BEFORE: Funny story, the DVR that the cable company gave me (after I carried the old one in from Queens to Manhattan and carried the new one back home) - it didn't work. I put it in place and plugged it into the power strip, and it didn't even light up. It was D.O.A., maybe it never had any life in it to begin with, maybe it was an older DVR that someone turned in because it had given up, or maybe since I asked for an older model it spent too much time on the shelf without being given a home, but either way, it wasn't going to work for me. I called the cable company and screamed at them some more, because the guy at the customer center should have at least plugged it in to check it before giving it to me, and they offered to send someone out in 2 more days - but I had already been without the movie channels for four days, and I couldn't take it any more. So I demanded that they move my appointment to Tuesday, and first thing Tuesday morning at that. And I got it.
So a smarter cable tech came to my house this morning, and he told me some bull about how they gave me a Manhattan cable box, and that one wouldn't work in Queens, but I find that very hard to believe - connectivity issues aside, the box should have at least powered up if it was a working unit. He checked the signal coming in to the house, checked the junction box outside to make sure nobody was stealing my signal (I guess...) then gave me a working DVR, the same model as the one I picked up in Manhattan. It's a four-year old DVR, but it's supposed to allow me to keep dubbing movies to DVD - it's apparently still in demand because it displays the current time and the newer models don't, and some people prefer to use their cable boxes as clocks (I guess...). Umm, why not just look at your phone?
Anyway, I appear to be back in business. And I didn't lose anything that was stored on the DVR because I had two days notice to dub two rarely-aired films to VHS, and the other movies are still in constant rotation, so I just have to program the DVR to record them again. And I can store more movies on the new drive, after one movie it was just 1% full, so that means I can record 100 movies before it fills up! And it connects better to the OnDemand system, so I should be able to access more movies that way. (Great, just what I needed, access to more movies...my watchlists are constantly full anyway.) I can't say I forgive the cable company for all of their faults, but at least I can live with them again.
Stephen McKinley Henderson carries over from "Lady Bird". Sorry if you were expecting Timothee Chalamet to carry over to "Call Me By Your Name" - I will get there, but not until after July 4. That's in the works.
THE PLOT: A working-class African-American father tries to raise his family in the 1950's, while coming to terms with the events of his life.
AFTER: I've been doing this (almost) daily movie-watching thing for some time now, and among the abilities that I've developed is an uncanny sense that enables me to determine when a movie is based on a stage play. Here are the top three tip-offs: 1) There tends to be only one or two locations, quite often it's a house or an apartment, but other locations are possible, and at least 90% of the action takes place there. 2) A limited number of actors/characters, no large crowd scenes, everything that takes place in a store or an office is mentioned and not seen 3) A lot of repeated dialogue, everything that's stated is stated two or three times, more if it's important and relates to something that will be relevant later.
Or, you know, you can just be familiar with what has played on Broadway in the recent or distant past, and keep a mental record of that. The August Wilson play that this is based on is very prominent, of course, but even if I hadn't been aware of that play, I probably would have been able to spot this as a play from the techniques listed above.
Anyway, this is my third official Father's Day film, following "Kodachrome" and "Winter Passing", but I suppose you can count "One True Thing" and "Lady Bird" in there as well, they all deal with fathers, or people with father issues, or people who had fathers. (Umm, wait, that's everyone.) But maybe it's a clear connection to "Lady Bird", since the main character in that film was looking to go to college, work out what kind of person she was going to be, right there on the cusp of adulthood, and her father was working to help her on the sly, and her mother was putting her down and standing in her way. "Fences" plays on the same theme, it's just that the gender roles are reversed - Cory's trying to play football and think about college, his mother's being supportive on the sly and his father is putting him down and standing in his way.
I believe in instilling discipline (though I don't have much of my own, I'll admit) but since this is a throwback film set in the early 1950's, it makes sense that the father places discipline before caring, he loves his son but he doesn't necessarily LIKE him, in fact that doesn't even seem to be any of his concern, and instead what's important is that chores are done, rules are followed, and respect is paid. Times have changed, of course, and any father who expects his son to call him "Sir" in every sentence seems out of touch with the times. Anyway, respect shouldn't necessarily be enforced like that, wouldn't it be better if the father had to EARN the child's respect? I can sort of see both sides of this, but I've never called my father "Sir", nor was I expected to. Now I wonder if he had to call his father "Sir". My point is, it's now a two-way street, and this sort of comes up during "Fences" when Cory also decides to make his break, and challenge his father, who he perceives as being too harsh.
(And that's THREE films this week, and this wasn't planned, where characters are graduating high school and weighing their college choices. "The House", "Lady Bird" and now this one. Coincidences like this are just that, unless I planned them on a subconscious level somehow. And it's four if you lump in "Superstar" with M.K. Gallagher in high school.)
Just like the mother in "Lady Bird", Troy Maxson sees his child as his responsibility, somebody he has to provide for, and after a certain time, that becomes a habit, and the parent is threatened by anything that will supplant them. They're not ready for their children to grow up and leave home, so they insult them and don't allow them to do activities that take their focus off of their role as a son or daughter. Because God knows, if they let their kid do something fun that isn't a chore, that's a slippery slope and before long they'll ONLY want to do fun things, and then the garbage doesn't get cleaned up, the fence never gets built, and the kid doesn't even come to Thanksgiving dinner because they're smoking cigarettes or drinking beers in a parking lot somewhere. It's a logic trap for sure, and it ends up constricting children so much that they end up going to extremes just to break free from years of parental control. So there must be another way, only that's rarely seen in dramas like these.
There's a lot more drama to unpack here like Troy's missives about his baseball career, his brother who served in the war and got injured and now wanders the streets with a trumpet, claiming to have been to heaven and been sent back to earth to fight hellhounds. That was a bit weird, and it's too bad they cast the same actor who played Bubba in "Forrest Gump" because that poor actor's going to be most famous for playing characters who aren't right in the head. The question of whether this character should be placed in a mental hospital or allowed to wander the streets is a key point - and I thought that perhaps this character was very unrealistic, until I saw that guy in the 6th Ave. subway station who's always on the same bench and always involved in a conversation with people that only he can see, and then I realized that such people do exist.
Then there's the drama with Troy himself, and I don't want to spoil anything here if you haven't seen the film or the play, but let's just say he's not the perfect husband. And then circumstances force him to reveal to his wife that he hasn't been the perfect husband, and then the family has to deal with all that, and it pretty much tears them apart. There's a reason why Viola Davis won the Best Actress Oscar for this performance, because people love a tragedy come Oscar-time.
I just wish that the metaphors here weren't so bleeding obvious - they used that fence idea to symbolize just about everything. "Some people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in." God, how pedantic and annoying. Plus the fence serves as Troy's fear of dying, the authority over his son, the possessive nature of property owners... jeesh, that's a lot to ask for from a simple fence. What if someone just wanted to keep stray dogs from pooping in their yard? Sometimes a fence is just a fence, with a simple practical purpose.
The film also seemed to drag heavily at times, perhaps this is due to the tragic and heavy-handed tone, or because it was so dialogue-driven and not action-driven. It may also be due to the running time, or the fact that 99% of the movie takes place in just that one house and yard. Which is that terrible side effect you get when you turn a play into a film, just saying.
Also starring Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Magnificent Seven"), Viola Davis (last seen in "Far From Heaven"), Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby (last seen in "Meet the Parents"), Mykelti Williamson (last seen in "How to Make an American Quilt"), Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Mele, Lesley Boone, Jason Silvis.
RATING: 5 out of 10 baseball stats
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