Movies
While it lacks the light touch of its 2014 predecessor (the script here is distressingly belabored, from the emotional beats to even a lot of the comedy—the film tries way harder to make a joke out of "Taserface" than it's worth), and overall, it's just not as fun. But Vol. 2 is superior to the original (and, in fact, the large majority of the MCU in general) in two important qualities. First, it has probably the best Marvel-movie villain in ages (though I'm afraid revealing who it is would spoil a certain part of the film)—clearly motivated, charismatically acted, and, moreover, integrated into the emotional stakes of the plot. But even more welcome than that is the film's visuals, which are some of the best in recent blockbuster history and certainly the best of any Marvel film to date; a rainbow-blasted cornucopia of cosmic pulp, it's the closest any movie in recent memory has come to looking like a comic book come to life. It's glorious and as big-screen-worthy as any movie this year. Grade: B+
One of the lesser Farhadi films I've seen (it's certainly no A Separation or The Past, but really, what is?), but it's still tensely watchable. It takes a while to get going, but once we get toward the end, especially a final setpiece with an old man cornered by our increasingly adamant protagonist, it is thrilling and excruciating in equal measure. I'm continually amazed at just how much tension Farhadi is able to wring from low-key domestic situations. Grade: B+
If you're expecting the broad treatment of history that renders events as simplified dramatic beats (as I was going into The Butler), you'll get it; this is basically the civil rights version of Forrest Gump, in which two characters are present for all the major events in the latter half of the 20th century, and naturally, in covering so much time, things get a little simplistic—worst is the parade of presidential impressions, which range from absurd (John Cusack's Nixon, James Marsden's JFK) to distractingly parodic (Liev Schreiber's LBJ). It doesn't help that the screenplay is frequently clumsy, stumbling over some very clunky dialogue and transitions. When we're dealing with the three principle actors (Forest Whitaker, David Oyelowo, and Oprah Winfrey), though, the acting is fantastic, especially Winfrey, who absolutely disappears into her role here and goes toe-to-toe with Whitaker in giving the best performance in the film. Between all three of them, they manage to breathe life into the script's programmatic sweep. And speaking of the sweep, the most notable difference from Forrest Gump (aside from race, of course) is an actual awareness of politics. As broadly as this movie casts history, it's still realizes that the way it renders history is implicitly political (as opposed to Gump, which I assert is not intentionally conservative, just merely thoughtless of how its framing of historical events communicates a political stance). This is most notable in how it treats African-American radical politics. Oyelowo's character isn't some ham-fisted tragedy/morality tale a la Jenny in Forrest Gump; he's a major player in the film's movement, and as the movie progresses, uses him as a fascinating foil to Whitaker's butler, shaping a narrative of the history of civil rights as the reconciling of radicalism with "respectable" integration. Nobody who's a student of this era of history is going to find that especially mind-blowing, but it's a narrative that the movie successfully imbues with a deep pathos that makes it work. And even besides that, how crazy is it for a mainstream American film to regard African-American progressive politics with so much sympathy and dignity? Grade: B+
Nearly twenty years later, you'd think it would have sunk in that one of David Lynch's best (maybe even the best) is a Disney-studios family movie dedicated to the power of sincere human decency. But let's just marvel at this for a moment, okay? Because while many David Lynch films are similarly preoccupied with human goodness, they're generally showing how often the apparent presence of wholesomeness is a thin veneer over abject depravity, cruelty, and—if he's feeling frisky—an otherworldly abyss. But this is beautifully inverted in The Straight Story. The morality of Richard Farnsworth's Alvin and the spectrum of Midwest humanity that he meets while driving hundreds of miles on a lawnmower isn't uncomplicated—two of the film's aching conversational setpieces (one with a fellow WWII veteran, the other with a priest) make this abundantly clear—but the film insists that such complications don't offset the fundamental goodness at these characters' cores. Rarely has such a resolute testament to simple goodwill graced our movie screens. Grade: A
It says something about the state of teen comedies in 1985 that The Sure Thing could be heralded as a mature and smart take on the genre. "I didn't sleep with her" is such an insanely low bar of masculine gentility to clear, especially when "her" is someone you've only just met, that it's genuinely insulting that the film seems to regard John Cusack's character's first tepid step toward maturity as this world-conquering act of love (particularly when he's spent most of the rest of the film being a lousy student, shotgunning beers, and generally being an insufferable cad). And that's to say nothing of Daphne Zuniga's character, who leaves a doting boyfriend (admittedly, one who is presented as sort of a stick in the mud, but... I dunno, he does play a mean game of gin rummy) to hook up with this guy. And yet, it's a testament to the magic of a well-made film that I not only wasn't insulted by all this stuff (or even the suggestion that the only sensible alternative to being a stick in the mud is being a beer-shotgunning tool bag) but actually kind of got caught up in the whole thing. As far as Rob Reiner rom-coms go, this is no When Harry Met Sally. But the same principles are at play, and you know what? It's pretty good! Grade: B
Relative to classic making-of documentaries like Hearts of Darkness, there's not really a lot going on in Voyage of Time, a film in which Andrei Tarkovsky and script writer Tonino Guerra pal around Italy in search of good locations for the shooting of Nostalghia. But it has its low-key charms. Tarkovsky and Guerra spend most of the time shooting the breeze, and, being intellectuals who are about to produce a tour de force of cinematic philosophy, their shooting the breeze is pretty interesting as they discuss the nature of cinema and architecture. There's also a brief shot of Tarkovky in short shorts, which is its own sort of thrill. Grade: B
Television
The second law of thermodynamics says that given enough time, everything turns to crap (I'm paraphrasing here). This seems accelerated on TV, where good shows usually have four or five good seasons before they are no longer good shows. Bob's Burgers seems determined to defy this law, though; in its seventh season, it's no less its fine self than in its fourth, and those who love the show will know exactly what to expect: sweetly maniacal family dynamics, silly wordplay, off-the-wall pop-culture parodies, tongue-in-cheek-but-actually-super-good musical interludes, H. Jon Benjamin's panicked intonation of "oh god." There isn't a bad episode in the bunch, and if it's slightly less exciting than earlier seasons, that's only because we've grown so accustomed to Bob's Burgers' perennial pleasures. Grade: B+
Season 6 is the first time in Adventure Time's decorated run that you can feel a real step down in quality without any discernible reward. Season 5 had its downs, but it also represented such a thrilling step forward in terms of structure and theme for the show that it really didn't matter. But Season 6 doesn't have that—it arguably continues the show's increased devotion to continuity and serial plots (the final 6-ish episodes are all basically pieces of a single story that the show had been developing for the latter half of the season), but by this time, its mix of silliness, epic sci-fi/fantasy, and emotional arcs is nothing new. That's not to say that it's bad (except for, I'd argue, the stuff with Finn's dad, which is Daddy Issues boilerplate and doesn't really pay off in the otherwise excellent season climax); there are, in fact, quite a few excellent episodes throughout the season, and the end of the season continues the show's tradition of finales in sending the series in exciting new directions. But let's put it this way: this is the first season of the show that doesn't feature any episodes that I'd put in the Top 20 Adventure Time episodes. But I shouldn't be too negative—this is still a show of astounding energy and imagination, and we're lucky to have it. We've just been a tad bit luckier in the past. Grade: B+
Music
The Men must have realized that "Candy" was the best song on their 2012 breakout, Open Your Heart, so the songs on New Moon are all countrified, to mixed-to-positive results. The opener, "Open the Door" welcomes us to the record with an honest-to-goodness piano, and it's actually lovely. But it's hard not to miss that punk energy from their first two records, which is absent on all but a few of the songs here. The rest are an intriguing whirlwind of genres, ranging from country ("High and Lonesome") to Americana ("Bird Song") to riff-stomping sludge ("I Saw Her Face") to jammy noise rock ("Supermoon"). It's fun to see the band try on so many different hats, and the effect is more or less engaging. But one gets the sense that The Men are drifting afield here. Grade: B+
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