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I Am Woman: The Roaring ’70s
Helen Reddy was initially rejected on the grounds of wholesomeness.
I Am Woman: Tilda Cobham-Hervey, strong and invincible as Helen Reddy.
There was a point in America’s history when you couldn’t enter a supermarket or flip the radio dial without hearing I Am Woman’s titular tune. I clicked on the screening link expecting to find another biodoc — I try not to know anything about a movie before pressing play — but to my delight, what I watched was neither a rock concert pawning itself off as a biopic (Bohemian Rhapsody), nor a calculable musical fantasy gassed up on simulation (Rocketman). And without the accustomed showbiz pomposity to drive it, the film roars loudest in the quiet moments rendered (surrendered?) by its captivating star, Tilda Cobham-Hervey.
A canny dash of production design is there to greet Helen Reddy (Cobham-Hervey) and her three-year-old daughter Traci upon their arrival in New York. The subway ad for Heinz pourable ketchup, featuring a tamed homemaker with a bottle in hand, proudly proclaiming, “Even I Can Open It!” was a real eye-opener. Talent contest-winner Reddy has arrived in town looking to claim a first-prize recording contract, but the best Mercury Records has to offer barely qualifies as an audition.
It’s at a rent party thrown in Helen’s honor — hosted by cherished friend, fellow Aussie, and trailblazing feminist music critic Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald) — that she meets her future husband and manager, Jeff Wald (Evan Peters). A loving mother not given to the dreams of the everyday housewife, Reddy was initially rejected on the grounds of wholesomeness. It was Roxon who acted as Reddy’s bridge to what was then known as the Women’s Lib movement.
How do we know when Jerry and Helen spend their first night together? The next morning, Jeff shows up at Helen’s hotel with a toy for Traci in one hand and a pair of her mommy’s panties in the other. (In an American romcom, Jeff would have blurted out, “You left these in my apartment” while waving the unmentionables as if they were Old Glory.) In the hours I spent reading up on Wald’s career, it became apparent that there were enough scintillating showbiz entanglements therein to warrant a biopic all his own. Wald was fired from the William Morris Agency for using their mailroom as a pot shop. He went on to manage such diverse stars as Tiny Tim and Sylvester Stallone. (Alas, no mention is made of Reddy’s acting career, but if you haven’t seen her performance as Sister Ruth in Airport ’75, the onus is on you.) Reddy later credited her success to Wald’s guidance: “He runs it all. Naturally, when the moment of performance comes, I have to deliver — but everything else is him. It’s not my career; it’s our career.” In the film’s best scene, Reddy locks the office door on Wald, refusing to let him out until an audition with Capitol Records is secured.
For her first narrative feature, director Unjoo Moon mounts a top drawer musical biography along the lines of The Buddy Holly Story or Behind the Candelabra. The performances are faultless, with Cobham-Hervey capturing Reddy’s quiet resilience in a manner that transcends mere mimicry to reveal a character for whom audiences can’t help but cheer. Moon handles Wald’s excesses — most notably a $100,000 a year cocaine habit — with taste. And damn if it isn’t vitalizing to watch lighting and stock footage mesh seamlessly.
Reddy’s last public appearance was at the post-Trump inauguration march for women’s rights on March 21, 2017, where she sang, you guessed it, “I Am Woman.” Later that year, Reddy was diagnosed with dementia and placed in the care of the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Samuel Goldwyn Center. In the almost 50 years since the release of “the unofficial anthem of the women’s liberation movement,” the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be passed. ★★★★
Video on Demand New Release Roundup
You Cannot Kill David Arquette — There was a time in the mid-’90s when people would have killed to be David Arquette. With the rapidity of a Gatling gun, he cranked out what appeared to be a trio of career-dermining performances: the jaundiced rebel in Robert Rodriguez’s Roadracers (the director’s rapid-fire teensploitation contribution to Showtime’s fine Rebel Highway series), the momma’s boy aiming to gun down a legend in Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, and the potential suicide victim who can’t quite bid the world farewell in Finn Taylor’s Dream With the Fishes. Add to that a trio of Screams, and the future looked promising for the actor as he entered the new millennium. Given my affinity for both actor and genre, it’s freaky how the wrestling comedy Ready to Rumble came and went without my noticing. But someone must have seen it, for if ever a film kneecapped a career trajectory, it was that one. The film’s producer, Christina McLarty Arquette, later remarked, “Crossing over into that world caused a lot of directors not to take him seriously.” Do you think? Arquette was soon a WCW cast member, with a script calling for him to win the World Heavyweight Championship. It’s okay for celebrities, even future presidents, to enter the squared circle. Just don’t dare let a Hollywood outsider lick the competition, let alone take home a belt. Through it all, Arquette maintains a good-natured composure; he genuinely takes the audience catcalls to heart. After a decade of rejection by wrestling fans and Hollywood producers alike, directors David Darg and Price James follow the 46-year-old Arquette’s enrollment in Luchador U to prepare him for the most intense competition of his life. Not only does he follow the storyline to the letter, he also, thanks to his training, gives the performance of his career. 2020 — S.M. ★★★
The Rental — Brothers Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and their respective wife Michelle (Alison Brie) and girlfriend Mina (Sheila Vand) celebrate a recent successful business deal with a romantic getaway for four at a luxurious oceanside Airbnb. First-time director Dave Franco and co-screenwriter Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas) are at their best when introducing racism to the holiday in the form of Taylor (Toby Huss), a seemingly xenophobic lessor who may or may not have passed on Mina’s application — her name has a Muslim ring to it — to get to the one submitted by white privilege poster boy Charlie. At any given point, we’re not sure if it’s Mina or Taylor who’s looking to pick a fight. Regrettably, instead of sticking to the thrills, we end with the third act arrival of a masked slasher whose identity is never revealed. (Fanboys take note: it’s the filmmaker’s facile way of commenting on the randomness of violence.) Slow to start and even longer to draw to a predictable close, there’s a solid 40 minute chunk at the center that makes its points with subtlety and style. — S.M. ★★
Here's something you might be interested in.
I Am Woman: The Roaring ’70s
Helen Reddy was initially rejected on the grounds of wholesomeness.
I Am Woman: The Roaring ’70s
Helen Reddy was initially rejected on the grounds of wholesomeness.
I Am Woman: Tilda Cobham-Hervey, strong and invincible as Helen Reddy.
There was a point in America’s history when you couldn’t enter a supermarket or flip the radio dial without hearing I Am Woman’s titular tune. I clicked on the screening link expecting to find another biodoc — I try not to know anything about a movie before pressing play — but to my delight, what I watched was neither a rock concert pawning itself off as a biopic (Bohemian Rhapsody), nor a calculable musical fantasy gassed up on simulation (Rocketman). And without the accustomed showbiz pomposity to drive it, the film roars loudest in the quiet moments rendered (surrendered?) by its captivating star, Tilda Cobham-Hervey.
A canny dash of production design is there to greet Helen Reddy (Cobham-Hervey) and her three-year-old daughter Traci upon their arrival in New York. The subway ad for Heinz pourable ketchup, featuring a tamed homemaker with a bottle in hand, proudly proclaiming, “Even I Can Open It!” was a real eye-opener. Talent contest-winner Reddy has arrived in town looking to claim a first-prize recording contract, but the best Mercury Records has to offer barely qualifies as an audition.
It’s at a rent party thrown in Helen’s honor — hosted by cherished friend, fellow Aussie, and trailblazing feminist music critic Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald) — that she meets her future husband and manager, Jeff Wald (Evan Peters). A loving mother not given to the dreams of the everyday housewife, Reddy was initially rejected on the grounds of wholesomeness. It was Roxon who acted as Reddy’s bridge to what was then known as the Women’s Lib movement.
How do we know when Jerry and Helen spend their first night together? The next morning, Jeff shows up at Helen’s hotel with a toy for Traci in one hand and a pair of her mommy’s panties in the other. (In an American romcom, Jeff would have blurted out, “You left these in my apartment” while waving the unmentionables as if they were Old Glory.) In the hours I spent reading up on Wald’s career, it became apparent that there were enough scintillating showbiz entanglements therein to warrant a biopic all his own. Wald was fired from the William Morris Agency for using their mailroom as a pot shop. He went on to manage such diverse stars as Tiny Tim and Sylvester Stallone. (Alas, no mention is made of Reddy’s acting career, but if you haven’t seen her performance as Sister Ruth in Airport ’75, the onus is on you.) Reddy later credited her success to Wald’s guidance: “He runs it all. Naturally, when the moment of performance comes, I have to deliver — but everything else is him. It’s not my career; it’s our career.” In the film’s best scene, Reddy locks the office door on Wald, refusing to let him out until an audition with Capitol Records is secured.
For her first narrative feature, director Unjoo Moon mounts a top drawer musical biography along the lines of The Buddy Holly Story or Behind the Candelabra. The performances are faultless, with Cobham-Hervey capturing Reddy’s quiet resilience in a manner that transcends mere mimicry to reveal a character for whom audiences can’t help but cheer. Moon handles Wald’s excesses — most notably a $100,000 a year cocaine habit — with taste. And damn if it isn’t vitalizing to watch lighting and stock footage mesh seamlessly.
Reddy’s last public appearance was at the post-Trump inauguration march for women’s rights on March 21, 2017, where she sang, you guessed it, “I Am Woman.” Later that year, Reddy was diagnosed with dementia and placed in the care of the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Samuel Goldwyn Center. In the almost 50 years since the release of “the unofficial anthem of the women’s liberation movement,” the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be passed. ★★★★
Video on Demand New Release Roundup
You Cannot Kill David Arquette — There was a time in the mid-’90s when people would have killed to be David Arquette. With the rapidity of a Gatling gun, he cranked out what appeared to be a trio of career-dermining performances: the jaundiced rebel in Robert Rodriguez’s Roadracers (the director’s rapid-fire teensploitation contribution to Showtime’s fine Rebel Highway series), the momma’s boy aiming to gun down a legend in Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, and the potential suicide victim who can’t quite bid the world farewell in Finn Taylor’s Dream With the Fishes. Add to that a trio of Screams, and the future looked promising for the actor as he entered the new millennium. Given my affinity for both actor and genre, it’s freaky how the wrestling comedy Ready to Rumble came and went without my noticing. But someone must have seen it, for if ever a film kneecapped a career trajectory, it was that one. The film’s producer, Christina McLarty Arquette, later remarked, “Crossing over into that world caused a lot of directors not to take him seriously.” Do you think? Arquette was soon a WCW cast member, with a script calling for him to win the World Heavyweight Championship. It’s okay for celebrities, even future presidents, to enter the squared circle. Just don’t dare let a Hollywood outsider lick the competition, let alone take home a belt. Through it all, Arquette maintains a good-natured composure; he genuinely takes the audience catcalls to heart. After a decade of rejection by wrestling fans and Hollywood producers alike, directors David Darg and Price James follow the 46-year-old Arquette’s enrollment in Luchador U to prepare him for the most intense competition of his life. Not only does he follow the storyline to the letter, he also, thanks to his training, gives the performance of his career. 2020 — S.M. ★★★
The Rental — Brothers Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and their respective wife Michelle (Alison Brie) and girlfriend Mina (Sheila Vand) celebrate a recent successful business deal with a romantic getaway for four at a luxurious oceanside Airbnb. First-time director Dave Franco and co-screenwriter Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas) are at their best when introducing racism to the holiday in the form of Taylor (Toby Huss), a seemingly xenophobic lessor who may or may not have passed on Mina’s application — her name has a Muslim ring to it — to get to the one submitted by white privilege poster boy Charlie. At any given point, we’re not sure if it’s Mina or Taylor who’s looking to pick a fight. Regrettably, instead of sticking to the thrills, we end with the third act arrival of a masked slasher whose identity is never revealed. (Fanboys take note: it’s the filmmaker’s facile way of commenting on the randomness of violence.) Slow to start and even longer to draw to a predictable close, there’s a solid 40 minute chunk at the center that makes its points with subtlety and style. — S.M. ★★
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