Ferrari: Still out in the theatres, I managed to get out to see this yesterday afternoon in a fairly empty theatre. Here is yet another story that takes a very famous man, and then more closely examines his relationships, while paying lip service to his accomplishments in business, engineering, racing and the automotive industry. If you are going into this movie thinking you are seeing Ford vs Ferrari from the Ferrari side, you will be deeply disappointed. Interesting that movie with Matt Damon and Christian Bale is a really good companion piece to this one because the timing is very close, errr somewhat with the Ford win at Le Mans coming in 1966, while this movie starts in 1956 as Enzo Ferrari and his wife Laura start their company in post WWII Italy.  

Enzo Ferrari is played well here by Adam Driver. I prefer this performance to another Italian icon Driver played Maurizio Gucci in The House of Gucci, that I didn’t like very much. Here he seems to be channeling the man with many issues swirling around in his mind. The opening scene has him waking in bed with a woman, tousselling a young boy’s hair and then arriving to another house where a woman awaits him angrily. The angry woman is Ferrari’s wife, Laura, who accepts Enzo’s philandering, but their agreement is broken when he isn’t home before the maid arrives. It seems the romantic spark between these two has waned. Laura is still the bookkeeper for Ferrari and knows the financial situation of the company. It is a precarious time for the company as they are spending more than they make, since they are a racing company which pays for the racing by selling cars to the public. They only sold 96 cars in that previous year. The company needs an influx of funds from a partner, who won’t demand management oversight, telling Enzo how to run his company. 

The two women in Enzo’s life that we explore in any detail, are the wife Laura and mistress Lina. Laura is played admirably by Penelope Cruz who shows her own pain as she continues to be with this man who clearly has become distracted by something newer and fresher. She and Enzo have history, including a son together, which binds them in many ways which is explained further. The other woman is Lina Lardi, played by Shailene Woodley. As much as Cruz excels with Laura, I think that Woodley is completely miscast in her role. Her accent fluctuates badly, and I get no sense that she is in any way Italian. Audience members would be forgiven for thinking that Enzo had an American mistress. He didn’t. Both of these women have to endure being involved with Ferrari and his own challenges. I think that the Cruz portrayal shows her torment, but still underlying love for him and the company that she has helped to build. She is business savvy to the point of recognizing that she in the 1950s can’t be at the table negotiating with Ford or Fiat for the company she half owns. There are plenty of twists and turns. The race which is the focal point of the movie is the Mille Miglia which is a 1000 mile race across Italy, where the winner, much like Le Mans, will have a huge boost to the sales of cars to the public.  There is a parade of astounding vintage Ferraris and Mazerattis here, which remind me of the line in Ford Vs Ferrari where Christian Bale says at Le Mans when he sees the Ferraris arrive “…if this was a beauty contest, we have already lost”. The sound of these cars as they race around a track or on the streets is incredible. I note that Enzo Ferrari as the chief of his company isn’t driving a Ferrari, but then again as a race company he can’t practically do that. I enjoyed this. It was worth seeing, even in the moments when it slows to a crawl. Like Maestro, I think that there could be more time spent on the accomplishments of the man, and less focus on his personal life, but that was the story that they wanted to tell. 

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed: This is a documentary on Netflix from 2021. Recently released again, it outlines the life of the well-known public television landscape artist. Bob Ross was most famous for his ability to create an oil painting in thirty minutes or less, and his his belief that anyone would be able to paint like he does. To that end, after a stint in the Air Force, he decided to teach people how to paint. He had earlier seen the German born public TV artist named Bill Alexander. Ross sought out Alexander to discuss painting and Ross became a protege of Alexander. I remember seeing both on the TV during my youth. I was always amazed at how quickly their paintings came together and the layering of the colours one on top of the other. 

Like many artists, Ross was focused on his art, and cared little about the dollars and cents. He engaged in a partnership with Walt and Ann Kowalski. Ross was married three times. But the first marriage brought his only offspring along, a son named Steve. Steve also became part of the business, and was a talented painter in his own right. He was on the show, and also taught various classes. The show was the very popular The Joy of Painting (think by no coincidence, the books The Joy of Cooking or The Joy of Sex). It ran from January 1983 until May 1994. Along with the popularity came along items for sale, like brushes, paints, books which generated plenty of revenue. Ross died at the age of 52 in 1995 from cancer (lymphoma). Without giving too much away, a number of things are shown in this documentary which could be new to viewers. First his trademark afro hair was created, and not natural. Ross was a big hairstyle fan from early days, and this one seemed to resonate with audiences. Second, after becoming successful he incorporated Bob Ross Inc (BRI) with his partners, and the company owned all the intellectual property for Ross personally, and generated all the wealth. Third, that son Steve has gone through more than any son should given his father’s fame and wealth. Fourth, his death was kept very secret, with no friends and family in attendance in the hopes that the general public was still under the impression that he was still alive. Finally, before you decide to buy a Bob Ross puzzle, paint or other labelled BRI product you may want to consider where that money is going. This was interesting and I think that there are valuable lessons for those who enter into business with others, and being mindful of ownership and where the money goes, in addition to the value of Wills and documenting clearly your wishes upon your passing. No matter how old you are. 

Equalizer 3: Crave has this out for streaming. In retrospect I don’t even think that I had seen Denzel Washington reprise the role, made famous on TV, in the sequel The Equalizer 2. In the long list of movies that didn’t ever have to be made, or where there wasn’t any demand from the public for more comes this movie. It seems that Denzel Washington wanted a paid vacation to Italy, and chose this vehicle to have that happen. The story is a predictable one as the one-man hit squad with assassin’s skills has to step and right a perceived wrong. In this instance, in this quaint little town on the coast of Italy there are heavily tattooed muscle who terrorize the local population. It isn’t fully explained but there is a brother with his younger brother who is the instigator of a plan to make money while funding terrorist activities in his own country. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and even less when I try to explain it. 

Washington has stumbled into a situation at a villa in Sicily where he felt obligated to right a wrong from an ordinary man in Boston which turns into a much greater undertaking. Rather than taking it all on himself, he makes a phone call to a CIA phone operative, played by Dakota Fanning (who has come a long way from I Am Sam with Sean Penn).

Together he gives her hints so that she may show herself to be a crack investigator, and he can try and bring peace to his small world. He likes his small town, and they begin treating him like one of them. But they have this issue to deal with, and eventually Washington is able to ignore the problem any longer.  It all meets a predictable end, with a mailed in performance from Washington.  I cannot recommend this, and even wish that there was more scenes of the scenery around Italy. I don’t feel the need to watch the sequel still, even having bypassed it for this one.