Movies
The first narrative section of this movie's three isn't much different from what you've seen from other inner-city-set indies (or even TV's The Wire). No, where Moonlight's brilliance is to be found is in its two subsequent parts, which explore how human beings both change and remain static over time with a nuance and piercing insight that I've seldom seen (and of all things, Mad Men seems the closest corollary as far as how it handles human relationships over long periods of time—and honestly, the same goes for the dialogue, which walks a wonderful line between literary and achingly human). This is the story of Chiron: gay, African-American, projects-raised—the movie smartly doesn't make any of those characteristics a central premise for the character (although he would be greatly changed were any of those things to be different), and what we're left to grapple with instead is the titanic beauty and pain of the human experience in general, and the way that those two (beauty and pain) can occur within the space of the same moment or drawn out over years. Don't miss this one. Grade: A
We've been lucky enough to have two Werner Herzog documentaries in 2016, and I don't want to spit on that. Both are good, engaging films, but I've got to give the edge to Lo and Behold over this one. Although both films are scattered, Lo and Behold makes this a feature of its structure, employing intentionally episodic section breaks, Into the Inferno just meanders forward without any clear structure to hang its scenes on. This movie feels fitfully too long and pointless, and that's unfortunate, considering that there are some tremendous, classic Herzog humans to be found here (a late-film fossil hunter that feels like a Jeff Goldblum character come to life is a particular highlight). And the footage of the magma flows is never less than awe-inspiring. That's less true of a detour into North Korea. Grade: B
A documentary that finds thematic connections between astronomy and the horrors within the Pinochet dictatorship should be a bit too far-reachingly literary for its own good. And Nostalgia for the Light probably is, honestly. That doesn't stop it from being an engaging watch, though, and its depiction of human grief and obsession is pretty great. Grade: B+
The basic critical breakdown on Lost Highway seems to be that Lynch diehards regard it as a masterpiece, while everyone else just sort of dislikes it. I'm feeling in the middle—this is nowhere near Lynch's magnum opus, and while the filmmaking on display is certainly no slack, the overall effect is way more muddled than it should be (the soundtrack [usually a Lynch highlight] does the movie no favors, either, what with the abundance of mid-'90s hard rock screamers that, given my age, I'm in no position to decide whether have aged poorly or were simply no good to begin with). Also, let the record show that this is the first Lynch movie I've seen that I found genuinely troubling in its depiction of women, particularly one woman: Patricia Arquette, who, for the movie's primary female avatar, spends entirely too much time engaged in twisted coital scenarios and general femme fatalery. That said, Lynch movies are unparalleled in their ability to unsettle and bend standard noir plots toward the metaphysical, and this one does not disappoint on either of those counts. In fact, through a certain lens, Lost Highway feels like an early draft of Lynch's later actual masterpiece, Mulholland Drive, and the intertextual ideas between those two films are rich. They might be richer if this movie's execution were just a little tighter, though. Grade: B
Television
Season 4's major innovation is the weaving of the previous season's loose collection of threads into a coherent (and even intermittently serialized) world. I'm mostly ambivalent on this forward momentum as a whole, because while it pays off wonderfully in this season, there's no denying that it also tames the show a bit, or at least has the potential to—once you give characters consistent motivations and ongoing arcs, the opportunities for the free-wheeling, adventurous absurdity that have been the show's bread-and-butter grow smaller, and the pieces available to sacrifice for whimsical shock diminish. Basically, we probably aren't going to be getting another episode like the one where Tree Trunks disappears with a *poof*/cut to credits. But as I said, the intensified focus on character development and mythology growth works like gangbusters in this season, and as a result, we're gifted with some mighty fine television indeed. The Princess Bubblegum-Finn-Fire Princess love triangle is sweetly mature; the season-ending multiverse cliffhanger is appropriately nail-biting; and the Ice King/Marceline-focused "I Remember You" is simply one of the most beautiful episodes of TV I've ever seen. In fact, don't mind my griping; this season's great. Grade: A-
Music
Knoxville's burgeoning progressive rock scene is at the exciting phase where the groups who first expanded the scene with promising debut singles, EPs, and live shows are beginning to release full-lengths. White Stag had their long-ish EP Eos Crux earlier in 2016 (and, given their FB activity, looks to be on the brink of releasing something else in the near future), and now we have Maps Need Reading with their own LP. While White Stag seems to be carving out their sound in the prog metal tradition and Lines Taking Shape are doing their math-y King Crimson thing, Mapsynapse seems to position Maps Need Reading more along the lines of Steven Wilson's prog-revival sound: a mix of soft rock, folk, Pink Floyd atmospherics, and full-on laser-light-show guitar jams. The album is clearly a step forward for the band, and as a collection of proggy setpieces, it's accomplished and ambitious. That said, there's still quite a bit to tighten up as far as production and songwriting goes (Steven Wilson, let's not forget, is an absolute master mixer, and these guys are not Steven Wilson). So what this feels like is less a definitive statement than it is another stepping stone toward some later, greater work. And that's okay; historically, prog bands have taken several albums to fully bloom. Maps Need Reading is getting there. Grade: B
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