Downbeat

Film: TÁR
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

As seems to be happening lately, my life has spiraled out of control over the last two weeks. Primarily, these are health-related concerns of family members that have been taking up a lot of my time, combined with the holidays and increased duties at work. I’ve watched, and this is completely serious, a single movie in the last two weeks, and that movie was TÁR, one of the last two Oscar movies from last year left on my list. A few months ago, I was in great shape on Oscar movies, and suddenly it’s the end of the year and I’m not finished. Well, at least I got the long one out of the way.

TÁR is the story of Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. World renowned on the classical music scene and wildly influential. As the film begins, she is being interviewed about an upcoming performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Conducting this will give her all nine of Mahler’s symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic, a true feat in the classical music world. As with any great tragic tale, we start with our hero at the pinnacle of her world and talent, poised for the fall that will take us to the end of the story.

Suburbia

Films: Little Children
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

It feels like forever since I’ve watched a movie. In a way, it kind of has been. The last two reviews I posted were reviews I had written some time ago to use on days when I didn’t have something new to post. Part of the reason for that is work. Ends of quarters can be tough and I spend a lot of time grading, which means movies are hard. Another part of that is the movie Little Children. I had a very hard time getting through this, and I’m not entirely sure why. Something about it was like surgery for me.

Little Children was directed by Todd Field, who also directed In the Bedroom, a movie I thought was surprisingly good. While there is some similarity here, this felt a lot more like a Todd Solondz movie. It felt like watching Happiness, which was brutally difficult to get through, ugly, and horrible in so many ways. Little Children doesn’t go that far, of course. At the same time, it is oddly reminiscent of Magnolia. There are traces of David Lynch in here as well, with the horror that lies behind the front porches of suburban homes.

A Time to Mourn

Film: In the Bedroom
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

In one of the early scenes of In the Bedroom, Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl) and his father Matt (Tom Wilkinson) are out on a lobster boat off the coast of Maine with the son of Frank’s girlfriend. One of the lobsters they pull up on deck is missing a claw, and Matt explains to the boy that it lost it fighting over a female. One of the reasons that the traps need to be pulled up frequently is that if there are two males and a female in a trap, the males will fight, and one will likely lose a claw in the struggle. If you think that’s going to be a metaphor for the film that is to come, you’d be right.

Of course, that is exactly where we’re going. Frank’s girlfriend Natalie (Marisa Tomei) is older than he is by a few years, has two kids, and most important for the plot, has a violent, abusive, and extremely jealous ex-husband named Richard (William Mapother). For Frank, the relationship with Natalie starts as sort of a summer thing while he’s back home and preparing to go back to college. However, it slowly becomes more serious as things progress to the point where Frank considers delaying his return to college or even giving it up to be a lobster fisherman full time.