First Man: The Human Toll of Ambition

You may be wondering why you need to watch a movie about Neil Armstrong, when you already know he successfully landed on the moon in 1969 and uttered those iconic lines. However, in First Man, director Damian Chazelle tells a poignant story about men in the 1960s, the women who took care of their families, and the perils, rewards, and foolhardy ambition that fueled the US-Soviet space race.

Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, a casting coup because you need an actor in this role who can convey a great deal with his face instead of dialogue. This is a man who doesn't talk much, and instead is intently focused on his love of flying and eventually space travel. He is level-headed and calm in the most alarming situations, which is why he is a stellar astronaut, but also why he is a difficult husband and father. At the beginning of the film, we see how the Armstrongs' young daughter, Karen, dies at the age of two from cancer. Neil never discusses this with his wife or his colleagues, instead throwing himself back into work and shoving aside his grief. However, in moments of peril, visions of his daughter always come flooding back, and we see the culmination of that grief in a particularly profound moment during the moon landing.

Claire Foy is magnificent as Armstrong's wife, Janet, and is probably in the running for a Best Supporting Actress statuette this year. She grounds the whole movie, providing the female perspective in a story that is otherwise dominated by men and their ambitions to one-up each other. One of my favorite moments is when she storms into NASA demanding they turn her communication box back on so she can listen to what is happening to Neil in space (they cut off her comms when they realized he was getting into some trouble.) She rebukes them, declaring that they are all "boys building models out of balsa wood," which is not an inaccurate description of the entire Space program.

Indeed, the moments you spend inside a rocket are the most claustrophobic and bewildering of the movie. Expertly shot so that you can almost feel your stomach lurch and your chest compress as the G-force piles up during a launch, Chazelle has perfectly captured the absurd wonder of those early space missions. There are shots of streaky windows and rusty rivets, and as you watch the spaceship rattle and every dashboard light up and every alarm go off, you wonder how anyone ever made it into space, let alone landing on the Moon and safely returning. It's a magnificent space movie and the utter silence during key moments help to fuel your awestruck wonder at the visuals. Then the theremin-laced score swells and tugs at your soul some more. Ultimately this is a magnificent human story about how grief can fuel ambition and men can continue to strive for greatness despite personal tragedy. But again, they can only do this because of the women they leave behind. When Janet insists that Neil talk to their sons and prepare them for the fact that their father may never return from space, you are reminded of how much is being sacrificed.

There are many fine character actors throughout this film and you can start taking bets on which of them will die first to represent the rising death toll of the Gemini and Apollo missions that preceded the successful moon landing. There is so much tragedy that has been overshadowed by this unparalleled human achievement, and First Man gives those men their due.  Nowadays, we only hear that man set foot on the moon, but this movie highlights all the political protests against NASA and the huge cost of sending men into space instead of taking care of the people on the ground. It's a fight that continues today, which is why NASA has yet to send any men to the moon in the 21st century. Ultimately, First Man looks at whether all of this was worth the cost, and frankly, I still don't the answer.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: The Absurdity of Mankind

Last night I was reading up on The Myth of Sisyphus, an essay that posits Albert Camus' philosophy of the absurd and man's futile search for meaning. Then this morning, I watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the latest Coen Brothers film that is essentially a visual depiction of absurdism. I did not plan this, but my it was a revelation.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a series of short films that all take place in the old American West. The conceit is that you are reading a book called The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Other Tales of the American Frontier and an unseen hand turns the pages to introduce each new story and then show you the closing pages as you move on to the next vignette. That flourish made me glad I was watching on Netflix as I could pause the movie and read the last few words of every story to glean some more wisdom from the mysterious minds of Joel and Ethan Coen.

I won't delve into too much detail about each of the vignettes as they pack a wallop and should be experienced firsthand. But if you've ever watched a Coen Brothers movie before, you know what you will find. A bewildering mix of comedy and pathos, with dialogue that falls trippingly off the tongue and makes you want to write it all down so you can read those sentences over and over again. I simply do not understand how they can craft such poetry but every word is a delight. Most importantly, every actor they've hired delivers those lines with the appropriate panache. However, that is only the case in some of the stories. In others, dialogue takes a backseat to Bruno Delbonnel's epic cinematography where Nature provides the necessary poetry. The pristine landscapes and wilds of the frontier are jawdroppingly splendid and highlight the absurdity of it all. These men will play their foolish games to their foolish ends but the land will carry on long after they are gone.

Be warned: this movie is a Western and extremely violent and graphic in spots, oftentimes becoming Tarantino-esque. If bloodshed and bullet wounds turn your stomach, you might want to skip some stories entirely. But each one has one central thesis: men are constantly searching for something, and ultimately, it doesn't matter whether or not they get it. The journey is the destination. As Camus said, "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." And you will really have to stretch your imagination because happy endings are not plentiful in this film.

Of the six vignettes, I naturally gravitated to the only one featuring a meaty role for a woman, The Gal Who Got Rattled. (One could argue that in the Wild West women didn't do much, but we all know that's a paltry argument and is my main quibble with this film - if you have six stories, can't some of them feature more interesting roles for women?) Zoe Kazan's performance is captivating, and the camera lingers on her face even when others are talking because getting her reaction to their words is more important than watching the words be delivered. This vignette felt the most sweet and hopeful...for a while at least. I also enjoyed Near Algodones, starring James Franco, as that featured some of the most outright absurdist comedy (Franco is not allowed to mumble more than a few words during the entire piece as that man is impossible to imagine as a cowboy). And for utter bleak despair, Liam Neeson and Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley's all grown up and magnificent in this role!) deliver quite the gut punch in Meal Ticket.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a cinematic feast, offering an amuse bouche to tickle every palate, but with a central theme of utter Sisyphean futility. It is beautifully shot, impeccably written, and well acted. I can't say it is a warm and fuzzy holiday movie, but it certainly shows you what cinema can do to transform the written word into a moving spectacle. 

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Bloody Good Fun

I started watching Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with a bunch of girlfriends who came over to my house to make bread pudding. Which really is the best way to start bingewatching any new series about an empowered young woman, no matter how gory and weird it may be. Subsequently I have finished watching the show at the gym, where I'm sure people passing me on the treadmill recoiled as they saw blood continually splatter on the screen during all manner of diabolical events.

I was a huge fan of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, which aired in the 90s and early 2000s and was a highlight of my childhood. I also read a lot of Archie Comics as a kid, so was well aware of Sabrina in the comics realm as well. However, apart from having the same characters, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is way darker than its predecessors lead you to expect. As evidenced by the fact that Netflix and Warner Brothers are currently being sued by Satanists who are objecting to how the show makes them look bad. Seriously. This show is bonkers and brilliant.

Kiernan Shipka plays Sabrina, a teenage half-mortal, half-witch (her mother was mortal, while her father was a progressive High Priest of the Church of Night), who has been living a mostly mortal existence in the outside world, with mortal friends and a boyfriend in her high school, but plenty of magic spells and incantations at home with her aunts Hilda (Lucy Davis) and Zelda (Miranda Otto) and cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo). However, upon the eve of her sixteenth birthday, things come to a head, and the Church of Night insist that she must fully embrace the witchy half of her nature after her dark baptism. At this point, Sabrina is too fond of her mortal friends, and what follows is the quest to find all the loopholes so she can have her cake and eat it too. And also combat the Dark Lord who is hell-bent on bringing Sabrina into the Church of Night, which gets up to all manner of bloody shenanigans.

This show is packed to the gills with jump scares, and a number of my friends have complained they got way too scared to wander around their houses at night after watching this show. I wouldn't go that far, because as freaky as it is, there's still a kitschy and fun element to it that helps release the tension. I was particularly delighted to discover that Richard Coyle (who I adore from Coupling) and Michelle Gomez (who I adore from Green Wing) are series regulars, playing terrifically devilish characters in vast contrast to the bumbling British comedy roles I've always seen them in. The entire cast of this show is fantastic; Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto are an excellent double-act as the indulgent and kind Hilda and strict and overzealous Zelda; Michelle Gomez is mysterious and bewitching (pun intended) while Richard Coyle as Father Blackwood is a deliciously unholy and horrifying villain. And Kiernan Shipka binds the whole thing together with the dazzling confidence and backbone we all knew she possessed as we watched Sally Draper grow up on Mad Men.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may be about a Greendale coven and a teenager struggling with her mortal and witch identities, but it cleverly manages to incorporate real-world issues like bullying, homophobia, and the need to overturn stereotypical gender roles. The production design is impeccable with eerie sets that creep you out even if the actors are doing nothing out of the ordinary. And the costumes are gorgeous, with Sabrina often kitted out in a blood red coat that seems to lend her both the innocence of Little Red Riding Hood but also the worldliness of a witchy woman. Everything is heightened and crazy in this show, but the underlying storylines are magnificent and watching how everything culminates in an explosive conclusion will certainly whet your appetite for the second season. 

The Prisoner in the Castle: Maggie Hope Meets Agatha Christie

Over the years I have become an ardent fan of Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope series. Starting with Mr. Churchill's Secretary, which was released in 2012, the series tells the story of Margaret Hope, an American who moves to London at the start of World War II and becomes a part of the war effort. Over the course of the books, she has moved up from secretarial work to becoming a spy who has worked undercover in the US, Germany, and France. The stakes couldn't be higher and the emotional toll can be quite wrecking as you get through each installment, but MacNeal deftly weaves in historical facts with scintillating fiction to tell a story that reminds us what exactly this war cost the world decades ago.

The latest installment, The Prisoner in the Castle, is a bit of a departure for the series. Rather than putting Maggie in the center of the action in war-torn lands or Churchill's Cabinet Rooms, our heroine is on an island in the remote Scottish Hebrides. She knows too much and has been deemed a risk to the war effort, so has been exiled to a remote location with other British spies who can no longer contribute but know too much to be returned to civilian life. While that sounds rather dull, never fear, MacNeal is about to take inspiration from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game to give you a chilling murder mystery where the inhabitants of the island start dropping dead in increasingly gruesome ways and Maggie must find the killer or be killed. 

I love a good murder mystery and when you combine it with a female heroine I've gotten to love over the course of seven novels, it's a recipe for greatness. The plot is juicy, the secondary characters are shady and intriguing, and the reveals startle you as you turn each page. Full disclosure, I started reading these books because MacNeal is a Wellesley alum and Maggie Hope also went to Wellesley, so there's nothing more entertaining than reading about a fictional woman who kicks ass and also happens to have attended your beloved college. However, putting that bit of partiality aside, I have truly enjoyed reading MacNeal's prose and how the plots get more riveting as Maggie becomes a more integral part of the spy network. World War II is a period in history that never ceases to captivate my interest, and this series does a phenomenal job of giving you a history lesson in the disguise of an espionage thriller.

The Prisoner in the Castle is well worth your time if you are a fan of the Maggie Hope series, or if you're merely interested in a stand-alone murder mystery (though a lot of the side plots may be lost on you in that case). It has thrills, chills, and a brilliant heroine who is not afraid to fight for her life, and you will not be able to put this book down until you have devoured every single page. It's a quick and engrossing read and perfect for a winter weekend when all you want to do is curl up on the couch and read about a fascinating woman having adventures during a fascinating time in our history. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? A Tale of Forgery and Friendship

If you've somehow missed the memo that Melissa McCarthy is a great actress, you need to watch Can You Ever Forgive Me? immediately. Playing a cantankerous author who has burned all her bridges and is struggling to make ends meet, she manages to imbue this character with so much gut-wrenching pathos that you cannot help but root for her to succeed in her criminal exploits.

Based on the true story of author Lee Israel (as outlined in her memoir of the same name), this is a movie about a woman with an extraordinary writing talent but utterly unforgiving personality who went on to forge literary letters from people such as Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker in order to make money to survive her day-to-day existence in New York City. In cahoots with a man named Jack Hock, who she meets in a bar (they both happen to be gay so theirs is a platonic friendship that evolves into a doomed business arrangement), she sells her wares to various unsuspecting collectors, until the FBI finally catches up to her.

The story is interesting and it's wonderful to watch Lee's gradual descent into criminality. What starts off as a desperate forgery to get a few hundred dollars to pay her cat's veterinary bills eventually becomes a high-stakes criminal enterprise, complete with stealing documents from Yale's special collections. Throughout it all, while Lee is outwardly obnoxious and struggles to get along with the people in her life, Melissa McCarthy has moments when you see every single emotion playing on her face and you understand all of the pain this woman is going through deep deep down. There's one scene in particular when she's sitting in a jazz club - that scene devastated me and I still don't know why. It seemed to encapsulate her loneliness as well as her tentative hope that she had found a friend and finally found an answer to her financial woes. But again, none of that was proclaimed out loud, it was all just one long scene of staring at McCarthy's face.

The final moments of the film are equally powerful and I won't spoil anything here. However, thay do a splendid job of getting into this woman's psyche and explaining why forgery was such a perfect crime for her personality. And the final reckoning between her and Jack is quite bittersweet and apt for their relationship. Lest I forget, Richard E. Grant is an absolute marvel in this movie as well, and it's deeply satisfying to see his portrayal of the gay English dilettante opposite Melissa McCarthy and watch that unlikely friendship bloom.

Deftly directed by Marielle Heller from a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeffy Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a remarkable story made all the more remarkable by its actors. I cannot get over this Melissa McCarthy performance, and if she isn't nominated for an Oscar it would be an absolute travesty. Darkly funny, deeply moving, and terrifically intriguing, this is a movie that both entertains and affects you in unexpected ways.

Fahrenheit 11/9: Rage Against the Dying of the Light

This has been a rough political week (more than usual anyway) and many of my female friends are alternately furious and depressed by the Kavanaugh appointment to the Supreme Court. If you are feeling some outrage or despair, perhaps you might get some catharsis out of watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9, a dissection of what went wrong in 2016 and what America needs to do to move forward.

Will the first 20 minutes of this movie make you want to claw your eyes out? Perhaps. As you relive November 9, 2016, with the initial certainty and jubilation that Hillary Clinton would win and then the eventual jawdropping agony that heralded her defeat, part of me experienced the surge of utter misery that dogged me for weeks (and let's be honest, even now) after the election. But what follows is a careful look at the current state of American politics and the many ways in which our democracy is almost laughably undemocratic. Are there extended interviews with historians and Nuremberg prosecutors that compare us to Nazi Germany? You bet.

Much of the movie focuses on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, which touches upon corruption, greed, and wanton disregard for the poor and disenfranchised members of American society. A predominantly black and working class town, Flint has been neglected so thoroughly by our politicians that it is astonishing to witness how we so casually let this humanitarian crisis unfold within our borders. The villain of the piece is Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a former Chairman and CEO of Gateway Computers, who prioritized profit over people and switched the drinking water source of the town of Flint to appease corporate interests. When the water was found to be contaminated and the children of Flint were registering abnormally high lead levels in their blood, did he immediately switch back the source of the drinking water? Of course not. Instead, the government conspired to forge lead level results, kept saying the water was safe to drink, and dismissed the citizenry and their health concerns, ensuring that the next generation of Flint children will face irrevocable mental and physical health harm due to lead toxicity. But when General Motors complained that the contaminated water was corroding their auto parts, they immediately got switched over to fresh water from the Lake. Our children don't deserve clean water, but our cars certainly do.

Don't be fooled; this isn't solely an anti-Republican movie. Moore heavily criticizes the Obama administration's response to the Flint crisis, including the President's visit to the town where he pretended to drink the water and therefore treated the entire episode as a farce. Going back to the election, Moore also delves into the Democrats' rigged primary system, where Bernie Sanders, despite being the favorite candidate, was shunted aside by the super delegates who handed the candidacy over to Hillary Clinton. After that, we have the electoral college to blame, a system where the person who wins the popular vote still loses the election and America continues to be this insanely undemocratic nation where the candidate that the majority votes for still doesn't get to be President of the United States.

So where do we go from here? The movie ends with a focus on the Parkland, Florida school shooting that mobilized a generation of teenage protesters who were too young to vote but old enough to organize the worldwide March For Our Lives. Along the way, Moore also interviews ordinary men and women who were energized by the election to run for office and win seats in the House of Representatives through grassroots campaigns that were driven by a promise to give all Americans a better life. What struck me about all these extraordinary human beings is their compassion and need to make America better for all Americans, not just the Americans in their immediate vicinity. Empathy is sorely lacking amongst our politicians, who are increasingly insular and incapable of voting for anything because it's a cause they believe in. Instead, all they know is they want to get re-elected and vote along Party lines. The hope of this film is that these new Representatives, like Alexandra Occasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, will re-invigorate the Legislative branch to represent a government that is truly by the people, for the people.

The appointment of Brett Kavanaugh is yet another slap in the face of the women of this nation who don't think it's too much to ask that the branches of our government not be staffed by privileged, empathy-deprived men who face serious allegations of sexual misconduct. Is there really no one else that we can get to take on these jobs? So if you are still reeling, take some nominal comfort from the rising political stars and activists highlighted in Fahrenheit 11/9, but also remember that the fight is not over. Rather than turning inwards in a depressive funk, keep speaking up, writing, and register all of your friends, family, and colleagues to vote in the midterm elections.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A Star Is Born: Lady Gaga Takes the Stage

It has been a while since a movie has made me cry but A Star Is Born stirred up all manner of repressed emotions in me. A timeless story about love, fame, and tragedy, I had zero desire to watch this movie when I first saw the trailer. Who wants to see another remake, especially about such a depressing story, starring Lady Gaga of all people? But after reading the glowing reviews, my interest was sufficiently piqued that I found myself in the theater on opening night. And damn. I was floored.

To summarize the plot in broad strokes, Jackson Mayne (Bradley Cooper) is an alcoholic but very famous country singer who discovers Ally (Lady Gaga) singing in a drag bar and is instantly captivated by her voice. Enamored, he drags her on stage during a concert, where she sings a duet with him and finds instant fame. As her career is on the ascendant, Jackson's career takes a nosedive and he becomes more reliant on booze and pills. It's a classic romantic tragedy, and while none of what I've described sounds like it would be worth it, the following are all the reasons you need to buy a ticket ASAP.

The acting. I've always been a fan of Bradley Cooper, but in this movie, Lady Gaga is definitely the star (which I was delighted to see acknowledged by her top billing in the end credits). When she needs to sing in this film, she doesn't just belt out a number with her brilliant voice. She conveys all of the character's trepidation and nervousness, and then joy and elation when the audience cheers for her. And the chemistry between her and Cooper is eye-wateringly good. The way they trade banter, the little touches, how they lean in to each other. This movie contains the most eloquent love story I've seen captured on film in a long time. Watching Jackson and Ally fall in love and then spiral out of control as fame and addiction complicate matters is a gut punch and I'm still reeling after watching the film.

The music. Obviously Lady Gaga can sing. But turns out so can Bradley Cooper. And together, they complement each other wondrously, with each duet on stage conveying as much love and passion as all of their scenes off stage. If it wasn't enough to co-write, star, and direct the movie, Cooper wrote his songs as well, and the emotion he packs into every note is something to behold.

The characters. While the story might sound a bit pat, the backstory of these characters slowly unfolds over the course of the movie and you get so much insight into their histories and insecurities that you cannot help but root for them throughout the movie. Jackson is immensely flawed and difficult, but watching his interactions with his brother (Sam Neill) and how the two of them have coped with family trauma in vastly different ways is illuminating as the film hurtles to its conclusion. Watching Ally deal with her father and his friends tells you all you need to know about this kind but shy and careful woman. And for any Alias fans, there are some roles played by actors you will recognize, which further reinforces my opinion that Cooper must be the nicest guy in Hollywood if he's casting people he worked with on a TV show a decade ago.

This movie is gorgeous. A lot of it feels like a music documentary, with the lyrics and score telling you everything you need to know about the characters and the unfolding drama. It is so natural and unforced - the relationships feel real and you can personally empathize with these characters and what they must be going through. No one is a monster, but they are all battling demons. Watching A Star Is Born is guaranteed to stir up your insides and make your heart feel full to bursting. Even after writing this review, I haven't quite managed to convey the emotions coursing through me, so all I can say is watch it. And then maybe you will understand.