Tired of winter.
Movies
Rubbing shoulder-to-shoulder with Lovers Rock as my favorite of the Small Axe films that I've seen so far, and maybe even pushing ahead of that previous one. Lovers Rock is probably the more cinematic of the two, but this one has the absolutely volcanic performance from John Boyega as a black man who tries to reform the racism of London policing from the inside, a performance which by itself is probably the best single thing about any of the Small Axe entries. And its screenplay is only just a few clicks down from Boyega's tight, intense focus, too. I can think of few movies as single-mindedly driven on hammering in the failures of incremental reform. Grade: A-
I enjoyed this, and I admire the experiment of basically fracturing a Bildungsroman into a bunch of semi-connected, non-chronological scenes. And the scenes where Alex feels out-of-place in his new West Indian community after his orphaned upbringing left him with nobody to raise him with a consciousness of his heritage are very affecting. But I wonder if I would have gotten more out of this movie if I were more familiar (i.e. familiar at all) with the real-life Alex Wheatle's career, because this one definitely feels to me like the slightest of the Small Axe movies so far. Grade: B
The Small Axe series began with a film that felt like the ideal version of Civics Lesson Cinema, imbuing a fundamentally educational project with passion and verve. Now, the Small Axe series is bookended by a final installment that also fits pretty squarely into Civics Lesson Cinema, but unfortunately, Education is no Mangrove, and in fact, it's exactly the staid and programmatic tract that you would expect of a movie whose primary purpose is to make a sociological point. The performances (especially a really great child performance from Kenyah Sandy as Kingsley, a boy whom the education system is failing) are uniformly excellent, which does elevate the material somewhat, and to that end, there are a few strong scenes, like the heartbreaking moment when Kingsley's mother sits him down and the two together come to terms with the fact that he can't read. But for the most part, I found this so, so boring, and there are long scenes that basically do nothing but read directly from political pamphlets. I agree completely with the film's thesis that education is systemically biased against children of color (especially in the obsession with "intelligence") and that children learn best when engaged with material that reflects their own heritage and material circumstances. But boy did I find this movie's approach to that thesis dry and uninspired. I'm super disappointed that Small Axe ends on this note, because I've really enjoyed the rest. Grade: C
Like Nightcrawler, a movie that similarly satirizes the narcissism and ruthlessness that the capitalistic media landscape requires for success, To Die For feels more entertaining than insightful. Which is absolutely fine. The film takes some fairly straightforward ideas about the role of television and fame in our lives (find+replace "social media" for "television" instead for a movie relevant to 2021, I guess) and uses that as a jumping off point for a thoroughly engrossing, truly wild black comedy thriller. Major props to the absolutely drum-tight craft from Gus Van Sant as director, who guides this movie with a master's hand—something I don't always feel about Van Sant. Kidman is, of course, excellent, but also, shout-out to Joaquin Phoenix and Alison Folland for taking their kind of vapid teen archetypes and imbuing them with a real sense of humanity and, eventually, loss and pain as they play the kids who are taken advantage of (and in Phoenix's case, molested) by an adult who exploits their loneliness by promising them the world. A lot of movies at this time were kind of glib about, for example, sexual relationships between minor males and adult women, and perhaps this movie could have been, too, except for those performances, which are heartbreaking. Also, while it's not at all the same movie, this feels very strongly "post-Goodfellas" in a way I wasn't expecting and can't quite put my finger on. Something about the energy and movement of the story/filmmaking here feels indebted to that specific movie. There's not, like, a Copacabana shot or a ton of classic rock, but I dunno. They feel spiritually in-sync. Grade: A-
An anthology of three sci-fi animated shorts, and as anthology films go, this one is pretty solid. All of the films are imperfect (usually because they simply go on too long), but none of them are the kinds of obvious duds that you tend to get from anthologies. Consensus is probably right that the first short, the Satoshi-Kon-scripted riff on Alien and Solaris, "Magnetic Rose," is the technical best. But I was most impressed by the final film, "Cannon Fodder," which is the most stylistically ambitious, both because of its pointedly non-anime aesthetic and the way it's meant to look like one elaborate shot, using the magic of animation to make match cuts look like fluid flourishes of fantasy rather than cuts. All three are worth watching, though. Grade: B
Good lord. For those who found Watership Down too hopeful and Grave of the Fireflies too human-centric. Two dogs escape a facility that does experiments on animals and spend the rest of the film in search of true autonomy and freedom, fleeing those who try to capture and, ultimately, try to kill them. It's a gorgeously animated fable about oppression and hope--though to say that it's about hope shouldn't be mistaken for this movie being hopeful, and the profound ambiguities of the film (including, crucially, the fact that one of the two dogs has undergone a brain operation that makes it impossible to separate subjective thoughts from reality) are painful. I don't know if I'll ever watch this movie again, but if I'm putting on my Roger Ebert cap, it's definitely a Great Movie. Also, we should talk more about Martin Rosen, who directed only two films: this and Watership Down. That's a seriously great but far too short legacy. He's still alive. Get this dude some money and another Richard Adams novel to adapt! Grade: A
I cannot fathom why this flopped on release (assuming we aren't just blaming 20th Century Fox basically forcing Bogdanovich to self-distribute the film, which maybe we should). With the exception of the stuff having to do with Ben Gazzara's plot (which I disliked pretty strongly, including, unfortunately, Audrey Hepburn), this is such an effortlessly charming rom-com with an all-timer cast. I would have happily watched 10 seasons of a sitcom about John Ritter, Colleen Camp, Blaine Novak, and Linda MacEwan just rambling around NYC having affairs and jamming to country music and stuff. Grade: A-
