Movies
As many, many people have pointed out before me, the beginning of this movie is rough. Really rough. As I watched the action scoot among five different planets and Lord knows how many different characters within five minutes, I had the sinking feeling that I was not going to like this scattered, confusing mess of a film. And indeed, up through the end of the section involving Forest Whitaker's Saw Gerrera (I didn't time, but reportedly 45-60 min. into the movie), I was getting that numb feeling I got by the end of The Force Awakens, that the film was mistaking quips for wit, emotive acting for clear character motivation, and action sequences for stakes. But then. Oh but then. The rest of the movie happened, and ladies and gentlemen, the hour-plus of movie remaining after that shaky beginning is the best Star Wars cinema we've gotten since the legendary tri-part climax of Return of the Jedi. Honestly, comparisons between Jedi and Rogue One are instructive, as both movies putter around on a desert planet with grizzled bottom-feeders before kicking into high, high gear with an epic battle that occupies a vegetated ground level, a tech-y fortress level, and a dogfight-esque space level simultaneously. In both cases, the results are breathtaking, exhilarating action spectacles. For as much flak as The Force Awakens caught for cribbing A New Hope's style and structure, Rogue One adopts much of the same in relation to Episode VI. The difference is that where Force Awakens uses those structural parallels to try to borrow the mythic vibes from its predecessor, Rogue One, with the exception of Donnie Yen's Guardian of the Whills (which, if I'm not mistaken, is an allusion to an early draft of Lucas's original Star Wars storyline—surely the most surprising and obscure of the film's many, many original trilogy easter eggs), largely jettisons the heavy mythology that informs Jedi's plot in favor of a boots-on-the-ground militaristic approach. People online have been batting around the idea that Rogue One is the movie to finally put the "War" in Star Wars, and that's obviously false to anyone who has watched any of the original trilogy or the Clone Wars TV series. But I will go to bat for the idea that this is the Star Wars movie that spends the most energy presenting the intergalactic violence as the endeavors of large military entities rather than the shuffling about of the same cast of half-dozen distantly related characters. Whatever the case, the emphasis on military action and maneuvers means that it doesn't matter if the characters never quite recover from the film's crumbling first section (and, honestly, they don't—these characters are either painted in such broad strokes or presented so opaquely that none of them ever really land) because this isn't a movie about characters so much as big action setpieces involving large numbers of combatants and vehicles, and as that, it's great. Rogue One has some of the best action of 21st century blockbuster history, and it has the good sense to put the very best stuff as close to the end as possible. I started the movie a bit frustrated; I ended it elated and feeling, for the first time since I don't even know when that I was excited for the future of the Star Wars universe. Grade: A-
A mean, nasty little horror thriller that smartly reverses the home-invasion formula so that we follow the band of invaders rather than the invadee. Good thing, too, because the more we learn about the blind man who lives in the house our teen protagonists break into, the nastier and less effective the film becomes. Apparently the best way to make us care about burglars is to make the guy they are robbing from even worse than a bunch of kids willing to rob a blind man. Don't Breathe is at its best when it sticks to the tactile terror of the robbers having to avoid detection in the house, grounded by fantastic lighting and sound design. Grade: B+
The original Blair Witch Project movie is one of THE great American horror films and, with its often incomprehensible camerawork and half-improvised scripting, probably the nearest mainstream horror has ever gotten to the pure avant-garde, if only (as is likely) accidentally so. It's made only greater by the delicious ambiguity that imbues every frame up until the terrifying heights of ambiguity in its ending. Blair Witch, the second sequel to the '99 feature, tries to capture this ambiguity as well, but either due to a lack of commitment or the fact that this movie seems so much more self-consciously constructed compared to the meticulously evoked haphazardness of the original, its open-endedness ends up feeling so much smaller. Giving the kids multiple cameras was a mistake, as was having characters give bits of explanation in the protracted (and somewhat familiar) finale. What we're left with feels a lot closer to a conventional teen horror flick, where we wait with equal parts fear and bloodlust for these vaguely irritating youngsters are picked off one by one. It's a decent iteration of that kind of movie, and the climax does some neat things with camera perspective and the series mythology. But I can't help wanting something a bit more special. Grade: B
It's grisly, grimly funny, and has a lot of pulp fun with subverting the bondage/prisoner tropes within its premise (local, stalker-ish lonely dude imprisons the girl he's been obsessing over). But it's also tremendously nasty in temperament and not all that exciting, filmmaking-wise. Plus, once it tips its hand mid-movie to the kind of game its playing, there's not all that many places the film can go that don't feel predictable. As a B-movie thriller (and a chance to see Dominic Monaghan finally get more work [and try on an American accent, no less!]), it's fine, if unremarkable. Grade: B-
On the rubric of "unfun movies about the effects of substance abuse on familial relationships," Krisha gets good marks—it's fantastically acted and stylishly shot. But it's still an unfun movie about the effects of substance abuse on familial relationships, which also makes it kind of a miserable watch. Miserable because it's craft is impeccable, not because the movie is any sort of failure. But miserable all the same, and while I'll acknowledge its power, I'll not rush to see it again. Grade: B
Considering that its premise—a man falsely accused of sexual assault at the kindergarten where he works—is a personal nightmare of mine, it should be no surprise that I found this movie white-knuckle terrifying. It's probably for the best, though, that the movie is less concerned with the central injustice/misunderstanding than it is with larger ramifications within the small Danish community in which it occurs. This is a movie about mass hysteria and the ways that misinformation spreads and won't let go. In the end, that's the ultimate horror here: the frailty of the truth. Grade: B+
The movie's opening shot—a breathtaking, intergalactic zoom out from Earth—is awesome. But it's all downhill from there. Look, I'm a sucker for first-contact movie; you had me in the bag here by your premise alone, Contact! The thing is that it's not just a first-contact movie—it's a science-vs.-religion movie, it's a father-daughter movie, it's a Matthew-McConaughey-is-charmingly-sexy movie, and all of those things are varying degrees of tiresome in execution here, made all the worse by a typical Robert Zemeckis bloated runtime. In fact, for very long stretches of this already very long 2.5 hours, Contact is way more interested in being all those tiresome things than it is at being a first-contact movie. There are good things here beyond the opening shot, but the whole package is just kind of bleh. Not to mention the ending, which is the most jerked around I've felt by a movie in a long while. Grade: C+
I suppose what one gets out of this movie depends on one's knowledge of the Holocaust, since informing seems to be the main purpose here. But given I took a couple high school history courses, there's nothing here that's all that informative to me—in fact, with its short runtime, colorful and dynamic imagery, urgent tone, and breakneck pace, this documentary seems tailor-made for the high school classroom alongside units about Anne Frank and WWII. And there's value in that; the film is solidly (if bluntly) put together, and I'd imagine it would be a good primer on one of the defining events of the 20th century, were someone to need one. But I didn't. So this one isn't for me. Grade: C
A comparison between this movie and 1982's Genocide is instructive—both assume that its audience is in need of being informed of major, world-shaping 20th-century events surrounding the Holocaust, but The Long Way Home, dealing with the post-WWII struggles faced by Europeans Jews leading to the formation of Israel, is the only one of the two that's actually right in that assumption. At least, for me. As I said in my Genocide review, the need to be informed about something will obviously differ wildly from viewer to viewer, and that's no less true here. Either way, we're still dealing with an info-doc, one that I found often fascinating but one that's still chock full of talking heads, archival footage, and other dusty Ken Burns-lite tropes. There's nothing about this form of the movie that's going to wow you. But if you're as ignorant as I am, the content might. Grade: B+
Its premise is maybe a little toward the wrong side of sitcommy, and its ending is perhaps a bit too neat and epiphanic. But in between, there is a wealth of well-observed moments, including what is likely the single most accurate depiction of how elderly mothers react to their children being vegetarian (my wife has stories... so many stories). The ability to see yourself or people you know in a movie is not and should not be the ultimate goal of cinema at large. But golly, when this sort of comedic observationalism lands, it's as savory as they come. Grade: B+
It's bit too meandery to have the lithe efficiency that characterizes the best comedies (a subplot involving the editing of a sci-fi film feels like an excuse to pad the runtime out to a clean 90 minutes). But Modern Romance has it where it really counts. The film realizes that many of the tropes that govern the romantic comedy are, if looked at from the right angle, less sweeping displays of deep love and more evidence of a pathological way of viewing yourself in relation to others. In fact, Modern Romance revels in turning the rom-com to just such an angle, giving us a hysterical yet often excruciating series of events in which Albert Brooks goes through all the typical rom-com romantic gestures of love and grief, only with the awareness that in reality, these actions are painfully wrong-headed. The modern cringe-comedy ethic has many roots, and I'm sure Albert Brooks is nowhere near the main of that lineage. But the final scene stings with such an agonizing display of human beings stumbling into wrong decision after wrong decision that it's hard not to feel the precedent for something akin to the UK version of The Office. An acerbic, cynical delight, if such words can be strung together like that. Grade: A-
A spirited and hilarious first half gives way to a much more pedestrian second half. In the annals of screwball comedy (and even more specifically Ernst Lubitsch-directed screwball comedy), this one's no great shakes, but it's intermittently delightful and never really dull. Miriam Hopkins is beyond charming as well, and the fact that this movie has a genuine affection for leftist bohemians (as opposed to the often feigned affection that movies like to adopt) makes this one a pretty good time. Grade: B+
Television
Black Mirror, Series 3 (2016)
What people sometimes forget about The Twilight Zone, surely the gold standard for the sci-fi anthology show, is that every third or fourth episode was pretty forgettable, if not downright terrible. We remember "Time Enough at Last" and "Eye of the Beholder," but there was also that one about the murderous slot machine. My point is that Black Mirror, a frequently great sci-fi anthology show that's nonetheless inferior to TZ, comes pretty close to putting all its eggs in one basket by having seasons as brief as it does. Season 3 does a little better by actually doubling the show's episode count with its 6-episode season, and that pays off—weaker episodes like the premier Bryce Dallas Howard-starring "Nosedive" feel less like a waste than, say, "The Waldo Moment" from S2, and "Playtest," "Shut Up and Dance," and especially "San Junipero" all three rank among the show's best. Not bad. Grade: B
Orange Is the New Black, Season 1 (2013)
At this early stage in the series, Orange Is the New Black's biggest issue is that its main characters are its least interesting. I care little about Piper and even less about her enemy-cum-lover Alex (who is, let's be honest, little more than a plot catalyst in this season, poignant flashback notwithstanding), and whenever the show focuses on these two, I'm checking out. The rest of the cast is varying levels of poignantly charming, though—at least, those that the show gives any attention (for a show with such a strong reputation for being "woke," it's odd that the series's second-biggest problem is its frequent trafficking in racial stereotypes, something that affects the Hispanic members of the cast most, who rarely rise above their tropes). Really, the sprawling cast is a blessing and a curse here, giving it a rich scope while also occasionally feeling a mile wide and an inch deep. It's a messy, imprecise season but one with considerable strengths, both comedic and dramatic and always toward interesting social commentary. Grade: B+
Books
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1965)
I'm no Pynchon scholar, having only read Inherent Vice prior to this one (and been appropriately bewildered by it), but even on an intellectual level, it's a relief to know that this, his shortest novel, is a mere 150 pages of dense postmodern narrative relative to his normal 500-800. Even better is that the plot is actually coherent and, best of all, super punny. You've got to appreciate a satire of 1960s California culture that makes room for the silly wordplay of characters named Mucho Maas and Dr. Hilarius, not to mention the many parodic depictions of mid-'60s rock and roll—"I Want to Kiss Your Feet," by Sick Dik and the Volkswagens, maybe be the best of the lot, but there's much more. All of which is to say: yes, this is postmodern literature at its most postmodern, but this one has the good sense that most of the best postmodern works do, which is to at least have fun with the existential terror. Grade: B+
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid (2016)
A really effective, semi-surreal page-turner kind of falls apart into tiresome solipsism in its final few pages, which is a huge disappointment. Somehow, Reid manages to find the most boring solution to each of the novel's many mysteries. But oh well. It's quite a ride getting there. Grade: B-
Music
Solange - A Seat at the Table (2016)
The first of many 2016 albums I've been wanting to catch up with since my Best of 2016 music post. And it's good! Especially in its slow-burn-to-soaring anthems "Cranes in the Sky" and "Don't Touch My Hair," Solange shows a fantastic interplay between controlled, contemporary R&B atmospherics and pure pop bliss. It's a subdued and meditative record that knows just the right moments to burst free into unrestrained melody, and that's great. The interlude tracks/skits are less interesting, focusing on well-trodden talking points in modern-day race dynamics, but taken as a whole with the actual songs, A Seat at the Table is an immensely beguiling celebration of black identity. Grade: B+
Books
I'm no Pynchon scholar, having only read Inherent Vice prior to this one (and been appropriately bewildered by it), but even on an intellectual level, it's a relief to know that this, his shortest novel, is a mere 150 pages of dense postmodern narrative relative to his normal 500-800. Even better is that the plot is actually coherent and, best of all, super punny. You've got to appreciate a satire of 1960s California culture that makes room for the silly wordplay of characters named Mucho Maas and Dr. Hilarius, not to mention the many parodic depictions of mid-'60s rock and roll—"I Want to Kiss Your Feet," by Sick Dik and the Volkswagens, maybe be the best of the lot, but there's much more. All of which is to say: yes, this is postmodern literature at its most postmodern, but this one has the good sense that most of the best postmodern works do, which is to at least have fun with the existential terror. Grade: B+
A really effective, semi-surreal page-turner kind of falls apart into tiresome solipsism in its final few pages, which is a huge disappointment. Somehow, Reid manages to find the most boring solution to each of the novel's many mysteries. But oh well. It's quite a ride getting there. Grade: B-
Music
The first of many 2016 albums I've been wanting to catch up with since my Best of 2016 music post. And it's good! Especially in its slow-burn-to-soaring anthems "Cranes in the Sky" and "Don't Touch My Hair," Solange shows a fantastic interplay between controlled, contemporary R&B atmospherics and pure pop bliss. It's a subdued and meditative record that knows just the right moments to burst free into unrestrained melody, and that's great. The interlude tracks/skits are less interesting, focusing on well-trodden talking points in modern-day race dynamics, but taken as a whole with the actual songs, A Seat at the Table is an immensely beguiling celebration of black identity. Grade: B+
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