BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: a review of "The Substance"

"THE SUBSTANCE"
Written and Directed by Coralie Fargeat
**** (four stars)
RATED R

It is not often, especially these days, when the movies really step up to the cinematic plate and just go for it!

To begin this posting, I feel it necessary to return to a film experience, while brilliant, was one so disturbingly overwhelming that I strongly feel that it is one that I truly can never return to it for a second viewing regardless of its excellence. The film in question is Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem For A Dream" (2000), and for the uninitiated, the proceedings chronicles various drug addictions between four interconnected characters. The film's final third, entitled "Winter," is where this already stylized, distraught film descends into nightmare for its quartet. 

Arguably, the most tragic figure is Sara, portrayed in a fearless swan dive of a vanity free performance by Ellen Burstyn. Throughout the film, we have watched her succumb to the addiction of reclaiming her youth by way of a crash diet and amphetamine pills as she wants to fit into a favorite, yet years unworn, red dress for a scheduled appearance upon her favorite game show. Over the course of the film, Sara's energy waxes and wanes, she increases her pill usage in order to wear the dress and she eventually is fraught with drug induced hallucinations, building with terror. Aronofsky pulls out all of the stops with a relentless audio/visual dynamism that is impossible to turn your eyes away from even as you are unquestionably horrified. The experience worked me over and then some! Remembering it now as write is sending chills up and down my spine as I can still remember the drilling music, the razor sharp editing and undeniably Burstyn as Sara disintegrating before our very eyes.  

Dear readers, I recalled that movie memory for you because I feel compelled to have to first explain to you that I was extremely trepidatious with the thought of seeing Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance." While the tenor of the reviews have been quite high, the reported intensity of the work and all of the body horror gore contained therein, made me wonder that perhaps even as I was curios, it might be an experience just not designed for my temperament. That being said, my curiosity overtook any sense of fear I was harboring and I took the plunge.

At a time when the motion picture industry is clearly uninterested in taking any cinematic risks at the expense of what they feel to be the sure things of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots and re-imaginings, every once in awhile, something comes along that defies the norm and loudly announces itself with unapologetically bold strokes. 

Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is a visceral, voluminous and volcanic experience. Fearless in conceit and execution, Fargeat takes the core of a cautionary fable and utilizes it to unleash a bombastic Hollywood satire, as well as a take no prisoners diatribe against unrealistic to impossible beauty standards and the disqualification of women in society, especially past a certain age. Most of all, Fargeat has helmed an enormously felt howl, a wrathful, rapacious scream into the unforgiving maw of a world that teaches girls and women to hate themselves. It is gruesome. It is grotesque. It scratches, claws and gnashes its cinematic teeth into a frenzy. 

And it is also a film of superbly high achievement. It is with out question one of the best films of 2024.

"The Substance" stars an astounding Demi Moore as Hollywood legend, but now fading celebrity, Elizabeth Sparkle, who, as the film begins, hosts a morning television exercise show akin to the type Jane Fonda created during the 1980s. On her 50th birthday, lecherous, disgusting executive Harvey (!!), enthusiastically played by Dennis Quaid, fires Elizabeth from her show due to her age, and immediately begins the pursuit for someone younger, hotter and better to lead the program. 

Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth comes across a black market product known as "The Substance," a cell replicating liquid, once injected, will allow her to birth a younger version of herself. Yet, the rules are strict. While effectively another entity, the two beings share the same consciousness. But, while one is active in the world for seven days, the other will remain comatose during that same time period. After seven days, the two must switch places for the next seven days and the cycle continues with full adherence to respecting the connective balance between the two. 

Unfortunately, Elizabeth's other self, who names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley), very rapidly takes Elizabeth's old job, becomes a media sensation and becomes increasingly reluctant to switch places back with her older self, which then produces terrifying side effects. 

To reveal much more would certainly spoil the full effect of Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance," but I am here to report that its impact is unapologetically pummeling. At nearly two and a half hours, Fargeat unveils a narrative furiously propelled by its own rocket fueled nightmare logic. It possesses high style and superlative confidence in itself. While subtlety is not on the menu whatsoever, it would be mistaken to suggest that Fargeat has not ensured "The Substance" exists without nuance or even poetry. 

In fact, I absolutely loved Fargeat's usage of a variety of visual motifs through the film from eggs, eyes, mirrors, all manner of spheres, palm trees, to even the shape and form of the human (notably female) posterior. The film's opening sequence, starring an overhead shot of Elizabeth Sparkle's Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star, is a gorgeous montage of the trajectory of Elizabeth's career, from its rise to its Winter stages. To that end, I loved how the film's final shot perfectly double ends itself to that opening, making for a final image that is simultaneously disgusting and undeniably profound.

At this point, I am compelled to mention the film's level of violence and gore, which is exceedingly high. A strong stomach is encouraged as it is not for the faint of heart as we are subjected to an orchestra of bodily fluids, viscera, entrails and an amount of blood that could rival anything we have already seen in the likes of Brian De Palma's "Carrie" (1976) and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980), two films in particular "The Substance" references and pays homage. Even with its usage of practical make up effects, which recalls the stomach churning works of David Cronenberg's "Scanners" (1981) and "The Fly" (1986) as well as John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982), I will say that the violence in the film is not end to end or even gratuitous to the point of stretching beyond tasteful limits, so to speak (but I do concede that will depend upon your own personal tastes and limitations certainly--if you fear needles, I recommend that you stay away). 

As wrenching as it all is, for me, the unreality of the gore--especially during the film's biggest swings in the absolutely wild final third--made it a tad easier to regard. I never had to leave the theater and recompose myself, if that means anything. Coralie Fageat ensures that her gore usage is riveted to the demands of her story, characters and overall themes and with that, her film never felt to be exploitative. 

For that matter, for all of the copious female nudity on screen from both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, Fargeat's cinematic gaze is also never exploitative and when it is sexualized, it is for stinging satirical commentary. Again, her usage of mirrors and the amount of screen time that the characters of both Elizabeth and Sue regard themselves, whether in wonder or horror, speaks volumes towards Fargeat's central themes. As Sue galivants during her time in the world, racking up attention and adoration, while Elizabeth remains comatose, after the two switch places, Elizabeth regards Sue's continuous victories--mirroring the ones she used to have when she was younger--while trapped in a self imposed isolation where her sense of inadequacy, loneliness and self-loathing only grows in power.

One of the film's most striking and devastating sequences is one when Elizabeth, readying herself for a date with a former high school classmate who once (and still) adores her, finds herself in a position I would think absolutely anyone can relate with. It is a sequence without dialogue. Just Elizabeth struggling to reconcile how she is viewed by this classmate with how she views herself. She alters her outfits and makeup over and again, hoping to improve but only making everything worse, including her dwindling self-esteem. 

Time is literally ticking away--for her proposed date, certainly. But her sense of relevance and mortality, definitely. What begins with a nervous confidence ends with a face and hair shredding fury as what we are witnessing is the very emotional, psychological violence Elizabeth, and therefore, all of us, especially women, are all doing to ourselves to try and attain a status that does not exist but are constantly being told that it is. In Elizabeth's case, a massive billboard of Sue that faces (and therefore, taunts) her points directly at her mammoth window outside of her dream world apartment. It is just one remarkable sequence in a film that keeps topping itself and Demi Moore is equal to every single moment of it.

I am of an age when I can remember Demi Moore before I even really knew her name as she portrayed ace reporter Jackie Templeton on television's "General Hospital." I have grown up with her in many regards, in films I have loved as well as others that I have not. But, over so many of these years, she has remained a strong presence that I have rooted for, much like her acting contemporaries. Having Demi Moore in "The Substance" is a masterstroke considering all that we know about Moore's history in the public eye, especially her status as a sex symbol, grafted onto her whether she wanted it or not.

 Considering the subject matter of "The Substance," I would think that any actress could have performed this role. That said, Demi Moore grabs onto Fargeat's vision firmly, completely and like Ellen Burstyn in "Requiem For A Dream," it is a performance without a trace of vanity and a go for broke commitment to absolutely everything required of this story and character. Much like Natalie Portman's blistering performance in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010), Demi Moore has to travel to despairing depths and layers of Hell...and believe me, she takes us with her. If the rumblings prove themselves to be true come awards season, I would be thrilled if Demi Moore's superlative, staggering work here were to be recognized.       

Margaret Qualley, I feel possesses an equally difficult role and frankly, with even less dialogue and she is compulsively watchable. Reminding me tremendously of the Replicant characters from Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982), and even Emma Stone's character in Yorgos Lanthimos' audacious "Poor Things" (2023), the character of Sue emerges into the world without any of Elizabeth's psychological baggage, even though they share the same consciousness. Sue functions without empathy, essentially soulless, driven by her narcissistic desires regardless of the dire consequences. Yet, over the course of the film, the same insecurities that hinder Elizabeth rise rapidly in Sue, providing her motivation to also remain relevant and her refusal to be discarded by anyone, especially Elizabeth via means I won't discuss here so as not to produce spoilers.

Yes, there are clear allusions to the likes of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" (1950) and Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her" (1992), but I wish to be clear about the following: Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is not another movie about two women fighting each other. As the shadowy, unnamed corporation that supplies the elixir extols and subsequently warns both Elizabeth and Sue: "Remember...You Are One." 

Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" is a film about one woman at war with herself. While Fargeat's rage against the patriarchal based expectations that lie within the male gaze is never let off of the proverbial hook (especially in the film's unleashed David Lynch-ian climax), she affords us the opportunity to see how that male gaze fuels the self gaze. 

Elizabeth Sparkle's inability to accept herself arrives at a time when it is possible that she never really knew herself at all as she she spent her life in an industry feeding off of outside validation. It feels as if she has no friends or family...something real or tangible in the world that possesses a grounding security that the fleeting Hollywood machine is not interested in cultivating, especially for women. So, when all that she has achieved has been swiftly taken away, where does she turn? Her need for outside validation at the expense of any sense of self reflection or acceptance, all the way to the point where she willingly defies the natural law sends her on this odyssey, consequences be damned. 

To that end, Sue appears as plastic as the mannequins she emulates and in a great touch, Fargeat never even gives Sue a last name, for why would these lascivious male Hollywood executives care about her identity when all they are looking for is a young, hot woman to fit the skimpy leotard? Sue plays the game to her advantage as far as she is able to take herself, again, without heart, conscience or  consequence...but there is always a price to be paid.

During my college years, when I was majoring in Communication Arts and taking a film production class, I assisted my then girlfriend now wife with the filming of a Super 8 project of a deep personal prevalence. She titled her film "Seeing You See Me," and it was a work about body image and the level of self loathing that arrives when the person you are and see yourself as does not match with the images that confront you harboring a beauty standard that doesn't exist. 

Her film concluded with a striking sequence, which I will call the "Binge and Purge" set piece. After wandering through a magazine shop filled with all manner of glamour and fashion magazines, she ends up at home surrounded by food, which we presume she will consume. She eventually enters her bathroom and kneels over the toilet. What is regurgitated are images from magazines, make up tools and even a small American flag. There is no dialogue. Just music and images. Her film was shown to the entire film production class at the request of our Professor and I vividly remember witnessing many female classmates openly weeping to sobbing...and a few of them even approached my then girlfriend now wife with variations of the same response: "That's exactly how I feel!" 

I thought of my wife's college film quite often during Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance." Yes, Fargeat has delivered an extraordinary, visionary work that takes it all to the wall, bursts through and keeps going and is filled with all of the cinematic gifts--Editing, Cinematography, Sound Design, Art Direction, Music Score--in her full unwavering command. However, and trust me dear readers, this film is no exercise in style whatsoever.

In Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance," the pain, the horror and the rage is absolutely real.

GOODBYE, AMERICA: a review of "Civil War"

 

"CIVIL WAR" 
Written and Directed by Alex Garland
**** (four stars)
RATED R

I do not know about you but for each day that remains before the next Presidential election, it feels to me more and more like a ticking doomsday clock.

Dear readers, I have the suspicion that I have voiced sentiments similar to the one I am about to deliver...but in case I have, here we go again. I am devastated by how every election cycle has become "the most important election ever." Now, this is not to suggest that I feel that we have existed within a sense of hyperbole. On the contrary, I believe that every election cycle since President Barack Obama's victory in 2008, has raised the stakes. I remember on the night of his historic glass ceiling shattering win that pundits were already remarking that we now live in a "post racial society." As I heard those words, I instantly scoffed and said to myself, "It's going to get worse."  

I never imagined how much worse. 

For almost 10 years, we have been subjected to the seemingly endless chaos of well documented racist, rapist, 34 time convicted criminal and remarkably, former President of the United States Donald Trump, the Republican Frankenstein monster birthed from the likes of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, and who now leads what has emerged into a full fledged neo-Nazi, White supremacist regime where unimpeachable truths do not exist unless dictated in Orwellian fashion and a 900 plus page document entitled Project 2025 serves as a blueprint for what will be enacted should he win another Presidential term this November. 

For myself, life has grown increasingly darker due to all that stands to be lost for myself, the people I love, the children I teach and for the citizens of this nation and world at large who happen to not be wealthy, White, evangelical male should this existential threat come to pass. The additional threats of political violence are mounting and have been so for several years, making me more fearful, especially as my school is located mere blocks away from our State Capitol building. 

While the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has inject an essential ray of light, hope and joy into these proceedings so blinding in intensity that it instills hope inside of me, I simultaneously feel unquestionable terror. For is the excitement, grit and grass roots voting enough to topple the rage and political cheating already underway? What happens if Kamala Harris does indeed pull out a victory, which will have its own glass ceilings to shatter? What happens if Trump loses again? What happens if he wins again?  

Writer/Director Alex Garland's "Civil War" is an astounding feat, a horrific "What If?' scenario that meets us all within this moment when our very democracy sits upon the most precarious knife's edge where it feels like the smallest puff of wind can blow the country either this or that way and at its worst, into a landscape from which we cannot recover. At this time of writing, I have seen Garland's film twice and I have been legitimately stirred while also finding myself amazed with the superior artistry on display as he conceptualizes our destruction, a quality which makes his film stand superbly taller than existing as some sort of political statement but as a richly delivered multi-layered experience which does indeed force us to question how much have we been desensitized to our surroundings as brutal and unforgiving as it has become...as well as how it has always been.     

Set in an undetermined future dystopia where the (unnamed) President of the United States (Nick Offerman), now in his third term, and his administration are attempting to fend off a rising national secessionist uprising as led by a combined armed resistance known as the "Western Forces (WF)" of Texas and California (?!) with possibly another secessionist movement from Florida thrown in for good measure.

After surviving a suicide bombing attack in New York City, emotionally deadened war photo journalist Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and her colleagues, Reuters journalist Joel (Wagner Moura), and Lee's mentor and veteran New York Times journalist Sammy (a warmly grave Stephen McKinley Henderson) plot to drive from NYC to Washington D.C. to potentially interview the President before the aforementioned secessionist forces descend and fully overthrow the government. Unexpectedly joining the trio, and much to Lee's chagrin, is Jessie Collin (Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring war photo journalist who cites Lee as her source of inspiration.  

Their journey is by turns solemn and harrowing with dashes of hope, levity, compassion, grace and humane sacrifice as the drive takes them through a rapidly dilapidated United States inching closer than ever to full oblivion.

If "Civil War" is to be the final film directed by Alex Garland, who has announced that he intends to step away from filmmaking to focus solely upon writing, then his film is indeed a striking document to leave behind as is final directorial statement. While I do realize and understand how Garland's approach may have been frustrating for some critics and viewers as it takes a decidedly apolitical stance in a politically themed film of such urgent brutality, I actually found the reluctance to "pick a side," so to speak, was precisely what this film needed in order to allow us to have a certain nuance within the overall warning signs. 

The film's bird's eye view of war and conflict during a period of national history where we are deeply embedded within divisive conflicts increasingly fueled by rampant disinformation and violent political rhetoric and actions around the country as our 2024 Presidential election looms larger and larger due to the closeness of its proximity. 

We are existing in what feels to be a horrific hallucination, a life as if we have inexplicably slid into a deathly dark alternate timeline. That is the feeling Alex Garland evokes with precision, and "Civil War" gives us a cinematic experience that reflects the everyday madness back to ourselves but with visual amplifications that fully mirror our disbelief, confusion and nightmarish awe as we question upon a daily basis, "Did I really see what I just saw? Did I really hear what I just heard?" And every day, our answer is a shaken "Yes." Our very fabric of reality is being called into question as what was unfathomable is now commonplace, and after a time, it almost doesn't even matter how we arrived here. We are NOW here...and we have to keep riding the waves to figure out how to survive. That is the nature of Garland's vision and it is as disturbing as the real lives we are living, where we are further  being challenged to understand that yes...it can happen here in the supposed land of the free and home of the brave.. 

Alex Garland's "Civil War" is a multi-layered experience that creates and amalgamation of the political thriller, road movie, and socio-political cultural critique. It is also a vibrant love letter to journalism and those who place themselves over and again into hellish, life threatening conditions to solely collect and report the stories for our benefits while additionally serving as a character study of a certain "adrenaline junkie" nature in these journalists that is akin to the character study we witnessed in Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" (2008). Returning to the road movie conceit, the film often transported me to Francis Ford Coppola's iconic masterpiece "Apocalypse Now" (1979), as our journalists' vignette styled travelogue towards the shadowy President references the odyssey up river to locate the mysterious Colonel Kurtz. 

Yet, perhaps even most of all, Garland's film allows his characters, as well as all of us in the audience, profoundly serious self reflection regarding our relationship with violence, whether the very real events we see every day and night upon the news as well as within what we consume in our fiction based media with its swath of anti-heroes, serial killers, and fantastical acts of depravity and degradation, mayhem and madness. 

Through the character of Lee Smith, we have one of our conduits and again, Kirsten Dunst surprised me with her depth of reach with her quietly blistering performance. Over the years as she phased from Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" (1999) to her criminally misunderstood and beautifully layered work in Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" (2005) to Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (2011) and more, with "Civil War," I saw a performance of such unprecedented hardened gravity, so often with just her far reaching gaze and without ever saying a word. 

Lee is the embodiment of desensitization, spending her adult life chasing the story and the image while enduring unspeakable events of violence. Only her sense of journalistic duty and the camera lens separates her from the barrage of carnage--or does it? "Civil War" charts her inner journey from desensitization towards a certain reclamation of her humanity as we witness her tenuous relationship with Jessie, which begins with a guarded callousness towards one of genuine friendship and even a hint of Motherly protection with rubs against Jessie's comparative innocence, youthful recklessness, hero worship (and possibly some inferred sexual attraction). 

To that end, Jessie represents who Lee once was and the older Sammy represents what Lee could possibly still be as Sammy's own adrenaline junkie nature and intense pursuit of the journalistic truth has not dulled his humanistic empathy which he continuously offers up as a sage. Even further, is Jessie's journey from innocence towards desensitization making the film function as a riveting and tragic dual narrative/character study of working professionals trying to retain a sense of justice, integrity, duty, morality and sanity in an insane world.  

Always the camera is the truth teller and the barrier, for where are the humane lines drawn with what is visually captured, and how it is disseminated to the masses? Is every moment in life and death demanding to be documented--again, a commentary upon our social media culture as well our consumption of violence through the media. 

One of the most striking sequences in the film is a gunfight and political executions scored to De La Soul's "Say No Go," a wholly jarring merging of sound and images. This particular montage sequence threw me off initially but then, it just clicked...and brilliantly so. For what Garland accomplished was a sly commentary upon a most overused set piece in films and television: the violent action sequence set to a pop song. What better way to be desensitized than have something to tap our feet to as people are being blown away.  

In "Civil War," Alex Garland's impeccable visual style matches and enhances the grim subject matter, again showcasing how the camera itself provides both clarity and distance towards the images the photographer, and in this case, the filmmaker, is chronicling. The quality of the film visually is glistening! Garland, working alongside Cinematographer Rob Hardy, ensure that every moment in "Civil War" is presented with a crystal sharpness, making the film--frame by frame--look like the types of photography enshrined in the pages of LIFE magazine or National Geographic. 

This tactic is present even in sequences of grisly, graphic violence, which I assure you is never gratuitous but realized again just as if these motion picture images could simultaneously serve as the actual photographs Lee and Jessie are taking as well as the ones we are accustomed to viewing in real life. And throughout everything, Garland is challenging his characters and us to question at which point do these acts of inhumanity cease to just exist as images we can be detached from and affect us as the reality that has been captured, especially when the loss of life is caught on film.

"Civil War" concludes with a bravura 25 minute sequence (again juxtaposing cinematic trills with approximations of real world political destruction) depicting the Western Forces' assault upon Washington D.C. and into the White House itself, ending with a devastating final shot (pun intended) and it's an absolutely killer image and has haunted me ever since having seen the film. And what a stunning achievement even that moment is for within this fabricated image, Alex Garland forces us so uncomfortably into the "What If?" nature of his film that we cannot help but to think of our current reality and ponder just what would become of us should this happen for real.

The camera is the key to the truth, about the world as well as ourselves. While I do not see myself as a photographer, I adore taking pictures and scratching my filmmaker's itch by seeing if I can capture images in an artful way. I remember in 2011, during the lengthy protests at the State Capitol building against former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, which I attended week after week and at which I took hundreds of photos. I would capture as much as I possibly could and return home to annotate every shot and then upload them to my Facebook page for my online community of family and friends to catch wind of what was happening here and what the main news media would either feature or choose to ignore. I fantasized myself as being some sort of war correspondent, feverishly placing myself right at the epicenter of one moment after another to get the story and once the protests faded away eventually, I found myself having great difficulty readjusting myself to the relative silence I existed within before the protests began. 

In my own miniscule way, I think I may have captured a taste of what real photo journalists might experience in their careers, which they enter willingly and repeatedly for the purpose of getting the story. I cannot begin to fathom what psychological, emotional toll and damage it must take upon them to tell our collective human story. Alex Garland's "Civil War" is a sobering tribute to those figures while serving as an essential warning and lament for all that we are bound to lose should we continue hurtling towards our own extinction by our own hands.

Alex Garland's "Civil War" is one of 2024's very best films.

LET IT RIP: an appreciation of "The Bear"

"THE BEAR" (2022-present)
Created by Christopher Storer

I never used to cry at the movies or during television shows.

That statement is not meant, I will assure you, of any sense of machismo. Growing up and becoming ensconced and enraptured by the art of visual storytelling, I would indeed do what I continue to do to this very day: to allow myself to become immersed in whatever art, and therefore, sensory experience the artist is trying to weave. 

At its very best, the art in question would prove to be so immersive that I could conceivably forget that I was watching a show or even better, sitting inside of a movie theater. The feeling would prove itself to being what the late, great Roger Ebert often described as being "out of body." This is what the greatest films can accomplish for the viewer, from pure exhilaration, howling laughter, crippling terror, mesmerizing tension and sometimes, a sense of spiritual deliverance, where the work inexplicably reaches you in your deepest places of your heart and soul, bringing a sense of communion, certainly. But, just as inexplicably, allowing you to feel seen...that the feelings which possibly have been impossible to articulate, have been reflected and spoken back to you, thus making you feel less alone in the universe...and when that occurs, when the experience races past intellect, something is unlocked and I would think, that is when tears might find themselves being released.

Yes, when I was younger, I would experience those extremely deep feelings, but to elicit tears? That was not part of my film watching vocabulary. As I have gotten older, having experienced so much more life I would gather, tears are much easier to flow, whether through a certain intensity or crescendo being presented. Or when a film reveals a truth to the experience of living that reaches me in a very similar place. When I can feel my soul being enacted and I transcend the viewing experience and travel to something, I guess would be an example of...grace.

.

At this time, I wish to share with you an appreciation for a television streaming series that for me has achieved a quality so astoundingly high that it has become one of those rare series that far eclipses most movies. It is one that has consistently transcended the viewing experience by revealing truths of the human experience by reflecting and speaking back to me emotions I have held and currently hold. It is one that allows me to feel seen, valued and assures me that I am, again, not alone in the universe. It is one that soars gracefully as it delivers grace episode after episode. It is one that has allowed me to travel to profoundly deep places within my soul. And therefore, it is one that has inspired the flow of honest, voluminously felt tears again and again and again. 

Please allow me to present my tribute to Christopher Storer's "The Bear."

Set in the city of Chicago, "The Bear" stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, a young award winning chef from the world of fine dining who returns home to take over The Original Beef Of Chicagoland, a small Italian beef restaurant owned and operated by his older brother Michael (Jon Bernthal), who had committed suicide months earlier. 

Desiring to elevate and modernize the chaotic restaurant and its ragtag yet devoted staff into an upscale and French brigade run establishment, Carmy initially runs afoul of the reluctant crew, most notably, childhood friend and de facto Beef manager, the volatile Richie Jerimovich (Ebom Moss-Bachrach), in addition to an increasingly dilapidated kitchen, mounting debts, and his own unresolved trauma, grief, and survivor's guilt. 

Enter Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edibiri), a young, passionately skilled yet inexperienced chef whom Carmy hires and instills as his new new sous chef. With her fine dining background from her education at the Culinary Institute of America, as well as her business acumen from her now defunct catering business, Sydney is also enlisted to become Carmy's partner to help reinvent The Beef.  

Populated with and aided by an eclectic staff. including acerbic line cook Tina Marrero (Liza Colon-Zayas), veteran line cook Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), meditative pastry chef Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce), childhood friend and restaurant handyman Neil Fak (Matty Matheson), plus Carmy's sister and hesitant restaurant co-owner Natalie "Sugar" Berzatto (Abby Elliot) and longtime family friend and investor "Uncle" Jimmy "Cicero" Kalinowski (Oliver Platt), Carmy and Sydney feverishly forge ahead attempting to realize their dreams, build a family where there was once a fractured team and potentially heal intensely deep emotional and psychological wounds in a precarious environment where every second counts.  

As with a multitude of viewers and critics, and also as evidenced by the tremendous success seen during awards season, Christopher Storer's "The Bear" is superlative. From it's very first moments, set on one of Chicago's historic Loop bridges on which Carmy confronts a literal growling bear before waking up in his kitchen to the metallic panicked rhythms of "New Noise" by Refused, this is a production that knows its own voice immediately. It never has to take time to discover itself. It has arrived and we are holding on for dear life.

Often ferociously paced to an anxiety inducing degree, "The Bear" is visually, and most importantly, emotionally visceral and raw. Yet it is also superbly elegant in its feverish commitment to story, character, world building and a glowing authenticity. Christopher Storer, and his team, which includes Writer/Director/Executive Producer Joanna Cole and Storer's own sister, Culinary Producer Courtney Storer, who is herself a chef, never cater or pander to the imaginary audience. "The Bear" exists within its own universe--with a dogged realism--and it is up to the viewer to catch up, especially when being confronted with all of the kitchen jargon, expressions and euphemisms batted around like hurled baseballs swiped from Wrigley Field. 

If "The Bear" solely existed as a "cooking show," so to speak, perhaps it would have been just fine, or even great. If it were a program that existed simply through the gritted teeth and sweaty palms of its intensity, it also would have probably been entertaining to a certain degree. But, what we have been given with "The Bear" is a multilayered meal of a series, filled with a variety of textures and flavors that continuously reveal themselves and reward viewers who wish to dive in for second helpings or more. I have watched the first two seasons in their entirety three times and I have watched the third season twice as of this time of writing and every time, I have found myself catching something I missed during the previous viewing, which only enhances everything that is now familiar. 

For all of its fury, Christopher Storer has delivered a fully earnest labor of love and in doing so, the series feels like a collection of love letters to its subject matter, which again consistently transcends what could have easily existed as the travails within a struggling restaurant trying to survive and re-invent itself.

"The Bear" is indeed a love letter to the food and service industry, the fleet of crucially essential workers who sustain the population at large with all manner of culinary and hospitality sustenance, often against a series of ongoing challenges and obstacles, from restaurant competition to all out survival during and after the height of the Covid 19 pandemic. And to that end, on a larger scale, it serves as a love letter to all essential workers regardless of industry (as depicted in a stunning opening credit sequence in episode 2 of season 3), but with a hefty embrace to the small business owners and working class population who miraculously remain steadfast with a discipline, determination, diligence and that dogged grit (a Chicago trademark), often to the expense of their own internal stability.

"The Bear" is a love letter to the city of Chicago, as it celebrates its history and provides honest lament with the gentrification that threatens to erase the traditions that make the city precisely what it is. Being a Chicagoan, I have absolutely marveled at the program's sense of authenticity from its locations to the dialects heard through a variety of characters. This is not Chicago as a set or backdrop but Chicago as a full character within the show for when I watch, I have walked these streets myself. I have seen and visited these neighborhoods. I have encountered, overheard and existed with these very people. I have lived within the sleet grey bitter cold winds and architecture of Chicago winters. Even the usage of WXRT Chicago's Finest Rock in the background and the voice of your best friend in the whole world, the late Lin Brehmer to open season 1's episode 7 entitled "Review"--the frenetic one take 20 minute tour de force and scored with the relentless "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" Chicago's very own Wilco--feels absolutely correct and I just sigh and swell with pride. 

The loving yet clear eyed representation captures an authenticity so precise that when I watch "The Bear," I legitimately feel homesick. 

All of this being said, "The Bear" is not a documentary. Christopher Storer and his team create realism but they also provide a layer where it is self aware enough to inform viewers that this is indeed a show, most notably, through its wonderful stunt casting. From Molly Ringwald's season 1 cameo as a participant in an Al-Anon meeting to wonderful recurring roles by Robert Townshend as Sydney's Father, an illuminating Olivia Coleman as one of Carmy's mentors, Chef Terry and a force of nature Jamie Lee Curtis as the emotionally, psychologically battered Berzatto matriarch plus more I will not spoil for the uninitiated, it has ensured that we receive delightful sparkles of recognition that only add to the mosaic being constructed. And with that quality, I have especially adored that "The Bear" is also a love letter to Chicago in film! 

References to Director John Landis' filmed in Chicago musical comedy car chase extravaganza "The Blues Brothers" (1980) are openly made. Writer/Director Paul Brickman's "Risky Business" (1983), is referenced through its groundbreaking film score from Tangerine Dream (even more overtly heard in the season 3 teaser).

A season 2 episode entitled "Pop," where Carmy and girlfriend Claire (the luminous Molly Gordon) visit the northern suburb of Wilmette and take in a house party from former high school classmates, suddenly becomes a modern day tribute to the career of the late Writer/Producer/Director (and resident of Northbrook, IL and Lake Forest, IL) John Hughes as it utilizes music directly from Hughes' films. The Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty In Pink" welcomes them into the sequence and the ensuing party sequence concludes when it carries the strains of Composer Ira Newborn's score to Hughes' "Weird Science" (1985) tucked snuggly into the background. 

By contrast, the season 2 episode entitled "Forks," serves as a tribute to Chicago born Writer/Director Michael Mann's filmed in Chicago "Thief" (1981) by utilizing that film's groundbreaking score, again by Tangerine Dream, surging and urging Richie's journey as he stages at Ever, a high end three star restaurant. 

To that end, there exists an overall musicality of the show that extends far beyond its already impeccable soundtrack. I love how the characters and episodes thematically rhyme like movements and themes in jazz. Episode titles reference each other as a means of commentary and foreshadowing, like season 2's extraordinary, white knuckle family tragedy of "Fishes" and the aforementioned "Forks." 

While "The Bear" grows each year, I am thrilled with how Christopher Storer, crew and cast allow the series, from season to season, to reinvent itself while always remaining consistent within itself by adhering to the core themes. Where season 1 was largely set within The Beef and immersed us within the daily chaos of the ramshackle restaurant, season 2 found itself at a point of The Beef's three month transition into The Bear, plus the ragtag's groups transformation into a potentially more polished team, and afforded us more introspective moments and passages of quiet--as with the gorgeous set in Copenhagen installment entitled "Honeydew"--to provide a counter balance to the more visceral episodes.

Season 3 finds "The Bear" at its most interior, depicting levels of psychological chaos within a variety of the characters. The mediative, masterpiece season opener entitled "Tomorrow," featuring the Nine Inch Nails song "Together" as essentially an additional character, we essentially take a walk through Carmy's mind and memories, witnessing just how he became who he is in this specific moment of his life, and therefore what fuels decisions made and not made during the remainder of the season. While there have been some critical and viewer complaints concerning the tone of season 3, with its lack of resolution and in some respects, momentum, I strongly feel that Storer has beautifully delivered a series within transition about characters in transition, where emotional forward movement is stagnant as the ghosts and scars of past and the anxieties about the future are in constant collision in a most precarious present. 

For me, it was exactly this lack of narrative velocity that precisely makes "The Bear" stand as tall as it does. For this is an astoundingly humane experience designed to mirror life as it is truly lived because sometimes, we are stagnant. Sometimes there is no resolution. Sometimes we are left with only questions. Most especially, at some point, or currently, or always, I believe that we have all been a Carmy, Sydney, Marcus, Sugar, Richie, Tina, Michael or any other character because we understand. They are seen and therefore, we are able to see ourselves, and for myself, it is often soulfully deep and uncomfortably close to the bone.

With full disclosure, I feel it appropriate for the context of this appreciation to reveal that I am a product of an upbringing of being raised by two fiercely loving, devoted, seemingly tirelessly working parents who wanted nothing but the very best for me. I know without question they raised me with the highest of intentions and in the way they knew how do it as best as they were able. I also now have the words and language to place aspects of their parenting into its proper context. As committed as they were, they were also serious, strict perfectionists with exceedingly high principles for themselves in their professions as educators and unquestionably for me as their child, and a child of educators at that plus being a Black child in a White world. They were also overly protective and rigidly demonstrative at best, stifling at worst, making for a life where I was conditioned by impossible expectations and results oriented approval, stern demands that refused any of own own thoughts, opinions or choices and searing, constant verbal and emotional abuse. 

Nothing was good enough unless it was perfect. Weak school performances were greeted with punishments both minor (no TV, radio, or movies) to severe (threats to expel me from the school that existed as a second home for me). Grade report mailings were met with anxiety and compulsive looks out of the window for the mailman to see if my day would be emotionally safe, riding the wave of tension and release just to have it all begin again the next day. I was called lazy. I was called stupid. I was told that I just wasn't trying hard enough, or doing enough or being enough. And so, in my mind and spirit, I was never enough. Lectures were endlessly conducted in enraged tag-team fashion where I would find myself mentally shutting down, compartmentalizing my emotions because they could never be spoken, fully internalizing their negativity instead of what I am feeling they wished to be inspirational. I existed in a shame cycle that never ended.

I felt unseen. I felt undervalued. And so, I didn't know how to value myself. Over the years of my late childhood, adolescence and college years, I increasingly felt as if I was the son they had rather than the one they wanted for my skills, passions, temperament and aspects of my worldview did not align with theirs. Let me be clear. It was not a tortured existence. In a material way, I wanted for nothing. I was housed, clean, fed and more than provided for. But, forging a positive emotional connection was out of reach and eventually, I stopped trying for I felt the attempt would be met with scorn and more admonitions that I was not living up to my potential.

Language escalated into a verbally brutal confrontation near the end of my college years in my early 20s. While I instinctively knew their words were ones of worry and concern with the choices I wanted to assert for myself at that time, they were spoken with a cruelty and finality that to this day cannot be unheard. That moment lit a fire in me in which I said to them in my mind, "If that's the best you can do, then fuck you! I don't need you."  

I was consumed with proving them wrong--which in turn was another plea for acceptance--while knowing it was entirely up to me for survival post college as I decided to begin my life in Madison, WI. I was still myself, so to speak. But, over time, I realized that I had become as unforgiving a parent to myself as my parents had been to me. I am naturally introverted and my natural resting state is one that is more melancholic, despite how I may seem outwardly to others. Over time, I became relentless with myself. I became a perfectionist with myself, which lead to mounting anxiety, depression, repressed anger and resentment (which can only be contained for so long until...), a flurry of worries and constant negative thoughts, an inability to fully accept successes while lingering to an unshakeable degree over failures which makes it difficult to make choices and trust me, I can talk myself out of anything regarding any sense of risk. 

I have difficulties devising a proper work/life balance, despite my best intentions, as I am constantly feeling the need to prove my worth, often ending up feeling undervalued, unappreciated and unseen. I have a "Groundhog Day" tendency to become deeply involved with and hurt by intensely close yet emotionally abusive relationships, including one with a former best friend which ended suddenly and maliciously one year ago, which I am admittedly still recovering from. Like my parents, I love fiercely. I try past the point of reason ("If I just do this, then I will be seen...appreciated...acknowledged...loved.") and if I feel I have been wronged too many times, I mercilessly purge from my life with no turning back. I emotionally retreat inwards further, trust others less yet still compulsively find myself trying to reach outwards to aid and comfort others so they never feel as I so often do--which fuels my life as a preschool teacher with experience knocking on 30 years.

In my professional life, I can easily recount the bosses I have had who were genuine leaders, who ran with unquestioned authority but respectful of everyone and with a keen ear for fairness. Unfortunately, the world is not often run by those people. I think of one school Director in particular who herself was abusive to me for years on end and another who was also abusive and decidedly poor at disguising her obvious racism. Yet for the kindness my most effective leaders gave to me, the negative experiences are the ones that have stuck ferociously, informing my anxiety and inner voices long after our lives were no longer intersected.

By the time I was nearing 30 and enduring a period of a sort of estrangement from my parents, my Dad reached out and delivered a deeply felt and received apology which allowed us to have a blissful relationship for the remainder of his life. For nearly 20 years, he and I never fought again. 

As for my Mom, that is more tender as our personalities are too similar, we fight the same way, we each want to have the last word, and we both always wish to be right. Her tone has softened considerably since my Dad's passing nearly six years ago. But she is also not one for apologies, partially, I am imaging due to her still perfectionist nature and need for control. I struggle to reconcile with the fact that she might never make amends in the way that I would wish and I just have to live with that even as I want us to be closer than we are. I feel that I am better at a distance and that perhaps we each might want it that way. I don't know. Her memories of my past don't line up with my own as pieces seem to be rose colored and run contrary to how I was raised overall. Her expressions of pride and accomplishment for me today feel foreign and confusing as the praise and encouragement I longed for as a child is arriving now and for the very things I was criticized for.    

Years of therapy have given me the tools of recognition and understanding I need as I unwind the mess inside of my mind and try to rewire myself so I can finally love myself, know that I am enough as is,  and understand the approval I am looking for can only arrive from within me and not through outside validation, as wonderful as it is. 

I am trying. And that is all that I can do. Some days are better than others. Some days are are in stasis. It is day by day.

Unlike any other program that I have watched in recent years, Christopher Storer's "The Bear" is one that often brings me to tears. It reaches me in a specifically deep place as I feel it to be a show of conversation, one which sees me and I can see it in return because I just want for these characters as deeply as I want for myself within my real life. Writer/Director Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" (1996) bestowed a film of nothing less than spiritual deliverance of such rarity that I have often longed to be touched so profoundly again.

Much like how "Jerry Maguire" is not really about sports despite being set within the world of professional athletics, "The Bear" is not really a show necessarily about chefs and restaurants. "The Bear" is a show about our collective humanity starring a collective of characters who are all living day by day, trying to do their best and exist at their best while often struggling against the demons of intergenerational trauma, alcoholism and substance abuse, mental illness, familial tensions and more on top of everyday stresses and triggers plus the societal PTSD from the pandemic and current traumas from the election cycle.

Just like all of us. 

"The Bear" is an exploration of being dedicated to one's work, finding a life's sense of purpose and attempting to discover how to build and leave a legacy while somehow trying to attain a work/life balance. It is about the cycle of abuse, how it is internalized and how it is inflicted upon ourselves as well as each other. It is about the process of finding healthy boundaries as not giving of oneself at the expense of oneself. It is also an intimate presentation of communication, connection and the interconnectivity between people, professions, environments and of course, food. 

I have cried often during "The Bear" during scenes and sequences where the characters find themselves at moments where they know they are at last being seen, and therefore, acknowledged for their respective humanity, which then deepens the relationships and increases a positive sense of self. There is an aspect of this that feels distinctly Chicagoan as we do possess tough exteriors. But, if you get us at the right place and time--even if it js for a brief encounter--and we can honestly connect, the results are soul shaping. Of course, this quality is not exclusive to Chicago as it is the navigation of the human experience but I think you can see my point.

The respective stories and trajectories of all of the characters in "The Bear," from main players to supporting characters, all ebb and flow through how they choose to communicate with each other as well as within themselves. I have adored all of the scenes where the characters find themselves at a personal crossroads, pause and allow themselves to just talk to each other. Richie sadly expressing to Carmy that he fears he has no purpose in his life and will be left behind. Carmy and Sydney ironing things out while fixing a table. Marcus, Sydney and Carmy discussing what "legacy" means to each of them. Richie and Chef Terry at Ever. A stunning sequence starring Tina in season 3's outstanding "Napkins" directed by Ayo Edebiri. Will these connections foster trust, patience and empathy or will past wounds and traumas continue to keep them burrowing inwards when they need to reach outwards? You never know when someone needs a lifeline but you always know when one is being tossed to you.  

Communication is connection and throughout "The Bear," with our central figure of Carmy, we see when it works (his beautiful 7 minute monologue in season 1 episode 8 entitled "Braciole") and when it fails him (the entirety of season 3). When Carmy is at his absolute worst, we still empathize because we understand. We know that he is doing his best in any given moment due to his own intergenerational trauma, survivor's guilt, and crippling anxiety from his family history combined with being the victim of abuse from a raging narcissist (portrayed with devastating coldness by Joel McHale), all of which fuels his punishing self flagellation, need to burrow inwards and become consumed with his own uncompromising work ethic, an inability to accept love and shouldering the constant fear of letting go and believing that others care, believe in him and won't let him fail. Yet, he is also str5uggling to know that without attaining a work/life balance, not only will he eventually flame out, his formidable skill and creativity will suffer instead of grow.

It is this human, experience that is the heart and soul of "The Bear," a show that is about life as it is lived and where food is utilized as nourishment and sustenance certainly but crucially as a metaphor for inspiration, art, trauma, pain, connection, heath and healing. Where every meal contains its own story to be told, forging connections and building an ongoing history for all who give and all who receive.

At the 75th Emmy Wards ceremony held on January 15, 2024, where "The Bear" won for Best Comedy an extremely debatable category choice of course), Matty Matheson, who is himself a real world chef, expressed the following during his acceptance speech on behalf of the entire production:

"I just want to thank restaurants as a whole, hospitality as a whole. I just love restaurants so much-the good, the bad. It's rough. We're all broken inside and every single day we've got to show up and cook and make people feel good by eating something and sitting at a table, and its really beautiful."   

Christopher Storer's "The Bear" is that great multi-course meal that is continuously delicious but also delivers satisfaction for the soul. It has given to me more than I could have asked for due to the superlative artistry of all involved. "The Bear" is beautiful ode to all of us who are bruised and broken yet continue to just find it within ourselves to get up and try again. I anxiously await season 4, which has reportedly been largely filmed already but for now, I can luxuriate in this series, that for 28 episodes so far, has over and again transcended most movies.

"Take us there, Bear," Marcus implores of Carmy with quiet urgency. Thank you to "The Bear" for everything performed that takes me to places entertaining, reaches me in spaces that are painful and delivers me to a destination that is always beautiful...even when I find myself awash in tears.

Let it rip!

BEAT THE CLOCK: a review of "Jim Henson: Idea Man"

 

"JIM HENSON: IDEA MAN"
Written by Mark Monroe
Directed by Ron Howard
*** (three stars)

UNRATED

"Run, rabbit, run

Dig that hole, forget the sun 

And when at last the work is done

Don't sit down, it's time to dig another one

For long you live and high you fly

But only if you ride the tide

And balanced on the biggest wave

You race towards an early grave"
-"Breathe"
Pink Floyd

lyrics by Roger Waters
music by David Gilmour, Roger Waters & Richard Wright  

In my most recent review posting about Director Andrew McCarthy's documentary "Brats," I wrote about how I thoroughly enjoyed that film as it transcended its primary subject matter to showcase a certain dichotomy that exists for its principal film subjects, as well as all of us in the audience, regarding the sense of perception we hold for ourselves and when it conflicts with the perceptions others have of us.

With Ron Howard's fine documentary "Jim Henson: Idea Man," I was struck by this very quandary as Jim Henson never seemed to think of himself as a puppeteer, even though that is of what he is most famous and beloved for generations. He never saw himself as one who necessarily provided entertainment for children, although his now iconic work has entranced and enchanted generations of young viewers. Jim Henson described himself as "an experimental filmmaker," and through Howard's documentary, we can greatly understand how Henson's more subversive, and often gently anarchistic qualities, were always fused into his work that otherwise was filled with delight and flew on the wings of his restless imagination. 

That in and of itself would make for a great documentary about this feverishly idiosyncratic artist who achieved a monumental and still enduring body of work in a life cut too short. Which makes "Jim Henson: Idea Man" a tad frustrating because as good as it is, we can see how easily it could have been better, greater, more comprehensive, innovative and fully equal to its subject. 

To be clear, my feelings are not generated toward Ron Howard himself as he has more than proved over 40 plus years that he is an immensely skilled cinematic storyteller and those skills are deftly on display here. I have a feeling that more corporate entities were at work behind the scenes, creating a work that is designed to be more of a "feel good" experience, where the darker, more complex and possibly troubling aspects are not delved into as deeply as they could have been so as to not upset a certain..shall we say...corporate brand. 

Ron Howard's "Jim Henson: Idea Man" follows a standard cradle to grave narrative structure, featuring copious archival footage, classic film clips of Henson's wide body of work, and interviews with family members and key contributors, including his arguably closest collaborator Frank Oz, who met Henson at the age of 17 and was hired by him immediately after graduating from high school.  

We are given a travelogue through Henson's creative beginnings and the origins of what would become some of his most treasured characters and technological advancements as he begins his partnership with his then future wife Jane Nebel with the Muppet (an amalgamation of "marionette" and "puppet") themed sketch comedy show "Sam And Friends" (1955-1961), the nightly lead in to "The Tonight Show."  

After a trip to Europe where he encountered puppetry being regarded as a serious art form, we follow Jim Henson over time as he develops his craft, characters and reputation through a series of commercials and guest appearances on "The Steve Allen Show," and "The Ed Sullivan Show" among others. We view his involvement with the birth and endurance of "Sesame Street" (1969-present), the first season of "Saturday Night Live" (1975), his desires and trials to create what would become "The Muppet Show" (1976-1981), which then would lead him into creating feature films including Director James Frawley's "The Muppet Movie" (1979) plus the grander, darker cinematic visions of "The Dark Crystal" (1982), co directed by Henson and Oz and Henson's "Labyrinth" (1986), his collaboration with George Lucas, the late David Bowie and starring a then 14 year old Jennifer Connelly.  

Throughout "Jim Henson: Idea Man," Ron Howard delivers a warmly presented portrait of a timeless artist who has amassed a timeless--and ubiquitous--body of work. He was a figure possessed with what one collaborator referred to as a "whim of steel" regarding his seemingly tireless work ethic fueled by his restless imagination. Yet, as widely known as he was--albeit it through the work and the characters-Jim Henson as a human being was more enigmatic to the rest of us, definitely and perhaps even to those closest to him. The film also suggests that Henson quite possibly housed a clandestine anxiety concerning the relationship between his art and his mortality and if he would have enough life to birth all of the ideas that flowed through him. To that end, I was truly gobsmacked by some brief images Howard included in the film of Henson's truly ahead of the curve surrealist live action eight minute short feature "Time Piece" (1965), starring himself and serving as an unnerving yet playful representation of his inner turmoil regarding his relationship with the speed of life.   

To that end, that one specific film project seen within "Jim Henson: Idea Man" is one in a series of revelations about the titular subject Howard presents. Or at least, these were revelatory facts to me. For instance, it never occurred to me that for a puppeteer as innovative and immersive in creating characters that possessed true soul as he was--seeing Muppets riding bicycles and driving automobiles in a very real human world still remains landmark cinema for me-Jim Henson had never even seen a puppet show as a youth and furthermore, he actually carried no interest in puppeteering whatsoever. For Henson, puppeteering was a means to an end, and in his case, the endgame was finding a way into working within the television medium, which is what really consumed his passions. 

It also surprised me that Jim Henson never truly possessed an interest in creating works designed for children, let alone educational material, as he leaned towards more absurdist comedy and even comedically violent scenarios, including one early pitch for what would become "The Muppet Show" entitled "Sex and Violence With The Muppets." His involvement with "Sesame Street" hinged upon his ability to engage with his more subversive creative tendencies, which ultimately paid off beyond his expectations, I can only imagine. For Henson, never once utilized his art to talk down to children. He created what would entertain himself, which did serve as educational while entertaining children and adults for generations on conceptual multi-levels.  

This aspect about Henson's creative spirit certainly provides a greater context towards the darker tones and elements within both "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth" but for me, I think it definitely played into a film as enormously magical as "The Muppet Movie," which I still contend is a harrowing film considering its plot of a human conduit of consumerism and heartless greed spending the entire film trying to hunt down and kill Kermit The Frog in order to sell frog legs in a restaurant chain. Saccharine, cloying, overly twee and most importantly, NOT treating his audience--especially the youngest members--as mindless consumers but instead as human beings deserving of the absolute best entertainment he could possibly devise.   

And then, there was the information presented near the film's beginning that I also never knew anything about regarding Jim Henson's childhood or upbringing. So upon learning that his Mother practiced in the faith based Christian Scientist religion, an experience I had after Henson's passing reverberated loudly within me...which I will reveal later.  

Very much of Ron Howards' "Jim Henson: Idea Man" succeeds through all of the aforementioned material plus the copious archived footage of witnessing the sheer physicality of Henson, Oz and their collaborators made all of the Muppet magic happen. Howard performs a strong job of sticking to the theme of Henson hurtling through life as if he were constantly trying to beat the clock, a theme which allows Howards the opportunity to give the film a deeper context of who Jim Henson was as individual as he worked exhaustively at the expense of his relationships, his family life and even his own health. 

It was as if Howard's film is suggesting that if Henson were truly married to anything at all, it was to his creative spirit. Maybe Jim Henson was even more of an enigma than we, or those closest to him, could ever know, including his own children who proclaim that they really began to know their Father once they began working for him. Perhaps all we need to know about Jim Henson is what Jim Henson delivered in the work. I'm not sure.

Now, I wish to assure you that nothing presented here felt designed to tar a figure as universally beloved as Jim Henson. But, I was pleased that we did have the chance to see some human shadings and flaws alongside the brilliance. To see ourselves embrace Henson through our perceptions of him a one kind of artist when he saw himself as being a decidedly different kind of artist. And in the end, do the perceptions matter when we have the unimpeachable body of work forever? 

All of this being said, I still contend that "Jim Henson: Idea Man" could have been even better. For as much information we do receive, Howard's film moves at a fast clip, sometimes a bit too fast as if it was trying to hurry us along to the next Henson milestone instead of allowing the story to breathe and us luxuriate more in the work, the inspirations and the people who made the work we all revere so powerfully. I simply wanted more. Not a three hour epic necessarily but somehow a film that is a hair over 90 minutes doesn't feel like enough to do a subject like Jim Henson justice.  

Most egregious to me was material completely skimmed over most likely due to the fact that Disney owns The Muppets and this film was produced for the  Disney+ platform. Just announcing that Jim Henson sold The Muppets to Disney and all was well is nowhere near sufficient enough and truly just announces itself as having more to say in that story but due to corporate interests, whatever story could be told will remain unshared. I felt that to be a purposefully wasted opportunity because we never, at any point, gather a great sense as to why he sold and what it meant to him to sell something that had been an extension of his own being. Frankly, there are aspects like this one that felt to me to be less like a documentary and more like a press kit.  

And now, I have a short story to share with you, the very one that I alluded to earlier...

In 1991, after graduating from college, I spent four years working as a clerk in the campus bookstore, in a department called "General Books," the kind of which existed before the Border's and Barns and Nobles of the world really came into fruition. On one occasion, most likely in 1992, the store was  hosting an appearance and book signing by Douglas Adams, at that time on a book tour promoting Mostly Harmless, his latest entry in his irreverent The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. 

When one young-ish fan finally made his way to Adams after waiting patiently and nervously in the queue, I vividly remember him at last having his moment. He addressed Adams by thanking him for his visit to Madison, for the books he had written and for signing his copies. Then, it took a bit of a turn when he mentioned that he wanted him to watch his health and take care of himself for he and Jim Henson happened to be personal heroes and he was still reeling from Henson's passing two years prior. Douglas Adams, through his grace and generosity, gave this fan more to this moment, one that I am certain he still remembers. Adamas expressed that Jim Henson was a personal friend of his and that he still felt "mad" at him for his death at the far too young age of 53 as he explained, "Jim didn't believe in doctors." An ironic statement as Adams himself would pass away in 2001 at the even younger age of 49.      

I shared that story because I just felt that for all we learn within the film, there was so much unsaid or untouched because the powers that be are focused more upon the Muppet brand than the creative genius behind them. While my issues with Ron Howard's "Jim Henson: Idea Man" certainly do not derail the film as a whole by any means. I suppose for a figure that we all possess a certain personal attachment, especially to those of us who literally grew up with his visions, any documentary film to be made would have to feel as personal in its full intent if it is to capture a sense of the wonder and pathos of the man himself.

Ron Howard's "Jim Henson: Idea Man" gets pretty close. I wish we could get even closer.

CLASS REUNION: a review of "Brats"

 

"BRATS"
Based upon the memoir Brat: An 80s Story (2021) by Andrew McCarthy
Directed by Andrew McCarthy
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
UNRATED

I am going to go on record as having always hated the moniker "Brat Pack."

I was a teenager during the mid to late 1980's and as a budding cinephile, especially one who was urgently consuming nearly everything I was able to see, I took to the rise of the youth based teen film to a level that ran soul deep. Of course, at first, the genre was relegated to forgettable sex comedies and slasher films and still--save for the slasher films--I found myself watching every one that came along, knowing all the while of their poor, overly salacious and honestly regrettably distasteful attitude towards the subject matter and target audience. Frankly, thee films existed in the porn fueled fantasy world of adult male screenwriters and directors and never seemed to exist in any universe remotely resembling adolescence.   

And then, I saw Director Amy Heckerling and Writer Cameron Crowe's "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" (1982). While those salacious qualities, as advertised in the film's title remained, Heckerling and Crowe devised an entirely different tonality: one that was firmly footed in reality. It was a recognizable world with fully recognizably vivid emotions, moods and tenors wile also being extremely funny and endlessly quotable. I rewatched that film endlessly. 

This was soon followed by Director Martha Coolidge's surprisingly tender and no less entertaining "Valley Girl" (1983) and as anyone who knows me has ever known, by the time Writer/Producer/Director John Hughes arrived with "Sixteen Candles" (1984) and "The Breakfast Club" (1985), my head was blown apart while my heart swelled and soared. 

At last, here were films about teenagers that felt as if they arrived from the audiences they were intended for. I recognized myself. I recognized my friends and classmates. I recognized the trials and turbulence of adolescents and Hughes in particular showed an astounding empathy towards the process of growing up while also giving us opportunities to find the humor in situations that were otherwise confusing, painful and in the perceptions of our our adolescent hearts, a stretch of time that felt ever ongoing. 

Being right at the center of what would eventually be called "Generation X," a nation of kids who were often left to their own desires and voices that were essentially disregarded, John Hughes and like minded filmmakers created works that gave us a voice and the respect for our experience growing up, devising stories that spoke truth to our emotional states and told the world that just because we are young, it does not negate our stories being told with as much respect and dignity as films about adult characters. 

And with the very best examples of the genre, in addition to the sharp writing and direction, the conduits for these stories, their impact and their longevity rested heroically in the actors who embodies these characters.

Andrew McCarthy was one of the actors during that period that I did gravitate towards for I admired his fearlessness with displaying a level of sensitivity that was not the typical norm for male characters within the genre. There was a thoughtfulness to him, a pensive sometimes aloof, introverted quality that I responded to and kept returning to in films I revered as well as others I felt less successful yet he nonetheless remained magnetic. He was a figure who gave me a voice on screen as much as the likes of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and John Cusack, while others like Judd Nelson, James Spader, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Eric Stoltz, Ally Sheedy and definitely Sean Penn for example always informed me that there was the potential for quality in whatever projects they chose to align themselves with.   

The relationships formulated were palpable even though we would never meet in person. In fact, due to their consistent presence, combined with the proximity to our ages, it was not out of the question to kind of think of these figures as being auxiliary classmates as we watched them grow and develop right alongside ourselves.  

And then, on the cover of the June 10, 1985 issue of New York magazine, just months after the release of "The Breakfast Club" and a mere few weeks before the release of Director Joel Schumacher's "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985), starring seven notable young actors including Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, in addition to Sheedy, Nelson, Estevez and McCarthy, Journalist David Blum's article with the now iconic headline hit like a smart bomb: "Hollywood's Brat Pack." 

Nothing would be the same again regarding the pop culture zeitgeist at the time for those of us in the audience as fans and unquestionably for the actors themselves.     

Andrew McCarthy's thoroughly enjoyable new documentary film "Brats" explores the fallout from that one article in regards to himself and his contemporaries during the 1980's and now its legacy, which for almost 40 years has straddled the thin line between pejorative and badge of honor depending upon whom is asked. 

What could have existed solely as a nostalgia piece, designed squarely for the teenagers of the time, McCarthy has ultimately devised an experience that is more introspective and emotionally and philosophically wide ranged than expected. Yes, the memories flood back for us as well as the film's participants but they are revisited in the way that we all regard our collective pasts, with deeper perspectives, viewpoints that either are more entrenched or surprisingly altered and all delving into how we all perceive ourselves in comparison and contrast to how how we are seen by others. And in consequence, how did those perceptions, from ourselves and from others affect or even form the trajectories of our lives? 

With "Brats," Andrew McCarthy as our main protagonist and as the film's director decides to confront this very inner quandary by attempting to reunite with the principal members of the "Brat Pack," some of whom he has not seen or spoken to in decades, to at long last discuss and ruminate over what this one article meant to them at the time and if emotions have deepened or changed altogether. McCarthy embarks upon a cross country voyage to visit the likes of Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe among others.

I previously mentioned that I had thought--and I guess that I still do--think of these actors as existing as auxiliary classmates and at face value, Andrew McCarthy's "Brats" succeeds as a sort of a cinematic class reunion. I was genuinely warmed by seeing these actors again on screen and regarding how they engaged with each other. But where the film struck some gold for me was how it showcased a certain pathos that is indeed inherent but was unexpected. 

Initially, I was experiencing the feeling that Andrew McCarthy was speaking a lot, and maybe to the detriment of us hearing what his colleagues had to say in return. Yet soon, it struck me that we were regarding that certain vulnerability that McCarthy exuded in his '80's era film performances but this time, we were witnessing the real man struggling with coming to terms with the life he may had desired for himself as an actor and the life it ultimately became after the article was released to the world. We discover more about the inner lives of himself and others that we were all completely unaware of during the '80's, most notably de to the lack of social media. Furthermore, it illuminates that these people whop feel so larger than life to us in the audience, just happened to be the same striving, trying, yet scared young people simply aiming to find their respective places in the world, in their cases within an unforgiving business in Hollywood.

What results in Andrew McCarthy's "Brats" is a series of exchanges that illuminate their personal relationships with each other combined with the sheer irony of this extreme situation. They existed inside of the sheer fallacy of what the term represented as they were decidedly not a grouping of individuals constantly in communion professionally and socially. We learn that even they did not understand or agree upon actually who was and was not perceived to be included in The Brat Pack or whether they were Brat Pack adjacent. We learn of the ultimate contrast in the perceptions of them and their talents within the industry to how their notoriety with fans actually increased and intensified due to this collective name. 

And McCarthy, throughout the film, continues his travels and engages in conversations in what is essentially a road trip as therapy and truthfully, I was moved as he seemed to be processing his feelings towards whatever "The Brat Pack" meant and means in real time.

At the outset of this review, I remarked that I have always hated the term "Brat Pack." It was openly dismissive, churlish and with this one phrase, it swiftly dismantled everything that had been worked upwards with regards to giving a significant cultural voice to a generation, from the audience certainly and to the actors themselves, undeniably. Even then, at the age of 16 in 1985, it was obvious to me that David Blum coined a term that was meant to knock this generation of actors off whatever pedestal they had ascended to by grouping everyone together as vapid, overprivileged, untalented individuals who just got lucky and are collectively coasting on unearned fame. 

We learn throughout "Brats" that the actors felt wounded to varying degrees by the name and article so much so that they rejected each other professionally, declining potentially good projects because of one actor's proximity to another, and sometimes feeling that the goals they had envisioned for themselves were now unattainable. This aspect of the film, and especially during the striking sequence where McCarthy engages in conversation with David Blum himself, where a greater truth is unveiled. 

I remember that back in 1985, I had seen an interview with John Hughes who expressed that one of the messages he was trying to convey within his films was for people to just take a f ew moments before tearing someone down for we never know what ripple effects would occur and then reverberate over time. Andrew McCarthy's "Brats" feels to be a representation of that very sentiment as a journalist, whoa t the time was 29 years old, was also young, competitive, possibly scared and attempting to make his way within an unforgiving business made a rash decision in order to advance himself at the expense of others (which also illustrates how writers are often writing for the attention of other writers). 

Yet, what cannot be denied is how the generation of fans that embraced them in the 1980's have only continued to embrace these actors and the seminal projects that spoke the deepest. To that, the term of "Brat Pack" holds a different significance and weight, showcasing that their work did indeed provide meaning and engagement in addition to entertainment. In doing so, was this term as terrible as it felt on the inside? Was it a value judgement upon them as artists and human beings?

Andrew McCarthy's "Brats" allowed me to contemplate my own life, how I see myself and how I think that I am being seen by others if I am being seen at all and how has all of that affected my own life path. I can understand McCarthy's struggle as I can easily look to words said to me by my parents, teachers, friends, colleagues and so on that either ran in support of or in defiance of how I was envisioning who I am, who I could possibly become and how the right or wrong words said at choice times helped or hindered my own sense of self perception, acceptance, loathing and love. 

We are all on this same life journey with hopes and goals, foibles and fears, successes and failures and all armed with a sense of self that may not ever align with the world, who we wish to become and who we naturally are. And still, we are connected. influence and inspire so often without ever truly knowing what we have accomplished or how much and certainly, whose lives we have touched. 

Andrew McCarthy's "Brats" gently transcends its immediate subject matter as it asks of us the very same questions McCarthy asks of himself and his colleagues. It is a bittersweet experience yet one that is simultaneously enlightening as the past and present converge in order to help us all accept where we are now and where we still might travel.

THE DARKEST ANGEL: a review of "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga"

 

"FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA"
Based upon characters and situations created by George Miller
Screenplay Written by George Miller & Nico Lathouris
Directed by George Miller
**** (four stars)
RATED R

There have consistently been factors, elements and entire cinematic landscapes that feel pulled and plucked from the realm of nightmares within the films of Writer/Director George Miller.

I remember "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), Miller's rousing adaptation of of the John Updike novel was by turns filled with a darkly comic eroticism submerged in the rightfully demonic as well as the often vomitous. "Lorenzo's Oil" (1992) fashioned a parent/child medical drama with the existential terror and velocity of a horror film.  Even his children's films were not off limits as "Babe: Pig In The  City" (1998), his extraordinary sequel to the charming "Babe" (1995), possessed a feverish creativity filled with a dream logic by way of a classic Grimm's fairy tale. Even the gentle musical "Happy Feet" (2006) took a sharp detour into a harrowing sequence of environmental collapse. And certainly there was his superior installment in 'Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983), starring a thoroughly unhinged John Lithgow as a tormented airline passenger in Miller's remake of the television episode "Nightmare At 10,000 Feet."

Yet, out of his entire filmography, what clearly stands tallest is the nightmare of the downfall of civilization itself and its full descent into complete barbarianism in his pre and post apocalyptic "Mad Max" series, unquestionably is greatest and most signature cinematic achievement(s). It has been almost ten full years since we were last thrust into the automotive carnage of the desolate Australian wasteland with George Miller's superlative fourth installment "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015), a work that revitalized and re-introduced his rapacious vision to audiences with a vicious, visceral skill that succeeded the iconic second installment "The Road Warrior" (1981) into something truly operatic in scope and purpose. 

With the fifth installment, "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," George Miller devises a prequel, giving us the full backstory of the title character first introduced to us via the titanic presence and performance of Charlize Theron in the previous film. Wisely, Miller does not attempt to just create a repeat of road rage and call it a day. 

Don't get me wrong. There is more than enough of his trademark and kinetic car chases, stunt work and largely practical effects at tremendous work. This time, Miller expands his world building even further, bringing a pathos and poetry to the blistering and bombastic, ensuring that "Fury Road" and "Furiosa" work seamlessly as a whole while also existing as two distinct and complete experiences, each one complimenting the other while telling a full story. What results is something especially extraordinary, considering that we are drowning in all manner of sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and re-imaginings. "Furiosa" feels as if this was a film that sprung directly from George Miller's bones...more than apt as it unquestionably rattled mine.

George Miller's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," set decades after the apocalypse and decades before the events of "Mad Max: Fury Road," opens at the Green Place of Many Mothers, one of the last remaining areas of fresh agriculture and water, hidden away from the desert wasteland, and birthplace of Furiosa (Alyla Browne). While attempting to sabotage the arrival of marauders from discovering her home, Furiosa is captured and taken to the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who soon murders her Mother and "adopts" her as his pseudo/daughter with the hopes she will lead him to the Green Place.  

What follows is Furiosa's journey from existing in Dementus' capture to witnessing Dementus' thirst for ultimate power over the wasteland through his attempts to infiltrate and take over Gas Town, the Bullet Farm and finally, the Citadel, run by Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his fanatical army of War Boys. Furiosa is eventually enslaved by Immortan Joe and for over a decade, as she grows into adulthood (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy), she struggles to survive while also plotting her revenge against Dementus.

While the film does not necessarily deliver any sense of surprises regarding the backstory of the character of Furiosa (although all of the holes are indeed filled), George Miller's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" beautifully widens and deepens the canvas of this chaotic universe unlike any of the previous installments. Like its predecessors, most notably "Fury Road," it is a thrilling production that showcases Miller's astonishing skill and heft as a visual stylist and storyteller. Tremendous applause must be served to Miller's entire team, with special mentions to Cinematographer Simon Duggan, Editors Eliot Knapmann and Margaret Sixel, Composer Tom Holkenbrg's booming, doom laden score, and of course, the entire stunt team, all of whom combine to bring every moment to brutally bracing life.

Admittedly, I was a tad confused when Anya Taylor-Joy was initially cast as Furiosa solely due to her physical characteristics and facial features being different enough from Charlize Theron that I was unable to envision her as this younger version. I needed not have worried. For a character that is often silent, Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa gives a performance that is simultaneously interior and explosive.  She conveys a world of emotion, pathos, turmoil, loss, grit, tenacity and an unending sense of purpose within her survivalist determination to the point where she is referred to as being "the fifth rider of the apocalypse."

Since we are dealing with the state of being told a myth, whomever is weaving the myth is key and in doing so, certain details can become malleable--especially regarding the exact appearance of someone. And so, it really doesn't matter that the actresses who portray Furiosa over the two films have differing features for it is in their inherent delivery and personality that we are always seeing one figure and we are submerged in her story.

This really struck me during a section of the film where Furiosa forges an alliance with Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), the driver of the Citadel's first War Rig and who also bears a striking resemblance to a certain road warrior we already know. Certainly this relationship serves as the mirror Furiosa will create with Max (Tom Hardy) years later in "Fury Road," but additionally, those lines of mythology were effectively blurred, making me wonder just whom was entering whose story and when. 

         

That being said, George Miller was wise to not try to craft an experience that would either out-do "Fury Road" as an action spectacle, although the action set pieces presented gloriously in their white knuckle intensity. "Furiosa" is no mere retread. In fact, what I found remarkable is that this film and "Fury Road" are the most interconnected, playing off of each other while telling one complete story in two distinct halves. 

In fact, I often thought of Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill Volume 1" (2003) and "Kill Bill Volume 2" (2004), a cinematic duet that consisted of two wildly fulfilling and completely idiosyncratic film experiences that ultimately chronicled, and therefore coalesced into, one entire conception. As with Tarantino's films, where the first film was the pulse ponding, blood thirsty action epic, the second film was its pulsating soul--while not dialing down on the action one bit. 

With "Furiosa," George Miller has infused his entire quintet of film with tremendous sense of moral urgency and outrage that infuses a richer amalgamation of his post apocalyptic Western aesthetic with a greater sense of mythology and myth making. While "Furiosa" functions as a prequel, I was extremely pleased that the film never felt as if it was overworking itself to reverse engineer plot points and aesthetic elements to ensure the parts between the two films connected properly. This success is entirely due to the fact that Miller wrote and storyboarded "Furiosa" (as well as a potential film entitled "Max In The Wasteland"--set in between these two films) before "Fury Road" was even filmed, largely for the purpose of allowing himself to become completely immersed in the story's arc as well as for Charlize Theron to embody the character and her psychology as deeply as possible--and as we have already witnessed in  "Fury Road," Theron accomplished this feat to a magnetically harrowing degree. 

Where the timespan of "Fury Road" is essentially over perhaps two days and consists of the structure of a chase and then, a race with Furiosa's mission to emancipate the enslaved Women of Imperator Joe as the...ahem...engine, "Furiosa" becomes the grander epic. Spanning decades and evolving over five episodic chapters, "Furiosa" is given its most literary tenor, thus making the titular character function over both films akin to Odysseus and his quest to return home after the Trojan War in Homer's The Odyssey just as she longs to return to her home, the Green Place Of Many Mothers.

Furiosa's journey delves into the heart of her battle against Dementus as well as the entire quintet of films as it is a philosophical debate of what could prevail after the end of the world. Hate or hope in an unforgiving environment where bottomless rage is ruled by grief. For Furiosa, is it through the loss of her home and Mother as she was born into this post apocalyptic world. Yet, for Dementus, it could be inferred that his backstory and what fuels his sense of rage occurred either before or after the apocalypse. And as for Max, is rage exists on the edge of pre and post apocalypse...and it is that edge where he remains, yet somehow still unearths a sense of mercy.

The stuff of this specific set of George Miller nightmares arrives with an environmental disaster (or several) combined with--and caused by--the downfall of humanity. Yet, over and again, and evidenced heroically in "Furiosa," even when the world is gone, there is still empathy, there is still trust, there is still love, and there is still hope--the hope to just survive one moment longer in a nightmare world where the nightmares never end. Every time Furiosa seems to evade danger, she is scooped right up into it all over again. She is captured, escapes, is captured and escapes and is captured again and again...and still, she resists and summons resilience. 

The constant state of dread never felt more palpable to me within this series than right now with George Miller's "Furiosa." For in the earlier installments, I was seeing a terrifying world that I could not believe--it was cinematic awe. Yet, with the human element placed at the forefront with "Furiosa," which therefore increases the human element of "Fury Road," I see George Miller's vision more clearly and with a greater sense of terror--possibly due to the overwhelming sense of inhumanity occurring in our very real world, and that feeling of hungering for blood in the water is hanging heavily in the air. 

With so much in a precarious balance between societal order and chaos and the endless cruelty show  being rewarded and kindness is seen as weakness, perhaps what George Miller has been devising all along has been a warning.

"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" is one of my favorite films of 2024.