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Movie review: The Holdovers

Directed by Alexander Payne

It’s almost winter break at a prestigious boys’ prep school in 1970. Most of the kids are going home, but five are the holdovers, unable to get away for the break. Thus, the name of the film.

A faculty member has to tend to them. One is assigned but gets out of the gig. The task then devolves to the demanding teacher of ancient civilizations, Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), who almost no one likes.

Then, the five teens are offered a way out, but only four can take advantage, leaving the bright but troubled Angus Tully (Dominick Sessa) stuck with Paul and the cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), deep in her own issues.

I liked this movie a lot: the characters, all broken in some manner, often change unexpectedly. One of the telling aspects is that I had seen the trailer for the movie a half dozen times. Those scenes, as shown in the movie, are actually funnier. Yet, there is serious character development.

The dialogue by David Heminson is delightful, especially Paul’s: “I find the world a bitter and complicated place – and it seems to feel the same way about me.”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the breakout star here. Vanity Fair, in noting the 25 best performances of 2023, says, “In Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, Randolph proves her ability to settle in for a character-driven story that’s stripped of distraction and focused solely on her skills as an actor. As Mary, a school cafeteria administrator… Randolph captures maternal pain while never allowing the grief to feel clichéd. Whenever she’s onscreen, you can’t take your eyes off her layered, nuanced performance in this moving dramedy. “

Well-received

Several reviews use the sentence, “Paul Giamatti gives his best performance since Sideways,” the 2004 film that Payne also directed. The new movie received 96% positive reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 91% of the audience concurred.

I suppose The Holdovers might become, in its weird way, a holiday classic, especially for anyone, in the words of one critic, “who has known the oppressive weight of Christmas loneliness.”

One critic complained, “It’s impossible not to notice how many scenes limp along, how many have nothing to do with the previous one, and how many fizzle out.” I didn’t think that was happening. I sensed that the story gave the viewer the idea that the relationship, especially between Paul and Angus, had gone as far as possible, but then, another layer would be revealed.

My wife and I saw The Holdovers at our Landmark Theatre, Spectrum 8, on December 2 in one of the larger theaters that was about half full.

Million Dollar Quartet Christmas

The Gilded Age

In the jukebox musical Million Dollar Quartet Christmas, which my wife and I saw at Capital Rep in Albany on November 25, “Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley come together again to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year.” In this timeframe, Elvis (Luke Monday) has left Sun Records and its owner, Sam Phillips (Rob Morrison) for hits on RCA Records and Hollywood stardom. He’s there with his girlfriend Dyanne (Taylor Aronson).

Johnny Matt Cusack) has signed with Columbia Records and experienced some country hits but not much crossover. Carl Perkins (Jeremy Sevelovitz) had a massive hit with Blue Suede Shoes, but his career was derailed by a car accident. Jerry Lee Lewis (Billy Rude) is still in the Sun stable, aching for chance of stardom.

If you’ve seen the famous photo of the Million Dollar Quartet, there was a woman sitting on the piano, Elvis’ girlfriend at the time, Marilyn Evans. It’s highly unlikely that she was as vivacious and flirty as Dyanne was, or that she was one of the singers.

Concert

None of this matters overly much. The bones of the story are largely accurate. Moreover, the musicians were fantastic. Cusack found the timbre of Cash’s voice. Monday could move like Presley. The real Perkins would be awed by Sevelovitz’s tremendous guitar work. But Rude embodied Lewis, from his manic piano playing to the youthful arrogance. Aronson’s Dyanne had a lovely voice.

The play was quite serviceable, with some clever quips. (The Day Tripper riff made sense, given the dialogue; I laughed out loud.) It is a ssequel to Million Dollar Quartet, which my wife and I saw at Proctors Theatre in January 2013. (This is why I have a blog.)

It’s a brief program, 45 minutes, then a 15-minute intermission, then another 45 minutes, the last 15 minutes or so which was a mini-concert. It was quite suitable for a holiday show.

It’s playing through December 24.

My church was a TV star

There was a watch party for the first episode of Season 2 of The Gilded Age at my church on October 29. That’s because “It’s Easter Sunday 1883… Featured amid the holiday flowers and strolling crowds are three landmark Capital Region churches. First Presbyterian Church at Willett and State streets teams up with St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at 107 State St. to stand in for St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in 19th-century Manhattan…

“‘It was very cool to see. They were in our building for three weeks. They used our assembly hall as a green room,’ said the Rev. Dr. Miriam Lawrence Leupold, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church.

“State Street and Washington Park appear in the opening episode as the setting for the Easter parade. It starts off the eight-episode season’s continuing clash between new and old money in Gilded Age New York City over competing opera houses. Julian Fellowes is the creator of ‘The Gilded Age.'”

It’s a show on Max, which I don’t have a subscription for. Though our church’s star turn was over in the first ten minutes, the episode itself was very compelling, especially when dealing with labor issues. I’ve always enjoyed the work of Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon, the latter of whom I once voted for governor.

Taylor’s version

In late October, I went to see the film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. It was disappointing but it’s my own fault. I went to see it at the Spectrum, a Landmark theater not geared towards the hype three weeks after it opened.

So thee were a total of three of us in the theater, two women in their 20s, and me. They had “only” seen it once before because they’d been busy.

As someone not immersed in Swiftian music, I was impressed how her albums, her Eras, changed. I wasn’t crazy about Reputation, which I learned later has an interesting backstory. But I liked the story songs of folklore. I also enjoyed some of her very early work, with her at the piano.

I agree with this review: “Overall, The Eras Tour concert film is an enjoyable and entertaining experience for any music fan, but it will especially be a blast for Taylor Swift’s fans. It is a well-made film that captures the essence and excitement of Swift’s live shows. The film has good camera work, editing, and sound design that make the viewer feel like they are part of the concert.”

But I’m still not a Swiftie.

The price of tickets were $19.89 (she was born in 1989, which I knew), but since I’m a senior, it was only $13.13, 13 being TS’s lucky number (which I somehow missed.)

Movie review: The Persian Version

plates spinning

The movie The Persian Version has much to commend it. Writer/director Maryam Keshavarz has created a storyline based mainly on her own life as the youngest child and the only girl in a sizeable Iranian-American family.

Early on, Leila found that she didn’t fit in. She was too Iranian when she was in the United States and too American when in Iran. She forged her own path, conflicting with her mother, Shireen. Leila blames her mother for her breakup with Elena.

She has a peculiar relationship with the actor Maxmillian, who appears in the play Hedwig and the Angry Inch; she and her eight brothers have fun at Max’s expense. Her constant refuge is her grandmother Mamanjoon, who catalyzes a significant story arc.

As Leila’s father/Shireen’s husband Ali Reza becomes very ill, with medical bills piling up, Shireen becomes focused on remaking herself to take care of the family financially. The film has a suitable ending.

Good flick

The Persian Version has a lot to commend it. The family dynamics, with Shireen disappointed that her daughter is a basketball player and one of her sons a cheerleader, is believable. It takes on the redlining of immigrant families and businesses. The perceived role of women, past and present, is important throughout.

Critic Kate Walsh writes: “Keshavarz spins a lot of plates in ‘The Persian Version,’ and we can see the effort, but she keeps them all in the air.” Whether she pulls this off is the real issue. The Rotten Tomatoes critics, 18% of whom think she didn’t quite it off, are like Jeff Mitchell, who wrote, “Too many shifts in times, tones, and ideas crowd the earnest intentions.”

My wife is in the Walsh camp, whereas I see Mitchell’s point. That said, I think it’s an important film, and despite its flaws, it is very much worthwhile. I loved the use of dance. We saw the movie on Saturday, November 4, as usual, at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

Movie review: Carlos

keep a demon under control

Before I review the new documentary, Carlos, here is a little personal history. I had asked one of my parents, probably my father, if I could go to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, NY, in August 1969. He said no, and that was that. How was I to know that it would become WOODSTOCK?

So when the movie came out in the spring of 1970, a large group of friends and I saw it. Because, back in the day, we could, we then watched it again.

Some artists I knew, but not Santana, though Evil Ways had just hit the Top 10 nationally in March 1970. I was mesmerized by Soul Sacrifice. But I never knew why the lead guitarist seemed to be grimacing so much until I saw the new film.

The Dead

As the Variety review notes: “Carlos arrived at Woodstock by helicopter, and the first thing he encountered there was Jerry Garcia (who he knew from the Fillmore), extending an open hand with some pills in it. Carlos wasn’t scheduled to go on for many hours, so he figured he’d take the pills, and they would wear off.

“The next thing he knew, the Woodstock announcer, with that deep voice, was introducing Santana. Carlos stepped onstage out of his mind on acid… The film shows those clips, and Carlos, looking back, explains to us what was happening: He thought the neck of his guitar had turned into a writhing snake, one he was literally wrestling so that he could subdue it enough to play. What the whole world saw was a guitarist on pure electric fire. What Carlos was doing was trying to keep a demon under control.”

That’s just one interesting segment in the film, which I saw with my wife, at her suggestion, at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany recently. The doc starts with a tease of Oye Como Va, familiar yet rendered new.

Violin

Carlos was a poor kid born in Mexico. His father, a mariachi musician, taught his son how to play the violin. Eventually, Carlos had to tell his father, whom he adored, that the guitar was a better fit for him.

The family moved to San Francisco. A tape recording of Carlos from 1966, when he was 19, showed how remarkably good he was. There is also some great footage of the Fillmore with Bill Graham, Garcia, Joe Cocker, and others. Graham made sure that Carlos and his band played at the Fillmore steadily, either as the warm-up group or the headliner, when the scheduled artist failed to show. I liken it to when The Beatles played nearly daily in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s and became solid musically.

BTW, Abraxas, the second album, remains my favorite, especially the segue of Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen. It was also his best-selling album until 1999.

The movie delves into the masking of the album Supernatural, and Clive Davis’ part in that process, which was responsible for eight Grammys, including for Smooth, the single featuring Rob Thomas.

Bio

Two things jumped out throughout the film. Carlos’ spiritual journey is quite evident. After successful albums, he abandoned the rock motif for a time and became a disciple of the Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy. I have an album with Carlos and John McLaughlin.

His disdain for musical collaborators who aren’t committed to the music is legendary, which is why there have been some three dozen members of the band Santana over the years.

He had two children with his first wife, Deborah King (m. 1973-2007), and both are inclined toward music.

In some ways, the storytelling was Carlos and his sisters sharing his story to Carlos’ second wife, Cindy Blackman, who, not incidentally, is Santana’s touring drummer. He proposed to her on stage during a concert in Illinois in July 2010, and they married in Hawaii five months later.

The documentary received 100% positive reviews from 17 Rotten Tomatoes reviews and was 94% positive with audiences. Carlos, directed by Rudy Valdez, is recommended.

Weird; Godspell; The 39 Steps

Day By Day

Here’s a roundup of some entertainment I’ve seen recently.

The first and only thing I’ve gotten around to seeing on my newish Roku set is the movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring the unlikely but oddly convincing Daniel Radcliff. I’m a big Weird Al fan, owning at least 90% of his work on LP or CD.

I imagine that familiarity with not only the music but the backstory of the creation of the songs and the launching of this career would enhance the appreciation of the storyline. The movie was written by Al and director Eric Appel, and it is a parody of biopic films about musicians.

It’s often funny, definitely silly, and inevitably excessive, especially in the second half, featuring Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood), when the pace sags for me.

The pool scene featuring Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), Wolfman Jack (Jack Black), and several well-known icons is my favorite. I also liked the resolution involving Al’s father (Toby Huss). And Al is convincing s the record producer who wants to have nothing to do with Weird Al.

The film sometimes seems rushed, probably because of its 18-day shooting schedule, but I’m glad I saw it.

Theater!

My wife and I had said in the spring that we might see three or four shows at Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, NY, over the summer. Suddenly, it was Sunday, August 13, and the final day of the third or fourth show. She said, do you want to go see Godspell?

I love Godspell. In 1976, I was in a production in New Paltz. I’ve seen the movie starring Victor Garber.

But this Godspell was sublime. Check out this review: ” This Godspell, this gospel according to [director Trey] Compton, is an edgy, piercing, gritty, brilliant piece of theatre… “

This is how the show starts: “Cue the Gospel. As the ensemble cast of eight enters, each clutches a cell phone in his or her hand as if they are the last lifelines to their very existence. The soon-to-be disciples are quite literally separated one from another by virtue of Compton’s sharp and intentional staging, scattered about the theatre like the wandering souls they are at this moment.

“Looking for all the world like a world-weary crowd gathered on a dark subway track awaiting the last train of the day, they begin to deliver the Prologue/Tower of Babble, a number not always included in every production, but thankfully included here…

“[It] is a truly unique, brilliant, thought-provoking, cutting-edge work of theater art.” That says it all.

Hitchcock

My wife wanted to know if I wanted to go to the Spectrum Theatre to see the film The 39 Steps (1935). I had never seen it, so absolutely.

What I liked is that the protagonist, Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Canadian vacationing in London, didn’t believe the mysterious agent Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) and her fanciful tale about an international spy ring involving something called the “39 steps.”

That is, until Smith ends up dead in Hannay’s apartment, with him as the only suspect. Hannay has to elude those chasing him while trying to figure out the truth behind the secret. His life becomes entangled with Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), his unwilling accomplice, who doesn’t believe Richard any more than Richard initially believed Annabella.

The chase is a bit improbable, as the pursuers are mainly inept. It’s also a very humorous and early rom-com.

Incidentally, I did see The 39 Steps before, but it involved shadow puppets.