BEFORE: OK, I'm going to go to a beer event today, so if my posting is late, that will mean that I was "overserved" and needed some recovery time. It's a really hot day so there's also the chance of heat-stroke or getting dehydrated or just dissolving into a big puddle of sweat. Hey, it could happen. Anyway I started this one on Friday night, with hopes of still getting enough sleep to make it through this beer event without passing out. Will file my report down below after.
Anthony Hopkins is my exit point from the Doc Block, he carries over from "Call Me Kate".
THE PLOT: A deeply personal coming-of-age story about the strength of family and the generational pursuit of the American Dream.
AFTER: I survived the beer festival - probably had you worried a bit there. They moved the event indoors because of the tremendous heat, but really that just increased the chance of everyone catching COVID in an enclosed space. Yeah, it's going around again, there's a summer spike, at least in NYC, because of the increase in social events and the heat that's keeping people inside. If it were only sort of hot, everyone would be outside and therefore less COVID, but it's like tropical hot so the only thing you can do on the weekend is stay inside, really, and pass your germs that you caught staying out on weeknights to the rest of your family. Yeah, I probably had COVID last week, my wife tested positive after I was sick for two days, but I couldn't get tested because the pharmacies were out of tests. (WHY do they give them out to the people who are going to test negative? It's such a waste of tests, they should only give them to the people who are positive for COVID, so they can know for sure...)
Anyway, I'm back home and I had a long nap and I think I can remember this movie, I had to finish it this morning before leaving for the event. Yes, I fell asleep midway through, that's not usually a good sign, is it? This is a film set back in 1980, and it tries to portray that year as a turning point, not only for its main characters but for everyone - there's footage of Ronald Reagan as he's campaigning for President and being interviewed, so yeah, 1980 signalled the end of the 1970's, the end of the Carter presidency, and the beginning of 8 years of Reaganomics and Reagan's B.S. Sure, there were some people at the time who thought he was a GREAT President, but I think that pendulum has swung back the other way consistently. He was an actor, he stood for "less government", and he lied about a great many things. Plus he was very old, so in a way he was like the forerunner to both Trump and Biden, but displaying the worst things about those men. Trump's lies plus Biden's "senior moments'.
There is a Trump in this movie - two, in fact, just not THAT one. Fred Trump is a character, and so is Maryanne Trump, Fred's daughter and Donald's big sister, who died in November of 2023. She attended a prep school in Queens, NY called Kew-Forest, and one of the schools seen in this film has a very similar name, and Maryanne and Fred Trump are there on the main character's first day of school to speak to the students. (Well, it's a little early for me to be programming a "back to school" film, but I need this one here for the linking.)
I figure this movie just HAS to be autobiographical, there are just too many specific things that take place in it, some that would be common to any Jewish family in Queens, but some are just off-center and probably come from the writer/director's own life, they are things you just wouldn't write to happen to other characters, what would be the point? Unless they really happened...
Paul Graff is a sixth grader from a Jewish family who becomes friends with Johnny, an African-American boy in his class, who was held back a year because of his attitude and behavior. Paul isn't doing well in school, either, because he can't seem to pay attention, and only wants to draw and daydream. He's sure that he wants to be a famous artist when he grows up, only he's got to get through school first, and that's the challenge. His parents can only afford to send his older brother, Ted, to that prep school, even with financial help from his grandparents. Ted is considered to be a "better investment", in other words, and the family has pretty much written Paul off. But that's a downward spiral, because he's never going to improve in school unless he gets better teachers, and he can't get better teachers unless he goes to a better school, and he can't go to a better school unless his grades improve.
Paul's grandfather is very kind to him, though, he buys Paul a set of professional art supplies, and also a rocket that they can launch in Flushing Meadows Park one day. All he wants in return is for someone to tell his stories to, about how his mother fled religious persecution in Ukraine, and met her husband in the U.K. before coming to the U.S. (Well, at least this explains why Anthony Hopkins' character has a British accent.). Paul's grandfather is very sick, but hasn't told anyone yet...
But Paul can't seem to follow the rules, he and his new friend Johnny keep getting in trouble, like for smoking a joint in the school restroom. It's very stupid, why do this at school when they can just wait until after 3 pm, like maybe at 4:20? When Paul's father finds out about this, he beats Paul with his belt, and sure, that doesn't seem right now, but this was 40 years ago. And yet still, the knowledge that his father has a temper and might beat him is not enough to get Paul to stop joking around in class, to study and improve his grades. The family tries sending Paul to the same prep school as his older brother, but this puts Paul in the position where he has to pretend to not be friends with Johnny, and it also inspires him to steal a computer from the school, so he and Johnny can run away to Florida, where he can (eventually) become an artist and Johnny can (eventually) work for NASA.
There's more that happened, but it all didn't quite come together for me. Plus we never really find out what happens to Johnny (I hope he gets that hurt foot looked at...) and though we all know that Reagan got elected that November, and that led to eight years of nonsense, we don't really know what happened to Paul, either. He left the Thanksgiving dance because he couldn't take listening to Fred Trump (like father, like son, I guess) but we don't know, did he leave for home or did he leave for Florida? It's best to stay away from Florida, Paul, in a couple decades it's going to become a place that's too hot and too stupid to live in.
Also starring Anne Hathaway (last seen in 'Colossal"), Jeremy Strong (last seen in "Robot & Frank"), Banks Repeta (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Jaylin Webb, Ryan Sell, Andrew Polk (last seen in "Space Oddity"), Tovah Feldshuh (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), Marcia Haufrecht (last seen in "The Daytrippers"), Teddy Coluca (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Marcia Jean Kurtz (ditto), Richard Bekins (last seen in "Young Adult"), Dane Zagarino, Landon James Forlenza, John Diehl (last seen in "Anywhere But Here"), Jessica Chastain (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "The Family"), Lizbeth Mackay (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Jacob MacKinnon, Jeb Kreager, Lauren Sharpe, John Dinello (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Gerald Jones, Griffin Wallace Henkel, Douglas Crosby (last seen in "Empire State"), Eva Jette Putrello, Marjorie Johnson (last seen in "Boiler Room"),
with archive footage of John Chancellor (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Sid & Judy")
RATING: 5 out of 10 trips to the principal's office
No comments:
Post a Comment