BEFORE: Well, it seems that while I was away in Massachusetts, the Oscar nominations were announced - this happened two days ago, and it didn't even make the news in Boston, it seems - was there too much else going on in the world? I'm usually on top of this sort of thing. Anyway, I've done terribly so far this year in terms of seeing current films, movies released in 2020 that could possibly have been nominated - part of this I can attribute to my insistence on a linking-based schedule, but also I pandemically lost access to an annual stack of Academy screeners, neither of these is my fault. I've tried to stay current, I swear - but so far with NYC theaters closed I've only been able to work in six films with 2020 release dates - and of those, only THREE got any nominations, "Emma" got two noms for Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up, and "The One and Only Ivan" got a nomination for Best Visual Effects. And last year I watched "Onward", nominated for Best Animated Feature.
(Also, a song got nominated from "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga", but I don't. think that really counts...)
Honestly, I was sure that "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" might be a contender, and I went ahead and pre-borrowed "Wonder Woman 1984", thinking that would be a shoo-in in some technical categories, but, well, you'll hear my thoughts on that film next week. OK, so here's the plan, try to catch a few of the nominated films on various streaming services before the ceremony on April 25. I've been working on inching the schedule forward after Easter is over, and I've come up with a chain that can probably pass through the following films: "Soul", nominated for Best Animated Feature", "The Trial of the Chicago 7", nominated for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, and then naturally after that, it makes sense to watch "Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm", linking via Sacha Baron Cohen, that film's up for Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. I think that my path may also take me through "Da 5 Bloods", up for Best Original Score, but I'll have to check my notes.
The problem, and I can see it coming already, is the cast list for the "Borat" sequel - it really gives me nowhere to go, except that I think it has footage of a lot of politicians in it, like Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani. I should be able to use that to transition to some political documentaries, and by mid-April I should be overdue for a documentary break. But that itself produces a number of problems, because some docs don't list all their cameos and archive footage appearances on the IMDB, so I'd be taking a big chance that my chain could break if I stick too close to any regimented documentary schedule. I guess I'll have to risk it, because these are the nominated films that I most want to see.
Emily Watson carries over from "The Dresser" (2015). On this date in Women's History, Golda Meir became the first female prime minister of Israel, March 17, 1969. It's the birthday of English suffragette Edith Bessie New, born in 1877, also Cynthia Ann McKinney, who served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia, and also ran for President in 2008 (born in 1955) and soccer player and two-time Olympic gold medalist Mia Hamm, born in 1972, and Katie Ledecky, five-time Olympic gold medalist for swimming, born in 1997.
THE PLOT: Based on the best-selling novel by ex-patriate Frank McCourt, this film follows the experiences of young Frankie and his family as they try, against all odds, to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick, Ireland.
AFTER: Of course, it's also St. Patrick's Day today, and this is really the only Irish-based film on my list, so it made a perfect target to aim for as I set up my movie chain for March. I ended up cutting the romance chain short by two films, just so I could get here from there, but hey, that's just how the Valentine's Day cookie crumbles. My next target will be Easter, then Big Movie #3,800, then "Palm Springs", then those Oscar-nominated films I mentioned above. The trick then will be linking from political documentaries to "Black Widow", or possibly a Mother's Day film, I haven't quite decided. But let me table that for now.
It's hard to trace the origin of the phrase "Life sucks, then you die." Some people quote Stephen King, others quote David Gerrold, who wrote "Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order." All I know is, this film (and the novel it's based on) follow that as the driving engine of the story. Life for the McCourt family sucks in New York, due to financial difficulties, some of which are caused by the alcoholic father, so they move back to Ireland, where the parents were from. All of their four children were born in Brooklyn, though, so it's a big change for NYC kids to suddenly have to get by in "the old country".
The book apparently spends a little more time showing us the father's pattern - get a job, drink to celebrate, keep drinking, spend all the money, lose the job. Repeat. The film sort of keeps this a secret until he has just as much trouble finding employment, and staying employed, in Ireland. Really, until his drinking habits change, then the family's just going to stay poor, so why doesn't anybody try to stop him from drinking. OK, they do, but they don't have any real power to make him change, this was back when the man was automatically in charge of the family, and before going to rehab was a trendy thing to do. Even if his kids begged him to stop drinking and spend the money on food for the family instead, as the male head of household he didn't have to listen, and he could even hit his kids if he didn't like what they were saying. It was a different time, for sure.
Angela, with four sons, keeps trying for a daughter, and perhaps that's part of the problem here, too. Finally she gives birth to a daughter, who only lives seven weeks, and this sends Angela into a deep depression and her husband Malachy on another alcoholic binge. When the neighbors see how their four sons are being neglected, that's when they contact the relatives in Ireland to arrange for passage back, at a time when most Irish people were leaving for America, if they could.
But the Depression hit hard in Ireland, too, the family is forced to go on the dole and Malachy can't find any work because of his Northern accent and his manner, and then of course we're back to the drinking problem. He drinks when he's out of work, and then when he does find a job he drinks more to celebrate, loses the new job, and so on. Angela and her sons are forced to apply for charity from the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which has a rather humiliating application process, finally coming through with a voucher for a bed from a used furniture store, but then the whole family is bitten with "fleas" - more likely bedbugs, right?
The younger sons die shortly thereafter, from pneumonia, only Malachy kept calling it "the damp", and I wasn't sure if that was a euphemism for a medical condition or just a realization that it rains a lot in Ireland, and their apartment complex was poorly made, and retained a lot of water in the walls. Which is a thing, the molds that grow inside the walls can be quite toxic. Plus there's only one "lavatory" on their street, which is where every family empties their chamber pots, and of course that's right next to the McCourt's dwelling.
The story keeps piling on the miseries - Frank gets typhoid at age 10, but manages to pull through, unlike his younger brothers, and the next year he gets chronic conjunctivitis after finally earning some money by helping shovel and deliver coal. Once World War II starts, Frank's father heads to England to work in the defense plants, but after a few weeks of sending money home, the payments stop coming, with no explanation. The family has to tear down the inner walls of their flat for firewood, but after the landlord visits and sees what they'd down, they're evicted and forced to move in with Angela's bachelor cousin. SPOILER ALERT, that's not a great situation either, and the family endures more misery as a result.
Eventually Frank gets a job delivering telegrams by bicycle, which leads to him having his first sexual relationship, but it's with a young girl who's dying of consumption (TB). But this also leads to him working for the local money-lender, a woman who hires him to write threatening letters to encourage people to pay back their loans. In a round-about way, but one still touched by more misery, working for the money-lender finally gets Frank the money he needs to go back to America - where he eventually writes that memoir about growing up poor, and the circle is complete, I suppose. I just find it rather ironic that the author got rich thanks to being so poor when he was a boy. Just me? Do middle-class authors with writer's block sit around and wish they'd grown up poor, for inspiration?
There's so much here about what it means to be Catholic, how all the little rules and by-laws and theology contradictions don't make any sense, I wish the story could have focused a bit more on that instead of just piling misery on top of misery. I know, to some extent that's just the way Ireland was at that time, leading up to the 2nd World War. But since I base my ratings on how much I enjoy each movie, honestly there's little here to be enjoyed, for that you have to have JOY and it's mostly absent here. I mean, I guess you can enjoy the fact that you didn't live in THAT place at THAT time and there may be some comfort there, but look around, we've got our own problems right now and we're looking for something to take our minds off of all that.
I don't think I'm that far off base here, this film only brought in $13 million at the box office when released in 1999. Best-selling book, for sure, but it's not what people wanted to see in the theaters to forget their troubles.
Also starring Robert Carlyle (last seen in "T2 Trainspotting"), Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge, Kerry Condon (last heard in "Avengers: Endgame"), Ronnie Masterson, Pauline McLynn (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Liam Carney (last seen in "The Boxer"), Eanna MacLiam (last seen in "My Left Foot"), Shane Murray-Corcoran (last seen in "King Arthur" (2004)), Devon Murray (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Peter Halpin, Frank Laverty (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Laurence Kinlan (ditto), James Mahon, Lucas Neville, Walter Mansfield, Johnny Murphy (last seen in "The Commitments"), Susan Fitzgerald, Brendan McNamara, Eileen Pollock (last seen in "Far and Away"), Eileen Colgan (ditto), Alvaro Lucchesi (last seen in "Ella Enchanted"), Gerard McSorley (last seen in "The Constant Gardener"), Eamonn Owens, Maggie McCarthy (last seen in "Leap Year"), Danny O'Carroll, Marcia DeBonis (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Martin Benson (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Alan Parker, Brendan O'Carroll, with the voice of Andrew Bennett and archive footage of James Cagney, Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Jojo Rabbit"), Boris Karloff (last seen in "Gilbert")
RATING: 4 out of 10 communion wafers
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