Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

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Busted: Drug-War Drama “Sicario” Strikes me as Warm MIlk after Reading “The Cartel,” watching “Narcos”

September 11, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

There Will Be Blood for Emily Blunt in "Sicario"

There Will Be Blood for Emily Blunt in “Sicario”

Thanks Don Winslow. (Said with the cadence of ‘Thanks Obama.’) You ruined Sicario for me. Your fantastic, devilishly researched novel The Cartel that James Ellroy called “The War and Peace of dopewar books.” Even before El Chapo escaped jail and the Mexican government scapegoated four policemen, you changed the entire way that I looked at the so-called war on drugs. To paraphrase “I’ve looked at drugs from both sides now,” and by using multiple narratives you made the case that the cartels aren’t something run by Mexican families south of Laredo, but an intricate web of government complicity on both sides of the border where our guys often choose what they consider to be the least of all evil drug lords in a policy that, like the War in Vietnam, has become a lose-lose proposition.

Don — may I call you Don? — by writing a book with multiple narratives, that gives humanity to everyone from the journalists in Juarez to the mistress of the El Chapo of your narrative to a child soldier born in the states and trained to become a sicario of soul-evaporating brutality, as well as American law enforcement, you created a rich and complex narrative. It’s a tale of one border with two very different sides that are as interrelated as brothers, codependent and estranged. Watching Sicario, the movie that stars Emily Blunt as a naive, or as Hollywood says, “idealistic” FBI agent, I kept wondering why she hadn’t read your book — or at least, given the grotesquely violent set pieces she heads into with her Kevlar vest and her eyes open, why she had so little clue about the invasive tentacled tumor that the cartels have become on both sides of the border crossings that they control to Midas-size profits.

For those who read my work, you’ll know that I’m all about the female-driven narrative, but Blunt’s wide-eyed and slightly lip-glossed agent is a false construct. To root for her, and her desire to fight crime by the books, is to sit on the side of American willful ignorance. And that’s not my preferred seat.

What I love about Sicario are the visceral set pieces. But when G-worman Blunt crosses the border in a plane with a mysterious federal agent (a charmingly no-bullshit Josh Brolin) and a twitchy overdressed Latino on special assignment from no branch of the U.S. government that has a payroll (Benicio Del Toro), I missed the complexity of The Cartel. Because his Juarez, not the Mexican drug jungle of the movie, had a culture of books and journalists and community. It was a real place raped and dismembered by the drug trade, a collusion of greed and violence and the American dream for escape through white powder.

The Juarez of Sicario is all backdrop for an American vision. Additionally, thanks to The Cartel, I know that the duality the movie sets up between the good federales and the corrupt local police is bullshit — the federal police are just playing on a different team, because there isn’t just one drug kingpin but many.

Sicario will shock, and Brolin and Del Toro give it grit, Blunt (as always) gives her best but, like Jessica Rabbit, her problem is that she was just drawn that way and can’t escape the sketch. But not only does it come in the wake of The Cartel, and not everybody is reading 600-page books however brilliant these days, but it also follows Netflix’s Narcos, the serial character study of Colombian drug king Pablo Escobar that I watched in great gulps until the final downward spiral. And, if you want to read a fantastic female-driven narrative of a legendary female drug chieftain, reach for the riveting Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Telemundo adapted that novel in Spanish in the wildly popular telenovela La Reina Del Sur from Telemundo.

And, Don, I don’t want to leave out the sultry but intensely lonely survivalist drug queen played by Salma Hayek in Oliver Stone’s adaptation of your novel Savages. She certainly deserves her own book — but I know you are busy, busy.

So that is my long answer as to why, while Sicario will shock some audiences (and the lovely man sitting next to me at the Toronto International Film Festival screening), it lacks authenticity. While it has the stinking dismembered bodies to give it street cred, it goes down like warm milk compared to the reality: a world where we Americans, in general, are willfully misunderstanding our co-dependent relationship with our sister to the south. As someone who grew up on the border in San Diego, and has fond memories of family visits to Tijuana and Ensenada, where life seemed so much more vibrant than the suburbs where I lived, this is a narrative I find infinitely affecting.

Like Vietnam, the War on Drugs is unwinnable — but we have to understand what its true nature is — and how many people on both sides of the border have invested their political and law enforcement careers on it. Read the headlines — and learn to read between the headlines. Follow @DonWinslow. Drug kingpin El Chapo escapes his high security prison. The Mexican government arrests four policemen who take the fall. But this is a dance and the drug cartels are paying the band with briefcases of cash. This echoes the refrain of Narcos: do you want silver or do you want lead — bribes or death. In that environment, there is no law. if you were given that choice, what would your response be? A dead with the devil or death? Think on that.

Filed Under: Books, Movies & TV Tagged With: Benicio Del Toro, Don Winslow, El Chapo, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, La Reina Del Sur, Narcos, Netflix, Pablo Escobar, Salma Hayek, Sicario, The Cartel, TIFF15, Toronto International Film Festival

Contenders 2016: From the Palmes d’Or to the Oscars

May 18, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Cate Blanchett in the title role

Cate Blanchett in the title role

We hate to be looking over someone’s shoulder like Carol/Cate but we know that somewhere, beyond next winter, the movies of sunny spring will be competing for Oscar. And right at the front of that long red-carpet march is Blanchett, only two years out from her Best Actress win for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine. (Like Blanche DuBois, we’re constantly looking at the past and struggling with the disappointments of the present.) Blanchett was the queen of Cannes 2013 — and no one could catch her. So, I’m tossing out some ideas generated by Cannes for Contenders:

BEST PICTURE

Carol

Youth

BEST DIRECTOR

Todd Haynes (Carol)

Paolo Sorrentino (Youth)

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett (Carol)

Emily Blunt (Sicario)

Marion Cotillard (Macbeth)

Emma Stone (Irrational Man)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Rooney Mara (Carol)

BEST ACTOR

Michael Caine (Youth)

Michael Fassbender (Macbeth)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen (Irrational Man)

Yorgos Lanthimos, Elthymis Fillipou (The Lobster)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Phyllis Nagy (Carol)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Son of Saul
The Assassin

Dheepan
The Other Sister

[Related: From THR Study: In Cannes vs. Oscars, the Winner is….]

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Inside Out

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Amy

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Richard Deakins (Sicario)

Edward Lachman (Carol)

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Cannes 2015, Carol, Cate Blanchett, Emily Blunt, Marillong Cotillard, Michael Caine, Michael Fassbender, Oscars, Todd Haynes

Cannes 2015: More Must-See Films From the Festival

May 17, 2015 By Thelma Leave a Comment

A Todd Haynes sandwich with Rooney Mara on the left, Cate Blanchett on the right

A Todd Haynes sandwich with Rooney Mara on the left, Cate Blanchett on the right

It’s never been easier to follow the Cannes Film Festival from the comfort of one’s couch. You can debate about whether that’s a good thing or not — but it’s certainly frugal. And, since I wrote a fun feature for Variety editor Carole Horst from this very well-worn spot in which I talked to Christine Vachon, who produced Carol with Elizabeth Karlsen about Vachon’s favorite Cannes eatery, I have skin in the game. About as much skin as can be found on the underside of a Barbie Band-Aid given to a child for dramatic effect for a skinned knee. Anyway, here are more films that have broken out, including Todd Haynes’ Carol.
Macbeth: Ever since I heard from Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard that she was starring in this William Shakespeare tragedy opposite Michael Fassbender — and directed by Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) — I’ve been desperate to see it. Now it’s out. Cotillard’s one of my favorite actresses and Fassbender’s easy on the eyes.

#Macbeth review: Marion Cotillard, Michael Fassbender are impeccable in this bracing update http://t.co/he4Y6I1NJ2 pic.twitter.com/W1ZyzZVEQG

— Variety (@Variety) May 23, 2015

The Lobster: In a dystopian future beyond Match.com, singletons have 45 days to reconnect — or they are turned into animals. Greek Director Yorgos (Dogtooth) Lanthimos’ star-studded exploration of future love features Rachel Weisz, Colin Farrell, Lea Seydoux and John C. Reilly that was just picked up by Alchemy.  

Colin Farrell’s #TheLobster is “funny, unexpectedly moving satire of couple-fixated society” http://t.co/NR23eOpLFG pic.twitter.com/TZDgskAQXh

— Variety (@Variety) May 15, 2015

Youth: Boos and bravos met Italian Director Paolo Sorrentino’s (2013’s La Grande Belleza) gorgeous English-language entry for the Palme d’Or. Michael Caine stars as a famous orchestra conductor contemplating aging in a posh mountain resort. Snapped up by Fox Searchlight for U.S. distribution, the drama also stars Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda, Rachel Weisz and Paul Dano.

Based on vocal mix of applause & boos, Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH looks to be the most divisive (& most worthy?) film in #Cannes competition.

— Peter Debruge (@AskDebruge) May 20, 2015

Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth is a minor indulgence, tweaked with funny ideas and images, beset with a heavy sentimentality. Review later #Cannes — Peter Bradshaw (@PeterBradshaw1) May 20, 2015

Disorder (Maryland): Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust & Bone) stars as a French special forces operative with PTSD hired to protect a Lebanese businessman’s wife (Diane Kruger). Alice Winocour (Augustine) directs this home invasion thriller that has been picked up by Sundance Selects.

Hot bodies in motion: Kruger seeks Schoenaerts' protection

Hot bodies in motion: Kruger seeks Schoenaerts’ protection

Mon Roi: The great Vincent Cassel (Black Swan, A Dangerous Method), who I interviewed for Huffington Post in 2010, and Emmanuelle Bercot (Polisse, Carlos) chart the doomed path of their relationship and marriage without succumbing to good guy/bad guy tropes. (The one you love; the one you cannot keep.) What excites me is that it is directed and co-written by Maiwenn, who directed Polisse, in which she fully submerged herself in the muck of the Paris Child Protection Unit (and won a Cannes jury prize). If you’re curious about that film, check out my late column, Adams on Reel Women, with the editor Nina Hammerling Smith about that French procedural perfect for Law & Order junkies who love subtitles like I do. The You Tube trailer is in French but the charisma is universal:

Sicario: French Canadian director Denise Villeneuve (Incendies) returns with a drug cartel drama pairing Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt. (When Villeneuve’s last film, Prisoners, came out I talked to Jake Gyllenhaal about his role as a detective-with-demons for Yahoo Movies.) THR‘s Todd McCarthy wrote: “The violence of the inter-American drug trade has served as the backdrop for any number of films for more than three decades, but few have been as powerful and superbly made as Sicario.” The title means “hitman” in Cartel slang (and you’d have to kill me for me to reveal how I know that).

Blunt, Brolin, bullets

Blunt, Brolin, bullets

  Cemetery of Splendour: Already being hailed as a masterpiece by no less than the Film Society’s Dennis Lim, this is the first feature from the unspellable Thai Director Apitchatpong Weerasethakul. He won the Palmes d’Or in 2010 for Uncle Boommee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. That movie, which I caught up with at the Dubai International Film Festival, felt like being charmed by a snake out of The Jungle Book, a fantastic out-of-body experience wedded to the completely ordinary. This film, just acquired by Strand Releasing, is about — as much as his films are “about” anything — nurses tending to soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness and the dreams, phantoms and spirits this kicks up in a swirl around them at the clinic.     Inside Out: Swimming against my own biases (and those warning voices in my head), I can’t ignore the mad praise for Pixar’s latest from Pete Docter (Up), which premiered at Cannes to, yes, cheers. According to The Wrap’s Steve Pond: “[Docter] has figured out how to pull off a daunting concept, and in the process made a movie as thematically daring as it is emotionally moving.” With Amy Poehler, Mindy Kalling and Bill Hader among the vocal talent, this story of a young woman jousting with her (very vocal) emotions following a move from the Midwest to San Francisco lacks a single Kraft-cheese colored Minion. And for that I’m thankful.   [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Cannes, Carol, Cate Blanchett, Cemetery of Splendour, Christine Vachon, Emily Blunt, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Maiwenn, Mon Roi, Polisse, Rooney Mara, Sicario, Vincent Cassel

Review: You Must Go ‘Into the Woods’ with a Magical Meryl Streep

December 29, 2014 By Thelma 1 Comment

Chris Pines cuts a charming, if callow, figure

Chris Pines cuts a charming, if callow, figure

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, as directed by Rob Marshall, from James Lapine’s screenplay, is movie musical bliss – better than Marshall’s Oscar-winning Chicago and so much better than his miscast, misbegotten Nine. From the prologue with its swooping camera that establishes many of the fairy tale characters – the Baker’s Wife (Emily Blunt), the Baker (James Corden), Witch (Meryl Streep), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Jack the bean-stock boy (Daniel Huttlestone) and on and on – audiences who love the wit and wisdom of Sondheim will be bewitched and transfixed.

Once upon a time, as these remixed Brothers Grimm fairy stories go, the infertile Baker’s Wife makes one of those apparently simple yet Faustian bargains. Her neighbor the Witch (a role originated by Bernadette Peters on Broadway) reveals that the Baker and his family are cursed (it’s a part of that Rapunzel thing). To reverse the spell and become pregnant, the wife must take her husband Into the Woods – over to the dark side – to collect four items. Suddenly we’re in Fertility: the Musical!

All hideous warty witchy wants is a white cow, a red cape, some yellow hair and a golden slipper. What could go wrong? Well, remember, all the Wizard of Oz wanted was a broomstick but the coward neglected to mention to Dorothy and her pals that they would have to kill the Wicked Witch to retrieve it. Oops!

[Related: The Roundabout Theater Company’s ‘Into the Woods’]

The wife’s desire for a child is so all-consuming that the resulting quest for the four ingredients launches a movie about conflicting wishes, moral quandaries and unexpected consequences. The musical relies on the chain of songs to tell the story without pausing for dialog or showy business. There’s no Mickey and Judy reminding us that we’re putting on this performance in a barn – this is sophisticated stuff.

From Streep to Depp as the Wolf (he comes in one size: big and bad), the cast is universally genius, although critics seem to be picking and choosing favorites in a way that diminishes the ensemble’s beauty. Streep – the perennial Oscar nominee is bound for a supporting nod here — relishes playing the enchantress that upends the Baker’s marriage. She sings her witch into Shakespearean depth, as if one of Macbeth‘s crones got her rightful spot to move the plot further while pushing aside the Lord and Lady and their puny human problems. Both Blunt and Kendrick sing beautifully and soulfully – these are not just tunes but deep expressions of feeling: ambivalent, overwhelming, frightening, and occasionally deceitful.

Chris Pine (yes, the Star Trek reboot captain) deserves the notice he’s getting as the feckless Prince that woos Cinderella to a not-so-happily-ever-after. His duet, “Agony,” with his brother, Rapunzel’s Prince (Billy Magnussen) is a rollicking charm-off that echoes Lancelot’s crowing narcissism in Camelot‘s “C’est Moi.” But this Prince Charming’s role is critical, the idea that he is just a pretty face and good manners, and not painted any deeper adds to the resonance of his seductive duet with the Baker’s Wife, “Any Moment.” Chunks of the seize-the-moment, damn the consequences song could be quoted here but let’s stick with “Right and wrong don’t matter in the woods; only feelings.”

[Related: Chris Rock Pushes ‘Top Five’ onto my Top Ten]

Having debuted on Broadway in 1987, following a run at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in 1986, the musical, riding on Lapine’s brilliant book, carries with it the mournfulness of the AIDS epidemic that raged while it was being composed, polished and produced. Going Into the Woods, or the pines, or the rambles, could bring moments of bliss where right and wrong didn’t matter, only feelings. But not everyone was making it out of those woods alive. Some would become casualties, and others would survive, saddened and sobered, with an altered sense of life’s fragility. Death was a high price to pay for a “shimmering and lovely and sad” moment in the woods — and that’s no fairy tale.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: AIDS, Anna Kendrick, Best Musical, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt, Golden Globes, Into the Woods, James Lapine, Meryl Streep, Musical, Oscars, Stephen Sondheim

Thelma Adams on Reel Women: What Does Cannes Have Against Women?

May 18, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Women directors, Woodstock Film Festival,Nancy Savoca,Mira Sorvino,Susan Seidelman, Debra Granik

Straight shooter Savoca

No one ever claimed that women had bridged the director’s-chair gender gap, but it’s a complete kick in the can that this year’s Cannes Film Festival has not a single female-directed film among the 23 in competition.

I love contenders like David Cronenberg, whose Cosmopolis — starring Robert Pattinson — has been welcomed into the competition, and who headed the Cannes jury in 1999. I was a champion of his cerebral period drama A Dangerous Method, which had a terrific star turn by Keira Knightley. But, really, not a single film by a woman? I’m just gobsmacked.

It is, however, a good year to be a North American male: In addition to Cronenberg, Lee Daniels (The Paperboy), Jeff Nichols (Mud), and Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom) will premiere at what is considered the most prestigious film festival on the planet. The other 51 percent be damned.

There won’t be any shortage of sexy female actresses in evening gowns to attract paparazzi — so why does the female-director shortage matter? To paraphrase: It’s the sexism, stupid. Despite some recent indications to the contrary, women have yet to gain substantial ground in cinema’s most powerful positions. And beyond its inherent prestige, Cannes is significant because it’s at the forefront of the awards season. Last year, for example, The Artist debuted at Cannes, where Jean Dujardin won best actor honors, and went on to sweep the Oscars.

Half-full thinkers can still hope that there will be a bounty of female-helmed movies at the early fall Toronto-Telluride-Venice nexus. Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow has her as-year-unfinished Osama bin Laden film, Zero Dark Thirty (horrible title alert!), slated for the holiday season.

And, in a pleasant surprise, the Tribeca Film Festival, which is currently in full swing, overflows with female-directed films of all stripes. Among the most prominent are Sarah Polley’s quirky dramedy Take This Waltz, featuring Michelle Williams as a straying Toronto wife; Julie Delpy’s shrewd kooky relationship comedy 2 Days in New York, which pairs the actress with Chris Rock; and Lynn Shelton’s sexy sibling rivalry drama with Emily Blunt, Your Sister’s Sister. While not all movies are Oscar-bait, Tribeca presents a bounty of promising women filmmakers, including Tanya Wexler (Hysteria), Malgorzata Szumowska (Elles), Julia Dyer (The Playroom), Sharon Bar-Ziv (Room 514), Lucy Malloy (Una Noche), Kat Cairo (While We Were Here), and Beth Murphy (The List).

It’s unconscionable that the Cannes selection committee, which received in the neighborhood of 1,800 movie submissions, considers this artistic bias a non-issue. It’s up to bold filmmakers who are part of the boys’ club — Cronenberg, Daniels, and Anderson among them — to squawk about the inequity. We love them; now it’s time for them to return the love.

This column first appeared on AMC Filmcritic.com, and was edited by Nina Hammerling Smith

Filed Under: Essay, Movies & TV Tagged With: AMC filmcritic.com, Cannes Film Festival, David Cronenberg, Emily Blunt, Festivals, Lee Daniels, Thelma Adams on Reel Women, Tribeca International Film Festival, Wes Anderson, Women Directors

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