Diane (2019)

Film: Diane (2019)
Stars: Mary Kay Place, Jake Lacy, Phyllis Somerville, Andrea Martin, Estelle Parsons
Director: Kent Jones
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Unlike other sites with mountainous budgets and access to screeners/qualifying runs, I unfortunately am a one-man operation who does this as a side gig, not my full-time occupation.  That results in me having to wait a bit longer before I reveal my look at the best of 2019, even though we have officially entered 2020.  Part of that will be me over the coming weeks catching up on a number of films from 2019 that I meant to see when they were in theaters, but didn't get around to at the time so I'm pushing hard through streaming and Netflix DVD's to get to those pictures.  As a result, you're going to see some eclectic, potentially "late" reviews for a variety of films from 2019 that perhaps you as well were debating seeing, so I'll take the optimistic route that you also are catching up from 2019 and aren't quite ready for a new cinematic year.  If so, one of the movies you might have missed was Kent Jones' Diane, which has won star Mary Kay Place a number of accolades and recently showed up on President Obama's list of his favorite films of 2019.

(Spoilers Ahead) If you follow this blog, you'll know I almost always start with a paragraph recapping the picture, both to ground you in the film we're discussing, but also to establish me in what I felt about the movie (and, quite frankly, I see so many movies this is a way for me to jog my memory in the future if I reference back to this picture).  This doesn't really work for Diane, though.  It's not because the film is some Terrence Malick-style opus, where it's all about feeling and doesn't really have a plot.  Diane very much has a plot, centered around our titular character (played by Place), who lives in rural Massachusetts.  She spends her days surrounded by loved ones, though not in an uncomplicated manner.  Her cousin is ill, her aunts and uncles are aging (it's never fully-established, but it seems probable that her parents died before the film started), and her drug-addicted son Brian (Lacy) is resistant to her urges to help him.  As the film progresses, we see seemingly minor moments in Diane's life that start to add up to her "story."  We witness her son's transformation from a drug addict to a "born again" style Christian with a devout wife, in both circumstances contradictory with Diane's more "routine" faith.  We see the people important to Diane (her cousin, her aunts & uncles, her best friend Bobbie, played by Andrea Martin), fade away, funeral after funeral (taking place over a number of years), with Diane's life becoming more isolated, more questioning of the decisions she's made, more intent on being of service to other people, before ultimately, decades into her story, we find what is presumably the end of Diane's own life, alone in a small house, far away from where the story began.

Diane is not a flashy movie, and it's not a movie that has grand reveals.  The most important "twist" in the plot, the moment that Diane focuses on repeatedly, is a years ago affair she had with her cousin's boyfriend.  Diane is not romantically-involved with anyone throughout the picture, and her husband is long out of her life (there's no allusion to if he also is still alive, but one wonders if he also has passed), and we learn as the film goes on that the people Diane feels she betrayed (her cousin, her son) care less about the event than she does, but Jones captures something special here-the way that in real life, we focus on things that don't seem to matter.  Diane is not a superhero, she's not a villain, she's not even someone that you'd normally think of as a protagonist in a movie, but she's very real.  We all know "Dianes," who focus on making things better for other people, who put others before themselves even though in doing so they're trying to ensure that they have a place at the table.  As a single man in his mid-thirties who finds increasingly that friends and family are people I only see a few times a year but count on for a feeling of purpose, Diane's story hits a bit closer to home than I'd normally be willing to admit.

But perhaps that's also because Place makes her character at once specific and universal.  Her Diane is a unique creation, the sort of person that in another movie would be relegated to a side scene or just sitting at the dining room table arbitrating our main heroine's problems, but here is fleshed out and seen.  And yet, she also makes sure that you can see yourself in her character, in this story about the fragility of our lives, how we count on others to make us feel needed.  There are problems in Jones' script (the 60-year-old Jones is making his first narrative feature here after decades as a film critic)-the late-in-film fantasy where Diane gets high with a younger man feels indulgent, as does the movie's final act which didn't need to happen for us to understand how Diane's story would end, but the quiet moments he finds in this character are really special.  Place, after decades of supporting work in film (Private Benjamin, The Big Chill), and television (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) gets center stage and nails the performance.  Her Diane is so deeply felt, so bereft of cliche, you leave wondering why Place hadn't been afforded lead roles her whole career.  Diane is the kind of film it's easy to gloss over when you're looking through your movie queue, but impossible to forget if you take the time to click the button.

Thoughts on the Tony Nominations

Will this finally be Kelli O'Hara's year?

With this morning’s Tony nominations (I didn’t do awful on my predictions, particularly considering the wide-open nature of the race), these are a dozen thoughts I had about the 2014 lineup:

1. The Tony Awards are perhaps the least consistent awards body in terms of who they nominate in any given year.  The Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, Golden Globes-they all have their own idiosyncrasies, but they only go against them rarely (the Grammys like big hits, the Globes like big stars, the Emmys like the same people every year, etc).  While the Tony Awards will pick the same people frequently (it’s a finite amount of space on Broadway), they vary wildly on whether or not they want movie stars or not to be amongst their nominees.  This year was clearly leaning toward not as Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Denzel Washington, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig, James Franco, and Marisa Tomei all missed out on their respective fields.

2. How long will it be before Bryan Cranston grabs an Oscar?  There’s a very strong chance the man takes a Tony now to follow all of those Emmy wins, and he’s so revered (and appearing in supporting parts in movies like Argo and Drive) that I assume some director is going to give him a biopic or character study soon and he’ll win Best Actor.  Perhaps he’ll even bring LBJ to the big screen?

3. Chris O’Dowd is this year’s Tom Sturridge.

4. Mark Rylance, Kelli O’Hara, Sutton Foster, and Audra McDonald-why is it that they cannot transfer successfully to the big screen?  Why does no one give these people big-screen deals?

5. With Kelli O’Hara, Estelle Parsons, Linda Emond, and Celia Keenan-Bolger all nominated in the four female acting categories, is this potentially primed for a year of “we owe you” at the Tony Awards?  I’m hoping at least one of these women pick up a trophy.

The incredibly sexy Brian J. Smith

6. Brian J. Smith is a beautiful man.

7. If Diahann Carroll had made it through and actually been able to do Raisin in the Sun, would this have been hers for the taking?  LaTanya Richardson Jackson, a relative unknown (more famous for being the red carpet companion of her husband Samuel L. Jackson), managed to get nominated for the role in one of the bigger surprises of the morning-I think Carroll, an acting legend, would have pulled off the win.  Her absence means that Audra McDonald could take a record-breaking sixth acting trophy, at a mere 43 years of age.

8. I have never understood the appeal of Tony Shalhoub.  The man seems to be invited to awards’ bodies every chance that he gets, and while I haven’t seen his on-stage work, I have never been impressed by his acting skills.

9. Mare Winningham or Sophie Okonedo: which is the more obscure former Oscar nominee competing in Featured Actress?  And can either of them take down the former Disney Princess?

10. It’s not the Tony Awards without Susan Stroman or Scott Rudin.  Nominated for Bullets Over Broadway and A Raisin in the Sun (respectively) they have amassed a total of 42 Tony nominations between themselves.

Marin Mazzie: Not even a bridesmaid

11. I know the entire media is focusing on Michelle Williams, Dan Radcliffe, and Denzel missing, but don't you feel for Marin Mazzie-she hardly got cited once for what was one of the bigger snubs of the day and she's in that grey area for musical actresses where the original roles don't come as often as they once did, and as a result she's typically replacing bigger stars in productions.  Plus, Helen Sinclair is an Oscar-winning role-who would have thought it couldn't have at least gotten a nomination?  At this rate, Mazzie will likely never take home a trophy.

12. Though no one is going specifically for an EGOT (lately it seems like someone always is at these things), Jonathan Tunick could disrupt his perfect EGOT-record.  Nominated this year for Best Orchestrations, he's the only person to have one of each trophy, but no more.

Those were my thoughts-how about you?  Are there any candidates you’re rooting for?  What are you hoping to see from Hugh Jackman as the host?  Share in the comments!

2014 Tony Predictions

There is no time of the year that I miss New York more than April.  The city is just starting to bustle from the long winter, with the park glowing and coming to life, and everyone out enjoying the weather before it becomes unbearably hot (New York in July is like the fifth circle of hell...if the fifth circle of hell also sold you $17 movie tickets and smelled like garbage when it rained).

But the real draw for me is the opening of all of the Broadway musicals and plays-honestly, I don't understand how people can pass up the chance to see so much vibrant, wonderful theater if they live there (except, you know, the cost), and it makes me want to figure out some way to skip paying rent for a month just so I can see people sing to the rafters and soliloquize raw pain on the stage.

This all said, I was going to give a list of some of the shows that I most wanted to see, but then I realized that the Tony nominations were already going to be announced on Tuesday, and though I sadly haven't seen any of the shows (argh...why do I not save my money better?!?), I figured I should give my two cents on what will be nominated in the big eight categories.  While I'm going through these, I'll tell you what I would see if I managed to win the lottery tomorrow (actually, if I won the lottery tomorrow I'd see them all as I'm a theater-junkie, but I digress).

Best Play

All the Way

Casa Valentina

Mothers and Sons

The Velocity of Autumn

Tyne Daly in Mothers and Sons

The Nominees: Can we first off just say thank god that I'm only predicting the nominees right now?  In the many years since I started following the Tony Awards, I have never seen a race this wide open for both Best Play and Musical.  Usually there's a War Horse or Book of Mormon waiting in the wings, ready to take everything in sight-this year, though, there's not a lot of frontrunners.  Velocity of Autumn and All the Way have that nice combination of critical acclaim and prestige, and surely are going to be included.  Casa Valentina has the magnetism of Harvey Fierstein and Joe Mantello, both of whom are frequently a fixture at the Tony Awards and makes me think this is included.  There's a few other plays that spring to mind (Outside Mullingar, Act One) that could make the cut, but I think absence makes the heart grow fonder for Terrence McNally, and his Mothers and Sons is my upset surprise.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: Mothers and Sons seems the most interesting to me, and seeing Tyne Daly on a Broadway stage is a magnificent thing.

Best Musical

Aladdin

The Bridges of Madison County

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Rocky

Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale in The Bridges of Madison County

The Nominees: I believe theoretically both of these races could go five-wide, but the field typically stays at four, so I'm going to stay there.  Aladdin is probably the surest thing of the bunch, even if that doesn't necessarily translate to a win-Disney has a major push, the show has gotten much better notices than it did in previews, and it's certain to be the biggest hit of the bunch.  It's hard to believe that If/Then isn't there, even if it isn't AMAZING in the reviews, but the tepid response (despite boffo box office thanks to Idina) has me place it at fifth place.  Rocky is probably the biggest news of the year (people will not stop talking about it), and will make it.  The final two I'm basing off of reviews-Kelli O'Hara's getting excellent notices in Bridges (and she's the Midas touch of nominations, even if she can't win a trophy to save her life) and Gentleman has been far more successful than I initially expected.  Throw in the jukebox hit Beautiful (featuring the music of Carole King) and you probably have some combination of the four nominees.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: I would give it to Bridges...it was going to be Aladdin but you just know that one's going to go on tour and Kelli O'Hara having steamy sex tops boxing any day of the week, in my opinion.

Best Revival of a Play

The Glass Menagerie

A Raisin in the Sun

Twelfth Night

Waiting for Godot

Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto in The Glass Menagerie

The Nominees: Rule Number One of the Tony Awards is to not discount Scott Rudin, so A Raisin in the Sun, despite it just being revived, will surely be back for another go-around, though Rudin will have to accept his loss to The Glass Menagerie, one of the only sure things about this year's Tony Awards.  Other star-encrusted shows like James Franco's Of Mice and Men and Rachel Weisz's Betrayal will probably take the backseat to more celebrated works like Twelfth Night and Waiting for Godot, though this being the Tony Awards, they could have one of their celebrity mood swings and try to put a movie star in the audience.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: It would have to go to Glass Menagerie-Tennessee Williams can be breathtaking on-stage, and I've heard it was a miracle to behold.

Best Revival of a Musical

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Les Miserables

Violet

Sutton Foster in Violet

The Nominees: An exceedingly light year for this category, the only other production that could be in contention would be Cabaret, which is getting a lackluster response and seems very similar to the 1998 production of the play.  Violet and Hedwig are both making their Broadway debuts, but have been around long-enough that they will probably go with this much easier category for a nomination.  Who wins is a great question-does Les Miz get in based on box office, or does that still seem "been there, done that" after it hauled off at the Oscars so recently?

If I Had a Golden Ticket: Violet, hands down-Sutton Foster is perfection.

Best Actor in a Play

Bryan Cranston, All the Way

Ian McKellen, Waiting for Godot

Mark Rylance, Richard III

Patrick Stewart, Waiting for Godot

Denzel Washington, A Raisin in the Sun

Mark Rylance

The Nominees: Mark Rylance's performance in Jerusalem remains the most impressive thing I've ever seen on a Broadway stage-thinking about the final moments of that play still sends shivers down my spine.  He is the Daniel Day-Lewis of the theater, and I doubt that he misses this year, even if that means he gets nominated twice (he could make it for Twelfth Night for featured).  Honestly, this lineup seems relatively set.  Tony Shalhoub's work in Act One is a possibility, but I think that Denzel with his movie star appeal (and Scott Rudin pushing) will be able to trump him.  And James Franco-sorry dude, but picking fights with critics isn't going to help you one bit.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: It's hard to pass on Rylance, but Professor X and Magneto on the same stage-that's impossible to turn down.

Best Actress in a Play

Toni Collette, The Realistic Joneses

Tyne Daly, Mothers and Sons

Cherry Jones, The Glass Menagerie

Audra McDonald, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill

Estelle Parsons, The Velocity of Autumn

Audra McDonald

The Nominees: I'm still not entirely sure how Audra is in a play with the entire Billie Holiday discograpy playing during Lady Day, but that's a discussion for a different time.  As it is, she will go for her record sixth Tony win likely against a woman who has never managed to pull off a trophy despite four nominations and decades in the theater, Estelle Parsons.  I am going to guess that sentiment (and the sure realization that McDonald will have others) will give this to Parsons (keep in mind they gave Cicely Tyson the trophy last year), and that they will be joined by Tyne Daly and Cherry Jones, both getting strong notices.  The last shot is a hodgepodge, but I'm going to go with one of my brother's favorite actors, and a movie star to boot, Ms. Toni Collette, an actress the Tonys honored with a nomination some fourteen years ago for The Wild Party.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: Audra, forever and always.

Best Actor in a Musical

Jefferson Mays, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Neil Patrick Harris, Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Ramin Karimloo, Les Miserables

Andy Karl, Rocky

Steven Pasquale, The Bridges of Madison County

Andy Karl

The Nominees: It's unfathomable that after all the years he's spent promoting Broadway and championing the Tony Awards that NPH's comeback to the Great White Way wouldn't be honored in some fashion-I find it difficult, quite frankly, to see him losing though Jefferson Mays is a constant presence on Broadway and hasn't won in a decade.  Andy Karl (who like a certain leading lady in the Best Actress category, was part of the wonderfully charming Mystery of Edwin Drood revival recently) should get his first nomination as Rocky Balboa, and Steven Pasquale's sexy and brooding leading man in Bridges should also make the cut.  For the final slot, I'm going with the tried-and-true Jean Valjean, which won Colm Wilkinson a nomination in the original production and probably can do the same for Karimloo.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: The more I read about it, the more, honestly, that I kind of want to see Rocky, which isn't remotely my cup of tea.  The heart wants what it wants, I guess.

Best Actress in a Musical

Sutton Foster, Violet

Marin Mazzie, Bullets Over Broadway

Idina Menzel, If/Then

Jessie Mueller, Beautiful

Kelli O'Hara, The Bridges of Madison County

Idina Menzel

The Nominees: Like the Oscars, the Tony Awards have their frequent favorites, and two of them happen to be Sutton Foster and Kelli O'Hara, who rarely miss (O'Hara is in the hunt for her first Tony win, whereas Foster already has two).  It seems unthinkable that Idina Menzel would miss on her big, splashy return to Broadway, even if her show doesn't seem quite there for a nomination for the big prize (then again, this is the Tony Awards...this category is probably the "big prize").  Jessie Mueller is on a roll lately in a similar way to last year's winner Patina Miller (everything she touches turns to gold), and I couldn't be happier for her (she was the best thing about Mystery of Edwin Drood, and as I mentioned above, that's a play filled with best things).  The final nomination I'm going with Marin Mazzie, another Tony nominee-but-not-winner favorite (three nominations in this case, so Kelli doesn't have to start sweating yet), as reprising the role that won Dianne Wiest the Oscar surely has to count for something.  If the Tony Awards try to go big and movie-star like, Michelle Williams tepid performance in Cabaret could be the stunner, but they've avoided stars in poorly-reviewed vehicles before (Julia Roberts, anyone?), so I think the five Broadway divas will be sufficient.

If I Had a Golden Ticket: Easily my favorite category of the night, so I will cheat and say all of them.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Who are you rooting for on the 29th?  Should I pull the plug and do my NYC trip and give in to temptation?  Share in the comments!

OVP: I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

Film: I Never Sang for My Father (1970)
Stars: Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman, Dorothy Stickney, Estelle Parsons
Director: Gilbert Cates
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actor-Melvyn Douglas, Best Supporting Actor-Gene Hackman, Best Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Maybe it's the furniture.  There's something so distinctive about adult dramas of the 1970's-the mood is covered in grey, as if the screen has become exhausted from decades of technicolor, and is wallowing in self-pity.  It's something I've never truly loved, which is odd because there's few periods of film history that resonate more with me-perhaps it's because my favorite films of the era seem to breakout of this color scheme-Chinatown, The Godfather, Jaws-but it's always a tad bit jarring, as if you're visiting your great aunt's house and wondering why she simply won't redecorate.

(Spoilers throughout) This jarring juxtaposition, though, highlights what you have in common with the players onscreen, and there's a lot to see in yourself while watching I Never Sang for My Father, a film about when you realize that the balance of power within your relationship with your parents has started to lean toward your end, rather than visa versa, and what you lose in the process.  Gene Hackman stars as a dutiful son to a caring mother (Stickney) and a domineering and reductive father (Douglas), a once great man who has been compressed to anecdotes and rambling tales of his once great life.  When Stickney's character dies, you see that she's been the balancing act between the two, and Hackman must contend with the fact that he has little in common with his father, and that neither of them know that they love each other, or even if they do.

This is one of the great lost arts of the films of the 1970's that simply doesn't exist today.  There is an ending to the film (eventually Douglas and Hackman come to blows about their unrealistic expectations of each other, and go their separate ways, with Douglas dying offscreen), but there's no resolution.  Hackman or Douglas do not find absolution in airing their feelings toward another in a shouting match, but find more loss, more questions of why their lives didn't work out the way that they planned.  Only Alice (Estelle Parsons in a gut-punch of a performance), broken from years of exile from the family, has found closure in the family's many fractured relationships, by learning to hate her father and by proxy, hate the world.

Hackman and Douglas are both incredibly strong here, though I have to deduct a few points from Hackman for being ridiculously put in the Supporting Actor category when he's in every scene of the film.  Douglas, an actor that I adored in Hud, comes as close to taking out George C. Scott in the Best Actor race as one could without toppling him.  Both are men that know that their times have past-that they are relics that must make way for the new world, and for men who are more sensitive and whose ways they of which they neither understand nor approve.  Douglas's pleadings to his son to stay, to come and visit and go with him to the rotary club and not move to California, are less about seeing his son and more about seeing himself as a younger man, a man who was important and not fading into the background while the youth take control.  Everything revolves around his own youth, and his stories are not meant to bore or to entertain, but simply to remind both he and the listener that he was once a young man himself.  Douglas is just a force in the movie, and towers every scene as a man always in control.  His son, Hackman, allows him to tower again, not because he enjoys it, but in a vain hope to capture a childhood love that he knows he's supposed to have, but realizes in the dynamic title scene that will never come.  Robert Anderson's screenplay allows this uncomfortable bending, twisting their relationship until it snaps.  Their relationship will never be black and white like both hope, but like the movie, it is instead a collage of grey that neither can make clear.  It's in this grey that both actors excel best, and it is this grey that makes the film's tone so rich.  Or perhaps, it's just the furniture.