Roma (2018)

Mexico / USA, 135 minutes

Director/writer/photography: Alfonso Cuarón

Editors: Alfonso Cuarón, Adam Gough

Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Veronica Garcia, Fernando Grediaga

Alfonso Cuarón takes a page from the playbook of Steven Soderbergh (and a few others), making his award-winning, much-celebrated picture for Netflix practically a one-man-band show, directing, writing, shooting, and editing this period piece set in early 1970s Mexico City. It starts slow, it’s a little long, and it can teeter dangerously close to pretentious, with a black & white color scheme and diegetic soundtrack (available commercially) that is composed entirely of music playing in the background on radios and TVs or at the movies. The parts of Roma that feel most obviously autobiographical are about a family plunged into media: radios, TVs, movies, full of audio strains and visual clips. In fact, Cuarón makes the most out of incidentals like what’s playing on the radio. My favorites are the jets floating complacently through the clouds of some of these scenes, aircraft noise and all. Some must have been shot near an airport because they seem to be flying relatively low, drawing perfect lines across their scenes. They are somehow fearsome and beautiful.

Roma survives any and all concerns about its intentions (except the one about Netflix, which I’ll get to below) as it patiently mounts a powerful slice-of-life tale with mild upstairs / downstairs notes, juggling the life of a middle-class family in breakdown with the life of their maid in similarly dire straits. Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is the maid and de facto nanny for the family headed up by Sofia (Marina de Tavira), her mostly absent husband Antonio, and their four kids, three boys and a girl. The youngest boy, Pepe (Marco Graf), might be 7. He is always talking about memories of his past lives.

Gene Thomas, “Sometime” (1961)

[listen up!]

I wound my way back to Gene Thomasson’s 1961 near-hit (which peaked at #53) mainly because it’s one of the cover songs on the classic Flamin’ Groovies 1976 album Shake Some Action, and I am always happy to seek and find the originals. Shake Some Action is a 14-track affair that came after founders Roy Loney and Tim Lynch had left the band. It’s composed of half original songs by Cyril Jordan and Chris Wilson and half cover songs by artists as well-known as the Beatles and as obscure as Gene Thomas—adding up to a nearly perfect, seamless whole. Thomas managed a #17 hit in 1968, “Playboy,” in the Nashville-based Gene & Debbe act with Debbe Neville and her spectacular beehive hairdo. It’s a nice country-tinged tune, apt in many ways for 1968, but I agree with the Groovies that “Sometime” (or, as it is sometimes and more accurately credited, “Sometimes”), is the better song. And I’m not sure who does it better. The Groovies version rocks it up nice with a full band and emphasis on harmonies, drumkit, and electric guitar. The Gene Thomas version is much more stripped down, with an easier tempo and Thomas’s plaintive solo voice stalked by a mellow saxophone. The singer’s problem is the same in both places, of course: “Sometimes I cry when I’m lonely / Sometimes I cry when I’m blue / Right now, I’m cryin’ ‘cos I love you / I’m cryin’ ‘cos you don’t love me too.” He’s worried that “all the tears I shed were shed in vain.” Given the way things generally go in this world, it’s a valid concern and he’s probably right. It doesn’t take much more than that for a great pop song.

Nostromo (1904)

The subtitle of this hefty novel by Joseph Conrad is A Tale of the Seaboard. A description I saw called it a rip-roaring adventure story, which led me to a few errant expectations. Nostromo is the name of a person, not a ship as I had assumed. And “seaboard” is not the same as “seagoing,” although perhaps the best part of this shaggy dog is a treacherous if brief sea voyage. The other best part is the treatment of South America’s long history of unstable politics, the colonizers’ greed for riches and lust for power. The novel at large, in fact, seems to be mainly a lampoon (as I take it) of South America’s ludicrous and bloody history, set in a fictional country, or territory. It’s not far from Venezuela, with a shipping port and a silver mine owned by an English businessman. Nostromo is barely present for the first half or so, seen at the edges of the large rotating cast of characters. Conrad is more expansive here, going deep into the backstories of these characters—and new important characters keep emerging beyond the halfway point. It’s a serialized novel and often feels it but Conrad brings it to a solid ending, taking it where it must go according to the richly complex characters. It ends up landing on Nostromo the hardest, as it must with that title. Nostromo, a sort of hapless but brave peasant, gets by mostly on bravado and luck, along with his skills as a seaman. I have to say, even with all the cruelty on display—I see South America’s reputation as a haven for terrible torture goes back at least to 1904—it often feels comical more than anything. The revolutions and patriotic fervor result only in terrible violence and death but still things go on. All officials are at least a little corrupt, some very much so. Part of Nostromo’s appeal is his sincere peasant background. His highest military rank is captain, but he is a man of the people. He has several names, suggesting his status as a legend: Capataz de Cargadores, Gian’ Battista, Captain Fidanza, Nostromo. His background is Italian. I still think Conrad is mostly a chore to read, but patience does pay off. This story ends quite satisfyingly.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

“Posthumous” (1994)

I came here ready to complain about this very short story by Joyce Carol Oates. Then I saw that it was published originally in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, in 1994, and somehow it became instantly more intriguing. What was she doing in Ellery Queen? Was she a regular? How did a story like this fit with the magazine’s usual fare? I never read it much but knew it as a competitor and sort of counterpoint to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. “Posthumous” is less than three printed pages. It is told from the point of view of a corpse, in a 21-gun salute to Edgar Allan Poe (10 years later, in 2004, she would publish a different and much longer story with a variant title of “Poe Posthumous; or, The Light-House”). But maybe I am being hasty and she is a near-dead victim of violence, her own or another’s. She doesn’t seem to be able to move or speak. Police are forcing entry. Italicized passages suggest a home invasion. The police are shocked by her appearance but the twist of the story, as such, seems to be that there is worse in another room, presumably her husband. Did she do it or are they both victims? Unclear. It’s a horrific scene, like a tableau caught in the flash of a camera. It seems extreme to me for Ellery Queen, but perhaps not for 1994, which I remember as particularly lurid—Tonya Harding, Kurt Cobain, OJ Simpson, etc. I like that Oates had outlets for a lot of things like this that are experimental. Sometimes I am impatient with her female victimology, which she turns to a lot. But then, females are frequently victims. I like the Poe touch, if that’s what it is, and I guess I appreciate the ambiguity too of the murky situation. So I come out liking this one after some consideration. I believe Oates may have been at least a semi-regular in Ellery Queen but I would have to verify that. The way she uses the police is great and the point of view of the woman or corpse is perfect as they force their way in, vivid and sensory. And it’s really short, accomplished at near light-speed. The mayhem is gratuitous maybe? I was inclined to complain about that. But in many ways I think mayhem might be Oates’s most natural mode.

Joyce Carol Oates, The Collector of Hearts
Story not available online.

Modern Lovers, “I’m Straight” (1973)

[listen up!]

This curiosity was not part of the original Modern Lovers album by Jonathan Richman & co., home of “Roadrunner.” Most of that now-classic LP was produced by John Cale in 1971 and 1972. “I’m Straight” comes from sessions in 1973 organized, overseen, and/or produced by the notorious Kim Fowley. It has been appended as a bonus track on reissues of the album since the Rhino release in 1986. In many ways the song hasn’t aged well. The term “straight” now refers more often to sexual orientation or secondarily an inclination toward the conventional. A third sense is honesty. The sense of it as drug-free, which Richman is on about here, has faded since the ‘70s; “clean” and “sober” are more the favored terms now. Richman was still accessing an aggressive persona derived in part no doubt from his heroes the Velvet Underground. But his own variations are all him. The singer in this song is so shy he keeps hanging up before completing a phone call to a woman he wants. But it’s a kind of calculated assault too because he knows she already has a boyfriend—Hippie Johnny by name—and he won’t respect it. “He’s always stoned, he’s never straight,” is his point. If I had to guess, the drug in question here is most likely cannabis—marijuana, weed, tea, whatever. That’s what “stoned” (and “dope”) usually referred to, at least in my circles in 1973. The singer is surprisingly aggressive: “Now look, I like him too, I like / Hippie Johnny / But I'm straight / And I want to take his place.” His voice is deep, growling. It sounds like the microphone is inside his mouth. And it is full-on unapologetic in its judgment of the stoner lifestyle. At the time, that put the singer arguably rowing against the current. Call him an iconoclast. Sometimes I object to the situation it describes, stealing girlfriends and the preening rejection of weed. It’s certainly unusual, but that can be said about much of Richman’s catalog.

28 Years Later (2025)

It hasn’t been quite 28 years since the 28 / Later franchise opened for business by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland in 2002, with 28 Days Later (the first sequel, 28 Weeks Later, came in 2007). Boyle and Garland brought some innovations to the zombie movies (will they never die?) that I wasn’t always on board with. Their zombies can outrun anything short of the Flash, for example, as opposed to George Romero’s more classic lumbering, relentless creatures. It hasn’t been quite 28 years, but frankly I’m not sure, without refresher looks at those first two, what is new here and what is continuity. There are slower zombies, called “Slow-Lows,” that crawl on their bellies and snack on earthworms. There are the fast zombies. And—new with this installment, I think—there is an evolutionary development in zombie-land that human survivors call “Alphas.” They are fast, strong, and big—like eight or ten feet tall—and look something like a Norse god or maybe Conan the Barbarian. The story here is about a 12-year-old boy, Spike (Alfie Williams), mentored by his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to hunt zombies. He is more concerned at the moment about his mother Isla (Jodie Comer), who is sick, no one knows with what and there are no doctors. They live in a small community on an island off the coast of the British mainland, reachable at low tide via a causeway (a neat visual and suspense device also used well in both the 1989 TV movie The Woman in Black and its 2012 remake). The UK has been overtaken by zombies but the rest of Europe has worked out keeping them confined there (a different flavor of Brexit). Spike hears of a doctor on the mainland who is supposedly insane—Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes)—and sets out with his mother to get her cured. I wasn’t really convinced by the family dynamic here, or maybe I’m complaining because it seemed lifted in many ways from the TV series The Walking Dead. Not surprisingly, 28 Years Later is full of great shots and it entertains some interesting ideas—the developing zombie fauna, reproductive speculation (including an amazing childbirth scene), and a wandering tribe of punk-rock zombie assassins. A lot of 28 Years Later is world-building, figuring out how things work in this world and universe. It’s lucid but very busy. Its sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was shot at the same time and released early this year. The sequel is written by Garland but directed by Nia DaCosta (Hedda, the 2021 Candyman). The ending here is wide open for the sequel and thus 28 Years Later feels unfinished or more like the way TV works now with chains of episodes. Maybe Boyle—or perhaps Garland—has big plans for what’s to come. 28 Years Later and possibly its sequel are worthy additions to the franchise, though, as I say, I have my reservations about the franchise at large.

“The People on the Island” (2005)

I liked this story by T.M. Wright from The Weird. I liked it when I read it and I liked it even more the next day. Editors Ann & Jeff VanderMeer compare it to Shirley Jackson in their intro and that sounds close enough. There is something deeply normal about the two main characters even though little else is normal in their circumstances. They are alone on an island. It’s not clear how they got there or what they are doing there. It’s been long enough they no longer seem to question it. It could be an afterlife. But there are few explanations for anything here. Other people show up in other houses. They seem to be corpses but they are not decomposing or perhaps they are doing so slowly, because finally that changes. They seem to be engaged in activities—a woman on an exercise bike is the first they discover. The narrator and his wife, Elizabeth, don’t like them. They provoke anxiety. No one knows how they get there. The wind is often blowing and howling. They also hear something that sounds like a stray dog but they never see it. When they finally do, eventually, they can’t be sure it’s a dog. It feels like they’ve been there a long time. Time itself feels off in this place. It doesn’t pass in the same way. It may not be passing at all. Eventually Elizabeth disappears, though the narrator still thinks he sees her sometimes. The story is all very straightforward simple description and dialogue. At times it’s so simple and the circumstances described so bewildering it feels like a trick being played. More and more people show up on the island. It’s starting to feel crowded. The weather is pretty weird too, I should mention. Always cloudy and then, seemingly after years, occasional sunshine and warm temperatures. We know the narrator’s relationship with Elizabeth extends back to childhood, “before we started noticing, in earnest, that we were different sexes.” That struck me as a slightly disturbing way to describe it, almost as if they are closer to brother and sister. Nothing in this story sits exactly right and that’s what makes it great. Wright was more of a novelist and wrote several. I’m curious now what they might be like.

The Weird, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
Story not available online.

The Roaring Silence (1976)

Marshalling white R&B / soul with prog-rock may seem an unlikely project but it’s the one South Afrikaner keyboardist Manfred Lubowitz took for himself. He hit first and often with his band and new sobriquet Manfred Mann in the ‘60s and then again (if somewhat more modestly) with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in the ‘70s. Mann long intrigued me from a distance. I liked (but didn’t love) the hits: “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and “Blinded by the Light” (written and recorded by Bruce Springsteen for his first album in 1973) both made #1, and “Mighty Quinn,” probably my favorite, reached #10. Somewhere I got the idea the albums were good, but I never sat down with them until recently. By way of internet recommendations, I also tried the Earth Band’s Solar Fire (1973) and Watch (1978). The Roaring Silence attracted me most, doubtless because of the Springsteen covers. Versions of the album now include the 3:49 radio edit of “Blinded” as well as the original 7:08 album kickoff. I’m more familiar with the radio version so that’s the one that sounds right to me, though I appreciate the various proggy twists and turns of the longer piece. Mostly I’m just kind of tired of the song now, and also its follow-up, “Spirits in the Night,” a soundalike to the big hit, and another Springsteen cover from his first album. It reached #40. But I found the 8:19 “Singing the Dolphin Through” irresistibly beautiful. I wish it were shorter but I’m still not tired of it, and somehow a little embarrassed that something this overweeningly sweet would get me. Speaking of embarrassing, there’s the embarrassingly titled “Waiter, There’s a Yawn in My Ear” (apparently inspiration for the album’s cover art or possibly vice versa, but someone should have stepped on that title). It’s where the band goes full antiseptic prog in a live setting, tarted up further in the studio. The crowd loved it. I don’t mind it. The album is always at least pleasant for me, such is my 20something corruption. Affection for prog does linger on in my psyche. I note that keyboardist Mann and guitarist Dave Flett can be perfectly competent-plus and even inspired on their instruments. The other main points of interest are “Starbird” and “Questions,” which continue another Manfred Mann project, adapting classical music to pop songs. In the early ‘70s, the Earth Band approached the Gustav Holst estate for permission to adapt Holst’s suite, The Planets. But when they submitted their Jupiter installment, “Joybringer” (now a bonus track on the Solar Fire album), the estate closed them down forthwith. But never say die. “Starbird,” on The Roaring Silence, is based on a Stravinsky theme. “Questions” is based on a Schubert theme—I hope and trust Schubert had nothing to do with a further embarrassment of these lyrics. I mean, really, it can get pretty dopey around here. Still, the album is good for a hit of guilty pleasure when I am occasionally in need of prog, and it also has a solid if not entirely inspired line in soul too.

RoboCop (1987)

USA, 102 minutes

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner

Photography: Jost Vacano, Sol Negrin

Music: Basil Poledouris

Editor: Frank J. Urioste

Cast: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Dan O’Herlihy, Miguel Ferrer, Robert DoQui, Ray Wise, Jesse D. Goins

People seem to have some problems categorizing RoboCop. I have always thought of it as a slightly tongue-in-cheek (because patently ludicrous) crime / action show. Wikipedia calls it “science fiction action,” Amazon classes it with the labels “action,” “drama,” and (of all things) “serious,” and IMDb lets loose with a torrent of labels: “cop drama,” “cyberpunk,” “dark comedy,” “dystopian sci-fi,” “gangster,” “one-person army action” (good grief, this is a genre?), “superhero,” “tragedy,” “action,” and “crime.” I was happy to see at least a “dark” comedy in the mix, but I think it’s a real stretch in this perfectly cartoony setting to go for “serious” (never mind “tragedy”).

It’s formally a tragedy and serious because a human being cop, Murphy (Peter Weller), is killed in the line of duty and then surreptitiously and implausibly reanimated as a cyborg with no memory of his humanity. But he is a super-excellent cop, the hope for the near-future Detroit envisioned in the ‘80s to eradicate crime altogether. Director Paul Verhoeven is playing it for laughs all over the place. The lifts from Terminator are obvious, intentionally so. Robocop’s triangle-shaped body is an exaggeration of the ripped male ideal. His thudding footsteps are heard constantly in the sound design when he is on the move. (Note that the subtitles spell it without the capital C for the character and I am following suit.) The fights go on too long and they are too extreme, verging on slapstick. And the fact, in this near-future sci-fi tale—certainly it is science fiction, I’m not sure why I resist that label too—the fact that corporations can steal a man’s body with impunity and do what they want with it is rushed past so willfully it comes to feel like another joke.

Monkees, “What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round?” (1967)

[listen up!]

This Monkees track, written by “Lewis & Clarke” (the writing credit taken by songwriting team Michael Martin Murphey and Owen Castleman), was selected and sung by Michael Nesmith, furthering the explorations of country and country-rock by which he’d be better known in his solo career. The song’s narrative point of view is not entirely clear and can be confusing. It’s about a young San Antonio man who takes a train down to Mexico—“Just a loudmouth Yankee I went down to Mexico,” it starts. In places the song has not aged well. The singer admits, for example, “I lightly took advantage of a girl who loved me so”—that “lightly” seems to be doing its share of heavy lifting here. Should I stay or should I go? is the question that plagues the siinger, and ultimately (apparently) becomes the source of his greatest regret. Or, or as he somehow movingly bewails it in the chorus, “What am I doing hangin’ ‘round? ... I should be ridin’ on that train to San Antone.” It’s my favorite part of the song and the place where I can most easily ignore the singer’s somewhat loutish behavior, because at that point he is full of regrets that can never be answered for. The question is a bit muddled—at first it seems to be about staying in Mexico too long, but later it seems to be about how long it took him to get back. By which point, sadly, it’s too late, baby, baby it’s too late. “Then she told me that she loved me not with words but with a kiss” is a moment that can never be recovered, seared into this song. That’s all. It feels like that and train whistles in the distance are going to haunt him for the rest of his life.