Movies
Typical of the Marvel-Disney mold, Black Panther is positioned to feel more political than it is. The movie's relationship to real-world politics is slippery at best (Michael B. Jordan's radically positioned villain uses colonialist tactics, Chadwick Boseman's heroic Black Panther is a nationalist and an autocrat at that, and most bafflingly, the CIA is represented by a lovably bumbling sidekick), and its narrative is unusually (for an MCU film) lopsided in favor of its charismatic villain. But putting the specifics aside, at the film's heart is an intensely sincere dialogue about a nation's relationship to the world at large that feels in some ways like the other side of the coin that Thor: Ragnarok flipped when it questioned Asgard's use of military conquest to achieve its might (and Black Panther's interrogation of this topic is much less tossed-off than Ragnarok's was), and the resolution of that thematic thread is as graceful a note a Marvel film has ended on as last year's moving Guardians of the Galaxy finale. Bolstered by this thematic ambition, the rest of the movie has a weight that your typical Marvel film—usually feather-light affairs—lacks. Even though we don't see much of Wakanda (for a movie that stresses how urban and futurist the nation is, we really don't get much beyond the rustic settings for the film's action setpieces and the token science lab), this is a place that the film successfully inspires us to care deeply about, and when Killmonger talks wistfully about the Wakandan sunsets, it's legitimately poignant, laden with a generation of idealism and longing that does more to make Wakanda real than all the mid-tier CGI this movie can muster. Honestly, Black Panther belongs to Jordan's Killmonger, who is perhaps the best MCU character since Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark and the true beating heart of the film. The movie's not perfect, but Killmonger is. Grade: B+
I'm not too proud to admit that I hate-watched this. Unfortunately for the cause of hate-watching, there's slightly less to hate in the sequel than there was in the original, as this movie doesn't involve atheists being straight-up murdered by God. However, the dead-eyed acting and nonsensical Evangelical celebrity cameos (we're spared the Duck Dynasty crew save a very brief Sadie Robertson, though the Newsboys are still there to save the day with bad music and corporate prayer, and otherwise, Lee Strobel shows up, as does Mr. Awful himself, aka Pat Boone) persist, as does the insipid anti-education worldview. And then there's the franchise-staple strawman arguments, best exemplified by the film's own credits, which claim that the events of this movie are based on real court cases, but if you actually pause the credits to read the descriptions of the court cases, as you know your intrepid reviewer did in due diligence, you'll find that almost every one of these real-life cases involved instances of actual proselytizing by teachers or students within a public school setting and not the benign case this movie centers on, which is about the ACLU suing a Poor, Innocent history teacher for answering in class that yes, Martin Luther King, Jr., was inspired by the teachings of Jesus (and while I'm at it, can we please for a moment recognize how this movie full of white Protestants invokes "Letter from Birmingham Jail," seemingly ignorant that the letter is largely written in critique of white Protestants, and like, I can't even, guys, please, what is wrong with these peopleeeeee *wraith-like screaming while clawing my own eyes out*). It's about as terrible as you can imagine, but even so, I was prepared to give the film a D+ based entirely on Ray Wise's delightful, campy performance as the ACLU lawyer from hell. But then I saw how one of the protesters in the film got the Dark Side of the Moon album cover wrong on her sign, and that's just a bridge too far. Grade: D-
My first Guy Maddin. On a moment-by-moment basis, Maddin/Evan Johnson's early cinema pastiche by way of heavy postmodernism and digital (?) blurring and manipulation (the effect is largely that the film stock is, at any moment, about to warp and melt, Persona-style) creates a constant barrage of indelible and otherworldly imagery that feels like silent cinema beamed from a distant galaxy. But on a whole-movie level... well, there's a lot of movie here. I'm not talking about its runtime (although two hours does seem to be pushing it) as much as I am the nauseating feeling of consuming all of these images at once. It's a lot to take in, and I found my brain shutting down more often than not at the sheer incomprehensible barrage of it all. Maybe that's a feature instead of a bug, though? Grade: B
From Afar is a sufficiently "edgy" movie, though to describe exactly the ways it is so spoils a crucial and surprising plot point from very near the film's end. But edge doesn't really do a lot for me if it isn't pointed at something in particular, and that's, as far as I can tell, pretty much what's going on in this movie. It's an interesting movie and one that's shocking and nervy in a way that you probably wouldn't guess from the plot synopsis (a lot of critics have called this a "romance," and I suppose that's true, though not at all in any of the cinematic ways you might assume). But it also feels like a narrative exercise in making a particular sort of manipulation work, and for me, it doesn't quite. Grade: B-
Doing a thriller in one take (i.e. the primary reason to see Victoria) is an interesting experiment because of the way it calls attention to the parts of a narrative than an edit can hide—the length of time it takes a character to walk from one side of the room to the other, for example, or just how much time these characters spend in transit between official locations. That is, admittedly, a pretty academic way to view this and probably sounds not at all fun for a thriller, and honestly, this movie isn't a ton of fun. The one-takeness stretches out what would probably have been a very lean story into nearly 2.5 hours, and not a lot of "thrilling" thriller stuff happens until the last half hour. That said, when the thrills start, they are pretty visceral and exciting, and the ending itself is top-notch. Just prepare for a sloooow build to that. Grade: B-
What if Jackass: The Movie, but more intense and tasteless? Unbelievably, it's actually possible. Oh yes. Lots of poop. Lots of puke. A dude intentionally pierces his cheek with a fish hook. A guy dresses up as a terrorist of unclear national origin, and another guy pretends to murder that dude's friends. So, like... mission accomplished? In all seriousness, there's a lot of behavior here—the self-flagellation, the obsession with injuring genitalia, the frequent inducing of vomit, the aforementioned terrorist "gag"—that would raise a lot of red flags in any other context, but under the guise of "boys being boys," it's just laughed off as a hilarious joke, to increasing levels of cognitive dissonance, which, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much the definition of white, male privilege. No thanks. Grade: D-
If I'm being "objective" (whatever that means), this is probably the best of the Jackass movies. It's much more whimsical and committed to playing up the more surreal, visually engaging sides of the gang's stunt work (lots of slow-mo, lots of strange props, e.g. a gigantic, spring-loaded hand that slaps anyone unfortunate to walk down a particular hallway). But I don't feel like being objective. I watched three of these movies in two days, and I'm tired. Grade: C-
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