I don't know why I write these blurbs up here every week. Sometimes I actually just don't have anything to say.
Movies
I knew nothing about the true story on which this is based, and I recommend that approach if possible, because then the movie plays as a remarkably twisty thriller wherein each turn of the plot reveals new depths of just how badly the central characters have behaved in their participation in the central scandal. Within fifteen minutes of the movie's beginning, you're thinking, "Huh, as advertised, this education does seem somewhat bad," but then by the end, it's "hooooooly cow, please stop, this education can't possibly get any worse!" A really great little parable of how the road to hell is paved not quite with good intentions but with the ability to delude yourself into believing that you have good intentions. This is communicated most starkly with Hugh Jackman's performance—probably the best performance I've seen in a new movie this year and almost certainly the best performance the guy has had in his career (I'd have to rewatch The Prestige to get rid of that "almost"). If nothing else, come for the Jackman, folks. Grade: A-
I'm still not 100% on Rob Zombie's wavelength, and this movie is no exception—I really wasn't grooving with it until about 30 minutes before the end, when it twists from a mostly generic horror movie slightly elevated by some Attitude into a really affecting, psychedelic rumination on addiction/relapse. The latter stages of this movie ring deeply true, from the sobriety that suddenly morphs into a downward spiral to the complete isolation of using. The last real shot of this film before the credits roll is heartbreaking. On a different note, it's a real experience to watch this the same week as Witchfinder General, two movies which have about the most polar opposite feelings toward witches that I can imagine. Grade: B
A solid, claustrophobic boxing movie that's like the bummed out cousin of Rocky—all its underdog, working-class sympathies and more broken heroes on a last chance power drive than you can shake a Bruce Springsteen song at, only without any of the optimism that often comes with the territory, and certainly no "Gonna Fly Now." On a production level, it's fascinating to think of this as a John Huston feature. He's a director so steeped in the old Hollywood studio system, but here he's doing really admirable work embodying the grime and looseness of the New Hollywood film-school generation: an impressive pivot for a guy who was over 40 years into his career at that point. I should watch more of his later output. Grade: B
Brutal in a way that I was not at all expecting. Vincent Price usually brings a sly (or sometimes overt) camp to his roles, and his playing the eponymous Matthew Hopkins in this movie is the only of his performances that I've seen completely stripped of those winks and theatrics—just pure, vile, craven sadism in this man here. It's not a movie that's scary in the traditionally spooky sense, but watching Price play this man literally hellbent on torturing men and (especially) women accused of witchcraft is very, very scary. Grade: B+
Frederick Wiseman's first feature documentary is a lot more explicitly constructed and didactic than I was expecting, which is probably just a product of his not having yet fully formed his fly-on-the-wall documentary style yet. But part of me would like to imagine that the subject matter of this film made it impossible for Wiseman to assume his usually withdrawn stance. Taking place in an asylum for "the criminally insane," Titicut Follies chronicles an incredible amount of suffering as the authoritarian vice of the institution turns the humanity of the patients into an abstraction to be manipulated. I can't help but feel that the movie would be improved by a modern Wiseman 3+ hour sprawl that would allow us more of a sense of the bureaucratic banalities giving rise to the tactile horrors seen here, but as the furiously angry, viscerally sad document that this was intended to be, it works well, too. Grade: A-
Television
Now that the show is basically at the peak of its powers in my watch-through, some of its tendencies are starting to wear a little thin as the show settles into a more familiar groove. For example, I definitely think Hank is a more interesting character when he's a principled man whose principles put him just slightly behind the times and just slightly less compassionate than he should be, but the show's default mode is definitely to side with Hank's principles, which definitely saps the show of some of its energy by veering a little too closely to making Hank a hero at times. And the show's attempts at showing grace to the Souphanousinphone parents are a lot thinner than I remembered them being and don't really mitigate the kinda-sorta racist depiction of them. Connie remains one of the best secondary characters on the show, though, and her relationship with Bobby (the best primary character on the show, bar none) is a consistent highlight, sweet and funny and unforcedly complex, and forms the backbone of what I think is the best episode this season ("Naked Ambition"). There's a lot of other good material here, too (seeing Dale rekindle his relationship with Nancy is great, for example), so I'm not exactly complaining about this solid season of television. But it does feel like the strikingly complex, ambitious third season was walked a little back this time around for a slightly more straightforward, slightly less rewarding follow-up. I enjoyed myself, but nothing here surprised me. Grade: B+
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