By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Admittedly, it’s too early to talk Oscar, but I’d be stunned if Morgan Neville’s uplifting documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” about TV’s Mister Rogers doesn’t get a nomination and, perhaps, win.
A look behind-the-scenes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” reveals many surprises. The real Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian pastor who viewed the mass media of children’s television as his ministry. Arriving at the end of the turbulent 1960s, his soft-spoken, yet persuasive message was one of love and kindness.
For more than 30 years, he preached about self-worth which he believed was fundamental to growing up. His leisurely-paced show taught empathetic life lessons, tackling sticky subjects like divorce and death, dealing with dark emotions: fear, anger and jealousy.
Once when a technical glitch halted what they’d planned, he put a tiger puppet on his hand, which eventually became Daniel Striped Tiger, an outlet for his own fears and anxieties.
In response to racial discrimination — namely, Caucasians attacking African-Americans who tried to swim in desegregated pools — he invited Officer Clemmons, who was black, to join him in cooling off his feet in a tub of cool water on a hot day.
“Love is at the root of everything,” he maintained, adding, “All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love or the lack of it. And what we see and hear on the screen is part of what we become.”
That’s why he was so upset about the proliferation of frenetic, violent children’s TV.
Off-screen, cardigan-clad Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was married to Joanne; they raised two sons, John and James, who share their recollections, including, “His inner child never really went away.”
FYI: Rogers was a lifelong Republican. In 1969, when the Nixon administration planned to cut funding, his impassioned testimony to the Senate subcommittee, saved Public Broadcasting. And, next year, Tom Hanks stars in a Mister Rogers biopic, “You Are My Friend,” based on Tom Junod’s 1998 Esquire profile.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is an illuminating, insightful 10, a timely film to treasure.
One has to wonder why music-video auteur Director X (aka Julien Christian Lutz) decided to remake Gordon Parks Jr.’s gritty 1972 blaxploitation classic “Superfly” as his big-feature directorial debut.
It had to be the music — but how could he improve on the funky Curtis Mayfield soundtrack that served as a kind of Greek chorus?
According to Canadian-born Director X, it was hip-hop star Future, one of the originators of the current Atlanta sound, who enlists help from artists like Miguel, Khalid and Lil Wayne.
Moving the setting from the mean streets of Harlem to swankier Atlanta, the action/crime/thriller revolves around Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson), a savvy coke dealer with a neck tattoo and vertical pompadour who wants out supplying drugs, noting “no car ever outran fate.”
Priest’s ruthless, white-tracksuit/hoodie clad rivals are known as the Snow Patrol, headed by Q (Big Bank Black), whose sociopathic protégé Juju (Kaalan “K.R.” Walker) tries to gun him down.
Priest has two live-in girlfriends: sophisticated, African-American Georgia (Lex Scott Davis) and younger Latina Cynthia (Andrea Londo). Earning its R-rating, there’s a steamy, three-way sex scene in the shower.
Chasing one “last score,” so Priest turns to his mentor, martial-artist Scatter (Michael Kenneth Williams). When that doesn’t work, Priest, accompanied by his partner Eddie (Jason Mitchell), drives across the border to connect with Mexican drug cartel manager Adalberto Gonzalez (Esai Morales).
Plus, Priest is exploited by a couple of corrupt police officers (Brian F. Durkin, Jennifer Morrison), concluding with a satirical sting, courtesy of Outkasts’s rapper/songwriter Big Boi as Atlanta’s incumbent mayor, who’s running for re-election.
Aside from the obvious objectification of women, it’s superficial, stale stuff, scripted by Alex Tse.
On the Granger Gauge, “Superfly” snorts a formulaic, barely functional 5. Slick gangsta garbage.
In “First Reformed,” Ethan Hawke plays an alcoholic, emotionally tormented, cancer-plagued pastor in this bleak, character-driven drama.
In upstate New York, Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) impassively tends an old Dutch Reform church, best known for its historical importance as a stop on the Underground Railroad for fleeing slaves.
Basically, it’s a tourist attraction, run under as an adjunct of Abundant Life, a larger Protestant megachurch, headed by charismatic Pastor Joel Jeffers (Cedric the Entertainer).
When one of Rev. Toller parishioners, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks him to counsel her troubled, environmentalist husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), he discovers that Mary’s pregnant and Michael is urging her to get an abortion, saying it’s immoral to bring a child onto this decaying, doomed planet.
“Can God forgive us for what we’ve done to this world?” Michael asks Toller.
Meanwhile, Barq (Michael Gaston), a wealthy, if corrupt industrialist whose firm is responsible for much of the region’s pollution, is personally sponsoring the 250th birthday and re-consecration of Rev. Toller’s tiny country church. That’s Toller’s external angst.
Internally, Toller, a former military chaplain, suffered the death of his only son which, in turn, led to the dissolution of his marriage. In a moment of loneliness/weakness, he had a brief affair with the choir director Esther (Victoria Hill) which he now regrets.
Before he wrote and directed films, New York-based Paul Schrader was a critic and author of “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.” Schrader’s script credits include “Taxi Driver,” “American Gigolo” and “Raging Bull.”
Made in 20 days for $2.5 million, this is his first film revolving around his own, strict Calvinist beliefs and — midway through — Schrader seems to succumb to his melancholy, sadly ineffectual antagonist’s rambling, naively methodical storytelling. Eschewing subtlety, his points are studiously obvious.
On the Granger Gauge, “First Reformed” falls to an austere 4, wallowing in anguish and despair. There’s a reason why it was rejected by both Amazon and Netflix.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
