C’mon C’mon (2021)

Joaquin Phoenix finally gets to play an ordinary, sane character and does so very well in this story of Johnny, a radio journalist traveling the US interviewing children, who brings along his nine year old nephew Jesse (Woody Norman). Gaby Hoffmann plays Johnny's sister/Jesse's mother and all three leading actors are terrific, portraying full ranges of emotions.

Director/writer Mike Mills took inspiration from various children, including his own, when writing the script.

The original score by Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner is available on Apple Music (probably others) and there are lots of songs.

The crisp black and white cinematography is thanks to Robbie Ryan, and he is among the many nominees and winners so far this awards season. Here's my running list of selected nominations and wins.

Phoenix was last blogged for Joker, Hoffmann for Obvious Child, Mills for 20th Century Women, Bryce Dessner for Irresistible, and Ryan for The Favourite. Norman has had a handful of TV roles in his native England as well as one previous feature film. Aaron Dessner has worked with his brother Bryce in the band The National, among others.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are keeping up, with a 94% average, but its audiences are lagging at 78.

When we rented it on Apple TV January 7 I was happy to have captions, because the dialogue mix is not very clear.

Being the Ricardos (2021)

The critics haven't much liked this but Jack and I, as boomers who watched a lot of TV in the 1950s, did. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem give their all as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, as do J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda as William Frawley and Vivian Vance, heading up a big and notable cast.

Director/writer Aaron Sorkin employs his usual rapid-fire dialogue in the story of one tumultuous 1953 week in the filming of I Love Lucy, with flashbacks to the 1940s and flash forwards to modern-ish times. According to imdb, there are a number of anachronisms and factual errors, so just remember, it's not a documentary!

Daniel Pemberton's original score, a mix of moody tracks and sprightly drumming, can be streamed on Apple Music and elsewhere and is complemented by many songs, listed here.

Shout outs to the stellar work of director of photography Jeff Cronenweth and production designer Jon Hutman, who made us feel like we were there in colorful, glitzy Hollywood of the 50s and beyond. Makeup department head Ana Lozano and her team also made Kidman look a lot like Ball. They didn't transform Bardem, but apparently Lucie Arnaz has said that his acting was spot-on of her father.

This has a number of nominations, some of which are listed in my post about this year's nominations and awards sorted by title. 

Kidman was last blogged for The Prom, Bardem for Everybody Knows, Simmons for Palm Springs, Arianda for Stan & Ollie, Sorkin and Pemberton for The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Cronenweth for the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average of 68% and its audiences' of 75 show that they don't really love Lucy, but we enjoyed it a lot. 

After streaming it on Amazon Prime January 11, we opened up the Paramount+ app and watched the two episodes covered in the movie: season 1, episode 22, when Fred and Ethel are squabbling; and season 5, episode 23, when Lucy stomps on the grapes in Italy.

Untitled Dave Chappelle documentary (AKA Live in Real Life AKA This Time This Place - 2021)

Jack and I liked a lot this movie showing the comedian producing outdoor comedy shows safely, under COVID protocols, near in his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with lots of special guests. Oscar-winning documentarians Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar direct the fast paced movie.

We are fans of the envelope-pushing Chappelle, even if we don't agree with all of his jokes, so we broke our rule of watching only from home, and ventured out to an arena on November 19, 2021, with proof of vaccination and masks required, where the movie was one part of a very long multimedia show, with other comedians, awkward audience participation, a set by Chappelle himself, and musical guests. We complied with the request to lock our phones and smart watches in Yondr pouches, so we had no idea what time it was when anything happened. Up in the nosebleed section we weren't too crowded. The show started at 7:00 or so, and when we left and could unlock the pouches to check the time, it was midnight with musicians still on stage when we made our exit.

Reichert and Bognar were last blogged for American Factory. When we saw this movie, it was simply called Untitled, but the other two titles are floating around the internet.

I wish I could tell you how to see it, but I can't find any information as to when or where it will be available. I would watch it again, just to get the dialogue I missed with no closed captions and people walking in front of us during the screening.

The Lost Daughter (2021)

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her feature directing and writing debut with this well done, intense drama about a middle aged woman on vacation in Greece, interacting with other tourists as well as flashing back to earlier in her life. Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley have earned their nominations and wins for playing present and past Leda. Supporting cast includes Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, and Peter Sarsgaard (Gyllenhaal's real life husband).

Gyllenhaal based her script on the 2008 novel by Elena Ferrante, who sold the rights with the proviso that the movie be directed by a woman. I don't usually follow the Women Film Critics Circle Awards in my running list of nominees and winners sorted by title, but I have to mention that this movie won its Mommie Dearest Worst Screen Mom of the Year Award.

I'm streaming Dickon Hinchcliffe's score right now on Apple Music. It's probably available elsewhere. The score is supplemented by this list of songs.

Cinematographer Hélène Louvart's lovely images were shot on location in Spetses and other Greek locations.

Colman was last blogged for The Father, Buckley for I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Johnson for The High Note, Sarsgaard for Jackie, Hinchcliffe for Ben Is Back, and Louvart for Never Rarely Sometimes Always. When I mentioned Harris in the post about Snowpiercer, he had not been in any other features I'd seen since beginning this blog so here's the summary: nominated for Oscars for Apollo 13 (1995), The Truman Show (1998), Pollack (2000), and The Hours (2002), he's also been lauded for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and many more.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is a familial 95%, while its audiences are estranged at 47. Jack and I enjoyed it on Netflix on January 2.

Death to 2021 and Yearly Departed 2021

We watched these silly sequels to last years editions on New Year's Day. Funny and cringy.

Death to 2021 is 60 minutes long and is on Netflix, mixing archival and scripted chapters. The scripted parts, though satirical, are so horribly close to possibility that we groaned as much as we laughed. With an all-star cast including Stockard Channing, Laurence Fishburne, Hugh Grant, Christin Milioti, and Tracey Ullman.

Yearly Departed is more flat-out funny and I recommend watching it second if you make it a double feature with Death to 2021 as we did. It's 41 minutes on Amazon Prime. hosted by Yvonne Orji with Jane Fonda, Chelsea Peretti, Dulcé Sloan, and more––all women.

Not to Forget (2021)

To quote Men on Films, hated it! It's badly written and badly acted in a cliché story about redemption of a young man forced to live with his grandmother who has dementia. I had read that it starred Olympia Dukakis and Cloris Leachman. They have cameos at best and, sadly, they both died in 2021––it was the final film for each. George Chakiris also has a bit part, with his hair dyed starkly black and Louis Gossett Jr. plays a kindly pastor.

Tate Dewey and Karen Grassle had me yelling at the TV because of their one-note performances as the smirking guy and his grinning granny. And don't get me started on Kevin Hardesty as the caretaker.

Director/writer Valerio Zanoli has six other features under his belt. I guess experience isn't everything. Really, the best thing about it is the beautiful furniture in the Kentucky mansion where the granny lives. 

Not having watched Little House on the Prairie, I didn't recognize Grassle as the grandmother.

Only four Rotten Tomatoes critics reviewed this (two fresh, two rotten) but its audience average is 71%. 

Jack had to gently talk me out of turning it off. Repeatedly. I regret paying $5 to iTunes on January 4 for this movie whose niche audience, according to Jack, is the filmmakers’ families. 

Don't Look Up (2021)

Amy, Jack, and I really liked this comedy about politicians and others preventing scientists from warning the world about a cataclysmic global event. Some have joked that it's a documentary. Jack says it's a combination of Wag the Dog (1997) and Doctor Strangelove (1964). The actors are stellar: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Rob Morgan as the earnest scientists, Meryl Streep as the shallow president, Jonah Hill as her small minded son and chief of staff, Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry as vacuous news personalities, and Mark Rylance as a manipulative investor. I didn't count the cast exactly, but I estimate almost two hundred are on the imdb cast page. The ensemble is nominated for the SAG award, as mentioned in my list of this year's selected nominations and awards

Director Adam McKay based his screenplay on a story by him and David Sirota. It's 2:39 long but I can't remember if it dragged because we saw it three weeks ago. I don't think it did much.

Nicholas Britell's score, available on Apple Music and elsewhere, is quite pleasant, especially  the cool jazz. The album begins with a single called Just Look Up by Ariana Grande & Kid Cudi, who perform it on screen.

DiCaprio was last blogged for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, Lawrence for Passengers,  Rob Morgan for Bull, Streep for Let Them All Talk, Hill for Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, Blanchett for Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Perry for Gone Girl, Rylance for The Trial of the Chicago 7, McKay for Vice, and Britell for Cruella. This is the movie writing debut for Sirota, a newspaper and magazine writer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are looking down, with an average of only 55%, while its audiences are slightly higher at 78.

I know it's long, but keep watching because there are two bonuses, one at the beginning of the credits and and one at the very end.

We streamed it on Netflix on December 27.

The French Dispatch (2021)

Well suited for our family's Christmas movie, this madcap "love letter to journalists" from auteur Wes Anderson fleshes out four stories and an obituary that appear in a New Yorker-type magazine, and we loved it. Its full title is The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.

The cast of over 250 features, among others, Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Bill Murray in the disparate segments, many of which take place in a fictional town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, which translates to boredom on apathy. There are too many puns and Easter eggs to list. Just be alert, especially if you know any French.

Anderson directed and wrote the script with story help from Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman. This is Anderson's tenth feature and I'm glad to have seen them all.

I'm streaming the jaunty score by Alexandre Desplat on Apple Music as I type, and you can also get it free on Spotify. Here's also a list of songs.

Director of Photography Robert Yeoman aptly mixes black and white with glorious color in the various segments, framed with creativity, and I must mention the terrific production design team, led by Adam Stockhausen.

Anderson, Coppola, and Schwartzman were last blogged for Isle of Dogs, del Toro for Sicario, Brody for Third Person, Swinton for The Personal History of David Copperfield, Seydoux for The Lobster, McDormand for Nomadland, Chalamet for Little Women, Murray for On the Rocks, Desplat for The Midnight Sky, Yeoman for Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, and Stockhausen for Bridge of Spies. And, though I didn't mention it in the blog, Guinness co-wrote the story for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are rather blasé, averaging 74 and 76%, respectively. We heartily disagree.

On December 25 we rented it from iTunes and I, for one, was glad to have the pause button to look at the magazine covers displayed with the end credits. And, just for statistics' sake, this is the 16th movie in 17 years that Jack, Amy, and I have watched together on Christmas day (COVID kept us apart last year but at least this year we were able to isolate together!).

Paper & Glue (2021)

Amy, Jack, and I loved this documentary about the French artist JR who takes portrait photographs, blows them up to giant size on paper, and pastes them in unlikely places all over the world. A worthy sequel to his previous documentary Faces Places, this one has segments in a California prison, on the US-Mexico border, in Brazil, in France, and much more.

JR directs once again, with music by Adam Peters; cinematography by Roberto De Angelis, Tasha Van Zandt, and Sebastian Zeck; and editing by Keiko Deguchi.

JR was last blogged for Faces Places and Peters for Icarus. The rest are new to me.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't torn about their 89% average, but, apparently, not enough people have seen it for an audience rating. 

We watched it on December 19 on the NBC website from this link, doggedly waiting through ELEVEN commercial breaks. It is, however, available with a Fubo subscription added to Amazon Prime (first 7 days free).