WHILE YOU WERE TWEETING. A LOOK BACK AT THE RISE OF POST-DIGITAL AUTEUR CINEMA AND THE FILMS OF 2019

Written & Arranged by Esmarelda VillaLobos YOU HAVE TIME TO READ THIS BOOK. BUT FIRST… AN INTRODUCTION

HI, MY NAME IS ESMARELDA AND I LOVE MOVIES. I bet right now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “what the hell does activity outside of producing a podcast, then I hate to break it to you, but post-digital mean?” Post-digital is a word I conjured up sometime around you are still kind of stuck in the last decade. But don’t worry, I’m here to 2018, and the definition of which is, “a person with awareness enough to catch you up with the times. know that there is a difference between the internet and real life.” I am certain that there are other circles of people out there who have used it The majority of the filmmakers producing the kind of prestige fare which before, and I am certain that in the annals of history I will not go down made it to the Academy Awards had two very important themes coursing credited as the person who truly originated this term. But having said that, I through their veins. First, nearly all of the Best Picture-nominated films were did not find it from an external source, it merely popped into my head one built out of the same collective voice: boy are they sure sick of all this damn day and that is the God’s honest truth, because I can tell you truthfully, it is technology running the town they once loved. Second, nearly all of the films very, very hard for me to tell a lie. nominated in the Best Picture category were directed by filmmakers who are, arguably, auteurs. Hence, Post-Digital Auteur Cinema. Now the second question you might be asking yourself is, “am I post- digital?” Well, there is an answer for that, too. And fact of the matter is that The following collection of work is a series of essays detailing my perspective if for the last ten years you have found yourself chronically addicted to your on the various films of 2019 as well as the attitude surrounding the smartphone with no substantial breaks from internet chatter, the news, or filmmakers and press which coincided with the 2019-2020 Oscar season. social media, the answer to your question is, “no, you are most definitely not post-digital.” That’s not to say you can’t become post-digital or you don’t It’s okay if you weren’t paying attention, the world is pretty crazy right now have post-digital tendencies. If you often find yourself saying things like, and has been for a while, but the batch of Best Picture nominees and the “God, I am so sick of social media,” well maybe you are on your way to other prestige film fare that came out of 2019 were, in my opinion, the most entering the enlightened new decade of the twenties. But if you find significant and historically important collection of films of the last fifty years. yourself still engaging in gross, lengthy, Twitter battles, attempting to “cancel” people from existence, or can’t imagine performing a creative I sincerely hope that you enjoy. MARRIAGE STORY (2019) Written & Directed by Noah Baumbach It’s amazing what you can know about a man from his filmography when he both writes and directs the majority of his own work. Although short and skinny with a permanent look of terror splashed across his eyes, Noah Baumbach’s voice on screen is that of a serious man who knows how to roll with the punches. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to feel, though. I must admit that I was quite disturbed during this last Oscars season when, seemingly, the stories garnering the biggest headlines and attention were those that were lamenting the lack of female nominees while accosting the men for not giving more lines to their female characters. (It seems that for the last six or seven years in media, women have been dominating the headlines with their continued cries of inequality.) Particularly I found this disturbing given the lack of popular discussion surrounding the tour-de-force double nominated performances by Scarlett Johannson in both “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit”, a feat no one has accomplished since Cate Blanchett in 2008 for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” and “I’m Not There."

The beautiful and powerful Johannson along with solid-as-a-rock Adam Driver in “Marriage Story” give each other such a complimentary performance that even now in April 2020, amidst all the uncertainty that is the future of entertainment, I desperately wish for someone to write another film pairing the two of them MARRIAGE STORY (2019) together. Normally I am not a supporter of sequels to films that have, in my dir. Noah Baumbach opinion, already achieved perfection, but a post-coronavirus examination of Charlie and Nicole’s relationship would be interesting to say the least. Driver stands almost There is no doubt whatsoever that Noah Baumbach is an auteur. Although not a full foot above Johannson, yet they still occupy the same amount of space on commercially popular by any means (his highest grossing film is 2005’s “The screen. In any good film, as the films of 2019 were, you can immediately tell the Squid and the Whale” at $11M worldwide), Baumbach makes his deeply theme of the story within the first ten or fifteen minutes. On first viewing, anyone pensive and analytical voice clear from the word go. In his 1995 directorial watching “Marriage Story” would see it as a he said/she said divorce story set in debut, “Kicking and Screaming”, Baumbach appears on screen as college-kid the twenty first century. But on further analysis, the theme of the film makes itself Danny, squatting outside of a classroom running bits with his friend. From this apparent right around minute eight: Nicole (Scarlett Johannson) doesn’t even try. first introduction of himself both on screen and behind the scenes, you It’s hard to notice at first, you’re easily distracted by her sudden change in tone and instantly get the feeling that this guy thinks he’s funny. Fast forward twenty- are instead focused on the soothing voice of the mediator played in a delightful five years, twelve movies, and three Oscar nominations later, it is not difficult cameo by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog himself, Robert Smigel, the appearance of to deduce that Noah Baumbach is, in fact, a very funny guy. whom I take as an immediate indication that this film is supposed to be funny. But it’s apparent from the very beginning - Nicole does not even try. She won’t read her letter out loud because she is insecure about what she wrote. The stubborn creative inside of her is too afraid to let her husband know how she feels because she has no confidence in the work she has created. Even though the revelation of those words on that small scratch of paper might actually save her marriage and keep her family together, she has already made up her mind. Her posture is too dignified and throughout the movie she searches for opportunities to contradict Charlie.

Before she leaves for Los Angeles, Nicole (again, insecurely) asks Charlie whether or not he thinks the pilot she is headed westward to shoot is any good and when he responds that he cannot tell because he never watches television, we see Nicole very sternly glance toward the television to see that Charlie is watching something as they speak; in this very moment we, the viewer, can subliminally tell that Nicole is thinking to herself, “liar.”

But look again and the truth shall be revealed! The key word here in this scene is the “The Money Pit” (1986, dir. Richard Benjamin) word “glance”, because although he is watching it on a television, Charlie is actually Getting back to “Marriage Story,” Nicole, a modern-day Digital Age Hollywood watching the 1986 Tom Hanks/Shelley Long comedy, “The Money Pit." And even still, television actress, keeps all of her feelings and emotions to herself, packs up Charlie is not really watching the flick, it was left over from their babysitter (who for her son and heads out west to live with her mother— played by the absolutely some strange reason upon their arrival had her pants unbuckled a la Otis in “Kicking fantastic Julie Haggerty in a performance so breathing with life and fresh air and Screaming”). Ergo (Argo?) ergo, although Charlie is watching the television, he is that whenever she is onscreen you can only notice her. The subtle look not actually watching a television show, making his statement true. Nevertheless Haggerty’s “G-Ma” gives to her daughter when she starts hugging her soon-to- Nicole, a twenty-first century actress who grew up in Hollywood, doesn’t seem to be-ex son-in-law with affection and joy should have been enough to garner a make this distinction and drifts over to check her phone. Golden Globe or SAG Award nomination. But, frankly, all of the performances in this film are so good there simply aren’t enough awards to go around. Laura This is a very funny movie. Dern (in her Oscar-winning role), Ray Liotta, and Alan Alda all turn in tour-de- force performances. Either way, if any bored screenwriter wants to write a In doing my research, I decided to sit down and watch “The Money Pit” and although I scaled down alternate reality variation of the 2017 Goldie Hawn/Amy Schumer can see why in the greater scheme of the American pop culture lexicon it has comedy “Snatched” with Haggerty in the lead Goldie Hawn role, I think her remained an adored but overlooked gem, I can’t help but love that the entire movie comedic timing and expertise (the woman was in “Airplane!” for crying out itself is a giant metaphor for building the foundation of a strong marriage. loud) deserves a shot at a larger co-starring role.

Noah Baumbach is a very funny guy. I just want more. There are so many important nuggets and bits of “Marriage Story” mythology revealed by Nicole in this office scene monologue that it requires multiple hyper-focused viewings to see it all really fall into place. Considering the fact that the scene itself is so well acted, Johannson tricks you into believing that her character moderately believes all that she is saying to be true. Nicole is a great actress, after all. It is during this monologue that we discover upon meeting Charlie, Nicole was already engaged to someone else named Ben.

Now, when she says this to Dern’s divorce attorney Nora, she doesn’t really clarify who Ben is. Keep in mind, Nicole was a moderately popular up and coming actress in her early twenties at the time which means this all would have happened circa 2003/2004. However, both in the script and in the film, this former flame is only ever referred to as “Ben.” Now, the former Blockbuster cashier/fangirl in me (who was a junior in high school in 2003) can’t help but geek out a little over this mystery… which Ben? Ben Affleck? Was Nicole “Marriage Story” – Charlie gets a trumpet. engaged to Ben Affleck? 2003/2004 was right around the Ben Affleck/J.Lo engagement, so if the Ben in question is Ben Affleck then I have to pretend this My next favorite thing about “Marriage Story”, aside from its infectious mythology, is film takes place in an alternate reality where the word “Bennifer” never the score. From the first opening notes, I’m hooked. A small part of me imagines Noah happened and I don’t quite know if I can stretch my suspension of disbelief that Baumbach sitting by himself in a dimly lit corner taking a deep breath, picking up a thin. trumpet, pausing, then beginning to play. But that is simply how effective and hypnotic the incomparable Randy Newman’s melodic and oddly haunting composition But either way, Nicole was engaged to Ben, she went to New York to make a is in this Oscar-nominated score. Even more exacerbated when you re-watch those small indie sci-fi film, met Charlie, and the rest is now being dragged out in a first adoring seven minutes of the opening and realize that the “great present” Nicole courtroom and hyper-analyzed to the point of psychologically damaging torture. has given to Charlie is… a trumpet. This movie also is a little bit sad. But getting back to the real issue of the story – Charlie made fun of Nicole’s television pilot, so she is divorcing him. When we first meet Laura Dern’s character in her office, It’s not too sad, though, no one dies at the end, no one is shot or murdered. Scarlett Johansson flexes her incredibly well trained and dedicated acting chops in a Nicole goes on to become an Emmy-nominated director for her work on a monologue so expositional that at one point in the script it encompasses almost two television show where a grown man merges with a Ficus, thus leading me to straight pages of dialogue - which in this day and age of “quick bite” entertainment believe that she’s probably working on a show for Hulu. Or AppleTV. Definitely should be considered in and of itself an Olympic feat. Can you have an Olympics for of that tribe. Is there a singular word for “not in on the joke”? Either way, this is acting? I’d watch that. definitely a twenty-first century late-aughts television show. I was more than a little bit disturbed this February when the opening number of the Academy Awards was seemingly Zoom-bombed with a not-entirely out of place performance by Janelle Monae that included a rather manic dance number and an overly in-your-face series of nonsensical scatting which had nothing to do with anything involving any of the films that were nominated that year.

The performance, as hastily put together as a “We Stand With Jussie” Instagram photo, and including award-winning mostly television but sometimes movie actor Billy Porter, was not entirely as disturbing as the introduction to the number itself in which Janelle Monae invited everyone to celebrate film as “the art of storytelling.” I think that was the moment I gagged on my pizza. Because I really hate to break it to Janelle Monae and the hashtag producers who helped put on the show, but film is the art of expressing yourself with visual images… not just storytelling. Cinema is the art of communicating thoughts and ideas through beautiful imagery, expertly and meticulously constructed by its creators and designed to be shown in front of Janelle Monae and Billy Porter for some reason perform at the large groups of people for further discussion later. Storytelling is something you do 2020 Academy Awards. with a three-year-old before bedtime. But I hear she played at Coachella last year, During this marathon of a monologue, after Nicole’s attorney Nora has asked which last time I checked is basically the equivalent of a PhD in Cinema Studies, so her to share her story, Nicole does an excellent job of painting a picture it was all but wonderful to see her “powerful” message of throwing shade across around how the divorce came to be. But at some point in this monologue, and what will arguably go down as one of the greatest years in modern film history. after multiple viewings, I found myself tilting my head to the side and thinking, “huh?” Those Artistic Olympics are starting to sound better and better. Janelle Monae, if that paragraph ticks you off, I challenge you to settle it by Roast Battle and not Because what I found is that Nicole is mostly upset about the trajectory of her social media shade. #Don’tUseTwitter own career. At first when she teamed up with Charlie, she was hot off her movie career and even loaned him some money to help get the theater Now pardon me while I barf from having to include a horrendous-looking pound company started (he paid it back). Which brings me back to the Ben thing. sign in this essay. The act itself feels so last decade. Again, who is this Ben? If Nicole was engaged to someone as high profile as Ben Affleck for her to leave him for a small live theater director in New York Anyways, back to “Marriage Story,” so, Nicole, a present-day actress living in Los whom she has to float some scratch to is nothing to sneeze at. Who in their Angeles, after refusing to try to do things Charlie’s way, takes her son from his right mind would leave Ben Affleck for a penniless artist? Nicole would, that’s father because he insulted her and tries to make a better life for themselves on the who. Or at the very least, she would for Charlie. Maybe it was Ben Stiller? The west coast. world may never know. For what reason in particular? I’m not exactly clear. Frankly, I don’t think Nicole really knows, either. Charlie does appear as a ghost during the trick-or-treating scene at the end, after all. But once Nicole gets to Los Angeles she is surrounded by a slew of divorced women and well-wishers who are all pretty much pushing her in the direction of making a lot of money while furthering her career and getting what’s hers and from that point on she is pushed into an alternate time portal where her amicable split with Charlie turns into an out-of-control, all-too- expensive, full-on silent war.

This is Hollywood, after all.

On my most recent viewing of the film, I began to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. If Nicole had just turned down the pilot and worked things out with Charlie, she would have been around for when he gets the MacArthur Grant and makes his Broadway debut. Who knows what could have happened, perhaps had “Marriage Story” – Nicole tells her side of the story. she been by his side and the Broadway debut had been a hit, perhaps he would But as her monologue unfolds you slowly start to realize that Nicole’s problems have been offered roles directing films, which he inevitably would have wanted with the marriage are actually just her problems. Nicole doesn’t feel as famous Nicole to star in. And then there would be her star on the rise again, back on the as she once was, which is a shame because she is still widely respected in her big screen. But instead, she bottles her emotions and moves to Los Angeles to craft, but she feels like she is getting smaller, reduced to being nothing more star in her Hulu show based on completely inaccurate hard science. Maybe it’s than a wife and a mother and she simply cannot live with herself as just being Amazon. Good lord, there’s so much TV these days. remembered that way. It is continually hard to get on Nicole’s side in this whole mess when you She needs “a piece of earth” that’s hers, which for the life of me I can’t make encounter scenes like the one in Charlie’s rental car where his son, Henry, tells his any sense out of at all. Zero cents in fact – sense!- sorry, finger slipped. Little father that for Halloween he is going as a store-bought ninja instead of the nuggets and tidbits of the Charlie/Nicole mythology again begin to pop out in custom-made Frankenstein costume the designer at Charlie’s theater company this absolute monster of a monologue as Nicole describes getting pregnant – has whipped up. His reasoning for this? “It’s better because it costs more.” Yikes. being happy that a baby could be theirs, could really be theirs (but also really What values are Nicole imparting on her young child, exactly? Henry gets hers, she says) and after that telling little statement one can’t help but suspect increasingly more defiant throughout the picture, he struggles with reading, can’t from the rest of the movie if she isn’t trying to slowly “cancel” Charlie out of focus, doesn’t pay attention, feels neglected, is demanding but sweet, and her life. ultimately has the emotional intelligence of a four-year-old even though he is now eight. That was also the interesting tidbit I picked up on – Henry. His parents are getting divorced, but he doesn’t really feel any kind of way about it – Nicole almost sells it to him as a good thing – he gets two Bear Bears, two Halloweens. About the only minor clue to his inner feelings comes at the tail end of the Halloween sequence when Henry questions his father as to why he doesn’t see him more often. Meanwhile, Henry plays with his action figures where one army guy seemingly falls from a cliff to which Henry ominously voices for him, “you didn’t catch me.”

For obvious comparison, I chose to watch a film that must have lightly inspired this one, that being the 1979 Robert Benton Best Picture Winner, “Kramer vs. Kramer.” About the only loosely drawn conclusions I could see between the films is that in “Marriage Story”, their son’s name is Henry and in “Kramer vs. Kramer” the actor who plays Billy, (Meryl Streep & Dustin Hoffman’s son) is named Justin Henry – but even I will admit that maybe that is kind of a stretch.

Additionally, Hoffman himself appears as the genius artist patriarch Harold “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979, dir. Robert Benton) Meyerowitz in Baumbach’s prior film, 2017’s “The Meyerowitz Stories (New & She is incredibly unhappy, to the point that it is becoming a mental health Selected)." crisis, and she takes off to California to be her own person and discover what she wants for the rest of her life. This isn’t very far from what Nicole Baumbach and partner Greta Gerwig (see: “Little Women”) would later to go on wants in “Marriage Story”, but again, the characters in “Marriage Story” to name their son Harold, born in 2019. would have had the benefit of having seen “Kramer vs. Kramer”, wouldn’t they? I would bet my right hand that Charlie has surely seen it. Oh, the Circle Game. It’s all so much fun. Honestly, I would think (nay hope) that anyone in the entertainment But for the life of me I can’t fault Joanna in “Kramer vs. Kramer” as much as I fault industry, theater or film or television, would have a basic understanding of Nicole in “Marriage Story.” For one, Nicole would have had the benefit of having such an important work centering around the Women’s Liberation watched “Kramer vs. Kramer” in her lifetime, especially if she grew up in Movement given the current state of the industry’s political and social Hollywood around actors. I mean, it’s Meryl Streep in her first Oscar-winning role climate. for crying out loud. But Nicole doesn’t seem to be very “up” on her pop culture references, or at the very least she has forgotten some (*cough* all) of them. In But as the saying goes, you can wish (hope) in one hand and… well, I’ll just “Kramer vs. Kramer”, Joanna leaves her son and her husband to go find herself. let you look up the rest of that saying on your own. Again, a stretch, but it does bare mentioning that in Noah Baumbach’s 1995 debut, “Kicking and Screaming” his main character Grover at one point looks over to his bookshelf and notices Heart of Darkness, the screen version of which was made into “Apocalypse Now” (1979) which lost Best Picture at the Academy Awards in its year to none other than “Kramer vs. Kramer." Both war films in their own right.

But who are these men fighting this war against? Society? Government? Technology? The Broads? All of them?

I think the latter is the obvious answer. Yet either way, although small in frame and short in stature, Noah Baumbach stands with his head held high yielding a shield and dagger, feathered hair blowing in the wind as he perfectly articulates on screen the feelings that this broad has toward other females in the entertainment industry right now – a little too “Marriage Story” – Henry is going through a “Mommy phase.” much barking from dogs that don’t have the bite.

Granted, “Kramer vs. Kramer” is told almost exclusively from the male Because for all of the ad nauseum complaints I have heard over and over and over for the perspective as we see nothing of Joanna’s time in California, but it’s not last seven years, for all of the hashtags and the “fight the patriarchy” cries out into virtual without its admission of guilt and acceptance of responsibility in the matter. reality, I have yet to see a female filmmaker tackle a love, marriage, or divorce story quite Sure, Ted Kramer is furious with his wife for leaving him and his son high and as beautifully as the picture Noah Baumbach has painted over the last twenty-five years dry to fend for themselves… but he’s not without learning the error of his of his career. ways and how he took his wife and his marriage for granted in pursuit of personal success. And in this artform of self-expression with visual images (*NOT* just storytelling), I have to kind of look at the big picture and wonder, ladies, how have you not gotten the Why, if there was no admission of guilt at all, “Kramer vs. Kramer” wouldn’t message? even exist in the first place, let alone have won Best Picture (although this critic simply must argue that in the grand scheme of things, “All That Jazz” Either way, no matter how you slice it, hindsight is 2020 (sorry 20/20) and when I look was by far the better film that year). And not only do the men acknowledge back at “Marriage Story”, I cannot help but fall in love with this intricately blocked and their faults in “Kramer vs. Kramer,” but Joanna is forgiven. She is forgiven by comprehensively cohesive tale of love and loss without thinking, “boy… Noah Baumbach Ted; she is forgiven by the courts. Even though she has continually proven is a very funny guy.” herself to be unstable and unreliable, the law still lands on her side. PARASITE (2019) Written by Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han Directed by Bong Joon Ho Most likely I was still prickly from its Cannes Palme d’Or win over “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” and the pseudo-Italian in me likes to hold grudges. But from the minute the film was over, and the credits rolled, I didn’t hesitate for one breath to say to myself, “oh. I get it now. That was just fantastic.”

To put things in complete perspective – not once in a film year, ever in my thirty-two years of life, have I felt compelled to write about film. I certainly wasn’t rushing to pontificate about the great cinematic achievement that was “Green Book” (2018), that’s for damn sure.

“Parasite” however? “Parasite” got me off of my ass. And I’m what some funny men might call kind of a tubby gal, too, so that act in and of itself is none too small a feet (feat?) feat.

In a year filled with tour-de-force showings from such masters and trailblazers of original, independent cinema as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, frankly, I didn’t even know that anyone could make a movie this good anymore. As if on cue, PARASITE (2019) enter Bong Joon Ho. dir. Bong Joon Ho I’ve often said this to friends and family members when discussing the hype I wasn’t unaware of Bong Joon Ho when “Parasite” came around; I had known of behind four-time Academy Award winner (including Best Picture) of 2019, “Snowpiercer” (2014) from my international film sales days and even took in a “Parasite” – if there were a basket, and sitting inside of that basket were the showing of “Okja” on 35MM at The New Beverly when Netflix procured a special movies “Psycho” and “The Shining”, a person could take “Parasite” and place it celluloid print across the Fourth of July holiday in 2017. In fact, to this day, and since inside of that basket along with those two other genre-defining classics and that screening in 2017, if you are to stumble into the New Beverly and want to Bong Joon-ho’s metaphorical symphony would nest itself comfortably, and partake in one of their very tasty vegan hot dogs, the faux-sausages are lovingly without question of its right to live there. named “Okja Dogs” (I’ve had one on many an occasion as they are particularly delicious with the right amount of mustard and a side of Topo Chico.) Without question. In my opinion, without even batting an eye. So, again, when the squabbling and snarky comments started brewing about the lack I’m not sure why it took me so long to see “Parasite”; I didn’t get around to it of female director nominees and diversity this year, I couldn’t help but curl my nose until about a month before the Oscars ceremony in February 2020, long after it and shake my head thinking to myself, “you ladies aren’t actually watching the had already been in theaters. movies.” They’re certainly not keeping up on what’s hip, that’s for sure. Everyone from the ticket takers, to the popcorn poppers, to upper-level management From the first opening line of dialogue uttered by the fantastic Choi Woo Shik in knows my face at The New Beverly, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Alma Ha’rel or a career-defining role as the loyal son Ki-woo, the phone and the economic Lulu Wang walking around there. Such a shame, there are always such wonderful business model that have come with it is a silent enemy: “We’re screwed. No tributes to female filmmakers of the past and present (a Greta Gerwig/Sofia Coppola more free wifi.” double feature was one of my favorite screenings in all of January 2020 and is the subject of one of the essays in this collection). Let’s just say that, going forward, if you The Kim family is unemployed – all four of them. Their phones have been shut aren’t hip to what’s cool at the New Bev, I truly don’t think I can appreciate your off and now the lady who lives upstairs has put a password on the last free wifi films. For the record. hot spot that could be used as their only lifeline connection to the outside world. In fact, the mother Chung-sook is awaiting a response back for a gig from Because “Parasite” takes place today. Like “Marriage Story”, “Parasite” takes place a company called Pizza Generation, only able to contact them through the exactly in the world we are living in right this very second. And again, like “Marriage popular messaging service WhatsApp. I mean, logically, how else are they Story”, the beautiful haunting score of the picture hooks you in right from the supposed to find a job? Everything today (both in the United States as I expect opening notes - although we have Jong Jae Il tapping on a piano for “Parasite” instead it is in South Korea) requires you to apply online. Is Pizza Generation supposed of the melodious trumpet from the opening of “Marriage Story." Sometimes I feel to call the landline or send over a messenger to their basement apartment to both of these films were made just for me, but that’s just my heart exploding with tell her she got the job? I can’t imagine anyone putting in that much effort happiness talking. toward hiring a part-time minimum-wage employee in this day and age.

The opening shot of “Parasite” is the same as it’s closing shot: staring out of the semi- I love this film. basement apartment window shared by the Kims and their two adult children. Immediately this is a four-quadrant film. There is a mother, a daughter, a father and a son – it is incredibly easy to find a character to relate to, so it is hard to lose your place. In most films that have been released in the last ten years, any time I see a smartphone screen on film, I immediately recoil. Something about it has always felt gross and disconnected from reality to me even though it is an accurate reflection of the time we live in. But in almost every film where one of those brightly lit Pop Tarts of misinformation appears, the phone is used as a phone and neither the characters on screen nor the filmmakers behind the camera have any commentary on its presence other than that of a phone. In nearly every other present-day-set film, having a smartphone is just seen as part of this acceptable new way of life.

Not in “Parasite." “Parasite” – The Kims try to earn a living. Luckily the patriarch and beating heart of the film, Kim Ki-taek (Mr. Kim, I’ll call him While the family of four sits on the floor of their semi-basement and plow through the job and played by the incredible Song Kang Ho), awakes from his midday “I’m of folding boxes, an extermination crew outside starts fumigating the area which finds its unemployed and there doesn’t seem to be a glimmer of hope in sight” nap to help way through the open window of the Kims’ apartment. Mr. Kim instructs them to keep the solve the no wi-fi problem plaguing the family on this day. He snacks his way around window open so as to receive a free solution to their current stink bug problem, and while some moldy bread while giving some of the greatest twenty-first century “Dad the rest of the family suffers to breathe through the toxic fumes, Mr. Kim soldiers on, Logic” that I have ever seen on screen: suggesting to his son that in order to obtain plowing through the pile of pizza boxes as fast as he can, emulating the woman in the a new wi-fi signal he must hold the phone up high and stick it in every corner of the video. house. A part of me can’t help but flashback to 2002 when I first saw “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and giggled at the father who uses Windex to cure his every ill. Again, much like “Marriage Story”, “Parasite” is a very funny film and I have no problem Something about Dad Logic just tugs at my heartstrings, it’s all too true. declaring Bong Joon Ho a very funny guy even though I do not speak a lick of Korean. The subtitles are written in perfectly decipherable English and I say that not in any way The Kims finally snag a wifi signal from their for-some-reason walk-up toilet, they surprised that the film was interpreted well, but in that it was interpreted perfectly, flowing are able to check WhatsApp, and are subsequently given an assignment folding a with such seamless prose that syncs up both the eyes and the ears even though the large order of takeout boxes for Pizza Generation. Like any modern lower-class language spoken is one I am not familiar with. “Parasite” is such a mastery of twenty-first century young adult, Ki-woo emerges from the bathroom (not having communication and a quantum leap in the universal language of film I, again, cannot help washed his hands) proclaiming he has found a video on YouTube showing a woman but get a little upset at how the directors were treated in the press upon the who has developed a technique to fold the boxes at light speed. announcement of all-male nominees. Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. “Parasite” would have kicked everybody’s butts in the Best Picture pool no matter the gender of the filmmaker. Can we all instead just be friends and talk about the fact that “Parasite” exists? That sounds like a much more fun conversation that I would like to have then attempting to cancel human beings from existence, which alarming spoiler alert: is not a real, achievable thing you can do.

Anyways. One of the best bits of layered humor in “Parasite” comes right during that opening sequence after the family have finished folding the boxes. When the manager of Pizza Generation comes to collect, she docks the family ten percent of their pay because a quarter of the boxes were folded incorrectly, and they will have to be redone. That in and of itself on first viewing would not be considered overly funny, but after the Pizza Generation manager says the line “one in four are rejects”, you notice the mother Chung- sook look back at her husband who awkwardly turns away, too ashamed to hold her gaze. At this point, those with a keen eye and still intact sense of humor start to smile and shake their head. “Parasite” – The Kim children get a signal. Bong Joon Ho is a very funny guy.

Because as the rest of the film plays on you begin to notice that Mr. Kim is, well, kind of the screw-up of the family. Both Ki-woo and Ki-jung (their daughter played perfectly by the lovely and wickedly talented Park So Dam) are capable in ability but undermotivated in life and Chung-sook, the mother, is actually an Olympic silver medalist in the hammer throw. It is Mr. Kim, in fact, that is a bit of the odd duck. He’s had a million jobs, it doesn’t look like he’s ever kept any of them long, he manages to keep his family surviving but barely and all this would be more upsetting if it didn’t appear that given his misgivings, he does a very good job of being a proud father and husband. It is all a little bit endearing in fact. It is what it is (che succhese succhese), and so long as they have food in their bellies, a roof over their heads and a couple of beers on the table, who is he to complain about anything more? Dad Logic strikes again. “Parasite” – Mrs. Park has no talent for housework. I’m not going to go on describing the film in much greater detail than this, because you, the reader, should be tasked with watching this film for yourself. I hope you’re not reading this Mostly because I was getting paid wages so low, they were nearly illegal, which book hoping to find critical reviews about films that you may or may not enjoy. Frankly, I would have be fine were it not that I was working for people who, in knowledge of don’t really care if you enjoy them or not, although if you don’t we will have a hard time the creative process, were pretty unwise. It would be like if someone worked in a being friends. No, this book exists because the films of 2019 were a cultural event and butcher shop and the cashier at the front desk made twenty-five times as much absolutely not a single soul in the world of digital or paper publishing has noticed. I find money as the other people working in the store - without any knowledge or ability this slightly terrifying, but hey, what else can I do but prod along? Make Hollywood Watch of how to slaughter the cow and cut it up in the first place. Add on top of that, the Movies Again. I guess that’s my motto. cashier is a vegan and doesn’t know how to tell good meat from bad meat, but he’s tall and wears flashy suits, so you’re going to buy from him no matter what. I’ve worked for two millionaires in my life. Both in independent film, neither of them creative. One is still a moderately famous very high up indie film executive and the other is The reason I bring this up is because the Park family for whom the Kims become a wish he was more famous out of the game international sales consultant. Both lived in employed in “Parasite” are not just millionaires, they are most likely low-level and around Beverly Hills, both had insanely opulent houses, and both knew absolutely billionaires. Modern day, low-level, tech billionaires. And just like my two bosses nothing about film. Film history, film trivia, film grammar, film language, the creative who managed to make oodles and oodles of cash with very little if no substance process, they didn’t know the first lick of any of it. They knew people and they knew behind their work, the Parks are kind of dumb. Nathan Park is the CEO of an numbers and they knew how to read charts (or I guess look at charts) and dress fancy and augmented reality company, which in all my research to see what that means, I still eat really expensive meals and drive flashy cars and wear suits and eat healthy. But neither struggle to understand what it is let alone see the necessity of its existence. Is this one of them, both now in their early/late 60’s, knew the first fucking thing about movies. It the guy who invented “Pokemon Go”? Because I remember when that game was always bothered me. released, and subsequently would see children blindly wandering into the streets. The millionaires that I worked for were also incredibly gullible. I never stole from them or copied any of their private information, but they freely gave me their private information… all of it.

I had spreadsheets filled with the social security numbers of both them and their wives, and their children, all just handed to me day one so that I could take care of their personal family business on company time.

For the executive who is still to this day a moderately famous executive, when I took over the role of his assistant, there had originally been two assistants in my role, but they downsized to one and dumped the responsibilities of both positions on to me while paying me five thousand dollars less than the person who had had the role prior to my taking it. “Parasite” – The Parks make a shocking discovery. Then on day one he gave me access to all of his personal and financial information and Once again, these rich people are pretty dumb. had me run his life twenty-four hours a day. Oh, and he fired me without severance seven months later for failing to book him a haircut. It’s not that the Parks are bad people, they aren’t. I just don’t know what kind of morals or values they have outside of acquiring wealth and That guy… should be really glad… that I don’t steal. maintaining their social image. Although no angels themselves by any means, the Kims are a family who are loyal to one another, stay together, But to me, and now several years removed from that position, it all but too true points to and have fun together although they spend their days wallowing in debt. the brutal honesty that lies in “Parasite” – perhaps the people profiting the most from The Parks are rather separate, kept inside of an enormous concrete house the Digital Age… aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the box. Is Nathan Park a genius? Or and occupying their time trying to achieve the highest levels of has he built an image of success with a company that, literally, distracts people from advancement and education. their immediate physical reality with bright flashing lights? What’s funny is that in the larger, global, public eye, Nathan is probably advertised as a genius (for building an The Park children, Da-hye and Da-song are made busy with tutors to get into expensive box that essentially does nothing), however the only acknowledgement of good university and art schools, however Da-hye would rather spend her genius that comes in the film is that of the nine year-old boy, Da-song – who actually time kissing boys and Da-song is much more partial to playing out his Indian does prove himself capable of the title with his heightened levels of creative intuition. war fantasies. Nevertheless, their dutiful mother must make sure they have the best… which actually turns out to be a family of frauds. Bong Joon Ho is a pretty funny guy. I made the mistake of watching Bong’s directorial feature debut with the intent The mythology surrounding Min in “Parasite” is moderately similar to the mythology of comparing it to “Parasite,” but it contains some disturbing imagery surrounding Min in “Barking Dogs Never Bite” in that in both films he is a college surrounding dogs that I now wish I had never seen. Additionally, it depicts a student and an English tutor who leaves South Korea in order to study abroad. From man regularly slaughtering and cooking up dogs for human consumption, so I how he is talked about by others in both films, one must assume that the character guess now we have to cancel Bong Joon Ho for having once in his life and mythology of Min is quite important to the Bong Joon Ho cinematic universe as propagated imagery which conjures up negative stereotypes of his own a whole. nationality. Although I’m certain I’ve done things in my life he would be sure to frown upon, so who am I to really judge or speculate. Either way, I’d like to share I guess what I’m trying to say to the women and others who bemoaned a lack of a brandy with him one day and discuss. female nominees this past year is, “are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite?” In the same way certain notes of familiarity sprinkle Noah Baumbach’s first feature film, so too does Bong Joon Ho’s “Barking Dogs Never Bite” (2000) give The point here is that “Parasite” is a symphony of language that I feel blessed to us a glimpse as to what would later turn out to be a nineteen-year plan to have experienced in my lifetime. On the night of the Oscars, I spent nearly the last completely dominate the Hollywood news headlines. Two characters that are bit of money I had for the rest of the month in order to rent the cheapest hotel mentioned in “Barking Dogs Never Bite” later appear in “Parasite” in the forms room I could as close to the ceremony as possible. And although I did so fully with of Min and Ki-jung. the intention of cheering on “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood,” the fact of the matter is that I was in Hollywood, right down the street from the Kodak Theatre, on the night that “Parasite” won Best Picture. I’m not even mad about it. Additionally, I don’t think I have seen a movie which has left me in such utter amazement of its shocking turn and suspense since “The Sixth Sense” in 1999. “Parasite” gave me something I hadn’t seen in twenty years, and for that, it certainly deserves all of the accolades it received.

Either way I think it’s hilarious that those tech billionaires are just so fucking dumb.

Bong Joon Ho is a very funny guy.

“Barking Dogs Never Bite” (2000, dir. Bong Joon Ho) THE IRISHMAN (2019) Written by Steve Zaillian Directed by Martin Scorsese This essay is based on a true story. Hollywood, 2020 His face, his voice, his accent, his conviction, everything about it is all wrong and further points to the tremendous flaws that exist within the now-deteriorating international sales model of independent film. The fact that Mighty Marty Scorsese even had to pre- sell his film at Cannes with a superhero actor attached as the lead points to a glaringly obvious fact that very, very, very few people in the film industry actually know anything about the history or basic principles of filmmaking right now. Hey, has anyone ever seen “They Live!” (1988)? My assumption is: probably not.

Martin Scorsese wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award until 1982. His directorial debut, the independent dramedy “Who’s That Knocking at My Door?” was released in 1967 and although he was at the forefront of groundbreaking and critically acclaimed cinema in the seventies with “Mean Streets” (1973) and “Taxi Driver” (1976), it wasn’t until 1981’s “Raging Bull” that Marty was finally acknowledged by his peers for his groundbreaking work. And that was just the nomination. He wouldn’t even go on to win THE IRISHMAN (2019) the Best Director prize until twenty-five years later with the 2006 South Boston gangster dir. Martin Scorsese drama “The Departed”, and by that time Scorsese had directed around twenty or so As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a director. And because I am a different major motion pictures with his work continually adored by both fans and critics nice person, I must preface this next chapter with a warning: the following contains and a combination of box offices successes, failures, and iconic landmarks in the world some pretty savage stuff. So, if you are easily offended, quick to outrage, and simply of film history. Even still, with a pretty decent batting average and a nail-on-the-head cannot handle the truth, well, go ahead and read it anyways because the following quality for making films that stick with you long after you leave the cinema, it took are all things you need to hear. In case you have any further questions, please just Marty almost forty years to finally walk away with that Oscar statue for Best Director. go ahead and remind yourself what the title of this book is. Alright, ready? You have been warned. Which made me all the more annoyed this past Oscar season when the nonstop chatter circulating around the internet, critics, and – shockingly – filmmakers who should know Here we go… better, focused on headlines lamenting that two-time moving-picture-maker Lulu Wang In case anyone is wondering why they haven’t really heard or seen from Andrew had not been in the running for a Best Director Oscar. Garfield in a while, I am 94.1% certain it is because he absolutely ruined and destroyed the 2016 Martin Scorsese Christianity-themed epic “Silence” and most …what?! likely Joe Pesci has since had him whacked. I don’t know if he was wiped out from shooting Mel Gibson’s 2016 war drama, “Hacksaw Ridge” (a good film that I I’ll get to “The Farewell” farther down in this collection, but safe to say, the months of enjoyed), but either way just in the first five minutes of Garfield having to share a November 2019 through early February 2020 were so agitating and disturbing to me on screen with the fantastically dedicated Adam Driver in Scorsese’s “Silence,” I know the whole that I found myself attempting to check into a mental health facility after it that this guy should probably hedge his bets and settle for signing Spider-Man was all done (truth). “Doesn’t anyone remember history?” I keep saying to myself. autographs at convention halls for the next ten years. Seriously, this all feels like living in a horror movie… doesn’t it? Because for all of the twittering (yes I know that isn’t the word) and hashtaggery (barf) and cries for the Academy to pay attention to smaller films, the fact of the matter is that we wouldn’t have small films today if it wasn’t for guys like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. And while Lulu Wang, and Alma Ha’rel, and Ava DuVernay, and Issa Rae might not know that… Noah Baumbach and Bong Joon Ho and Todd Philips and Sam Mendes and Greta Gerwig certainly do. So, yeah, thanks to the Loud Ladies of Twitter Club for making us all look stupid. It is endlessly irritating to a fellow filmmaker, who actually knows who the good guys are in history, as she attempts to make her mark in this industry among all of the nonsensical screechy bullshit. Perhaps it is the people holding the small screens so close to their face who should look up at the big screen every once in a while, and actually pay attention to what is going on. And while they’re at it, they can keep their opinions to themselves just a little bit longer than instantaneously reacting to it on a global public “The Irishman” – I like ice cream, too. scale. But that’s just me and my functioning brain cells talking. It is currently April 24th. I first saw “The Irishman” at the Laemmle theater in Claremont with a couple of my comedy buddies. Given my knowledge that Martin Scorsese at one point had I love Martin Scorsese. He is a man who must, he is a man who does, he is a man who considered and pursued a life of priesthood, I treated the release of his new epic thinks and ponders and considers the point of view of every person he comes into contact historical gangster drama, reuniting him with Robert DeNiro after a twenty-four- with as he enters any situation with love in his heart. I can’t think of a single interview or year hiatus, as a religious experience. The two spaced out chuckleheads I saw the roundtable discussion he has been in where he isn’t the most gracious and agreeable film with sat down, pulled out their phones and proceeded to tell as many hacky human being in the room. And he makes pretty scary films. Noah Baumbach recently did a dick jokes as they could while scrolling through social media before the lights went lecture where he compared the opening scene of “Goodfellas” to the opening scene of down. Truffaut’s 1962 film “Jules et Jim,” and although I couldn’t really see the connection, it made me all the more appreciate the expert craftsmanship in the world of filmmaking that These two knuckleheads are a couple of my closest friends, but I honestly got up Scorsese has honed over the years, with so many others attempting to replicate his success. from my seat and sat about four rows in front of them because I couldn’t take the lack of focus and disrespect. This was a goddang Martin Scorsese gangster movie Can I just stop for a second and talk about how much I hate knock-off films? Seriously, if I for crying out loud. He hasn’t made one of those in fourteen years… doesn’t had a dime for every hack filmmaker out there who has tried to replicate the voice-over anyone have any concept of time and historical importance anymore? Or are we narration, laid back style of Martin Scorsese, then I wouldn’t be living with my parents right trained to think that what is trendy is fact like we are all a bunch of sixteen-year- now. I sometimes can’t believe these movies even get made. Frankly, if independent old VSCO* girls? This version of the world is so dumb. Thanks, Steve Jobs. studios with financing funds would just save the money they waste away on producing low- budget, rip-off, wannabe Scorsese/Tarantino schlock and just let Marty and Q decide where But back in the Claremont theater, I remember vividly that before the picture the money goes instead, I promise you, we would all be a lot more happy and a lot less started, an image of a very gaunt Christian Bale in “Ford v. Ferrari” flashed on the broke. Seriously, the fact that Martin Scorsese doesn’t have a board chair at any of the screen with a trivia box that stated he had lost about fifty pounds for his role in studios is completely beyond me but also not surprising considering how ignorant I know that film. the current indie studio heads are from up-close personal experience (see: “Parasite.") *I actually like the idea of VSCO girls, so keep it up and stay cool, ladies. I, an admittedly lazy fat ass, said at reading this information something along the Which made me all the more enraged this Oscars season when I watched The Hollywood lines of, “well that feels like a little bit of overkill,” at which point immediately Reporter Directors Roundtable discussion and who is sitting there at the table but hashtag next to me (this is true I am not joking) an elderly couple both tripped and fell Lulu Wang. Look, I have nothing against the woman personally and I am going to review “The ass over tit down the aisle of the movie theater spilling popcorn into the air and Farewell” later on in this collection, but honestly, she was sitting at a table where she didn’t over themselves as they went tumbling down the stairs. It was quite a sight. The belong. The woman even openly admitted that she doesn’t know what her voice sounds like husband landed on his head, legs over his body and back twisted in what looked as a filmmaker, at which point I had to turn off the interview because my blood began boiling like the most uncomfortable yoga pose known to man, while his wife lay so much that I had to listen to a full album by The Five Satins in order to calm down. I’m completely sprawled out beside him, face buried in the floor. sorry, and I don’t mean to pick on just one person, but if you don’t know your voice as a filmmaker, what business do you have making films let alone sitting at a table with Martin They had to have been in their late sixties or early seventies, so of course Scorsese? everyone in the theater was concerned. I immediately sprinted out of my seat to go get someone from management and explained that while it didn’t look like Because the voice in “Lady Bird” (2017) comes across clear as day and I have no qualms they needed an ambulance, someone should probably fill out an incident report whatsoever with Greta Gerwig sitting at that table. Greta, you can stay. Let’s be friends. or something. Long story short, the elderly couple turned out to be fine and the theater gave them a free new popcorn, a couple of Cokes, and tickets to another Has Lulu Wang even seen “Goodfellas” and by that, I mean has she really sat down and show. I also learned at that moment never to question an artist’s dedication to watched “Goodfellas”? Like, watched it watched it studied it watched it, not just had it on in their craft. the background while she live-tweets a product review for her brand-new Alexa. Also, who is giving her money to make films when she, in front of her peers, is openly admitting that she has no idea what she is doing? Voice is quite possibly the most important element in all of filmmaking, as the medium itself (once again, Janelle Monae) is about expressing yourself with visual imagery. How can you express yourself when you don’t even know what your voice sounds like? On top of that, this woman is all business, no intuition, and comes across as not having an ounce of love in her heart.

She tries to “twitter-splain” to Martin Scorsese the business of appealing to internet streamers as “building your brand.” Lulu Wang mentions this multiple times, the importance of building your brand, and I couldn’t help but stop and think to myself, “okay did she see ‘Parasite’, either?” I know she did, but I don’t think she really got it. I certainly don’t think she got the part about the tech billionaires being the biggest dummies in the room. And what’s funny enough is that when she received her Final Draft New Voice Award (wait, but she doesn’t know her voice,) she said that she had been influenced by the films of Bong Joon Ho, who had presented her with the award, making it all the more delightful when Bong Joon Ho won his (completely and totally well-deserved) Academy Award for Best Director and thanked “The Irishman” – Russell tries to get along with Peggy. one of his biggest inspirations, Martin Scorsese. I HEARD At another point during this roundtable interview, Prince Funny Guy Noah Baumbach makes a joke that there should be a “Kundun”-themed amusement park ride to which Marty jokes back that he’d rather see a “Bringing Out the Dead”-themed ride. The two men share a chuckle as the joke obviously flies over Lulu Wang’s head.

So in case anyone out there is wondering, or there are any angry Nicoles launching tweets disgusted at my treatment of Lulu Wang, please remember this: just because you have a lot of followers on social media or because journalists like to write about your noble, uneducated “cause”, it doesn’t mean you know fuck all anything about the art of filmmaking and maybe just be grateful you even get to play the game instead of ignorantly complaining about your lack of acknowledgement.

Because there are effing thousands, if not millions, of starving and struggling artists out there who are more dedicated to their craft than they are to their public image Headline #1 – This is what Variety said. and who would give their left ovary to even have someone read their freaking I wouldn’t be raging so hard about this except for the fact that Ms. Wang spends screenplay let alone have the honor of being considered to be in the running for a the entire roundtable discussion staring cold, hard daggers at Scorsese because I major award. am certain in her mind, she sees him as nothing more than just another privileged white male (what?!) And her energy leans much more closely towards that of an angry power-hungry marketing executive than that of an artist. And frankly, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to listen to an angry marketing executive.

I mean, just because you like Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” doesn’t mean you wrote the song, am I right?

This is I think what has bothered me the most about the last six or seven years in the film industry. These new voices keep telling the old voices how things are and how they should be with completely vacant looks on their faces because they know absolutely nothing about the history of the iconic and legendary human being they are talking about in the first place. And I am saying that as a thirty-two- year-old, half-Hispanic, legally disabled, millennial woman. The internet is fucking Headline #2 – Deadline’s front-page story the morning after the dumb and let’s be honest, the true global pandemic of the last ten years has been announcement of the 2020 Academy Awards nominations. digital amnesia, which is currently affecting about 5.5 billion people worldwide. YOU LIKE ICE CREAM I am pretty much the most broke person that I know, and I still throw a semi-fake award show every year for my comedy friends. I heard a rumor that my most recent awards show (which turned out amazing) was almost the victim of a social media boycott being launched by a brand-new, one-year-in, female comic who was angry that she hadn’t been nominated for an award. And she is a grown adult single woman with a child. This is how she chooses to spend her time and energy. Remember boys and girls, don’t be a Nicole. Alright, Lulu, I’ll take it easy on you now, let’s call truce, okay? Psyche! Just kidding. I’m not effing done.

Not even close.

Because for anybody out there who isn’t a total effing moron, “Kundun” is a 1997 Martin Scorsese epic based on the life of the fourteenth Dalai Llama that stars mostly all Tibetan actors, doesn’t have a single commercial star in it, and was shot on location mainly in Morocco. It was written by Melissa Mathison, who wrote “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) and who suggested that Scorsese be the one to direct the movie. It was shot on a budget of $28 million, but only pulled in $5.6 million at the worldwide box office.

Headline #4 – The Hollywood Reporter with their take on the negative headlines. Pictured: Todd Phillips (“Joker”), Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”) and who the hell chose such an angry picture of Nick Jerome? Not Pictured: Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”), winner of the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Academy Award, who also happens to be from South Korea. Oh yeah, and he’s a man. Like that matters. Also not pictured: Your mom. Headline #3 – Vanity Fair joins in on the disrespectful shade brigade. Martin Scorsese doesn’t need a brand; he has a fucking voice. Will you just watch “Goodfellas” again already? Jesus H. Last Temptation of Christ, I am really sick of you women making the rest of us all look so bad, every single one of you (except Greta Gerwig) owes me a bottle of Tylenol. And although I haven’t seen “Kundun” in its entirety (it is not available on any streaming services and can only be purchased on Blu-Ray – although I now see there is a pirated copy on YouTube - bah), I still knew of its existence and I still know better then to ask fucking Martin Scorsese dumb ass questions on his opinions of branding in film. Think I’m done? NOPE! Because at another point during this “who the fuck set this up?” Hollywood Reporter Roundtable discussion where she absolutely should not have been invited to sit down in the first place, little miss marketing executive with a camera in her hand Lulu Wang turns to renowned and beloved filmmaker Fernando Meirelles, whose epic crime drama “City of Gods” (2002) has repeatedly popped up on numerous “Greatest Films of All Time” lists, and asks him how big was the bankability of his actors when making the film. Which sounds like the exact kind of question a fucking marketing executive would ask. Bankability? …what?! You’re sitting at a table with freaking Martin Scorsese and Fernando Meirelles and you are Headline #5 – Hollywood Reporter doesn’t know how to get a good picture asking a question about bankability… for what turned out to be a fucking Netflix film?? of Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese together on the same page. Newsflash, honey, bankability means next to diddly squat in a Netflix film because (effing Bong Joon Ho, sure enough, looks very cute. duh), there is no bank. There are no tickets sold, there are no butts in seats. Fernando Meirelles isn’t thinking about the bankability of his actors, he is just casting great actors. So for everyone out there who was yelling and screaming about the need for more diversity and the absolute atrocity that there were all-male director nominees and Meirelles’ film, “The Two Popes” stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. Has she seen mostly white ones (I mean, really, Italian isn’t the same as white) nominated for the “Silence of the Lambs” (1991)? Has she seen “Brazil” (1985)? Does she even know who Golden Globes and Academy Awards for 2019, just remember that twenty-three Jonathan Demme or Terry Gilliam are? I bet you if I was having a conversation with Lulu effing years ago, before a lot of you were even born and while the rest of you were Wang, I could tell her that she should call Jonathan Demme and ask him what the swooning over Leo (Leo!) in “Titanic” (1997), Marty Effing Get-It-Done Scorsese was bankability of his actors were on “The Truth About Charlie” (2002) and she would smile, actively bringing stories of worldwide cultural significance to American audiences nod, make a note in her phone and respond with something along the lines of, “sure, I’ll call without for a second thinking that he would ever make money off of it and I am him this week.” And if you don’t understand why that’s odd, or why I would even bring that quite certain that at the time he was mainly focused on expressing himself with up, it’s because Jonathan Demme died in 2017, God rest his soul, so if you had to ask the visual images, making the American film market feel more global, and not at all question in the first place its because you don’t know what in the hell you are actually thinking for a single moment about building a fucking brand. talking about online. Then after I have trolled Lulu Wang with my Jonathan Demme question, I would ask Alright, I’m done. “The Irishman.” Here we go: her what film “The Truth About Charlie” was based off of, and I don’t trust that she “The Irishman” is fucking great. Probably one of my favorite Martin Scorsese films of all would know the answer to that question, either. And then I would ask her to call the time, although I am a little partial to “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” the opening director of that film and ask him about the bankability of James Coburn or George C. sequence of which never ceases to blow me away. I, admittedly, wasn’t the biggest fan of Scott, and then when her brain is fried and she can’t think anymore and she has Scorsese in my high school Blockbuster years, but I was young, and simple, and I don’t made another note in her phone to call the director of “Charade” (1963) and ask think I had awoken to the rhythmic tapping sounds of the real world just yet. I remember him about the bankability of his actors, I would stare her dead in the eyes and say to in March 2016, during the two-month stretch where I was partially living in my car while her, “Stanley Donen effing died last year, who the hell gave you money to make a commuting between Temecula, Costa Mesa, Pomona and Los Angeles to make a whole film.” Seriously, once again, I absolutely have to ask – what in the fucking fuck was $200/week, there had been a double feature playing at the New Beverly of Martin Lulu Wang doing at that Directors Roundtable? Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” (1976) along with the 1973 Michael Campus film “The Mack”, and To put it simply – this marketing executive with a camera and the rest of her band of I was more than eager to turn up. Here’s the kicker: “The Mack” played first and for angry female Nicoles are the fucking Andrew Garfield of the 2019-2020 Oscar whatever reason, I don’t really remember why, I didn’t stay for “Taxi Driver.” In looking season. They straight up ruined the entire experience with their unfocused work back at how my life was at the time, I was probably just exhausted, but that’s not really a ethic and lack of conviction which made it incredibly difficult and damn near good excuse. I kind of have this curse when it comes to Marty films, I really do. I think this impossible to look at absolutely anything else. man is an absolute genius, and undoubtedly, one of the most important filmmakers of not only his generation, but of all-time, yet whenever I have to sit down and give him my Now pardon me while I go eat my raccoon-flavored dinner that has been so lovingly full attention, something always seems to get between us. It’s an odd, oft-recurring prepared for me. Woof. phenomenon in my life and I really truly can’t explain it. I mean, I’ve seen “Taxi Driver” and I love “Taxi Driver,” just so we’re all clear, but gravity always seems to pull me in another direction. What was I talking about? Oh right, “The Irishman.” I fucking loved “The Irishman.” But finally, here’s another bit of information that I can only pray puts a smile on some of you angry Twitter ladies’ faces: “Parasite” won Best Picture at this most recent Academy Awards, where Bong Joon Ho specifically thanked, and said he was inspired by, the films of Martin Scorsese. “Parasite” had also won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier that year for 2019. The last film (and only one of three films in all of history) to achieve this feet – feat! – was, wait, are you ready for this? The film “Marty” in 1955. Now someone bring me an ice cream sundae, because this little gal just thinks that’s “The Irishman” – Peggy gets a treat. sweet. ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD (2019) Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino

I mean, let’s just imagine for a second, he had picked one of the other Sexiest Men Alive to do that scene. Could they do it as cool as Brad does? Do they fit in this universe? Because back when Brad was given that crown it was typically more when the prize went to actual actors and movie stars, not just popular men on social media. Although granted, early on in the naming we had such recipients as Mark Harmon and Harry Hamlin, which feels kind of funny in retrospect just from a “those guys… really?” perspective. But perhaps in thirty years we will be looking back at John Legend and Blake Shelton with as much hoke as the mid-eighties feel like they have now. Viva la Nineties!

Brad Pitt. On a freaking roof. And if that isn’t enough to make the thirteen-year-old in me squeal with delight this movie also has Leo (Leo!) DiCaprio giving one of the greatest and most subtle comedic performances of both his career and the last decade. I mean, he plays five or six different characters all with such reckless abandon and perfect comedic timing that I keep having to remind myself that Leonardo DiCaprio has pretty much always been an exclusively dramatic actor, and this is really a fresh new way to see him. And as handsome and as perfect and cartoonish and grizzly ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD (2019) as he gets, I still for the life of me have a hard time thinking about anything other than dir. Quentin Tarantino Brad Pitt’s chest. Without a doubt, my favorite part of Quentin Tarantino’s glitzy and glorious “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” is the part where Brad Pitt takes his shirt off. I look I guess there are other things in this film to talk about besides the hair on Brad’s forward to it, I wait for it with eager anticipation, I bite my lips a little bit as he perfectly sculpted torso (present, but not too much of it) so please pardon me while I springs like a kangaroo/monkey/parkour-master up a wall and onto the roof where struggle to think of something else. he makes sure he has all of his tools, including a beer and a cigarette, before stripping off that Champion t-shirt in the hot sun for all of us ladies who lived Alright fine, I’m kidding. This movie is damn near perfect. From the opening “Bounty through the nineties and still like our men masculine to go, “oh yeah.” (Said like Law” segment to the delightful but haunting music playing over the end titles (“Ms. the Kool-Aid man, in case you can’t read my tone.) Lily Langtry – cue from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean”), every single frame of this picture breaths with life and heart that no known filmmaker of the millennial I mean, let’s be honest: it’s perfect. Tanned, toned, being put to good use. Hell, generation has been able to replicate. This just leads me further to believe that there The Sexiest Man Alive of 1995 and 2000 is doing household chores without a shirt is something odd going on in the world. I mean, there is a Scorsese for baby boomers on. Thank you, Mr. Tarantino? I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this, but and a Tarantino for Gen-X, how is it no millennial filmmaker has emerged from the please, if I can ever do anything to return the favor, whatever you wish is my depths of obscurity to blow us all away with some brand-new idea about the world? I command (within reason, I know how you are). guess Cahiers du Cinema did come first. “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” explores the yesteryear of Hollywood with such delightful precision, an endless smattering of Easter eggs, and multiple cross dimensional film references, that one could probably build an entire semester course on the study of just this one film alone. To date, I believe I have viewed it about twenty-five times, and I have yet to find a single flaw.

That’s not to say Tarantino himself isn’t flawless; in my most recent attempt to watch “Hollywood 9” (as it should be known amongst anyone who wants to start some kind of speakeasy down-low lingo), I decided to put the film on mute and sync up Leo & Brad to the other soundtracks of Tarantino films. I got a full forty-six minutes into the film, completely hypnotized, until I ran into a song called “Magic Carpet Ride” by Bedlam on the “Reservoir Dogs” (1992) soundtrack. “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” – Brad Pitt takes his shirt off. Imagine this: being in complete and total heaven and bliss for a full forty-six minutes and then suddenly someone pulls out a mallet and a chainsaw and begins systematically Additional side note, Michael Madsen is so crazy beautiful in this movie I can’t hacking at the delicate nerve endings surrounding your eardrums. That is how I feel about stand it. This guy’s eyes! I die. the “Magic Carpet Ride” cover by Bedlam (what?!) that appears on the “Reservoir Dogs” soundtrack. Frankly, I couldn’t go on any further. Not only did this song ruin the entire Alright, I found it. Bedlam’s “Magic Carpet Ride” appears in “Reservoir Dogs” experience that up until that minute had been utterly delightful and perfect, it actually when Mr. Orange is telling his pre-rehearsed drug deal story to Mr. White and made me stop what I was doing and rework my sync up strategy completely. Because that Joe Cabot inside of a nightclub. The timing of the song as it appears in the film song came on at the exact same moment where Cliff Booth meets up with Bruce Lee, and fits perfectly within the world that has been created, but outside of that, when this odd, out of place, ear scraping remake of what in reality is a near-perfect Steppenwolf the song is listened to in its entirety, it physically causes me pain. I’m not sure song feels very out of place for a Quentin Tarantino song choice. why they had to go with a Bedlam cover instead of the real thing, maybe the “so low Steve Buscemi has to wear jeans” budget couldn’t support a license from In virtually every other song on any Tarantino film soundtrack, you can feel Tarantino actual Steppenwolf themselves. But either way this one effing song messed up himself DJ’ing the hits for your soul, but I honestly have no idea where this lame, screechy, the entire experience I had put together in my attempt to sync up “Once Upon a Bedlam cover came from, and I am now going to be forced to watch “Reservoir Dogs” to Time in… Hollywood” (“Hollywood 9” for you cool cats) with the other popular see where this song pops up in order to analyze this further. Back in a bit. soundtracks of Quentin Tarantino films.

Quick interjection – I once read a while ago that “Reservoir Dogs” was made for such a low I have since corrected this error and reconstructed a new playlist without this budget that the actors had to provide their own clothes and Steve Buscemi is actually distracting mistake; I have included a link to retrieve it from Spotify at the end of wearing black jeans instead of proper suit pants. I can now, with that knowledge, not this essay. I took out the other Bedlam song that appears on the “Reservoir watch this film and think anything other than, “Steve Buscemi is wearing jeans.” Dogs” soundtrack as well. You’re welcome. I have to take a second to clarify what I mean by “the meat of the story” because I’m not just talking about Brad Pitt’s hunky body on a roof top glistening in the California sun (okay, I’ll stop!) Technically Cliff’s first spoken words in the film occur in the opening epilogue when we the audience catch a glimpse of Rick and Cliff in their hey-day – Heyday! - talking to a Hollywood reporter about their western series “Bounty Law.”

In the opening sequence of “Marriage Story,” when Adam Driver’s Charlie is narrating the things he loves about his soon-to-be-backstabbing ex-wife Nicole, he mentions that it is not easy for her to “put away a sock, or close a cabinet, or do a dish, but she tries for me.”

To which I have to politely rebuke, “no she doesn’t!”

Immediately after Charlie recites this line, you see him bang his head against a wide-open “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” – Brad Pitt on a roof with no shirt on. cabinet door. This after he is seen vigorously picking up bras and socks that, for some reason, have been strewn about the living room furniture. Once again, Nicole does not try But anyways, getting back to the film at hand. Brad Pitt takes his shirt off and I at all, most mysteriously of all when it comes to her marriage - the one commitment she don’t really remember much about it other than that. had previously sworn a lifelong vow to uphold. For whatever reason, most obviously, she still loves Charlie but feels completely and utterly compelled to cancel him from her life. I’m kidding… sort of. I’ve been trying to keep it kind of a secret until now, but the delightful pleasure that comes with analyzing the films of 2019 is that, to the well- Ugh, Noah Baumbach is so fucking funny. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah! trained eye, a majority of the films are connected. I’ll repeat that – a majority of “Hollywood 9." Getting back to that in three, two, one… action! the awards-season films of 2019 directed by those all male nominees that Twitter and the trade headlines have repeatedly shit all over are all actually connected in In many ways Rick and Cliff are the far superior “married” couple in any of the Best Picture theme. Got it? Cool. I can say with 100% certainty that my four favorite films of the nominees of 2019. Sure, Frank Sheeran loves his “Reenie” in “The Irishman” and Christian year – “Marriage Story," “Parasite," “The Irishman," and “Once Upon a Time in… Bale’s wife in “Ford v. Ferrari” is pretty cool; but even then the heart of that film is way Hollywood” (not in that order, calm down boys) are undoubtedly connected in more centered around the relationship between Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, not Ken many different, and I will attempt to prove, deliberate ways. Miles and his wife. We only see Laura Dern and Bob Odenkirk on-screen together briefly in “Little Women," but the men in that film are much too benevolent for my taste, and I’m In the same way that the theme of “Marriage Story” circles around Scarlett not so sure that the casting of that couple together was entirely spot-on, but I’ll talk more Johannson’s character not bothering to try working on herself at all in her about Greta Gerwig’s sophomore feature later on in this collection. If anything, Amy and marriage, by comparison, Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth represents exactly the opposite in Laurie are the better married match in that flick, but they’re just a little too young to really the “relationship” he has with counterpart Rick Dalton. In fact, Cliff’s first and last qualify for the race. spoken words in the meat of the story are, “I try.” If there did have to be some kind of Celebrity Death Match battle for best on-screen couple of the 2019 Best Picture nominees, it would have to be Rick and Cliff vs. Chung- sook and Mr. Kim of “Parasite." Now that is a couple who are for sure each other’s true love.

There is an interesting moment from the 1956 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, “Carousel” where Shirley Jones’ daughter is struck by the ghost of her father (bear with me, this is real stuff) and runs to her mother, concerned (as I would be too if I had just been bitch-slapped by a fucking ghost). However earlier in the film, Shirley Jones herself is struck by her (at that time still living) husband moderately violently, but she immediately recovers and stays with him in spite of this attack. At the end of the film, after Shirley Jones’ daughter is slapped across the face by her ghost/angel of a father (true story), she asks her mother if it is possible for someone to hit you and for it “not to hurt at all.” To which Shirley Jones replies that yes, it is possible for someone to hit you and for it not to “Carousel” (1956, dir. Henry King) hurt at all. Anyways, a pivotal moment in “Parasite” occurs right at the tipping point of the film, just when you as an audience member have been led into a completely I have been a regular at the Tarantino-owned New Beverly repertory theater for a little false sense of security that this family of charlatans might just get away with over five years now, and there was once another regular who unfortunately passed away their scheme, that we see the true nature of Mr. Kim and Chung-sook’s not too long ago by the name of Freddie Gillette. Freddie was a very sweet man, once the relationship. It is the scene where the Kim family is drinking in the Park family’s driver for Orson Welles, who was endlessly proud of the theater and always sat in the living room and Chung-sook oh-so ominously prophesizes that if the Park family same spot: the very back row in the seat closest to the concessions line. Never, not once, were to return just then that Mr. Kim would scatter and hide like a cockroach. did I ever see Freddie sit in any other seat, and since his passing it has been odd seeing Angry at being compared to an insect, Mr. Kim suddenly loses his temper, others occupy the space as I almost always want to rudely say to them, “hey that’s thrashes the glass bottles decorating the tabletop to the floor and grabs his wife Freddie’s seat.” Either way, sometime in 2015, before “The Hateful Eight” was released by the collar of her shirt as if he is going to strike her right then and there. The even, I was waiting in line to buy popcorn and happened to be standing right next to reactions from their children are stunned and drunkenly confused, but Chung- Freddie’s seat. Without prompt and out of nowhere he turned to me and loudly said, “you sook, in a moment of what should be vulnerability, holds her gaze deadlocked know, Quentin Tarantino owns this theater!” I, having been on my 35MM drip for about into Mr. Kim’s eyes as though she is staring directly into his soul. nine months at that point, was well aware but still smiled at him and glanced down at a box he was holding in his lap. A beat passes, then a few seconds more, and then suddenly both Chung-sook and Mr. Kim break out into hysterical laughter, still looking in each other’s eyes. It was a VHS copy of “Carousel.” True story. Mr. Kim softens his grip and turns to his kids, asking if they thought it looked real. He was never going to hurt his wife, and if he had, it would have been the last Brandy! Cliff’s loyal pitbull. Don’t worry Rick Dalton fans, he does end up with the very move he ever made (Chung-sook is kind of scary). But from the look of it even if beautiful and scrappy Francesca, so he will be just fine. But having said that, the two he had taken it a step further, Chung-sook would know that such an action characters most in love and devoted to each other in all of 2019 were by far Cliff Booth would, in reality, not hurt at all. and his trusty dog Brandy. She saves his life, for crying out loud, and even dutifully watches over Rick’s new Italian wife while her master goes out for drinks with his To me, this is true love. Argue if you want, I’ll write another book about it all buddy. What a gal she is. sometime in the future. This one seems to be going well so far. Brandy sure does love Cliff. Sure, he treats her like a dog, but, and I’m trying to say this Either way, the question we are trying to answer here is – who is the cutest without it sounding odd or creepy, Brandy is a really sexy dog. Her muscle tone and couple of 2019? Is it The Kims? Is it Rick and Cliff? Rick and Cliff have a very build and gait are just attractive in a pleasing-to-the-eye kind of a way. I’m not saying successful working relationship that has resulted in continued employment for I’m attracted to the dog by any kind of nefarious means, but you have to admit, that the both of them for approximately nine years. Of course, they get to benefit dog has the kind of attitude most men are looking for in a woman. Loyal, loving, low from the opportunity of working in a climate outside of the dumb as rocks maintenance. Digital Age, so I guess that’s not really a fair comparison to the Kims at the end of the day. If Brandy opened her own charm school, I’d be sure to sign up.

Although the Kims do love and are loyal to each other, I would have to say that Either way, Rick and Cliff are truly a dynamic duo for the ages as “Hollywood 9” is a film Esmarelda’s Cutest Couple of 2019 Award has to go to Cliff and… that gets larger over time. Released in an era abnormally dominated by the same mind- numbing comic book hero franchises where twenty different A-list actors are all shoved onto the same poster desperately fighting each other for space, “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” succeeds by pairing together two of the biggest (and most eye- catching) male stars of their generation in a dual performance not seen onscreen since Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (hey that came out in 1969!)

But for all that their relationship does to make up the plot of the film, Rick and Cliff do not actually spend too much time on screen together. The majority of the events that take place in “Hollywood 9” occur on February 9, 1969, which I have always found entertaining given the fact that the 2020 Academy Awards ceremony landed on February 9, 2020. If Rick Dalton was a real-life figure, would he be a member of the Academy and would he be sitting at home watching the awards while reminiscing about that “Lancer” pilot he had shot fifty-one years to the day earlier? They even “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” – Brandy + Cliff 4evr both landed on a Sunday. Huh. For as much as I’ve talked about how funny Noah Baumbach and Bong Joon Ho I, a fucking professional, find this quality in people at the highest-level of all things are, it must be mentioned that at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, it was “Once annoying. For example: I like cheese. And because I like cheese, I eat a lot of cheese (even Upon a Time in… Hollywood” which won Best Comedy (and QT walking away though I shouldn’t), I would even go so far as to say I’ve sampled quite a few different kinds with Best Screenplay, to boot). Which means that, in the grand scheme of high- of cheese, but I would never in good conscience challenge a dairy farmer to a debate on level artistic endeavors, for the record and to the delight of none more certainly how much he knows about his own industry. Just because I am a fan of Sargento’s than himself, Quentin Tarantino is the reigning Top Dog King Funny Guy of Shredded Mexican Blend and often use it in making quesadillas does not mean for one Hollywood for the rest of 2020. You hear that, Mark Harmon? Although I must second that I actually know jack shit anything about how that cheese got made. admit I am a big fan of “Summer School” (1987) so I can’t throw too much shade his way. When I was recently watching Prince Funny Guy Noah Baumbach’s I’m pretty sure it is grated… is it by hand? I don’t know. Do I know who designed that directorial debut “Kicking and Screaming” earlier this week for research, I came borderline genius Ziploc packaging? Nope. Do I know who the first person to import French across an actor who looked very familiar but, for the life of me, I could not place. cheese into the United States was? Let me check… uhhhhhh, no. So if I were to meet a A quick search on the IMDb, revealed that the actor in question was Dean person who claimed to be a well-trained expert in the field of all things cheese, I don’t Cameron, none other than Francis “Chainsaw” Gremp from the 1987 Mark think I would for one second think to myself, “I bet I know more about cheese than he Harmon comedy classic, “Summer School.” does.” Yet I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered a new person who has never worked in the entertainment industry and explained to them that I am an I could do this all day. With some breaks and food and actual in person male independent researcher in the field of cinematic studies only to have them not only attention, but I digress. attempt to test my knowledge, but also assert they think they might be a bigger fan than myself because they have a blog or a podcast where they talk about movies. Did I mention Brad Pitt takes his shirt off in this movie? Seriously, Twitter, what the hell is your problem.

I was talking to my dad earlier today (yesterday?) and when I was explaining to him all of the complex intricacies involved in the many deep cinematic references embedded in “Hollywood 9," he looked up from his comic book trading cards to explain to me that lots of times in a film, one director will make a “nod” to another film. Now, my dad is big comic book fan. And I mean huge. He has a 40-year collection of comic books and trading cards that he regularly sells online. When I often drift my way into his workroom to annoy him with my film theories, he regularly gives me the time of day which I love and adore, but still to this day, after five years of my annoying him with my theories, he cannot write any of the connections I see down as anything other than a mere coincidence. “Summer School” (1987, dir. Carl Reiner) – Mark Harmon with dog and no shirt on. Okay, did you do that? Are you ready? Because this next part is pretty important. See, here’s the thing:

Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino are the two highest living authorities in the entire field of film studies. Period.

They encompass the roles of writer, director, actor, producer, preservationist and in the case of Tarantino, exhibitor. Martin Scorsese is the founder of The Film Foundation, The World Cinema Project, and The African Film Heritage Project. While I am certain that there are many knowledgeable film critics and historians out there, the fact of the matter is that none of them are also creating films that are as simultaneously critically acclaimed and financially successful as the films of Quentin Tarantino & Martin Scorsese. Pictured: A Royale with Cheese. It usually goes something like this: To put it simply, Marty & Q raise the cows, harvest the milk, pasteurize the curds, design the packaging, grate the cheese (by hand?) and even put on a big smile as ESMARELDA they sell it to the public who look down at the packaging and ask them, “are you sure “I study films.” you know what you’re doing?”

MOVIE FAN Even more interesting is that I am pretty sure not many people in the world, let “Oh yeah? I bet I’m a bigger movie fan than you.” alone whatever this idiotic tech-based nonsense is that we call Hollywood nowadays, remembers the year 2014. If anyone reading this book can name one significant ESMARELDA world event that happened in the year 2014 including any popular or culturally “Really? What’s your favorite film?” significant film or music piece off the top of their head, I would be eternally impressed. But, either way, in 2014 Kodak had made the decision to discontinue the MOVIE FAN production of celluloid film, the news of which sparked the top directors of the “Star Wars.” nation to rally together in an effort to ensure its survival. These included Scorsese, Tarantino, J.J. Abrams, Christopher Nolan and future attempted-saboteur Judd Let me be clear, if you are reading this and you were on the Marvel side of the Apatow. argument back when Martin Scorsese got in to hot water a few months ago for suggesting that superhero movies are not cinema, just put the book down for a Now I bet right about now you are asking yourself, “okay… but what does this have second and compose yourself before reading further. to do with the 2019 films being connected?” I’m getting there. Because not only was “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” shot on 35MM, but so was “Little Women” (Greta, I adore you), and “Marriage Story” and both of those films were screened at The New Beverly in 35MM prior to the Academy Awards ceremony in January 2020. Not only that, “The Irishman” was shot primarily on 35MM. Which means that in this age of dumb as rocks digital domination, four out of nine films that were nominated for Best Picture this year were shot on actual celluloid film. These filmmakers have literally brought back an artform that was teetering on the brink of extinction, yet you all (by that I meat the press, Twitter, and about fifteen hundred too many unfunny female comics) couldn’t stop talking about the fact that fucking J.Lo didn’t get a nomination for “Hustlers” (2019).

I’ll keep going: “Uncut Gems” (the Safdie-brothers directed and Adam Sandler starring indie flick which also garnered a lot of attention this awards season) was shot on 35MM. And to top it all off, what other film was shot on 35MM? “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” directed by none other than J.J. Abrams, one of the original filmmakers fighting to keep celluloid film from dying out completely all the way back in 2014. So if you don’t think any of this is connected and all of these elite filmmakers (who are mostly all friends, by the way save for hashtag Judd Apatow) aren’t silently working together towards a total singular Cause, then you, possibly a working (maybe not) entertainment professional have spent very little to no time at all at The New Beverly over the last six years. And while the Egyptian, the Downtown Independent, and the handful of other theaters that screen films on, well, film are doing their part to keep the medium alive, fact of the matter is that The New Beverly is owned by Quentin Tarantino who not only programs the films himself, he now, from original idea generator to writer, director, The January 2020 Calendar at The New Beverly. producer, programmer and finally, exhibitor, is pretty much the only guy in the whole town who can run the entire operation from A to Zed’s dead, baby. There is no Tarantino without Scorsese. And before Scorsese there was Cassavetes and right around the same time as Cassavetes there was Godard, Truffaut, and the Zed’s dead. rest of the French New Wave who, when frustrated by the dumbed-down bubblegum fare produced en masse by the studios, began their own school of film criticism and But please, let’s all instead weep for J.Lo as she cries herself to sleep on her pile of eventual film movement (an actual movement, not just a freaking pound sign before hundreds of millions of dollars because we all know that’s the real travesty that a string of words mashed together). I hope you are paying attention because what’s occurred here this season. I mean she’s engaged to fucking A. Rod for crying out loud. about to come next is very, very, very important. Okay, try to keep up (ketchup?) keep She’s fine. Maybe if she spent a little less time making perfumes and a little more time up. working on her craft, there would have been some room to squeeze her in. Because the first film Harvey Keitel ever appeared in was also the first feature film Here we go: Martin Scorsese ever directed - the 1967 indie comedy/drama “Who’s That Knocking at My Door." In doing research, I decided to watch “Who’s That Knocking at My Door” and In “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” almost exactly at the 1:07:00 mark, the character found it very funny and ahead of its time, but ultimately could not be distracted from of Sharon Tate walks into a movie theater to see a showing of her film “The Wrecking the first few moments of the film when a very young (and incredibly handsome) Harvey Crew” starring Dean Martin. As she enters the theater, a trailer for the film “C.C. And Keitel is standing with a group of neighborhood hoodlums looking on as they Company” starring Joe Namath and Ann-Margret is playing on the screen. Anyone who shakedown a local boy for some owed scratch. It’s within those few moments of saw “Hollywood 9” at The New Beverly during its initial theatrical release would have studying Keitel (who has such a pensively smug look on his face, you feel for certain that been treated to an exclusive pre-show for the film which included this same trailer, he is up to something) that I found myself thinking “oh yeah, Harvey is also in Quentin’s played in full. first movie, too” and at the very second of my having that thought, in the film “Who’s That Knocking at My Door” all of a sudden the music kicks in and the song playing over the opening titles is… “Jenny Take a Ride” by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheelers. Now, here’s the kicker: “C.C. And Company” wasn’t released until October 14, 1970. Which means that historically speaking, the real Sharon Tate would have been (sadly) Let me put it this way: these guys are all in cahoots and this is the indication of a seed dead for over a year upon that film’s initial release. So why is it that Tarantino, a usual sprouting on a fifty-three-year-old idea (joke?) idea. Four out of nine of the Best Picture stickler for as close to historical accuracy as he can get, would include a trailer for a film nominees of 2019 were all shot on 35MM, an artform that Quentin Tarantino and other that, in reality, didn’t exist on the day that he is portraying it? Coincidence? I think not. elite filmmakers have been trying to revive for the last six years. Martin Scorsese has Because fact of the matter is that the trailer for “C.C. And Company” features the song been fighting for the preservation and restoration of classic and global films for the last “Jenny Take a Ride” by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheelers and is directed by thirty years. These are both men (sure straight, white, men, but really, who cares?), who Seymour Robbie which makes it all the more delightful given that the character of came from humble beginnings (Tarantino dropped out of school at the age of 13) and Sharon Tate is played by the angelic Margot Robbie (no relation), who you arguably who have fought, scraped, and dedicated everything single second of their lives toward want to see more of in this movie. one singular goal: making great films. If you don’t think that their dedication to the the preservation of analog film points toward a greater Post-Digital movement, then I really Flash to: “The Irishman” (2019, dir. Martin Scorsese). One of the secondary characters in don’t think you have been paying much attention to the movies. “The Irishman” is Angelo Bruno, really only ever appearing in a restaurant booth, and he is portrayed by Tarantino-regular Harvey Keitel, having appeared in four films written and/or directed by Tarantino including his feature directorial debut, “Reservoir Dogs” as Mr. White. But Keitel is not just a Tarantino regular, he is also a Scorsese regular (having appeared in five Scorsese films including his seminal early films), except Harvey Keitel and Martin Scorsese haven’t worked together on a film in over thirty years, the last having been 1988’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Yet here he is, all these years later, popping his head into Marty’s 2019 Jimmy Hoffa drama. Still think it’s a coincidence? Well I’m not done yet. “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” – She’s in the movie. And as if I needed any further proof that these two wild and crazy guys were cooking something up, “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” and “The Irishman” both star Al Pacino who, up until now, had never worked with either director. I also always found that Pacino’s character in “Hollywood 9” reminds me a little bit of Martin Scorsese, made all the more interesting when you realize that his character, Marvin Schwarz, (“Schwarrrz”) has the exact same initials.

I mean, at one point he even refers to himself as “Marvy.”

Films have been talking about “the end of the world” and “the end of time” and global disasters for the last forty plus years. So call me crazy, call me what you want, but if you don’t think that two of the most revered, loved, and respected living filmmakers who both started their independent film careers with Harvey Keitel, and who perhaps have the strongest individual and combined film history knowledge known to man, and who ended up on the same Oscar bill together right before a massive global pandemic might have seen the Threat of Corona virus coming from a mile away… then you probably should reread the interview they did for the DGA Quarterly magazine back in Fall 2019 and really think to yourself… isn’t this all just a little bit funny?

Instructions for Tarantino Cinematic Universe Playlist:

1. Purchase “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood” on a certified streaming platform (Vudu is my favorite, it’s like a digital Blockbuster). Anyone who illegally downloads this movie is going straight to hell. 2. Turn the volume off (not optional) on the movie and turn the closed captions on (optional). 3. Follow the link for the Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7gVGgdoauijAUmKc28QvTU?si=I44N4m K_QW-_EDs5jbNl7Q 4. Hit “play” on the movie and then “play” on the playlist as close together as you can. 5. Put your phone away, turn it off, even. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Q & M STAY TUNED…

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Look, I could write all day long about “The Irishman” but there are a million Life is about quality. Art is about quality. Film is about expressing yourself other film critics much better than I who can break down the subtle nuances with visual images and that requires endlessly more elements than just and technical achievements of this beautiful film in a more scholarly way than I storytelling. Anyone can tell a story, but very few can be a successful ever could, and you should really read those critiques. filmmaker, and that is what makes the endeavor so great.

I’ll be reviewing as many movies from the year 2019 as I can, and you will see The men nominated for Best Director this year weren’t nominated because more and more how a lot of these films thematically fit together to reflect the they were men. They were nominated because they are incredibly good at state of the world that we are living in and what the future might hold. What I their jobs and spend more time focused on producing the highest quality of am trying to get at here is this: there is and has been an awful lot of work that they can. In fact, by staying silent and leaving their opinions in uninformed, uneducated opinions flying around in the TwitterVerse and it is their work, they are doing an even better job of making the world a more making life harder and more difficult for female filmmakers, and I feel the beautiful place than they would were they out fighting a million social world, at the end of the day. battles.

If you are interested in film, study film. If you are interested in science, study There is so much we can learn from film and there is so much personal science. If you are interested in antiques, cars, history, all of that is great. Study growth to be had. But none of this can occur if you don’t try and if you don’t those things. Choose the things you love the most and dedicate your days watch the movies. toward discovering more about those things. Revolve your days around the things that you love. If you love politics, well, I can’t help you, that’s weird. You have to watch the movies.

So if you don’t love the film industry, if you don’t like sexy, beautiful images, if Because, let’s be honest, at this point, the things that are happening on the you don’t like hard work (which is different than working hard), and if you don’t big screen are a million times more interesting than what’s going on in the like creatively fighting for the things that you want (instead of litigiously or with small screen. And at this point, social media, just feels so very uncool. the media), please choose something else to do. This isn’t for you. COMING SOON: