Movies
13th, an activist documentary about the racism inherent in the prison system from Selma director Ava DuVernay, amplifies both the strengths and the weaknesses of the activist documentary format. As becomes abundantly clear in 13th's opening third, which sprints through a century of American history, documentary films—particularly this type of documentary film—aren't actually that good at argumentation in the traditional evidence-based ways that we might expect of a paper or a nonfiction book or even a well-researched newspaper feature; similar to most films of this type, 13th presents facts through a montage of talking heads that allude to broad trends without always pointing to specific pieces of evidence besides the mere credibility of these (often unnamed) talking heads. As such, I'm not sure how successful movies like this will ever be at "convincing," one of the ostensible purposes of activist journalism. For someone who is inclined to disagree with the film, it's far too easy to deconstruct the reality presented here, questioning implications, identifying generalizations, critiquing the lack of hard-enough evidence (very little evidence is ever hard enough if you want to argue with a point of view)—believe me, I've done it plenty of times with docs I don't believe. This documentary will probably not change any minds except those already in the process of changing. I do believe this documentary, though; I strongly agree that the current prison system (and the society that feeds it) has gigantic systematic issues that disproportionately (and racistly) affect communities of color in America, and so my own reaction to the film was a powerful one. What 13th finds instead of persuasive weight is the true power of this sort of movie, which is the force of rhetoric coupled with montage as a way of bolstering the urgency of an issue. At its strongest, 13th presents a flurry of images and audio whose sheer emotional impact is hard to ignore. One particularly effective moment late in the movie cross-cuts between audio of Donald Trump political rallies (this movie is nothing if not of-the-moment) with nearly perfectly corresponding images and speeches from the Jim Crow South. That's the kind of power this movie wields, the kind of thing that no amount of logical and counterclaiming can allow you to ignore. If I've made this movie sound like propaganda, I've done it a disservice. As the movie itself points out, leveraging the impact of images (even images over whatever logic the opposition brings) is a long-standing tactic of civil rights activism, from abolition all the way to the contemporary world of caught-on-phones YouTube. Argumentation you can debate; images, you can't. 13th isn't interested in debate. Grade: B+
It should come as no surprise that one of the best screenplays of the year is, of course, anchored to one of the best films of the year. But that Hell or High Water finds fresh humanity in its musty archetypes is a bit more unexpected: Gil Birmingham's character's subtle body language at Jeff Bridges's character's carelessly racist humor, Chris Pine's character's talk with his son, the entire freaking ending following a shootout that make me literally gasp out loud—this movie's funny, moving, and smart, but it's these little touches that make it truly great. Somewhere, the Coen brothers are very proud. Grade: A
This is, without a doubt, a might good-looking movie, and what's more, and impressively good-looking one (famously, Neel Sethi's Mowgli is the only notable non-CGI presence in the film). The Jungle Book has a great eye for setting up the iconography of its narrative as something both playful and mythic, although the screenplay less so—the bigger (often darker) thematic concerns of the identity of mankind in nature makes odd bedfellows with the callbacks and straight-up quoting of the original 1967 Disney classic. Look, I love "The Bare Necessities" as much as everyone else, but did it really need to be recontextualized within this movie? The core is solid enough that Disney probably could have done without the barrage of nostalgia and ended up with a better movie. Grade: B
Knight of Cups represents the first significant step forward for Terrence Malick since his landmark The Tree of Life five years ago—good thing, too, after the colossal bore that was 2013's To the Wonder. With this one, Malick finds new ways to render his pet tropes—the whispery voiceovers, lingering landscape shots, impressionistic editing—by recontextualizing them within a bundle of new forms, both structural (the film's sections are both modeled after Pilgrim's Progress and the tarot deck) and aesthetic (this movie is the first notable use of digital cameras in Malick's filmography). Of course, visual beauty is something of a given in Malick's films, even To the Wonder, and the philosophical ponderousness, though probably structured more rigorously than in past Malick movies, isn't unprecedented either. But put together in this specific way, they feel fresh and vital, and I dig that. Those looking for the warmth of The Tree of Life are probably in for a disappointment, and if your noise wrinkled at the Pilgrim's Progress-cum-tarot premise up there, then you'll probably want to skip. But if you're in for a movie with enthralling visuals and a good deal of intellectual (if not emotional) meat, then check it out. Grade: B+
My Golden Days is at least an interesting film, what with its genre switching (an extended sequence resembles a spy thriller, for example) within the larger teen romance genre. But as a romance, the film felt pretty unengaging to me, and the segmented structure that allows for that cool genre kaleidoscope also makes the movie feel ungainly and meandering, which is no fun. Also, it's worth noting that this movie is technically a prequel to 1996's My Sex Life... or How I Got into an Argument, a movie that I haven't seen and likely won't (not with that title). But perhaps I would have appreciated this one more if I'd seen the earlier one it's supposedly leading up to? Grade: B-
An utterly charming and frequently hilarious piece of screwball comedy that, if not quite up to its reputation as the genre's best, is so effortlessly entertaining that it really doesn't matter whatever reputational baggage it brings—even (especially) with an absolutely insane ending twist that throws the whole movie even further into farce. This is just really solid Classic Hollywood cinema, and I'm into it. Grade: A-
Music
Part dream pop, part noise, part feminist manifesto, part weird conceptual art project about menstruation and vampires—this is a weird one. It's also a very good one. While not quite as great as Hval's release last year (Apocalypse, girl), Blood Bitch still delivers an album that's both captivating in its melodies and freaky enough in its lyrics and sonic left turns to give that captivation the hint of unease. Grade: B+
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