Not rated. I watched this on PBS, so language was bleeped out. I think I noticed three times when the audio was censored. The subjects of the film use the colloquial version of the n-word which isn't censored. But the film lacks any real objectionable content. There is some troubling footage surrounding SIDS, so keep that in mind. Considering that the movie is almost more lyric poetry than it is a narrative film, the imagery is very serene. Not rated.
DIRECTOR: RaMell Ross You know, I thought that I've written "Koyaanisqatsi" enough times that I would never have to look it up again. Apparently, I've dumped that knowledge from my brain from when I finished the trilogy. I mention Koyaanisqatsi because I find that analysis remarkably hard to write about. When a film deconstructs a narrative, much like Koyaanisqatsi or Hale County This Morning, This Evening, all you can kind of do is approach it from an artistic perspective and hope that some deep thought manages to pervade your writing. If you find my writing meandering, it's because I might be trying to find the thread in the middle of the sentence. It's bad writing sure. But it's my blog and I gave myself rules on writing no matter what. Like I mentioned, Koyaanisqatsi and Hale County are siblings. They are both in a very specific subgenre of film. I know that there is a term, but I'm without caffeine and trying to write before work starts. I guess it could be visual poetry. I've now taken a bunch of poetry classes in grad school. I'm taking one now, actually. Hale County shares more qualities with lyric poetry than it does with a traditional film, let alone a documentary. Hale County will always carry the tag of documentary because it has real subjects doing actual things. There is no script. Rather, RaMell Ross simply films the world around him. There are times in the film where he makes himself part of the documentary, mainly because people have no problem interacting with him while he films. I have a hard time understanding Ross, who he is. The entire movie has a very artsy fartsy vibe to it. I mean, it's pretty pretentious at times. It's not bad. I happen to like pretentious. And if Hale County was going to work in the format it is in, it has to be pretty pretentious. But Ross, when he's on camera, doesn't seem like the documentarian that is making this movie. The movie is formatted with extremely short vignettes of daily life among African Americans in Hale County. Mostly, these are mundane moments. A kid running back and forth time-and-again is probably the most memorable of the individual scenes. But what he's filming is remarkably unpretentious. These are just people having a good time, for the most part. It is almost like the entire movie is an establishing shot. But then he breaks up his films into almost act breaks with a flat black title card that has a quote. Sometimes, that quote just screams what we're about to look at. Sometimes, that quote just seems abstract and lyrical. Comparing this to the man who is just having conversations, it's really interesting to see how Ross identifies himself. Can someone really be so segmented that they can show both sides of themselves in one work of art? I know that I'm many many many different people. But I think that's almost a reaction to my environment and my company. People have certain expectations of me and there should be a line drawn. I guess Ross is honest and vulnerable among people when he's filming. He is a member of the community. He is a son and a friend. Like Bing Liu's Minding the Gap, he still maintains his personality despite the fact that he is creating something that has a sense of identity through art. But that artist may have more to say. It might actually be rude to be the artist when documenting something or when creating art. Instead, he lives in the moment. See, I told you I figure out things when I write! Ross puts on a very different headspace and there probably is a vulnerability to the movie as a whole considering that he's showing the disparate elements of his personality in a single work. I think the point of Hale County is that it is supposed to be simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable. Ross invites all viewers to be honest members of a culture. Instead of getting artifice because people are aware that they are on camera, the cinema verite style of filmmaking seems to lower people's defenses. Very rarely are people speaking to the camera. There are a few moments where someone is answering a specific question addressed to him or her. But really, we are eavesdropping on conversations already in progress. This goes as far as to hear conversations that may lack a formal context. There were many times in the movie where I just had to instantly adapt to what was happening. But this creates an interesting mood throughout the piece. Hale County reminds us that life isn't about high tension points constantly. It's about the mundane. But that mundane doesn't cover up the fact that an entire demographic of the United States live a very different life than others because they are marginalized. I had a weird epiphany while watching the movie that I hope Ross stresses in the film for a reason. Throughout the film, there are police lights. I'm not talking about far away police lights. These are police lights that Ross is filming as part of the subject matter. We don't see arrests or footage that may prove incriminating. Rather, the movie simply has a presence of police lights. Perhaps this is a moment to wake up a part of America who aren't aware how often people of color are targeted as criminals, but those lights are all over. That means that Ross was in multiple situations where he was pulled over and could film these lights. Ross doesn't elucidate whether or not someone was doing something that merited police lights. But there also is the context of the rest of the film. Ross continually films these mundane moments. They aren't all happy, but they are mostly serene. Kids play baseball in the backyard. Friends get together to play video games way too late. We get to see people at a county fair. Nothing in the film looks criminal. The people of Hale County live is a pretty all-encompassing African American de facto population. This isn't the city. It screams rural farmland, yet there are still people being picked up for actions that are left ambiguous. Ross is addressing race in a passive way, I suppose. There is one moment of the film that is pretty on the nose when it comes to pointing out the history of racism. When driving to the plantation, Ross interjects raw footage of a film that uses blackface. This character is hiding out among the bushes, spying suspiciously at something unseen by us. Hale County, I suppose, is a film about race. But it is not a film about race in the ways we think about it. Often, lyric poetry requires a bit of unpacking. Bad lyric poetry will let you know what to think and what to feel and it tends to leave us pretty quickly. But Hale County makes you ruminate on these moments and explore them...I guess in a way that I'm doing right now. The film is not without a narrative altogether. Ross checks in on certain people over the course of the documentary. These are the people who are aware of the documentary nature of the movie. Like Hoop Dreams, we get to check in on the progress of these people over the course of the documentary shoot. There is no real arc or anything, but it is interesting to see where these people go over the film. We follow Boosie with her pregnancy. We see her deal with birth and loss. It is emotionally powerful, but I don't think Ross ever intends to get manipulative. Rather, it humanizes the subject of the film. I can't help but make comparisons to The Diary of Anne Frank. It is hard to think of a group of people as one thing. But it is easy to relate to one person and sympathize with one person. Daniel and Boosie help us understand that people are individuals first and culturally representative way later. Boosie is a tough nut to crack because she doesn't want to be involved. That's what the title card said and it definitely paints my viewing of her. The skeptical participant is an interesting addition to the film as a whole. Because Boosie doesn't want to be involved, we watch someone take the opposite stance of most participants in documentaries. There's a look of mild annoyance on her face and that becomes the most relatable thing of all. She is pregnant. A camera in her face is the last thing she wants. But then there's also Daniel and his college career. It seems like Daniel's story has the most potential for something to actually happen. He's this kid who just gets to go to college. But he really wants to play basketball. It's like seeing the plot to Hoop Dreams right there and Ross decides to only touch on it. Daniel almost entirely defines himself through his basketball ambitions, but the movie only shows a bit of that. We get to see him practice. We see him have a conversation with his coach about stepping up. But the movie never really becomes about basketball. It's really interesting because Daniel doesn't support the basketball narrative. Rather, basketball colors Daniel with something that he loves. We understand that he's passionate and excited and the movie intentionally ignores any kind of goalsetting for the story. Rather, Daniel gives us the most rounded person in the story. But he is just another person in a rich world full of people that have their own stories. We just get to know Daniel's and Boosie's stories better than the other ones. Hale County This Morning, This Evening is a gorgeous documentary. He's a photographer and it shows. From a technical perspective, the movie is positively gorgeous. I think I said that if I was still working at the video store, I would play Koyaanisqatsi (Didn't look this time!) over the monitors all of the time. I don't think that I would any more. Not with something like Hale County. Koyaanisqatsi is stressful. It supposed to be stressful to a certain degree. Hale County brings an odd serenity. It is almost a celebration of a people and it is done through the lens of someone who understands composition and tone very well. It's a pretty movie full of great trick artsy shots and I like that from time to time. I will say that the movie gets pretty boring at times and that it is almost ASMR. I watched this while running and that's not always the smartest choice in the world when you really want to be focusing on something. But it also forced me to be away from my phone. Time dragged on the treadmill, but I caught every element of this movie. It's good, but I can't say that I will ever love it.
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PG-13, for the f-bomb. I think he only says it once, but there's some other mild language in the film. I suppose anxiety-induction might be a reason to rate something higher than PG. This rating is pretty accurate. I won't fight it. While I don't love the f-bomb in a PG-13 movie, I can think of worse examples of PG-13.
DIRECTORS: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi This movie. This stupid movie. We could have had Won't You Be My Neighbor? up for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. I'm seething about this movie. I'm clearly alone between the Academy and Cinefix both naming it their favorite documentary. It's going to win, you know. It's the one that people actually probably watched. It's the easiest to digest. It hits every button that people love that I absolutely loathe. Honestly, you can probably write me off for everything I'm about to write because I know that people like this kind of stuff. This kind of stuff should burn in a dumpster fire for me. A lot of my hatred comes from the fact that we are deifying a jerk. Alex Honnold is a horrible human being. I can already imagine the comments. "It's not like they hide that." Yeah, but they also really let him off the hook. Perhaps there is a gap in my philosophy that doesn't allow for me to appreciate something like what I just watched in Free Solo. There's something cool here and I'm going to talk about it. The big problem I have is that Alex Honnold is terrible and the movie is all about him. Honnold represents the worst instincts I think people can have. He is someone who puts his own needs above everyone else's. To do something as dumb as free soloing involves a certain degree of self-involvement. But Honnold takes it to my logical fear. He embraces the fact that he is only concerned with his own joy. As a Catholic, I often hear other Catholics cringe at the concept of "Whatever makes you happy." I always kind of sympathized with that phrase because I knew what people meant. From a theological perspective, happiness is kind of vapid. Often, happiness means serving the self and ignoring the greater good. But I never really saw it so embraced by anyone more than Alex Honnold. Now, I apologize if Honnold has issues that may prevent him from empathizing with others. I kind of read some spectrum stuff that are completely irresponsibly diagnosed by me. I might have to do some backpedaling, but I'm going to continue on based on the information given to me by the documentary. I was saying that their has to be something inherently selfish with the idea of free soloing. I know that people do risky things all the time. But these people are chasing the adrenaline rush. This is something that makes them feel good. They risk their lives over something that is essentially ephemeral. I don't know why free soloing is the one that gets my blood boiling more than others. I think it comes from the idea that it is a sport that is dangerous with the actual proper equipment involved as well. Alex Honnold takes it to a new level. A lot of the film is actually devoted to Honnold's thoughts on other people's feelings. Honnold doesn't believe that people actually care about each other. While I was showing my film class Free Solo, they told me that they studied him in religion. He vocally doesn't believe in God. He actually makes climbing his higher power and everything about that morality is reflected in his attitude. He treats people terribly. He is honestly the worst. The most compelling part of the non-meta narrative (I'll explain that later) is that Alex has a new girlfriend during the documentary. Apparently, he doesn't get along with many women. (Get out!) Let's establish. Sanni McCandless, if you are Googling your name and stumble across this review, (maybe you have Google Alerts or something), you can do better. No one should treat you like Alex Honnold treats you. I get it. He said, "I love you." No one said "I love you" to him (they totally did, btw. "Je t'aime" counts). But you don't deserve the way he talks about you. I know that he does some sweet things, but geez. He doesn't believe that people actually care about each other. That's psychotic. I don't know the diagnostic term, but he believes that people are there pretty much to use each other. When someone leaves someone else's life, they get sad for a while, but they get over it. There is no such thing as actual attachment. There's a part in the movie where his family is all carving pumpkins and having a good time. What's his comment? He doesn't like holidays because he doesn't like when other people tell him when to be happy. Who says that? What kind of nutbar can't appreciate people enjoying each other? He does this throughout. There are moments where he comes across as slightly sympathetic. One of the things he does is that he doesn't tell people when he's about to free solo. It can be interpreted that he's doing it out of concern for others. But I really get the vibe that he's just put out by people's emotions and concern for him. He seems above petty human emotion and just can't be bothered to comfort people in their distress. And everyone in the movie completely enables him. Sanni is possibly the worst. She sees this guy who is motivated and famous for being able to do this impossible feat. But when he says he loves her, it honestly feels like he's saying that because that will keep her in his life. Everything just seems like manipulation and it is a complete bummer. I'm supposed to be focused on this huge epic achievement, but it all seems like these people are enabling someone who is toxic in all of their lives. It's not like he does actively mean things to people most of the movie (besides eating with spatulas. Monster). I'm talking about the fact that everyone seems to profit from him climbing this mountain. He becomes famous. McCandless would never have met Honnold if he hadn't made his fame and fortune climbing this mountain. The documentarians would have nothing to document if he didn't. So they all need for him to continue treating his life like it is this novelty to continue doing what they are doing. It's a huge bummer. I mean, he talks to his old high school. What does the high school want their students to do, abandon school so they can climb mountains for a living? What kind of unrealistic expectation is that? I'm also someone who is very anti-sports, so please bear this in mind. The really interesting part of the documentary almost has nothing to do with the mountain. The part that really raises my eyebrows is the meta-narrative throughout. Considering that Alex Honnold is incapable of basic ethics or emotional vulnerability, the filmmakers are overwhelmed with it. They are filming a guy who could and should die on this mountain. No one has done this before. In fact, it actually seems impossible. I know that we're inspired by the impossible. I'm listening to the very rich piano score that is meant to inspire me to climb my own mountains right now. But they are present like I am. People who climb El Cap die with ropes. Alex Honnold seems to keep screwing up during the practice runs of El Cap with the ropes and hurting himself. This moment in time seems irresponsible and they are all well aware of this. So who is more morally culpable for what is happening here? The filmmakers become characters in their own documentary, discussing what they can do to minimize distraction to Alex Honnold throughout the film. Certain members see this as a job. They are aware that Honnold will do this regardless of their participation. But others see what they are doing as wrong. Mind you, no one is really holding a gun to their heads. There is a bit of "he doth protest too much" to some of these arguments. But it does bear something in the ethics of filmmaking. I think we had much the same argument with the documentary The Bridge. If these filmmakers were asked to come in and film someone's suicide, could they do it? Honnold acknowledges that this climb is the climb that scares him. Yeah, his goal is to get to the top of the mountain successfully. But he also stresses that his death is not that big of a deal. He makes that very clear. He is very conscious of the fact that El Cap will probably be the mountain that kills him. Yet, these guys are getting paid. I want to go back to that The Bridge comparison. It would be easy to throw stones at the filmmakers who made The Bridge and chose not to save people's lives with that documentary. But The Bridge wasn't meant to be made with the intention of encouraging people to jump off the bridge. Rather, it was about people's lives and the issues surrounding suicide. Free Solo is meant to be an inspirational film. The denouement of the movie has Alex talking about how someone is going to see this documentary and try something even more insane than what is being filmed in the movie. These guys are kind of aware that they are glamorizing something that may get many people killed, not just Alex. I'm really glad that the movie includes this because the narrative would be incomplete without it. The idea that the very act of documenting something changes the subject is never more clear than in this film. Sure, the team could try to minimize their impact on the subject matter. The use of drones and telescopic lenses reduces how much contact the group makes with Honnold. But they are ultimately responsible for this man's life and I'm glad that they acknowledge that. SPOILER: What would the movie be like if he fell? Would there be a movie? Has there been a movie like this that we've never seen? This is what the movie really brings to the forefront. The movie was made by National Geographic. Obviously it is very beautiful. At times, even I was swept up in the adrenaline of it all. Part of me wanted to see Alex Honnold do the impossible. I get the logic of it. But seeing what kind of person it takes to do something like this completely sickened me. It is not lost on me that the movie that didn't make it to the Academy Awards was Won't You Be My Neighbor? a movie about a man who deeply cared about every single person he met. Instead, I saw Free Solo, the documentary that is probably going to win, about a man who only cared about chasing that high and doing stupid things at other people's expense to get that high. How is this something that we glorify? Yes, mountains are very pretty. I like mountains. I even can get behind some mountain climbing. But there is no reason that something like this needs to exist. The attitude of Alex Honnold somehow dulls the beauty of nature in a way that I can't abide. I want to be able to look at El Cap with majesty, not as something that is simply a challenge. It has beauty in itself and the idea that we can glorify someone's potential death completely breaks my heart. Henson did the unthinkable. I watched practically every Academy Award nominee. He watched the other two. Bob Henson discusses Green Book and Vice in depth.
http://literallyanything.net/blog/2019/2/19/episode-67-literally-green-book-and-vice It's rated R because the f-word is thrown around pretty willy-nilly. These characters are terrible people. But they mostly refer to their misdeeds as opposed to actually seeing their misdeeds. Motifs of infidelity and lies are pretty standard. Apparently, intellectuals can still be smokers, despite the fact that I believe that smoking is on its last legs (pun intended). There's some drinking. Rated R.
DIRECTOR: Björn L. Runge I'm going to have to play some serious catch-up. I know that I post a lot. I watch a lot of movies, especially during Oscar season. But the Oscars are on Sunday and my kid's birthday is on Saturday. There are still many Oscar nominees that I still have to write about, so I'm going to try to increase the output somehow. If I don't make it, I don't make it. I'm just very goal oriented and I want to have everything up and ready for the Academy Awards. I remember that I was writing Moonlight while the Academy Awards were going one year. I don't want to have to do that again. I went right from Can You Ever Forgive Me?, a movie about a writer, right into The Wife. Two of the Best Actress pictures are about writers and I really want to be officially a writer. Look at me, reaching above my station. The impertinence! I think that The Wife might be one of the more depressing films about writing that I ever crossed. I think I might have to go into spoilers because much of the movie is based around the turn. I don't deny that there are some really impressive performances in this movie. I understand that's why it got the attention. Unlike Can You Ever Forgive Me?, I can actually support the Academy's decision not to nominate this film for Best Picture. It's very good and I really enjoyed it, but there's something just a bit too simple to make it a Best Picture contender. (In the back of my mind, it honestly might be the poster / font combination. How does such a movie get such weak distribution advertisement?) I'm glad I knew nothing about this movie going in. I really did. This movie really hinges on the idea that there are twists and turns coming in the narrative. The beginning of the film is wonderfully misleading. My wife told me what the movie was about, but I didn't believe her. I guess I should realize the irony of such a statement when a movie is called The Wife, that perhaps I should listen to my wife more often. But the first third to first half of the film, I was wondering why the film was called what it was. Their relationship seemed ideal. For the first half of the film, the movie almost focuses on Joe, who is played phenomenally by Jonathan Pryce. He's living the life I want when I'm his age. He's got multiple books published. One of them is so good that he's getting the Nobel Prize. (Yeah, none of my books would do that. I can reach beyond my station, but just slightly above my station.) His wife seems supportive. Glenn Close, as Joan, seems thrilled for Joe. Considering that I didn't listen to my actual wife about what the movie was about, I thought that the movie was about how small slights and rude moments can build up over the course of a marriage. Nope. Way off. The misdirection of the first act or two give such a contrast to the actual revelations of the film. The movie, shifting between two time periods (the present and the Nobel Laureate induction and the origins of their relationships) both kind of confirm that Joe's biggest fault is that he seems put upon by others and is remarkably cocky. As someone who is remarkably cocky, I didn't mind that as much. But the theme of genius leading to infidelity is also a common one. Again, I can't stress that this movie wants to tease that it is something that it is not. Joe is constantly built up by every character in the movie as this great genius that, when the (BIG SPOILER HERE) reveal happens that Joan pretty much wrote everything and that he just proofread it, it redefines everything that happened in the first act or two. It's such a bombshell that I almost don't know how it works. A lot of that comes from Joan's personality. Let me establish: I love how this movie plays out and I think it is extremely successful in pulling off something very impressive. But I also want to play Devil's Advocate a little bit and maybe expose some of the things that may irk some people. Joan's reaction at the beginning confuses me. Joan and Joe seem to exist in a state of self-delusion. Joe really does feel like he is the great writer. From moment one of their relationship, their dynamic has always been that Joe was this great professor of writing. He is confident and critical. He is extremely flirtatious, but we don't really understand Joan's abilities. After all, the only piece of writing that we are exposed to before the reveal is a clear description of Joe's first wife. It seems kind of easy. He's also extremely dismissive of the whole thing --which, in retrospect, makes sense for his character. But we are limited by what information we possess before that point. The movie constantly tells us that Joe is a genius so it is surprising when he is not. He's scummy, sure. But scummy and genius are not mutually exclusive. When Glenn Close gets on that line, I never see pride in herself. I see pride in Joe. I really want to see it both ways. I wish that I could view that scene thinking that she is really proud of herself. But the end really stresses that she is not delusional about Joe's lack of talent. She is almost unburdened by her confession. If I'm fighting this battle, as it seems that I am, I could say that she's happy for Joe because she knows that it will bring him joy. She oddly loves Joe. I don't know what the movie is saying about love. That end really throws me for a loop. Joe's a turd. He consistently cheats on his wife in the lamest possible way. Also, why is Linnea into him? Like, really? Is it because he is a Nobel Laureate? I mean, sure, it's a heck of a thing to throw onto your CV, but she's hanging out with Nobel Laureates all of the time, right? When she's asked to be the photographer for the Nobel Institute, you'd think that she'd be bored with Nobel Laureates. Also, reminder that one of the misdirected themes is that genius gets bored easily. Shouldn't she be constantly put upon by these Laureates? I'm confused on how this worked and why I kept capitalizing "laureates". But using the walnut to hit on ladies is just the worst. The first walnut made sense. Joan wrote about finding that walnut and then Joe wrote the really bad rough draft of The Walnut. But the actual walnut is not his thing anymore. Why would he use that? I know. I know the answer and I don't know why I keep using these rhetorical questions. He believes that The Walnut is his. He honestly believes that. There are these moments in the movie where Joe completely understands the dynamic between his wife's writing and his own. He takes care of the children and bemoans his lesser stature in the relationship. But he also completely capitalizes on that fame. He believes that he wrote these books. He treats his wife in private as though he wrote these books. The scene on the plane when he's desperately looking over notes and planning his next novel is very confusing in that sense. The play acting that they do is almost meant to be for a viewing audience. There are people sitting around them. Christian Slater is constantly bothering them. But it doesn't feel like this is "keeping up appearances". This feels like this is their dynamic. It could explain why Joan is put out by Joe's incessant requests to look over the work. She probably knows that it is trash and a waste of her time. David, Joan and Joe's son, is the worst. I'm sorry. Partly, he's supposed to be the worst. He's part of the illusion of the whole magic trick. We're so busy looking at how David sucks that we don't see that David might not be completely in the wrong. But he is. Okay, I'm going to try to take David's side because that's the role of analysis. He's lived in his father's shadow his entire life. His father has been dismissive of his writing and nothing that David does is good enough. Joe, as a means to disguise his own mediocrity, criticizes David. I actually now think that Joan mentioned that the manuscript is pretty great. Okay, I take it all back. David is the product of his father's insecurities. That said, he's a turd throughout. I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever sympathized with a tragic character less. David keeps intentionally ruining every moment with his obsession with people liking him. But this also leads to some really weird family dynamics. Immediately after Joan discovers that Joe tried seducing his photographer, they get a call saying that they are grandparents. It solved everything. What is the message here? Is this moment defining what they consider family? What they consider healthy? (The fragment was for dramatic effect.) David sucks. Joe cheats. The women in the family are the ones who are carrying the lineage and keeping things together. But why is Joan staying? She throws all of these accusations at Joe about how she uses their pain to write. But why does she? She seems to hate the writing. Her work is really tragic and comments on the awfulness of their relationship. She has to constantly view her pain with someone else's name on top. If she left Joe, she wouldn't be in the pain that she had. She could write. I still don't completely relate to the choices made throughout. The Wife is a great movie with its challenges. Like The Prestige, the film almost treats the reveal as a magic act. For the most part, a lot of it works. But like a good magic trick, the movie has to lie to its audience to make a lot of it really work. But regardless, it is worth a watch. I enjoyed it quite a bit. My wife found sections of it boring, so keep in mind that this might not be everyone's cup of tea. Rated R for a lot of stuff. Lee is a pretty grumpy person. When she's grumpy, she swears a lot. She drinks. She doesn't do drugs, but her friend, Jack, does all of the drugs and drinks all of the booze. She's involved in criminal activity. Jack is pretty sexually forward and eventually contracts HIV because of his sexual activity. Also, Lee is a criminal. This movie is about her being a criminal. It's rated R. I'm good with that.
DIRECTOR: Marielle Heller Two years in a row now! Two years in a row. The Academy ignores a perfectly great movie for Best Picture when a lot of the movies that are actually kind of duds get by. Last year, it was I, Tonya. I discovered these movies because they were both up for Best Actress. But both of those movies were absolutely phenomenal. Considering how much I actually really enjoy the Academy Awards, I do know that a lot of the appeal for these movies is the marketing push. It's not necessarily the Best Picture. It's how much money greases palms with amazing For Your Consideration packages. I can see this one not having the media blitz behind it, which is really a shame because I absolutely adored it. All that being said, Melissa McCarthy killed it. Absolutely killed it. I know that I'm losing my mind over this movie and I want everyone to see it, which makes for absolutely terrible writing. Trust me, I'm about to lose all my steam and I'm going to stare at my screen for an unhealthy amount of time. I may end up getting lost on Facebook for a really long time or I'll write half of it to only come back to it later. But Can You Ever Forgive Me? hits all of the right buttons for me. I don't know the real story. I know that the film was based on Lee Israel's memoirs about the crime she perpetrated, so I'd like to believe that it is mostly true. I know that Israel's book itself may be questionable considering that she's known for being a writer who is good at punching up the truth. That's the very center of the story. (The soundtrack isn't helping me write, by the way. Too many words.) But Can You Forgive Me? is the right amount of investment that I was ready for. I just realized that there's another connection to I, Tonya that I didn't realize. (I need to rewatch that movie someday.) Both of these films are about women getting caught up in something that they thought was small and harmless until it escalated into something absolutely huge. They both knew that they were criminals, but they also got the short end of the stick from time to time. I suppose that Tonya Harding, oddly enough, would prove to be much more sympathetic by the end of the film, I suppose. But Lee Israel seems to be the unfortunate victim of my life philosophy. I am part of that idealistic class of people who says that you should just write and create for the sake of creating. Write about what you love and people will find you. I mean, I've been writing this for three years and I'm convinced that most of my readers are bots or people who find the two spaces after the period hideous. (Take that. It's three spaces. Boom.) There was this weird moment when I was watching the film that I oddly felt jealous of Lee Israel's life. I wasn't supposed to be jealous of it. Not in the least. The movie paints her out to be completely tragic. She lives alone in an apartment in New York. She is living in squalor. Nobody loves her, let alone likes her. Apparently, her apartment stinks because she's kind of a hoarder and refuses to clean up after her pet. But then she was also a published author. The reason that she's living in squalor is that she keeps writing about what she loves. She picks these subject matters that she absolutely obsesses over. She writes them beautifully, which no one really denies. The only problem is that no one cares about the topics on which she writes. I. Can. Relate. Despite my extreme stream of consciousness style of writing, I'm told that I'm very readable. But between my wealth of output and the fact that I write for free, I'm not certain if anyone is actually reading. I'm reminded by my more tech savvy friends that most of my counter hits are probably bots. Yay. But part of the film is about Lee Israel both giving up her soul and also changing it. The movie never paints her as a good person. I don't think that Israel herself ever wanted to paint herself in that light. If the book is anything like the film, Israel prides herself on her caustic personality. She likes kind of being a mean ol' coot. But there's this moment in the film where she sells her soul. Melissa McCarthy, you deserve so much for this moment. She wants to write about what she wants to write about, but no one cares because she has burned oh-so-many bridges getting to that point in her life. But when she has to sell her prized letter, she has this epiphany that the dream was a waste. There's this absolute low point for the character. She does it for a blip of altruism --saving her cat --but isn't really happy. It's when she crosses that line into forgery that something interesting happens. I kind of want to analyze the film a little bit here because there might be two very different interpretations. I think, oddly enough, that both of them might have some degree of validity. Israel stops becoming the author she wanted to be. She doesn't write about other people. But she gets a sense of validity from writing like other people. I love that she had this unique gift for being able to mimic the voice of any legendary writer. I always wondered why someone didn't continue the work of the Beatles after they broke up. Mainly, because it is remarkably hard to do. So Israel gets this odd celebrity without the celebrity element behind it. People are finally reading and appreciating her work. She gets paid regularly and in large amounts. Honestly, it's the perfect level of celebrity because she can continue to lead a normal lifestyle without people hounding her, but she constantly receives affirmation for the works she is producing. In a sense, people are saying that she is as talented as any of the greats that she mimics and that's pretty satisfying. So is she fulfilling the need that she has inside of her or is she simply selling out? I know that this is a blog. I have been dropping hints that, when I die, I want this blog edited and published into a book that people can add to their film libraries. The theme would be "the movies that Tim watched in these three years", leading little to be cohesive about the whole thing. But I want something published before I die. I want to receive tiny little royalty checks for spending an hour a day writing. But maybe this is a story about dreams changing. The way she talks about what she did is specifically stated that she has no regrets about doing that. She seems actually pretty proud of her work. It's oddly both understandable and pathetic at the same time. If you really wanted to look at her work, it could be considered short fiction. I mean, these are real short fiction. I love mimicking styles for Secret Santa projects I create yearly. I get a kick out of mirroring aesthetics and font and kerning. It's a blast. Unironically, I have a really good time doing it if it wasn't so stressful. Maybe the message is that people should do what makes them happy. But Lee Israel is the criminal in this story. She establishes this as such. She alienates those people around her, including the woman she seems to like. What she is doing throughout is a crime and that's so complicated. But I like complicated. That's the movie I like, so I'm not apologizing for it. Jack Hock's story is pretty great, but I do want to comment on Richard E. Grant's nomination before I go on. He's fine in this. In fact, he's better than fine. He fits that role of Jack Hock absolutely perfectly. I just am not all that impressed for one reason: Withnail & I. It's the same role. Like, it's the exact same role. That's why he was cast here. I like Richard E. Grant. He's one of the fifteen British actors, which means he was on Doctor Who. That character adds so much to the story. Lee Israel, as a hermit, needs to have a sounding board and Jack Hock is this cool, walking / talking cautionary tale that works so well for the story. I find him absolutely fantastic. Oddly enough, like Israel, Hock is a oddly forgivable character. I mean, he's terrible. If I met him in real life, I would do everything I could to surgically remove him from my surroundings. But for the sake of Israel, it brings a lot out of her. Hock and Israel diffuse each other's morality for both better and worse. Israel, toxic in her own right, becomes borderline saintly compared to Hock's party attitude. Hock brings her down. But Hock also provides Israel opportunities for self-sacrifice. She honestly likes this guy. She sees through his lies and, while never trying to rehabilitate him, takes care of him. I don't know if it is a kindred spirit kind of thing, but she gleams onto him and they become oddly symbiotic. Hock, for all his misdeeds, somehow leaves the film as kind of the victim of the events. I mean, Grant's Jack Hock completely messes up everything. Any one of his mistakes could be described as unforgivable in this reality. There's one moment where he screws up so bad that Israel views him as a burden and a waste of space. But I honestly think I would have quit on him way before that moment. I don't know how he becomes the sympathetic victim at the end. If you say, "It's the HIV", you're missing the point. The HIV is oddly an afterthought of the story. It probably reflected the reality of the situation that needed and should have been included in the film. But HIV is part of the epilogue. It's not like Israel knew Hock during his HIV days and that's why she took him in. Quite the opposite. Hock always seems confident for much of their relationship. But he does these things, not out of malice, but out of addiction. That's probably what makes him sympathetic. He is an addict. He's an annoying addict, but he never means to screw up. It's just that much of his life is either survival or looking to get high. It's the zebra and its stripes. Because Israel never has the gumption to change him or wants him to change, we kind of want to see her understand that she can't have Hock both ways. He can't be this good-time-Charley (I've written this term too many times) and a responsible partner-in-crime. When Hock drops the ball, we feel bad for him because it was like leaving a child in charge of a kitchen that was on fire. Of course he can't fix the problem and that leaves the film with a proper come-uppens. I'm just surprised by how meager the punishment was. If I didn't have a whole moral code and a high horse, I think I'd like to have her sentence. It seems peaceful and all I could really do was write. Geez, that sounds like heaven. The film is pretty straightforward. I don't know why this appeals to me. I usually like for a director to take risks with the presentation of the film. I want something brain-breaky, but Can You Forgive Me? doesn't really call for it. I think that the story is so interesting and unheard of, that the movie can really stand on its own two legs without having a gimmick to play off of. I tried starting a lot of conversations around this movie, mostly without success. But when I tell the two line summary of the film, people haven't heard anything of it. But the premise works so well. Why I'm impressed with McCarthy's performance is that she didn't need to be as good as she was. She really got into the part and I want to see her win. Like, again, she's not going to. Oddly enough, I'm not writing off Richard E. Grant because this might appeal to lots of other people. But the film is just a movie about a very specific kind of con artist. But I got so much from McCarthy. I know that I can't be the only one throwing this theory around, but I love when comedians become dramatic actors. I think I only like the inverse if it is for one film. But think about Jim Carrey's dramatic roles. Same thing with Steve Carrell. Melissa McCarthy is a phenomenal comedic actress. Her improv on films is often the best part. (I'm fairly certain that there's a little bit of that in Can You Ever Forgive Me?) But she adds so much pathos to this fairly unlikable character that I don't know how I feel afterwards. I oddly rooted for her, despite the fact that her actions and her personality are despicable. She's just that good. The movie as a whole is wonderful and some of those other more generic films should get the boot for this smaller picture. Smaller pictures have value. It's so funny that the FBI gets involved in her crime because the scope of this picture is tiny, but I managed to really get invested in the weight that was upon Lee Israel's shoulders. That's the sign of a fantastic performance and I absolutely adored this movie. R, for a lot of stuff. Jonah Hill wrote and directed it. The language is over the top vulgar. It's so vulgar that a main character's name is a combination of curse words. A kid has a sexual experience with an older girl. While we don't see it, we really don't need to see it because it is described pretty intensely. There's a pretty traumatic car crash. The protagonist gets hurt pretty badly often. I mean, it's a solid R and it should be.
DIRECTOR: Jonah Hill A break from the Academy Award nominations. I honestly thought that this would get a nod somewhere from the Academy. It wasn't. Apparently, a lot of people didn't really like this movie. But it is such a weird thematic tie to Minding the Gap. Like, please, read my analysis of Minding the Gap and you'll see that I'm covering a lot of the same stuff. But mid90s is a far more impressive movie than a lot of people are giving it credit for. I can see why it isn't knocking people's socks off. It hits a lot of the same beats that coming-of-age movies really touch upon. We have this younger outsider bonding with older kids. The older kids give him a sense of self and ownership. But at the same time, he is learning terrible lessons that makes us question whether or not his life is better or what. I get the vibe that this continues a lot of what Dazed and Confused offers. Stevie is this extremely sympathetic character. Living with Ian is the worst. He's absolute garbage and uses Stevie as a way to overcome his own inadequacies. We've seen this dynamic before. But Stevie is physically tiny compared to everyone else in this movie. It's actually amazing to see this short little guy being able to rip a character apart and really believe it. Ian, this personification of violence and abuse, at one point, is ripped apart by Stevie. In A Christmas Story, there's the scene where Ralphie rips apart the bully. That moment is false. Instead, Hill crafts this character into a believable arc. That's where I think mid90s really succeeds. I mentioned that we have had this story before, but it always kind of works as a lightswitch. Rather, Stevie goes from this dorky kid to a dorky kid who knows how to handle himself. Part of it comes from the fact that he always kind of sucks at what he does, but he is desperate to get away from his old life. I was bullied as a kid and I know that when I tried changing my personality when I went to high school, I was still a dork. Luckily, my dorky personality was able to transition to a confident dork and that had some degree of appeal. Stevie never really stops being Stevie and I absolutely adore that. We see this nice kid disappear. That's something that is very clear throughout the film. It's heartbreaking seeing him disappear and become one of these burnouts. There's an interesting narrative being woven throughout mid90s. It's not perfect, but I like what Hill is attempting. Hill creates two characters who are two sides of the same coin. FS (you know who I'm talking about) is the archetypal burnout. He lives life to get drunk and to get high. He has no aspirations outside of doing this for the rest of his life. He's the worst, but he's likable for the most of the movie. That's the point. I want to hang out of FS. Okay, I don't. I don't have that personality and I write a film blog. But I hypothetically would want to hang out with FS if I was Stevie. But then there's Ray. Ray is the kid with balance. He enjoys himself. He loves skateboard. He even enjoys partying and drinking. But he has plans to become a professional skateboarder. When FS takes things too far, Ray is the guy who knows when to stop. We're supposed to really bond with Ray. Ray is the heroic character for Stevie. But the thing is that Ray never really takes a stand. I don't think that this is on Ray's radar. Ray keeps seeing FS make poor decisions, especially the most insane part of the movie, and never really stops him. Ray is supposed to be this strong, independent character; someone who isn't affected by strong personalities. But he keeps seeing evil around him. I kind of want to look at this. If Ray is the good character that we latch onto, why is he okay with these moments? The entire movie is about not talking. I want to say that reality isn't about confrontation. But sometimes it is. The idea that Ray might say something to FS is realistic. There's a moment where FS gets humiliated while drunk. Ray speaks out when his own interests are at stake. Ray didn't like how FS made him look, so he spoke up. But FS influences Stevie a lot throughout the film. Ray knows how Stevie's mom feels about the whole thing. We're supposed to respect Ray because he respects Stevie's mom to her face. But that's such a small moment. If he really acted respectfully, he would watch out for Stevie. I don't know why this leap isn't made. Maybe it's so it doesn't become a family film and still has that edge. But the movie kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too. mid90s is charming for a few reasons, but I like how it treats its tertiary characters. In the group, Ruben and Fourth Grade are possibly the most well developed side characters I've seen in film. Part of that comes from the themes of the story. Everyone has a story and mid90s tells that narrative really well. Ruben is perhaps the more obvious of the two characters. From moment one, we kind of get that Ruben isn't thrilled that Stevie is there. Ruben's character kind of rides the line between being a unique character and being a bit of an archetype. I have to give the points to the actor, Gio Galicia. Galicia has given what could be a pretty standard character and made him sympathetic. There are these small reactions that let us know what the character is going through. He doesn't really telegraph. Instead, he seems to be in the moment. His journey is the one of getting ignored. He is this parallel to Stevie. Stevie is this invasive creature to the group. He was special once and that quickly fades. But Ruben causes his own downfall. He reads these small slights as major attacks on his character and it's this tragedy that builds out of these choices. I ache for Ruben. When we discover Ruben's background, it is this major moment that doesn't really feel like a major moment. It adds to an already complex backstory. Don't get me wrong. It is really necessary to developing his character. But his character adds to the themes of the movie. Everyone is ignored unless you choose to make yourself not ignored. It's a heck of a thing. But then there's the surprise of Fourth Grade. Fourth Grade is a dangerous character to have in a film. He seems to be wildly flat. To make him round in the last minute in the movie can be extremely cornball. Fourth Grade kind of toes that line. But having Fourth Grade as a peer to Stevie is fun. Stevie is faking everything. He pretends to be confident throughout. The same thing is true about Fourth Grade. Both of those guys are the group's charity case. They can dunk on Fourth Grade and Stevie all day and they are just happy to be there. Having the camera there the entire time is a great Chekhov's gun. We keep seeing this camera to the point where it gets to be part of the background. I mean, if I was a filmmaker, of course I would see what was on that camera. It almost seems cliche as I write this. But I wasn't ready for that video when it showed up. This goes, again, to Hill. We all are ready to see that movie, but it doesn't show up when we think it will. Instead, it showed up at the emotionally vulnerable time. It's a phenomenal decision and that video is heartwarming. Yeah, Stevie shouldn't hang out with these guys. He's making terrible choices. But it is nice to remind ourselves that these guys are just kids who like to hang out. For all of their vices and all of their poor decision making, they actually are nice guys from time-to-time. It works really well. I don't really know why people didn't love this movie. It seems like the Academy Awards are all about movies that have already been made before this year. But, if I had to make a decision why it didn't get picked, I would have to say that this movie was too generic. Everything else was generic too. Yeah, the beginning of the movie really kept referencing the year it was made. It was obsessed with a lot of the fads of the '90s at times. But Hill moves past that. I think that the movie had to be '90s so it could mirror Jonah Hill's past. But it just creates a cool aesthetic. I don't know. Maybe that's what people have a problem with is that it is playing too hard into nostalgia. It is an odd choice to name the movie based on the setting. I'm not saying it's a crime. I just think that it works and we should get over it and watch it as a film. It is a much better movie than people make it out to be. Yeah, it's not amazingly special because we've heard this story before. But it is that story told extremely well with absolutely phenomenal performances and aesthetics. Even though I'm constantly talking about the Academy Awards right now, maybe give this one a shot before you forget about it. It's a good movie that has some real meat to it. Not rated, but there's a ton of content that could be considered offensive. The movie is constantly peppered with adult language. Drinking seems to be pretty prevalent. I think most of the boys are smokers. Also, the movie deals with abuse, both child and spousal. The boys are also drug users. The only thing that the movie doesn't have is sex, but that's still a lot to deal with.
DIRECTOR: Bing Liu They got me. At first, this was going to be the one that I was going to rally against. I am still a little shook that Won't You Be My Neighbor? didn't get an Oscar nom. But when I saw that a skateboarding documentary made it, I really got all up in arms. I thought that this was a movie that had privilege behind it the entire time and I was completely wrong. Out of the Best Documentary category, this might be my favorite. The movie is way heavier than I was originally going to give it credit for and that is wildly impressive to me. The biggest problem is that I can't show this to my students. The movie starts off with a bunch of stoners who like to skateboard. That's not a judgment call. The movie has one of the three, Zack, wondering if Bing, the director, was going to include him smoking pot in the film. (Note: I refer to him as Bing instead of Liu because he really is a character in the whole documentary. Despite the fact that he is mostly behind the camera, this is as much his story as it is the other boys' stories.) They are partying constantly. They drink to get drunk and then they do stunts off of their skateboards. They lead the life that we've been told is fun and they live life to excess every day. I've gotten my fill of skateboarding stoners being filmed. I remember the halcyon Jackass days where people acted like morons and hurt themselves on camera. The idea that this was coming back and getting nominated for Academy Awards blew my mind. But the movie isn't that. The movie is centered around skateboarding and partying, but the story is so much more. I never saw this coming, but the movie is about abuse and growing up. For those not in the know, Bing Liu, the director, has been filming this group of friends since the moment they met their now long-time friend Kiere. Kiere is a person of color that normally stands as an outsider in the traditionally white world of skateboarding. But the three grew close quickly. Everything that they had ever done had been videotaped by Bing, who quickly became obsessed with documenting their lives. Through the course of these films, Bing discovered that all three dealt with child abuse at one time or another. Now, that's one very important element to the story, but the second element is that Zack and, by proxy, the boys have to grow up. Zack and his girlfriend Nina have a child and Zack is not prepared for life at all. None of the boys are. Because of their history of abuse with their parents, they have all escaped their cycles of violence through skateboarding and partying. The problem is that Zack has picked up his father's violent tendencies and that is playing out in a very real way with his friends. Bing Liu seems to really hurt. The relationship of Liu with the audience is a strange one. For a documentary, there are places that Liu wants to explore that the boys aren't really aware of. For them, this is Bing making skateboarding movies with his friends. They know that this is going to be made into a formal documentary, but Bing is there to ask questions. He alludes to the fact that something inside of him is broken. We tend to find out what is going on in Bing's head through the probing questions that he posits. I find Bing's interviewing method interesting. He possibly seems like the most human interviewer as possible. He is asking things that are extremely painful, both to the interviewee and to himself. But he does so in a vulnerable way, with the possible exception of his mother. Because Liu has such a personal relationship with his subjects, he does have something to lose when he asks questions. SPOILERS: After Nina reveals that Zack has attacked her quite violently, she tells Bing that he cannot tell Zack that he knows. The entire rest of the film is this holding pattern of Bing trying to find a way to ask Zack about his abusive personality and conveying this information to Kiere. I don't think that I've ever felt more in on the inner circle as I have while watching Minding the Gap. There is the disbelief that Zack is a bad person because we get to know him in a positively social light. From Bing Liu's perspective, Zack is dating Nina, a girl who is emotional and not ready to take care of a child. When Liu is made aware of Zack's violent tendencies, there's always that questioning of "What is reality?" I've been there before. I never wanted to believe that one of my friends had done something awful. These friends seem like they are incapable of that behavior. But then it happens and you are placed in a really awkward position. Minding the Gap manages to bottle up that awkwardness while asking the hard questions. The film doesn't mind getting hard and that is really fascinating. Remember, I thought this movie was all about skateboarding and drinking. But then there's the scene where Bing asks his mother about Bing's abusive stepfather. We see the raw nerve that Bing has been living with for the majority of his life and it is uncomfortable to watch at times. He borderline tortures his mother with his bluntness in that moment. We see this complicated relationship explain itself in a matter of minutes. Bing Liu loves his mother and his half-brother, but is also furious that she forced him to endure a childhood with this abusive man. Kiere is fascinating. I want to see what happens with this kid because he is one of the most earnest souls I've seen in a documentary. Kiere almost fits in nowhere. He seems genuinely devoted to his friends, but really seems like an outsider wherever he goes. Liu seems to understand Kiere's plight while the rest of his friends seem oblivious. As a commentary on race, Kiere is often seen both as the center of the group and an outsider as well. His white friends seem to comment flippantly on race and try relating to problems that are unique to Kiere's situation. But because of the abuse that Kiere faced at home, he really has no tribe outside of his adopted friends. From other African Americans, Kiere is an outsider. His brother steals from him. Kiere dresses differently. Incarceration is typical for members of his family. There's nothing that really keeps him there outside of the love for his mother, which quickly fades when she brings home yet another abusive man. There's this odd shift where Kiere considers himself a nomad. He doesn't really have a permanent home and he finds places to stay when the going is right. But he is also is the one who wants to grow up and make something of himself, despite the fact that he doesn't really have a gun to his head. To make matters worse, and this is where I completely relate, his father died. Unlike the other two boys, Kiere actually holds his father quite dear to his heart. Kiere's message (and again, it's a documentary) is that abuse doesn't always look like one thing. Kiere has this complex relationship with his dad. He hates the dark times with his father, but misses his dad. I never went through an abusive situation. I had a marvelous childhood. I miss my dad all the time. But I also wonder if I would deify my dad like I do now if he had survived. Who would Kiere be if his father hadn't died? It's this whole coming to terms story and I absolutely adore it. It is so much. But the center of the story, and the thing that should be taken away, is Zack. Zack is this human cautionary tale. There are moments in the movie where Zack seems like the message he's conveying. He's kind of trashy. He's obsessed with drinking and partying and all of that nonsense. That's actually a central motif to Zack. If he can be drinking and having a good time, he is. In fact, we tend to bond with drunk burnout Zack versus the other versions of Zack. But it's when he tries to be an adult that he becomes scary. I'm the kind of guy who demands that people get their acts together. I'm the worst. I know that I'm the worst. But Zack scares me when he attempts to be responsible. He gets this sense of pride that he knows better than those around him and becomes a huge jerk. Zack, when he's Good-Time-Charlie, seems like he couldn't hurt a fly. But Zack is also this story of someone who can't just be thrown into reality. There's all these steps in adolescence that slowly transition us into places of responsibility. This creates this interesting situation. I want to believe that Zack couldn't beat his girlfriend. He is extremely convincing that he's valid in his disappointment with his girlfriend. That's scary. I get upset all the time, but I'm also prepped to deal with that in a completely reasonable way (as far as I know). But Zack is scary. I know that Zack isn't alone. Minding the Gap doesn't excuse Zack's behavior, but it makes it make sense. He makes violence believable. He's the bad guy of the story, but he's not really treated as the bad guy. Bing is horrified by his behavior and that is clear, but he never goes out of his way to vilify him. That's our job. I loved Minding the Gap. I really wasn't prepped to. While I will always rally for Of Fathers and Sons to win, I wouldn't mind for Minding the Gap to win. In terms of scale, it's very small. But it goes way deeper than I was prepped for a documentary to go. PG, because of course it is. I mean, the movie talks about reproductive rights and abortion, so I wouldn't show this to the really young. It is a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so when you are looking for that sweet PG movie to entertain your kids, maybe don't consider a documentary about extremely heavy issues. In terms of actually showing content, there's none of that. It's not like Ruth Bader Ginsburg just starts shouting expletives at the camera or anything like that. PG.
DIRECTORS: Julie Cohen and Betsy West See, I'm about to make everyone mad. No one is going to be on my team after this, with the exception of one or two people on Facebook who probably won't read this. I'm a Pro-Life Feminist. Every other feminist in the world is probably shouting "You can't be a feminist and deny what a woman wants to do with her body." Every pro-lifer I know thinks I don't know what feminism really means and that I've been brainwashed by the liberal media. I'm a white male and I know that I've had an unprecedented amount of privilege in my lifetime. While, undoubtedly, I want people to listen to my opinion, I also know that I don't have the same problems or insight into the world's problems. But I do want to say two things very clearly: I am always going to fight for life from conception to natural death and that I will fight for women to have the same treatment and rights as men. Strap in. This is going to get awkward. RBG rides really high on the fumes of how much people already love her. If I went back to the early 2000s, Hey there, Oscar fans. We start our Oscar coverage with A Night at the Garden and Bohemian Rhapsody. It might be a good idea to watch Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story before watching Bohemian Rhapsody, though.
http://literallyanything.net/blog/2019/2/12/episode-66-literally-bohemian-rhapsody Not rated, but the content is pretty intense. This is a story about kids where awful things happen to kids. Adults hit them. They are trained to be child soldiers. The father loses limbs trying to defuse a landmine. Everything said is pretty shocking and awful. While it is not rated, that doesn't mean it is for everybody. The odd thing is that I want to show my students this movie because they probably need to see this. But at the same time, I want to shelter them from the content. Not rated.
DIRECTOR: Talal Derki This documentary is going to be so snubbed. It might be the biggest problem with the Academy Awards. This movie is, by far, the most insane of the documentaries. I haven't seen Free Solo or Hale County yet, but this was two years of constantly risking the director's life for a movie that no one has seen. From what I understand about the Oscars, many of the people voting don't actually watch all of the movies, unlike yours truly. (I watch everything available to a pleb like me. I do my best.) Usually, foreign films in the documentary category seem to be even bigger chores for a lot of people. So something like Free Solo is probably going to get a lot more attention than this absolutely insane movie. Of Fathers and Sons feels like the gun is going to be turned to the camera at any second. Obviously, this documentary got out. This didn't make national news because the documentarian didn't get caught making his own documentary. But this is such an inside look at the philosophy of Al-Qaeda that people probably need to see it. The movie toes that line between distancing the beliefs of the people involved while simultaneously eliciting some emotion for the kids in the story. Abu Osama is completely engulfed in the teachings of the Taliban. He's completely lost from all potential of finding a peaceful lifestyle. The music he listens to is propaganda. He only knows how to communicate in propaganda. He teaches his children propaganda. But the odd thing about Abu Osama is that he is just like his children. He has always been in a world that has hated the West and Christianity. That's kind of what the movie is overall about. We have Abu Osama, a father who is doing everything he believes is right, training his sons to be soldiers for the Taliban. On the other end of the spectrum is the reminder that there are two children in this house who only know of killing. There are so many scenes where the kids are desensitized to things that would absolutely horrify us. They vocally thank God for anything that happens around them, good or evil. Derki has shown a side to war that we, as Americans, tend to find wildly uncomfortable. War itself is terrible, but the involvement of children is particularly despicable. The odd thing of it is that we never really forget that they are children. There are some absolutely simple moments where I could see the children in our house. They go to school. They play soccer. There's this moment that holds two meanings that I kind of want to look at. Considering that he's filming a documentary, Derki is there when one of the boys gets into a fight. This isn't a play fight. It is awkward and violent and personal. And he has to stare at them as they fight. This subject that he's been documenting and has formed a personal bond with is getting wrecked on camera and probably feeling betrayed. But this is a moment that really stresses the dichotomy of what is happening. Boys all over the world fight. I got into a fight. I was just like this kid and I got wrecked, but it happened. But when I went home, I knew that I would be in trouble for fighting, not for losing the fight. This kid feels shame from both embarrassing himself in front of all of his friends, but also that it is on camera and that his parents would not be proud that he lost. That's a weird moment. This moment is what Of Fathers and Sons is all about. It is a reminder of how we are all one people, but completely unable to relate even though certain things work the same. At no point do I think I could hold a conversation with Abu Osama's family because they absolutely hate me and everything I stand for. There is something captivating about this documentary that really gets my mind focused. It was available on the Kanopy app (something that everyone should have and use often), but the Internet was trash that day. The film is entirely subtitled and the subtitles are embedded in the film. That makes sense. But when the Internet was trash, the images lost important resolution. I refused to miss any lines of dialogue because everything was telling to the value system of a people that I have never encountered. When Abu Osama's books are damaged, I watched that scene four or five times because the Internet kept blinking out. The odd thing is that, in two years, Derki actually has a pretty linear narrative. The boys have an arc that goes in two very different directions. There are some documentaries that simply stay distant. When I write about Minding the Gap, that growth happens pretty organically and you can track these changes well. Of Fathers and Sons pulls out a beginning, middle, and end almost through luck. Both boys start at the same place. One is considered a little more weak than the other, but there's not much that is separating them in terms of identity or ideology. As the film progresses though and father loses limbs, the boys become galvanized in their differences. One grows into the ideal soldier. He hates the Taliban camp, but wants desperately to impress his father and become a killing machine. The other wants to live a humble life. He slightly refuses to grow up, enjoying his childhood despite what everyone around him wants. The trope is kind of flipped on its head. The parents see the weaker of the two boys as almost a failure. This is a father who doesn't view his injury as something preventable. His injury was not because of an accident. His injury was caused by attempting to defuse a landmine for the sake of the Taliban. I'm very puzzled about what I'm supposed to think about Al-Qaeda. In traditional wars, we have zealots. But often, these are people simply fighting for country. I think back on the tales of World War I and how people treated each other then. But I look at Abu Osama and the members of the Taliban within this documentary and I see all of their humanity lost. The narrative that we've been getting about Al-Qaeda seems, at least here, pretty accurate. Everything Abu Osama is saying is about how he wants to destroy the West. He takes great pride in 9/11 and how America is collapsing under its own weight. There is no dinner around the table. Actually, and my wife noticed this first, very few women are in this film. I know that's a cultural thing, but it's also a horrifying cultural thing. The men brag about being able to torture and kill little girls in the movie and it is just commonplace. Is the world a terrible place? I don't necessarily want film to be reminding me that the world is absolutely horrible. But I think a movie like Of Fathers and Sons need to be out there. Part of it comes from the idea that, if we don't see it, we get comfortable with it. I'm thinking of the many documentaries that are just huge bummers. But as Americans, we tend to get complacent with what is happening. I'm allowed to sit here and type on my computer. I maintain a pretty intense film blog where I talk about the movies I watch daily. Most Americans would look down on me for this, but that doesn't even take into consideration what people overseas would think of me. There's this oddly nice moment in the middle of Of Fathers and Sons where the boys make a makeshift pool. It doesn't look pleasant from my very comfortable perspective, but the boys absolutely adore it. They cannonball and belly flop and the water quickly becomes grey. But this is a reminder. This is one of the few moments of American normality for them. They are shot at by adults and humiliated. They are treated like adults shouldn't be treated. They go through all of this stuff and in this one moment, they are allowed to be kids. The movie constantly reminds you that these are kids and that they should be kids. Kids are wired to be kids, but that can be broken. It's pretty intense. I want this movie to get attention. I want it to raise questions that should be raised. But I also want to hide under a rock and pretend that we live in a world where people don't hate everyone. How depressing is our planet? This shouldn't be a thing and I don't know what to do about it. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
March 2024
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