Movies
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
The obvious thing to talk about here are the action sequences, which are great. That's not surprising; the last three Mission: Impossible films have established this now over-twenty-year-old series as one that consistently delivers some of the most exciting and refined action setpieces in modern English-language filmmaking, and it's more a pleasant affirmation than an outright shock that Fallout has probably the best ensemble of setpieces in the whole franchise (though I still think that Ghost Protocol's Burj Khalifa scene is the high-water mark for the series). More surprising, though, is how Fallout structures its plot as a procession of increasingly dire trolley-problem situations, which gives a decent weight and thoughtfulness to the characters and their decisions, especially considering that this is a franchise that in the past hasn't exactly thrived on narrative thoughtfulness. I mean, it isn't First Reformed or anything, but especially for the kind of wide-release popcorn flick that it is, Fallout is strikingly concerned with the ethics of violence and the human cost of the usual action movie mayhem, which is something I wasn't at all expecting. It's the best Mission: Impossible movie yet, one of the most exciting theater experiences I've had this year, and likely the best American action movie until the next Mission: Impossible movie comes out. Grade: A
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
The central gimmick—the entire movie on a computer desktop!—isn't as fresh as in the original (and certainly not after having seen The Den just a day prior), and Dark Web isn't really scary at all either. This is definitely a slasher, but instead of dead teenagers in service of horror, the movie becomes something of a very twisty, very dense techno-thriller with more plot than I've seen in a so-called horror movie in years. This is, frankly, the best thing about the movie, the way the plot reveals rule after rule until by the end, it's magnificently complex for the kind of movie this is—it kept me guessing, at least. The movie also fills its cast with some shockingly competent protagonists, which makes Dark Web less of the usual schadenfreude of watching stupid, mean people meet karmic deaths (a feeling which the original Unfriended definitely traffics in) and more of a kind of sad, nihilistic exercise in watching people being crushed by powers far beyond anything they could hope to overcome. Which... I mean, you read the news. Grade: B
The Tribe (Плем'я) (2014)
The letter grade above a D is thanks to the craft and audacity of the conceit—a movie with no audible dialogue (instead featuring Ukrainian Sign Language), told through extremely long takes that emphasize body language and the staging of character action within the shots. It's a fascinating experiment that would be extremely effective if it weren't in service of a hollow and desperately edgy tale about how teens murder and rape each other. Go back to the '90s, dude. Grade: C-
The Den (2013)
A sort of proto-Unfriended, with the action of the movie taking place entirely on computer screens. But instead of Skype, Facebook, and the other familiar environments of Unfriended, The Den goes basically for the jugular of internet terribleness, making its central device a Chatroulette clone. By the end of the movie, the web has lead to a literal cesspool, but even prior to that, the internet media is shown to be a breeding ground of not just the beloved cat videos and silly humor that makes the internet a fun place but also the virulent sexism and violence (both verbal and physical) that has made it such a frightening and effective social force in recent years. It's way bleaker and a lot less fun than the mean-but-cathartic justice of Unfriended, and The Den isn't nearly so meticulous in its only-on-computer-screens storytelling device, cheating at least a few times. But there's an awful lot on this movie's mind, which covers a multitude of sins. Grade: B
Killer of Sheep (1978)
In some respects, this is a very immediate movie—I am watching, with little fussing, a succession of loosely connected scenes depicting the parallel lives of adults and children in 1970s Watts, LA, shot in sumptuous, grainy black and white, and to understand what is really very good about the film, all I have to do is look at the screen and watch the beautiful lyricism of these characters within their scenes within this aesthetic. At the same time, though, it's not all that immediate of a film, presenting little forward pull or conventional narrative lampposts and instead obsessing on small moments and strange (often funny) details. It's tremendous and full of life in a very down-to-earth way, but I'll probably have to watch it again to know exactly how enthusiastic I am about the collective weight of the project. (If you're interested in hearing much smarter people than I talk about this movie, you can listen to Episode 205 of the Cinematary podcast here, which I participated in). Grade: B+
Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) (1951)
This movie ticks a lot of my boxes--religious turmoil, existential dread, nice cinematography—so I thought I'd be more into it than I ended up being. If I'm anachronistically comparing it to this film's most notable children, Winter Light and First Reformed, I guess I have to admit that I just don't find this priest's psychological turmoil nearly as soulful as either of the priests in those subsequent films, and perhaps this movie's grounding in a legitimate terror of mortality, as opposed to the heady philosophical angst of those other movies, just feels a little more terrestrial than I'm interested in for this kind of movie. But I did like it, don't get me wrong! Claude Laydu's performance is stunning, and as I said, the cinematography is super nice. Maybe I just need to watch more Bresson—this is my first of his. Grade: B
Television
Orphan Black, Season 5 (2017)
The fifth and final season of Orphan Black kind of pulls a Lost in the sense that, at a moment when it would make the most sense to be scaling back its narrative ambitions in favor of resolution, it instead spends a large piece of its (limited) time with some main characters stuck in a cult-like encampment that expands the show's mythology in convoluted, unhelpful ways. But also like Lost, Orphan Black comes back around to a truly magnificent run of episodes leading up to a series finale that rightly focuses on characters rather than going out of its way to tie up every loose end. In the end, what this series leaves us with is a compelling portrait of sisterhood and motherhood (grounded by the magnificent Tatiana Maslany) that rejects binaries and patriarchy and everything that is not an empathetic care for fellow human life, which is exactly the final bow it needed to take. I'll miss this weird, wonderful series. Grade: B+
Music
Father John Misty - God's Favorite Customer (2018)
Shrugging off the philosophical grandiosity and instrumental expansiveness of last year's Pure Comedy, Father John Misty returns with something of the photo-negative of 2015's I Love You, Honeybear—God's Favorite Customer, a record not about the intoxicating dance of true love but of the existential terror of watching that love fall to pieces. The album is a bona-fide bummer, and Josh Tillman goes to some bracingly dark places in its ten songs and 39 minutes, culminating in the exquisite, lacerating piano ballad that forms the album's penultimate track, "The Songwriter," which calls into question the very premise of writing about romance when, in fact, romance involves two people and not just the one chronicling the confessional details. "What would it sound like if you were the songwriter, and you did your living around me?" it goes. "Would you undress me repeatedly in public to show how very noble and naked you can be?" This destroys me, y'all. It's a record drenched in self-loathing and regret, and while it isn't quite free of the self-referentiality and sarcastic lyrical barbs that often turn people off the Father John Misty project ("Mr. Tillman," the second and probably weakest track, is awash in sarcasm and inside-baseball musical allusions), those features are channeled to much rawer and more emotionally immediate effect than they've been in the past. Besides, whether or not this is just shtick seems beside the point when the music makes me so weepy. Grade: A
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