Movies
As is increasingly becoming the case with Marvel movies, Civil War is so overstuffed with plot and characters that there's only room for clumsily broad strokes in painting character beats that really deserve a much finer point and way more breathing room. The central conflict between Captain American and Iron Man doesn't ever reach the emotional heights that it should, mostly because the movie doesn't take time to make their argument about anything more than archetypal ideologies, and the lack of development in the supposedly central relationship between Cap and Bucky has never been more detrimental than here. Either of these issues could have been easily fixed if they'd been granted a bit more screen time, but the film also has to make room for Ant Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Roadie, Peggy Carter's niece, the Scarlet Witch, the good AI from Age of Ultron, and the two newcomers, Black Panther and Spider-Man. Black Panther fares very well, actually, but Spider-Man, bless his adorable heart, really doesn't belong in this movie, despite the fact that only based on his maybe fifteen total minutes of screen time, I'm ready to declare him the best cinematic Spidey we've ever had. It's not all bad; it's not even mostly bad. It's actually quite good in stretches, particularly a mid-movie fight scene that's probably the best action sequence in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie just falls into that unfortunate space where its flaws are just visible enough to make make "pretty good" not nearly good enough. Grade: B
Even by the standards of black comedy, The Lobster is pretty cruel (though by the standards of Dogtooth, the other movie I'm familiar with from our esteemed director/co-writer, Yorgos Lanthimos, it's positively sunny), so the laughs tend to stick in the throat. By the standards of satirical absurdity, it's pretty average for the eastern-European theater of WTF-ery, although it's still great fun: you check into a hotel for 45 days, and if you haven't found your soul mate by the end, you are turned into an animal of your choosing. It's such a relatively contained premise that it's pleasantly surprising to see just how much the movie keeps unfolding this twisted fantasy world, and by the end, you get that rare, coveted feeling of having been taken on a long journey. Grade: A-
There are a handful of golden jokes in this movie (a recurring explosion-centered joke is particularly hysterical) padded out by a whole lot of mildly funny ones. Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are having such a blast, though, that it's contagious, and in the end, how good a joke is doesn't quite matter as much as their very winning enthusiasm to throw themselves into anything the screenplay puts in front of them. Grade: B
I'm comfortable calling The Act of Killing the best documentary of all time. It's a bold, searing gaze into the human condition that left me actually shaking. The premise is fascinating, albeit chiling (let the agents of the Indonesian genocide of Communists in the '60s tell their own stories), but nothing about its abstract concept is adequate preparation for the visceral impact of hearing these men glibly and unapologetically recount the vivid details of the scores of atrocities they've committed. Its final moments—in which one of those genocidal agents literally gags over the memories of his actions—rank among the most powerful moments I've ever seen in a movie. This is titanic, thundering, unforgettable cinema. Grade: A+
Music
Compared to their later work, The Mars Volta on their debut, De-Loused, is spare, punchy, and nearer to the post-hardcore genre than the proggy bona fides from their followup (the incomparable Frances the Mute) would indicate. I stress that this is compared to their later work. Compared to most other bands, The Mars Volta, even here, at their most restrained, remains a cacophonous act of rock maximalism that throws ideas like "spare" and "punchy" right out the window along with their punk cred. For some, this music will be numbing. For others, it's going to be exciting. I'll let you be the judge on where I fall (hint: Frances the Mute is my jam). Grade: B+
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