ReportWire

Tag: steve buscemi

  • ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’ Review: John Turturro Mesmerizes as a Small-Time Hustler Facing Obsolescence in Fine-Grained Crime Thriller

    [ad_1]

    Rarely does an opening song choice so precisely define the mood of a film like LCD Soundsystem’s exquisitely tortured anthem “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down” over the opening frames of writer-director Noah Segan’s quiet knockout, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. James Murphy’s melancholy vocals capture the unlivable but unleavable push-pull of the city, wistfully looking back at its grubby past while lamenting the shiny soullessness and skyrocketing exclusivity of its present.

    Those sentiments seem to come directly from John Turturro as Harry Lehman, a nimble-fingered thief with a watchful gaze, always scoping a potential score on the streets or subways.

    The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

    The Bottom Line

    Contemplative, cool-headed and transfixing.

    Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
    Cast: John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Steve Buscemi, Lori Tan Chinn, Kelvin Han Yee, Karina Arroyave, John Gallagher Jr., Victoria Moroles, Jack Mulhern, Michael Hsu Rosen, Aida Turturro, Mark Cayne
    Director-screenwriter: Noah Segan

    1 hour 28 minutes

    The song also suggests the movie’s pervasive subtextual nostalgia for the analog past — felt by the small-time career criminal, but no less by an old-school detective being shoved aside to make way for the clever kids in the cyber unit, by a crusty pawn shop owner fencing stolen goods or a steely crime matriarch, taking care of business and adapting to the times, but not shy about admitting she misses the bad old days.

    Turturro is unshowy but magnificent in his best film role in years, an honorable hustler who still carries himself with dignity despite a lifetime of regrets and a world gradually leaving him behind. At least until he unwittingly targets the wrong mark and has to think and act fast to protect the people he cares about and secure his own sorrowful redemption.

    Harry could be described as a counterpart on the other side of the law from John Stone, the wearily disheveled attorney played by Turturro in HBO’s riveting limited series, The Night Of — even if Harry has a greater appreciation for good tailoring. What makes Segan’s movie so intoxicating, however, is not just the depth of its inside-and-out central character study but the granular textures of the world Harry inhabits and the incisively drawn secondary characters played by a deep bench of very fine and impeccably cast actors.

    Segan has clearly been paying attention during his long association with Rian Johnson, who first cast him in Brick and has found roles for him in pretty much everything since. He moved into directing with a segment of the 2019 horror anthology, Scare Package, following in 2022 with his first solo feature, the Shudder vampire flick Blood Relatives. Segan’s latest is a complete swerve into more nuanced genre territory and more complex storytelling, not to mention a singularly great New York movie. The hypnotic, patiently held closing shot alone will strike a chord with natives, transplants and ex-residents alike.

    The opening scene is a model of narrative economy. A well-heeled businessman (John Gallagher Jr.) applies a spritz of cologne, slips on his chunky Philippe Patek watch and exits his upscale apartment building, heading for the subway when no cabs materialize. All we see is a quick shot of peak-hour strap-hangers packed in tight, with Harry close behind the guy. Cut to the end of a lunch meeting, when the businessman reaches for his wallet and finds it gone.

    Harry obviously has been at this game since he was a young man, when more people carried thick wads of cash. Still, he scrapes by, offloading resaleable items through his old friend Ben (an endearingly spiky Steve Buscemi) and laughing off the suggestion of tech-savvy young scammer Eve (Victoria Moroles) that he should shift to online theft.

    While he’s not exactly Robin Hood, Harry is an oddly principled man considering how he makes his living. He believes in circulating his stolen dough where it matters — whether it’s a healthcare worker at the facility that looks after his nonverbal, disabled wife Rosie (Karina Arroyave) during the day; or a neighbor in their Bronx apartment building who looks in on her when she’s at home and Harry steps out to ply his trade.

    Turturro gives Harry a sad-eyed appearance offset by a frequently jokey manner. But it’s the thoughtfulness and resourcefulness of a man whose cerebral cogs are constantly turning that defines him.

    One of the most poignant aspects of his performance is the way his face is transformed by love and devotion when he’s with Rosie — gently brushing her hair; carrying her up multiple flights of stairs and then returning for her wheelchair when the elevator is out of order; cheerfully nattering away in one-sided conversations; or spinning “Native New Yorker” on vinyl and goofily dancing around the room serenading her.

    Things go wrong for Harry when he unwittingly steals from the swaggering young scion of a crime family, Dylan (punchy live-wire Will Price), lifting a gym bag from the kid’s car that contains a luxury watch, guns and a USB card loaded with a fortune in cryptocurrency. Harry has no idea what it is and nor does Ben, whose dinosaur desktop is about 500 upgrades short of the capability necessary to read the thing. Ben sends him to another fence in Chinatown (Kelvin Han Yee), who takes the USB and a few other items off Harry’s hands.

    Dylan and his posse are well-connected, so it takes them relatively little time to track down Harry using CCTV footage. Threatening to harm Rosie if he doesn’t deliver, Dylan gives Harry just a few hours to retrieve the USB and return it to him.

    Watching The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, you are reminded of how rarely we now get to see movies fully shot on locations in the city and how there really is no substitute for the real thing.

    Cinematographer Sam Levy, whose long string of credits includes Frances Ha, Lady Bird and His Three Daughters, captures the bodegas, the subway trains and platforms, the tenements, storefronts and bustling street life with crispness but also a slightly rough-hewn, unvarnished quality, heightening the kinship with gritty New York movies of the ‘70s.

    Harry’s against-the-clock quest to ensure Rosie’s safety takes him back to Chinatown and from there to Brooklyn. Segan’s tight plotting amplifies the necessity for anyone in Harry’s profession of being able to come up with solutions on the fly. One such instance is an amusing bit of improvisation in which he gets backup by greasing the palm of a panhandler played by Aida Turturro.

    There’s also a very moving interlude during which Harry, claiming to be “in the neighborhood,” goes to Queens to see his estranged daughter Kelly, beautifully played by Tatiana Maslany as a knot of wounded anger. It’s that strong scene, and Harry’s contrition, that plant the idea of him preparing to make his exit. The encounter with Kelly — which reverberates in a lovely moment later on — is made even more touching by the heavily embellished account of it he shares with Rosie.

    The ways in which Harry’s detective buddy Warren (Giancarlo Esposito in fine form), Ben, Eve and Billy (Mark Cayne), a young pickpocket who gets tips from the old-timer, all factor into the closing developments demonstrate that Segan has a real gift for intricate plotting, not to mention a deft hand at creating a satisfying ending rich in emotional shading.

    The final scenes also involve a drive across the river with an extended cameo from a major-name star, whose character and Harry — in a duologue loaded with revealing insights — seem to develop an understanding, despite circumstances that could hardly be more unfavorable.

    This is a remarkably layered and rewarding story, especially for a movie running less than 90 minutes; editor Hilda Rasula keeps the pace steady and the transitions fluid. A big assist comes from Gary Lionelli’s full-bodied score, with jazzy retro funk riffs that add excitement to the early scenes and more bluesy, somber sounds in the later action.

    Even before the Cole Porter standard “I Happen to Like New York” comes in over the closing shot, it’s clear this is a movie very close to born-and-bred New Yorker Segan’s heart. It’s an adoring tip of the hat to the city and to the vast canon of New York movies. And it’s a gift to the wonderful Turturro, another native son, who imbues his role with a lifetime of personal history, underplaying everything with the most delicate restraint.

    [ad_2]

    David Rooney

    Source link

  • Thing Comes to Wednesday Season 2’s Rescue

    [ad_1]

    While some would say that Lady Gaga “makes” season two of Wednesday (between her cameo and the song she provided for it, “The Dead Dance”), there’s no denying that what spared it from the problems of season one was none other than Thing. More specifically, the gradual unfurling of his (or “its”) backstory as it relates to a newly introduced character, Isaac Night (Owen Painter) a.k.a. Slurp. That latter nickname being what Pugsley Addams (Isaac Ordonez) gives to him after being the one responsible for reanimating his corpse in the wake of hearing a “ghost story,” of sorts,” about him on his first night at Nevermore Academy, joining Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) there for his inaugural year (which Wednesday is none too enthused about).

    As Ajax Petropolus (Georgie Farmer) recounts the tale of Isaac (in a very “submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society” kind of way), a ninety-second flashback sequence—that took Tim Burton and co. eight months to create—shows how the former Nevermore student went from being a “normal” human to a cold and ambitious mad scientist. The black and white flashback that illustrates this transition is one of the standout moments of the season, drawing easy comparisons to Burton’s earlier work, including Frankenweenie, Vincent and even The Nightmare Before Christmas. And, as Burton himself said of making the sequence, “We needed to pretend like I’m back in my student days and do it like I did it in the beginning.”

    So it is that the story of Isaac’s transformation from mere “mortal” (by Nevermore standards) into a boy with a clockwork heart (for he invents a heart-shaped mechanism to replace his real heart “so that his body could keep up with his dazzling mind”) leaves an indelible imprint not just on Pugsley, but also the viewer. As does the mention of how Isaac died while conducting yet another one of his diabolical experiments, electrocuted and ejected from the window of Iago Tower. At the end of the story, Ajax baits the youths of Caliban Hall with the mention that only the bravest have ventured out in the middle of the night to try and listen to the tick of his clockwork heart buried beneath the Skull Tree (this obviously having some very strong shades of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Telltale Heart”). So it is that Pugsley, feeling like a loser (and not in an “embracing it” sort of way à la Tame Impala and Beck) and wanting to prove himself in some way, predictably goes to the tree.

    Unfortunately, Wednesday isn’t one for paying much attention to her brother in general, let alone when she has her own additional problems to deal with—namely, trying to stop a premonition of her roommate (and, to her dismay, best friend) Enid Sinclair’s (Emma Myers) death. This unwanted vision occurring at the end of season two’s first episode, “Here We Woe Again.” Along with Pugsley going to the Skull Tree with a shovel. However, before he can do something stupid like dig up the grave, he does something even stupider by getting scared by a bat that flies out of one of the tree’s “eyes.”

    This shock causes him to fall and, in turn, shock the ground with his powers of electrokinesis. So it is that Isaac’s corpse is “miraculously” reanimated, albeit initially in zombie form, emerging almost instantaneously from beneath the ground. This sets a key “subplot” off for the rest of the season, with “Slurp” (as he’s initially branded by Pugsley) slowly but surely regaining his human form—thanks to the steady consumption of various people’s brains. Confiding only to his roommate, Eugene Ottinger (Moosa Mostafa), the secret of his new “best friend,” who he hides in a shed…chained up, of course.

    In “Call of the Woe,” the matter of Thing’s general neglect by the Addams family of late (including everyone forgetting his birthday like he’s Samantha Baker [Molly Ringwald] in Sixteen Candles) is brought up right away, with Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) commending Gomez (Luis Guzman) for being able to get an apparent masseuse named Stassa (Neri Zaccardelli) to rub him down, as it were. A small reconciliation for all the bullshit Thing constantly has to put up with. Including, in this particular episode, having to go along on a camping trip. The first one of its kind put on by Nevermore, courtesy of the overzealous new principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi). The replacement for the now disgraced Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), who manages to stick around for season two by conveniently becoming Wednesday’s new spirit guide. With “Call of the Woe” reverting to leaning into that Harry Potter/Hogwarts Academy aura it radiated so strongly in season one (along with some overt nods to Charmed, Gilmore Girls and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), it’s an obvious “filler episodes” with its most significant plot point being Slurp’s capture at the camp after he devours the brain of Ron Kruger (Anthony Michael Hall, once again playing a part that goes against his original dweeb typecasting, which Burton helped undo by making him the bully in Edward Scissorhands), a scoutmaster who leads the competition between his Phoenix Cadets and the Nevermore students after a double booking of the campsite leads them to “fight” for it.

    As the episode draws to a close, more cornball-ness takes hold as Wednesday delivers a voiceover that repurposes Robert Frost’s overused “The Road Not Taken” to say that she needs to keep investigating the goings-on at Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital, where Tyler Galpin a.k.a. the Hyde (Hunter Doohan) of season one is being held captive. And, now, as the end of this episode shows, so is his master, Marilyn Thornhill/Laurel Gates (Christina Ricci). Of course, her grand return is short-lived, with Tyler turning against her in the episode that follows, “If These Woes Could Talk,” which also acts as the “Part One” finale, ergo plenty of “scintillating” details at last revealed. Like the fact that Judi Spannagel (Heather Matarazzo, at last getting some deserved acting work), executive assistant to Dr. Rachael Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton), is the one behind a nefarious program called Lois—which, naturally, Wednesday had previously assumed to be a person.

    But no, it’s an acronym for Long-term Outcast Integration Study, a program started by Judi’s father, Augustus Stonehearst. The purpose of the experiments? To remove outcasts’ powers and reassign them to normies (this providing plenty of meta commentary on how “weirdness” is increasingly commodified—particularly since Burton’s 90s heyday, with Gap grafting grunge for its own products, and now, with Burton’s “style” itself being ripped by AI). Or, as Judi tells it to Wednesday and Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen), who “broke into” Willow Hill by doing his “insane” shtick, “[My father] loved outcasts. He wanted to be one. Imagine being able to extract their abilities and share it with normies.” Wednesday immediately cuts in, “You mean steal them and exploit them. This is a basement bargain attempt at Dr. Moreau.”

    But Judi does well to remind Wednesday that the experiment wasn’t an “attempt”—her father succeeded. For she then confesses that she was born a normie too, but now, thanks to Augustus’ work, she’s an Avian, therefore possessing the gift of being able to control birds. In this case, of course, opting to wield crows to do her evil bidding throughout the first four episodes, particularly one “lead” crow. Identifiable as the “red-eyed” or “one-eyed” crow. And while the unveiling of who the Avian really was might have been enough to sate the audience for now, there are those who still have lingering questions about who the red-eyed crow really is, because that part of the plot sort of just fell off. However, a through line that remains consistent—by becoming retroactively visible—is the way that Isaac and Thing are mysteriously “connected.” This first made slightly apparent at the end of “If These Woes Could Talk,” when, after everyone breaks out of the asylum, Isaac catches a glimpse of Thing amidst the chaos and casts it a look of simultaneous longing and recognition. One that the viewer doesn’t think much of, especially since it’s quickly broken by Isaac being shot multiple times (not that it has an effect on him).

    Still “at large” at the start of “Part Two” of the second season, “Hyde and Woe Seek,” other dangerous escapees include Tyler a.k.a. the Hyde and the woman we find out is his mother, Françoise Galpin (Frances O’Conner), formerly Françoise Night. As in, that’s right, Isaac’s sister. So it is that this macabre family reunion is an integral part of the episode, along with the reintroduction of Principal Weems as Wednesday’s new spirit guide (who first shows up while Wednesday is in a coma). Which means plenty of interjecting and needing to allow Wednesday a Dexter Morgan amount of time to respond to people since she’s so in her head talking to someone who isn’t there. At least not to others. All as she hatches yet another scheme designed to avert the premonition she had of Enid’s death. This time, it involves trying to become Tyler’s new master, now that Thornhill is dead (killed by none other than Tyler himself).

    Another key part of the story is anchored in Pilgrim World’s (yes, that throwback to Addams Family Values returns) Los Spooky Noches!, an expectedly appropriative “celebration” of Day of the Dead. It’s the site where Pugsley reunites with an increasingly human-looking Isaac, and chooses to set him free despite all the carnage he continues to leave in his wake. Something Gomez bears witness to, only to have Pugsley lie to him about not seeing the former “Slurp” anywhere. A lie that Pugsley confesses to in the Freaky Friday-inspired episode that follows, “Woe Thyself.” Needless to say, it’s Wednesday and Enid who end up swapping bodies, which is why the first scene is of a literally color-allergic Wednesday outfitted in pastels and makeup while dancing to the tune of Blackpink’s “Boombayah” before actually deigning to go out into the quad area so that everyone at Nevermore can see her like this. From the outset, it’s plain to see that Enid’s influence is somehow at play. Though it takes a bit longer for the viewer to find out that Lady Gaga—in the role of a now-dead ex-Nevermore teacher named Rosaline Rotwood—is responsible for Enid’s, let’s call it, pull over “Wednesday’s” choices.

    And while Wednesday and Enid deal with their Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lee Curtis issues, Thing decides to attend a support group held by the detached head that is Professor Orloff (Christopher Lloyd, who played Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values), called “Some of Your Parts,” a play on, what else, “the sum of your parts.” A phrase that comes up in a stirring speech he gives to the appendages in attendance, all of whom want to know from what body they originally came from. To this, Orloff says, “We may never know who we were attached to. You can’t see yourself as an appendage, but as a whole person, worthy of love and respect. We are more than just the sum of our parts. But sometimes, the parts are greater than the whole.”

    It’s a statement that, in many regards, applies to how Thing is the part that’s often greater than the whole of Wednesday. Serving as, for all intents and purposes, their family dog, it is his story that turns out to be the most jarring and compelling plot twist of all—that Isaac was the whole body he once belonged to. Of course, that unexpected revelation doesn’t arrive until the finale, “This Means Woe.” After the humiliation of Principal Dort that occurs in the previous episode, “Woe Me the Money,” wherein Wednesday’s grandmother, Hester (Joanna Lumley, looking a lot like Jane Fonda), also cruelly insults Gomez for having no “abilities,” deriding him as a useless normie.

    This is something Wednesday makes Hester pay for—literally—by the end of the fundraising gala (when Enid and Wednesday’s invisible stalker/groupie, Agnes DeMille [Evie Templeton], find their moment to engage in some choreo for “The Dead Dance”). That’s when Hester and Morticia both realize Dort made Bianca (Joy Sunday) siren them into doing things they otherwise wouldn’t have. In Hester’s case, donating her entire fortune (from being, what else, a mortuary mogul) to Nevermore and insisting no normies shall ever be allowed to attend again. Wednesday couldn’t agree less, changing her tune from the second episode, “The Devil You Woe,” when she condemns Judi for championing Fairburn’s book, Unlocking the Outcast Mind. Judi, as Dr. Fairburn’s assistant, is naturally sycophantic about it, prompting Wednesday to ask whether Dr. F is even an outcast. Judi says no, but what does that matter? Wednesday replies, “It’s like a vegetarian writing a book on cannibalism.” Just as it’s like Daria dressing up as Quinn, at times, to watch Wednesday’s emotions shine through so often in season two. Though, mercifully, not half as often as in season one, wherein that notorious kiss was shared between her and Tyler.

    Ortega seemed to understand (too late) that such behavior did not align with the character whatsoever, later reflecting, “Everything that Wednesday does, everything I had to play [in season one], did not make sense for her character at all. Her being in a love triangle? It made no sense.” Hence, the ousting of Percy Hynes White’s character, Xavier Thorpe, in season two. And besides, any residual traces of mawkishness (including the Freaky Friday conceit) are made forgivable by Thing’s incredible journey to understand “who” (not what) he is. Or, more precisely, who he comes from. And, just as any human discovering their true family origins, Thing comes to realize that maybe life really does boil down to nurture over nature. Or, from the Addams family’s perspective, un-nurture over nature.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Steve Buscemi Answers the Proust Questionnaire

    [ad_1]

    When and where were you happiest? Playing the Cowardly Lion in our fourth-grade production of The Wizard of Oz. Thank you, Mr. Riccobono.

    On what occasion do you lie? I never lie. I’m lying.

    What is your favorite journey? Mushrooms.

    Which living person do you most admire? Gabby Giffords. She’s a survivor of gun violence and a relentless champion of sensible gun safety measures.

    If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be? A tree in upstate New York or Prospect Park.

    What is your greatest extravagance? Fancy restaurants in fancy hotels.

    Which living person do you most despise? Not one person, but I do despise the intentions of all fascists and wannabe authoritarians.

    What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Being judgmental.

    What is the trait you most deplore in others? Narcissism.

    What is your most treasured possession? A handwritten note from Jimmy Stewart after I sent him a fan letter in 1984.

    What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? For many years, I thought I had lost that note or it was stolen. Every time I thought about it, I was miserable. I have it somewhere safe now. I think.

    What is your idea of perfect happiness? Being with family, friends, and loved ones.

    What is your greatest fear? Losing family, friends, and loved ones.

    Which words or phrases do you most overuse? No words or phrases, but I whistle incessantly.

    What is your greatest regret? Not learning another language.

    What is your current state of mind? Anxious, happy, anxious, content, happy, anxious, sad, confused, happy.

    If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Procrastinating. I saved answering this questionnaire until the very last minute.

    What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being a father.

    Which talent would you most like to have? Playing piano.

    Where would you like to live? A small village in the South of France.

    What is your favorite occupation? Firefighting.

    What do you most value in your friends? Being there for each other during good times and bad.

    Who are your favorite writers? Maggie Estep, Pema Chödrön, Raymond Carver, Jim Thompson.

    Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon.

    What is your favorite name? Karen.

    What is it that you most dislike? When the name Karen is kicked to the curb.

    [ad_2]

    Steve Buscemi

    Source link

  • I’d Like A Quiet Ride: Daddio

    I’d Like A Quiet Ride: Daddio

    [ad_1]

    Before even going into Daddio, the premise is already a hard sell. It’s just Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn talking for roughly one hour and forty minutes (or one hour, thirty-three if you exclude the credits). And yet, the script, written by Christy Hall, managed to make its way onto the Black List in 2017. Unsurprisingly, it was originally intended as a stage play, hence the minimalism and dialogue-heavy nature of it. But, being that a play usually has to be slightly more “bulletproof” with its dialogue, it’s a bit of a shock to see that the content of Daddio is so undeniably cringe. Not, as Hall, Johnson and Penn seemed to be hoping, “edgy” and “no holds barred.” In this case, some holds definitely ought to have been barred, starting with the unsavory gender cliches that both Johnson’s character, whose name is never revealed, and Clark, the driver played by Penn, embody.

    Perhaps just as vexing is that one keeps waiting (and hoping) for some theoretically inevitable twist that finds “Girlie” (this is how Johnson is referred to in the credits) upending everything that Clark thought he knew about life and women (and contempt for modern conveniences). Sort of the way Steve Buscemi’s 2007 film, Interview, did. In a similar fashion to Daddio, Interview also relies solely on the dialogue between a man and a woman of very different stature and in very different places in their lives, while also leaning mostly on one location: Katya’s (Sienna Miller) loft in Manhattan. The film was a remake of Theo van Gogh’s (yes, Vincent is his great-granduncle) 2003 movie of the same name, with Buscemi directing and starring in it, in addition co-writing the script with David Schechter. Like “Girlie” and Clark, Katya and Pierre (Buscemi) play what amounts to a game of verbal cat and mouse, with each person one-upping the other on “emotional sluttiness” as the movie unfolds.

    Hall likely thought that the context of a cab ride remains a totally plausible milieu in which someone might get overly confessional with a stranger. Even though, more than ever, no one wants to talk to their driver, least of all a female passenger forced to engage with a male “ferrier.” But, in having “Girlie” opt to take a yellow cab instead of using an app to call an Uber or a Lyft, etc., Hall seems to want to leave the impression that this woman is an “old soul.” Therefore, also willing to talk to an “old man” like Clark instead of totally disappearing into her phone. In fact, one of the first things Clark says to her is, “It’s nice you’re not on your phone. You don’t have to keep talking to me or nothing, but, just…nice. You, know? To see a human, not plugged in.” Here, it’s worth noting that a great many people do still relish the small talk interactions of the cab ride, along with small talk in other service-centric environments as well. Indeed, some are appalled at the idea that “quiet mode” a.k.a. “quiet ride” could even exist. That it only serves to make us all more isolated from one another and, consequently, even lonelier and more depressed. But then one looks to what a conversation between “Girlie” and Clark is like, and it’s enough to kill off all romanticism about the need for “interacting” with strangers.

    Something that “Girlie” appears rather deft at as she gives an obsequious laugh to Clark’s comment about her being off her phone and asks, “What’s your name?” When he tells her what it is, he doesn’t feel at all inclined to do the “human” thing and ask her what her own name is in response. Therefore, the namelessness of “Girlie,” despite the numerous opportunities presented where he could have asked for it, is one of many things about Daddio that makes it so inherently sexist. That a woman created the product, as usual, has nothing to do with the fact that it is a misogynistic one. Indeed, throughout the movie, rather than being repulsed by the type of man Clark is, “Girlie” only encourages him with her “coy looks” and reinforcing giggles.

    Clark’s overt chauvinism begins around the ten-minute mark of Daddio, when he tells “Girlie” that her “little outfit” gave her away in terms of being someone who actually lives in New York rather than someone who’s just visiting. Instead of being grossed out by that description, she titters and repeats, “My little outfit?” Clark then proceeds to rattle off the reasons why her outfit represents, ultimately, that she can “handle herself,” the supposed true mark of being a New Yorker (who can often never “handle themselves” anywhere else). For those wondering, at this point in the “narrative,” how the fuck it’s going to manage to drag on for a full movie-length amount of time, Hall presents the convenient obstacle of a standstill traffic jam around the twenty-one-minute mark. A.k.a. the proverbial “end of act one.” At which time, it starts to become clear that even 2004’s Taxi has more value when it comes to romanticizing cab rides.   

    With act two, Clark’s freak flag flies unchecked as he has the audacity to turn around (as “Girlie” is engaged in another gross text exchange with the older married man she’s having an affair with), slide open the partition and ask her, “Did you like getting tied up?” This in reference to a story she just told about her much older sister tying her up by her hands and legs and putting her in the empty bathtub when she was a kid. A means to teach her how to “escape” if she was ever kidnapped. Obviously, Clark is more turned on by than “sympathetic” to the story. Rather than shutting him down at this point, as she should have long ago, “Girlie” continues to invite Clark’s skeevy rhetoric by justifying the question with the answer, “I liked the challenge of getting free.”

    After enduring Clark’s “shrink bit” for a while though, there does come a point when “Girlie” finally has the presence of mind to say, “Go fuck yourself”—and it certainly took her long enough. Unfortunately, she opens the door, so to speak, to him again after he “apologizes” by saying, “I just like to push buttons.” Sounds like something his first wife, Madonna, might wield as an excuse. And yes, there’s a missed opportunity for playing one of her songs in the cab when Clark asks if “Girlie” wants to listen to the radio. To keep some aspect of the ride “quiet,” she opts to say no. And it goes without saying that there wasn’t enough money in the budget for “Papa Don’t Preach” (the lead single from the album Madonna actually dedicated to Penn, True Blue) to blast from the speakers—which, for “Girlie,” would have been far more emotionally soothing than indulging Clark for this fucking long. Or even the married man she keeps texting with, often revealing facial expressions that indicate how “icky” she feels at certain moments throughout the “conversation,” not least of which is when the married guy, saved in her phone as “L,” keeps insisting that he “needs her pink.” Needs her to get him off, etc., etc. Alas, she’s already busy getting Clark off on an emotional level in the cab.

    The car doesn’t start moving again until around the fifty-four-minute mark, which means thirty-three minutes have gone by wherein these two are as stationary as the plot and dialogue itself, the latter always dancing around the trope of “Girlie’s” “Daddy issues,” hence the reason why she’s with an older man who’s already taken. And yes, “Girlie” does get into it with Clark about her absentee father, and the fact that he never actually touched her as a child (you know, in the affectionate way, not the molester way).

    Far earlier than this point, a reasonable viewer might ask themselves: are there times when one is feeling this chatty with their driver? Apart from when one is a rich woman with a regular chauffeur? Sure, but this goes well-beyond the “TMI” level of believability. Granted, when straight women are in an especially vulnerable state, particularly over a dude, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for her to become confessional with another man—ideally, an “objective” stranger. Alas, the grotesqueness of their conversation would seemingly require a certain amount of drunkenness to be at play. Not least of which is the almost Woody Allen-meets-Jean-Luc Godard-esque exchange during which “Girlie” says to Clark, “If I told you that I was twenty-four or thirty-four, your opinion of me would drastically change.” He replies, “That’s not true.” She rebuffs, “For women, it is true. It is fuckin’ true. The moment we hit thirty, our value is cut in half.” Clark shrugs, “I mean, fine. Fuck it, it’s true.” He then “comforts” her by adding, “You really do look twenty-something, but by the way you talk all smart and shit, you know, if I wasn’t lookin’ I would guess you were fifty.” (Side note: Dakota Johnson is thirty-four.)

    Through all this supposed repartee (again, by more twentieth century standards of what would constitute that), a tension seems to keep building, but there is never any real release. Never any grand denouement that would make it worthwhile enough to, as a viewer, endure this very long cab ride. Not even the “revelatory” final piece of information that “Girlie” metes out to Clark.

    Worse still, “Girlie” is so “touched” by Clark’s toxic masculinity-based candor that she tips him five hundred dollars at the end of the ride. Of course, an Uber would have been much cheaper in every way, not to mention the prior-to-booking offer it gives to have a “quiet ride” and not deal with any chatty bullshit from fundamentally lonely men like Clark, a driver who, in the end, doesn’t make anyone feel all that nostalgic about the slow death of the yellow cab.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Fantasmas Takes Aim at the Ever Less Gradual Stamping Out of People Who Can’t (Or Won’t) “Prove Themselves” Digitally

    Fantasmas Takes Aim at the Ever Less Gradual Stamping Out of People Who Can’t (Or Won’t) “Prove Themselves” Digitally

    [ad_1]

    In the opening scene of Fantasmas’ first episode, “Cookies and Spaghetti,” Julio (Julio Torres) is having a nightmare about filling out an online application that asks, among other things, what his occupation is. In response, he simply fills in his name: Julio. (It’s a whole thing later on in the episode that his job is, quite simply, “being Julio.”) The screen automatically reacts to that in red capital letters that chide, “INVALID OCCUPATION.” When Julio then tries to fill out his address as “my water tower,” the screen also spits back, “ADDRESS NOT FOUND.” When he tries to submit the form, it immediately tells him, “REJECTED.” All the while, he’s been dressed in a Pierrot-meets-jester sort of ensemble topped with what amounts to a dunce hat. Every time he fills one of the questions out, he then tries to open a window that ends up not existing behind one of the curtains he pulls back. The symbolism is instantly obvious: Julio (and those like him) is being literally boxed out of society because they can’t quite fit into any specific, “prepopulated” box.

    That symbolism continues in Julio’s waking life, when he goes to Crayola to offer his consulting services. Accordingly, he tells the three suits in front of them they need to make a crayon that is clear. One of the suits responds, “But clear isn’t a color.” Julio counters, “If it isn’t a color, then what do you call this?… The space between us.” The same suit replies, “If a crayon is a clear wax and it leaves no discernible color behind, what’s the use?” Another suit chimes in, “It cannot be done! Why are you doing this? Why do you need this?” “It’s already done.” Julio then looks to his glass of water for backup to say, “Look at this glass of water over here. It’s defiantly clear. Some things aren’t one of the normal colors or play by the rules of the rainbow.” When the meeting is over and one of the suits walks him out, he tells Julio, “If we were to move forward with clear Crayola, what would we call it?” Julio responds, “Call it Fantasmas. It means ‘ghosts.’” Even that renders the executive confused as he then asks why it would be plural instead of singular. Julio has no answer that would satisfy such a “logical” mind. Thus, he pretends to go along with “Fantasma” as the title card for the show comes up and an “S” is then added to the end of the word after a momentary pause.

    And it is a pointed title, for a large core of the show speaks to how many people in this world are forced to become “ghosts” when they either can’t or simply refuse to bend to what society demands of them. This includes, at the top of the list, having a sizable paper trail that proves both your existence and your longstanding ability to pay for things. In the U.S., the one certainly can’t exist without the other. Something that Torres has grappled with not just when he was dealing with visa-oriented paperwork after graduating from college, but also as a result of his newfound success. For, even now, Torres resents the idea that you have to have a credit card in order to build the credit that helps prove your existence. As he told Indiewire, “I do not have a credit card, and have always had trouble [renting an apartment] because of it. That’s the impetus for the whole [storyline]. Although I made the money to have the kind of apartment that I was applying for, I was rejected, even though I was willing to basically pay a year’s rent upfront. They were like, ‘No, we went with an applicant who had,’ and I quote, ‘overqualified guarantors.’ Wink, they have really rich parents.” The automatic assumption, especially in New York, that those without a credit history or a lot of money can “just” get help from their parents is also addressed in Fantasmas.

    This moment arises when, Edwin (Bernardo Velasco), a food deliverer who can’t bring Julio’s order to him in a timely fashion because every form of transportation requires proof of existence (obvious shade at the updated version of the MTA’s MetroCard, OMNY, a “tap-and-go” system that requires a debit or credit card), ends up talking to Gina (Greta Titelman), another recurring character in the series. Having recently been dumped by her sugar daddy, Gina sits on a bench sobbing. Edwin, almost as desperate as she is, decides to ask her, of all people, to explain to him what proof of existence is, and how to get it.

    She shrugs, “You just go to the app, and you put in your social and your credit score—” Edwin tells her, “I don’t have that.” “Don’t have what?” “Any of that.” Gina then brightens, “Well, can you use your parents? You know, I had to use my parents’ address after Charles dumped me.” Edwin is confused about the suggestion, wondering, “What do my parents have to do with it?” After all, unlike many white folks, it doesn’t come as an automatic given that one can turn to their parents for financial support. Thus, Gina proves herself to be the very sort of cliché that gives white women a bad name. Even so, she explains the same thing to Edwin that Julio’s been told by his manager, of sorts, Vanesja (Martine)—who is technically just supposed be a performance artist performing as his manager. Which is: sometimes, “exceptions” are made if someone is, like, “a thing” a.k.a. famous enough. Here, too, Torres makes a commentary on how fame has become the sole pursuit of many people growing up (and even after they’re theoretically “grown”), without having an actual focus in mind. In other words, they don’t care what they’re famous for, they just want to be famous (even if it’s “famous for being famous”). After all, it makes you an “exception” to every rule.

    In real life, though, Torres hasn’t found that to be entirely true, also telling Indiewire of his post-fame apartment-renting experience, “It’s not about getting the money that you’re asking for, it’s about the kind of person that you’re renting to. You’re measuring people by not only how much money they have, but how long they’ve had that money for and how equipped they are to win this race. The idea that everyone’s born with a clean slate is false. And so, I was very interested in exploring that [in Fantasmas].”

    The show version of Julio’s ongoing struggles with finding an apartment (the one he’s currently in is slated to become a “General Mills Café and Residencies”) harken back to Lily Allen singing, “It’s just the bureaucrats who won’t give me a mortgage/It’s very funny ’cause I got your fuckin’ money/And I’m never gonna get it just ’cause of my bad credit/Oh well, I guess I mustn’t grumble/I suppose it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” This said on 2006’s “Everything’s Just Wonderful.” A phrase Julio has a harder and harder time telling himself as the walls start to more than just figuratively close in. Still, he remains defiant about not capitulating to getting his proof of existence card. No matter how “easy” it’s supposed to be. As he tells his usual cab driver, Chester (Tomas Matos), who also doesn’t have one, “I don’t have it because I don’t want it.” It’s become a matter of principle now, a way to say “fuck you” to a system that has never made it easy for him—or anyone like him—to get by.

    Even when he tries to eradicate himself as an actual body (in one of many acts of desperation related to not being able to find an apartment without proof of existence), Vicky (Sydnee Washington), the employee at New Solutions Incorporated, inquires with genuine shock, “How do you have an apartment? I mean, how do you take out a loan? They’re gonna be asking for it as soon as you’re on the subway.” Julio automatically tunes out these questions—so accustomed to dissociating in scenarios where he’s bombarded with stressful queries related to “getting real” and living a normie lifestyle—and focuses in on a commercial that’s playing on the TV in the background (it’s here that Denise the Toilet Dresser [Aidy Bryant] gets her moment to shine).

    The pressure that even casual strangers put on Julio to “get with it” and surrender to proof of existence (and everything that such a surrender actually entails) goes back to the aforementioned recurring dream. In it, Julio would have to leave the room (you know, the one with no windows in it) in order to get fresh air. The problem is, outside, it’s freezing cold, which is why everyone passing by is wearing an “unremarkable black puffer coat.” Julio can see that if he, too, wants to join the others in freshness, he would have to wear one of the same puffer coats. And there just so happens to be one within his grasp that literally has his name on it. All he has to do is walk out, take the jacket and put it on.

    But to put it on would mean becoming one of them. One of those “proof of existence” people. He sums up the dream by saying, “The only way I would be able to leave [the room] is by compromising somehow.” And this is the dilemma that every artistic person (or, also in Torres’ case, every U.S. immigrant) is faced with sooner or later. Often cropping up repeatedly if they never succeed in finding a way to dodge it. To become an “exception.”

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Pee-Wee’s Playhouse + The Science of Sleep + The Mighty Boosh + Problemista + Kafka = Fantasmas

    Pee-Wee’s Playhouse + The Science of Sleep + The Mighty Boosh + Problemista + Kafka = Fantasmas

    [ad_1]

    Many people still like to tout that we’re in the Golden Age of television, forgetting perhaps that, for much of the 2000s, a new wave of innovation not seen since the 1980s was happening with said medium. Obviously, the most creative and absurd television show to come out of the Decade of Excess was Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. In fact, it’s a wonder that the show was ever greenlit and then allowed to continue for even more than a season, so “offbeat” and “weird” was it. And yet, children (and adults) immediately gravitated to the content, which was so different for the era of “normie Reaganism.” In commenting on the appeal of the show to Time in 2006, Paul Reubens stated, “At the time there weren’t many live-action people on [kids’] television. It was a time of Transformers and merchandise-driven shows that I didn’t think were creative. I believe kids liked the Playhouse because it was very fast-paced and colorful. And more than anything, it never talked down to them. I always felt like kids were real smart and should be dealt with that way.”

    In the present, it has become more and more the case that even adults are talked down to and treated rather stupidly (which is perhaps part of the reason why the U.S. has gradually transitioned into a place that’s destined to fulfill the predictions laid out in Idiocracy). Not only that, but all the programming geared toward that demographic has either become so serious or, on the other end of the spectrum, mind-numbing “reality” TV. In the early 00s, just as the latter category of television was gaining popularity, the British duo known as The Mighty Boosh (Julian Barratt and Noel Fieliding) would come together to eventually bring audiences The Mighty Boosh, a surrealist comedy that aired from 2004 to 2007. Sandwiched in between those years was the release of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep in 2006, an equally as surreal offering that seemed to indicate the population’s desire to retreat into fantasy at a time dominated by the brutal, embarrassing (for Americans, anyway) realities of war in a post-9/11 world. With Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the same phenomenon was happening in the world, where a desire to retreat into the fantastical was preferable to further exposing oneself to the brainwashing propaganda instilled on both sides by the Cold War.

    Perhaps it can be said, then, that the arrival of Julio Torres’ Fantasmas also coincides with an overall desire to retreat into fantasy. Because, despite the “hope” of Kamala Harris taking things in a new direction for the U.S., the realities of 2024 remain particularly bleak. That doesn’t just include the ongoing Palestinian genocide, but so many other horrors that are less publicized, including the civil war and famine in Sudan, the violent oppression of women in Afghanistan, the violence and political instability in Venezuela, the total lawlessness of Haiti, the high rates of femicide in Mexico (indeed, Latin America overall has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world), the climate-related disasters that have led to something as impactful as the endlessly raging wildfires in Canada. The list truly does go on and on. And with so much brutality in the world, even in “ultra-modern,” “land of the free” America, one can’t blame Torres for often retreating into the comforts of his mind, where reality can be diluted and subdued. Especially since he lives in one of the shittiest places on Earth: New York. Of course, it’s no secret that New Yorkers get off on their misery, pride themselves on being able to “take it” where other more “lily-livered” types can’t. (Or simply have the good sense and self-respect to leave.)

    Perhaps knowing that the “real” New York isn’t all that romantic, Torres opts to create an “alternate version” of it in Fantasmas. And yes, as he freely admits, there are many correlations to his directorial debut, Problemista, in terms of both setting, tone and character. As he told Indiewire, “It feels like a sequel to [Problemista], with achieving the quote-unquote ‘Dream.’” But more than that, it’s the types of magical realism details in Problemista that parallel Fantasmas. Take, for example, how Alejandro (Torres) works at a place called FreezeCorp in Problemista, where clients pay to have themselves cryogenically frozen so that they might come to life in the future (again, Idiocracy comes to mind…or Austin Powers). In reality, as Isabella Rossellini narrates, “This company provides a form of euthanasia.” In the commercial, the FreezeCorp spokeswoman admits, “Our scientists are working around the clock to one day discover how to bring our patients back.”

    The FreezeCorp-esque entity in Fantasmas, called New Solutions Incorporated, instead pivots to the notion of uploading one’s consciousness and disposing of their corporeal self altogether. As Vicky (Sydnee Washington) assures Julio, “Our incorporeal service can free you of your daily bodily ailments and discomforts.” And, considering Julio is convinced he has skin cancer, he’s only too ready to get on board with what Grimes was already advocating for back in 2018 with “We Appreciate Power” when she said, “Come on, you’re not even alive/If you’re not backed up on a drive/And if you long to never die/Baby, plug in, upload your mind.” That’s just what Julio intends to do—the only problem is, like every other minor endeavor in this hyper-bureaucratic world, the company requires him to show “Proof of Existence” in order to participate. Irritated yet again by this demand, Julio asks incredulously, “I need to prove that I exist so I can stop existing?”

    It’s enough to drive him battier than riding in the car with Chester (Tomas Matos), a former Uber driver who has decided to create his own rideshare app called, what else, Chester. It is in his car that Julio first learns about the existence of a show called Melf, playing on the TV in the back of the cab. Needless to say, it’s a sendup of ALF (an acronym for Alien Life Form), the late 80s sitcom that centered on an alien that looks more like he fled from the Planet Sesame Street. Like Alf, Melf ends up landing on the doorstep of a suburban family, but Julio takes the original concept and turns it on its ear by creating a sordid romance between Melf and Jeff (Paul Dano), the character modeled after Willie Tanner (Max Wright). Instead of making it “wholesome” family content, Julio positions Melf and Jeff as secret lovers who hide their trysts until it finally becomes too obvious to Jeff’s wife, Nancy (Sunita Mani). Despite the pain he causes his family—and the international scandal it invokes—Jeff is happy he can finally be his authentic self, free to love the, er, being he really wants to. It is little digressions like these that also make Fantasmas reminiscent of the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse style. Granted, Torres has far more “k-hole” moments, if you will, than Pee-Wee ever did. From Dodo the Elf (Bowen Yang) to Denise (Aidy Bryant) the Toilet Dresser to Becca the Customer Service Rep for Assembly Plan Insurance. It is the latter character who also ties into a scene from Problemista when Alejandro calls a banking representative after seeing that he has a negative amount in his account.

    Not understanding how he got so overdrawn, she chirpily tells him, “Every time you overdraft, the bank must impose a penalty of thirty-five dollars.” In disbelief, Julio snaps back, “So, what? Like an eight-dollar sandwich becomes a forty-five-dollar sandwich?” “Forty-three dollars,” she corrects matter-of-factly, adding, “That’s the policy, Mr. Martinez.” Julio continues to rebuff, “But that makes absolutely no sense. I distinctly recall making a cash deposit.” “And that deposit was flagged as potentially fraudulent, so it’s on hold now. For your protection.” “Right, but then that hold made me overdraw… Why would you let this happen? Why not just let my card get declined?” Unfazed, the representative says, “That’s not the way things work.” “But that is the way things should work. Otherwise, the bank is just benefitting from my misfortune. From the misfortune of people who can’t afford to make any mistakes. From people who have no margin of error.” “It’s policy. It is what it is.” Julio then launches into an even more emotional plea, concluding, “I know that there’s still a person in there, and I know that she can hear me.” For a moment, it seems like she might actually come around, only to end up shooting him in the face as she declares, “I stand with Bank of America.”

    This bank representative is so clearly the precursor for Becca in Fantasmas, who gets an ostensible orgasm over other people’s suffering as she delivers the voiceover, “God, I love insurance. And banks, and credit cards, and the military. Law and order. I pity those who do not stand behind us.” Torres’ contempt for people who are simply “following orders” (you know, like the Nazis) is a hallmark of his work. Along with his total inability, as someone with an abstract artist’s mind, to fathom how anyone could live with themselves at such a job (acting as a gatekeeper who gets off on their own small form of power). Apart from the reason of “needing money to survive”—by fucking up other people’s survival.

    In this sense, too, Torres touches on the idea that the employees of color so often working in these roles are only hurting their own kind in service of the white CEOs and other assorted power mongers at the top. The system in place, thus, continues to thrive through division and pitting people (usually the “unmonied”) against each other.

    Another noticeable similarity between Julio in Fantasmas and Alejandro is that the latter has a similar form of hypochondria, at one point texting his mother a picture of his tongue with the caption (in Spanish), “Do you see those dots? Is that something bad?” For Julio, the obsession becomes all about the birthmark that looks like a mole just underneath his ear. Rather than focusing on the crushing pressure and simultaneous banality of dealing with his ever-mounting bureaucratic affairs, Julio would rather obsess over finding the oyster-shaped earring that was the exact same shape as his birthmark so that he can place it against said birthmark in front of a doctor to prove that it’s grown, therefore needs to be biopsied.

    There to occasionally try to make him see reason is his “manager.” Or rather a performance artist playing his manager, but who has been doing it for so long that she’s really just his manager now. Alas, not even Vanesja (played by real-life performance artist Martine) or Julio’s “assistant,” a robot named Bibo (Joe Rumrill), can distract him from his quest to be distracted. And in the world of Fantasmas, there are many shiny people and objects to be distracted by—as there should be in any narrative worth its weight in magical realism.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • William H. Macy visits DC’s Warner Theatre for special screening of movie masterpiece ‘Fargo’ – WTOP News

    William H. Macy visits DC’s Warner Theatre for special screening of movie masterpiece ‘Fargo’ – WTOP News

    [ad_1]

    “It’s just a lovely, lovely script.” WTOP’s Jason Fraley speaks with William H. Macy ahead of the actor hosting a screening of the 1996 film on Thursday.

    WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews ‘Fargo’ with William H. Macy at Warner Theatre (Part 1)

    He earned acclaim in films (“Boogie Nights”) and TV series (“Shameless”), but his career role remains his Oscar-nominated performance in the movie masterpiece “Fargo” (1996).

    This Thursday, William H. Macy visits Warner Theatre in D.C. to host a screening of a film that combines the comedy of “The Big Lebowski” (1998) with the drama of “No Country for Old Men” (2007) for a genre bender that remains the Coen Brothers’ best.

    “We’re taking questions from the audience,” Macy told WTOP.

    “I saw the film on a big screen for the first time with good sound, maybe for the first time since we made the thing, and it is a magnificent film. I was knocked out. I was really proud to be in it. Everybody is stunning in the thing. Franny (actress Frances McDormand) just broke my heart yet again and, boy, everything from (cinematographer) Roger Deakins’ shooting to the Coen Brothers, it’s just a brilliant film.”

    The story follows Jerry Lundegaard, a bankrupt used-car salesperson in Minneapolis who seeks an investment from his rich father-in-law. When he’s refused, Jerry hires two criminals in Fargo, North Dakota, to kidnap his wife for ransom money, but the plan backfires and the bodies pile up as do clues for pregnant detective Marge Gunderson.

    “Everything they do is intentional,” Macy said.

    “Joel does most of the directing, but Ethan directs too, then Ethan does most of the writing, but Joel writes too. I think that’s the way they work. It’s really tandem. … They’re funny guys, good Lord they are. I think one of the things that’s so brilliant about the film is that it’s really horrifying and funny at the same time. They treated the violence in such a banal manner that it’s even more horrifying.”

    You won’t find a better slimeball antagonist than Macy’s Jerry, fudging the numbers with a worn pencil and throwing temper tantrums with his ice scraper. His weasel chops are best on display during a concerned phone call off screen, only to realize that he’s just practicing his act, shifting back to a normal tone to speak to the operator.

    “[The operator bit] was a little improv, I suggested it because I knew the camera was gonna come around the corner and catch me,” Macy said.

    “[The pencil bit] I was sitting at the desk waiting for them to set up the shot and I was doodling on the pad, Ethan came over and looked at it and said, ‘Hey, let’s shoot this,’ so they got an insert of the pad. [The ice scraper bit] was scripted that way, some version of: ‘He loses his [crap] in the parking lot.’”

    His naiveté stirs a deadly cocktail with his criminal hires, Steve Buscemi’s motor-mouthed Carl Showalter (“I’m not here to debate, Jerry”) and Peter Stormare’s ice-cold Gaear Grimsrud (“Stop at Pancakes House”). The duo dances on the knife’s edge of murder and buddy comedy, as Buscemi promises “total silence” by relentlessly talking.

    “They’re a great couple — it’s really well drawn,” Macy said. “When the wife gets free from the two kidnappers and starts to run, Steve Buscemi says, ‘No, no,’ and they stand there and watch and laugh as she tries to escape. It’s so horrifying. It’s so cruel. … Peter Stormare is a serious actor, he was Ingmar Bergman’s Hamlet, he’s a serious actor.”

    Still, the best performance arguably belongs to Frances McDormand in her first of three Oscar wins before “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “Nomadland” (2020). Voted the American Film Institute’s No. 33 Greatest Movie Hero of All Time, Marge surprisingly doesn’t even show up until a full 30 minutes into the film.

    Not only does McDormand master the Midwest accent for zingers (“I think I’m gonna barf!”), she outsmarts her male colleagues (“I’m not sure I agree 100% with your police work, Lou”) and brings home the bacon to her heart-of-gold husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch).

    This gender reversal was way ahead of its time, flipping the script to show Marge receiving work calls in the middle of the night and Norm waking up to make her breakfast.

    “She really was [pioneering], but it’s not as if they were making something up out of whole cloth,” Macy said. “That’s the reality of most working families and that’s what they wrote and that’s what’s great about it,” Macy said.

    Their relationship is the thematic core of the movie, summarized by Marge in the police car finale: “There’s more to life than a little money.” The answer to that question comes in the final scene where Marge and Norm sit in bed awaiting the birth of their child. A soft lullaby plays as Marge delivers the film’s final line: “Two more months.”

    It’s the perfect punctuation on a masterfully directed film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the former of whom became the first filmmaker to direct his wife (McDormand) to an Academy Award.

    Few filmmakers have ever crafted such a signature atmosphere, capturing the quirky accents of the Upper Midwest and the isolation of frigid landscapes with red blood painted on white snow, all backed by the epic drums and tragic violins of Carter Burwell’s score.

    “It happens in Minnesota every once in a while, you get a brown January,” Macy said.

    “We got up there and there wasn’t any snow, so they immediately started renting all of the snow-making. … The lads had to keep driving farther north to find snow and they finally did … but normally that time of year the snow would be waste high. … Deakins’ initial thing of the Oldsmobile coming up over that hill in that white out, ahh, it’s just stunning!”

    The setting includes statues of Paul Bunyan, whose ax foreshadows a murder. The Coens brilliantly use transitions (cutting from Buscemi’s TV to Marge’s TV), visual storytelling (taillights disappearing during a car chase), black comedy (home invasion), and mise-en-scène (high angle of a parking lot as Jerry finds himself at a crossroads).

    Note how they film Jerry at work, shooting through vertical blinds of his office window like jail bars closing in on him.

    “There are no accidents,” Macy said.

    “The purpose of technique is to bring out your subconscious. Did they choose that shot because it looked like jail bars? One could say, ‘Yes, they chose that shot.’ Did they say to themselves, ‘Hey, it looks like jail bars,’ I don’t know, but that’s what art is. These iconic images come out and I think sometimes the artist had no idea what it was doing. John Lennon said ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ is not about LSD.”

    Macy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Cuba Gooding Jr. in “Jerry Maguire,” while “Fargo” lost Best Picture to “The English Patient.” I told him that I thought the latter was ridiculous as “Fargo” is superior.

    “I will back you on that,” Macy said.

    “If you’re in one of the top categories and you get a nomination, that’s real, you can take it to the bank that you did a good thing. As to who wins, that’s a little capricious, but I’ll tell ya, it was not a good year to get an Oscar nomination because there were a bunch of great films out that year! ‘Sling Blade’ was out that year, ‘Jerry Maguire,’ I mean the list goes on and on, it was a great year for films.”

    Today, the legacy continues in the acclaimed FX series “Fargo,” which just wrapped Season 5.

    “I think it’s great,” Macy said. “I watched the whole first season. That was Billy Bob [Thornton] right? I thought, man, he should have paid them; he was having so much fun. I thought that was a fabulous season, then I’ve seen bits and pieces of all the other season. They’re ripe characters, it’s a ripe part of the country, it was a great series.”

    Still, as great as the TV series is, there’s no topping the original Coen Brothers flick.

    “It’s just a lovely, lovely script,” Macy said. “It’s so simple and, as you say, profound at the same time — and it tells a walloping good story, one of the best stories that the brothers have ever told, I think.”

    WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews ‘Fargo’ with William H. Macy at Warner Theatre (Part 2)

    Listen to our full conversation on the podcast below:

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

    [ad_2]

    Jason Fraley

    Source link