Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet lehdet - 2023)

Yes, it's slow, it's in Finnish with subtitles, and my Finnish friend Maija didn't like it, but I enjoyed the cringey dry humor in this story of two lonely people, one a woman diligently working hand to mouth and the other a blue collar worker who repeatedly gets fired because of his drinking. Not for everyone, but the movie has eight wins, including the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, and fifty other nominations.

Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatenen play the introverted leads who don't talk to each other much, but each has a confidante so we know what they're thinking. Aki Kaurismäki directs from his original script.

No composer is credited. The songs range from karaoke (they meet at a karaoke bar) to classical to pop to traditional and more. In one scene they go to a theatre and watch the zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die.

Cinematographer Timo Salminen provides the photography ranging from drab to lush.

Kaurismäki was last blogged for Le Havre and the others are new to me.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are falling for this (as I did) with a 97% average, but its audiences (like Maija) are not, at 58. I rented it on Apple TV/iTunes on February 16.

Priscilla (2023)

I'm a big fan of director/writer Sofia Coppola and was eager to watch her bio-pic of Elvis Presley's wife from 1959 to 1973. We liked it a lot. Coppola's pacing is never quick but I never care. Diminutive Cailee Spaeny is fully able to portray the beautiful title character from ages 14 to 28 and tall Jacob Elordi makes a good Elvis. 

Coppola based her screenplay on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley (who acts as an executive producer) and Sandra Harmon.

The soundtrack, attributed to the band Phoenix (fronted by Coppola's husband Thomas Mars), contains a long list of songs by musicians who are not Elvis Presley nor Phoenix. According to co-music supervisor (with Phoenix) Randall Poster, the anonymous company that owns the rights to Elvis' songs was unwilling to permit their use. The songs used in the movie, however, are good fun, especially for those of us who remember when they were new. Here's that soundtrack on Apple Music.

Coppola and Phoenix were last blogged for On the Rocks, Spaeny for On the Basis of Sex, and Elordi for Saltburn. Presley has been a producer on a number of other projects, more than half of which were about her late husband. Poster has worked on hundreds of projects and is one of the most prolific music supervisors in the business.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are all shook up at 84% but its audiences have suspicious minds, averaging a scant 64. We rented it on February 3, but you can now also stream it on Max with a subscription.

All of Us Strangers (2023)

Much lauded but not so beloved by Jack and me. A reclusive writer meets a mysterious man, they hook up, the writer visits his parents who have been dead for 25 years and look just as they did then, and other stuff happens. As I recall, it's pretty, but we were not captivated. 

Andrew Scott is the tortured writer, Paul Mescal the attractive stranger, and Claire Foy and Jamie Bell the warm parents.

Directed and written by Andrew Haigh, based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, this has 22 wins and 100 other nominations so far. The scenes with the parents are shot in Haigh's own childhood home in Croydon in South London.

Composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch's ethereal soundtrack can be streamed on Apple Music and probably elsewhere.

Scott was last blogged for Catherine Called Birdy, Mescal for Aftersun, Foy for Women Talking, Bell for Rocketman, Haigh for 45 Years, and Levienaise-Farrouch for Living.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are well acquainted, averaging 96 and 92%. We saw it on January 10 on a screener from the Independent Feature Project because I'm a voting member for the Spirit Awards, which were last night. It's a fun show and is now streaming on YouTube but I haven't watched it yet.

I waited to write this until the rest of you could see it, though I haven't given you much encouragement to do so. It's just arrived on Hulu and for rent.

A Thousand and One (2023)

Ann and I really liked this drama about Inez, a strong willed 20-something ex-con, who kidnaps her six year old son Terry from the foster system to raise him herself in mid-1990s Harlem. Teyana Taylor is terrific as Inez and is ably backed by William Catlett as Lucky, and the trio of boys playing Terry: Aaron Kingsley Adetola (at age 6), Aven Courtney (13), and Josiah Cross (17). 

Director/writer A.V. Rockwell was born and raised in Queens and was about Inez's age in the 90s. The movie won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize early last year for Rockwell, co-producer Lena Waithe, and more. Some very sad trivia: an unhinged and unhoused stand-in on this movie stalked Rockwell, causing her to take out a restraining order, and two months later the stand-in murdered Michael Latt, a close friend of Rockwell's and the son of the founding director of Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program, Michelle Satter.

I'm streaming the nice soundtrack by Gary Gunn on Apple Music as I write.

News clips of Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg keep us grounded as to what year it is as the characters age and the neighborhood changes. Apparently director of photography Eric Yue used analog film for the first half to reproduce gritty Harlem of the time.

By the way, 1001 is an apartment number in the movie, but I don't remember anyone saying it out loud, either as a thousand and one or ten-oh-one.

Taylor is a musician with dozens of music videos and a few movies to her credit, none of which I've seen. Catlett has plenty of credits as well, but is also new to me, as are Adetola, Courtney, and Cross (the latter had a small part in King Richard). Rockwell makes her feature debut after a dozen shorts and a little more. This is Gunn's sixth feature and Yue's fifth.

A large number of Rotten Tomatoes' critics loved this, adding up to 97%, with its audiences subtracting a bit at 85. It is on the list of Barack Obama's favorite movies of 2023. We streamed it on Prime with a subscription on January 31.

The Color Purple (2023)

Jack and I really liked this spectacular musical about a young Black woman in the first half of the 20th century, the terrible abuse she suffers most of her life, and the healing effects of her relationships with other women. The enormous cast features Fantasia Barrino in the lead as Celie, Danielle Brooks as (and Oscar nominated for) her free-spirited sister-in-law Sofia, Colman Domingo as Celie's awful husband named Mister, Taraji P. Henson as performer Shug, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi as teenage Celie, Halle Bailey as teenage Nettie (Celie's sister), David Alan Grier as the preacher, and Louis Gossett, Jr. as Mister's father. Ciara plays adult Nettie and Gabriella Wilson (H.E.R.) plays Squeak. I enjoyed Jon Batiste's cameo as a, what else?, piano player. Deon Cole is a very funny comedian but I did not recognize him as Celie's sour father.

Ghanaian director Blitz Bazawule works from a script by Marcus Gardley, based on Marsha Norman's 2005 musical stage play and Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning 1982 epistolary (written letters) novel. Steven Spielberg's 1985 film adaptation of the novel raised some eyebrows at the time, as it was written and directed by white men, and it's not credited as a source, but he is listed as a producer here. Whoopi Goldberg, who starred as Celie in the previous movie, has a cameo here.

Kris Bowers' half hour instrumental soundtrack is available on Apple Music. But what you'll remember are the songs with lyrics, available on that platform and elsewhere (listen here). Thanks to Dan Lausten for the glorious cinematography.

Domingo was last blogged for Rustin, Henson for The Best of Enemies, Batiste for Soul, Cole for You People, Goldberg for Luck, Bowers for King Richard, and Lausten for Nightmare Alley.

Barrino, the 2004 American Idol winner, played Celie on Broadway in 2007 and in the 2010 US national tour. Juilliard graduate Brooks, best known for 89 episodes of Orange Is the New Black, has been in several other features and lots of TV, and made her (Tony-nominated) Broadway debut as Sofia in the 2015 revival. This is Mpasi's debut. 

I watched a few of Bailey's 53 episodes of Grown-ish and she, Ciara, and H.E.R. are established musical stars, though the latter two hardly get to sing at all in this picture. Grier is best known for 124 episodes of In Living Color, and his long resumé includes thirteen of Bad Teacher, and the TV movie The Wiz Live! Gossett's hundreds of credits include his Oscar win for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). 

This is Bazawule's third feature and Gardley's first after some TV episodes.

This movie has over a hundred nominations, but Rotten Tomatoes' audiences are more vivid, at 95%, than its critics at 83. We rented it on Apple TV January 30.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

We enjoyed this musical about a poor boy hoping to win riches in a chocolatier's lottery with strings attached. Jack loves rewatching old movies and my M.O. is to watch new ones. But I was stuck in bed for a few days (much better now, thanks!) and he suggested I see this in preparation for the upcoming remake with Timothée Chalamet.

Peter Ostrum, who plays the boy Charlie, was 14 in 1971. Gene Wilder (1933-2016) and Jack Albertson (1907-1981) are Wonka the chocolatier and Charlie's grandpa, respectively.

Mel Stuart (1928-2012) directs from a script by Roald Dahl (1916-1990) adapted from Dahl's 1964 children's book. The script was later tweaked, to Dahl's disapproval, by an uncredited David Seltzer.

The music by Leslie Bricusse (1931-2021) and Anthony Newley (1931-1999) got three Oscar nominations. The soundtrack is available on Apple Music and, no doubt, elsewhere. When Amy was a toddler in LA, we used to listen in the car to a Michael Feinstein audio cassette of kids' songs that included Pure Imagination, from this movie. Over and over (but I didn't get tired of it!). And we boomers remember Sammy Davis Jr.'s cover of The Candy Man.

This was Ostrum's only acting credit. Some of Wilder's best work is in The Producers (1967), Young Frankenstein (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974), Silver Streak (1976), and Stir Crazy (1980). Albertson is best known for The Subject Was Roses (1968). six episodes of Mister Ed (1961-64), 88 of Chico and the Man (as The Man) (1974-78), and hundreds more, many of which predate my awareness. Mel Stuart was not on my radar.

Many of prolific novelist Dahl's books have been adapted for the stage and screen. This was his fourth and final screenplay, after You Only Live Twice (1967), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and The Road Builder (1971). Seltzer is new to me.

I'm a longtime fan of Bricusse and Newley, especially their stage musicals Stop the World – I Want to Get off (1961), The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (1965), and Doctor Dolittle (1967). Bricusse also co-scored Victor/Victoria (1982) for the big screen and later the stage, among others. Newley was better known as an actor and singer than as a composer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are sweet on this, averaging 92 and 87%, respectively. We streamed it on Max with a subscription on January 27.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Martin Scorsese's latest is very good but disturbing, especially when we know it's based on the true stories of Osage Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma whose oil-rich land was gradually stolen by white people via murderous and deceptive means. Leonardo DiCaprio is the "aw shucks" lead Earnest and Lily Gladstone his Osage love interest, with Robert De Niro as the evil mastermind. Jesse Plemons and John Lithgow (who said he would work craft services just to be in a Scorsese joint) are among the enormous cast--I estimate in the neighborhood of 300.

Director/co-writer Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth based their screenplay on the long-researched 2017 book by David Grann.

This is Robbie Robertson's final movie soundtrack, and he earned one of the movie's ten Oscar nominations. He died at age 80 in July, so was alive for the Cannes premiere but not the full releases in October. He had some Native American in his genes and the music, available on Apple Music, is wonderful. There are also lots of songs in the movie.

No doubt the handful of famous musicians appearing on screen were thrilled to collaborate with Scorsese and Robertson. They include Jason Isbell (country/rock), Sturgill Simpson (country), Charlie Musselwhite (blues), Jack White (rock), and Pete Yorn (pop/rock), whose brother Rick Yorn served as an executive producer of this and more, many directed by Scorsese.

Rodrigo Prieto is nominated for the beautiful photography. The other nominations are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress for Gladstone, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro, Costume Design (Jacqueline West), Production Design (Jack Fisk AKA Mr. Sissy Spacek), Editing, and Original Song (Whashazhe: A Song for My People by Scott George and performed by Osage Tribal Singers––listen here).

Scorsese and Robertson were last blogged for Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, DiCaprio for Don't Look Up, Gladstone for Certain Women, De Niro for Amsterdam, Plemons for The Power of the Dog, Lithgow for Bombshell, Roth for Dune, Grann for providing the book for The Old Man & the Gun, Prieto for Barbie, West for Water for Elephants, and Fisk for The Master.

Jack called this "the latest episode in the series White People Are Awful." Yes, many of us are.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics send bouquets with their 93% average, while its audiences are wilting just a bit at 84. It's very long, clocking in at 3:26, three minutes shorter than The Irishman. Although it was first offered to Netflix, it was distributed by and streams on Apple TV, where we watched it January 20.

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute - 2023)

Angela and I really liked this story of a woman accused of her husband's murder in the French Alps and so does the Academy with five Oscar nominations, including lead actress Sandra Hüller, whose German stoicism belies her pain. Young Milo Machado Graner is also wonderful as their nine year old son Daniel and Swann Arlaud and Samuel Theis are talented and easy on the eyes as Vincent the lawyer and Samuel the husband, respectively.

Some have opined that Justine Triet's Best Director nomination is the reason Greta Gerwig was snubbed this year (because they can't nominate two women?). But Triet's leadership, as well as the nominated Original Screenplay by her and Arthur Harari are, indeed, worthy. This movie's other two Oscar nominations are for Best Picture and Editing. I should mention that it also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. France's César Award nominations were just announced and this got eleven.

No composer is credited and only five songs are listed for the soundtrack. A cover by the Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band of 50 Cent's rap tune P.I.M.P. is played over and over. Listen here to the cover. I'm laughing now because I didn't realize Snoop Dogg did a remix of the original (watch here) and Daniel's dog is named Snoop! Apparently the filmmakers thought that all viewers would recognize the song and know its misogynistic lyrics. We didn't. Okay Boomers.

Hüller's character Sandra is a German woman living in France with her French husband and their French-speaking son. Sandra's English is better than her French so the movie is about half in English. Of course there are subtitles for the French lines. Captioning for the English words was essential for me, especially in the opening scene when P.I.M.P. is played very loudly (an important plot point), and I couldn't have made out the dialog without captions.

Hüller, who is actually German, was last blogged for I'm Your Man. This is Graner's third feature after some TV. Arlaud, with almost a hundred credits, and Theis, with a few dozen, are new to me. Triet has directed five other features and co-wrote three. Harari co-wrote one of Triet's other features, starred in another, and directed/wrote two more of his own.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are not plummeting with their averages of 96 and 91%. Ann and I rented it January 28 on Apple TV.

Moving On (2022)

Jack and I were in the mood not to think too much and liked this story of two, dare I say, elderly women, Jane Fonda (now 86) and Lily Tomlin (84), grieving their friend's death and getting back at the widower, Malcolm McDowell (80). Richard Roundtree, who died at 81 in October, has a nice part.

Director Paul Weitz wrote the mostly fluffy script. The score, not available online, is credited to Paul Croteau and Amanda Delores Patricia Jones. Here's a list of songs.

After a bit I realized why Fonda looked so strange to me: it wasn't her all-white hair––it was her oddly thick, oddly dark eyebrows. She had her own makeup artist, David DeLeon, who has been nominated for his work on Grace and Frankie, among his credits.

Fonda was last blogged for Luck, Tomlin and Weitz for Grandma, and Roundtree for the remake of Shaft. McDowell's 60 year career includes If... (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Artist, 40 episodes of Franklin & Bash, 34 of Mozart in the Jungle, and playing Rupert Murdoch in Bombshell. This is Croteau's feature debut after dozens of TV gigs. Jones has nine features under her belt, as well as dozens of shorts and TV episodes, including 22 of A Black Lady Sketch Show.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences aren't going anywhere with their averages of 75 and 70%. We streamed it on Hulu with our subscription on January 21.

Oppenheimer (2023)

Jack and I loved this thirteen-time Oscar nominated masterpiece about the creator of the atomic bomb. The massive cast (nearly 150 by my count) is headed by Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Emily Blunt, all deservedly nominated for their roles as Robert Oppenheimer, Kitty Oppenheimer, and Lewis Strauss, respectively. It's been said that Downey put aside his usual charisma for his role of Oppenheimer's antagonist. Matt Damon and Florence Pugh bring their talents and you will recognize many other faces on the screen. Apparently, director Christopher Nolan intentionally chose known actors for many roles to help the audience keep them sorted.

Nolan's screenplay is adapted from the 2005 book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, and Nolan is nominated in both categories as well as producer for the Best Picture nomination.

We even enjoyed the fission/fusion flame sequences, despite their resemblance to what we hated in Tree of Life years ago. The big difference is that here they made sense and were shorter.

I'm streaming Ludwig Göransson's ethereal score on Apple Music as I type and remembering Hoyte Van Hoytema's stunning photography of New Mexico, Switzerland, Princeton University, and the Millennium Biltmore Hotel lobby in Los Angeles. Both men are also nominated and here are the rest: Ruth De Jong's Production Design, Ellen Mirojnick's Costume Design, Editing, Sound, and Makeup and Hair. Thirteen is this year's top number of nominations. 

A few trivia items: Different kinds of film stock were used, including 70mm and the first ever black and white IMAX, made by Kodak. Apparently the real Lewis Strauss was an investment banker who helped finance Kodak in its early days. Also some real scientists were on set as extras. My favorite idea from the previous link is that usually extras are thinking about lunch but these were thinking about the geopolitical implications of nuclear arms. There are so many trivia items on imdb that I couldn't get through them all, but most are fascinating. Hard-core fans can scroll the entire list and watch this New York Times short of Nolan narrating the opening scene.

Murphy was last blogged for The Party, Downey for Avengers: Infinity War, Blunt for Mary Poppins Returns, Damon for Air, Pugh for A Good Person, Nolan for Tenet, Göransson for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Van Hoytema for Dunkirk. 

This is the first Oscar nomination for both De Jong and Mirojnick. The former's credits include nominations from her peers in the Art Directors Guild for Inherent Vice and Manchester by the Sea. Mirojnick was nominated by her Costume Designers Guild peers for Unfaithful (2003), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the TV movie Behind the Candelabra, The Greatest Showman, and an episode of Bridgerton, among her many achievements.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are blowing up at 93 and 91%. We rented it January 3 on iTunes/Apple TV, but it can be watched on Peacock with a subscription, starting February 16. 

Rustin (2023)

We also loved this terrific bio-pic of Bayard Rustin (Bayard-pic?), in which Colman Domingo kills it as (and is Oscar-nominated for) the closeted yet confidently flamboyant civil rights activist who helped organize Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington. The large cast includes Aml Ameen as MLK, Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph, Chris Rock as Roy Wilkins, CCH Pounder as Dr. Ann Hedgeman, Audra McDonald as Ella Baker, Jeffrey Wright as Adam Clayton Powell, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Mahalia Jackson.

George C. Wolfe directs from a screenplay by Julian Breece (who also wrote the story) and Dustin Lance Black. Breece has been working on it since 2015 with much research but an earlier iteration fell through. Wolfe and Black joined later. 

Branford Marsalis' jazzy soundtrack is playing on Apple Music as I write. There's also a wonderful playlist available of popular songs from the era played during the movie. I read that Randolph was particularly excited to play Jackson, but the soundtrack lists Tonya Boyd-Cannon as the singer of her songs.

Shout out to the makeup department heads Quintessence Patterson and Beverly Jo Pryor for Domingo's dental prosthetics.

This is the first non-documentary feature for Michelle and Barack Obama's production company Higher Ground.

Domingo was last blogged for Zola; Turman, Wolfe, and Marsalis for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom; Rock for Amsterdam; Pounder for Avatar; McDonald for Respect; Wright for American Fiction; Randolph for The Holdovers; and Black for J. Edgar after he won an Oscar for writing Milk.

Ameen is new to me despite a small part in Beyond the Lights and Boyd-Cannon apparently ranked on the TV show The Voice but you can't prove it by me. Breece makes his feature debut here. Patterson has dozens of credits in her career of twenty years and counting. Pryor has been working for thirty and her resumé includes Ali (2001), Something New (2006), The Butler, Selma, Straight Outta Compton, and Hidden Figures.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are not protesting with their averages of 85 and 86%, respectively, though we would rate it higher. Jack and I watched it on Netflix on January 9.