On WOMEN TALKING

 Forgive or forfeit their place in Heaven? Stay and fight or leave? One woman says, "We have been preyed upon like animals." That's a line from the powerful and riveting new film, WOMEN TALKING. The fascinating Sarah Polley, actress turned filmmaker, directed WOMEN TALKING and wrote the screenplay. The screenplay is based on a 2018 novel of the same name. The novel, from what I read, was based on a 2011 story. Seven men from an ultra-conservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia were convicted of drugging and raping over 100 women from the colony.

In this film, eight women from an isolated country Mennonite colony grapple with blending their reality with their faith after its revealed women in the colony have been sexually abused.

Back in the 80s, when Meryl Streep was promoting POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, she commented on a new trend in movies. The male-dominated action movies starring Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson were popular overseas which made Hollywood happy. With action movies, there could be less talk which meant less money spent on subtitling and dubbing. Sarah Polley's muscular new film is female-dominated and driven by....well, women talking. WOMEN TALKING is not specifically a "Me Too" movie like SHE SAID, the recent film about the Harvey Weinstein story and the women who spoke out, but it sure fits into the modern "Me Too" era times.

WOMEN TALKING displays strong ensemble acting. There's no leading lady although Oscar winner Frances McDormand is in the cast. McDormand is one of the film's producers. Claire Foy, who was so commanding and charismatic as young Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix's THE CROWN, is one of the strongest and most strident voices in WOMEN TALKING. Claire Foy hits this film like a bolt of lightning. She's stunning to watch in the role. Also in the cast is Judith Ivey. I've seen her onstage in New York. I interviewed on VH1 when I had a talk show and she'd appeared onscreen in COMPROMISING POSITIONS, based on the best-selling Susan Isaacs murder mystery comedy of the same name, and in HELLO, AGAIN, a reincarnation original screen comedy also written by Susan Isaacs. Sarah Polley directs Ivey in one of the best screen roles Ivey's ever had. Ivey is the colony member who yells at the arguing women to "...shut your pie-holes! Please!" If there's justice in Hollywood, WOMEN TALKING should bring Judith Ivey a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

I was awed by the strength of Polley's film, a film that gripped me from from the beginning with its opening line "This story ends before you were born." The movie is in color but the colors are muted. You will not see any bright reds, blues or golds. As serious as the issues in it are, there is also humor and love. And hope. 

In order to get a better idea on how talented filmmaker Sarah Polley is, make seeing WOMEN TALKING half of a double feature. The other film is one of my favorite holiday movies. It's a 1999 comedy crime movie called GO. Another title could've been IT'S A BLUNDER-FUL LIFE. The story takes place in a ho-hum, unsophisticated section of Southern California. It's Christmas Eve. Sarah Polley plays Ronna, a supermarket clerk whose job has drained her of all holiday cheer. Ronna is a smart, responsible young woman who needs that dead-end job because she low on funds. She's so broke that she becomes involved in the sale of some Ecstasy for an Xmas rave at one of the popular clubs. Of course, everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Two clueless TV actors doing undercover community service work and a cop who has a side gig as a salesman are some of the other characters involved in this drug sale. 1999's GO co-stars Taye Diggs, Timothy Olyphant, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Jane Krakowski and Melissa McCarthy. Look for a trailer or clips on YouTube.

Canadian Sarah Polley went on to adapt an Alice Munro story about a long marriage challenged by Alzheimer's disease into a screenplay called AWAY FROM HER. Polley directed the film version of her screenplay. Her work on the 2006 film brought Julie Christie another Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

And that's why I am fascinated with actress/filmmaker Sarah Polley.

Trevor Noah with Will Smith

This morning, I awoke to the entertainment news that Oscar winner Will Smith was a guest on "The Daily Show" hosted by Trevor Noah. Smith has a new film, EMANCIPATION, opening early December. It will be available to stream on Apple+. Will Smith's appearance with Trevor Noah this week was probably the actor's first TV appearance since he turned the Oscars telecast in March into the worst ever episode of EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS. 

I'll be looking for the Trevor Noah online interview online. I am curious to see how Smith eases his way back into public view after he assaulted Chris Rock on live TV. When Smith yelled objectionable language at Rock, it was bleeped on American television, Overseas Twitter tweeted the un-bleeped footage. The Oscars telecast is a global one.

Noah pressed him about the notorious Oscar moment. Smith replied that he was "going through something that night" adding that his bad behavior made it "hard for other people."

I was hoping Will Smith would win the Oscar for Best Actor. He was outstanding in KING RICHARD as the devoted, complicated working class father of future tennis greats, Venus and Serena Williams. He did win -- minutes after slapping the taste of out Chris Rock's mouth.

As I wrote months ago, I hated -- and still hate -- what Will Smith did in defense of his wife. When Chris Rock made the joke of Jada Pinkett Smith looking like she could follow Demi Moore as G.I. JANE, I thought it was a light poke at her close-shaven hair, similar to Moore's in her popular 1997 military movie. Moore shaved her hair off for the the part and got lots of entertainment press at the time. I thought Jada's close-shaven hair was, if you will, a casual choice. I know Black women who have been clean-shaven and then let their locks grow back. I had no idea Jada Pinkett Smith has alopecia. I wonder if a lot of other TV viewers knew that she has alopecia. I wonder if Chris Rock knew that. 

Comedian Wanda Sykes was one of the Oscars hosts that night. If she had made the joke about Jada's lack of hair, would Will Smith have stormed the stage, slapped her and shouted offensive language at her as he returned to his seat?

Something about that embarrassing incident and the actor's apology/explanation still doesn't quite connect for me. To see what I mean, go to Netflix and look for the David Letterman interview series, MY NEXT GUEST. One episode is with Will Smith as his sole guest. The episode, with a studio audience, was taped in Hollywood when Smith's movie, KING RICHARD, and his memoir were being released. Smith was in full ebullient Smith mode and Letterman introduced him to the audience as "America's friend."

Watch that hour-long show. In his youth, Will Smith's home life was troubled. However, he said that his father taught him "integrity and discipline." He tells about how meeting Nelson Mandela taught him "forgiveness." Smith extensively reveals how he took two years off from big money movie-making to go on a "spiritual journey." This journey involved taking a foreign substance under supervision. Sort of like Cary Grant's supervised experiments with LSD back in the day.

In the Letterman interview, Will Smith talks about being a dad but he never once mentions Jada Pinkett Smith or even says the word "wife." Will Smith went from getting lessons on "integrity and discipline" and "forgiveness" and going on an intense "spiritual journey" to slapping Chris Rock on a live international network telecast. I don't get it. I just don't get it. Here's a clip from his David Letterman interview on Netflix via ET Canada.

Will Smith has been banned for 10 years from attending the Oscars. He resigned his Academy membership. But he is still eligible to be nominated again.

This is all most unfortunate. The former FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR sitcom star had grown into a very impressive dramatic actor.

TREVOR NOAH on Netflix

 One of my first thoughts when this hour-long Netflix comedy special ended was "George Carlin would have loved this.

Trevor Noah has deservedly acquired a large American TV audience as host of THE DAILY SHOW on Comedy Central. I needed some laughs over the weekend and checked out his Netflix special, TREVOR NOAH: I WISH YOU WOULD. His one-man show was performed in Toronto, Canada. The infectious charm of his Comedy Central show personality carries over to this very funny special. He's engaging, witty, smart and insightful. 

He opens with somewhat of a German lesson. This comes about after he tells the audience that his mother is a Black South African woman and his father, whom he'd not seen in awhile, was a white man from Switzerland who spoke German. Trevor went to visit his dad and learned some German in order to surprise him.

In the one-hour special, we'll realize that Trevor has a gift for accents. His comments about characters who deserve to die in horror movies broke me up as did his accurate assessment of how the pandemic didn't always bring about our most honorable feelings while we were in months of lockdown.

After a sweet bit about how Canada's Justin Trudeau's reported "scandals" were not so scandalous, he launches into a bit on American presidents and their vocal patterns. This is after he skewers the empty-headed presidential statements from Donald Trump.

This special was performed post-Queen Elizabeth's death. Noah does a routine about colonialism vs the royal funeral.

One of the funniest and most brightly-written pieces he performs is about his boyhood Indian and how that friendship influenced his Indian restaurant habits when he dined with friends while in Scotland for a popular and annual comedy festival. About Scotland, Noah says "...the people are lovely and warm. The place isn't -- but the people are."

I loved that story. You must pay attention to the previous one about his Indian friend, about Justin Trudeau and the tale about learning a German word following his wacky encounter in a German sandwich shop during his journey to visit his father.

To me, Trevor Noah's piece on our pandemic behavior was very George Carlin. Fabulous.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Screenplay

 It's Sunday, Nov. 27th. Director Ang Lee's 2005 masterpiece, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, makes it premiere tonight -- uncut and commercial free -- at 10p ET on TCM (cable's Turner Classic Movies). It follows a brief discussion from the TCM host and a guest about the film's social impact and relevance. The screenplay is based on a short story by Annie Proulx, a story that first appeared in The New Yorker Magazine in 1997. I thought BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN would win the Oscar for Best Picture. I'm sure a lot of other people did too. It lost to CRASH. Ang Lee won for Best Director. His film took home Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, a screenplay co-written by Larry McMurtry. Novelist Larry McMurtry wrote HORSEMAN, PASS BY which became the basis for the movie, HUD, starring Paul Newman. He also wrote THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, both novels turned into acclaimed films.,

I first heard about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN from a guy at Crunch gym in my New York City neighborhood. He'd been on a treadmill reading the gym's copy of The New York Magazine, the publication in which the short story appeared. The short story had gotten lots of buzz. That came up in our brief chat. His comment on the story was, "Don't make the mistake I did. Don't read it in public. Read it at home." Of course, that made me curious. I bought a copy of the magazine, took it home and read Annie Proulx's short story. One can read the story within a half-hour. I got to a certain passage near the end of the engrossing tale of two men in love and burst out crying at one heartbreaking, unexpected revelation. Two men of minimal education in Wyoming in the 1960s and a love that continues as they enter into socially-approved traditional marriages that increase their emotional deprivation. The next time I saw that guy at the gym, I told him I wept reading the story. He smiled and replied "The same thing happened to me -- only I was sitting by myself in a diner."

To me, the screenplay is just as moving, just as brilliant as the short story. Annie Proulx did not work on the screenplay, by the way. Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is in the category with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST -- movies that are faithful to their literary source. The way in which the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN screenwriters expanded the story to show the 20 years that progressed in the lives of Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar is a master class in screenwriting. Not only is the screenplay faithful, it improves a small detail at the end with the placement of two shirts. That piece of visual business in the movie made me gasp. Such an inspired, memorable, subtle change. The film is brilliantly directed, acted and written.

When BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was in theatrical release, there was a book available that contained the Annie Proulx short story and the film's screenplay. If that book is still available, if you're interested in being a screenwriter, get that book. See if you can purchase it or look for it in a library. For aspiring film writers, it's a great instructional item. It makes one wonder why Hollywood doesn't seek more good short stories to turn in new films.

Heath Ledger received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Jake Gyllenhaal was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Michelle Williams was up for Best Supporting Actress. Gyllenhaal won the BAFTA (Britain's Oscar equivalent) for Best Supporting Actor.

Ledger, an extremely gifted Australian actor, followed that stunning performance by playing the Joker in the 2008 Batman story, THE DARK KNIGHT. We lost Ledger way too soon, at age 28. His performance in THE DARK KNIGHT brought him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

I Saw THE INSPECTION

 "You really think we can turn that faggot into a monster?" ~ from THE INSPECTION

Last week, I posted a piece about the LGBTQ story in the new indie movie, THE INSPECTION. The film was inspired by the life of its director and writer, Elegance Bratton. In addition to that, an openly queer Black actor is playing a Black queer character based on the life of its Black queer director/writer. That's some history.

Two-time Tony nominee, Jeremy Pope, plays Ellis French. Ellis is a homeless young man who joins the Marines. Enduring and surviving the brutality of boot camp, Ellis finds significance and his own voice. I saw THE INSPECTION. Wow. What a strong film and what equally strong performances from Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union who plays Ellis' mother.

The story starts in Trenton, New Jersey in 2005. Ellis lives on his own because his mother kicked him out of the house because he was gay. She feels he ruined her dreams for his life. As the film opens, he goes to see her because he needs his birth certificate to fill out forms for Marine recruitment. She lets him in, however she neither hugs nor kisses him. She's cooking but doesn't offer him anything to eat or drink. Their relationship is quite frayed. She scoffs at his goal, believing that the Marines is a bastion of heterosexuality. She gives her son his birth certificate. He leaves and boards a bus to start a military life.

Director/writer Bratton avoids the unnecessary homoeroticism veteran filmmakers have inserted into films focused on men in all-male groups. Think of the shirtless, slow motion military volleyball games in Tony Scott's TOP GUN. Think of the prison shower scenes Oliver Stone wrote into MIDNIGHT EXPRESS and the explicit NFL locker room scenes he directed in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY. There are brief scenes of same-sex attraction in THE INSPECTION but they occur in Ellis' mind. Sort of a break from the blistering treatment he receives in boot camp. It's hell at first, but brotherhood will be achieved.

We see him survive, grow and evolve into a Marine. We wonder if his mother will grow and evolve too in her feelings towards him.

This was not an easy movie to make. It was shot in Jackson, Mississippi in 100+ degree summer heat. And it was shot in 19 days. The hard work paid off. In Pope's performance, we see Ellis transform not only in his uniform, but in the looks behind his eyes and in his physicality. Notice his body language in his encounter with his mother at the beginning of the story and later on after he's passed inspection.

As for gorgeous Gabrielle Union, who is one of the film's executive producers, this supporting role is one of the meatiest dramatic roles she's ever had in a film and she totally delivers. I'd give Gabrielle Union an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. There's also mighty fine work from Bokeem Woodbine as the hard-ass drill master and Raul Castillo as supportive Rosales. Director/writer Elegance Bratton is a fan of cable's TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and said that the 1950s remake of IMITATION OF LIFE inspired a tone in his film -- especially scenes with Black actress Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner (as the daughter passing for white) in the 1959 Douglas Sirk film.

THE INSPECTION is a film worth seeing.

SOME LIKE IT HOT on Tap

Early yesterday, I posted a piece about tap dancing. There's a lot of energetic tapping in the current original holiday musical, SPIRITED, streaming on Apple+TV. The hip twist on Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL stars Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. They tap dance too. The chorus tap dancers were dressed in rather unisex attire. I wrote that I missed seeing a feminine flair on a female who could match the men as dance partners. I posted four examples of what I meant using clips from classic movie musicals.

Then, later yesterday morning, I saw a number from Broadway's new musical version of SOME LIKE IT HOT and I was so delighted that I wished I was in New York to buy a ticket. A feminine flair was in the tap number! Even a man had a feminine flair as he played the bass fiddle.

If you've seen the classic Billy Wilder comedy that starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, you know the story. It's the 1920s. Lemmon and Curtis play best buddy musicians in Chicago who witness a mob murder on St. Valentine's Day. In order to keep from being killed by the head gangster, they disguise as dames, join an all-girl band and head to Florida for a gig with the girls. Then they see the gorgeous and delectable band singer, Sugar Kane (played by Monroe). They'd love to woo her but they're disguised as dames to save their lives. The leader of the band, Sweet Sue, is strict and suspicious.

The new Broadway musical version is in previews and opens soon. Friends of mine who have seen it, rave about it. Natasha Yvette Williams is Sweet Sue and Adrianna Hicks is Sugar. Here's the number done for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' 'bout. This show looks like it's gonna be a Broadway hit.

4 Ladies on Tap

Last weekend, I blogged a review of Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds in the new, original holiday musical streaming on Apple+ TV. It's called SPIRITED and it's a hip twist on Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. I blogged that the entertaining SPIRITED is packed with musical numbers. There's plenty of tap dancing in it. Even Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds tap dance in it. In those well-choreographed and brightly performed numbers, the male and female tappers are in rather unisex attire and the tap dancing is of the STOMP style -- if you're familiar with that popular Broadway show and group.

I hope I do not come off as sexist, but I miss seeing an obvious feminine flair in tap dancers. A flair with a style and talent that can match their male partners. I will now give you classic film examples of what I mean.

Before she became an international Hollywood legend as GILDA, Rita Hayworth starred in two original movie musicals with Fred Astaire. Here's a clip from 1941's YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH -- music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Astaire's most famous partner was Ginger Rogers. Of the several musicals they danced in for RKO in the 1930s, the original 1936 SWING TIME was an Oscar winner -- and one of their best. Here they are after they introduced the new song, "Pick Yourself Up."

Eleanor Powell was one of the best female dancers on the MGM lot. She teamed up Fred Astaire for BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 with music by Cole Porter.

Another dazzling dancer on the MGM lot, one who followed Eleanor Powell, was Ann Miller. Rita Hayworth's singing was always dubbed. Ginger and Eleanor has pleasantly limited voices. But Ann Miller -- she could dance, act and belt out a tune. Here she is in the 1953 MGM musical, SMALL TOWN GIRL.