all very Sorkin. It’s also almost unbearably corny, like a time warp to drama clichés of 1992. What is this, Scent of a Woman? Or maybe a throwback to A Few Good Men, Sorkin’s debut as a feature film writer. The point is, this brand of film making is severely dated.

Thankfully, Sorkin actually avoids such pitfalls until that final, idiotic scene. In classic Sorkin style, the dialogue crackles from the jump, with very skilled editing weaving separate conversations in separate locations together in a linear vocal narrative. Conversations are never this captivating in real life, but Sorkin creates this elevated alternate reality where everyone is blessed with effortless wit. Just as he did with Molly’s Game, Sorkin takes a true story and simply makes the telling of it far less dull than the original conversations had to have been in reality.

He also largely strips it of realism, but so what? We all understand we are watching a narrative film, and it is not a documentary. We are also looking at a staggering ensemble lineup of movie stars, depicting many of the “seven” of the title, who really were put on trial by the U.S. government for allegedly inciting violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Many of the players are nearly unrecognizable, including both Sacha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne, positioned by Sorkin as the age-old factions of progressivism eternally at odds with each other, the far left and the center-left. Curiously, both of these actors are from London, each adopting distinctly separate American accents. Coen’s New England accent as Abbie Hoffman is the one that comes and goes if you’re listening for it; Redmayne’s Midwestern accent as Tom Hayden is much more convincing, creating a uniquely impressive performance in Redmayne’s career.

Jeremy Strong is almost shocking in how much he disappears into the scruffy look of Jerry Rubin. The other four in “the seven” are filled in by John Carroll Lynch as David Dellinger; Alex Sharp as Rennie Davis; Noah Robins as Lee Weiner; and Daniel Flaherty as John Froines. But another defendant who is even far more key to the story than these others is an eighth, who was denied representation until the judge was forced to declare a mistrial in his case, is Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. What we see him subjected to in this courtroom, at the hands of the judge, is nothing short of extraordinary—yet, sadly, not at all surprising when it comes to the history of treatment of Black people in this country.

Said judge is played, incredibly, by Frank Langella. The name actors just don’t stop in this movie. Mark Rylance is incredible as defense attorney William Kunstler; Joseph Gordon-Levitt is measured as prosecutor Richard Shcultz; the two short scenes he’s in are stolen by Michael Keaton as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. And I still haven’t even exhausted the list of recognizable actors here, a clear indication of how many actors want to work with Aaron Sorkin, but I guess we should probably move on.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is one take on an event in history with many takes. It’s the specific story of the trial after the convention, and with its many dialogue-heavy scenes in offices and court rooms, it is well suited to Sorkin. It does include several flashbacks to scenes of the melee outside the 1968 National Convention, and action scenes of any kind are not quite staged as well. Even Sorkin’s fantastic dialogue does better in the hands of another, gifted director who can better stage his writing. His direction here is serviceable, but it also keeps the film from becoming as great as it could be. Until that dreadfully cornball burst of music and applause at the end, though, the story unfolds propulsively, on the strength of the dialogue and the performers delivering it. As such, even with its flaws, Aaron Sorkin has delivered another movie true to his form, so packed with witty banter you just can’t look away.

Okay, Eddie Redmayne is great in this movie, but am I the only one who notices how all his characters have a tendency to lean to one side?

Overall: B+

DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

Film has evolved to such a massive degree over the course of the past century, it’s not so much that it’s difficult to come up with a truly new idea, as it is easy to drown out the new ideas with a continuing avalanche of tired cliches. Dick Johnson Is Dead is that needle in a haystack, not just among the infinite number of options competing for your eyes, but within the 13,000+ titles on Netflix itself.

Speaking of which, I had made the rule for the rest of 2020 that I would review films that had once been slated for theatrical release, and/or were eligible for an Academy Award. I’m having the damnedest time figuring out whether this film technically qualifies, which leads me to believe it was perhaps always destined for a streaming service. Well, whatever. It did play at the Sundance Film Festival in January, as well as the “True/False Film Festival” in Columbia, Missouri in March. So the film did play to audiences in movie theaters at least a few times this year. Works for me! 2020 is all about technicalities.

Then again, who needs technicalities when a film is this worthy of attention? You can flip right over to Netflix right now and watch this film, and I recommend you do. Even though I personally have ambivalent feelings about it, and perhaps you will too.

Certain things might be triggering for you here. If you recently lost a parent. If you have any experience with a loved one dealing with any form of dementia.

Dick Johnson is one special such person. He is still alive now, even though his daughter, director and co-writer Kirsten Johnson, stages his death multiple times in the film, as a sort of means of coming to terms with his inevitable passing. Something that goes unstated but is easily considered when contemplating the film in retrospect: in all likelihood, Dick Johnson’s dementia is noticeably further progressed now, than it was as shown in the film. And it is indeed a fascinating aspect of the production that, not only does Dick Johnson happily participate in these death-scene recreations himself, but he is both in the early stages of dementia, and fully aware that he has it.

So what are the moral implications there, then? It’s a thorny thing to think about, even as it’s so evident onscreen how much Kirsten loves her father, and even more plainly, how much Dick loves his daughter. He is doing this for her, without complaint, because he loves her. Because he wants her to be happy, and to be successful and artistically fulfilled.

Once scene featured a line I had to write down. Dick is asking Kirsten why she went into documentary filmmaking, when narrative filmmaking is so much more lucrative. Kirsten Johnson replies, “Real life is often much more fascinating than what you can make up.” How ironic, then, that so much of Dick Johnson Is Dead presents fantasy scenarios—and they range from comical to deeply moving.

She goes through several stagings of simple accidents. Eventually a full funeral is staged, with the participation of his best friend, several other friends and family members, while Dick watches hidden away in the back, even though everyone there is fully aware he is actually still alive. It’s still an authentically emotional experience for everyone present, and deeply moving for the viewer.

There’s a somewhat surprising local connection for viewers local to Seattle. Even though Dick eventually moves into Kirsten’s New York City apartment (which is next door to the home of her kids’ two dads), the story actually begins in Seattle, where Dick has spent about thirty years as a practicing psychologist. His office’s suite number was 3415, which places it on the 34th floor of a downtown building. I did a little bit of Google research and finally figured out his practice had been on the top floor of the Westin Building. A brief shot depicts a view out his office window, looking down on a 17th-floor rooftop dog park attached to the Amazon Doppler Building across the street. Imagine how wildly different this neighborhood was when Dick opened the practice in 1987. Does he even remember?

In an early scene, Dick is seen in that office, talking to a hired stunt man who will take part in one of the many staged death scenes, in this case a sequence in which Dick actually hits the guy with his car. In my mind, the jury is still out as to the utility of all these death recreations, but then it’s always good to remind ourselves: everyone processes grief differently, and all ways are correct. Kirsten’s mom, and Dick’s late wife, passed of Alzheimer’s several years prior, and they all know basically what they now face again. Grief in these instances begins long before death actually happens.

Dick Johnson Is Dead also features several fantasy sequences, depicting Dick in heaven, with dancers who have oversize face cutouts of both Dick and his late wife. It’s all quite beautiful, with wonderful music and deeply affecting editing and intermittently slow-motion cinematography. It sounds odd, and it very much is. Also, it works. Somehow. Somehow the whole movie comes together, in a way difficult to put a finger on, but which stays with you in all the right ways.

Dick Johnson isn’t yet in heaven but we can pretend.

Overall: B+