Movies
The Breadwinner (2017)
Cartoon Saloon's third feature (after the masterful The Secret of Kells and the nearly as good Song of the Sea) is the studio's most emotionally immediate film to date. We're a long way from the myth-tinted abstractions of Kells—The Breadwinner is, aside from the folk tale interludes (done in the style of paper cutouts, and honestly the least successful part of the movie, for all its visual ambition), a story of social realism, the tale of Parvana, a girl in Afghanistan who, when her father is arrested, must disguise herself as a boy in order to buy food for her family, as the Taliban-enforced laws do not permit women to leave their houses unaccompanied by men. The film is much less reliant on awe than either of Cartoon Saloon's other features (though the incredibly moving climax of the movie obtains a sort of apocalyptic grandeur), opting instead for small, well-observed moments of lyrical character detail: the women's hair intertwined as the family lays in bed together; the glint of the jewel on the shirt Parvana must sell in the marketplace to buy a bribe to see her imprisoned father; the way an illiterate man traces the name of a deceased family member on a letter. This hasn't been a particularly strong year for American animation, and of course The Breadwinner isn't American, it's (per Wikipedia) Canadian-Irish-Luxembourgian. But it's playing now in English in American theaters, and by golly, it's special enough to deserve your attention. Grade: B+
Girls Trip (2017)
I mean, geez, I feel like I should create a macro for reviewing Hollywood comedies, but here we go again: the cast has good chemistry, but the jokes don't really land for me most of the time, and what in the name of Ernst Lubitsch is this thing doing with a two-hour runtime?? The social import of the fact that the plot (a pretty stock plot, it bears mentioning, albeit one in which the relationship among the four main characters feels more lived-in and vibrant than most) centers on a cast of 40-something-year-old African-American women can't be discounted, and please, let's have more gender, racial, and age diversity in our comedy. But as far as enjoying the movie goes, social import becomes a bit abstract when I'm bored. Grade: C
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
When I say that Valerian is the realization of the promise of the Star Wars prequels, that's going to sound like a backhanded compliment to some. But it's not, I promise. The use of CG effects not as photorealistic approximations of our world but as the digital-age equivalent of those lushly painted backdrops from the early days of color cinema is dazzling, and if Marvel Studios hadn't already doubled down on the "kooky cosmic space opera" aesthetic this year, I'd call Valerian the best comic-book look by a landslide (and even with Marvel in the game, it's still handily beating Guardians and Thor). Put all this in service of a nearly wordless opening David-Bowie-soundtracked beginning that's a small masterpiece of blockbuster cinema, followed by another nearly wordless sequence basically set on the Tales from Topographic Oceans album cover, you're well on your way to a great film. The subsequent two-ish hours following these two sequences aren't nearly as good, but they've got enough crackerjack action and inventive sets that you'll probably forget the clunky screenplay and wooden performances (I guess the Star Wars comparison was a tad backhanded). Judging by its depressing box-office performance, I'm guessing we aren't going to get a major-studio blockbuster that's so appealingly strange and visionary as this one for a long while. But what a blessing that we got what we got. Grade: A-
All These Sleepless Nights (Wszystkie nieprzespane noce) (2016)
Imagine a world in which Terrence Malick filmed Knight of Cups in Warsaw. Only also imagine that there's not really any philosophical weight beyond some lazy Transcendental whatever. And what if it also starred these vague millennial archetypes who just party and walk around and, like, seize the moment, maaaan? Also, cocaine. THUMBS DOWN. Grade: C-
The Kindergarten Teacher (הגננת) (2014)
A 5-year-old randomly spouts these thoughtful little nuggets poetry, as if suddenly struck by the Holy Spirit or tapping into some subterranean creative power. It's like an Israeli film version of Thick as a Brick, only twice as dry—the absurdity of the premise is played so straight that there's only the barest twinkle of satire; instead, the film plays like a slow-burn thriller, eventually coming to a head with a shocking and ultimately kind of hilarious finale. It's weird, funny stuff that pretends to be the height of serious international drama, a tonal game that's a big part of what makes this movie so arresting. Grade: A-
Music
Joni Mitchell - For the Roses (1972)
I could call For the Roses a transitional album, and I'd be technically correct; the album forms a nice bridge between the confessional singer-songwriter Joni of Blue and the jazz-inflected conceptual wizardry of Court and Spark. But there's a pejorative connotation to the word "transitional" that I don't want to imply here. For the Roses isn't quite as good as the masterpieces that bookend it, I suppose, but this is still Mitchell at the height of her powers, which means that it's a jewel of lyricism, both personal ("See You Sometime," "Lesson in Survival") and political ("Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Theme)"). Every single song is a pristine hoard of riches, and even if this doesn't feel like the gigantic achievement of some of Mitchell's more notable albums, it's still one that deeply rewards the time spent with it. Grade: A-
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