BEFORE:OK, some notes about the linking - the most obvious place to go after "Lee" would be "Goodbye June", a film directed by Kate Winslet about a dying mother/grandmother. Well, sure, I realize my subconscious brain wants to stay on that track, because of what happened with my own mother this month. But it's a bit on the nose, and I want to get off that track - SO I'm taking advantage of the fact that movie is set at Christmas time to drop it from the chain here, and since it connects to another Christmas movie via Stephen Merchant, I'm going to re-purpose that film as a Christmas film. I mean, May is a good time for a Memorial Day/Mother's Day mash-up, but a Christmas/Mother's Day mash-up, maybe not so much. So it's out for now, and the chain's going to close up around the hole, no problem.
However, this means that yesterday was a skip day, and I've only got five of those that I can use between here and Father's Day, less if I find some more films tomorrow that started streaming in May and could fill in the cracks between what's already on the docket. So now I've got FOUR potential skip days in the next month, and if I line things up with May birthdays, I'll be down to three, with both NewFest and Tribeca Film Festival coming up. I'll probably use all three since the festival shifts are long BUT there's a chance to make some money there. So still, either way, Andrea Riseborough carries over from "Lee" and if I can make it to June 1 before the Father-based films kick in, that will be some kind of a win.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Matilda" (Movie #2,802)
THE PLOT: An adaptation of the Tony award-winning musical that tells the story of an extraordinary girl who, armed with a sharp mind and a vivid imagination, dares to take a stand to change her story with miraculous results.
AFTER: As part of the process I went back to re-read my review of "Matilda", the 1996 (?) film - since then the story was made into a Broadway musical, adding songs and whatever else, and then somebody decided to make THAT musical into a movie, 25 years after the first film. Now we need a book made based on the film remake based on the stage remake, and everything will come full circle, so to speak. And as part of THAT process, the remake film screened at the theater where I work, and Emma Thompson came to promote it and do a Q&A, and walked right past me. This was maybe two months after her ex-husband, Kenneth Branagh, was there for "Belfast" and he also did a Q&A and he was also a foot away from me at times. Nobody else saw the connection, not Mr. Branagh or Ms. Thompson, I was the only person there that saw them in the same place at different times. So that was just for me, another random gift from the movieverse.
Anyway, my review of the original film has some comments that are still relevant to the remake, so here they are:
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This character was a self-starter, she taught herself how to read and then how to get books from the library, because her parents were total duds who didn't even want to send her to school for some reason. Plus they neglected her in other ways, not just in almost failing to provide her with an education, since her father was always busy cheating people at the used car lot, and her mother was always busy playing bingo. Matilda was forced to chart her own educational path until circumstances changed, and an encounter with a teacher leads her father to believe that school might be the best place for her after all.
Unfortunately, it's a mixed bag as she really bonds with her teacher, but the school has the worst principal you can imagine. And since this story is based on a Roald Dahl book, and he was always very twisted in his depiction of certain adults (*cough* Willy Wonka *cough*) that's saying a lot. The principal can't just be mean, she has to be SUPER-mean, the kind of person that throws kids out of windows, which just wouldn't be allowed in any school district anywhere, plus she was some kind of former Olympic shot-put champion or something, and not feminine in any way, like, do we have to spell it out for you here?
And once Matilda gets to school, the film doesn't seem to ever settle on a coherent plot line. Like, what's her end goal, surviving school or just getting revenge on every adult that ever yelled at her or put her down? Once Matilda figures out that adults are "people" (duh) that somehow means that they should be held accountable for their actions, and if they're not nice people, then they deserve to be pranked, or worse. That's a terrible message to send out to the kids, isn't it?
Unfortunately, it's a mixed bag as she really bonds with her teacher, but the school has the worst principal you can imagine. And since this story is based on a Roald Dahl book, and he was always very twisted in his depiction of certain adults (*cough* Willy Wonka *cough*) that's saying a lot. The principal can't just be mean, she has to be SUPER-mean, the kind of person that throws kids out of windows, which just wouldn't be allowed in any school district anywhere, plus she was some kind of former Olympic shot-put champion or something, and not feminine in any way, like, do we have to spell it out for you here?
And once Matilda gets to school, the film doesn't seem to ever settle on a coherent plot line. Like, what's her end goal, surviving school or just getting revenge on every adult that ever yelled at her or put her down? Once Matilda figures out that adults are "people" (duh) that somehow means that they should be held accountable for their actions, and if they're not nice people, then they deserve to be pranked, or worse. That's a terrible message to send out to the kids, isn't it?
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Today I've got the same complaints, more or less. The film is all over the place, which leads me to believe that the book is all over the place, or perhaps incoherent. Maybe it connects with kids who have short attention span and kind of appreciate that there's no linear "quest", no through-line where there is a clear problem that needs to be solved, and therefore no clear revelatory solution at the end, either. Just more problems - perhaps more than when the story started, but hey, that's life, right?
But I keep hearing how problematic Roald Dahl was, and continues to be. There's a Broadway play now where John Lithgow is playing him as both a literary "genius" and also an Anti-Semite. How do we resolve these things? Sure, it was a different time, but this man had hate in his heart for not just Jews, but also children, parents, lesbian teachers and possibly Oompa-Loompas as well. Yet people continue to make stories out of his lesser works, instead of just acknowledging that he maybe wrote ONE good book, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", which itself is also quite problematic, and just maybe nothing else in his bibliography is going to measure up. Can't we just say he was a total asshole and let cancel culture cancel him?
But no, in the same way some people would LOVE to cancel J.K. Rowling for her anti-gay, anti-trans messages over the years, they tried to cancel her but it didn't work, because the "Harry Potter" books are now becoming an HBO series, or maybe seven HBO serieses, I'm not sure. As long as HBO/Paramount/Skydance can make a profit by re-working and re-adapting someone's work, we're going to put all that complicated bigotry and assholishness aside, at least until after we count the money.
Here I thought this was a simple story about a girl with psycho-kinetic powers, which somehow go hand-in-hand with her being really smart (umm, NITPICK POINT, that's not how mutant powers or intelligence works) and instead we get this think-piece about how it's OK for kids to be a little naughty if people are mean to them. (umm, this isn't a thing either, that's not how you deal with bullies, we've been THROUGH this, Hollywood). Also lesbian teachers are evil and all have an axe to grind and are extremely mean to children yet are somehow able to keep their jobs because there's just no oversight in the teaching community.
I really didn't see why so much time was spent on Matilda telling the story of the acrobat and the escapologist who worked in the circus together, were madly in love and expecting a baby, yet the acrobat's evil step-sister (don't even get me started on this...) forced them to do the most extreme, unbelievable stunt, with tragic consequences. And then near the end the story became very important because it wasn't just a made-up story, it was the background origin story of Matilda's teacher, Miss Honey, who was the daughter of the acrobat and the escape artist somehow, and there's zero explanation to how the real events became part of Matilda's made-up story, which kind of would have been helpful. Did Matilda read about the real circus accident in an old newspaper or something, and then enhanced the story with details of her own? Or did she accidentally read Miss Honey's mind, which would be a completely different mental power? Or something else? Details, PLEASE.
So we're here in late May, sandwiched between Mother's Day and Father's Day, so I'm open to any movies with either parent in them, or both, whatever. I guess the take-away is that if your parents completely suck, do something about it. You can get yourself clear of them, or you can find a new mother figure or father figure if you need to, just choose carefully and make sure you don't get yourself in more trouble in the process. Also, if your teacher sucks you can do something about it - in junior high my classmates protested over the cafeteria food, which we thought was of poor quality, so we all got together and NOBODY ate the school lunches as a form of protest, which meant that the cafeteria staff made a bunch of food every day that I assume got mostly thrown away. Well, that's not cost-effective at all, so things changed, we changed them. Then in 10th grade our U.S. History teacher was a total dud, like I fell asleep as soon as he started talking. Again we (and our parents) protested, this guy was NOT up to par, and a few weeks later he had back surgery or perhaps "back surgery" was a dodge for replacing him, and our principal, a former history teacher himself, stepped in.
This is the only reason I'm not giving this film a terrible rating, because there IS a message here, underneath all the other nonsense. If the adults in your life are not up to par, yes, of course you should do something about it. Don't settle for third best, because you deserve AT LEAST second best out of people. And this goes for your parents, teachers, politicians, spouses and friends - if they suck, cut them out of your life, because you can do better. Especially when it comes to politicians, and the midterms are coming up. Just saying.
NITPICK POINT: I thought the "Alphabet Song" when Matilda first arrived at school was quite clever, especially how you don't realize what it is until the second time through. The other songs, I could really take them or leave them. But I could not find the letter "R" or even the sound where it was supposed to be. Umm, where was it, and why are we leaving out a letter, like was that missing "R" for Roald?
NITPICK POINT 2: Matilda solves a complicated math problem on the blackboard, in a plot point that seems to be stolen from "Good Will Hunting". It's a problem so complicated that only an adult math expert should be able to figure it out, but she handles it. So, umm, if it's way over the heads of everyone in the room, or so it's believed, WHY is it on the blackboard in the first place?
NITPICK POINT 3: Can we all just admit that "Roald" is a terrible first name? I've always thought that he was supposed to be named "Ronald" and someone just made a mistake on the birth certificate. Nobody else in the world was ever named "Roald", right? Another great reason to cancel this author and stop making movies based on his work. Everything about him is just so, so problematic, including his name.
Directed by Matthew Warchus
Also starring Alisha Weir, Emma Thompson (last seen in "Much Ado About Nothing"), Lashana Lynch (last seen in "The Woman King"), Stephen Graham (last seen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere"), Sindhu Vee, Carl Spencer (last seen in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes"), Lauren Alexandra, Winter Jarrett-Glasspool, Andrei Shen, Ashton Robertson, Meesha Garbett (last seen in "Cats"), Charlie Hodson-Prior, Rei Yamauchi Fulker, Katherine Kingsley (last seen in "Genius"), Amber Adeyinka, James Laurenson (last seen in "One Day"), Ann Firbank (last seen in "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Amanda Lawrence (ditto), Thomas Arnold (last seen in "Heart of Stone"), James Dryden (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Matt Henry, Karen Mavundukure, Tia isaac, Ella Chadwick, Erin Rushidi, Rudy Gibson, Isa Islam, Joshua Moabi, Poppy Caton, Ian McIntosh, Kirsty Malpass, Tim Bentinck (last heard in "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget")
RATING: 4 out of 10 amusement park rides - sorry, but even in a "better" school this feels wildly inappropriate. Too much of a swing in the other direction?
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