Mank

The movie Mank is getting a lot of Oscar buzz right now (for Best Picture and for director David Fincher) so, of course, I wanted to see it.  I had the chance yesterday and the hype is definitely real!  Screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) is a washed up alcoholic who has burned all of his bridges in Hollywood but he is chosen by Orson Welles (Tom Burke), who has been given carte blanche by RKO Pictures, to write the screenplay for his first movie.  However, this comes with a "for hire" clause which means that Mankiewicz will be paid but won't receive credit for writing the script. When Mankiewicz is injured in a serious car accident, Welles sets him up on an isolated ranch in the desert with three minders, a housekeeper named Fraulein Frieda (Monika Gossman), a typist named Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), and producer John Houseman (Sam Troughton), to keep him working on a strict deadline and, more importantly, to keep him sober.  As he writes what will become Citizen Kane, there are flashbacks to his relationships with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and studio mogul Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard).  Mankiewicz is disillusioned by how they used their power to influence the 1934 California gubernatorial race and this informs the script.  His interactions with actress Marion Davies (a brilliant Amanda Seyfried), Hearst's mistress, are also explored, although he repeatedly denies that she is the model for Susan Alexander Kane.  He finishes the script and, despite warnings from his brother Joseph (Tom Pelphrey) and Marion that it is dangerous, he decides that it is the best thing he has ever written and fights Welles for credit.  This movie is incredibly dense and it assumes that viewers know the plot of Citizen Kane (it is referenced dozens of times without explanation) but it is absolutely brilliant.  The story, which may or may not be true (authorship of Citizen Kane has been disputed for decades), is fascinating and cinephiles will find the depiction of Old Hollywood as glamorous but also corrupt very intriguing and thought-provoking.  It is a technical masterpiece with black and white cinematography, shot composition, lighting, and editing that mimic the look and feel of Citizen Kane and an authentic-sounding score recorded in mono by regular Fincher collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.  Oldman is outstanding but I was especially impressed with Seyfried who gives the best performance of her career.  The supporting cast is also very good (cinephiles will love all of the cameos portraying Old Hollywood legends), especially Ferdinand Kingsley as Irving Thalberg (the scene where he says he makes no apology for doing what he has to do gave me goosebumps) and Dance (the scene where Hearst escorts Mankiewicz out of San Simeon also gave me goosebumps).  I loved it and consider it to be a must-see for film aficionados but I concede that some might find it confusing (especially for anyone who hasn't seen Citizen Kane) or boring (it is, after all, about the writing of a screenplay).  It is in theaters for a limited run and then it will stream on Netflix beginning December 4. 

Christmas Porch

I will sometimes put a Christmas wreath on my door but I have never decorated my porch before (many of my neighbors do).  Since I've gone a little overboard with my Christmas decorations this year, I decided that I might as well go all the way!  My sister bought this sign from a vendor that she met at a craft boutique and, when I said I wanted one, she asked her if she had any of them left.  I was so excited when she said that she would make me one!  I really love it because it is black but still obviously Christmas themed!

Then I found this cute door mat on Amazon.  I am really liking buffalo checks right now!

The last item that I needed for my porch was a wreath.  I usually just buy a pine wreath from Home Depot on Black Friday but I found this one on Facebook and had to have it!

A fourteen-year-old girl near me was making them to sell to earn money for Christmas and I liked the idea of supporting her.  I also really liked the wreath because it is really simple and has a buffalo check ribbon (it is also really sparkly).  My sister bought one as well and we got seriously lost in her subdivision when we went to pick them up!

I really love how it looks!  I rarely invite anyone over and I almost never use this door to enter my house (I go in through the garage) but it makes me happy!  Maybe the Amazon delivery man will appreciate it?

Note:  My sister thinks that I will start decorating the porch for every season now.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that!

Thanksgiving 2020

Yesterday my family had a wonderful holiday (as you can see from Sean's expression ha ha!).  It was a little different than usual because we put all of the food out buffet-style and ate in the living room so that we could distance ourselves a bit more.  That ended up being a lot of fun with lots of conversations and laughter!

We had turkey and ham, stuffing, cheesy potatoes (here in Utah they are called funeral potatoes), rolls, pomegranate salad (a tradition in our family), and a vegetable tray with dip.  Everything tasted delicious!  We actually had pumpkin, pecan, and cherry pies but we were all so full that we didn't even get them out!

After dinner we played a crazy game of shanghai rummy!  We have not played this together since New Year's Eve and it felt really good to be doing something so normal after the year that we have had!  We got laughing so hard that I could hardly breathe!  Kristine won but I came in second, even after a disastrous early round (we are thinking of having a tournament over the Christmas break where we all buy in and winner takes all but that might make it even more ruthless than usual).  I think this is one of the best Thanksgivings we've had!

Note:  Tashena is going back up to school in Washington state today after being home since the pandemic started.  We will miss her so much but she'll be back for Christmas!

The Last Vermeer

I have been looking forward to The Last Vermeer since I saw the trailer months ago and I was really excited to see it last night.  Weeks after the end of World War II Hermann Goring's collection of stolen art, including an incredibly valuable painting by Johannes Vermeer, is discovered in an abandoned railway car.  Captain Joseph Piller (Claes Bang) is tasked by the Allied forces with discovering who the art originally belonged to and who sold it to the Nazis.  His investigation of the Vermeer painting leads him to a painter named Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce) and, believing him guilty of collaboration, he eventually arrests him.  When the local Dutch government, in the person of Alex de Klerk (August Diehl), takes jurisdiction of the case away from him and moves quickly to condemn van Meegeren, Piller has second thoughts about his guilt.  He enlists his assistant (Vicky Krieps) and a retired lawyer (Karl Johnson) to help him prove his innocence in court.  This movie was a bit of a mixed bag for me because the plot takes a really long time to get going.  The first half, where Piller investigates van Meegeren's involvement, is very boring and incredibly convoluted.  There are references to a vast conspiracy involving the sale of art to channel money to a German espionage ring but I didn't really understand any of this and I had a hard time keeping track of who was who because of all of the Dutch and German names.  I found my mind wandering many times.  However, the court scenes in the second half pulled me back in because the revelations about van Meegeren's actions are absolutely fascinating (it is based on a true story).  I really wish more of the narrative had focused on van Meegeren and the trial and less on Piller and his motivation (Pearce gives a much more dynamic performance as van Meegeren than Bang does as Piller).  Piller's character arc raises questions about the morality of acts committed for survival while a country is occupied by an enemy but I found van Meegeren's exploration of how the value of art is determined to be much more interesting (this theme reminded me of The Burnt Orange Heresy which also features Bang).  On a side note, I really liked the production design in the depiction of post-war Amsterdam (a favorite city of mine) and the lighting design which seems to mimic a Vermeer painting.  This is an average movie at best but I enjoyed it because of my fascination with World War II and my love of art.  It might be a bit too esoteric for most moviegoers.

Ammonite

There is nothing I love more than an atmospheric character-driven period drama and yesterday I got to see Ammonite which is a really good one!  Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) is a 19th century amateur paleontologist who spends her days roaming the Lyme coastline looking for fossils which she sells to tourists in a dingy little shop shared with her ailing mother (Gemma Jones).  She is cold, isolated, and a bit misanthropic, mostly because her discoveries are ignored by the establishment due to her gender and class.  She reluctantly agrees to teach Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), a wealthy member of the Royal Geographic Society, how to identify rocks containing ammonites (prehistoric mollusk-like sea creatures) because she needs the money.  His wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) is fragile and suffering from what he calls "mild melancholia" after a miscarriage so he decides that she is too weak to accompany him on an extended expedition and must stay behind in Lyme.  He asks Mary to be her companion while he is gone but neither woman is happy about this arrangement and their interactions are fraught with tension.  Mary, however, is increasingly drawn to Charlotte when the latter falls ill and Charlotte eventually responds to her care.  They begin a passionate, if desperate, affair knowing that Charlotte must soon return to her husband.  This will inevitably be compared to Portrait of a Lady on Fire but, while they both have a similar theme, they have very different tones.  I loved the symbolism of having the women break open a seemingly ordinary rock to discover the valuable fossil within.  Both women are dismissed by the people around them but they bring each other to life by recognizing what is extraordinary in the other.  I also loved the washed-out monochromatic color palette of blues and grays that gradually becomes more saturated as their affair continues, especially in relation to the sea.  Whenever Mary is on the beach alone, the sky is gray and the water is very turbulent but, when Mary and Charlotte swim in the sea together, the water is welcoming and the sun gives their skin a luminous glow.  The images on the screen are incredibly beautiful but the performances of both Winslet and Ronan are brilliant!  Both of them are able to convey so many emotions with just their body language and facial expressions rather than through dialogue (the sound design is eerily silent through much of the duration), especially in a scene where the women attend a music recital.  The final scene between them, standing on either side of a glass case filled with fossils at the British Museum, is devastating because of the way they look at each other.  Some might say the ending is ambiguous but I found the symbolism to be quite thought-provoking and it gave me goosebumps!  I suspect that both actresses will be receiving multiple nominations during awards season.  It is definitely a slow burn but I highly recommend it!