Thanks, Red Badger. I’m looping in the movie ping list.
My favorites from 2021 (again) weren’t among the nominees, which is not unusual. I’m used to this. The last time the GOP nominated my top pick for president (in an open primary situation; re-elects are a different calculation) was Ronald Reagan in 1984, so I’m used to making the best of things.
Of the Best Picture nominees, I’d pick CODA with Drive My Car as a worthy dark horse and an asterisk for Belfast, which I’ve not watched yet, but which I gather is a worthy, well-acted film.
West Side Story ... well, I respect the opinions of those who like it, but I never cared much for the original and can’t muster much interest in a remake. I’ll probably see it eventually. It’s probably a fine movie, just not my cup of tea.
Drive My Car is a special case. A lot of us are watching more and more foreign films. I’m not averse to foreign films winning big at the Oscars as a wakeup call to Hollywood to get its act together. Hollywood still makes some good films here and there, but it’s sometimes hard to find them hidden in all the junk that gets pumped out.
A note about CODA, which is a fairly predictable genre film. I’m not a snob about that. Genres become genres in the first place because they deal with eternal themes that bear frequent retelling. The trick is to camouflage them a bit to keep the story fresh. CODA succeeds. Watch it for Emilia Jones. I’ve not seen her in anything else and have no idea how her career will develop, but she is brilliant here, in one of those wholesome coming of age stories that has the right actress at exactly the right age in exactly the right story. And, by the way, CODA is funny.
As an aside, I balked a bit at CODA on first viewing due to the vulgarity of some of the language. I have reconsidered that objection. The vulgarity comes almost entirely from one character, Frank, who is the patriarch of the deaf family. He is madly in love with his wife after 30 years of marriage, and he is constantly embarrassing his family with his bawdy remarks — but since he’s totally deaf, it’s all in sign language. (No hearing person would talk the way Frank signs.) On first viewing, I thought it was a bit overdone, nothing grotesquely out of line but somewhat embarrassing. I was thinking, “ok, ok, deaf people like sex too and can crack dirty jokes; I get the point; you don’t have to rub it in.”
I reconsidered when I found out that the actor who plays Frank, Troy Kotsur, is a notable figure on the deaf theatrical scene. He makes his living as a standup comic in deaf clubs. Now THERE is an art you don’t see every day. What he’s doing in the movie is bringing his standup nightclub schtick into the film.
I have a bias here. I live on Capitol Hill. Gallaudet University is close, less than a mile way. For reasons that don’t need repeating here, I’ve seen a couple of theatrical performances on campus. The kids do a terrific job; these are student productions at a deaf college, but even I, as a hearing person, enjoyed the shows. So I was at least aware that there is such a thing as a deaf theatrical scene.
Anyhow, without pretending to be an expert, my guess is that deaf standup comedy does not much rely on veiled hints, nuanced expressions, subtle duels of wordplay, inflections of voice, puns, etc. Big, bawdy and over the top is more the style, for understandable reasons. If you are ok with the level of bawdiness and vulgar sexual innuendo in several of Shakespeare’s plays, you will be ok with the same burlesque style in CODA. It took me by surprise when I first heard it, but it’s ok given the givens in play here. And part of the humor is that his daughter Ruby (the Emilia Jones character), who is the only hearing member of a deaf family, is repeatedly called on to translate her dad’s signed crudities to outsiders (friends, neighbors, teachers, etc.) who don’t know ASL. Ruby is repeatedly mortified by her dad’s language. This is LOL funny stuff, brilliantly played by Emilia Jones.
“Anyhow, without pretending to be an expert, my guess is that deaf standup comedy does not much rely on veiled hints, nuanced expressions, subtle duels of wordplay, inflections of voice, puns, etc. Big, bawdy and over the top is more the style, for understandable reasons.”
Big, bawdy and over the top is more the style for most standup comedy ...
I loved the new WSS. It’s a much better film than the 1961 version.
Appreciate the comments.
“Drive My Car” is the one I’d like to see. I have watched many more foreign films and TV shows than US made ones lately due to the ‘wokeness’ factor.
Thanks for your review.
5.56mm