The Book of Rannells: Black Monday: Season 1, Episode 2 – “364” (2019)

Even though I liked the pilot of Black Monday quite a bit, episode 2 already takes things up a notch.  This could prove to be an excellent series, and I’m excited for more.

Blair’s first day working at Mo’s firm takes an unfortunate turn when someone tries out a trading-floor plank on him and it backfires in a very expensive way.  The traders frantically try to undo the mistake, but it becomes increasingly clear that Dawn is the only one who can fix this – and it just so happens that she quit that morning after a major blow-up with Mo.  Mo scrambles to smooth things over before the market closes, and the whole thing is made even trickier by the fact that he’s trying not to look bad in front of a “movieographer” who’s there taking notes on Mo and the firm for a prospective screenplay.

I know I said this last week, but it holds true here as well:  this episode is so sharply plotted.  All the characters (except for poor, naïve Blair) are incurable schemers, and there are games within games being run pretty much from the jump.  Mo and Dawn’s back-and-forth power plays are especially fun to watch; it’s only the second episode, but you can feel the shared history behind their interactions.  Don Cheadle and Regina Hall play splendidly off each other.

The humor and character work feels smoother than in the pilot. The one-liners come across more organically (even in instances when characters themselves are trying too hard to be quippy – it feels like a natural fail rather than a writer giving them a forced bad line,) and a better balance is struck with Mo.  He was dialed up just a bit too far in the pilot, but his brand of too-muchness is pitched perfectly here.

I like the hook of the observing movieographer.  It pulls in more fun ‘80s references (he’s gearing up to write Wall Street,) and Mo’s remarks warning the guy not to whitewash his character are unfortunately still timely.  Also, it increases the drama of an already-high-octane day of trading.  It’s pretty clear that Mo’s image means just about everything to him, and the prospect of losing $4 million almost means less to him than the prospect of losing face with this screenwriter.

As for Blair?  Andrew Rannells is again pretty fun.  Blair of course starts out all straitlaced and idealistic, even after he was screwed around with so much in the pilot.  He actually spouts lines like, “Don’t you remember what it was like to be uncorrupted?” with 100% sincerity, which makes him a great foil for all the self-serving game-playing going on around him.

But already, his choices aren’t so clear-cut.  He’s a long way off from his fellow traders, but he’s not a boy scout either.  He’s presented with a dilemma in this episode, and it’s interesting to see, not just what he does about it, but why.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018, R)

This Netflix original snuck onto my Oscar-movies list, snagging a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination (along with two more for Best Costume Design and Best Original Song.)  An anthology of western vignettes, I found the film to be interesting but, on the whole, less than the sum of its parts.

Told across six unrelated stories, the main theme of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is that life in the Old West was nasty, brutish, and short, albeit set before an incredible backdrop of soaring vistas.  Variously, we follow a cheerful singing outlaw, a would-be bank robber, a theatrical orator and the man who keeps him, a determined elderly prospector, a young woman on a wagon train, and a disparate group of stage coach passengers.  Lots violence, lots of dirty dealings, some beautiful landscapes, and a blend of matter-of-fact humor and bleak melancholy whose ratios shift from vignette to vignette.

I didn’t know much of anything going into this film, except that it was a Netfix original and a western.  The opening credits got down to business of telling me a lot more, mostly about its pedigree.  The cast is jam-packed, understandable for a movie with six different self-contained stories.  Among the ranks are some big names (Liam Neeson, James Franco,) some notable Hey It’s That Guys! and character actors (Clancy Brown, Stephen Root, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson) and some intriguing out-of-left-field picks (Harry Melling, better known to most as Harry Potter’s cousin Dudley.)  And of course, the masterminds behind the camera, the Coen Brothers.

I did like it.  There are some neat ideas in here and some cool sequences.  Given that the whole thing is made by the same filmmaking duo (unlike some anthology movies that have a different director/screenwriter for each vignette,) it’s interesting how all the stories use the same visual language but different storytelling styles and tones, even if there are some aspects that carry over into various pieces.  I like some vignettes better than others – the one with the orator and the one with the prospector are probably my favorites – but there’s something to like in pretty much all of them.

That being said, I wouldn’t call it a slam dunk, and my gut feels that, if this weren’t a Coen Brothers movie, it probably wouldn’t have gotten the screenplay nod.  For me, one of the biggest issues is that it’s too long.  Nearly every vignette overstays its welcome, and so no matter how interesting it starts out, by the time it ends, I’m mentally hurrying it along and seeing how much of the film is left.  If each vignette were just a little tighter, I think the whole thing would work a lot better and hold my attention more. 

A few years ago, I started taking more notice of what I like to call the “look at all our white people!” brand of Oscar or would-be Oscar movies.  High-profile movies with great casts that are super, super white, often biopics or period pieces that justify the homogeny of their casts with their subject matter or settings – and, while they’re usually not wrong in that those particular cast makeups are required for those particular movies, it still begs the question of why those are the stories that consistently choose to get told and those are the pictures that earn acclaim (or at least have the clout behind them to try to.)  A few examples from the recent past would include Dunkirk, The Post, and The Big Short.  This movie would definitely quality, and what’s more, it would fall into the more specific subgroup “look at all our white guys!”; the only plot-relevant involvement from people of color are a couple “Indian attack” scenes, and you need to get five vignettes into the six-vignette movie before you come across a female character who matters.  I’m not saying I’ve become immune to the appeal these movies can have – I still really like The Big Short – but my patience for them has lessened quite a bit, and in this film, what we get isn’t really enough for me.  (Also, given that, historically, more than a quarter of cowboys were Black or Latino, the “historical accuracy” defense doesn’t even work here.)

Warnings

Violence, brief sexual content (including references to sexual violence,) drinking/smoking, racially-obtuse storytelling, and thematic elements.

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, R)

I’ve been wanting to see this movie since I first heard about it, and it finally came to my local theater.  In a word?  Beautiful.  This is a gorgeous film that deals with harsh subject matter but still incorporates such moments of light and life.

Based on a James Baldwin novel, If Beale Street Could Talk follows Fonny and Tish’s attempt at a love story in the face of systemic racism.  The gentle tale of the young couple falling in love is marked, not only by their struggles to find anyone willing to rent a decent apartment to Black people, but also by Tish’s efforts to help Fonny when he’s arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.  Pregnant with Fonny’s child and unmarried only because the corrupt judicial system has forced them apart, Tish fights to exonerate her man.

A running theme for me in movies I’ve seen so far this winter has been “I don’t know how accurate this is,” and while this isn’t a true story, it still applies to this movie.  I’ve never read If Beale Street Could Talk, though I now want to, and so I’m not sure how well it adapts its source material.  But however it translates from the book, it plays out excellently onscreen.  The film is Barry Jenkins’s follow-up to Moonlight, and I find it stellar in pretty much every way.

First of all, the look of this film is just incredible.  The careful choices that go into the costuming, the use of light, the way every shot looks like it could be a still photo – it’s a feast for the eyes, and the beauty carries over into the music as well.  I could just look at this movie all day long.

Oh yeah, and there’s the story too!  The romance is as tender as it is sumptuous, by turns shy, passionate, and achingly pure.  I love the beautiful simplicity of all the romantic scenes, which scorch the screen in the most soulful way.  The social messages that carry into the darker sides of the story hit home really effectively – an extended scene of one of Fonny’s friends describing his experiences in prison is a standout in a film full of fine moments.  And for that matter, the film’s messages leave room for complication and nuance, such as in the way Tish’s family fights for Fonny without demonizing the woman who named him her rapist. 

What I really like is how the movie balances its light and dark aspects.  The non-linear narrative, for my money, is essential.  Told chronologically, this story of two hopeful young people would descend into bleakness and fury as we watch how inexorably their lives are marred by racial injustice.  As it is, there are still major points of despair, of anger, but they’re interspersed with lovelier, happier memories, which makes it easier to see how the characters still find things to hope in as their situations get worse.

The cast is wonderful across the board.  At the center of the story are Stephan James (who played Jesse Owens in Race a few years ago) and Kiki Layne as Fonny and Tish, and Tish’s family includes Regina King as Tish’s mother (garnering one of the film’s few Oscar nominations) and Teyonah Parris (who I really liked in Chi-Raq) as Tish’s sister.  Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry knocks it out of the park in a minor role, and the film also features brief appearances from Diego Luna and Pedro Pascal.

Other than Regina King’s Best Supporting Actress nomination, the film also received nods for its score and its screenplay.  While I wholeheartedly agree with these, I wish it had gotten more recognition – a Best Picture nomination, absolutely, along with its direction, cinematography, and maybe more acting.  I get that there’s so much talent every year, and maybe by the time I post about the nominations I’d have chosen for my favorite categories, some of these will get crowded out, but it feels like the Academy is framing this movie as a footnote in the story of this year’s films, and that doesn’t feel right to me.

Warnings

Violence, sexual content, language (including the N-word,) drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.