Ford vs. Ferrari (2019, PG-13)

Another Oscar movie that wasn’t really at the top of my list but one that I grabbed a chance to see when it came back to my local theater (the one I’ve really got my eye on, by the way, is Parasite, which I’m desperately hoping I’ll have an opportunity to see before the ceremony.) Not 100% up my alley, but it’s very well-made and features some great performances.

In the 1960s, Henry Ford II is looking to reinvent Ford’s image, and at the suggestion of one of his marketing guys, undertakes a mission to build a Ford racing car that will be able to go toe-to-toe with Ferrari at the 24-hour race at Le Mans. He enlists the help of Carroll Shelby, a former champion racer who has moved onto selling cars after being forced out of the sport by a heart condition. Shelby in turn recruits Ken Miles, a hotheaded racer who gets along better with cars than people. The two of them work together to make Ford’s dreams come true… if only the Ford suits will get out of their way.

As evidenced by the summary, this movie isn’t really about “Ford vs. Ferrari.” That’s the plot, perhaps, the narrative event that kicks off the action, but the story is instead “Ford vs. The Guys They Hire to Help Them Beat Ferrari.” Anyone at Ferrari has a relatively small role in the film, including Enzo Ferrari himself, leaving space for the Ford folks to be positioned more as the antagonists of the piece. If Shelby and Miles are the mavericks with the blue-sky ideas and the old-fashioned American determination and grit (metaphorically American – Miles is British) to create a revolutionary new car, Ford and co. are the face of corporate America that cares more about profit than innovation, sacrificing ingenuity for committee-approved stuffed shirts.

This is a more interesting premise than I was aware of going into the film, so I appreciate that, and the movie also does a good job at making me temporarily care about the things that racecar fanatics care about. It drops in the car info we need to know that will be narratively important without bogging us down with it, and it dramatizes the events of building/testing the car and, of course, going to the big race in a way that maintains the drama for non-racing fans. I especially like Miles’s devotion to cars – his eagle-eyed focus of the track, the way he talks to and encourages the car while he races, and his eternal pursuit of the “perfect lap.”

Good pedigree in the cast, led by Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as Miles. Damon’s role is a little more thankless, since he’s positioned more as the reasonable everyman caught between the overly-corporate Ford types and the “difficult genius” Miles. As such, he doesn’t get as much flash, but he’s still very good and brings a nice tone to his interactions with the rest of the cast, including Tracy Letts as Ford, Jon Bernthal, and Josh Lucas. But naturally, it’s his interactions with Bale where he really shines. It’s been a few years since I was really all-in on Christian Bale, so I sometimes get a little complacent on how good he is. Miles really sparks in his hands, and he’s at once a brilliant mechanic, an adrenaline-junkie driver, a racecar artiste, a distracted but devoted father, and a terrible self-promoter. Excellent performance there.

I wouldn’t say the film wowed me in any big way, but it’s a solid mid-century period piece that didn’t go in all the directions I thought it would. As far as the Oscars go, it’s up for four awards: Edting, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing… and Best Picture. That’s odd to me, that a film could be one of the best movies of the year without being acknowledged as having any of the besting acting, screenplay, or direction. Maybe it speaks more to the demographics of the average Oscar voter, a nice safe bet that gets the job done with a hat-tip to nostalgia.

Warnings

Violence, intensity/peril (not exactly violence, but definitely men putting their lives in danger by driving cars at 200 miles an hour,) language, and drinking/smoking.

Doctor Who: Series 12, Episode 5 – “Fugitive of the Judoon” (2020)

Fantastic, wild episode! Big goings-on here. I’ll avoid spoilers for now (more to get into after the season is over, definitely!), but this one is major and has me super excited/curious for what’s to come.

When a platoon of intergalactic law-enforcement mercenaries, the Judoon, cordon off Gloucester, the Doctor and company swoop into action to help minimize collateral damage. The Judoon are on the hunt for a fugitive, and they appear to have an ordinary English couple in their sights. Our heroes try to find out what the Judoon are really after and get there first, before the Judoon wipe the city off the map in their ruthless pursuit of justice.

Nice story setup. The Judoon don’t see a ton of play on Who, but they’re solid antagonists, so I like seeing them return here (along with the Doctor’s penchant for rhyming descriptions of them!) Some of the mystery surrounding their fugitive seems a little telegraphed at first, but it winds up going places I never would’ve expected. We also get some strong guest characters of the non-Alien-Rhino capacity.

Strong showing for the Doctor. I enjoy watching her get in the Judoons’ faces over jurisdiction and suffering no fools when it comes to investigating what’s really going on, classic take-charge Doctor. Serious stuff happens to her in this episode, but even as she reels with it, she keeps her head and presses on. Big implications here, and it’ll be really interesting to see how the Doctor deals with it going forward.

It’s an episode that sees the companions separated from the action for a sizable chunk of the story, but despite that, they still feel pretty well-used. They all have memorable lines, and Yaz and Ryan in particular get a few moments to shine in their dealings with the Judoon. More importantly, all three of us really step up in terms of getting the Doctor to let them into her life in a real way, not just the madcap adventuring they’ve been doing. The last scene is glorious and has a lot of very genuine feels behind it. Graham, Yaz, and Ryan often feel more like a unit of companions rather than three people with individual relationships with the Doctor, which I think has kept the group from really bonding, but here, even though the last scene is still with all of them together, it feels much more intimate and honest than a lot of Thirteen’s interactions with her companions.

As I said, I won’t spoil any particulars of the big moments here, but it’s. So. On! The episode features multiple Big Whovian Squee!!! scenes that just bowled me over. We get more momentum on the apparent season arcs, giving us further hints to what we’ve already learned as well as opening up brand new dimensions from out of nowhere. Not sure where the rest of the season’s going, but I can’t wait to find out!

The Two Popes (2019, PG-13)

This isn’t a movie I prioritized seeing before the Oscars, but I wound up watching it when another movie fell through on a day when I had time to catch something (anything that’s available on streaming is going to be an appealing prospect just for the ease of seeing it.) Definitely glad I got around to it, because it’s quite a gem of a film.

In 2012, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (not yet Pope Francis) is thinking of retiring from his position as archbishop of Buenos Aires. However, when Pope Benedict won’t respond to his letters requesting permission to do so, he buys a plane ticket to the Vatican to plead his case in person. The two men, who represent very different pillars of the Catholic Church, discuss faith, duty, their own pasts, and the future of the Church.

I’m not Catholic and have only a fairly surface knowledge of any given Pope. I know that Pope Francis is considered by many to be a figure for reform and that Francis and Benedict’s recent dueling opinions on celibacy for priests was a major deal, especially because a living former Pope contradicting a current Pope’s words is not a thing that happens. But there was a lot to this story that I didn’t know. Well, to be fair, I guess I don’t know how much of this is precisely true – I presume all the private conversations between Benedict and Jorge are made up, but I don’t know what else might be. Either way, this story is a lot more dramatic and interesting than I expected it to be.

As Jorge and Benedict, Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopins are both fantastically good, nominated for Leading Actor and Supporting Actor respectively. I especially love Pryce’s performance as Jorge. The whole portrayal is really lovely (and actually reminds me a bit of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, hehe.) Jorge exudes warmth wherever he goes, and when he challenges Benedict, it’s not to be rebellious or obstinate as Benedict supposes; rather, it’s out of genuine fear for the direction in which the Church is going and what Jorge feels is their duty to the people. Meanwhile, Hopkins’s Benedict is somehow both spartan and pampered. He is severe and solitary, but he also summers at a lavish palace, where his gardeners grow the organic produce that’s flown to the Vatican for his meals when he’s there. He views Jorge as a troublemaking upstart and, at almost the same instant, is jealous of what he views as Jorge’s easy relationship with God and unassuming confidence in his beliefs. There’s a lot of terrific stuff here for two great actors to chew on, and they do a great job with it.

In addition to the acting nods for Pryce and Hopkins, the film is also up for Adapted Screenplay, adapted from screenwriter Alexander McCarten’s own play on the subject. I hadn’t previously known it was adapted from a play, but it makes complete sense. It’s totally structured like a play, with the long unbroken scenes of two heavyweight actors just sitting in a room talking to each other. Common belief says you can’t get away with that in a movie, but you can when it’s done right.

Warnings

Violence, drinking, and thematic elements (including discussion of child sexual abuse.)