2010s

Films from the 2010s

Hairat

Our film club finished up our latest cycle last week. So before we begin again, we all make a pick for our short-film festival. I won’t offer any comments here about the other picks (which were all enjoyable to watch); just some thoughts on mine.

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Hairat

Where to watch: Just Watch

Last Friday, before our Zoom film club, I was coming back from a conference in Tampa, when we stopped at a rest stop on I-75 just past Paynes Prairie.

To me, a prairie means dry grasslands, without trees, but possibly plenty of gophers. Of course, that isn’t the case in Florida. There’s plenty of water, and it resembles a swamp from the interstate.

As we’re pulling into the rest stop, I see people gathered along a chain-link fence separating the rest stop from a storm-water retention pond. An alligator has everyone’s attention.

We get out of the car and walk over to a 7- to 8-foot gator about a yard away — on the other side of the fence. (Yes, gators can climb fences, but by my calculations, I could run faster than it could climb.)

Bernie

Bernie didn’t ring a bell when I heard it was this week’s pick for film club, but after looking it up, I recognized the poster for this 2011 movie.

Now Showing

Bernie

Where to watch: Just Watch

I assume that after the previous year’s abysmal Gulliver’s Travels, I immediately disregarded Bernie when I saw that it starred Jack Black. I should have paid attention to the other two headliners in the cast (Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey) and to the director (Richard Linklater).

Black could easily have overplayed real-life mortician Bernie Tiede, but his restraint endears you to the character, even after he’s shot wealthy widow Margie Nugent (MacLaine) and hidden her body in a Deepfreeze. It’s a sympathetic portrayal, yet has touches of humor (such as when Black cheerfully — maybe a bit too cheerfully — sings “Love Lifted Me” as he drives along as the opening credits roll).

MacLaine is equally restrained, but maybe too much, as the hard-hearted Margie, who slowly grows fond of Bernie until she becomes overly possessive of him and his time.