The Sounds of Cinema 2016 Year End Wrap Up will air on Sunday, January 29th. The episode will feature my picks of the ten best and worst pictures of the past year.
You can find an archive of previous year end wrap ups here. Until then, here are other critics' picks of the best and worst films of 2016:
Sounds of Cinema can be heard Sundays at 9am on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, MN and at 11am on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato, MN and online at each station's website.
Joanne Bland will speak at Winona State University on Monday, January 23, 2017 to present "Hollywood's Myths and Realities of the Civil Rights Movement."
During her lifetime [Joanne Bland] has been a witness and participant in some of our nation’s most consequential civil rights battles. She began her civil rights activism in the early 60s. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists organized Bland and other area children and teenagers to participate in the civil rights movement. In the front lines of the struggle, the young Bland marched on "Bloody Sunday" and "Turn Around Tuesday," and the first leg of the successful March from Selma to Montgomery, witnessing brutal beatings of fellow marchers by police. By the time she was 11 years old Bland had been arrested documented 13 times. Ms. Bland’s early involvement in the struggle against “Jim Crow,” American apartheid, has been the foundation for her civil and human rights work throughout her life.
A much sought after speaker with a compelling personal story of civil rights activism, Ms. Bland has presented at conferences and workshops from the Smithsonian in Washington, DC to the states Maine, Wisconsin, Vermont, Minnesota, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Iowa, Mississippi, Washington, Oregon and, of course, throughout Alabama. Currently, Mrs. Bland is owner and operator of Journeys For The Soul, a touring agency that specializes in Civil Rights tours with a major focus on Selma, Alabama.
The event will take place from 7:00pm – 8:30pm in
East Hall of Kryzsko Commons on the Winona State University campus. Admission is free and open to the public.
The event is co-sponsored by: Winona State University Inclusion and Diversity Office, KEAP Diversity Resource Center and Minnesota State College – Southeast.
The most talked about moment at this year’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony was not La La Land’s record number of wins nor was it the red carpet fashions or Jimmy Fallon’s performance as the host. Rather, what everyone was talking about the next morning and for several more days was the acceptance speech made by actress Meryl Streep while receiving a lifetime achievement award in which she turned her focus to politics and in particular the impending presidency of Donald Trump.
Streep’s speech was met with a standing ovation in the hall but her remarks had a polarizing reception on social media and in the realm of talking head television. Most reactions adhered to political and ideological divides. From Streep’s detractors came the predictable rejoinders, telling her to stay in her lane and calling Streep an out-of-touch Hollywood elite who was condescending to middle America. The irony is that Streep’s speech was actually far more nuanced and conciliatory than most Hollywood political screeds. Although she was certainly critical of the President-Elect, the bulk of Streep’s comments were a call for empathy and emphasized the entertainment industry’s role in promoting mutual understanding.
Streep’s choice to politicize her speech was not unusual. There is a tradition of filmmakers using the award stage as a political soapbox and that has caused some of the most (and only) memorable events of these shows often because they are a raw and authentic moment in an otherwise polished production and expose political rifts in the crowd.
One of the best examples of that occurred at the 1978 Academy Awards. While accepting the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Julia, Vanessa Redgrave took the opportunity to defend the documentary The Palestinian, which she had produced. The Palestinian was the target of protest by the Jewish Defense League, and a member of that organization had bombed a theater screening the film. Redgrave struck out against what she called “Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.”
Later in the show, Network screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky responded to Redgrave. Before presenting the writing awards, Chayefsky said, “I’m sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own personal propaganda. I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation, and a simple ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.”
The Redgrave-Chayefsky exchange embodied what would become an ongoing debate among audiences and filmmakers as to whether it’s appropriate to co-opt a Hollywood awards show to make a political statement. It would seem that the Redgrave contingent has mostly won that argument and it has since become an expectation that someone will say something political. In 1993 Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon broke from the script to protest the detention of Haitians at Guantanamo Bay and Richard Gere spoke about the political status of Tibet. While accepting their Oscar for the anti-whaling documentary The Cove, the filmmakers unfurled a banner with texting instructions. Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black used his Academy Awards speech to advocate for gay rights, John Irving spoke favorably of Planned Parenthood, and Leonardo DiCaprio used his Oscar win to warn the audience about climate change. The most controversial speech of recent years was Michael Moore’s denunciation of President George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq after winning the 2003 Best Documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.
In addition to award show soapboxing, there is also the more recent phenomenon of online videos in which movie stars encourage people to vote, usually in a particular way. Musicians and comedians and filmmakers are commentators on cable news and featured speakers at political rallies and there is a long custom of celebrities attaching themselves to public causes and to political campaigns, using their star power to direct attention to issues and candidates that they support.
Hollywood figures making political comments is not abnormal. It is a fixture of our culture. But the real question posed by events like Meryl Streep’s speech is whether it is appropriate for filmmakers and movie stars to use an event like the Golden Globes or the Academy Awards as a political soapbox. And furthermore, is it helpful to their cause?
It is silly to argue that cinema and art should somehow be free of politics. All art is political at some level, even if it is unstated or unintended. That doesn’t mean the content of every movie is necessarily partisan. But to tell a story is to say, “This is how life is” and motion pictures are created by filmmakers who are trying to express an idea about the world. That’s true of all films from agitprop documentaries and hot topic dramas to slasher films and screwball comedies. And in a divisively partisan time purchasing a theater ticket can be a political act as it was for American Sniper and Fahrenheit 9/11.
When filmmakers are honored for a picture that had an explicit political idea it naturally follows that they would comment upon it in their speech. When Michael Moore was given the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, he was being awarded for a film about the violence of American culture and he spoke about as much in his remarks. Dustin Lance Black wrote a movie about a gay rights leader and so he used his moment on stage to raise the issue. And when Meryl Streep was honored for a career of playing a wide variety of characters, she spoke about the power of empathy.
However, the entertainment industry does have a perception problem. Hollywood has always been viewed with some degree of suspicion by the socially conservative forces in society and there is no denying that the creative community—which is distinct from the industrial complex that actually runs Hollywood—does have at least a superficially liberal attitude. The audience’s misgivings about Hollywood are compounded by the social and economic forces at work in today’s society. We live in an age where lower and middle class Americans feel alienated from their social institutions. The public doesn’t believe they are being listened to all the while they are immersed in a telecommunications culture in which they are forced to listen to other people talk about the issues of the day on television, radio, podcasts, and online videos. This creates an impression that they are excluded from the discussion and are spectators in their own democracy. And then these same people tune into the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes and see an entertainer, of all people, lecture them about the state of the world. Instead of inspiring hope or constructive action, the sight of a well-groomed and highly paid entertainer waxing political nourishes that gnawing feeling of marginalization which turns into resentment.
This is illustrated quite effectively in the 2009 film PoliWood, which is a documentary about the intersection of entertainment, politics, and media (which I editorialized about here). In one scene, a group of Hollywood celebrities, most of them liberal-leaning, meet with conservative voters at the 2008 Republican National Convention. The convention-goers vent their anger and frustration with the Hollywood crowd and several of them express feelings of condescension. That footage was a scrying pool that foreshadowed the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the candidacy of Donald Trump.
Politically charged awards speeches, however well intended, frequently backfire. We have to ask if the comments by Vanessa Redgrave, Leonardo DiCaprio, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, and many others did anything for the issue that they claim to care so much about. More likely, these comments were ultimately self-serving as are so many expressions of political opinion whether they are made by a Hollywood superstar on the Oscar stage or on a lonely teenager’s Facebook page.
For its part, the public needs to get smarter about its outrage. When an out-of-touch millionaire actor makes a political statement it is regarded as an outrageous act of narcissism but when an equally out-of-touch millionaire industrialist does the same—or uses his or her fortune to lobby the government against the interests of the public—it is taken for granted. Even if you don’t agree with the political opinions of Tim Robbins, Michael Moore, and Meryl Streep, the resolution of that contradiction will go a long way toward redirecting our anger to where it belongs.
And Hollywood cannot afford to be this tone deaf. The most basic skill of any entertainer is understanding the audience. No one is going to take your cry for social justice seriously if it is made apropos of nothing while wearing a thousand-dollar dress at a million-dollar gala. In all likelihood, most viewers will forget about an actor’s award win by the end of the week. But they might remember how that performer furthered their feelings of alienation and decide to skip the debut of his or her next movie.
Instead of exploiting an awards show to make a clumsy and ill received political gesture, filmmakers should concentrate on putting forth their ideas through the medium that’s suited for it: the movies. After all, that’s what these award shows are supposed to be celebrating.
Several of the most popular Christmas songs originated in motion pictures. Here is a look at some of the notable songs that were first heard at the movies.
"White Christmas" - Holiday Inn (1942)
"White Christmas" is usually associated with the 1954 motion picture of the same name but it was first introduced in the 1942's Holiday Inn. According to ASCAP, "White Christmas" has been recorded over 500 times in a dozen languages.
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Meet Me in St. Louis introduced several songs that would become standards, among them "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," performed by Judy Garland. The song comes at a critical point in the movie as the Smith family contemplates leaving their home.
"Baby It's Cold Outside" - Neptune's Daughter (1949)
"Baby It's Cold Outside" originated in Neptune's Daughter where it is performed by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán and by Betty Garrett and Red Skelton.
"Silver Bells" - The Lemon Drop Kid (1951)
This song was first performed by Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell in 1951's The Lemon Drop Kid. The film involves a con artist who dresses up as Santa Claus and pretends to raise money for the poor when he really intends to use the donations to pay off a gangster.
"You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" - How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
The signature song of the classic animated special was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft. As popular as How the Grinch Stole Christmas continues to be, the song has taken on a life of its own and it is one of the most recognizable pieces of film music.
"Where Are You Christmas?" - How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
The live action adaptation of Dr. Seuss' classic originated the song "Where Are You Christmas?" It's performed in the film by Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who. Another version performed by Faith Hill was released as part of the film's promotional campaign and became one of the best selling Christmas singles of all time.
The Sounds of Cinema episode airing on December 25th will feature music from Christmas related films as well as reviews of Office Christmas Party and Collateral Beauty.
Music and movies are an integral part of the holiday season. Several of the most popular Christmas songs originated in motion pictures and the ritualistic screening of holiday television specials and feature films play an important part in many people's celebrations.
Sunday's program will feature music from a wide variety of Christmas movies including musicals like White Christmas, classics like It's a Wonderful Life, family films such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, comedies like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and horror films including Krampus. The show will give a sense of the breadth of Christmas films and the different approaches filmmakers have brought to the holiday.
Sounds of Cinema can be heard Sunday morning at 9am on 89.5 KQAL FM in Winona, Minnesota and at 11am on 89.7 KMSU FM in Mankato. Both stations can be heard live online.
If you're bummed that the election is over, here are some movies about politics.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Along with It's a Wonderful Life, this is the essential Frank Capra movie. An idealistic citizen is appointed to the United States Senate but his naivete soon collides with the realities of political life. Looking at the film today, one of the extraordinary things about it is the way it portrays a filibuster as an act of valor.
All the King's Men (1949)
Based on Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the King's Men is the story of the rise and fall of a politician whose populist appeal belies his corruption. The film was remade in 2006.
The War Room (1993)
Directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, The War Room is a behind-the-scenes documentary of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president. The film centers upon George Stephanopoulos, the Clinton Campaign Communications Director,
and James Carville, the campaign's Lead Strategist.
Nixon (1995)
Oliver Stone's masterpiece. The movie primarily deals with Watergate and the Vietnam War and it also addresses Nixon's diplomatic interactions with China and the Soviet Union. But more than anything, Nixon is a complicated character study of the thirty-seventh President of the United States. As played by Anthony Hopkins, Richard Nixon is portrayed as a tragic figure, a brilliant politician who was brought down by his own demons.
Primary Colors (1998)
The 1996 novel Primary Colors was a roman à clef, a fictional work that is actually a true story. Adapted into a motion picture in 1998, Primary Colors told the story of Governor Jack Stanton, a stand-in for Bill Clinton, as he runs for the presidency.
Bulworth (1998)
Set during the 1996 primary campaign, a United States Senator has a nervous breakdown and starts telling the truth. The movie is very much a product of the late 1990s (especially its soundtrack) but Bulworth is still surprisingly relevant in 2016. It's also very funny.
Election (1999)
Directed by Alexander Payne, Election is the story of a high school student government campaign gone awry. The movie is very funny but it is also a sophisticated story of ethics and the political process. The character of Tracy Flick, an overachieving front runner, has frequently been associated with Hillary Clinton.
Recount (2008)
A dramatization of the "hanging chad" debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Despite the divisive nature of the story, Recount is fairly even handed in its portrayal of the legal and political maneuvers by the Gore and Bush campaigns. Recount was helmed by Jay Roach, who was best known for comedies like Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers, and he brings a sense of humor to the movie.
All the Way (2016)
Another Jay Roach directed HBO film, All the Way is a dramatization of Lyndon Johnson's attempt to pass civil rights legislation following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The movie is similar to Steven Spielberg's Lincoln in that it is about trying to accomplish moral and civil good through the flawed mechanisms of government but All the Way is the better film because of its more complex portrayal of the people involved.
Weiner (2016)
A documentary about former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. The film records Weiner's failed campaign for mayor of New York City following his resignation from congress. Aside from a character study of a troubled politician, Weiner is also an examination of media, sensationalism, and politics in the digital age.
