This Week in Cinema, I Learned…Nov 3-9 2024
Written by Cameron Geiser
Welcome to This Week in Cinema, a yearlong film criticism project wherein I will be watching a new film that I haven't seen every single day.
This week, in America, it was Election day on the fifth. Therefore the Alexander Payne movie Election was the obvious choice. Darkest Hour follows Election, with Another Round after that. Can you see a theme? Moonstruck and Belfast preceded these films, and they were included because they simply were lauded films that I knew I wanted to catch at some point. Nebraska and Green Book were the last two films this week and they were initially picked for November for the same reason as Moonstruck and Belfast, but they were moved around to fit the week due to their explorations of deeply American tales and the people that inhabit them.
The lesson of the week was all about trying to understand each other. Whether in times of unrest like in Belfast or The Darkest Hour, when navigating relationships both romantic as in Moonstruck, or familial relationships in Nebraska, the political and sexual relationships in Election, friendships and to know oneself in Another Round, or simply people across divides of economic classes and race like in Green book- each film this week was about trying to understand somebody on a deep level. Going into 2025, the election’s results were what they were, as upsetting as that may be. Shoving our heads in the sand and ignoring reality or the future may be tempting, but it just won't do. We should all take a deep breath and try to understand where our neighbors are coming from, how they came to the conclusions that they did, and how to move forward in a positive way for everyone. Granted, I don't have a lot of faith in this going well, but we should still make an effort at humility, patience, and understanding.
November 3rd
Moonstruck (1987)
3.5/5
Starring Nicolas Cage and Cher as star-crossed lovers in this swoony romantic comedy, Moonstruck is charming and entertaining- if only maybe a little too over the top at times. In the beginning of the film Cher is proposed to by Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello) in the absolute worst fumble of a proposal I've seen in a film yet. Since she's a widow without any other prospects at the time, she does the prudent thing and accepts. As he's heading out to Sicily to tend to his dying mother he requests that she contact his brother Ronny (Nic Cage) and invite him to the wedding, they hadn't spoken in years and there was some bad blood. She heads to Ronny’s Bakery and she discovers that Ronny has a prosthetic hand and that he blames Johnny for the accident and his fiance leaving him after that. They go to talk it out at Ronny's apartment and before you know it they're in bed together. The larger than life emotional high that this film lives in seems more fitting for a musical at first glance but the score and bombastic performances help a lot in forging that tone. However, they did use the song That's Amore a few too many times that ended up contributing to the cheese factor here, but it was an endearing cheese I suppose. Moonstruck may be a little predictable and silly at times, but it was worth a watch.
November 4th
Belfast (2021)
3.5/5
Truthfully, a movie about the social and political unrest of “The Troubles” in Ireland and Northern Ireland was far more tonally accurate for Election week than I thought it would be. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and heavily informed by his own childhood in Ireland, Belfast is the story of Buddy (Jude Hill) a young boy living with family near the edge of the violence that eventually erupts and engulfs the city. The whole cast of characters is richly layered with authentic humanity and I constantly found myself charmed by these people and their lives. Which makes the deterioration of the social order threatening their peace that much more alarming. There's some touching stuff where the family dreams of traveling abroad while Buddy has a crush on a Catholic girl and gets wrapped into his cousin's local gang of generally good natured thieving hooligans. Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench are exceedingly adorable as Buddy's grandparents, they guide him towards the cinema. A refuge away from the harsh realities of their world. I quite enjoyed this black and white coming of age story, especially when the theatre production of A Christmas Carol brought color into Buddy's world. Belfast is heartily recommended.
November 5th
Election (1999)
2.5/5
Picking this film based only on the title and that it was directed by Alexander Payne did not prepare me for how deranged and horny this would get. And here I thought I was getting a political comedy. Well, now that you mention it… with all of the backstabbing, cheating, sexual impropriety, and generally cringe behavior in this film- it's actually very much in line with how American Elections are run. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), overachiever and definition of a type A personality, is a high school junior running unopposed for Student Government President. This irks Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) as he despises Tracy. You see, Tracy had her own fling with a former teacher who just so happened to be McAllister's best friend and seemingly got away with it without any negative consequences. He would also have to deal with her directly on a weekly basis if she won and since he’s neurotic enough to take matters into his own hands he then goes out of his way to convince a popular kid to run against her. Things really spiral out of control after that with multiple other kids joining the roster and with McAllister's life outside of school as well. Maybe it was just because it was still the 1990s but the characters and the script were surprisingly too horny for their own good and many of the characters were constantly spouting the most delusional things. However the students' speeches for why they should be chosen as student government were pretty great. Election was a strange one folks.
November 6th
Darkest Hour (2017)
4/5
Gary Oldman does it again by going complete chameleon mode for his performance as Winston Churchill for The Darkest Hour. If you loved Netflix political drama House of Cards for all of the political maneuvering, but now feel gross when rewatching it due to the Kevin Spacey controversy, then this should do the trick! Both this movie and that show are old news now, but hey, British Politics can be a good time too. Especially when it's all about the most compelling political drama of Britain's World War Two involvement. Yes, they do eventually get to the “Fight them on the beaches” speech, and yes, it does rule when it happens. In fact, this film and Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk would be a superb double feature! If you missed this one like I did and love rousing speeches, check this one out!
November 7th
Another Round (2020)
4/5
It's so refreshing to see Mads Mikkelson not playing a villain for once. He is superb at villainous roles, but he has so much more breadth than that alone. Another Round not only proves that (mostly for us Americans I assume) but it is also a rich and highly entertaining story. In a nutshell, four high school teachers attempt a social experiment where they all try to maintain a constant daily consumption of alcohol to see how it affects their professional and personal lives. Since all of them have become complacent, passionless, and dead-eyed, they decide to take this challenge on. Initially there are some real net benefits for all of them. They encourage their students to more fully engage in life, they rouse the kids and themselves to do better and be better, and it seems like the project is a success. That is until things get out of hand after a couple of them cannot handle an increased amount of alcohol intake. There are some emotionally brutal moments when their friends and families start to take notice of the negative consequences of their social experiment, but it ends on a high note. Another Round is definitely worth a watch.
November 8th
Nebraska (2013)
4/5
Another film by Alexander Payne, Nebraska is a black and white drama following father and son, Woody (Bruce Dern) and David Grant (Will Forte) on a road trip from Billings Montana to Lincoln Nebraska. The entire reason they are driving to Nebraska is that Woody believes he has won a one million dollar sweepstakes prize, it just has to be collected in Lincoln. David sees that his alcoholic, senile father is so stubborn that even though everyone has told Woody he didn't win anything, it was just an advertisement mailer, he decides to take the week off work and drive his father there to spend some time with him and give his mother a break. On the way there David realizes they will be passing through Hawthorne, Woody's hometown, and convinces Woody to at least meet up with his brother at the local bar.
While there Woody tells everyone about his “winnings” and things get out of hand pretty quickly as the next morning the local newspaper is already interviewing Woody before David can stop things from spiraling out of control. Old grievances are brought up and several characters that knew Woody back then try to get the money out of them before Kate (June Squibb), David's mother and Woody's wife, shows up and gives the vultures hell for their manipulative greedy ways. I really appreciated this film. The script had good structure and the characters were fully realized fallible people. Will Forte and Bruce Dern were both excellent in their roles, I would not have guessed that they had these characters within them. Nebraska is a great film, and now my second favorite Alexander Payne film. The Holdovers is still my favorite film of his.
November 9th
Green Book (2018)
4.5/5
I was very surprised by this film. Back in 2018 Film Twitter wasn't the kindest to Green Book, and I don't even remember why. Just goes to show you that Twitter isn't real life. Anyways, I was absolutely in love with two aspects of this film above all else. The script and the performances. Based on true events, Green Book follows Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) a bouncer for the Copacabana Night Club in the early 1960s as he looks for a new job while the infamous club undergoes renovations. He's recommended to Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), an African American pianist in need of a driver for his months long concert tour through the Midwest and Deep South. The chemistry between Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali begins as a calculated, professional relationship that evolves into a comfortable friendship once the two begin to understand each other better over the course of the road trip. Their interplay as reveals and evolutions take place in the story was informative and smart as the initial stereotypes and assumptions gave way to a more humane recognition of each other and their value as people. I found the film to be outstanding honestly. It's also so incredibly wild to me that Peter Farrelly directed this film. It's easily his best film. However, I do recommend his new comedy from earlier this year called Ricky Stanicky starring John Cena if you're looking for a decent crass comedy (it's the best version of his old shtick in decades?). Anyways, Green Book was solid, give it a watch!
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.