Movies
For about 2/3 of its running time, Wind River is top-notch chiller that raises a lot of the same questions of crime and power in marginalized corners of the USA that writer/director Taylor Sheridan's previous screenplays (Sicario, Hell or High Water) wrestled with. But unlike those two features (although maybe Sicario's thrilling third act POV switch was this for some), Wind River throws it all right in the toilet in the end, first with a redundant and tasteless flashback that shows us (in explicit detail) the rape/murder that we already knew the facts of from the crime investigation that makes up the spine of the plot, and second with a climactic shootout that feels like the laziest way possible to resolve the 90-minute buildup. We need more movies in contemporary Native-American settings, and Wind River does wonders with this environment, both in depicting the elemental austerity of winter Wyoming and in rendering reservation with an observant and empathetic eye. Too bad about that clumsy plotting, though. Grade: B
There are some good moments here—quite a few, in fact. The family dynamics of the central cast are nicely sketched, and overall, the movie strikes this nice, gently melancholic tone that works pretty well. But barring some sort of innovation on the formula (which we do not see here, unless you count its sensible ending) or other cinematic pleasures (which, with its respectable but unremarkable filmmaking, this movie has little of), I have little interest in "father is a jerk, tries to win his family back" stories. Grade: B-
We all know by now that Nicolas Winding Refn is a Stanley Kubrick fan, but even I wasn't prepared for this much Kubrick love. Bronson is, for all intents and purposes, a remake of A Clockwork Orange, complete with ironic classical music cues and gleefully nihilistic violence in the face of the institutional brutality of the UK criminal justice system. I'll give it this much: Tom Hardy is one heck of a screen presence in this movie, much more so than even Malcolm McDowell was in the Kubrick version. The go-for-broke comedic intensity of Hardy's performance is both hammy and chilling, and it's never not riveting. But I'll also say this: the movie's merely slightly stylized sets feel downright complacent in comparison to Clockwork's fancifully phallic dystopia. Granted, we're measuring Bronson up (regardless of my ambivalence toward Clockwork as a whole) to some of the most meticulous and ingenious art direction in film history, which is a mighty tall measuring stick. But when you ape the master, you'd better bring your A game. Refn brings his B- game, I'm afraid. Grade: B-
Last summer, I had a dream that we nuked North Korea, and I woke up weeping. The image I remember is bodies upon bodies lined up in a field under white sheets, as we apparently counted the dead. And though I didn't hear it in the dream, I'm sure as those lost lives were columned out like so much harvested grain, somewhere our government was telling us that the act was a necessary and meaningful act of foreign policy. The great lie (or at least one of them) of the modern age, that nuclear war is anything but one of humanity's incontrovertible evils. Enter When the Wind Blows, a Grave of the Fireflies for provincial Britain, only instead of children we have an aging farm couple—an important distinction: they've a lifetime of government propaganda and stiff-upper-lip-isms to brainwash them, even as they die slowly and agonizingly of radiation poisoning. It's horribly funny, horribly sad, and just plain horrible, watching these poor idiots waste away contemplating meaningless "proper procedure" drivel about whether or not their fallout shelter should have peanut butter. But the movie, alongside Dr. Strangelove as the bitterest of screams against the nuclear age, is clear: there is no procedure, only the smell of the purest act of nihilism there is. It smells like roast beef. Grade: A
Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film is probably not the kind of movie people look for from the future master of animation (though there are major Porco Rosso vibes here). Based on a manga-turned-television-series, Cagliostro is decidedly less thoughtful and awestruck than Miyazaki's later works, and being based on TV animation in a pre-Ghibli era, the character models and backgrounds aren't much to write home about. Instead, this is a swashbuckling adventure in the vein of the same adventure serials that would inspire Indiana Jones a couple years later. And you know what? It works like gangbusters. It's not a great film we have here, but it's an immensely fun one. I had a great time. Grade: B+
Big Edie and Little Edie are a documentary maker's dream, loquacious and strange and tragicomic in all the right ways. And thankfully, the right documentarians made this film—if it weren't for the obvious affection the filmmakers have for their subjects, this would be a straight trip down to exploitationville. Even as it is, there's something about a lot of this movie that feels unnecessary and definitely overlong: about fifteen minutes into the film, it's crystal clear what the movie's MO is, and the game then becomes a docile wait through scene after scene of bickering to get to the moments of startling, carnivalesque insight. I can't help thinking that there's likely a better-edited version of this movie that gives each scene a stronger sense of purpose and the movie as a whole more shape. But as it is, what we got is striking enough to work. Grade: B+
Written around the time of the dissolution of Bergman's second marriage, To Joy is uncomfortably autobiographic, more so because of how much of a cad the Bergman surrogate is here: abusive, arrogant, pompous—this man says depressing things about what Bergman thought of himself and even more disturbing things about who Bergman was. The movie is one of those age-old dialogues about whether greatness and domestic stability are compatible, and while there's nothing mindblowing about its approach to this question, it's notable just how self-destructive our protagonist's domestic behavior is, and just how unlikely it is that he would have obtained artistic greatness anyway (multiple scenes imply that he's merely a mediocre musician). Honestly, though, even for those new wrinkles, the story is kind of tiresome, so thankfully, that's not really even the main appeal to the movie. Of Bergman's early features before his artistic breakthrough of Summer Interlude, To Joy is definitely the most technically accomplished, resulting in a film that's often riveting to look at, and this is buoyed by an unusual focus on music that gives the film an aural liveliness uncommon in Bergman, culminating in a final, virtuosic scene set to Beethoven's 9th Symphony that, for all its manipulation (and given some of the emotional territory the film explores earlier, it's VERY manipulative), ends the film on a moment of profundity. Grade: B
Music
I've pretty much internalized every one of Bowie's major releases, so now the game is to fill in the minor ones. And, contrary to the cover art (possibly the worst in the man's career?), Reality is yet another very good entry in the sprawling Bowie discography. Stylistically, it forms the middle entry in the trilogy of just-slightly-left-leaning rock albums that began with Heathen and ended with The Next Day, and I'd put it right there in the middle of those two, Heathen being the best and The Next Day being the least (though they're all very good). Per usual, it's the cover songs that are the mistakes (if we're not counting that cover art): mildly so with "Pablo Picasso," and very much so with the turgid version of George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some." Thankfully the album washes it all down with the delicious one-two punch of "Reality" (the hardest hitting rocker in the bunch) and "Bring Me the Disco King," my pick for the best 21st century Bowie track not on Blackstar. Grade: B+
Speaking of filling in discographies, here's this, some of the very last of Radiohead's output I've yet to hear. Released a few months prior to their first unquestionably great release, The Bends, this EP includes the all-timer title track that would become one of The Bends's best, so of course that's still best in show here. Alongside it are a handful of successful (if nowhere near as good) B-sides as well as a kind of boring acoustic version of "Creep" (a song I think was all-but contractually obligated to be included in every Radiohead release prior to The Bends). Anyway, there's nothing mind-blowing here, and it's far from Radiohead's best non-album material. But it's good enough, and a valuable bridge between the Pablo Honey era and The Bends and beyond. Grade: B
