BEFORE: Well, it's been a long week, between Christmas and New Year's, largely because the pandemic numbers surged up again (gee, who could have seen THAT coming, with everybody indoors and gathering together, just like the surge that came around with the holidays LAST year...) and we cancelled our Christmas drive up to Massachusetts. My second job is shut down for the holidays, also, so outside of writing my epic year-end wrap-up, there just hasn't been that much to DO. My wife and I did do some Christmas shopping at an outlet mall on Dec. 30, just to buy each other a few gifts, which turns out to be a lot easier when you shop with your partner and you can just offer to pay for the things they want to buy for themselves. Very helpful.
I've also kept busy by watching some TV, I finished the "Hawkeye" show and started the Boba Fett show, plus I finally watched most of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch". I cleared my DVR down to about 50, most of what's left on it now is the last few seasons of "Chopped" - and we re-watched "Guardians of the Galaxy" together, it had been quite a while. (She'll only watch GOTG and "Thor: Ragnarok", I can't get her to watch any other superhero movies. I guess they have to be funny, but I can't sell her yet on "Black Panther", "Ant-Man" or even "The Suicide Squad"...)
Last night we watched the New Year's Eve show on CNN, I can't take Andy Cohen or Anderson Cooper most of the time, but when they're drinking and trying to somehow fill up three hours of time, somehow it works for us. I flipped around to the other NYE shows a bit, but it all just looked like hot garbage - and Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry certainly qualify in that category. I know I'm getting old when I don't know any of the songs or performers on a TV special, and I'm only interested if they're doing cover songs.
But the calendar page has flipped over, the counter has reset and a new Movie Year has started, that's always something I look forward to. I've had THREE consecutive Perfect Years, do I dare even try for a fourth? Maybe I should just quit and cut my losses, but this is who I am now, I want to keep this train rolling for as long as I can, I've put too much effort into keeping it moving, and I've realized I'll never run out of movies, so, really, the possibilities are endless. Now, I don't require that the last movie of 2021 connects to the first movie of 2022, so I've got a chance to program ANYTHING here, provided it will connect to something and get me where I need to be on February 1. So, why THIS movie? Whither "Nomadland"?
Well, last year my first movie was "Parasite", the film that won the Best Picture Oscar the year before, and I made that work. So I'll try that again. And this is also what I look for this time of year, a film that connects to others on my list only through ONE actor, I call it a "One-linkable". Realistically, it can only be included between two films with that actor, or as the first film or last film for the year, otherwise it needs to sit on the list until David Strathairn makes another film that I want to see. So no, it's better to drop it here and get it off the list, and then that's one more "Best Picture" winner I can check off. After tonight, I'll have seen 83 out of 93 winners, that's not bad. (Maybe someday I'll just watch that remaining 10, just to say I've done it - but come on, do I need to watch "Wings" or "The Life of Emile Zola"? Not interested.). On that "other" list, the one with the 1,001 Movies You Should See Before You Die, this will bring me up to 435 films seen out of the 1,001, and that's not too shabby, either. They drop a few films off the list every year, to make room for new entries, and I just updated my list, which set me back just a bit.
Plus, I happen to KNOW that I can get to my first romance-themed film from here - I've blocked it out, at least in a rough fashion. Today I'll print out a January calendar page and firm things up, but it's a solid plan that goes through a couple films currently in theaters, about four films that I put on DVD that I didn't know how I was going to get to, and a TON of action films on Netflix and AmazonPrime that star either Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Dave Bautista or 50 Cent in various combinations. You'll see how it all fits together, or fails to. Sure, the chain's going to fall apart at some point, I realize that, but it won't be from lack of trying. I've got the momentum now, and I've learned the secret, I don't have to program the whole year, as long as I can do a month at a time, I can keep the dream alive.
This is also the time I usually dedicate the next year to somebody who passed away last year - there's certainly no shortage of candidates this time around, so many notable people are no longer with us, either due to COVID or just from everybody getting old as the hills, which keeps happening, despite our best efforts. Last year's dedication went out to Max von Sydow, as I was a big fan, but also had a bunch of his Bergman films coming up in the line-up. It seems maybe the universe wants me to dedicate things to Betty White, but part of me wants to send props out to Fred Willard, who really helped me out of a linking jam in late September, and made it possible for me to start my horror film chain where I wanted on October 1. So maybe this year I can have two dedications going out, Fred AND Betty, this one's for you. There's a documentary about Betty White that's on my list, but it's getting harder and harder for me to program my doc breaks, we'll see if I can work this one in, it's something to strive for.
I could just work my documentaries in with the fiction films, but I've found it easier to do the "docs in blocks" approach - this could just mean I need MORE docs on the list. Today, for example, I added two films to the list, the docs "Summer of Soul" and "Street Gang", that last one is about the early days of "Sesame Street". "Summer of Soul" is about a 1969 concert in Harlem and has a lot of archive footage of musicians in it, which is usually my bread and butter where docs are concerned. But look at this, these two docs share three people, Jesse Jackson, B.B. King and Stevie Wonder...this makes my task much easier. Yep, just add some more docs to the list, and I'll be right as rain. There are docs about Alanis Morisette, Kenny G, Dionne Warwick, Dean Martin, David Lynch, the Velvet Underground, Robert Stigwood, Rita Moreno, Julia Child and Charlie Chaplin that I need to check out, and I've already got some on my list about Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Ross, Anthony Bourdain, Jerry Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut and Frank Sinatra, perhaps I can make some order out of all that in time for another Summertime Music Concert (and Documentary) series. But that's later.
(Programming note: the Beatles "Get Back" documentary has been deemed ineligible by the judges, because it's a SERIES on Disney+. This is what I call the "too damn long" rule. It's about 10 hours of material, broken into three episodes, this CAN'T be counted as a "movie". Plus the Beatles link to everything, so it's too damn easy. I may still watch it, but it won't count here.)
THE PLOT: A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
AFTER: Wow, what accidental perfect timing I have - this film was made for New Year's, the opening scenes are set at Christmastime in 2008 (?) and not too far in, there are fireworks seen, presumably on New Year's Eve. The film then follows Fern on her various travels throughout a year, then there's a Thanksgiving celebration, and we see her celebrate another New Year's near the close of the film, and it ends in early 2009. A little more than "a year in the life", but the themes are all there, it's about change and reflection and struggling to make life a little better in the coming days, to the extent that such a thing is possible. Looking back on what has come before, thinking about what that all means, and clearing the decks to make room for new opportunities to come, what better time is there to think about such things?
Fern is clearly in recovery from tragedy - her husband died, and she lost her job, hell, the whole damn town in Nevada she was living in went under when the sheetrock plant closed. That's a recession for you, we had a big one in 2008-2009 and we're possibly in another one now, despite the best efforts of the government to recover from the pandemic, prevent widespread evictions, issue child credits and "build back better". How's that working out for you, since it apparently comes with inflation, supply chain shortages and a new "gig-based" economy? Not to mention the last year of racial protests, insurrection, climate change, vaccine disinformation, legal challenges to abortion rights, and cancel culture going after Mr. Potato Head. As I've said many times, these are dark days indeed.
But back to Fern. She's had a perhaps natural response to tragedy, she's tricked out her van and gone on the road, working seasonally in an Amazon warehouse during the holiday rush, then taking a job at a campsite helping out other "nomads", but taking off from there in time to work the beet harvest in Nebraska. Who knew? I mean, I love beets but I don't think I'd like to spend 8 hours a day shoveling them. But I can relate, I was dying to get out of the house a bit this summer, so I took a job working in a movie theater, only to find that mostly the job involved sweeping up and emptying trash cans, not my first choice for how to spend four nights a week. How many times in life do we get somewhere, only to find out after we arrive that's it not really where we want to be? I did my shifts, I put in my time, made some cash (including a few coins found while sweeping up) and started planning my escape. That's the gig economy to me - get a job, work the job, but also keep your ears open for other opportunities when they open up.
What keeps you sane might be the friends you meet along the way - I met a bunch of nice people at one theater, told them my stories and listened to theirs, then after three months I moved on to a better job at another theater, and started telling my stories again to a new group. I'm in a better place, and that's the key maybe, keep moving around until you find a place where you fit in, that just makes it easier to get through it all. Fern finds a friend at the Amazon job who tells her about a campsite down in Arizona, where a nomad desert guru runs a support system for these nomads of all ages, and people can exchange goods, belongings and survival skills.
There's something appealing about the concept of the open road, not having any personal ties or a bunch of unnecessary THINGS to drag you down, sure, this represents freedom but it comes at a cost. If you're OK functioning alone and you don't get too caught up in your own thoughts, great. If you're OK sleeping in a van and not feeling too confined, sure, go for it. If you want to see all those wide-open spaces out in Arizona, Nevada and Montana before they disappear, by all means, have at it. But there are also reasons why people buy houses and settle down with life-mates, which all provides a level of financial and emotional security, and some peace of mind comes with that, one assumes. Maybe there are two kinds of people, the ones who are meant to settle down in one place and the ones who take to the highway and live out of an RV or camper van.
Really, though, at the end of the day the road you choose is up to you, but maybe you can be one kind of person for a time and then become the other kind. Fern did settle down, got married and bought the house and then the plan worked, right up until the time that it didn't. People will still get sick, sometimes they did and then the plan's no good any more, because it depended on two people making an income to pay a mortgage and make it work. Or you lose the job, the plant closes and suddenly you need a new plan. This is life, the one you get, so you have to find a way, or else give up. For a small slice of people, taking to the road and nomadic van life can be an answer, at least for a time. But now you're working for your van, and finding a way to pay the campground fees, so really, it's just mortgage or rent again, just in a different form.
Fern encounters Dave a number of times, she trades belongings with him at one campsite, then sees him again in the Badlands, and after he gets sick and she visits him in the hospital, he gets her a job at Wall Drug - which sounds like it should be a drug store, but it's really a tourist attraction in South Dakota with a number of stores and restaurants in the middle of nowhere. Dave and Fern seem like they'd be a good fit for a relationship, but the movie never really lets that happen, one day his son comes to visit and Dave learns he's about to become a grandfather, and he leaves to go live with his son's family, at least for a while. Fern comes to visit at Thanksgiving time, and Dave extends the offer for her to stay in their guest house, but it's not in the cards, a few days later, Fern's on the road again, because Amazon's about to start hiring again.
This may be confusing to some, it was to me at first, why didn't Fern take Dave up on his offer, that seemed like a pretty sweet deal, but it's something about settling down, living in a house again, being tied to one relationship and all that comes with that, at this point maybe Fern has evolved to where she can't do that again. She's been in that cycle before, and it ended painfully, maybe she's looked forward into the future and she just can't see a good ending there. Maybe knowing that everything has to end at some point is preventing her from starting anything good, she just can't bear to see it end. She makes a final trip to her old, abandoned house in the abandoned Nevada town where she used to live, and she realizes she can't go back.
Which brings me back to Christmas - 2021 was the year I realized that Christmas can't be like it used to be, since my parents moved out of their house, so the old-style celebration where we visit them, get the whole family together, exchange gifts, roast a big turkey - that's gone. We kept it alive for a good long time, and the holidays can be something else in the future, they just can't be THAT. We went back for Thanksgiving, and it was all weird, being in that house I grew up in, with half the furniture gone, an empty refrigerator, cable TV that nobody is watching and phone calls from telemarketers going unanswered. Which is sad, but time marches on and things change, we have to move forward and make new plans, and I think that's what this film is about, in the end.
Was this really the BEST Picture of 2020? That's always a debatable point - and as always, your mileage may vary. My favorite pic so far from 2020 is "Tenet", but that somehow wasn't nominated for Best Picture. I'll probably rate "Bill & Ted Face the Music" higher too, but that film wasn't nominated either - hey, different strokes for different folks. I just haven't seen enough of the other films that got nominations - the only other one I've watched so far is "The Trial of the Chicago 7". The others are all on my list: "The Father", "Mank", "Minari", "Judas and the Black Messiah", "Promising Young Woman" and "Sound of Metal". I'm just not comfortable weighing in until I've seen most or all of those. "Nomadland" was a good effort, it's very thought-provoking, maybe it just hits a bit too close to home for me to really appreciate it. I'll give it a passing grade and move on for now, I've just got too much to do.
Starring Frances McDormand (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), David Strathairn (last seen in "Howl"), Linda May, Charlene Swankie, Bob Wells, Derek Endres, Peter Spears, Tay Strathairn, Gay DeForest, Patricia Grier, Angela Reyes, Carl R. Hughes, Douglas G. Soul, Ryan Aquino, Teresa Buchanan, Karie Lynn McDermott Wilder, Brandy Wilder, Makenzie Etcheverry, Annette Webb, Rachel Bannon, Bryce Bedsworth, Sherita Deni Coker, Merle Redwing, Forrest Bault, Suanne Carlson, Donnie Miller, Roxanne Bay, Matt Sfaelos, Ronald O. Zimmerman, Paige Dean, Paul Winer, Derrick Janis, Greg Barber, Carol Anne Hodge, Matthew Stinson, Terry Phillip, Bradford Lee Riza, Cat Clifford, James R. Taylor Jr., Jeremy Greenman, Ken Greenman, Melissa Smith, Warren Keith, Jeff Andrews, Paul Cunningham, Emily Jade Foley, Mike Sells, Cheryl Davis.
RATING: 6 out of 10 poop buckets
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