All Aboard!
Cate Blanchett, Bruce Springsteen, and Metallica walk into a bar...
The Academy Award nominations have come out, and in the coming weeks, I’ll be taking a look at several films up for Oscars as we approach the presentation on March 12th (I discuss one of the nominees below).
I’ve already seen a few of the year’s key films, so here’s a quick rundown of those:
Highly Recommended: The Fabelmans
Recommended: Everything Everywhere All at Once; Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths; The Banshees of Inisherin; Top Gun: Maverick
Meh: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
More to come on this front.
In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has sent in requests, recommendations, and questions. Please feel free to share with friends, post in the comments and/or send an email to thebestnewsletter@substack.com.
On to this week’s music-themed recommendations…
The Best…
…Movie I Watched This Week
Tár (2022) — Directed by Todd Field
Available for rent on several streaming services
I have to admit, I’ve been avoiding Tár. What I’d heard about it made me suspect it would feel like homework, that it was more a treatise on gender and power dynamics than a piece of filmed entertainment. But after finally watching it, I can say that those concerns were just me, judging a book by its cover (or by the think pieces it spawned last year).
The film is a slow burn of a character (and cultural) study for about two hours, and then you feel like you’re on a roller coaster careening out of control for the final 30 minutes. The hair on my arms stood up more than once. When it ended with a soundless black screen, I said the following: “Oh snap! <pause> Oh my God. <pause> Oh my God. <pause> Oh my God.”
Of course, I can’t divulge what made me react this way. I’m not even sure I fully understand why I reacted this way. In fact, I’m finding the pleasures of Tár hard to articulate altogether, perhaps because ambiguity is so essential to the story. And I don’t think repeated viewings will bring me any closer to clarity, because the answers aren’t there by design.
Writer-director Todd Field keeps the audience at a remove in Tár, his portrait of a powerful, world-famous conductor (Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett) wielding her baton in the age of social media, #metoo, and “cancel culture.” This remove makes you feel like you’re observing a performance the entire time. In the opening sequence — an on-stage interview between Tár and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik — I found myself thinking, “Jeez, everyone is going so crazy for Cate Blanchett’s performance. But it seems so… affected here.” It took me about two more hours of watching before I said to myself, “You dummy, the affectation was the point.” Silly me for doubting the brilliant Ms. Blanchett.
This movie isn’t for everyone. It is not warm. There are almost no laughs. And there are very few of the emotional cues we’ve been trained to feel in movies. But if you’re able to be comfortable within the discomfort, you will experience a towering work of art.
…Viral Video Clip I Saw This Week
“We Are the World” rehearsal footage (1985)
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I give you this video clip recently posted by James Leighton on Twitter. I’m pretty sure I could write 10,000 words on it, but that would be a waste of everyone’s time. So I’ll edit myself down to the following:
If you were around in the ’80s, you will recognize just about every performer in this clip. Say what you will about “We Are the World” as a piece of music, the talent assembled for that recording was staggering.
The incredible mixture of ego, competitiveness, and insecurity in that room is palpable. It’s even more potent than Sex Panther.
And then there’s Bruce. He appears from nowhere to approach the microphone like Homer Simpson emerging from the hedge. He howls like it’s 1981 again and he’s recording Nebraska in his bedroom. He’s wearing Rocky Balboa-style fingerless gloves (where’s his little rubber ball? Did Paulie drive him to the studio?). His dancing is totally inappropriate and weird. This is one of my life’s essential heroes? Yes, of course it is. In this moment, Bruce is self-consciously unconscious of how uncool he is. He is guileless perfection, the un-rock star disguised as a rock star. All I can do is defer to the words of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.” Bruce shares everything with us in this clip.
…Documentary I Watched This Week
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004) — Directed by Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
Streaming on Netflix
While doing research for a project I’m working on about rock bands, I went down a late-night rabbit hole that took me to this documentary. It follows two years (2001-03) in the life of Metallica, the world’s most popular heavy metal band, as they record the album that would become St. Anger.
The filmmakers — and the band — got more than they expected. The film doesn’t simply document the making of a new album, it shows a band in crisis. In-fighting between alpha males James Hetfield (lead vocals, guitar) and Lars Ulrich (drums) is threatening to kill the golden goose, while peacemaker Kirk Hammett (guitar) recedes into the background.
Their managers bring in a therapist/performance enhancing coach to help them through their problems, which causes bass player Jason Newsted to suddenly quit the band. (He succinctly calls the group’s use of a therapist, “Really. Fucking. Lame.”) Soon after, Hetfield checks into rehab and disappears from the band for almost a year.
Metallica is, quite simply, falling apart. And the cameras are rolling as they grapple with the implications of Newsted’s departure, Hetfield’s absence, and an uncertain future. We watch as they attempt to talk their way through it all with their therapist, Phil Towle.
I’m not a heavy metal guy, but I thought it was really interesting to watch Metallica — of all bands — working with a therapist to try to solve their problems (almost as interesting as watching a fictitious New Jersey mob boss talking to a psychiatrist).
Of course, having this unfold on camera, which brings performative aspects to the whole enterprise, gnawed at me while watching it. But I did feel like these guys displayed genuine rawness and vulnerability, allowing the audience to see, feel, and relate to the challenges they faced.