How Many Roads?

Film: A Complete Unknown
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

I used to be a music nerd. Before I was a movie nerd, I was very much the sort of person who would name a bunch of obscure bands. And, honestly, then I grew up and I stopped caring about knowing more about stuff than other people. I’m old enough that there’s a lot of music that I like that’s gone past the category of “oldies.” I’m a huge Beatles fan, I love Steely Dan, and most of my musical roots are in ‘70s prog rock and early ‘80s punk. I’m also a fan of Bob Dylan for his lyrics and because of, not despite, his voice. There’s a part of me that seems to love singers who can’t really sing. Anyway, A Complete Unknown just started streaming on Hulu, so I figured I’d give it a watch.

Like any biopic, or at least like most of them, this is going to cover a period of the person in question. For Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), this means from his beginnings in 1961, his rise to folk music prominence, and his controversial move to electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. I mean, I get why folk fans were angry about the move to an electric guitar, but a ton of Dylan’s best songs were played on electric guitars.

Know Thyself

Films: Identity
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on basement television.

I love it when a movie has a cast list that it absolutely doesn’t deserve. Cats is a fabulous example of this—Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba—and it’s evidently a massive train wreck. Identity is not a train wreck. It’s an entertaining little thriller, but again, it has a cast list that it absolutely can’t support. Appearing at various points are John Cusack, Ray Liotta, John C. McGinely, Clea DuVall, Alfred Molina, John Hawkes, Rebecca De Mornay, Jake Busey, and the backwards-named Pruitt Taylor Vince. Oh, and Amanda Peet, for whatever that’s worth.

What we’re going to get here is a dual narrative. The minor story concerns a vicious killer named Malcolm Rivers (Vince) who is a day away from execution. His psychiatrist, Dr. Malick (Molina) believes that he has evidence to stay the execution, possibly permanently. The main story concerns a motel in the middle of nowhere where a number of people arrive in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, become stranded, and are slowly picked off by a killer among them. Our motel people are Ed (Cusack), a limo driver working for Caroline Suzanne (De Mornay), a faded actress. George (McGinley) is there with his wife Alice (Leila Kenzle) and their son Timmy (Bret Loehr), desperate because Alice was hit by Ed’s car. We’ve also got newlywed couple Lou (William Lee Scott) and Ginny (DuVall), and working girl Paris (Peet). Rounding out our motel crew is cop Sam Rhodes (Liotta), transporting prisoner Robert Maine (Busey). All of this is overseen by Larry (Hawkes), the motel manager. Many of these characters have some very dark secrets, and just about everyone is a suspect in what is going on.

Go, Speed Racer, Go!

Film: Ford v Ferrari
Format: DVD from NetFlix on Sue’s Mother’s Day present.

I make no bones about the fact that I do not care at all about sports in any stripe. It’s been a number of years since I have cared about sports; I’ve found that I don’t miss them at all, and not paying any attention to them hasn’t made my life any worse. Oh, I suppose I miss listening to a game on the radio sometimes, but I honestly can’t be bothered. There was a time when I was a sports fan, though. I lived and died with the Bears and Bulls, and would happily listen to a White Sox or Blackhawks game in the evening. But even when I was a fan of sports in general, I didn’t care at all about auto racing of any stripe. This made Ford v Ferrari a film I can’t say I was excited to watch.

My problem with racing is that I just don’t find it interesting. I’ve had plenty of people try to explain it to me—I know on a very real level that it’s more than just being fast. I realize that despite it looking like a contest about who has the best car that there’s a great deal of technique, strategy, and skill involved. I worked with a guy years ago who loved playing racing games on the computer. He would spend hours tweaking his car and running test laps; he’d make minor adjustments and run lap after lap to pinpoint the car for the specific track, eventually run the race, and then do exactly the same thing for the next track. I mean, good on him for having that interest, but I absolutely don’t have the inclination, the patience or the mind for it, either in the virtual world or the real world.

Lone Wolf(verine) and Cub

Film: Logan
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

Let’s talk for a minute about what movies based on comics are and what they can be. What they are when they are at their best is fun action movies with great special effects and big action set pieces. We get villains who are purely evil set on world domination or world destruction and acts of great heroism. We get some thrills and some laughs and have something that serves as a vehicle for popcorn and Sour Patch Kids. What they can be is Logan.

Logan is set in the future of the X-Men universe, and it’s a future that hasn’t gone well for the mutants. It has been 25 years since a mutant has been born and in this world, most of the X-Men are dead. Logan (Hugh Jackman), known to the wider world as Wolverine, now lives in secret as a limo driver in El Paso. His former mentor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) has lost control of his mental abilities and lives in an abandoned smelting plant just over the border in Mexico where Logan keeps him heavily medicated to prevent his mental attacks that inadvertently wiped out the X-Men the previous year. With them is Caliban (Stephen Merchant), an albino mutant with the ability to track down other mutants. Logan’s mutant powers are starting to slow down. While he still heals injuries, he doesn’t always heal as quickly or completely, and he now has scars covering his body from previous battles. He’s in constant pain, which he medicates with pain killers and alcohol.

Ring of Fire

Film: Walk the Line
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

I don’t like country music as a rule. More specifically, I don’t like the modern brand of “I have a pickup truck and my woman left me, but God bless America” country music. That said, Johnny Cash was pretty damn awesome. Like his music or not, the guy wrote some pretty damn good songs. I happen to be a big fan of Warren Zevon, and Zevon had the same songwriting style in a lot of ways. My appreciation for Saint Warren is the most likely reason that I appreciate Johnny Cash. So I was happy to revisit Walk the Line today.

This is, more or less, the story of the most interesting and tumultuous years of Johnny Cash’s life. We start just before Cash’s legendary performance at Folsom Prison. A table saw in the workshop sends Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) into a revere that will last us for most of the film. We flash back to his childhood and the death of his brother as well as the difficult relationship he has with his father. We jump forward to Cash joining the army and buying himself a guitar in Germany. Jump ahead a few more years and Johnny Cash is working as a salesman and is married to his first wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin).