Movies
In true jazz spirit, Miles Ahead takes the component parts of an existing genre—in this case, the biopic—and chops it up in order to spin something new from the pieces. This is, ostensibly, a Miles Davis biopic, and we're certainly treated to a lot of the familiar biopic tropes: copious recreation of Davis records (the film is scored gorgeously by Robert Glasper), through-the-ages snapshots of Davis career highlights, an ill-fated romance. But not only are these moments thread, stream-of-consciousness style, through a 1970s-set framing device that occupies the lion's share of the movie, it's a framing device that very obviously and intentionally is composed of things that never happened. The movie might feint toward providing an origin-story for some of Davis's seminal work, but for about 70% of its runtime, it's mainly concerned with some weird, alternate-universe version of Miles Davis running around with a gun trying to get his session tape for Agharta back from some low-level crooks. It's weird, it's funny, it's a cock-eyed commentary on the myth-making that comes with being a once-in-a-generation musician, and it's full of awesome music. Miles ahead of other biopics, that's for sure. Grade: A-
As the black answer to American Graffiti, the differences between Cooley High and Lucas's earlier film are stark: it's not just teenaged ennui and go-nowhere small town life on the line here; its the ability of these characters to navigate the balance between their own youthful indiscretions and the hostility of the real world. So when the meandering occasions of the story inevitably pull tight into a plot in the film's final fifteen-ish minutes, the results are dark and Greekly tragic, retribution for things the cast of American Graffiti would have merely gotten fun hi-jinks out of hitting these black, Chicago teens with disproportional force. The film is far from perfect: the comedic first half isn't nearly as effective as the dramedic-to-straight-drama of the film's latter stages, and the female characters are slight enough that it's hard to shake the feeling that the film at least identifies a little with the casual sexism of the male protagonists. But it's an immensely fascinating film nonetheless, and one that hides a magnificent emotional wallop around the corner. Grade: B+
A meat-and-potatoes thriller given just enough of director Spike Lee's idiosyncratic touch—characters addressing the camera, film stock changes, that part where Denzel Washington appears stationary as the rest of the world moves by—that you don't really care that it's only meat and potatoes you're eating. It's solidly written, convincingly acted, and fun to watch, even if by the end it's never really established itself as anything all that special. Grade: B
This is trash, through and through: Proxy's plot involves obsession, perversion, a fully-explicit C-section of a still birth, a jealous and abusive lesbian lover, and not one but three gory deaths by shotgun. Please note that trash is not necessarily meant to denigrate here: cinema has a rich tradition of trash masterpieces. There's something undeniably transcendent about the sheer depths of old-fashioned, exploitation-style tastelessness that the film plumbs, and you know who you are if this is going to be your jam. For my part, I love a good, twisty, trashy thriller enough to appreciate those aspects here while not quite being gung-ho enough about the exploitation to ignore the painfully stiff acting, showy-for-showiness's sake cinematography, and troubling political subtext. Grade: B-
Television
I didn't pick up many new shows during the last TV season, but I'm glad I finally caught up with this one. It's a charming, sharp sitcom, and even though, as a former Kroger employee, I'm maybe uniquely positioned to be captivated by its grocery-store setting (although it's more along the lines of Costco than a true grocery store), I'd also venture to claim that it's got something for everyone, too. The humor is both warm and absurd (the gently funny interactions between the main cast are punctuated by wordless, incongruous footage from around the store, such as a pantsless man in the bathroom) without ever becoming cloying or acidic. The pilot is weak, the only place where the show breaks toward unmitigated and unearned sentiment, but the rest of the season is breezily good, especially a fantastic late-season episode involving the cast spending the night in the store that seems to hint that this show has not just breezy goodness but actual greatness in it. Looking forward to the second season starting this week. Grade: B+
Music
Last year's I Love You, Honeybear is one of the great singer-songwriter albums in recent memory. Fear Fun, the 2012 debut of the Father John Misty persona (Josh Tillman actually has a slew of albums as "himself" before becoming this bearded, social media sage, none of which I have heard), is not. Lacking Honeybear's swooning idealism and romance that conflicted compellingly with Misty's innate irony, Fear Fun is merely ironic, which, especially after "Holy Shit" and "Bored in the USA," just doesn't seem like enough. That's not to say it's bad: Tillman's voice remains like honey, and the psych-country stylings of the music itself are great fun. It's also frequently hilarious, evoking Bob Dylan's sillier absurd moments (one song is even called "Misty's Nightmares 1 & 2," which has to be a direct allusion to the similarly weird and joking "Bob Dylan's Dream" series on Zimmerman's '60s albums); the best of the lot is "Tee Pees 1-12," which begins with the lines, "Well, you took me to the movies; you took me to the dance/You took me to your warehouse tied up in the back of your van." So I guess I can't complain too much, especially considering that this is Honeybear's predecessor. I guess I can forgive an artist some artistic growth. Grade: B
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