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Good Bye, Lenin! (2003, Wolfgang Becker)
Somewhere near the end of the second act, Good Bye Lenin! starts having some narration problems. At first they seem like a little bit too lazy writing or, given Lenin has five screenwriters, a too many hands situation. There’s just a disconnect between protagonist and narrator Daniel Brühl’s experience and what the film’s doing. Then, as Lenin enters its muddled third act, it’s clear the disconnect is either by design—which seems unlikely unless the point is to make Brühl into a narcissist—or director Becker missed the boat.
Lenin doesn’t just ignore the most interesting points it raises—with some optics because they’re all for the ladies and despite the movie being about Brühl being an exceptional mama’s boy—it doesn’t even do right by Brühl. Ostensibly, the film’s about listless East German young adult Brühl’s complicated history with reunification; his mom, played by Katrin Sass, who the film manages to diss, showcase-wise, which is incredible given she’s in it all the time–she was a Party member who spent her life spreading the good word and then she was in a heart attack-induced coma when the Wall fell.
When she wakes up, the doctors tell Brühl she can’t handle any excitement, which he takes to mean he’s got to lie about the Wall falling to keep her alive. So it’s a bunch of hijinks. Eventually it gets real, with Brühl and sister Maria Simon learning maybe mama Sass told them some lies too. And then it flushes all the real for more hijinks, including Brühl’s romance with nurse Chulpan Khamatova. Khamatova has a “subplot” about having problems with Brühl’s elaborate scheme to lie to Sass, but it’s really just a scene and the end of even the pretense of agency. Sass doesn’t get a name in the credits—she does in the film, but she’s just mama in the credits—and despite the female characters outweighing the male, the film doesn’t even try to beat Bechdel. Even when it’s not about Brühl, Becker’s there to make sure it’s not about anyone else in the meantime.
When it seems like Lenin’s about Brühl’s experience with the Wall falling, it’s good. When it seems like it’s about Brühl and Simon’s family secrets drama, it’s better. When it’s about Brühl gaslighting Sass? It’s always running out of steam. Especially once everyone starts calling Brühl on the gag going on too long, only then the gag just keeps going on too long. There’s also the subtext about Brühl—and many of the former East Germans—wishing things would go back to the way they used to be. Not everyone wants to drink the literal Coca-Cola.
Lenin does zilch with it.
Sass is great. Simon’s really good. Florian Lukas is adorable as Brühl’s buddy, who helps him make fake newscasts for Sass’s benefit. That subplot’s a double-edged sword once Lukas’s video production techniques become more interesting than the main plot.
Brühl’s fine. He doesn’t have a character arc. He doesn’t learn anything. Taking those considerations into account, he’s fine.
Good supporting turn from Burghart Klaußner, who the movie positions like a deus ex machina, but then ends up just being background.
Good Bye Lenin! ought to be a lot better. It does Sass incredibly wrong, and doesn’t do Simon or Brühl any favors. Maybe they needed a sixth screenwriter.
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Doom Patrol (2019) s04e09 – Immortimas Patrol
Immortimas Patrol gives away some of the bit during the opening titles when the “Doom Patrol” theme gets an acapella cover version. Last episode ended with big bad Charity Cervantes getting pissed off. The town was celebrating the Doom Patrol for rescuing her, not her for being rescued, and she did something. This episode, we find out what she did was turn the world into a musical.
All of the series regulars get to participate in the musical in some capacity. Brendan Fraser and Matt Bomer get to show up in person since Fraser’s not a Robotman in Cervantes’s alternated reality. Bomer gets to be a square-jawed hunk worthy of beau Sendhil Ramamurthy. Fraser sticks around the whole episode, even doing a duet with Riley Shanahan (as Robotman—so Fraser is double-voicing), while Bomer’s one of the first to get back to normal.
In his case, normal meaning back into the full face bandages and Matthew Zuk taking over. Zuk and Ramamurthy have a great dance number. Do Bomer and Ramamurthy have a great duet? It’s complicated.
The episode’s a good entry in the very special musical episode every show does these days, and a couple of the songs are catchy, but it is somewhat slight. The whole thing builds to Cervantes coming over for Immortimas Day dinner; even though she hates the Doom Patrol, she desperately wants their approval, too. Once she arrives, there’s a great “I am Spartacus” scene at the table as people decide whether they want to stay or not.
But it’s not a musical number.
And outside Madeline Zima deciding opposite Diane Guerrero because Guerrero doesn’t like her back (romantically), there’s not much relevant character development from the episode. The characters get their appropriate numbers—Zima and Guerrero have a duet about liking each other even if they haven’t shared, Fraser gets to sing about the joys of the flesh, Joivan Wade gets a big Disney hero song number complete with spinning and raised arms, April Bowlby and Michelle Gomez sing about their very complicated friendship, Bomer and Ramamurthy have the singing that goes along with the dance number, and Abi Monterey gets to sing about belonging somewhere.
Everyone’s perfectly happy in the fake reality until Gomez wakes up and decides she doesn’t want to sing all her dialogue. So, she starts bringing the team back online so they can confront Cervantes.
There’s some excellent acting from Gomez this episode, and Zima does a fantastic job. Plus, it’s fun to see Fraser and Guerrero get to goof in real time.
The musical trappings sometimes seem more like a flex than a necessity. But only sometimes; other times, the episode does indeed show why the musical numbers are precisely what’s needed.
Maybe if the ending had landed with more oomph, or if director Omar Madha had a different touch, it’d be more successful. It’s a good episode with some solid highlights, but it never lets loose. “Doom Patrol” doesn’t often feel too short; Immortimas feels too short.
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Amadeus (1984, Milos Forman)
It’s been long enough since I last saw Amadeus I forgot the narrative face-plant of the epilogue. The film objectifying the suffering of nineteenth-century psychiatric hospital “patients” is bad enough, but the way the film ignores it’s spent the second half of the nearly three-hour film away from narrator F. Murray Abraham… Well. It doesn’t go well, dragging Amadeus down in what ought to be its victory lap.
Albeit a victory lap all about Mozart’s death. The film’s way too enthusiastic about Abraham’s performance, which is fantastic, but it’s better in the flashback than the old age makeup bookends. And Amadeus, despite the title and the magnificent, meticulous directing Forman does with Tom Hulce (as Mozart), tries its damndest to convince everyone Abraham’s character, a never-will-be composer who engineers the downfall of Hulce as an affront to God, is the lead. And Abraham is the lead in the first half of the picture; the film opens with Vincent Schiavelli (playing Vincent Schiavelli) finding boss Abraham in the middle of a suicide attempt. They take Abraham to the hospital, where he recuperates, and a young priest (Richard Frank) comes to hear his confession.
Frank thinks Abraham is exaggerating or lying when he tells everyone he meets how he killed Mozart; the rest of the film is just Abraham convincing Frank (and the audience).
The first half tracks Abraham’s initial encounters with Hulce, who comes to Vienna as an unhappy upstart wunderkind who wants to drink, bed, wed, and write great music. Abraham’s boss, the Emperor—Jeffrey Jones (who’s really good; shame he’s an actual monster in real life)—takes on Hulce over the objections of his musical advisers, Charles Kay, and Patrick Hines. Lots of Amadeus is Kay and Hines acting like old fuddy-duddies while Hulce increases the artistic potential of opera; Abraham watches from the sidelines, manipulating all he can, simultaneously hating and envying Hulce.
The second half is all about Hulce’s financial and personal fizzling as he attempts greater and greater compositions. Elizabeth Berridge plays Hulce’s wife, and the film tracks their adorable, if problematic, courtship. Things come to a head for the couple when Roy Dotrice, as Hulce’s father (who trained him to be the great musician), comes to live with them. Dotrice is either miscast or the part is wrong; Hulce is both devoted and terrified of disappointing his father, except Dotrice and Hulce are utterly flat together. There’s no indication Dotrice is impressed with Hulce’s compositions; he is just displeased with Hulce’s extravagant lifestyle in general and Berridge in particular.
Given the whole second half is about Abraham exploiting Hulce’s relationship with Dotrice to slowly drive Hulce mad… it’d help if Dotrice were better. His portrait does more heavy lifting than Dotrice ends up doing acting.
While the first half has Abraham eventually inserting himself into Hulce’s life through Berridge at one point, in the second half, he’s mostly distant. He’s gifted Hulce and Berridge a maid (an excellent Cynthia Nixon), and Nixon reports back to Abraham, which gives the film the narrative excuse for Abraham acting on information he can’t know, but it’s dramatically inert.
Then Abraham finds himself forced to assist Hulce in his creative process, and Amadeus, pardon the expression, truly sings. The film finally gets Abraham and Hulce, who it’s been juxtaposing since jump, together on screen, and it’s magic.
Then the film punts it for the finish.
While Abraham’s great, Hulce is better. Neither exactly gets to verbalize what’s going on with their characters, with Abraham’s narrations all about intentionally wronging God and snuffing out one of His brightest angels, and Hulce unable to verbalize what he’s going through. It comes out in the music.
Besides Dotrice, the acting is universally outstanding. Berridge is sympathetic and adorable. Simon Callow shows up as the working-class musical theater owner who convinces Hulce to try to write for the people instead of the royalty. He’s good.
Technically, the standout is Michael Chandler and Nena Danevic’s editing. Absolutely superb cutting, whether toggling from present to past, staged opera to dramatics, whatever they’re cutting, Chandler and Danevic do a marvelous job. Forman’s direction is good but better in terms of directing the actors than the composition. Forman and cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek do a fine job, and there are some excellent sequences (mostly involving Hulce in his descent); the cutting is always what makes them so special.
Amadeus is often breathtaking, beautiful work, with Hulce, Abraham, and those editors particularly excelling.
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Grantchester (2014) s08e02
Maybe the first three-quarters of this episode is the best “Grantchester”’s been in ages. And “Grantchester”’s a perfectly good show, they just really figure out a way to knock it out of the park here. Last episode laid out the new normal—vicar Tom Brittney married to Charlotte Ritchie, playing stepdad to Isaac Highams—and then saw Brittney run down some pedestrian while out zooming on his motorcycle.
This episode’s got Robson Green trying to protect Brittney best he can, with sidekick Bradley Hall low-key trying to sabotage in an effort to suck up to big boss Michael D. Xavier. Last season, Brittney had an indiscreet relationship with Xavier’s fiancée, breaking up the engagement, and Xavier’s holding a grudge.
So when it seems like Brittney was going nearly eighty miles an hour when he hit the guy, Xavier’s thrilled, Green’s mortified, and Brittney’s screwed.
Pretty quickly the episode gins up a way to get Al Weaver into the story (in this case, into the story means into a jail cell to talk to Brittney). Behind Green’s back, Hall goes to roust Weaver’s halfway house. Along with giving Weaver and Brittney a great scene, the subplot gets Hall in deep water with office secretary Melissa Johns, who doesn’t like it when he’s shitty.
For a relatively substantial portion of the episode, it feels like a backdoor pilot for Hall and Johns to carry. If Johns is around, Hall can not come off like a weasel, and there’s a charm to it. Unfortunately, even as Hall gets a bit more character development this episode, it doesn’t appear he’s any less of a weasel than he seems. He’s just a different kind of weasel.
When the episode’s at its best, Green is trying to do what he sees as his job—solving a crime, whereas Hall and Xavier just want to get a result. Juxtaposed is Brittney’s guilt arc, which has some major high points but then fizzles for the conclusion. During that fizzle, Green’s investigation arc is similarly bubbly. The episode throws in one too many twists.
Excellent performances from Weaver, Green, and Brittney this episode. Tessa Peake-Jones, Kacey Ainsworth, and Nick Brimble are all super-peripheral, none really getting much to do other than remind everyone they’re regulars, and also Highams’s got supervision. Ritchie does a voice spot, which may or may not end up being more filler.
But most of the episode’s outstanding, and the rest’s pretty good.
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The Marvels (2023, Nia DaCosta)
The Marvels is a sequel to Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, which came out four years before but takes place thirty years before. It’s also a sequel to the TV shows “WandaVision,” which introduced Teyonah Parris (though her character appeared as a little kid in Captain), and “Ms. Marvel,” which introduced Iman Vellani as a teenage hero who idolizes Larson.
Through celeritous convenience and contrivance, Marvels gets the three together, along with Samuel L. Jackson (who also starred in Captain, CGI de-aged, and is back here in a combination comedic relief and exposition provider role) and Vellani’s family, also coming back from the “Ms. Marvel” show. Marvels spotlights mom Zenobia Shroff and dad Mohan Kapur the most, but does give older brother Saagar Shaikh some great comedic bits. Shaikh’s wife is mysteriously absent like they filmed Marvels before all of “Ms.”
It doesn’t matter, of course, because the point’s getting the trio together. Fangirl but still professional superhero Vellani, government scientific investigator turned reluctant metahuman Harris, and intergalactic world-saver (and world destroyer) Larson, who’s not really aware of how her celebrity works on her home planet. Thanks to villain Zawe Ashton, Vellani, Harris, and Larson find their powers intertwined; if one uses their power, they change locations—across the galaxy—with another. While the film does an excellent montage sequence with the three learning how to use the “Marvels leaping” to their advantage (the movie doesn’t make that joke; I made that joke, blame me), it never explains the rules.
Marvels opens with Ashton and her sidekick Daniel Ings (who supposedly has a name in the movie, but I don’t think so) finding an ancient space artifact—a bangle like the one from “Ms. Marvel,” now streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. It never occurred to Ashton one of the bangles would end up on a desolate planetoid, and the other would just be on planet Earth in Pakistan. One of Marvels’s subtlest recurring plot points is how little people look at things from the other person’s perspective. See, Ashton might not have been in Captain Marvel, but only because they didn’t know they would need to have a character mad at Larson for what she did at the end of that movie.
Thirty years ago in story time. In between, there was half the universe disappearing and coming back, which features into Parris’s backstory but no one else’s. It presumably would have also affected Ashton’s scheme. Ashton’s scheme is unclear for a while. When we find out exactly what she’s got planned, it’s maybe Marvels’s biggest plot contrivance. The film runs a nimble 105 minutes, with profoundly precise cutting by Catrin Hedström and Evan Schiff. Director DaCosta likes doing some nice sci-fi establishing shots, too—lots of space superhero grandeur on display, but she never holds the shot too long. Marvels is clearly on a schedule, and DaCosta doesn’t miss any stops.
Things get a little clunky in the second act, which has Jackson dealing with a grim and gritty tribbles “Star Trek” episode. At the same time, Parris and Vellani discover Larson’s space adventures are a lot weirder (and more “Doctor Who,” frankly) than they were expecting.
But then the third act’s a powerhouse. Even as the film ignores plot thread after plot thread—I’m not sure any of the outstanding ones get resolved, the movie instead just floors it, relying on Vellani, Parris, and Larson to get the finale through. And it works just right, even though the film’s got three cameos from elsewhere in the franchise, with one deep—but modern—cut and then another deep and surprising one. They’re all effective—though only the surprising one doesn’t require franchise literacy. It can stand alone, whereas the first two only make sense if you’re up on the lore.
But there’s not much lore otherwise. It’s like the screenwriters—director DaCosta, Megan McDonnell, and Elissa Karasik—all realized there’s just no way to do a straight sequel to Captain Marvel so they might as well treat it as a legacy crossover sequel. With Vellani’s family playing such a large part (besides them, the only other regular characters are Leila Farzad and Abraham Popoola as Jackson’s flunkies), it feels a little like a legacy sequel, a little like “Ms. Marvel Goes to the Movies,” and then… well, no, just those two things. It does feel like there were cuts, whether filmed material or just cut from the script and while some of them were undoubtedly delightful, Marvels works better as a leaner picture.
Larson, Parris, and Vellani are trying to save the universe, after all; they’re going to be in a rush to get it done.
Vellani’s delightful, Larson and Parris are both good—Larson gets the least to do of the three; she’s the stoic one. Jackson’s always funny, even when he’s stretching the bit; Shroff, Kapur, and Shaikh are great. Ashton’s fine. Could she be better? Sure. Does the movie need her to be better? Nah. She’s a good foil, but not too good of one because it’s not about anyone and their nemesis; it’s about people and their… friends, family, country-people? None of the terms really work, but it’s about people who care about one another working together (which makes Jackson’s secret space military organization even weirder since they’re just a bunch of lovable nerds).
Anyway.
The Marvels is a great time.
Also, if you like cats, you’ll have an even better one.
Unless you want the thread resolved, of course. No time for tidying up here, just warping ahead.
Sorry, wrong franchise.
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