We’re fully immersed in the creepiest season of the year, hurtling headlong toward the most shudder-inducing date on the calendar. That’s right, Election Day is less than a month away.
Now, Oregon ArtsWatch is a nonprofit organization, which means it is forbidden from expressing a preference among political candidates (you know, like churches). I think it’s okay for me to say, however, that the character of Donald J. Trump, as portrayed by Sebastian Stan in the new film The Apprentice, is not someone I would want in the highest office in the land. Frankly, he’s someone who should be behind bars.
This riveting, highly unauthorized quasi-biography of the future 45th president takes place between 1973, when Trump first fell into the orbit of the legendarily vicious Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), and Cohn’s death from AIDS in 1986. It was during these years, as those steeped in Trump’s origin mythos know, that he was transformed from the lightweight second son of a minor slumlord to the epitome of 1980s gold-plated (or at least gold-painted) decadence and the purported master of the art of the deal. And you thought it was all Rona Barrett’s fault.
It’s Cohn, in this telling, who spots Trump first, from his private table at an exclusive Manhattan private club. Nixon has just given his “I am not a crook” speech, and the Trump Organization has recently been accused of violating the Fair Housing Act by setting higher standards for nonwhite apartment applicants. Cohn, who made his name working for Senator Joseph McCarthy and spearheading the prosecution and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, easily butters up the anxious scion and takes the case. He mounts an audacious countersuit against the Justice Department and secures a slap on the wrist for the Trumps. The rest is history, except to the degree that we’re living with its echoes every day.
Screenwriter Gabriel Sherman (whose only previous feature credit is the forgettable 2016 sequel Independence Day: Resurgence) and director Ali Abassi (the excellent Holy Spider) have a very thin tightrope to walk here. Real-world Trump is one of the most familiar, imitated, parodied, and polarizing figures on earth. And while The Apprentice certainly cannot claim to be a neutral take, it inevitably engages in a certain degree of humanization. Whether it’s the humor in Trump’s cluelessness at one of Cohn’s cocaine-fueled bacchanals, where he doesn’t recognize Andy Warhol, or the one time he shamefully breaks down in tears after his brother Fred, Jr.’s death, there are moments in which one feels sympathy, even pity, for a man who was the approval-starved victim of his emotionless father and therefore easy prey for the cruel paternalism of Cohn.
But the movie doesn’t let its protagonist off easy, by any means. As Trump’s star rises, his blustering ego, his violent misogyny, and his delusions of grandeur take center stage. By the mid-1980s, the apprentice has become a capable journeyman in the art of self-promotion and pitiless politics. And as Cohn becomes visibly frail from what he always insisted was liver cancer, Trump publicly distances himself, violating when it suits him the loyalty he claims he values so much in others.
Strong seems like any easy choice to play Cohn, his hawkish, unsmiling face and twitchy intensity right out of the Kendall Roy playbook. But that doesn’t give the notoriously methodological actor enough credit. To depict one of the 20th century’s greatest American villains as anything more than a moustache-twirling sadist takes the sort of commitment that only a performer like Strong can summon. But Stan, who’s so impressive in A Different Man (now in theaters, but not for long!), has the even more difficult task. Trump’s facial expressions, vocal tics, hairstyle, and so much more are seared in our brains whether we like it or not. In his younger years, those quirks were not as pronounced, but they were present, and Stan’s ability to precisely moderate his performance elevates it well above mere imitation. Both Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), as Ivana Trump, and an unrecognizable Martin Donovan (Simple Men), as Fred Trump, contribute solid supporting work, and cinematographer Kasper Tuxen deftly captures the grainy, orange-brown look of the 1970s, allowing it to mesh easily with the interspersed archival footage.
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The Apprentice can’t help but end on a note of foreboding. Early in their relationship, Cohn famously shared his three rules for life with Trump. One: “Attack, attack, attack.” Two: “Deny everything.” Three: “No matter what happens, never admit defeat.” Those rules are repeated by Trump near the film’s close, as if we needed a reminder of the influence that Cohn continues to have on his prize pupil nearly four decades after his own death. This movie isn’t going to change any voters’ minds, of course, and why should it? Reality ought to be enough. (Opens on Thursday, Oct. 10)
TV PICK
Disclaimer*: We don’t cover very many television series in this column (who has the time?!?), but when four-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón teams up with two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and relative failure one-time Oscar winner Kevin Kline for a seven-episode drama, it tends to make one sit up and take notice. And, by and large, this Apple TV+ prestige production lives up to its promise.
Blanchett stars as Catherine Ravenscroft, an investigative documentarian known for her work unearthing long-buried crimes and scandals. She has a comfortable home life with her mild-mannered husband Robert (a nearly unrecognizable Sacha Baron Cohen) and sullen teenaged son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Kline, also fairly incognito in old-age makeup, is Stephen Brigstocke, a bitter schoolteacher whose life has lost meaning since the death of his wife Nancy (Oscar nominee Lesley Manville).
As Cuarón introduces us to these players, Disclaimer flashes back to twenty years earlier, as young Jonathan Brigstocke (Louis Partridge) travels in Italy with his girlfriend. When she returns early to England, he’s left to his own devices and soon meets a stunning young Catherine (Leila George, the daughter of Greta Scacchi and Vincent D’Onofrio, who definitely got her mother’s looks) vacationing with her toddler son.
Back in the present day, Stephen begins delivering copies of a self-published book that describes the relationship between Catherine and Jonathan and how it led to the young man’s death. Gleefully tossing this truth grenade to Catherine’s co-workers and family members, Stephen’s bent on destroying her carefully constructed life, turning her own journalistic ethos against her. Naturally, it quickly begins to work. Just as naturally, that’s not even close to the whole story.
Disclaimer is, as you’d expect, stunningly shot, with Cuarón’s regular cinematographer Emmanuel Lubitzki and Coen Brothers collaborator Bruno Delhommel giving sleek, cinematic visuals to accompany the polished and precise performances. Blanchett’s Catherine combines professional self-assurance and domestic insecurity, and she’s brilliant, as is Kline as the epitome of the grumpy old man who’s all out of fucks to give. The real surprises, though, are Cohen, who demonstrates that his chameleonlike talent can be used to shrink into a role as well as burst out of one; and George, whose seductive beauty masks a darker tale.
Ironically, Disclaimer includes disclaimers at the top of two of its episodes. One warns of strong sexual content, which I suppose is worth knowing if one is watching with a child or parent: it does get pretty saucy, but nothing beyond what an R rating would allow. The other comes before the final episode, and I won’t repeat it here because it functions as a spoiler for the series’ ultimate revelations. It’s a shame that a filmmaker who’s shown he’s not afraid of on-screen sexuality (all the way back to Y tu mamá también) has the impact of his storytelling blunted by these unnecessary trigger warnings. (Episodes 1 & 2 premiere Oct. 11 on Apple TV+, with additional episodes following through Nov. 8)
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SPOOKY SEASON
A presidential election isn’t the only thing to fear over the next few weeks. There’s also the annual deluge of horror films leading up to Halloween, which in some ways is growing nearly as oppressive as the relentless onslaught of Christmas movies coming in a couple months. Not that there aren’t great horror films out there to discover, but the same canonized catalog seems to dominate the conversation.
Fortunately, there are some unique offerings to be found from Portland’s independent theaters. Among them:
Hishkenstein: After Dark: This bizarre, borderline-incoherent splatter comedy follows the resurrection of an undead cult filmmaker named Ramirez Hishkenstein and the cinematic mayhem he instigates after being raised from the dead. This leads to an anthology of short, absurdist mini-flicks that include an appropriate, considering the aesthetic on display, appearance by Troma Films’ Lloyd Kaufman. The event also includes Halloween-ish vendors hawking wares in the lobby, and the feature will be preceded by a screening of the 1965 Z-grade relic Monsters Crash the Pajama Party. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in their own sleepwear of choice. (Friday 10/11, 9:30 p.m., Cinema 21)
The Convent: This camp classic from 2000 is the spotlight for this month’s Queer Horror series, with co-stars Liam Kyle Sullivan (best known for their music video “Shoes”) and Megahn Perry in attendance. The movie itself is a Buffy-era cheesefest about a group of teens who break into an abandoned church and end up facing the ire of demon-possessed nuns. Adrienne Barbeau is their only hope. (Saturday, 10/12, 8 p.m., Hollywood Theatre)
The Clinton Street Theater, true to form, has a week’s worth of offbeat terrors on tap, starting with a Saturday night screening of one of Nicolas Cage’s most intense performances (which of course is saying something) in Mandy. Sunday sees an undead double feature including the Korean comedy Zombies for Sale, in which a conniving family tries to monetize the rejuvenating power of grandpa’s bite, and the Japanese meta-movie One Cut of the Dead, in which a horror movie crew gets ambushed by the real thing. Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 masterpiece Possession, starring Isabelle Huppert and Sam Neill, shows on Monday, and if you’ve never seen it, I’m not going to spoil things here, except to say that Huppert reportedly nearly lost her mind while making it. Tuesday’s fun comes in the form of Raw, the feature debut of director Julia Ducournau (Titane), about a vegetarian veterinary student who discovers a taste for homo sapiens tartare. A haunted boarding school for miscreant girls is the setting of the 1968 Mexican horror landmark Even the Wind Is Afraid, presented by Church of Film on Wednesday. Whew. That’s a lotta screams. (Clinton St. Theater, Saturday 10/12-Wednesday 10/16)
Yet another hidden gem (or at least a chunk of zircon) is unearthed in the form of 1974’s The Ghost Galleon, the third entry in the Spanish director Amando de Ossorio’s noted Tombs of the Blind Dead trilogy. When will swimsuit models out on an ocean voyage learn not to explore every derelict old ship they happen across? Not in this film, at least. Maybe being chased around by the decomposed bodies of medieval knights will teach them? Probably not. (Monday, 10/14, Hollywood Theatre)
Daddy’s Head: This is the most intriguing new horror film I’ve seen this Halloween season. It’s a slickly made effort from British director Benjamin Barfoot (his second feature) about a boy, Isaac (Rupert Turnbull), who finds himself stuck in the custody of his new stepmother (Julia Brown) after his dad’s death in a car accident. Dad has insisted on being buried at the family estate, a spacious modernist home conveniently located adjacent to a vast and creepy forest. When Isaac starts to insist that his father’s not dead at all, but is visiting him in his bedroom at night, the reluctant guardian quickly loses patience. But when it turns out that Isaac isn’t just processing grief in his own way, things get creepier and creepier. Barfoot uses slow camera glides and a spare soundtrack to conjure tension without relying on any real on-screen violence. With a folk horror vibe and a clever creature design (that Barfoot wisely presents only fleetingly), this is a pleasant surprise for viewers who want to be scared but not grossed out. (Streaming on Shudder starting Friday, Oct. 11)
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ALSO OF NOTE THIS WEEK
Basquiat: The Black and White Version: Director Julian Schnabel has overseen a new 4K restoration of his 1996 biopic about fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and in the process apparently opted to drain the color from it. Now in black and white, the movie features once of those casts that could only exist in the mid-90s: Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Courtney Love, Parker Posey, Benicio Del Toro, and more, topped off by Jeffrey Wright’s star-making performance in the lead. (Friday & Saturday, 10/11-12, 9:30 p.m., Cinema 21)
Selling Superman: After the death of his father, Darren Watts discovers the extent of the massive comic book collection he had amassed over the previous forty years, one that includes a copy of Superman #1 worth over three million dollars. Selling the collection could change his family’s fortunes forever, but doing so opens old wounds and requires a healing journey on Darren’s part. This 4-part documentary series from director Adam Schomer will have its world premiere, with an VOD release scheduled for next month. (Wednesday, 10/16, Cinema 21)
Masterpieces of Nordic Cinema: Nordic Northwest recently kicked off an eight-film series plucking highlights from over a century of Scandinavian film history. One of the rarest movies in the festival, 1935’s Swedenheilms, screens this week, with selections from Ingmar Bergman, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Aki Kaurismäki, and Ruben Östlund on tap in future weeks. Swedenhelms is a Depression-era comedy about a wealthy family on the brink of ruin and features a glowing early performance from a young Ingrid Bergman. (Thursday, 10/10, Nordia House)
Marc Mohan moved to Portland from Wisconsin in 1991, and has been exploring and contributing to the city’s film culture almost ever since, as the manager of the landmark independent video store Trilogy, the owner of Portland’s first DVD-only rental spot, Video Vérité; and as a freelance film critic for The Oregonian for nearly twenty years. Once it became apparent that “newspaper film critic” was no longer a sustainable career option, he pursued a new path, enrolling in the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College in the fall of 2017 and graduating cum laude in 2020 with a specialization in Intellectual Property. He now splits his time between his practice with Nine Muses Law and his continuing efforts to spread the word about great (and not-so-great) movies, which include a weekly column at Oregon ArtsWatch.
