Movies You Should See: Charlie Chaplin Takes On Hitler (and Hollywood) in “The Great Dictator”

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t current but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both an artform and an important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but these films in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the COVID situation, my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series.

Charlie Chaplin belongs in that league of iconic cinematic geniuses that is a very small club, which includes Walt Disney, Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Buster Keaton and Hayao Miyazaki. Chaplin is credited as directing 70 films, but only 9 of them are full length movies while the rest of them are shorts. It’s hard to pinpoint one Charlie Chaplin film to start, and I will likely return to him in future essays. To start, I like to bring up his 1940 classic “The Great Dictator”.

There is some backstory to Chaplin’s work here, as the film was originally conceived as a comedy about Napoleon, thus the title “The Great Dictator”. However, when Hitler started to come to power, and Chaplin picked up on the fact they had the same little moustache, he rewrote the script complete with using fake German words, to be about Hitler. When the film was brought to United Artists, of which he was a co-founder, they refused to finance it. This was despite Chaplin being the biggest star in the world at the time. They still had films released in Germany, and did not want to hurt their bottom line, so Chaplin ended up financing the entire film out of pocket. Hollywood, for the most part during production, wanted nothing to do with this film, until they saw it at the premiere and gave the film a standing ovation that went on for 10 minutes.

There is so much to admire about “The Great Dictator”. The scene that introduces Chaplin as the unnamed Hitler character is one of my favorite scenes in all of film. When he gets the blown up beach ball which is supposed to represent the world, and he throws it around, laughing and smiling. When it pops , he becomes frustrated. Then we are introduced to an unnamed barber, also played by Charlie Chaplin, and we get another interesting detail. While the name “Hilter” is never said out loud in the film, the barber comes across a fence with the word “JEW” painted on it. This shows he lives in the Jewish ghetto, and is Jewish. It’s unique, and ahead of its time in how multi-layered it is, that the word Jew is allowed to show up in this film, complete with an unsureness that the rest is Hilter and Germany or a fictional spoof of it.

With fascism on the rise today, “The Great Dictator” is an important film to watch. In the final speech, after not speaking for the entire film, and Chaplin’s little barber, being mixed up for the dictator, he gives a speech where he proclaims, with the most iconic lines in film history, “we think too much, and feel too little.” This is one of the gutsiest films ever made, and an unofficial finale to Chaplin’s original run of films, as the Jewish barber is the last time he ever played a character who resembled his famous character of The Little Tramp. This ended one of the most important runs in film history with one of the most socially relevant ones ever made.

Movies You Should See: Michael Moore Turns The American Dream On It's Head With "Roger And Me"

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t current but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both an artform and an important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but these films in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the COVID situation, my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series.

One of the categories the Oscars messes up every year, with the exception of a year or two, when they get it right, is Best Documentary. They didn’t nominate 1994’s “Hoop Dreams”, which in 2005, was named the greatest documentary ever made by a group of top documentary makers. On that list of 50 greatest documentaries ever made, they also didn’t nominate for an Oscar, #2 and #3. Errol Morris’s 1988 film “The Thin Blue Line” and Michael Moore’s 1989 film “Roger And Me” are those films. Despite coming in at # 3, which is still great out of a list of 50, if we were to make a list of the most influential and watchable of these documentaries,  “Roger and Me” would come in at #1 for simply how ground-breaking it was.

Michael Moore, in his first feature, throws everything against the wall, to tell the story of how GM, the biggest corporation in the world at that time, pulled their manufacturing plant from his hometown of Flint Michigan and the aftermath of that decision. In doing so, he makes a film that is  both entertaining and depressing, and even funny at times, with light moments despite the subject matter. Moore’s film is also enhanced by his narration, which is full of personal asides, quirky observations about his hometown and his dry humor.

The title of the film refers to Roger Smith, at the time, the CEO and president of General Motors, who made the decision to pull the factory out of Flint and move it to Mexico for cheaper labor. There are scenes in this film that are hard to watch, like a man killing himself in a street, a woman skinning a rabbit to sell as meat, and the indifference of rich people who hired the people of Flint to be human statues at their parties as jokes. The scene where Moore drives through a street with a car, filming a tracking shot of abandoned houses in Flint, with “Wouldn’t Be It Nice”, playing over it is one of the most famous and affecting scenes in documentary history. However, there’s also a ton of funny scenes, Bob Eubanks being a celebrity grand marshal at a local parade and making an anti-Semitic joke on camera, Michael Moore bringing a fruit basket to GM headquarters and being thrown out, and Moore getting a perm to help a women who signed up for Amway.

One of the voters of the poll of great documentaries, and the host of the special which aired on the defunt arts cable channel Trio at the time, Morgan Spurlock, himself a documentary maker in the Moore mold, admitted even though “Roger and Me” wasn’t number one, it is the most iconic film on the list and arguably in documentary history. What makes “Roger and Me” a great film too, is it’s revision of the narrative we receive about Ronald Reagan’s America, going so far to show a scene of Reagan literally standing in a pizzeria, campaigning on the idea that if they re-elect him, he’ll bring back the jobs. He never did. Moore’s films following this, follow what “Roger and Me” started, which is the flip side of the American dream, and no living filmmaker has done a better job documenting that.

Movies You Should See: “Sullivans Travels” Makes The Case For Escapism Like No Movie Before Or After

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t current but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both an artform and an important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but these films in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the COVID situation, my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series.

Despite being credited or uncredited as a writer on 44 movies, Preston Sturges only directed 14 films. In 1941, the Academy Awards introduced a new category, best original screenplay, and Preston Surgeries was the first screenwriter to win this category. He won for his script to “The Great McGinty”, against the scripts for “The Miracles of Morgan’s Creek” and “Hail The Conquering Hero”. The crazy thing is he wrote those scripts too, and directed all 3 films the scripts were made into.

“Sullivans Travels” is a film which poses so many questions, about art, about politics, about poverty, and about America in general. The film is about a filmmaker named John Sullivan (Joel McCrea), who is sick of making comedies, despite them making him a rich and famous director in Hollywood. After his last feature “Ants In Your Pants”,  he basically begs the studio to let him make a serious film adaptation of “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. The studio balks and wants him to continue making his profitable comedies. He refuses, and as he puts it, he wants to “know trouble first hand”. So, he dresses up as a hobo, and sets out on the road. While on the road, he meets a struggling young actress (Victoria Lake), who vouches for him when he is wrongly accused of stealing a car, and to pay her back, asks her to help him with his ruse.

 

This movie gets it’s point across with goofball comedy with a serious undertone and message. He meets poor people, he sees suffering, he gets wrongly arrested and put in a labor camp for criminals. What you also get is one of the greatest montages ever put in film. When you see it, you will know right away what I’m talking about. However, instead of seeing the importance of showing the pain and suffering of the world, John Sullivan starts to learn the importance of his own work, and sees the case for comedy as escapism, and has a new appreciation for his contribution to the world through his movies.

“Sullivans Travels” is one of the great movies about movies, and in a way, it both criticizes movies and shows the importance of escapism of movies. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it is a great film which will make you think about how much has changed, and how much hasn’t, but makes you thank your lucky stars that film is still a source of escape.

Movies You Should See: The Layer Cake Of Charm That Is "Kiki's Delivery Service"

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t recommended but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both a artform and a important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but the films like that in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the current situation concerning the COVID virus, and my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series. However, I plan to continue it even after I get vaccinated.

“Kiki’s Delivery Service” is not only the most charming movie Studio Ghibli has ever made, which anyone can tell you is a major accomplishment, considering the charm factory that is Studio Ghibli, but it might be one of the most charming films ever made. I recently rewatched the film, as it was my turn to pick for a movie club I’m in, and the first thing I said after rewatching it was that this movie is something of a layer cake. As in, it’s just layers of charm upon cham upon charm. From the first minute you see 13 year old Kiki laying in a windy field, looking up at the sky, to the last minute you see her writing a letter to her parents about her new home, the charm just piles upon each part more and more. Even telling you that ending, there is no feeling it’s a spoiler warning. This film hardly has a plot, and it somehow works. There’s a few road turns in the film, like her losing her magic at one point, and the ending, where they throw in a big event because writer/director Hayao Miyazaki, considered Japan’s Walt Disney, seemed like he figured out he forgot about the whole plot thing, getting so engrossed in the charming world of this tween witch.

Based on a beloved Japanese children’s novel, “Kiki's Delivery Service” was released in Japan in 1989, and was a success at the box office. The story of a 13 year old witch named Kiki, who decides it’s time, like her mother before her, to go off and start a life on her own. She informs her dad who had packed up for a dad/daughter camping trip and her mom she is ready to go. Already the unusual idea of a 13 year old girl picking when she is going to leave and start on her own path, is well, unusual but it’s just accepted this is the way of the witch. Her father isn’t a wizard, or anything of that sort, but her mother is a witch, and one of the unusual elements of Kiki’s universe is it seems only the female characters can have magical powers.  In “Harry Potter” for example, you have wizards and witches, but in this world, it’s just witches. Also, for the most part, the world of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” is largely mundane. The movie is so slice of life, you can be forgiven if you forget this is a fantasy film. 

Kiki meets a woman who runs a bakery, she gets a job delivering packages on her broom, she has a wisecracking talking cat, she meets a nerdy boy around her age who falls for her right away, she loses her magic, she regains her magic, she saves the boy, she writes a letter home. That’s literally the whole film.

This film is Miyazaki’s fourth film, and his second huge hit, after “My Neighbor Totoro”, and one would be forgiven if they forgot this was a young animator at the time and not an old master of animation. Every single frame of the film is a work of art, which is true of all of Miyazaki’s films. While Miyazaki’s films became cultural icons in Japan, “Kiki's Delivery Services” has a special place for Miyazaki’s films in the United States. After an early dub that was commissioned by an American airline to show kids on flights, which is unfortunately lost media, and impossible to find, with almost no information on a cast who provided the this version’s voices online, Disney picked up the home video rights and gave it a new American dub cast including Kristen Dunst, Jeanne Garfalo, Brad Garrett and Phil Hartman in his final role, and released it on video in 1997. It would go on to sell a million copies and become one of the bestselling videos of the year. This led to Disney picking up the rights to the rest of Studio Ghibli’s work and continuing to release their movies, including in movie theaters.

“Kiki’s Delivery Service” is a movie you should see for a ton of reasons, for both the charm it has, the writing of characters who feel real with it, and as an introduction to the world of Studio Ghibli if you don’t know it already. It’s also a master’s class in simple world building and writing. As with every Studio Ghibli film, it’s also a master’s class in animation, and even though I am suggesting one Studio Ghibli movie in this essay, I would go as far to say you can’t go wrong with any of them. However, if you want pure delight,, I suggest you get on a broom and find a copy of “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. 

Movies You Should See: The Creative Frustration Of “Chasing Amy”

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t recommended but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both a artform and a important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but the films like that in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the current situation concerning the COVID virus, and my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series. However, I plan to continue it even after I get vaccinated.

Before Maximax fell apart, way back in the 90s, the studio was a powerhouse of independent films. Maximax discovered a lot of great filmmakers, including such icons as Quentin Tarantino and documentary juggernaut Michael Moore. One of their most iconic discoveries was a guy from New Jersey named Kevin Smith, who made a low budget but ground breaking indie film on a very low budget, called “Clerks” in 1994. A movie anchored by dialogue and mostly one setting, the film evolved around Dante Hicks (Brian O’ Halloran), Randal (Jeff Anderson), their girlfriends, their consumers, and two mysterious drug dealers who hung outside the convenience store they worked at, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith, himself). The following year in 1995, Smith made a higher budget follow up that was released by a bigger studio, Universal, called “Mallrats”. These movies were tied together by the presence of Jay and Silent Bob and the universe Smith had created of his characters running into each other in the state of New Jersey. The name of Smith’s cinematic universe is called the View Askewniverse. It wasn’t until his third film, however, that people started to see deeper issues than smart slackers and working-class joes talking “Star Wars”, smut and comic books, and that 1997’s “Chasing Amy”, again going back to a release by Miramax.

“Chasing Amy”, like most of Smith’s films during this era, has a unique way of capturing the counterculture of the time. Punk music and comic books were very much considered counterculture in the 90s. It didn’t quite have that mainstream appeal yet that we saw later on. It existed, but it wasn’t quite billion movie franchises or the basis for a whole hit sitcom like “The Big Bang Theory”. However, Smith added an extra element of this kind of culture in this film, which plays a role in the doomed love story. Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), and his friend, Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), are comic book artists, and best friends, working in a rented space above a record store in New Jersey. The film opens with them at a comic book convention, pushing their publication. While there, they meet up with a friend of theirs, a African American comic book artist named Hooper (Dwight Ewell), who sells his comic books by pushing a fake persona of being a black revolutionary. In reality, he is a gay man who just wants to sell his comic books, and turns off the act when potential readers aren’t around. They also meet a young woman and fellow comic book writer named Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) and her partner, as they are pushing their own comic book series at the convention in New York City.

While Holden and Alyssa start to spend more and more time together as friends, with Holden having the knowledge she’s unavailable from the get go, he can’t help but have feelings for her. Now a lesser movie would have not played up the gay angle, and found a more convental reason standing in front of Holden. Smith also adds an extra layer to his movie which plays up with the fact Holden is also in a way, jealous of her history, which is more active than he ever was. It’s a double sword, and they even at some point, do try to be a couple, sorting through confusion of the whole situation. Add to the fact that Banky is showing hints that this whole relationship he is having with her will ruin their friendship. However, there’s also pauses in the film that makes us think Banky feels even more than friendship for Holden. Smith is a really good dialogue writer, and Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel took note of that in their 90s review of the film on their TV show, commenting that Hollywood screenwriters should study this film for a basis of how people talk, instead of the fake way they write people as talking.

 Another thing that is noticed, and Roger Ebert pointed this out in his print review, is this film also shows the major flaw in a lot of standard romantic comedies. The idea that love isn’t a serious business. Ebert says Kevin Smith knows it is. We’ve seen so many romantic comedies with whacky and artificial setups of a guy having things in his way to get the girl of his dreams, but Smith turns that on his head, in two ways. One is the girl isn’t sure of who she’s attracted to, and second, the guy isn’t only confused about her orientation but is also concerned that if she does turn out to be straight, her history will make him not good enough to be with her. This is where Jay and Silent Bob come in. One of the great things about Silent Bob as a character is he often only talks if he has something profound to say, and he and Jay meet up with Holden in a diner, delivering a monologue about how he knew a girl named Amy, and how her experiences led her to want a guy as a person instead of a big past history, but the fact he couldn’t of gotten over that ended up being his problem and not hers, as she was ready to move on herself. Thus, he’s spent his whole life chasing a girl named Amy. This is a pretty head of the curve monologue for a movie in the 90s, which at the time treated romance as more whacky, and guy versus girl type humour. However, this also highlights the importance of independent film as a counterbalance at the time of mainstream film and humour.

Ben Affleck, Jason Lee and Joey Lauren Adams all give funny yet also pained performances in this film. The scene where Holden, Blanky, and Alyssa sit down in his apartment to try to dish this out is a memorable scene, with lots of hints about more complicated emotions than just simply fragile friendships and relationships, blurring the lines. However, in the end, they deal with this the only way they know how. They all make their experiences into comic books, and the fewer words spoken the better. Smith has credited this film with the one that showed he can write more than simply jokes. Smith’s films at times can be a mixed bag, but the best of his films are placed in the 90s, as they define the counterculture of that era, and leave us with great characters along the way who simply knew how to turn their frustration into their medium, just like their creator.

 

Movies You Should See: The Adult Mysteries Of “Hannah and Her Sisters”

Movies You Should See is a new weekly series of essays covering movies that aren’t just recommended but everyone should see if they are serious about seeing great films. Some of these films you likely heard of, some may have been before your time but can easily be found on physical media or streaming and some are more obscure than they deserve to be. Either way, these are films I feel you very much should see if you are serious about being a viewer of film as both an artform and an important medium. That doesn’t mean there won’t be films on here that aim to be nothing more than entertainment, but the films like that in this series aim to be great entertainment, and not just a time killer on a screen. With the current situation concerning the COVID virus, and my ability to go to the theaters cut short, I will start this series. However, I plan to continue it even after I get vaccinated.

Woody Allen is a dying breed of filmmaker. Not only is his work great art, great writing, and memorable stories, based for the most part in reality we can actually recognize, with a romanticized New York City that feels more honest than condescending, but he also made movies for adults. His stories are about adults dealing with adult situations , for an adult audience. We don’t see such maturity in many films anymore and that is a shame.

A good chunk of his best films are examples of real thoughtful films like Husbands and Wives, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Deconstructing Harry and the very underrated Another Women from 1988 starring Gina Davis. These films all deal with mature and thoughtful topics and one of Woody Allen's best examples of this is his 1986 film, Hannah and Her Sisters. 

Hannah and Her Sisters is a noteworthy entry in Woody Allen’s already overwhelmly noteworthy catalogue of works, from the structure of its screenplay to its memorable performances. Hannah and Her Sisters feels more like a good novel than a run of the mill screenplay. It’s structured with many stories, but all come back to a common theme.

Hannah’s name is in the title, but the film revolves around her two husbands, one currently married to and one ex-husband, who are both experiencing crises that have to do with getting older and figuring out what they really want. It also revolves around her sisters, played by Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey, and Diane West.

Unlike other films that have a focus on women, Hannah, played by Mia Farrow, isn’t presented as a neurotic woman figuring out her life. There’s no Oprah-like portrayal of a woman having to figure herself out. She’s the normal one. It’s her sisters and her current husband and ex husband who really have all the problems. Hannah herself just seems to want to live her life like any well-adjusted adult would. It’s a refreshing piece of writing to have the women in the title not have the major crisis of age.

Her current husband, Elliot, played by Michael Caine in an Oscar winning performance, is finding himself starting to obsess over Hannah’s younger and more artsy sister, Lee, played by Barbara Hershey. She represents to him a bit of something he doesn’t have. A part of him wants to leave the more stable and mature Hannah. One of the best scenes in the film is the part where Elliot and Lee go to a bookstore in Manhattan and he gives her a book with a poem by E.E. Cummings that he says reminds him of her. When she reads it alone, her narration shows the poem has a ton of feeling, and this poem is a hint to her that he has feelings for her.

In typical Woody Allen fashion, the other half of the movie almost seems like a separate film, as Hannah’s ex-husband, a TV writer named Mickey, played by Allen himself, has an existential crisis when he gets a clean bill of health. He found a lump earlier, and then when the doctor tells him it’s not cancerous, he starts to question what the meaning of life is, figuring out religion and the purposes of if there’s something more. The break up of Hannah and his marriage was his inability to have children, and though they were conceived by IVF, he still doesn’t feel he fulfilled much with his life. 

Woody Allen’s part of the movie brings more comic relief, while Michael Caine’s side brings more of a crisis. Yet, both pose serious questions about getting older and the relationships we have. Yet, there’s a third story in this already stuffed movie about Diane West playing Hannah’s sister, Holly, a former cocaine addict who is trying to settle on a career, but is pulled back into the world of showbiz when she tries to get a role in a play, facing off against a new friend she made who is also a actress. Hannah tries to get her to consider leaving showbiz. Then she writes a script herself that is based on the marriage of Hannah and Lee, which upsets them greatly. In the hands of a lesser writer/director, having some many storylines would make a movie break, and not work as a narrative flow, but in the hands of Woody Allen, that doesn’t happen.

Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters is a meditation on faith, life, relationships, manhood but most of all, being an adult, on the mysteries of being one in general. Allen conveys adulthood in a way few filmmakers, and writers in general, do today where the adults struggle with growing older and being mature, but still want that goal. His characters are honest with their flaws, but they are also real people trying their best, and having intelligent thoughts about their life, flawed or not, instead of silly moments where we are supposed to laugh at adults being wacky. We often laugh at Woody Allen films but they also make us think, and we are better for having watched them. Hannah and Her Sisters is a great place to start if you don’t really know Woody Allen’s work, as it’s a nice beginners guide to many of his themes.

“Rocketman” Is Not A Bad Biopic, but Still Kind Of Odd

“Rocketman”, which was directed by Dexter Fletcher, who is the true director of “Bohemian Rhapsody” after Bryan Signer dropped out half way through finally gets a musical biography picture he can put his name on. It’s “Rocketman”, a half good, half odd biography movie about the life of Elton John. In some ways, it’s odd to have a biography picture of Elton John, because he’s still active and well, still alive. Elton John, played in an over the top way by Taron Egerton, starts off the film walking in a flamboyant costume towards the audience, in what one would think was him going to perform in a concert. However, the truth is Elton John is in rehab, and he’s sitting with a group of other drug addicts. I’m sure they have stories too, but this is Elton John’s bio pic film and they have to listen to his story.

             What follows is a story that ranges from his childhood to his adulthood. Certain parts of Elton’s life the film really goes into and other parts of his life it condenses. As a kid, he imagines himself conducting a orchestra, even to the point with him as a nerdy looking kid with glasses, he is floating above his bed, holding the wand over a group of musicians. Of course, his reality is much different with a checked out mom and a disinterested dad in the suburbs of England. As his childhood doesn’t go well, he still can mesmerize his mom with his piano playing. He grows into a teenager, who then decides he should change his name from Reginald Dwight, which is his real name. He proclaims to a fellow band member that he is now Elton John. His band member says that’s his name. He responses yeah I know.

               What follows is a pretty typical rise, fall, than rise again of a rock star. He gets older, he struggles with his sexuality, he becomes a drug addict, he has dysfunctional relationships with his mom, his dad, his promoters and everyone else. Awkwardly, songs from Elton John are inserted into the film as the characters break out into them even before they are written in reality. It’s a wink to the audience. There’s a lot of melodrama throughout the film, and at times, it feels like a spoof of biography pictures. Elton John was involved in the making of this film, and sometimes it shows as for everything he does that’s terrible, there’s this sense of look at everything he’s overcome. I’m reminded of the great “Chapelle’s Show” sketch where Dave Chapelle talks about the movie Antwone Fisher, which was made into a 2002 film by Denzel Washington. Fisher actually wrote the screenplay to his own bio pic. Chapelle talks about how I would never be able to write a movie about himself without himself look like the greatest person ever even if it wasn’t true.

               And there are some scenes in “Rocketman” that kind of feel that way. It shows Elton at his best and his worst, yet some of it is kind of laughably ego driven. The biggest example of that is when the childhood version of Elton John shows up in rehab and the lights go out on the other people in the support group, and asks if his childhood self asked if he still wants to be Reginald Dwight anymore. Elton John gives his former self a hug, but not before everyone who doubted him shows up in the room to try to tear him down. He won’t be having any of it, because he’s a survivor. That scene felt more like a spoof of a biography picture, because it felt self congratulatory about the subject of the film, who happens to be the guy the biography picture is about.

               The only person Elton John seems to have a solidly good relationship with is his song writing partner, Bernie Taupin played by Jamie Bell. That relationship was actually very refreshing throughout the film. This wasn’t only Elton John’s songwriter, but he was his best friend, and he was a straight guy. He was never threatened by the fact Elton John was gay, and actually that friendship was nice to see in an era where a lot of people wouldn’t want to work with someone with a gay orientation, and not feel there might be something more there. He even comes to visit him in rehab. I liked that friendship.

               “Rocketman” is a bit of an odd film. However, the movie is okay. I guess you really have to like Elton John to like this film. You might find it inspiring. There was a gay sex scene that was much talked about before the release of this film, but it’s pretty tame. No big deal. This film wasn’t really made for me. I like Elton John’s music, as does most of the world. He has some classics, and this tunes are nice sounding. However, if you really want to get into this film, you really need to like Elton John. Okay, then, I’m okay with that great scene in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 classic “Almost Famous” where the band and groupies sing “Tiny Dancer” on the tour bus. That will do.