We find Maestro, Bradley Cooper's latest actor-director star vehicle, which dramatises the life of iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein, to be dishonest, illustrative, and superficial Oscar bait. We also find it cinematically ambitious at times, with great production values - not many films of this type are being made with $80 million budgets. A mixed bag.

Recorded on 1st February 2024.

418 - Maestro

Writer-director Cord Jefferson's debut feature, American Fiction, combines satire with family dynamics to fairly charming, if visually uninspiring, effect. Jeffrey Wright's Thelonius is a novelist forced into a leave of absence from his teaching position, whereupon he returns to Boston and reconnects with his family, from whom he's distant. He's also furious that his latest manuscript has been rejected for not being black enough, and that what "black enough" means involves every negative stereotype of black people and culture imaginable. But when he sarcastically writes such a novel to shove society's attitude in its face, it's taken seriously by the white literary elite, who shower it with praise.

From the trailer, Mike was expecting more focus on the satire, and more energy à la Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You. It's a surprise, then, that American Fiction spends so much time developing the family drama, but not an unpleasant one, and José finds that aspect the film's most interesting. We consider the idea that the film uses the family story to practice what it preaches, offering a story about black people that doesn't require them to be black in order to justify its existence - it's a universal story about distanced siblings, a mother with failing health, and broken marriages. And we discuss the film's ending, or lack thereof, in which the inescapability of the culture that demands stereotype is emphasised at the expense of a satisfying, earned conclusion to the story we've been told.

American Fiction doesn't create a single artful image, and that ending is disappointing, but the film is also interesting, absorbing, and funny. Worth a look.

Recorded on 2nd February 2024.

419 - American Fiction

Is the world right, or is Mike? Argylle, Matthew Vaughn's new spy comedy, has received terrible reviews and is bombing at the box office - but Mike thinks everyone else is wrong, taking it far too seriously, and missing the parody. José is more in tune with the vox populi, finding the film a slog, Henry Cavill's hair ugly, and Bryce Dallas Howard ill-cast. But we find concord when it comes to the film's action scenes, and we discuss the transitions between Cavill and Sam Rockwell, Howard's look and movement, Mike's continuing complaint about the peculiar look of British visual effects, and more.

Recorded on 4th February 2024.

420 - Argylle

Writer-director Andrew Haigh's romantic fantasy, All of Us Strangers, flows beautifully from scene to scene, inviting the audience to question the reality of what they're shown but seldom requiring them to - it's about the feeling it creates. It's a film about isolation, building and rebuilding connections, how the past reverberates, and in particular, experiences of growing up gay in the homophobic society of the 1980s. Its themes are universal and easily understood, but people who share those experiences will identify with it more closely than most.

We discuss the complexity and natural feeling of the protagonist's conversations with his parents, who carry with them, alongside love for their son, those homophobic attitudes; the way scenes flow into each other; how letting go of those questions of what and how things are real allows us to get the most out of the film; and we ask those questions anyway. We also take the opportunity to revisit the ending of The Zone of Interest, discuss audiences proudly displaying their dislikes, and have another think about The Holdovers with that in mind.

Recorded on 6th February 2024.

421 - All of Us Strangers

In the podcast we try to mix very personal responses to ALL OF US STRANGERS with various historical contexts and speak of the film’s setting in relation to queer childhoods in that period, section 28, trauma, erasure; the film’s formal and stylistic achievements; Andrew Haigh’s career; how the film speaks to psychoanalytic pain, a generational pain, grief, AIDS. The personal grounded in historical contexts as a platform for politics. It’s all in there

In Conversation with Gary Needham on All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh,UK, 2023)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/12/thinking-aloud-about-film-out-of-the-blue-chen-kun-hou-taiwan-1983/
We continue our discussion of the GOLDEN DECADES: CINEMATIC MASTERS OF THE GOLDEN HORSE AWARDS with a chat on OUT OF THE BLUE (Chen Kun-Hou, Taiwan, 1983).
A fascinating film to discuss in relation to all our previous podcasts on Taiwanese Cinema and Hou Hsiao-hsien; a film directed by Chen Kun-hou, the cinematographer on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s early films such as THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOME (1982) and THE BOYS FROM FENGKUEI (1983). Chen Kun-hou is also the cinematographer on HE NEVER GIVES UP (LEE HSING, 1978), and of course Hou Hsia-hsien was the co-writer on GROWING PAINS (1983) and this one. These films also share writer, Chu T’ien-wen (the screenwriter) who went on to co-write most of Hou Hsia-hsien’s films, this one based on a novel by Chu T’ien-wen’s sister, Chu T’ien-hsin. Collectively ork that evokes an outpouring of creativity but as part of a circle of collaborators. And this particular film seems a turning point from the healthy realist cinema that was and the comedies and musicals that followed to what would become known as New Taiwanese Cinema.  A key film, released just after BOYS FROM FENGKUEI; A film that takes its time, the camera lingers, yet never feels long, a story gently told about young love in trouble, filial duty, ties to family, small transgressions. Aspects bring to mind BEFORE SUNRISE (Richard Linklater, 1995) Arguably, one can’t understand New Taiwanese Cinema well without having a context; and this series is a shortcut to that context, the virtue is that it’s preselected, the films that that national industry thought the best; and within THAT, OUT OF THE BLUE is arguably the key film of that transition.

Out Of The Blue ((Chen Kun-Hou, Taiwan, 1983)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/02/13/jose-arroyo-in-conversation-with-sean-burns-on-dorothy-towers-and-death/
Sean Burns is a Birmingham-born, London-based artist; the author of DEATH, part of the LOOK AGAIN series of volumes interpreting the TATE’s collection through particular themes and published to coincide with TATE BRITAIN’S recent re-hang; and the director of DOROTHY TOWERS, a film in which I appear. In the accompanying podcast, we discuss these iconic Birmingham Tower blocks that are the subject of the film; how their design and location meant that generations of queers ended up living there and continue to do so; how these buildings have a patterned history but not just one story. There are different stories, different layers of stories, spectral and layered, plural. We discuss how ‘Queer’ in England is constantly re-written as something that only happens in London and how the film is often interpreted by audiences as a reclaiming and a validation of similar histories that have probably taken place in cities all over the country. It’s a film that also brings into play modernism, brutalism, drag, fashion, and urban design that prioritises cars over people. We discuss how the film was driven by a mandate to search but not necessarily to find; and how what is evoked is a layered history but one with the feeling that comes from a place in which death, mourning and sadness are spectral but not defining elements. A film aware of the perils of representation and thus conscientiously ethical in its approach. We talk also of Burn’s recent book on death, his obsession with Francis Bacon and George Dyer, how Ireland and Irishness are developing concerns, and whether death, mourning, and longing are themes common to all this work.

José Arroyo in Conversation with Sean Burns on DOROTHY TOWERS and DEATH

Wim Wenders finds inspiration in Japanese public lavatories in Perfect Days, a slice of life drama about Hirayama, a janitor who finds quiet happiness in his routine of travelling from public convenience to public convenience cleaning, photographing trees in the park, being welcomed at restaurants by proprietors who fetch him his usuals, and reading books before bed. We discuss Wenders' delicate touch and observational eye, Kōji Yakusho's central performance, for which he was named Best Actor at Cannes, how small moments indicate whole avenues of a person's life, and the film's theme of connections between the individual worlds in which we live.

Recorded on 18th February 2024.

422 - Perfect Days

Denis Villeneuve's epic adaptation of Dune makes its first appearance on the podcast in the form of the second film in the series - we saw the first when it came out but never podcasted on it. With the lore in place, the scene set, and the characters established, Dune: Part Two is free to develop romance, engage in action, and tell the story of the construction of a messiah. It's beautiful, exciting entertainment - as long as you can remember everyone's names and what their magic powers are and what they're up to and why.

José feels no such issues keeping track of Part Two's various story elements, but Mike hasn't done the homework and finds that the film isn't going out of its way to help him. But no matter! The imagery on offer is astonishingly pretty, reassuringly expensive, and tuned for maximum visual impact - though we wonder how poetic it is, and ask ourselves to what extent the imagery in Villeneuve's other work lingers in the mind, despite its premium sheen. We also discuss the degree to which we feel Part Two really feels like it's buying in to its more supernatural elements. It tells a story of prophecy, visions, and unlikely fates, but, Mike suggests, also offers mechanisms and plausible explanations for things we see, arguably favouring its scepticism to avoid putting off an audience unwilling to go along with the otherworldly.

Whether you care or not, whether you can follow the details or not, there's no reason to not see Dune: Part Two on the biggest and best screen available. For the visual design and production alone, it's value for money - that the rest is good is a lovely bonus.

Recorded on 3rd March 2024.

423 - Dune: Part Two

https://notesonfilm1.com/2024/04/04/in-conversation-with-richard-layne-on-yoko-ono-music-of-the-mind-tate-modern/
I talk to Richard Layne on ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’, currently on at Tate Modern. You might recognise Richard from our podcast, THINKING ALOUD ABOUT FILM. What you might not know is that he is a long-time fan of Yoko Ono and one of the most knowledgeable people on her work as an artist and performer. In this podcast, Richard, compares this exhibition, billed as the largest ever undertaken on the work of Yoko One, and compares it to the many others he’s attended. We talk of how he became a fan, her various types of work, the performance art, the conceptual art, her books of instructions, the connection to Fluxus. We also touch on her collaborations with some of the key figures of mid-twentieth century art (John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, John Lennon) and  how her work prefigures that of contemporary artists such as Marina Ibrahimovic. Our conversation broadly follows the flow of the exhibition itself, so I’ve included photographs from the exhibition in the blog so the listener might more clearly follow the points of conversation. Richard is very illuminating on why Yoko Ono is one of those figures that keep getting re-discovered periodically, on her extensive influence in various domains of art, from the gallery to punk, and on how she is a wonderful conduit to chance meetings with The Pet Shop Boys.

In Conversation with Richard Layne on 'Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind'

Our two-part discussion of Rocky concludes with a look at the entire series of eight films, including the two Creed movies. It's a series that's deeply interested in its own history, regularly referring to it in montages of characters' memories, journeys back to iconic locations, and the reintroduction of one particular character in Creed II. The series rewards its audience for its investment, although despite featuring a soap opera-like series of melodramatic plot developments over its many films, almost everything that refers to a previous film refers to the first one. Other than the events of 1976's Rocky, which laid the foundation for the series, only Apollo Creed's death and Ivan Drago's defeat in Rocky IV have lasting impact on later films.

We discuss how, following his superhero-like physicality in the Eighties, the character of Rocky is brought back down to Earth in his old age, his body ravaged by time, his life broken by loss. And we think about how the milieu evolves over time, the music, for instance, changing from barbershop/a capella singing in the Seventies, through power ballads in the Eighties, to rap and hip-hop in the 2010s. And we discuss much more besides.

You can track significant changes in cinema and culture over the last fifty years through the Rocky films. Each one feels like a snapshot of American life at its time. We can't recommend most of the films as examples of great film art, but the last three, Rocky Balboa, Creed and Creed II, stand above the first five, the Creeds especially feeling like a breath of fresh air with the directorial talent on display. But it's a fascinating series to work through, earnest and open-hearted throughout, and immensely likeable.

Recorded on 21st February 2021.

279 - Rocky - Part II: The Rocky series

"I have this romantic idea of the movies as a conjunction of place, people and experiences, all different for each of us, a context in which individual and separate beings try to commune, where the individual experience overlaps with the communal and where that overlapping is demarcated by how we measure the differing responses between ourselves and the rest of the audience: do they laugh when we don’t (and what does that mean?); are they moved when we feel like laughing (and what does that say about me or the others) etc. The idea behind this podcast is to satiate the urge I sometimes have when I see a movie alone – to eavesdrop on what others say. What do they think? How does their experience compare to mine? Snippets are overhead as one leaves the cinema and are often food for thought. A longer snippet of such an experience is what I hope to provide: it’s two friends chatting immediately after a movie. It’s unrehearsed, meandering, slightly convoluted, certainly enthusiastic, and well informed, if not necessarily on all aspects a particular work gives rise to, certainly in terms of knowledge of cinema in general and considerable experience of watching different types of movies and watching movies in different types of ways. It’s not a review. It’s a conversation." - José Arroyo.

"I just like the sound of my own voice." - Michael Glass.

279 - Rocky - Part II: The Rocky series

Eavesdropping at the Movies

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