The Zeitgeist

Movies Worth Seeing on Your Summer Vacation

 By Howard Barbanel

Welcome to the July 2024 – a time of beaches, barbeques, ball games and also a time to space-out watching a great movie, especially if it rains on your parade for a day or two. Here are seven superb cinematic options that I highly recommend:

Perfect Days ★★★★★

 In probably the most potent collaboration between Japan and Germany since World War II, the creative energies of acclaimed and multiple award-winning director Wim Wenders (“Paris, Texas”, “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Wings of Desire”) and Japanese screenwriter Takuma Takasaki combine to create a breathtakingly beautiful and moving work of art. The film could be also titled “Zen and the Art of Lavatory Maintenance.”

Starring Kōji Yakusho as Hirayama, a painfully withdrawn middle-aged man who cleans public toilets in modern-day Tokyo. At first, we seem to be spying on a life of quiet desperation but as the film progresses we see it’s a quiet life of serenity, almost as though he were tending a Japanese rock garden or a grove of bonsai trees. The ancient Japanese way of the Samurai gets channeled into the most mundane tasks. Wax on, wax off.

Yakusho carries the first half of the film practically solo and with minimal dialog. His face does the talking. It will remind you of the marooned segment with Tom Hanks in “Castaway.” The film unfolds over a couple of weeks and we also get to see fabulous stylized night dream sequences which separate each day from the next. More characters are gradually introduced as the movie progresses and each adds an important dimension to the story. Yakusho won the Best Actor Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the film was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 96^th Academy Awards.   

As a single man of a certain age who also has his ingrained daily rituals and schedule, the film resonated with me as I’m sure it will for many of the unattached.

Deeply moving, uplifting, spiritual and reverential, “Perfect Days” is really a perfect movie. Incidentally, “Perfect Days” has a very cool 60s and 70s soundtrack too.

Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes ★★★★

 

There’s nothing Zen whatsoever in this latest iteration of the seemingly infinite installments of the “Apes” franchise that began way back in 1968 with Charlton Heston as  marooned astronaut Taylor who finds himself on a planet run by apes. The producers have done a couple of prequel reboots and this movie predates the ’68 granddaddy in the story line perhaps a couple of hundred years in the “Apes” timeline. There are some noted visual homages to that original flick but otherwise this is an original, stand-alone story.

“Kingdom” takes place an unspecified number of years after the last “Apes” flick, “War for the Planet of the Apes,” which starred Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis (2017). In the timeline of the past three movies, most of humanity has been wiped out by an unspecified man-made virus that either left most humans without the ability to speak and with diminished brain function or killed them altogether. Some intelligent humans have managed to survive the virus either by developing a resistance or by quarantining themselves from the world.

As with a great many Hollywood action movies today, the heroic figure is often a woman, clearly with the feminist objective of redressing 80 or 90 years of leading men and damsels in distress. In “Kingdom,” that character is played with an American accent by British actress Freya Allan whose most notable prior experience was as Princess Cirilla of Cintra in the Netflix series The Witcher. Allan is on a mission to retrieve some prior human technology for her colony of locked-down intelligent humans. Concurrent with this is the story of a community of sensitive, peaceful eagle-breeding and farming apes which is devastated by a megalomanic gorilla, the self-styled “Proximus Caesar,” (the “King” in “Kingdom”) played by Kevin Durand. The new Caesar has a marauding army of gorilla cavalry rounding up other, weaker apes to serve as slaves in his effort to somehow pry open a human fortress chock full of weapons and tech.

The would-be leader of the peaceful ape survivors, Noa, played by Owen Teague and Freya Allan’s “Nova/Mae” come together while fleeing from the marauding forces of Proximus Caesar and eventually forge an alliance. Much of the movie takes off from there.

Definitely not a kid’s film. It’s actually kind of dark and at times violent and brutal with no neat, happy ending (probably for sequel purposes) for either apes or humans. If you’ve watched the prior nine “Apes” movies you’ll definitely enjoy it as will fans of sci-fi dystopia.

Furiosa ★★★★

 The 79 year-old Aussie filmmaker George Miller has been making “Mad Max” movies since 1979. Miller has directed every single one of the five “Max” films. The original and first two sequels ignited the career of Mel Gibson.

For those among the uninitiated, the “Mad Max” saga takes place in a heavily dystopian post-nuclear apocalyptic Australian desert hinterland where might makes right and everyone seems strung-out on some kind of uppers or LSD. The culture revolves around souped-up and jerry-rigged cars, trucks and motorcycles careening into each other in a giant demolition derby with power as the winning prize.

In 2015, Miller produced one of his very best “Max” films, “Mad Max: Fury Road” starring Charlize Theron as Furiosa and Tom Hardy replacing Gibson as Max. The film “Furiosa” is a sequel that is actually a prequel, taking place 15 to 20 years prior to the story in “Fury Road.” It is the Furiosa origin story and Max literally isn’t in the picture. Anya Taylor Joy (“The Queen’s Gambit” for which she won a Golden Globe Award) plays the younger Furiosa character years before she becomes Theron’s version of the character. Miller also brings back most of the cast of crazed character actors from “Fury Road” and through the miracles of AI presents them as appreciably younger than in “Fury Road” although they’re really nine years older in real life.

New to Max-land is Chris Hemsworth as Dr. Dementus, a really, really bad, bad guy. Hemsworth is brilliant in the role and is a far better Dr. Dementus in my view than as Thor, the God of Thunder in the Marvel film series.

“Furiosa” has pretty much nonstop vehicular action, special effects, violence, endless arrogance and snark. Very entertaining.  “Fury Road” is a star ahead (meaning Theron) than “Furiosa,” but this is still an excellent action picture that should prompt you to start watching all five movies (if you’ve not already) so you can be plugged into the Maxverse.

Two Documentaries –

Being Mary Tyler Moore and Remembering Gene Wilder.

Both ★★★★

 Two very beloved actors each deservedly merit their own sentimental documentaries. Mary Tyler Moore on Max and Gene Wilder on Netflix. Both Moore and Wilder brought no end of joy to millions of fans and these biographies show you how and why along with the stories of how they both rose essentially from nothing and nowhere to become comedic icons.

Moore was a television force starting with the 1960s “Dick Van Dyck Show” (1961-1966) which was written and produced by the great Carl Reiner. Her career segued into “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” one of the top ten TV sitcoms of the 1970s, running from 1970-1977 and pulling the plug at the top of its ratings. There were dry spells between and after each series but also some dramatic triumphs such as the 1980 film “Ordinary People” and on Broadway where she won a Tony Award for “Whose Life Is It Anyway.” Moore is also shown as very much a real human being and had more than her fair share of disappointment and tragedy. Excellent interviews and clips of Moore and a lot of the people who loved and worked with her. You’ll need a tissue. 

The late Gene Wilder was a lovable guy and “Remembering Gene Wilder” chronicles the love affair the audience had with him and his love of his craft and the pleasing that audience.

Wilder was that rare talent who could give you belly laughs and make you shed a tear all in the same performance. Gifted with impeccable comedic timing but also with a deep sense of pathos and genuine warmth, Wilder was the funny, likeable schlub who could rise to improbable heights fueled by a neurotic mania that you couldn’t get enough of.

Sometimes how your life works out is based on both who you know and being in the right place at the right time. Talent also helps but there are plenty of talented people who go nowhere. Wilder started out on Broadway. He loved the stage and worked regularly. Hollywood wasn’t among his early dreams. By chance he did a play with Anne Bancroft in 1963. Bancroft was married to Mel Brooks. Brooks was writing a screenplay that would eventually become “The Producers,” (1967) which was Wilder’s breakout screen role. Brooks and Wilder would form a lifelong partnership and friendship that would lead to such major hits as “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” Also, part of the Wilder oeuvre are “The Frisco Kid” which featured the first major role for Harrison Ford in 1979, the four movies with Richard Pryor (“Stir Crazy,” etc.) and of course his immortal role as Willy Wonka back in 1971.

“Remembering Gene Wilder” also delves heavily into his joy and heartbreak over his marriage to the late Gilda Radner. Interviews with Brooks, other colleagues and family members make this movie a love letter to one of the comedy greats of the 20^th Century.

The Zeitgeist

Bromance Breakup: Tucker Carlson’s

Anti-Ukraine Tirades Send Me Packing.

 By HOWARD BARBANEL

True confession: I’ve been a loyal and regular viewer of Tucker Carlson’s program on Fox since its inception. About 95 percent of the time, until recently, I’ve been in agreement with him (hey, I’m a mainstream Republican) but lately I have been turned-off (and have been turning-off the show) because of his strident opinions on Ukraine and the war there. To put it simply, our views and paths on foreign policy have diverged dramatically. To find myself in agreement with Joe Biden on something is quite a shock.

To listen to Mr. Carlson, we are on the precipice of Armageddon, twisting the nose of Russia’s nuclear-armed Vladimir Putin who would have no compunctions about ending the world as we know it over US and NATO support for Ukraine. Never mind that would also mean the end of Mr. Putin’s Russia as well. Tucker calls for an immediate negotiated end to the war, as if there were willing participants for such a discussion and easily reachable terms to end the hostilities to everyone’s mutual satisfaction. There are also his rationalizations that a Ukraine tethered to the West is a mortal strategic danger to Russia. How is that so? Do the Poles, Estonians and Bulgarians have imperialistic designs on Russia? Hard to imagine. A normal, democratic Russia would want to be a part of Europe too, not feel threatened by it.

According to Mr. Carlson, fear of Russia’s alleged military prowess should impel the US and our allies to do a Munich on Ukraine because, hey, why is this any of our business? For those who’ve forgotten history, Britain and France in the late 1930s acquiesced to Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland, Anschluss of Austria and finally the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in an orgy of appeasement because the major Western powers were cowed by the specter of war. We all know how well that policy turned out.

Tucker constantly harps on the allegation that Ukraine is not a democracy. Yet, Ukraine’s president was in fact elected in a nationwide popular vote in two rounds of voting that ended on April 21, 2019, garnering about 75 percent of the vote in the run-off. Tucker decries the imposition of martial law by President Zelensky in what by any definition and measure is most clearly an existential crisis, yet, Great Britain went a full 10 years from 1935 to 1945 without a national general election owing to the comparable crisis of World War Two which started in 1939. In fact, Churchill was never elected Prime Minister before or during the war and was defeated in the 1945 election. He only won a personal mandate for the first time in 1951. Yet Tucker has never called the UK a “fascist regime” for its lack of elections during its fight for survival against Germany.

According to Google, on April 27, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus for a large part of the country “to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under the order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations” in what was also obviously a fight for the America’s survival. During World War One draconian censorship measures were introduced in the US to control the war message and stifle dissent owing to the war emergency.

With Ukraine’s cities under bombardment night and day, with civilians being slaughtered, with cities being leveled, with fierce battles being waged on a constant basis, how is Ukraine’s situation different from the examples above? Ukraine wants to be a part of the EC and NATO and to do so they would have to be a democracy adhering to the rules of law in those institutions. They are fighting for the opportunity to join the West. Ukrainians want to be free. What is the whole point of America if not to stand against violent dictators, tyranny and the crushing of human rights? Should our country just be about NFL football, pizza delivery, the latest iPhone and inane TikTok videos or do we stand with brave people fighting for their freedom?

Mr. Carlson also constantly alleges that Ukraine is a cauldron of corruption and that US and NATO tax dollars are going to “oligarchs in track suits” instead of to fund the war effort. Yet he offers not one scintilla of proof to those charges. Tucker additionally spews wholesale barrages of personal insults against Ukraine’s president. Zelensky is a guy who could have hopped a US plane for Dubai and cozied-up next to Afghanistan’s last leader but instead chose to stay, stand his ground, rally his people and fight.

Finally, supposing the US were to cease support for Ukraine, how it is in the strategic and political interests of the US to empower and embolden Russia’s Vladimir Putin? What good would come from a Russian victory? A significantly strengthened Russia would be a very real threat to Western democracies, especially those in Eastern Europe and the Baltic. A much stronger Russia could make more mischief across the globe in league with China and Iran. How does that help America?

Tucker’s constant attacks on Ukraine come across (inadvertently, I’m sure) as though he wishes Russia to win and become a reincarnated USSR. The US supports many countries that support us, even if they are not perfect democracies and even if we don’t agree with all of their policies. The key idea being fought for in Ukraine is that wars of aggression to subjugate other peoples are illegitimate and cannot prevail. Reasonable people can debate whether aiding Ukraine is worth $40 or $60 Billion but belittling Ukraine in its struggle to defend its people and territorial integrity surely does nothing to enhance global security or American interests and belittles Tucker’s otherwise important and compelling program.

The Streaming Zeitgeist

Latest Must-See Streaming Blockbusters

And Some Movies You May Want to Avoid

Although many movie theaters reopened and while there is a palpable yearning for that greasy popcorn, nachos and supersized diet coke experience, most of us are still catching our first run flicks at home. Streaming services dominate and even when fully vaccinated, many of us are not entirely comfortable venturing forth to the multiplex just yet.

There are some great movies that have been released online in the past few months with mega stars like Tom Hanks, Glenn Close, Gary Oldman and Eddie Murphy to name a few. Here is a quick guide to some of the new offerings and whether they’re worth your time, and in some cases, the extra money.

News of The World (★★★★★)

Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel in “News of The World.”

In “News of The World” Tom Hanks delivers the kind of star performance you’d expect from one of America’s most versatile and beloved actors. Have you ever seen a bad Tom Hanks movie?

Westerns are not the most popular genre of film these days. Making them so they’re not cartoonish, patronizing or condescending is no small feat. Director Paul Greengrass delivers a period piece that is true to its time and place while also packed with pathos, action and wit. “News” is probably one of the five best Westerns of all time. It’s in the same league as Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven (★★★★★, 1992) and the power couple of John Ford directing John Wayne in The Searchers (★★★★½, 1956). “News” shares some themes with “The Searchers,” most notably the kidnapping of a white girl by Native Americans along with the deep darkness imbuing the souls of both Wayne and Hanks’ characters as a consequence of the Civil War.     

“News” is set in 1870s Texas where Hanks ekes out a living as an itinerant news reader – he buys newspapers along his travels – expensive and scarce items in the Old West – and he curates and delivers the news in public readings to paying audiences in towns small and large across the prairie. Hanks is running away from heartache, his past and battle-related PTSD. Redemption comes in the character of Johanna Leonberger who was kidnapped by Kiowa Indians as a young child and needs to be returned to her next of kin clear across Texas. Hanks’ character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, is reluctantly impressed into the service of escorting Johanna to her family and therein lies the drama and adventure of the film as they traverse the Wild West. Johanna is played by 12-year-old Helena Zengel in a tour de force performance where she holds her weight alongside Hanks in most of the movie.

If you can see this in a theater by all means do – but – it’s equally worth watching on your home 42, 55 or 60-inch TV as well. Streaming on Prime.

Hillbilly Elegy (★★★★)

Glenn Close and Amy Adams in Hillbilly Elegy.

Many Americans comfortably ensconced in their affluent bubbles have no idea of the struggles, poverty, desperation and addiction which besets many to this day in “Flyover Country” and most particularly in Appalachia. This region stretching from Pennsylvania to Georgia has borne the brunt of the Opioid Crisis but even before that alcoholism and other substance abuse was rife.

“Elegy” is the autobiographical drama about a young J.D. Vance, growing up with a seriously defective mother in a death spiral of privation and addiction. Our hero manages to overcome extreme poverty and a plethora of disadvantages to become a Yale-trained lawyer who wrote a bestselling book from which this movie is based. Vance’s salvation was made possible through the intervention of his maternal grandmother, played powerfully by Glenn Close in the role of “Mamaw,” who rescues him from the depredations of his addict mother (played very unglamorously and convincingly by Amy Adams).

Most of the action takes place in Rust Belt Ohio and Kentucky with lots of flashbacks to our hero’s childhood and adolescence. To say that Glenn Close embodies the role of a grizzled character is an understatement. This is not the beautiful Glenn Close we saw in Fatal Attraction (★★★★, 1987) or The Natural (★★★★★, 1984). You totally believe in her as a struggling grandmother.  No end of common-sense grit and self-sacrifice. This is no light movie but it is highly inspiring and there is also a happy ending. This film may also remind you of the Tobias Wolff biopic This Boy’s Life (★★★★, 1993) starring Robert DeNiro, Ellen Barkin and a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Streaming on Netflix.

Coming 2 America (★★)

Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes in “Coming 2 America.”

They say some wines get better with age and some after too many years become vinegar and undrinkable. So is the case with the 33-year delay from Eddie Murphy’s hysterical Coming to America (★★★★, 1988) and this cringe-worthy sequel. No matter the return of the original cast plus great additional cameos. No matter Murphy and his sidekick Arsenio Hall playing a dozen different characters. No matter the lavish sets and costumes. The story is flimsy and completely non-credible even for a comedy farce. The writing is dismal, so much so that you’d be hard pressed to find more than two really good jokes in the whole film. A comedy that’s not very funny. Really? Really. How a comedic talent like Murphy didn’t see the lack of humor in this film is astonishing.

The only saving grace and bright spot here is Wesley Snipes as General Izzi, warlord of neighboring African nation Nexdoria (as in “next door”).  As Izzi, Snipes dominates the screen and brings 90 percent of the charisma. Izzi is an exaggerated hip-hopped-up Idi Amin-like tinhorn dictator full of outrageous bellicosity accompanied by a praetorian guard of exceptional street dancers who intimidate merely by virtue of their excellent choreography. The movie gets two stars thanks in great measure to Snipes.

The black stereotypes in “Coming 2 America” if they’d been produced by and starring whites would be viewed as highly offensive. In fact, if I were black, I would be very put-off by some of the visuals which in many cases cross a line to tastelessness. Streaming on Prime.

Mank ★★★★

Gary Oldman as “Mank.”

Herman J. Mankiewicz (or as his friends called him, “Mank”) was a brilliant Hollywood screenwriter during the studio heyday of the 1930s. He was also intemperate, constantly inebriated and often impertinent. A real character. So why a movie about him? Because he was the unsung and real literary genius behind one of the best movies ever made, Citizen Kane (★★★★★, 1941) directed by and starring the then 24-year-old wunderkind Orson Welles.

Welles hired the fading Mankiewicz (portrayed masterfully by Gary Oldman, who is 62 and playing someone three decades younger) to ghost-write the screenplay for his first big Hollywood outing. The drama here is the torturous road from concept to actual script; the efforts made by William Randolph Hearst and his media empire to have the film shelved or not made at all and the tension between Mank and Welles when Mankiewicz realizes it’s the best thing he’s ever written and wants screen credit for it. In between are flashbacks to Mank’s life in New York and California and his relationships with Hearst, his then wife Marion Davies (played by an increasingly impressive Amanda Seyfried), studio honcho L.B. Mayer (MGM) and other Hollywood swells. In the middle of the bio sandwich is the relationship with his own long-suffering wife.

Laid-up in bed due to a car accident, an ailing Mank is shuttled to the California desert with a nurse, secretary and prodding producer and told to write the script via dictation which we saw Oldman do frequently while playing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (★★★★½, 2017). With the help of this entourage and an unhealthy supply of smuggled booze, Mank turns out one of the best screenplays of all time. In the process he makes enemies of and alienates almost everyone in his life. This is a very grown-up movie that will leave you contemplating the nature and scope of power, ambition, talent and waste (as in much of Mank’s life). Streaming on Netflix.

Wonder Woman 1984 ★★★

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman

In 2017 director Patty Jenkins surprised us all with a superhero movie that was original, fantastic yet believable, well-acted, well-cast, well-written and that had heart and humor. That movie is Wonder Woman (★★★★, 2017). Gal Gadot was a delight as the fierce but incredibly naïve Amazon warrior and Chris Pine was adorable as Steve Trevor. The supporting cast was endlessly interesting and funny and the setting, World War I, was rendered with verisimilitude so that you bought into that reality.

For a second act, instead of perhaps setting the film during World War II, Jenkins opted to make a giant leap forward in years to 1984 (a big jump from 1918) where we’re supposed to believe that Diana a/k/a Wonder Woman has for decades been living a life of quiet desperation and solitude pining away for the late Steve Trevor while occasionally doing some rote super hero stuff like rounding up criminals. In “WW84,” the fate of the world hinges on defeating a deranged megalomanic businessman who steals an ancient artifact with magic powers to grant wishes (I’m over simplifying) which ultimately creates world wide chaos. Somehow Steve Trevor is brought back from the dead because Diana wished for him (as did the producers so the two can recreate their prior on-screen chemistry).

The world of 1984 is not reproduced as convincingly as was 1918 or as well as the 1950s were in Back to The Future (★★★★½, 1985) and the premise or nemeses of loneliness, unrequited love and success don’t carry as much weight as defeating the Germans and the god Aries on the Western Front. “WW84” is so much of a sequel that one really must watch the 2017 original in order to know much of the back story which limits the audience. Another drawback is the length of the film which at two hours and 30 minutes really is a half hour to 40 minutes too long. Many of the scenes of Diana as a child on Paradise Island could have been edited out to make the movie tauter. The film is worth seeing and you will be entertained, but better to see it with your own pause button at home than to invest 150 minutes in a theater. Streaming on Prime and other services.