A-one, a-two, a-you know what to do!

I admit that I know next to nothing about the blues.  I’ve listened to the blues performed live several times, in Chicago and New Orleans, but as a musical genre, I’m completely ignorant of its history and context.  Country music would be a close second.  (My mother decided country music was her thing in the seventies and eighties, so I have an unconscious awareness of its tropes and stylings.)

With this in mind, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a movie I can really appreciate for giving me some much needed schooling on the blues.  Not that the movie is a history lesson or documentary.  Ma Rainey is based on an August Wilson play of the same name.  Like the play, the movie is a work of fiction where the lead character is based on an actual person.  Born Gertrude Pridgett in 1886, she started out as a performer in black minstrel shows, then vaudeville.  In 1914, when she was roughly 28, she began performing as a blues singer, touring the south extensively.

While I’m no film school nerd, I have watched Citizen Kane several times over the past twenty-five years, and have read several articles on the making of the movie over that time as well.  I’ve also been watching David Fincher’s films since the early nineties.  And while some (Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network) are better than others (Alien 3, Panic Room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), his movies always warrant at least one viewing.  When I read about Mank, I thought the movie could be a great one.  Fincher is one of the best directors of his generation, and he’s making a movie about the making of one of my favorite movies.  The resulting movie is not among Fincher’s greatest, placing solidly at the top of the middle-tier films he’s made.

Rebecca is a curious movie.  It has all of the ingredients that should make it far more enjoyable than it ends up being.  The leading roles are played by Armie Hammer (The Social Network) and Lily James (Cinderella), both young, attractive and capable actors.  Supporting actors include Ann Dowd (The Leftovers, Hereditary) and Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient).  The production design and camera work are aces.  The movie is based on the same material that brought Hitchcock his only Best Picture Oscar (back in 1940).  For varying reasons, the ingredients don’t come together, resulting in a middling viewing experience.