Swallow

If you’re looking for a short movie reminiscent of Ordinary People or Good Will Hunting, this film shares a couple of themes with those longer, better known films. In all three the main character is in therapy, has an abusive or emotionally distant parent and comes to grips with demons, thus resolving a lifetime of struggle.

Now factor in a rape and the desire to eat dangerous objects and prepare to watch Swallow. Haley Bennett wonderfully plays Hunter Conrad, a sort of Stepford Wife to Richie Conrad (Austin Stowell,) heir apparent to the family business and a perfectionist who just wants Hunter to step up her game and behave. Richie’s parents are no help, supporting and increasing the pressure on Hunter to be everything their boy deserves. “Richie likes his girls with long hair,” quips his mother, suggesting that Hunter grow out her neatly coiffed short style.

Hunter journeys from family pressure cooker to therapy, through multiple hospitalizations and eventually comes face to face with an intervention that is in reality a forced voluntary commitment. “Sign here or Richie wants a divorce,” says Dad.

You might want to look up the medical condition called “Pica” before viewing. I thought this was limited to children or pregnant women who develop a taste for dirt, but it’s so much more and is quite disturbing. Here is a brief summary of what you’ll find online: Pica is a psychological disorder characterized by the desire to eat substances such as ice, hair, paper, sharp objects, metal, stones, soil or glass. Hunter seems to crave them all and creates a little display, collecting her trophies after they pass through her digestive system. This is delicately handled.

The problem is, some don’t pass through without causing internal injuries, and the resulting E.R. visits alarm the family, rattling their cages so to speak, and being control freaks, her cage most of all.

I won’t reveal anything further about the film’s outcome. Hunter’s journey with its betrayals, confrontations and awakenings is definitely worth watching. Director Carlo Mirabella-Davis’s own grandmother suffered from compulsive hand washing in the 1950s and is incorporated into the character of Hunter along with societal expectations of a happy, expectant mother. That and his experience as a “gender fluid” man who lived as a woman named Emma Goldman for four years in his twenties led him to say, “What’s interesting is that I don’t really know what I currently am right now, especially after directing this movie. Emma is always a part of me, and I’ve thought a lot about her over the years. It’s always a continual journey.”

Awareness of this background information elevates this film from a fictional story to more of a psychological study of the human mind with its malleability, vulnerability and ability to cope. I don’t know if the previously mentioned two films can make the same claim.

Swallow can be rented on Amazon Prime, YouTube and AppleTV for $4.99.

 

Swallow (2019) runs 1 hour, 34 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie? 

First Cow

This is another potential casualty, at least on the big screen, of the Covid pandemic. We had trouble finding a way to watch First Cow despite good reviews and recommendations from friends. We finally resorted to watching it on a laptop through iTunes. We do not have an Apple TV and our ancient (four year old) Smart TV was just short of smart enough to cast this movie from a phone.

Despite those limitations, this beautiful film has an art-house feel, a simple story line and quiet, engaging dialogue between its two main characters. The feel is immersive, softly focused under the smoky forest canopy with audio engineering that brings to life every twig cracking under foot, the snap of a mushroom’s stem and the sounds of quietly chewing bites of biscuits. This contributes to an anxious experience for audiences who have been conditioned to expect sudden action on the heels of silence.

John Magaro plays Cookie, an expert East Coast baker accompanying fur trappers in the Oregon Territory during the mid to late 1800s. Verbally abused by a troop of surly mountain men, he remains a loner and spends much of his time searching for food in the forest. There he discovers King-Lu (Orion Lee), crouching naked in the woods, having escaped a group of pursuing Russians for having killed one of their members in self-defense. Keep in mind that this was a period of extreme racial injustice and mistreatment of Chinese immigrants. (Read Mark Twain’s Roughing It for more.) The ensuing friendship leads to an entrepreneurial arrangement that puts both new friends at risk. The actors turn in memorable, understated performances.

Eventually we meet the “first cow” brought to the territory by a wealthy landowner, who has a nostalgic craving for fine baked goods. Cookie and his new partner attract his attention at a sort of woodsy marketplace where they sell their biscuits, a memory-invoking Eastern treat in the remote frontier. The landowner’s insecurity with military counterparts and his vengeful nature factor into the plot as we approach the film’s subdued climax.

Director Kelly Reichardt, a Florida native, prioritizes atmosphere over plot and visual effects in her film festival entries, one of which (River of Grass) was called one of the best films of 1995 by the Boston Globe and others. The Academy Awards may seem overwhelming for someone who considers herself  “a pretty boring person” but if the awards are conducted virtually next year, First Cow may be a surprisingly perfect fit. At the very least it should receive nominations for sound editing and design.

First Cow (2019) runs 2 hours, 2 minutes and is rated PG-13

Should I see this movie? 

Yellowstone (Series)

Sit back and enjoy vistas ready made for postcards, a cinematic feel that spans episodes and intriguing opening credits embedded in a steaming, sulfurous counterpoint of the old and new west. Welcome to the Yellowstone Ranch. Meet rancher/patriarch John Dutton. He is your host. Do not try to escape.

I heard a lot about this series from the Paramount Network, but it wasn’t until our local Xfinity service rolled out the Peacock channel that we had the ability to stream the first two seasons. Now that we’ve binged ourselves into a stupor, it’s time to take a look back and decide if season three is worth purchasing. 

The star of the show and one of its executive producers is the legendary Kevin Costner. He’s one of the much older Newman/Redford Hollywood genre of hunks that cause misty-eyed lasses to temporarily forget all about their feminist ideals and leave us normal guys saying, “Hey, did you hear what I just said?” But what does he have that I lack, other than, well, everything. And he’s a year younger than me to boot. When he was Dancing With Wolves I was dancing with diapers and stuck in one of the most boring jobs of my life.

But this is not a bio about Kev. For that, head to Wikipedia for an exhausting ride through a busy career, multiple marriages, vacillating political affiliations and errors in judgment that would derail most mortals. He has aged well and in Yellowstone has a gruff voice that, if not his own, is going to result in a nodule on this vocal chords.

Dutton is a sixth generation homesteader who would have us believe, “I’m not a rich man.” This, despite owning a ranch near Bozeman, Montana the size of a national park, his own helicopter, a fleet of trucks and ATVs, cattle, horses, barns, stables and a log cabin mansion to die for. I guess he’s house poor. And “to die for” is the key to this entire series. The Dutton clan is a modern day James Gang.

Dutton’s wife died while out on horseback with her children fifteen years earlier. Daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly) is blamed for the accident with her mother’s dying breath and goes on to become the meanest, sleaziest cowgirl in Montana. Her hatred for older brother Jamie (Wes Bentley) intensifies as the series progresses. Jamie is equally damaged, but was sent away early on by Dad to attend Harvard Law School because, “I need a lawyer.” As a result he returned a misfit, a slick hipster in a family full of murderous wranglers. Thus, the need for a lawyer.

The family is embroiled in local politics. Dutton is literally in bed with the Governor on the anniversary of his wife’s death because, “That’s the one day I most need to think about something else.” He is also at war with competing interests for casino and property development with Native Americans on the nearby reservation, a California developer and the Beck brothers, a sinister duo who stop at nothing to get what they want, including poisoning all of Dutton’s cattle and abducting his grandson.

There are tons of tangential plot lines, generally woven around hapless cowpokes, some of whom pledge allegiance to the Dutton brand by literally being branded by Dutton. The proper position, according to Yellowstone graphic guidelines for the stylized Yellowstone “Y” is the upper left quadrant of the chest, the fleshy part that sizzles nicely while the recipient is screaming. Given that many of the Yellowstone Ranch wranglers are recruited when released from prison, what’s a little permanent disfiguration when offered a job with a bunk and three squares as an otherwise unemployable felon?

When Beth is not goading Jamie into killing himself, or making others wish they were dead, she’s out trashing a Bozeman boutique where her Native American sister-in-law is accused of shoplifting. Racial injustice toward the occupants of the “Res” is a consistent theme throughout the show. And thankfully, they are the only people in the show who aren’t portrayed as murderous savages.

What would a modern day Western be without a compassionate killer who dresses in black and goes by the nickname “Rip” (Cole Hauser.) I’ve lost count of the individuals who are RIP-ing as a result of his trips to “the train station.” This is the local dump where anyone trying to quit their job at the ranch are unceremoniously shot in the head and pushed over a cliff. It makes you wonder about the size of the pile of bodies and duffle bags at the bottom of that ravine.

Rip is the only cowboy who is man enough to handle Beth, but she continually baits and humiliates him. He’s just born to suffer, and is the only branded “family member” who will never benefit from being treated like John Dutton’s son. Meanwhile, actual son Kayce (Luke Grimes), a self-sabotaging outlaw, psychically damaged in the war like Dad, resists being programmed and abused further but can’t seem to escape Dutton’s crushing gravitational pull. Like, who doesn’t have a fistfight with their coworkers to get the respect they deserve when they’re promoted?

Aside from the scenery and a plot that offers plenty of cliffhangers to ensure a repeat visit, there is a possible drinking game emerging thanks to a script full of paragraphs filled with Western wisdom. After a while you can predict the onset of an impossibly cogent sharing of life experience with a pause during which an actor seems to adjust their footing and brace for the delivery of a soliloquy memorized just before Director Taylor Sheridan said, “And, action.” Of course, he’s the screenwriter, so he’s actually setting up a shot framing his own words.

Categories of wisdom thus far identified are: Cowboy wisdom, Indian wisdom, John Dutton wisdom, wrangler wisdom, real-estate developer wisdom, Governor wisdom and Beth’s own particular brand of psychosexual wisdom. In fact, half of the characters are delivering wisdom while the other half are receiving it. Seems like they should eventually learn from each other and kind of even things out. But the really smart ones invariably try to escape, with one last bit of wisdom on the way to the train station.

I have friends who have lived in Bozeman for years. I’d like to hear from residents who are being portrayed as affluent snobs in a town full of baristas, boutiques and whiskey bars where you have to hope you don’t show up at exactly the wrong time. Even minding your own business can get you beaten nearly to death for wearing a nice tie. If confronted, remember to say, “Yes sir, Mr. Dutton” and offer to pay for his drink, or at least be prepared to listen to some words of wisdom. And don’t forget, nothing good happens in bars or after midnight, especially near the Yellowstone Ranch.

Should I watch this? 

  

Radioactive

When I was in fourth grade I acquired a huge chemistry set from someone who had tired of learning science and gaining knowledge. Or maybe they set their basement on fire as I recounted here. In the set was a small black device that looked like the eyepiece for a microscope, or maybe a printer’s loop. I discovered that it was actually a spinthariscope, a toy version of a tool that allows a viewer to observe the nuclear disintegration of ionizing alpha radiation on a surface coated with radium or other phosphor.

The Gilbert Company, maker of the Erector Set, created the U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, parts of which had been combined with the chemistry set I enjoyed. 

Can I just say, toys were really cool in the 1960s!

Toy Spinthariscope

This is the long way into a review of a movie about Madame Marie Curie, but allow me to finish by saying that I still have my toy spinthariscope. Late at night, long after your eyes grow used to complete darkness, looking into the eyepiece reveals frequent streaks and flashes of green light that look like shooting stars. It’s definitely a “wow” experience, especially when you consider that these same particles are passing through your body without even slowing down – all day, every day for your entire life.

Polish born Marie Curie was a “wow” kind of scientist. This biographical Amazon original does an adequate job of telling her life story, and rather heavy-handedly makes the case for her triumph within and beyond a male dominated field during Victorian era Paris. In fact, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first person of either gender to win one twice. With her partner and husband Pierre she discovered Polonium and Radium and went on to discover X-rays that were used in the field to save the lives of soldiers in World War I.

The movie compartmentalizes her science, love life and feminism in a less than fluid script. Those times, like viewing old movies from the 1950s, induce cringe-worthy reactions to the behaviors and attitudes of her contemporaries. She was far ahead of her time, a brilliant, inexhaustible worker and mother to Irene, another Nobel Prize winning female in Chemistry for the discovery of artificial radiation. Sadly, Marie died of aplastic anemia, likely due to her long exposure to radiation.

As the wonder of radium became known to the scientific community it was popularized as a magical substance and commercialized in a bizarre variety of products ranging from toothpaste to cigarettes. On the face of watches and clocks “you could even say it glowed.” A brief series of actual product photos was incorporated like a Powerpoint slide show in a clumsy sequence at this point in the film. It felt like the director was a super fan of Curie, or maybe just not that great at directing. And indeed Director Marjane Satrapi has only five directorial credits in twelve years.

Rosamund Pike plays Marie Curie. She is best known for her Academy Award nominated title role in 2014’s Gone Girl. She captures the intensity and motivating self-righteous indignation that propelled Madame Curie beyond the accomplishments of her male counterparts. A scene in which she dresses down The French Academy of Sciences with the words, “Your understanding of this was wrong” is likely revisionist scriptwriting at a time when Curie was snubbed by the Academy for a seat that went to Edouard Branly for his work on wireless telegraphy.

If you have Amazon Prime you can do a lot worse than spend a couple of hours learning about an interesting historical figure. If you tended to daydream in science class, this is your second chance to learn about a pioneer of science. And since it’s a movie you don’t even have to read a book.

Radioactive (2019) runs 1 hour, 49 minutes and is rated PG-13.