Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Year 14, Day 252 - 9/9/22 - Movie #4,241

BEFORE: Idris Elba carries over from "Concrete Cowboy", and since I scheduled this film in between two others with Idris in them, it's a bit optional.  There are three for four films like this in my chain right now, the "middle films" in sets of three, and I have to drop ONE of them before the end of the year - at this rate, I'll probably just drop the last one, just because I just can't bring myself to decide.  

Since I already watched "Cry Freedom" last month, which was about South African activist Steven Biko, it makes sense for me to also watch this one about Nelson Mandela as sort of a follow-up. I'll just drop a film from the November or December line-up, I guess, there are actually five possibilities, where if I drop a film, the chain will just close up around it and continue on - so I really like the odds of me making it to Christmas and still keeping the chain alive. 

THE PLOT: A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. 

AFTER: I'll admit that I fell asleep last night, about a half hour into this movie, but it's not my fault, this is some dry-y-y-y subject matter.  Think about it, your main subject is going to spend decades in prison, that just doesn't make for an exciting biopic, most likely.  And then it's like somebody went out of their way to make Apartheid boring - say whatever else you want about it, it was racist, unjust, wrong, evil - but it still shouldn't read as boring, not in a movie that needs to hold the audience's attention.  

And so I had to force myself back awake and then I had to decide - keep moving forward, or rewind?  Since I'd missed about a half-hour (Mandela was in prison when I woke up, and I hadn't seen him put there...) I decided to go back - but then it was 1:30 am and I still had two hours of movie to go.  Break out the Diet Mountain Dew...

These are the facts about Mandela's life, he had a promising career as a lawyer, but since he was a lawyer in South Africa, he was probably only going to go so far with that career. The racism was so bad back in the 1940's (?) that some white defendants in court didn't think that a black lawyer even had the right to speak to them.  After the South African election of 1948, in which only whites were allowed to vote, Mandela got involved in politics and protests, and this apparently cost him his first marriage.  Yes, he was married before Winnie, though most people don't seem to know this - his marriage to Evelyn Mase failed for several reasons, one was his constant absences, another was his adultery, and on top of that, she was a Jehovah's Witness, and that religion requires political neutrality - so yeah, that probably wasn't ever going to work out. 

After marrying Winnie Madikizela in 1958, they raised a few children but the nature of Mandela's activism required him to go underground. He was accused of "high treason" against the state in 1956, and though the charges were eventually dropped, the South African government took steps to ban the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress, just to be on the safe side. What was really happening was that government realized that their white minority rule was in jeopardy if the native South Africans, who vastly outnumbered them, managed to get organized, so naturally the government had to make that illegal. Mandela traveled around the country secretly, organizing a new structure for the ANC and helping to plan worker strikes, peaceful protests and also acts of sabotage. 

This led to Mandela being arrested and sent to prison in 1962.  Mandela represented himself at his trial, but also disrupted the proceedings and made political speeches instead of pleas, and so he was sentenced to five years in prison, and during those five years, further charges were brought against him and his co-conspirators, to the point where they were all eligible for the death penalty, though a judge reduced their sentence to life imprisonment. Mandela spent the next 18 years in prison on Robben Island, where (according to this film, anyway) the prisoners all had access to picks, shovels and heavy rocks, but never took the opportunity to use those items to overpower the guards.  Just saying. 

Mandela had little contact with the outside world or his family for a long time, but gradually he gained the trust of the various wardens, and was granted more and more privileges, so this film sort of ventures into "Shawshank Redemption" territory for a while - only minus the escape attempts. During this time Winnie Mandela endured abuse from the government herself, she was frequently "banned" or charged with various political crimes, which may or may not have been legit charges, who can say?  Meanwhile Nelson had to deal with the death of his mother and his first-born son, and wasn't allowed out to attend either funeral. Once Mandela turned 70, there was international attention drawn to his case, and pressure to release him from prison.  

Finally, a change in government, from Botha to De Klerk, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, led to the new president meeting with Mandela and offering him freedom, along with legalizing all of the banned political parties from before.  Mandela was offered a position at the new ANC, but he was also able to meet with world leaders from other nations and thus work toward the end of Apartheid.  Things were more complicated when he moved back in with his wife Winnie, who had taken up with a new boyfriend, and was also on trial for kidnapping and assault.  Though Mandela helped raise money for her defense, she was found guilty in June of 1991 and the couple separated the following year. Two years later, Mandela became the first democratically elected President of South Africa, and that's kind of where the film ends, because it's based on the autobiography he published in 1994, the year he was elected. 

That's a fairly common baller move, even for American Presidents - get your autobiography published as soon as you get elected, because up until that point, everything's fine, and you're riding the wave of a big win.  Later on, after a few political scandals or an election loss, no publisher's going to want to touch it.  

The news of Mandela's death came in 2013, during the London premiere of this film, in fact.  Yesterday, the news broke about the death of Queen Elizabeth, and you have to wonder if the producers of "The Crown" are going through the same sort of historical deja vu. 

I'm taking tomorrow off to go to that beer festival - I'll be back with the next Idris Elba film on Sunday.

Also starring Naomie Harris (last seen in "Swan Song"), Tony Kgoroge (last seen in "Blood Diamond"), Riaad Moosa, Zolani Mkiva, Simo Mogwaza, Fana Mokoena (last seen in "World War Z"), Thapelo Mokoena, Jamie Bartlett, Deon Lotz, Terry Pheto, Zikhona Sodlaka, S'Thandiwe Kgoroge, Tshallo Sputla Chokwe, Sello Maake Ka-Ncube, James Cuningham, Zenzo Ngqobe, Gys de Villiers, David Butler (last seen in "Serenity" (2019)), Robert Hobbs (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Andre Jacobs (ditto), Adam Neill (ditto), Carl Beukes (last seen in "Eye in the Sky"),  A.J. Van der Merwe, Graham Clarke, André Stolz, Thomas Gumede, Anrich Herbst, Louis van Niekerk, Nomfusi Gotyana, Michelle Scott, Jason Cope, Theo Landey, Sibusiyisile Msuthwana, Unako Poswayo, Paul Harris, Grant Swanby, Atandwa Kani (last seen in "Black Panther"), Siza Pini, Lindiwe Matshikiza, Refilwe Charles, Semuhle Shangasi, Khumbuzile Maphumulo, Mzu Ntantiso, Joshua Mañana, Sinakho Motsepa, Danie van Rensburg, Masiza Mbali, Hamilton Lunga Buthelezi, John Herbert, Sipho Mampuru, with archive footage of Nelson Mandela (last seen in "Pavarotti"), Winnie Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Elizabeth Taylor (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Van Johnson (last seen in "The Purple Rose of Cairo") and the voice of Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Summer of Soul"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 honorary degrees

Concrete Cowboy

Year 14, Day 251 - 9/8/22 - Movie #4,240

BEFORE: Well, this was going to be a skip day, but then I scored discount tickets to a beer festival in Brooklyn for Saturday - so I just won't watch a movie on Friday night, and I'll strike out via bus for the Navy Yard on Saturday morning. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get there, so I'd better leave early, then I think three hours of day-drinking is fairly well overdue.  I haven't been to a beer festival in three years, thanks to COVID - sure, I hit RibFest on Staten Island this year and last year, and beer was served there as part of the deal, but they ran out early, and anyway, the main focus of the event was ribs, not beer. Just like we haven't been on an official vacation in three years - we've gone on weekend road trips, but that's not exactly the same thing.  So if I'm going to a beerfest, and we've got a week's vacation planned for October, I have to conclude that the pandemic is well and truly over.  Glad that's finally settled, then. 

Between this vacation (BBQ Crawl #3) and New York Comic-Con and then the work schedule, I'll have BARELY enough days to fit in all my October movies - I did create a reduced horror film plan with this in mind, though, just 19 films, which turned out to be just enough and not too much. But I can't think about that now, I've got to get there first, as Lorraine Toussaint carries over from "Fast Color".  See, I told you I'd get back to Idris Elba films. 

THE PLOT: Sent to live with his estranged father for the summer, a rebellious teen finds kinship in a Philadelphia community of Black cowboys.  

AFTER: This was a difficult film to link to in the first place, with just a few well-known stars, and the one kid from "Stranger Things" who hasn't been in ANY other movies yet, then they went ahead and made that worse by casting a bunch of the real Fletcher Street stable "cowboys" from Philadelphia to play themselves.  Why, it almost feels like Hollywood directors don't care at all about my process of linking movies by actor, because they're sure not about making it easy for me.  Well, fancy directors and casting directors, I got to this film ANYWAY, despite your best efforts to make it impossible, so there. 

The takeaway here, I suppose, is that people still use and care for horses, even in urban areas - horses are still around in New York City, too, though every year we get a few stories in the news about how cruel it is to make horses pull carriages in Central Park, but there are also still mounted police in NYC, I passed one the other day.  Climate change and rising temperatures affect everybody, even the horses, so why using horses hasn't fallen completely out of vogue is beyond me, but it hasn't. I think maybe horses and mankind signed some kind of contract a couple thousand years ago, and it just hasn't expired yet, though people in the early 1900's sure thought that cars would replace horses, they haven't completely done that. 

The film is about Cole, a teen who's been getting into fights at school and acting up otherwise, and his mother drives him to Philadelphia because she doesn't know how to get him under control, or even discipline him any more, so she drops him off in a bad part of town and tells him his father will be there to pick him up in five minutes, then she drives home.  Umm, she couldn't wait five minutes?  What's weird is that his father doesn't show up, but another person recognizes him and tells him where to find his father's stables.  So, did he forget his son was arriving that day, or did he not even know?  Because it seems like maybe his mother just dropped him off randomly, and in a bad part of town, that's how people tend to disappear. Just saying. 

Anyway, this is a real thing, apparently, the urban cowboy subculture, and I didn't realize at first this was a modern film, honestly I thought it was a Western, and I had it positioned in my list right next to "The Harder They Fall", because two Westerns with Idris Elba, right?  But the only other thing these two films have in common is the black cowboy thing - "The Harder They Fall" reminded us that a significant portion of the cowboys in the Old West were African-American, and if this film is correct, then many of the modern cowboys are, too.  Is "cowboy" even the correct PC term anymore, or has it also become derogatory?  What about female cowboys, or are they cowgirls?  Cowgals?  Is there some more proper gender-neutral term I'm supposed to be using, like cow-people?  

Cole has a difficult choice to make, either live with his father and accept his terms of working in the stables and learning the ways of the cowboy, or hanging with his friend Smush, who's leaning on drug dealers in the area and trying to carve out a piece of territory for himself, while also pretending to be loyal to the head dealer in charge of the town.  Yeah, there's no way that plan could possibly backfire... So naturally Cole tries to do both, work the stables and hang with Smush, but he's about to learn that you can't have it both ways - how does he possibly have the energy to help Smush shake down dealers after cleaning out all those stables?  Shouldn't he be exhausted?  Oh, right, drugs. 

The weird twist is that Smush used to be one of the urban cowboys himself, and by shaking down these dealers, he's trying to put together enough money to head out West and buy his own ranch. Well, I guess everybody's got to have a dream, but surely there must be some better way to accomplish this, no? 

Meanwhile, the police get a (probably bogus) complaint that the horses at the Fletcher Street stables are malnourished, so they have to confiscate the horses, because there's simply no way for them to tell if a group of horses is being well-fed or not. (NP...) But even after Cole and his father steal back the horses, eventually the city comes to shut down the stables, too.  This doesn't appear to bother anybody, I guess because they know they can always keep their horses with them in their apartments, what's the harm?  Hmm, I'm thinking there's probably a reason why people don't keep horses in their houses, but I can't quite think of it.  I'm sure they'll figure out what it is. 

This story could have gone off on any number of tangents, from urban gentrification to racism among cowboys, or street violence between rival drug gangs, but it didn't really venture very far in any of those directions, it really tried to stick to the coming-of-age story of a teen trying to figure out his place in the world.  I suppose that's fine, but as a result of staying small, the story kind of ends up being neither here nor there. There's no real happy ending if the stable closes, except that we know these cowboys will keep on riding, somehow, somewhere, so umm, if that's what makes them happy, I guess it's OK?  I don't really see it myself, but cowboys gotta ride and surfers gotta surf, and gymnasts have to do gymnastics, I just don't feel like I have to get involved though. 

Also starring Idris Elba (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Caleb McLaughlin (last seen in season 4 of "Stranger Things"), Jharrel Jerome (last seen in "Monster" (2018)), Ivannah-Mercedes, Jamil Prattis, Cliff "Method Man" Smith (last seen in "Peppermint"), Byron Bowers (last seen in "Honey Boy"), Liz Priestley, Michael Ta'Bon, Devenie Young, Patrick McDade (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Albert C. Lynch Jr., Michael "Miz" Upshur, Charlie "Choo Choo" Gough

RATING: 5 out of 10 barrel campfires

Fast Color

Year 14, Day 250 - 9/7/22 - Movie #4,239

BEFORE: Saniyya Sidney carries over from "King Richard". This film was originally slated to fit between two other films with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, "Jupiter Ascending" and "Miss Sloane", but before watching it, I realized that it would be very helpful to make my connections in September, so I pulled it from the middle of the three-movie chain and re-scheduled it for here. Whew, that was a close one. 

What a difference a few months can make, since I'm constantly adding new films to my watchlist (and the back-up watchlist of what's streaming) - back on January 1 when I watched "Nomadland", the only connection out of that film was Frances McDormand, which made the film a great candidate for kicking off the year, because it only linked to one other film.  But here's another film with David Strathairn, and he was also in one my documentaries, so back then it looked like he'd only be in one film all year, now here he is in his third film for 2022.  Things are always changing, and I never know who's going to be in enough films to make the year-end countdown, not until the year is over, anyway. 

THE PLOT: After years in hiding, a woman is forced to go on the run when her superhuman abilities are discovered. Years after having abandoned her family, the only place she has left to hide is home. 

AFTER: I think we're starting to see a different kind of superhero movie, there's sort of a new wave of films in response to Marvel and DC hero movies, where having powers is maybe not such a good thing.  I saw this in "Brightburn" last year, and to a lesser extent, in "Project Power" and "The Old Guard". I propose that maybe DC and Marvel are stuck in their formulas, where the good guys have to win at the end of the movie - but without a well-known hero, things can get a bit murkier, and I I tend to applaud that. It can make a very far-fetched concept a bit more realistic, perhaps?  

Here in "Fast Color" the women in one family all have a super-power of sorts, and I suppose that means it's genetic, but the problem is that the power itself isn't very well-defined.  These women can take an object and break it down into colorful dust, and swirl it around in the air - "unmake" it, so to speak.  But so what?  There's only one instance in the entire film of this power being useful at all, when a character turns the doors of the police station to dust so another character can escape custody.  

There's also an implication that if Ruth, the lead character, could get her power back, perhaps she could save the world, which is undergoing a massive drought.  Very realistic, as this is a possible result of climate change - but exactly HOW she's going to use her power to make more rain or make more water is also poorly defined.  Is this even possible?  The rules about these powers seem to state that nothing can be "made", it can only be "unmade" and then "remade" - so how, exactly, would this apply to fixing the clouds or making more water?  It's like some screenwriter didn't really think it all through, why set up a bunch of rules that are ultimately in need of being broken, for the story to continue?  

Before we even get there, Ruth has to deal with government agency types who have spent years trying to track her down, because they want to study her powers, or something.  Sure, they may have another agenda, because the theory is that her powers are energy-based, but she's also a danger to society because she has seizures that also seem to cause earthquakes, so it's just as likely that the government scientists want to kill her, not study her, because that's a matter of public safety.  After almost getting caught, Ruth returns to her mother's house in the middle of the New Mexico desert, and then has to spend a lot of time unpacking a lot of family issues before she can even get to thinking about fixing her powers somehow, or figuring out a way to deal with the seizures.  

There's also the local sheriff who's tracking her once she hits town, but possibly for very different reason as the federal agents.  Really, it's a long way to go just to get Ruth back to her old routine and there's also a lot of stalling and re-stating the old relationships before anybody can even think about maybe fixing the world.  Jeez, if Superman or Batman were this neurotic then their cities would be in a lot of trouble.  Marvel characters like Spider-Man and Hulk tend to have more personal problems than their DC counterparts, but after the relationship issues get checked, at least they get on with the fighting.  This is a rare example of a thinking-man (or woman's) superhero movie, but then, come on, that's not really going to work, now, is it? 

They've been trying for decades to get more gender equality in comic books and superhero movies - most of the attempts have been laughable, producing Marvel characters like Gwenpool and Squirrel Girl.  More recently, Marvel's had success with the "Captain Marvel" and "Black Widow" films, and the "She-Hulk" series is airing now, while DC hit big with "Wonder Woman", and "Birds of Prey", to a lesser extent.  Maybe, just maybe, this is the right way to get somewhere, but I don't think "Fast Color" is going to move that needle.

Also starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw (last seen in "Miss Sloane"), David Strathairn (last seen in "Adrienne"), Lorraine Toussaint (last seen in "Selma"), Christopher Denham (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Monique Straw, Richard L. Olsen (last seen in "Wildlife"), Jason E. Hill (last seen in "Brothers"), Aliza Halm, Levi Lobo.  

RATING: 4 out of 10 coffee packets from the diner

King Richard

Year 14, Day 248 - 9/5/22 - Movie #4,238

BEFORE: How about THIS for planning, or perhaps it's just synchronicity - the U.S. Open (for tennis) is going on this week, and Serena Williams just played her last pro matches in singles.  Now I hear she may continue doing doubles matches with Venus, but I guess that's a different thing.  The point is, when I put this chain together, I wasn't factoring the schedule of the sport, but then again, maybe I was, on a subconscious level.  I've learned there are no accidents, or if there are, they're "happy accidents", as Bob Ross called them.  So it's a happy accident that I scheduled a tennis movie for this week in September. 

Corey Stoll couldn't stick around for Labor Day, but Jon Bernthal carries over from "The Many Saints of Newark". Ray Liotta couldn't be here either, but I'm planning to circle back to him in October. 

THE PLOT: A look at how tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams became who they are after the coaching from their father, Richard Williams. 

AFTER: I guess you could also say this is an appropriate Labor Day film, because it's about tennis players putting in the work, all the hours and days of practice that were needed to play at that championship level.  And then there's Venus and Serena's father, Richard Williams, who worked a night job as a security guard and also a day job cleaning tennis courts so that he'd have the money to provide for his five daughters, and also put in the work training Venus and Serena, then tracking down the right tennis coaches for them, getting them into training camps, working out the endorsement deals and such.  Geez, I'm tired just WATCHING somebody do all that in a movie!  

But the real point of the movie, I think, it that Richard Williams was stubborn and determined to see his daughters succeed, to the point of that being his biggest fault.  He was so convinced that they were future tennis champions that he approached everything he taught them and everything he told them to do from that perspective, that they were champions in the making.  To him it was a fait accompli, but perhaps somewhere in all that wishing and hoping he did things that made that reality come to be, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It's true, you have do dream it before you can believe it, and you have to believe it before you can make it happen - can it be that easy, though, to turn one's dream into reality?  Can just visualizing it bring it into being?  I guess I saw some students in film school who were so sure that they would become famous directors, and some of them did, so maybe with enough self-confidence you can make your success happen, however you define that success.  I sure didn't have that level of self-confidence, and now I wish that I did.  But I digress. 

In the believing, in the training, in the self-actualizing of Richard Williams' 87-page plan for his daughters, it's clear that he stepped on a lot of people's toes, he comes across here as a giant pain in the ass.  He didn't want to follow the rules, or other people's advice if it contradicted his plans or goals.  Shouldn't plans be a little flexible to account for unexpected bumps in the road, why did his plan have to be so rigid, as if there was only one path to success in tennis?  There simply must be several paths to a championship, just like success in any other field, and most other athletes probably don't have their careers mapped out in such detail as the plans Mr. Williams had for Venus and Serena.  Most athletes are probably just trying to win the next game, and they're not already making plans for the Hall of Fame.  Logically, for every Venus or Serena there must be at least 999 other girls who tried to succeed in tennis and either didn't have what it took, or didn't have the resources or luck or blind determination to progress in the sport. 

I don't mean to take anything away from them, I'm sure they're excellent players - but then what is the message here, that it takes more than a great player to succeed, it takes an overbearing helicopter parent to micro-manage their careers and make ill-advised decisions about which tournaments they should play in or NOT play in to increase their chances of being champions down the road?  I'm sure my mother wanted me to be a musician, she started me on drums and then piano lessons and finally I gravitated toward the clarinet and saxophone, but in the end I just didn't feel enough passion for it to devote my life to practicing instruments, and to her credit, she didn't force me to continue.  In high school I found more success singing, as there was a lack of good singers with bass voices, and honestly I found that much easier than playing instruments, and more fun too.  And I did join some singing groups as an adult, with moderate success, but then I also had to earn a living, and singing wasn't paying any bills.  Still, there's no part of me that wishes I had a mother who would force me to continue in an activity or sport that didn't thrill me - that would probably say a lot more about the ego of the parent than the abilities of the child. Just saying. 

I think my sympathies lie with Richard Williams' three step-daughters, though - the ones who aren't named Venus and Serena.  It does seem a bit telling that he only believed that his two biological daughters were fit to be tennis champions, and his three step-daughters got the shaft, they weren't worthy of tennis lessons?  Hmmmm....  Couldn't anyone become good at tennis if they had the opportunity to, at least to some degree?  This may be a debatable point, but again, it's egotistical for him to think that only his daughters with his genetic material had the right stuff.  And then how would you feel if you were half-sisters with Venus and Serena, but your father didn't train you to play tennis?  That's some bullshit.  

There's actually very little in this film about how unusual it was at the time for black girls to even WANT to play tennis, let alone succeed in tournaments.  It was a predominantly white sport back in the 1990's, and yes, there's a scene in the film when two agents offer a sponsorship because they think they can interest more black people to play tennis with the Williams sisters endorsing products - but then of course Richard Williams turned down the offer because it seemed like the agents were trying to exploit his daughters based on their race.  Umm, they're offering you a big check, so who cares?  Get exploited, but get the money!  Mr. Williams also pulls his daughters out of the Juniors tournaments because the previous young tennis star, Jennifer Capriati, had been burned out on the circuit and then arrested for drug possession.  

Pulling his daughters off the tournament circuit for several years turned out to be a double-edged sword - they were able to focus on education and they didn't get burned out by too many competitions, but then when it WAS time to turn pro, it seems they were a bit unprepared.  Venus entered the Bank of the West tournament in 1995 and Serena's first event was the Bell Challenge in Quebec.  But the film focuses on Venus in the Bank of the West match against Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who was ranked number 2 in the world at the time.  The implication here is that if Venus had been better prepared for tournament play, and the ways an opponent can take unlimited bathroom breaks to slow the game ("icing"), maybe she would have won that match.  Instead she has to learn to lose her first pro tournament with grace, which maybe is a more important lesson?  

Still, it's a weird way to end a film about a future tennis champion, by detailing her first professional loss.  But, I guess you learn from your losses as well as your victories, and we all know that these two sisters do eventually become two of the best tennis players ever, so there's that. Venus has seven Grand Slam titles, and won Wimbledon five times, while Serena has 23 Grand Slam titles - and they share Olympic gold and doubles titles. I'm not an expert in the sport, but now people are saying Serena might be the greatest of all time, and I'm in no position to deny it. I just wonder what sort of message it sends out to the kids, regarding this being a viable path toward success in a particular sport - if it's that much of a struggle, it hardly seems worth it, right?  Just me? 

I think I like Jon Bernthal as an actor, but I'm so used to seeing him play strong but morose characters, like the Punisher or Johnny Soprano, that it's a bit unnerving here to see him play tennis coach Rick Macci, someone very friendly, open and energetic.  

Also starring Will Smith (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Aunjanue Ellis (last seen in "Freedomland"), Saniyya Sidney (last seen in "Hidden Figures"), Demi Singleton, Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Romance & Cigarettes"), Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Danielle Lawson, Layla Crawford, Erika Ringor, Craig Tate (last seen in "12 Years a Slave"), Josiah Cross, Calvin Clausell Jr., Vaughn W. Hebron, Jimmy Walker Jr., Kevin Dunn (last seen in "The Frozen Ground"), Brad Greenquist (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), Christopher Wallinger, Chase Del Rey, Vivienne Bersin, Andy Hoff (last seen in "Birds of Prey"), Andy Bean (last seen in "It: Chapter Two"), Judith Chapman, Chet Grissom (last seen in "Book Club"), Dylan McDermott (last seen in "Wonderland"), Jessica Wacnik, Katrina Begin, Rich Sommer (last seen in "The Giant Mechanical Man"), Kaitlyn Christian (last seen in "Battle of the Sexes"), Marcela Zacarias, Erin Cummings, Susie Abromeit (last seen in "Setup"), with archive footage of Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Richard Williams, Oracene Price, Rick Macci and Queen Elizabeth (last seen in "Lucy and Desi")

RATING: 5 out of 10 cans of yellow balls

The Many Saints of Newark

Year 14, Day 247 - 9/4/22 - Movie #4,237

BEFORE: It's a Corey Stoll Labor Day weekend, as he carries over from "West Side Story" - this hard-working actor played a federal agent on Friday, yesterday he worked as Lt. Schrank, a NYC cop, and today he's a mobster, the youngish version of Corrado "Junior" Soprano in the prequel to the famous/infamous HBO series.  Mr. Stoll's so prolific this weekend, he's playing good guys AND bad guys, cops AND robbers, now that's a hard-working actor. 

We drove out to Long Island yesterday and hit a few flea markets - not really looking for anything in particular, just to see what was there.  We found a list online of "Things to do in Long Island This Weekend" and blocked off five craft fairs and open-air markets, thinking about the places we like to go when we're on vacation, looking at antiques and such.  We started in Huntington Station, and the craft fair turned out to be a store in a very upscale mall, then drove to Hicksville for an event held outdoors at a museum, which turned out to be a bust, more like a bad garage sale. But there was an IHOP in between the first two stops, so naturally we had to fuel up with breakfast before proceeding.  Third stop was in Westbury, a really janky open-air market outside a half-abandoned mall, where all we bought was a bag of flavored popcorn, and then moved on to Freeport, for probably the best event, a bunch of artisan stands both indoor and outdoor at a yacht club.  Didn't buy much there either, but at least there were better craft items available. 

 

Today we may go grocery shopping, but after that, I think it's all about videogames today.  What's weird is that I just finished playing GTA3 (again) about a week ago, and I transitioned over to GTA: Liberty City Stories, which tells the back-story of Tony Cipriani, the game's riff on Tony Soprano, and now today I'm watching the Sopranos prequel, which has the potential to be kind of the same story. Maybe. 

THE PLOT: The story that reveals the humanity behind Tony Soprano's struggles and the influence his family - especially his uncle, Dickie Moltisanti - had over him becoming an iconic mob boss. 

AFTER: If you watched the entire run of "The Sopranos", this is sort of the "Rogue One" prequel movie - or maybe it's more like "Solo: A Star Wars Story", in that it definitely takes place BEFORE the stories that we all know, but there's probably a bit of room still, they could fit in one more movie if they wanted to that shows how Tony Soprano really got drawn into the mob life, and connected with his crew, maybe how he became a made man and rose to capo.  It's important to remember that during THIS film, he was still an awkward chubby high-school kid, was into rock music and smoking pot, and he wanted NOTHING to do with his father's business.

Tony's father was Giovanni "Johnny" Soprano, who did not appear in the HBO series, not at all.  There's probably a story there, about how Johnny died, and left his brother, Corrado "Uncle Junior" Soprano in charge.  But Johnny's not the central character here, either.  So if it's not about Tony, and it's not about Tony's father, who is it about?  Exactly.  

You may remember Christopher Moltisanti, played by Michael Imperioli - he's the narrator here, despite being dead, but the main character is his father, Dickie Moltisanti, who also died before Season 1 of "The Sopranos" began - are you spotting a running theme here?  And we all know that the actor who played Tony, James Gandolfini, died in real life, so the story couldn't move forward, it had to flash back.  And "Moltisanti" is Italian for "Many Saints", so the title of the film is a big clue that this is going to really be about the Moltisantis.  They got James Gandolfini's real-life son to play Tony as a teenager, and man, does he look like his father - so that's sort of a tribute to James G., and then Ray Liotta's here too, in a dual role as the father of Dickie Moltisanti, "Hollywood Dick", and also his twin brother, Salvatore "Sally" Moltisanti.  What's really cool, I think, is that Ray Liotta plays one brother as a real hot-head, just like his character from "Goodfellas", but the other brother is much more serious, and he's serving time in prison, he just wants to do his time, think about his mistakes and listen to jazz records.  Sorry, just ONE jazz record, Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool". 

Anyway, Dickie Moltisanti is a lot like Tony Soprano, in that both men seemed rational and logical and clear-headed most of the time, but if they saw a threat, they would react with extreme and quick violence.  Dickie was, I think, Tony's "uncle" and mentor, maybe he was really his uncle, but this is a bit unclear.  (NITPICK POINT: Dickie can't be Tony's real uncle, because we all know that Christopher Moltisanti is only related to Tony Soprano through marriage, as Christopher is cousins with Carmela Soprano, who was born Carmela DeAngelis. I believe that Christopher and Tony are both cousins to Tony Blundetto, but they are NOT cousins to each other. Makes sense?  Unless they consider themselves "Italian cousins", which is a different thing from real cousins...)

But hey, it doesn't matter, because "The Sopranos" finally and got six seasons AND a movie!  Isn't that the goal of every show?  OK, so they had to go back in time to do that, it's all right!  And they set part of the movie during the 1967 Newark Riots, which is a real thing that happened. Dickie Moltisanti has black associates working the numbers games for him, so I guess he's a really forward thinker for the mob, because he's all for affirmative action, if it gets him more money out of the black community.  But over time, his black friend, Harold McBrayer, starts to feel more like an employee than an associate, let's put a pin in that because it might be important later.  

Also, Dickie's father, "Hollywood Dick", comes back from Italy with a new young wife, and it grates on Dickie's nerves when he starts mistreating her.  This leads to one of those violent outbursts I mentioned before, and well, things don't end well for Hollywood Dick.  Dickie manages to bring his body to one of his garages during the Newark Riots and burns it down, blaming the fire on the rioters.  Dickie feels so guilty that he starts visiting his uncle in prison, buying his stepmother (and future "goomar") a hair salon, and also looking out for young Tony Soprano, who's acting out while his father is away in prison.  Tony's been running his own numbers game in elementary school, but more hijinx lay ahead.  

The movie then skips ahead four years, to when Johnny Soprano gets released from prison and tries to get back in the swing of things.  Harold comes back into town and doesn't want to work for the Italian mob, he wants to start his own operation.  Dickie's crew kills one of Harold's men, Harold's men kill one of Dickie's crew in a drive-by, and meanwhile teen Tony Soprano steals an ice cream truck.  Actually a lot more than this happens, but I'm summarizing here. 

What's really important here, especially if you're a fan of "The Sopranos", is what happens to Dickie Moltisanti - during the run of the show, his son Christopher tracks down the man who he thinks killed his father, and deals with that guy.  BUT, we learn here that rumors being what they are, and people not taking credit for who they killed, Christopher might have tracked down the wrong guy.  No spoilers here, but it's possible that Christopher maybe killed the wrong guy - this is SHOCKING news for any true "Sopranos" fan. 

I was just talking with my wife last night about "West Side Story", and how back a few years ago when they were casting that "Solo" movie, my first choice for the young Han Solo would have been Ansel Elgort, not Alden Ehrenreich, after watching Ansel in the trailer for "Baby Driver".  Pause any frame of "Baby Driver" or "West Side Story" and tell me Ansel's not a dead ringer for a young Harrison Ford.  (And sorry, Alden, my second choice for a young Solo would have been Anthony Ingruber, who played young Harrison's character in "The Age of Adeline".)

There's similar stunt casting ALL across "The Many Saints of Newark", as actors needed to play younger versions of Tony's crew from the HBO show - they had to find actors who, with the help of make-up and various hairpieces, could believably age into the characters of Big Pussy, Silvio Dante and Paulie Walnuts, and for the most part, the casting department did a great job - I could tell just from the look of the "Buddha" character that he was probably Big Pussy Bonpensiero's father, and, yep, I was right. You can cast just about any teenager as the young Artie Bucco, but you better get Livia Soprano right, and they did - I could believe that Vera Farmiga could age into the character played so notably by Nancy Marchand. 

But it's essentially the same question tonight that I asked about the "West Side Story" remake last night - is this follow-up really necessary?  Well, on one hand, no, it doesn't matter what happened BEFORE the "Sopranos" series, because Tony's story began for us with Episode 1 and ran for six seasons, and whatever happened, happened.  But, on the other hand, it's a DAMN SOPRANOS MOVIE!  Of course it matters, of course I'm going to watch it, and there's some stuff here that changes EVERYTHING that came after it.  Maybe if Dickie had made different choices, he still would have been around when Tony came into the family business, and maybe things would have been different.  Or maybe Dickie would have tried harder to keep Tony OUT of the family business, and maybe Tony's life could have been very different.  We'll never know, but it's an interesting exercise in speculation. 

And look, Dickie wasn't such a bad guy, he just killed his father and slept with his step-mother and kept the black man from advancing in the organization, was that all so wrong?  Geez, I just realized how Oedipal his story sounded - that's the making of a classic Greek tragedy, right there.  And of course it ended badly, because that's the case for EVERY character from "The Sopranos" - maybe that's why the story never resolved itself, the last episode just cut to black, leaving the audience to speculate over what happened next.  Well, they couldn't really have a happy ending for anyone, that's not what the show was about.  99% of the show's characters were doomed to be killed, if not by their enemies than by their own crew members, as punishment for not properly dealing with their enemies.  THAT'S THE LIFE they lead, it's the whole point of the show.  You can't just have the characters walk off into the sunset at the end, because things just aren't going to be OK - or if they seem like they will, it's only for a moment.  And THAT is what the famous "cut to black" ending of the series really means. 

Also starring Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "Mansfield Park"), Leslie Odom Jr. (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Vera Farmiga (last seen in "Captive State"), Jon Bernthal (last seen in "Snitch"), Ray Liotta (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Michela De Rossi, Michael Gandolfini (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Billy Magnussen (last seen in "Ingrid Goes West"), John Magaro (last seen in "Liberal Arts"), Samson Moeakiola, Joey Diaz (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Germar Terrell Gardner (last seen in "The Week Of"), Alexandra Intrator, Gabriella Piazza, Mason Bleu, Aaron Joshua, Lesli Margherita (last seen in "Opening Night"), Talia Balsam (last seen in "The Wackness"), Kathryn Kates (last seen in "The Jesus Rolls"), Nick Vallelonga (last seen in "Green Book"), William Ludwig, Mattea Conforti (last heard in "Frozen II"), Matteo Russo, Robert Vincent Montano, Chase Vacnin, Patina Miller (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Rob Colletti, Prema Cruz, Maliq Johnson, Sam Labovitz, Daryl Edwards (last seen in "Human Captial"), Matthew Elam, Bryce Burke, William Youmans, Oberon K.A. Adjepong (last seen in "Tallulah"), Lexie Foley, Phyllis Pastore, Lauren DiMario, David Chase, with the voices of Michael Imperioli (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Frank Sinatra (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture") and archive footage of Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "Sammy Davis: I've Gotta Be Me") and Edward G. Robinson. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 free soft-serve vanilla cones