Five Cool Things and Wicker

Hello and welcome to another edition of Five Cool Things. The bi-weekly article where I talk about all the fascinating, interesting, and yes, cool things I’ve enjoyed since the last time. This week we’re talking about a couple of 1970s films, an autistic romantic comedy, Christopher Nolan’s latest epic, and a little-discussed Martin Scorsese masterpiece. Let’s get started.

Vanishing Point

A man named Kowalski (Barry Newman) drives cars for a living. He gets an assignment to drive a Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco. He has to get there quickly, which is no problem because Kowalski likes to drive fast. A couple of motorcycle cops try to pull him over in Colorado, but he pays them no mind. He lets them chase him around for a bit, then runs them off the road. Naturally, that pisses them off, and a whole lot of cops start chasing him then. He’ll make it across Colorado, into Utah, then Nevada and California. But because he’s not broken a federal crime – he’s only gone over speed limit and maybe done some reckless driving – each time he crosses a state line, the local cops have to turn back and call the police in the next state to warn them.

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Along the way, he’ll meet hippies and loners, cowboys and folks who live on the edges of society. All of whom are happy to help him. He becomes something of a folk hero. A DJ called Super Soul (Cleavon Little) will pick up the story, making him a bit of a celebrity. He’ll also announce the whereabouts of the various cops and what their plans are, helping Kowalski escape capture.

Periodically, the film will flashback to his time before this great chase. We’ll learn he was a Medal of Honor Vietnam War veteran, a race-car driver, and a former cop who got booted from the force when he took umbrage at his superior sexually assaulting a woman. He was also once in love. These scenes are just snippets, really. They don’t give us the full measure of the man, but give us at least a little understanding as to why he just keeps driving.

The action scenes are terrific. This film is filled with great car chases: across highways, down rural roads, flying across medians, and ultimately into the Sahara Desert. Newman delivers a great performance as Kowalski, with few lines and mostly just sitting in a car, driving fast. It is a very early 1970s film that feels a little experimental, a little wide open without the need to fully explain anything, but also taking on subjects as big as racism, sexism, societal conformity, and police brutality.

I just randomly came across this film while looking for something to watch this weekend. I feel like I struck gold. Such a great watch.

The Outfit

I’ve been on a bit of a 1970s-movie kick of late. This one is from 1973. Robert Duvall stars as Eddie Macklin, a guy who’s just gotten out of jail only to find his brother was killed by the Chicago mob. Turns out, he and his brother robbed a bank that, unbeknownst to them, was run by the Outfit. Now, the mob is after him, but Eddie decides to turn the tables. He takes his girl Bett (Karen Black) and his pal Kody (Joe Don Baker) and starts hitting various other mob-run joints.

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Duvall and Baker are having so much fun busting into mob joints and taking them down. Karen Black gives her character more nuance. She gets a bit of a thrill getting in on the action, but when it turns violent, she wants out. This is a no-frills film. It comes in, does its job, and gets out. It is a well-cooked steak and nothing more. I loved it.

It helps that it has a great cast. Robert Ryan is the mob boss. Timothy Carey is one of his henchmen. Jane Greer has a small role, as does Elisha Cook, Jr. Anita O’Day even shows up at one point just for fun. That’s what I love about 1970s films. You get this great mix of classic movie stars mixing with new blood, making films that aren’t flashy, but get the job done.

Keep the Change

This romantic comedy from writer/director Rachel Israel stars non-professional, autistic actors. David (Brandon Polansky) is a spoiled, rich kid who is forced into community service for some unspecified malfeasance. His mother (a wonderfully dry Jessica Walter) pulls some strings and gets him into the Jewish Community Center, where he attends some group meetings for people on the spectrum. He feels he doesn’t belong there and at first he just crosses his arms and refuses to participate.

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Sarah (Samantha Elisofon) completely belongs at the center. She’s happy there. She is perfectly aware of being on the spectrum and has made every effort to be the best person she can be. She’s also utterly charming and completely upbeat. She wins David over, and they begin a romantic relationship.

This is a film that doesn’t shy away from the complications and difficulties of being on the spectrum. David likes to tell off-color jokes, is often off-putting, and sometimes an asshole. Sarah has no filter; she just says what is on her mind, which can be embarrassing. There is a wonderful scene where she describes in detail their first sexual encounter with some of his relatives.

Almost the entire cast is made up of characters on the spectrum, and we get the full range of what that means. As someone who is not autistic and has had limited exposure to those who are on the spectrum, this felt quite refreshing. I’m also not in a position to judge how well it represents that group of people. But I found the film quite charming and moving.

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan’s epic take on the epic Greek poem is, well, epic. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the legendary King of Ithaca who has been away from his homeland for many years. He fought in the Trojan War and never returned. We’ll follow him and his crew of soldiers through many harrowing adventures, while at home his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) must deal with numerous suitors who proclaim that Odysseus must be dead and that they deserve her hand in marriage (and a place on the throne). You probably know the story, having been forced to read it in high school and no doubt hearing much about it with this release. So I don’t need to say much more about the plot here.

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I didn’t love it as much as many other critics seem to, but there is no doubt this is a big, bold blockbuster, the kind only Christopher Nolan could make. I loved the spectacle of it and the performances were great all around, but I didn’t quite connect to it emotionally. Which is pretty much my problem with all of Nolan’s films.

But watching Matt Damon battle a cyclops, fight against his desire to be with the Sirens, see his men turned into pigs, etc. is wonderful entertainment. I love that Nolan is so specific in his choices. The way he created the Trojan Horse as something completely different than we are used to and then put us inside to see how cramped and awful it would have been is fascinating. Over and over again, he took this story we all know and made it his own. You gotta love him for it.

Silence

During my one semester of graduate school, I took a class that studied real works of literature that explored faith and spirituality. I grew up in a conservative religious environment, so our religious books were the Bible and people within our faith community talking about the Bible. I was lucky in that my parents allowed me to watch, listen to, and read things from all sorts of people and genres. They didn’t let me consume everything – there were restrictions on things like language and sex – but I watched all sorts of Hollywood movies, read books by Dean Koonz and Stephen King, and listened to rock and roll. The idea that this type of secular art could be about faith and spirituality was new to me. And kind of mind-blowing.

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It was a great class, and we read lots of interesting books. One of them was Silence by Shūsaku Endō. It was an intense and amazing read. Sadly, my copy had some errors. For the last 30 pages or so, every three or four pages there would be one entire page completely blank. That really screwed up my reading experience. Still, I found it to be a wonderfully moving book.

When I learned Martin Scorsese was adapting the book into a film in 2016, I was pretty hyped. It fully met my expectations. Despite Scorsese being my favorite living director, I hadn’t rewatched it until this past weekend. It was even better this viewing.

It stars Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as two Jesuit Priests who are sent to Japan in search of another priest (Liam Neeson) who has gone missing. Rumor has it he has apostasized. The film is set in 1640, a time when Christianity was outlawed in Japan, and Christians were hunted down and tortured. The two priests are brought to Japan by Kichijirō (Yōsuke Kubozuka), a former Christian who apostasized at the hands of the Inquisitor, but who is overcome with grief and regret over his renouncing of his faith. Once in Japan, they are greeted by Christians who live in secret and fear. They are overcome with joy at finding real priests who can hear their confessions and give them communion.

But then they are caught by the Inquisitor. But rather than torture the priests, he makes them watch their flock be tortured. We see men hung on crosses that sit in the sea, slowly drowning as the tide comes in. Others are hung upside down, their heads placed inside holes in the ground. They are told the tortures will continue until the priests give up their faith.

Scorsese has Catholicism deep inside his bones. His faith permeates all of his films, but it is especially interesting when he takes the matter of spirituality head-on. As someone who grew up in a denomination very different from Catholicism, I’ve always been fascinated with the early parts of this film. My faith tradition doesn’t have priests or popes or any real hierarchy. We can pray and take communion all on our own. The joy those Japanese Christians feel when the priests come into their midst is then strange to me, yet still deeply moving. And then when the torture begins, and they have to decide what their faith is worth. It is something they can give up to ease the suffering of others that is just heartbreaking.

In the years since my first viewing, I’ve undergone my own spiritual crisis. Nothing involving torture, of course, but certainly a deep questioning of what I believe. Watching it with that new lens brought the film into a new light for me. I’ve already written too many words in this post, so I’ll not bore you with the details. But I love how great films can change alongside you. Each viewing brings something different.

Wicker

Olivia Colman stars in this comedic fantasy as an outcast who commissions Peter Dinklage to make her a husband out of wicker. Dark hilarity ensues. You can never go wrong with Olivia Colman, but the cast also includes Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, and Richard E. Grant. The trailer looks amazing, so I’m super excited to actually watch it.