It Came From the Netflix Queue

Movies: Housebound, They're Watching, Sun Choke

With time on my hands this holiday season, I've been catching up on some spoopy films in my Netflix queue. Enjoy!

***

Housebound

This delightful, unique New Zealand horror-comedy is great for scary movie lovers who enjoy a little levity with their chills and thrills. Morgana O'Reilly plays Kylie Bucknell, a young woman who has run afoul of the law one too many times and is sentenced to 8 months of house arrest at her mother's creaky old home. There, Kylie must endure such horrors as dial-up Internet, her dorky mom, Miriam, and Miriam's taciturn boyfriend, Graeme. Oh, and also the house is haunted. Or so Miriam claims.

After a few bizarre and spooky things happen (including a creepy-ass, talking teddy bear), Kylie and Miriam tell Amos, the security guard charged with making sure Kylie doesn't leave the house, about their suspicions. It turns out that Amos is an amateur ghost hunter who can't resist trying to help them figure out who--or what--is haunting the old home, which is conveniently filled with creepy passages and hallways, secret compartments, and all manner of haunted house tropes.

Housebound, directed by Gerard Johnstone, hits the sweet spot between genuinely scary and hilarious, often in the same scene (see again: creepy teddy bears being punched in the face). It also contains enough twists to keep the audience guessing about what exactly is going on in the house. Although Housebound has its share of jump scenes, it's mild enough for folks who shy away from scary movies to enjoy, similar to The Cabin in the Woods and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

Grade: A-

***

They're Watching

They're Watching was very disappointing to me because it had a great build up which led to a rushed, incredibly cheesy ending. In this independent horror movie, the crew of an American "house hunters" type show travels to Eastern Europe to catch up with a Becky, a woman who bought and made over a dilapidated home in rural Moldova. The village that Becky lives just outside of is famous for having burned a woman accused of witchcraft at the stake--a measly 100 years prior.

Greg, Alex, and Sarah are three young, gregarious crew members in charge of filming. They immediately alienate the locals by secretly filming inside a church during a funeral. They, along with their horrendously bitchy producer, Kate, and the Moldavian real estate agent, Vladimir (referred to as "Disco Dracula" due to his tacky outfits), visit Becky and find that she renovated it her home beautifully. But Becky is not well liked by the locals--they are suspicious of her as a single woman living alone in the woods who does not go to church.

Can you see where all this is heading?

The first 80 minutes or so of They're Watching is pretty entertaining, despite portraying the local Moldavians as backwoods "Euro hicks". There is a nice, creepy build up and some spooky foreshadowing. However, the last 15 minutes of the movie are deeply, deeply cheesy (both in tone and in special effects) to the point of embarrassment. I don't understand how the filmmakers were able to create an atmosphere of genuine tension only to blow it in the final scenes. Whatever. In any case, the last few minutes of They're Watching dropped my grade from a B to a...

Grade: C+

***

Sun Choke

Sun Choke is an incredibly weird little indie movie from newbie director Ben Cresciman. It drops the viewer right into the lives of Janie (Sarah Hagan) and Irma (veteran horror actress Barbara Crampton), who have a bizarre, codependent relationship. Irma acts as Janie's doctor, psychiatrist, and guardian. She makes green smoothies every morning for Janie and guides her through yoga poses. She also "treats" her by clanging a tuning fork near her head, causing Janie to moan in pain. Why they live like this is never fully explained. There are flashbacks peppered in, but they really give no context to Janie and Irma's situation beyond the fact that Janie experienced a trauma and Irma took over her care (Janie's father is in Tokyo indefinitely for business).


The audience is made to feel like Irma is the bad guy, treating Janie like a child and even forcing her to wear an electroshock collar when she stays out past her curfew. But we quickly realize that Janie isn't the innocent victim she appears to be. During a rare excursion beyond the confines of the posh, Los Angeles home where she lives with Irma, Janie spies a beautiful woman and quickly becomes obsessed with her: following her home, spying on her and her boyfriend having sex, and even breaking into her apartment.

To say more would be to give away too much. Sun Choke isn't a particularly good or satisfying film, but it's a strange curiosity for the bored film buff.

Grade: B-

Queen of Camelot

Movies: Jackie

Jackie, directed by Pablo Larrain, is a drama with the look and feel of a horror film. The musical score, composed by Mica Levi (who also composed the music for another haunting film, Under the Skin), invites feelings of stomach-churning dread. The cinematography is slightly grainy, giving the movie both an appropriately retro feeling but also a distinct sense that the viewer is a voyeur and is privy to moments no one should see, such as a drunk, recently widowed Jackie Kennedy trying on all the dresses in her closet and chasing pills with vodka.

Much as been made of Natalie Portman's performance as the dignified-to-a-fault first lady. Her accent, it's been said, perfectly captures Jackie's WASPy inflection. It's creepy to listen to and, to me, had moments where it sounded like Portman was doing an impression of Cartman from South Park--a sort of whiny, nasally voice. But Portman, who will surely be nominated for another Best Actress Oscar, taps into the grief-addled mind of a woman who lived for her husband and now must preserve his legacy and move forward on her own.

Jackie has a framing story--an interview Mrs. Kennedy did for Life magazine a week after JFK's death. Billy Crudup plays Theodore White, the smug interviewer who pokes at Jackie, trying to get to the "truth" while Jackie gives him what he wants--a description of the sound the bullet made when it hit John F. Kennedy's skull, for example--and then forbids him to print what she said. It's a funny little cat and mouse game that reveals both Jackie's flesh-and-blood human side and the mask she carefully wore as a public figure.

The film focuses entirely on the immediate aftermath of Kennedy's assassination. Within two hours of losing the man she loved, Jackie must watch as Lyndon Johnson (played by great character actor John Carol Lynch) is sworn in as president. She must also make decisions regarding her husband's funeral and burial--decisions that, she feels, will make or break his legacy. Portman comfortably shares the screen with Peter Sarsgaard, one of my favorite actors, who plays Bobby Kennedy--the two comfort each other and bicker over how the funeral procession should go. Should they travel by car, which is safer, or walk, which is more of a spectacle (which is what Jackie wanted)? On Jackie's insistence, they end up walking.

By narrowing the scope of the film down to about one week in Jackie Kennedy Onassis's life, Larrain is able to say more about this glamorous, incredibly intelligent woman than he could if he attempted to direct a movie about her entire life. This is a problem biopics often make--they try to show as much of a person's life as possible and thus only scratch the surface. They value breadth over depth, which is the opposite of what Larrain does with Jackie. He goes deep--deep into Jackie's personality, but also deep into her special grief. She's not just a widow; she's a widow during a time when women were expected to live for their husbands more than for themselves. What does it mean to lose the center of your world? And more: she's the widow to the president of the United States, so her every move will be carefully watched and recorded.

Jackie is most definitely not a pleasant film. It only needs to be watched once. And there are plenty of other films and books that delve into the entirety of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. But this film does an excellent job at revealing the strength, the stubbornness, and the humanity of one of America's most beloved First Ladies.

Grade: B+

Backward and In Heels

Movies: La La Land

I feel a tinge of envy when I think that director Damian Chazelle is only one year older than me and yet has directed two masterful films--Whiplash and La La Land--and one film that I can only assume is also pretty good (Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench). The man's a prodigy!

I was blown away by Whiplash, tied for my favorite movie of 2014 (with Wild), the nerve-shredding film about a fanatic drummer and his abusive teacher. La La Land is a comfy pair of pajamas compared to that film: easy on the eyes, ears, and soul.

Starring Emma Stone, who looks increasingly alien with her extremely large, wide-set eyes, and Ryan Gosling ("That Ryan Gosling is so cute" --my mom) as an aspiring actress and aspiring jazz pianist respectively, La La Land is a tribute to old school Hollywood musicals with a modern setting. Set pieces include a song and dance number during a traffic jam, a post-party soft shoe dance complete with the characters, Mia and Sebastian, teasing each other not-so-nicely (recalling the similar "I hate you, but you're cute" chemistry between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in films like Top Hat and The Gay Divorcee), and a breathtakingly beautiful dance between the lovers among the stars at the Griffith Observatory.

I really, really enjoyed La La Land although I wasn't completely blown away by it as some critics/viewers were. I will say that there were a couple scenes that really wormed their way into my cold, black heart, such as the scene where Mia and Seb hold hands for the first time--sexiest scene in a movie this year that didn't contain sex. And the final scene, which will leave audiences' hearts throbbing, took what could have been an average love story to new and different heights.

Chazelle deserves great praise for simply being able to pull off a musical--one of the most difficult and polarizing film genres, in my opinion. Musicals can so easily be terrible and even good ones are not universally liked. For example, I was left totally cold by the Oscar-winning 2002 film Chicago, but I loved the controversial Tim Burton-directed Sweeney Todd. For Chazelle to not only direct a beautiful, touching musical, but one that is as close to universally liked as a film can get (it currently has a 93 score on Meteoritic), is an amazing feat.

It's hard to say where my slight hesitation with La La Land lies--probably somewhere in the philosophical stance the film takes on what it means to "follow your dream". Sebastian dreams of opening his own jazz club where he and others can play old school jazz. But he takes a paying gig in a modern jazz band called The Messengers that mixes classic jazz sound with modern beats and auto-tuning-type stuff (forgive my lack of language to describe music). When the band becomes successful and Seb prepares to travel with them for an indefinite time period, Mia questions whether he is actually "following his dream". There was something about La La Land's uncompromising stance on what it means to have a dream and what success looks like (it must be exactly as you picture it, goddamnit!) that made me roll my eyes a bit. Although both Mia and Seb endure rocky roads to get there, they both achieve their dreams in a hilariously short period of time. I guess La La Land takes the fantasy of Hollywood the full nine yards!

There was also something that felt weird about how Seb is the one white guy in The Messengers, and yet he's presented as the only one whose heart lies with "real" jazz...a musical genre created by black people. La La Land walks a fine line between suggesting that this white guy is a more of a true, pure musician than his fellow (black) band members and trying to show that sometimes just taking a paying job and actually compromising might be a good thing (white and/or artistic and/or male people seem to have trouble with compromise sometimes). In any case, it was something that bothered me a little.

But overall, La La Land is a joy to experience, from its clever and lovely tunes to its beautiful cinematography to its three-hankie ending. Gosling and Stone have undeniable chemistry and musical chops and Chazelle is a confident and sure-handed director. It will be exciting to see what magic he creates next.

Grade: A

Tears on My Pillow: Some Stuff I Read This Year

Books: Year End Review

Appropriately for 2016, aka "The Dumpster Fire Year of Our Lord", I began and ended the year by reading books steeped in varying amounts of misery. But, you know, misery and pain aren't always bad things and frankly I'd much rather read about misery than experience it myself.

So, here is a not even close to comprehensive list of books I read this year, some miserable and tragic, others less so, but all of them worth reading. Enjoy, and may 2017 not end in a mushroom cloud of death...because I have a fucking huge "to be read" pile!

***

Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
By Sarah Hepola

Hepola's insightful and funny memoir about her life as a black out drinker until she quit drinking at age 35 isn't a story of sadness, but one of recovery. Hepola isn't preachy or judgemental. She has a clear-eyed understanding of why many women drink. Drinking was "the gasoline of all adventure" for her, allowing her liberty from her own inhibitions.


But as the opening story of Hepola coming out of a black out in the middle of having sex with a stranger implies, the adventure isn't always so fun when you don't remember it. It takes Hepola years, including sober years that turn back into drunken years, to reckon with her drinking before she decides to quit. Again, Blackout is not a pushy morality tale in the least. Hepola's observations about why people--women especially--drink, and what happens to people when they drink (Hepola points out that when men drink they do things to the world and when women drink the world does things to them) are intelligent and worth considering, given our culture of excess.


Grade: A

***

A Little Life
By Hanya Yanagihara

I've certainly proselytized about Yanagihara's emotional face-punch of a novel enough, both in my review of it and in real life (I convinced a woman in a bookstore to buy it. I hope she doesn't hate me now). But I just can't help myself given that it's definitely the best book I read this year and one of the best books I've read in my life. A friend of mine who read it around the same time I did said he liked it but will never read it again.

And here I am, biding my time until I've forgotten it enough so that I have a somewhat similar experience to reading it the first time when I inevitably read it again.

I don't know why I loved A Little Life so much, especially given its heart-breaking content. Following the lives of four friends from their early 20s into middle-age, A Little Life focuses mostly on Jude, who endures a Biblical level of suffering his entire life. From ghastly childhood abuse to chronic pain from a grisly car accident, Jude's suffering is almost as intense as the love he is unconditionally shown by his friends and adopted parents. As Yanagihara said in an interview, "I wanted everything turned up a little too high"--she meant both the pain and the love. Perhaps the reason I latched on to A Little Life is because *my* little life is mostly on a even keel--some love, some pain. When life gets a little too safe and repetitive, some people jump out of airplanes, other people take LSD at parties, and some people--myself included--seek out art that requires us to feel something intensely.

Grade: A+



***

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
By Atul Gawande

No one wants to think about old age, illness, and dying--and that's exactly what Being Mortal seeks to remedy. Gawande's important book tells us what we already suspect to be true: that simply being alive is not enough to make life worth living. It's not quantity, but quality, that counts.

Gawande explores ways to make nursing homes less awful (let the residents have more autonomy; introduce plants and animals into the living spaces) even if it means they might be a teensy less safe. He shows how giving up on long-shot treatments for terminal disease and instead introducing hospice care actually improves patients' quality of life near the end. He urges readers to have crystal clear medical directives so that spouses and children in the throes of grief don't have to (or have permission to) make choices like pulling the plug, allowing a feeding tube to be inserted, etc when that was not the wish of the incapacitated person.

Although I initially felt alienated from this book, I'm glad I read it at my age (30) before I have to worry about some of this stuff. It's better to work on having the right mindset about end of life issues before faced with them head on.

Grade: B+



*** 

Silence
By Endo Shusaku

Shusaku's remarkable novel about Catholic missionaries in 17th century Japan is about to hit the big screen in an adaptation directed by Martin Scorsese. Who better to direct a film about the complexities of religious faith than the man who directed the controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ?

Silence is a book I would recommend to anyone and everyone who is religious, was religious, or is becoming religious. Hell, atheists should read it too! It follows the story of Father Rodrigues, a young Catholic priest who travels from Portugal to Japan to find out what happened to his mentor, Father Ferreira, who is rumored to have renounced Christianity (the practice of which is outlawed in Japan). Rodrigues encounters suffering and challenges to his faith at all turns, culminating in a situation where he is asked to symbolically deny Christ in order to end the torture of a few innocent people. Rodrigues spent his entire life believing that renouncing Christ is the worst sin you can commit...but is it wrong if doing so will save others from unimaginable suffering?

Silence is a beautiful, sincere story that explores what it means to truly be a servant of God in action, word, and soul. It is not cynical, it is not anti-religion. But it is haunting and it is definitely challenging--to both those who are religious and who are non-religious.

Grade: A+



***

The Witch and Other Tales Re-Told
By Jean Thompson

Fairy tales are ripe for reinterpretation because they are based around fears and desires we as humans share regardless of the culture or time period we live in. Thompson's collection of stories takes on classics such as "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel" in novel ways. Some of the stories are funny (a guy hunts down the woman who leaves behind a sexy platform shoe after a drunken night of partying), some are dark (the overprotective father of a teen girl is haunted by an incident from his past). But nearly all the stories are compulsively readable and fascinating.











Grade: B
 


***

Mischling
By Affinity Konar

And so I ended a politically horrific year with a book about the Holocaust. Hooray! Mischling is a work of fiction about very real events: Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's experiments on twins in Auschwitz. The novel follows 12 year old twin sisters, Pearl and Stasha, as they are shuttled in cattle cars to the infamous concentration camp, separated from their mother, and delivered into the hands of "The Angel of Death": Josef Mengele.

The first half of the book is about their survival in the camp, during which they become separated. The second half is after the war is over and they are technically liberated (although still very much in danger of illness and starvation) and their struggle to find each other again. 

For a book that details some pretty horrific shit, Mischling has an air of gentleness. I think I read a review where the reviewer said it had "the lightness of a fairy tale". Just as fairy tales are meant to help children understand scary realities of life, Mischling allows the reader to confront a place and time that was literally hell on earth for millions of innocent people without falling completely into despair. The story is, ultimately, about love: the love between sisters, but also between people who suffer and don't allow their suffering to turn them into monsters.

Grade: A-

***

Some other books I read this year: 

• A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
• A ghost story with a shocking, yet inevitable ending. Grade: B 
•  Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld 
• A funny, smart modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice by one of my favorite authors. Grade: A 
•  It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchel1
• A memoir about weight loss and body positivity. Not my fave. Grade: C+
• The Secret Place by Tana French
• An Irish murder mystery set in a girls' boarding school. Grade: B
• The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiScalifani 
• A coming of age story set in Depression-era North Carolina. Grade: B
• The Hand That Feeds You by AJ Rich
• A pulpy Gone Girl-esque story about a woman who discovers that her fiance is not at all who she thought he was. Grade: B-
• The Tenth of December by George Saunders
• Unique, funny, and occasionally bizarre short stories by a prolific author. Grade: B
• You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott 
• A story of a fiercely ambitious teenage gymnast that starts strong but ends weak. Grade: B-

 Happy reading in (a hopefully not terribly shitty) 2017!

Slice of Life (And Death)

Movies: Manchester by the Sea

Kenneth Lonergan only directs about one movie a decade, but when he does, boy howdy. I remember watching his 2000 film You Can Count On Me when I was 15 years old, both my pre-frontal cortex and cinematic knowledge still years away from being fully developed, and thinking "damn, this is a good movie."

Lonergan is a master at detailing relationships. From Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo as estranged siblings in You Can Count On Me to Anna Paquin and J. Cameron-Smith's emotionally tumultuous mother-daughter relationship in Margaret (a film that, speaking of tumultuous, took years to make to the big screen), to Casey Affleck's and Lucas Hedges' playful, yet distant uncle-nephew relationship in Manchester by the Sea, I have rarely seen more realistic portrayals of family dynamics. And humane portrayals, even in the dark places Lonergan's films often go.

Manchester by the Sea is a masterpiece in spite of (or because of) its modesty. It's a film both cozy and tragic. It chronicles some of the worst life experiences a person can go through as well as the mundane annoyances of forgetting where you parked.

The film opens on the day-to-day life of Lee Chandler (played by the hotter, better Affleck brother), an intelligent, if taciturn, blue collar man who does janitorial and handy-man work for a few buildings in Quincy, near Boston. He lives in a one-bedroom home and gets into random bar fights after the working day is done.

One day Lee gets a call about his brother, Joe (played in flashbacks by Kyle Chandler), who has passed away suddenly. It's not a surprise, exactly, as Joe was diagnosed with congestive heart failure years before and everyone knew his heart would give out sooner or later. What *is* a surprise to Lee is that Joe makes Lee the official guardian of Patrick, Joe's son. Patrick (played by newcomer Lucas Hedges in a fantastic performance) is a popular 16 year old with a ton of friends and lot of shit going on in his life. When Uncle Lee comes to town and starts making noise about dragging Patrick back to Quincy with him, Patrick balks.

The real reason why Lee is hesitant to just move to Manchester is revealed in a long series of flashbacks (I'll talk about them below after a spoiler warning), and it truly is something that makes it impossible for Lee to live a normal life in Manchester. Much of the film deals with what one would consider the typical aftermath of the death of a family member: figuring out funeral arrangements, getting in touch with estranged relatives--just typical adult bullshit with an added sheen of depression on top. But the central tragedy of the story haunts the film like a shadow just out of the corner of your eye.

If my description of Manchester by the Sea makes it sound 1) boring and 2) depressing, well, it is both of those things but also not. Clocking in at 137 minutes, the film is definitely slow. But, personally, I never felt bored. The naturalistic interactions and dialogue make you feel like you're eavesdropping on someone's actual life instead of watching a *movie*. So even during slow scenes, there's a sense of--I don't want to say voyeurism--just that feeling of pleasure you sometimes get when you overhear someone's conversation in public. Fascination.

And yeah, the movie is a little depressing. But it's also surprisingly funny. Lee and Patrick's adorable bickering as the two figure out how to deal with one another is especially funny. Patrick is a popular, but sensitive kid who seems years more mature than his aloof uncle. Patrick calls bullshit where he sees it and does so in a way that's surprisingly (perhaps unrealistically) polite for a 16 year old.

Another random thing I loved about Manchester by the Sea is the soundtrack. Lonergan is a fan of classical music and he uses pieces from--I shit you not--Handel's Messiah in the movie. I feel like if it were any other director on the planet, using these pieces (specifically, "Pastoral Symphony" and "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd") would be pretentious as fuck, but Lonergan pulls it off! It really works well with cinematic scenes of the cold ocean and snowy sidewalks of Manchester. It also helps that I really love Messiah.

So, before I get to the spoiler-y section below, I'll say that Manchester by the Sea is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's not a movie you escape into. But it is really, really goddamn good.

Grade: A+ 

***

Spoilers below!

If you've seen the preview or the poster for Manchester by the Sea, you'll notice that Michelle Williams is one of the lead actresses. She plays Lee's ex-wife, Randi. The details of their marriage are revealed in a number of flashbacks. You first see Lee and Randi as a happy couple with three kids: two girls, one maybe 9 years old the other maybe 5 or so, and a little baby boy. Based on their modest home and youth, you figure Randi and Lee got married and started popping them out pretty young, but they seem happy despite Lee's love of having his buddies over to drink and play pool into the wee hours of the night.

After one such late-night gathering (Randi comes downstairs to tell the "pinheads" Lee is drinking with to shut the fuck up and go home--her kids are sleeping upstairs), Lee walks to the market to grab more beer and comes home to find his home engulfed in flames. Randi has been pulled to safety by firefighter...but the kids are gone. Three kids, dead, just like that.

During Lee's interview with the police, he explains that before he went on his beer run he started a fire in their fireplace. As he was walking to the market, he had a moment where he couldn't remember if he put a screen on the fireplace. He figured it was ok and kept going. That decision cost him his children. Lee is taken aback when the cops let him go. "It's not a crime to forget to put a screen on a fireplace" (I was a little surprised at this--wouldn't Lee at least be charged with involuntary manslaughter?). Lee actually seems angry at the fact that he won't be punished. Of course, he will be. The rest of his life will be punishment.

This backstory explains a number of things: Lee's quiet, boring life in Boston. Why a smart, attractive man isn't seeking more than janitorial work and bar fights. It explains why he can't move back to Manchester. Not only are the raw memories still there, he's also a pariah. He's the man who essentially killed his own kids. Randi has, in a way, moved on. She remarried and had another kid. But as a chance run-in with Lee confirms, you never truly move on from the kind of thing that ended their marriage.

This tragedy is almost Biblical in it's proportions. It actually reminds me of the novel I read and so deeply loved earlier this year, A Little Life, which chronicles tragedies so intense and baroque, they seem like something out of a dark fairytale. The author of A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara, said in an interview that she "wanted everything turned up a little too high" with regards to the violence--but also the love--in her novel. I get the feeling that Lonergan is going for a similar thing here. The loss Lee faces--at his own hands--is too much to bear. So he retreats into himself and becomes nothing. That is until he's forced to become something again--a man with responsibilities, a man who, despite everything, is really loved--or, at least, supported--by those around him.

And that, to me, is purpose of Manchester by the Sea: not to preach, not to entertain, but to reveal a slice of humanity and its most humane and most forgiving. The film ends with Lee and Patrick fishing together on the boat Joe passed down to Patrick. Life still isn't sunshine and roses, but Lee is given a real shot at redemption. Life goes on, despite the worst pain imaginable, and it's possible to not just survive, but to live for something.

As I said above, Manchester by the Sea is a really fucking good movie, and not because it's extraordinary but because it's ordinary. Not because it's epic, but because it's modest. Not because it's fantastical, but because it's real.

Grade: A+

But Is It Art?

Movie: Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals, the second film directed by Tom Ford, has many layers. Literally--it contains a movie within a movie. It's also not just about one thing. It's about failed relationships, regrets, art, violence, the fragile male ego. It's campy and it's beautiful and it's a film noir. In my view, it's an excellent film with flaws.

I'll give a basic overview here, followed by a spoiler-y deeper look at the film.

Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, an art gallery owner living in LA with her distant husband, Hutton (Armie Hammer, the actor equivalent of a blank sheet of paper--you look at him and there's no distinctive features to grab onto). Susan is incredibly wealthy and by any measure successful, but she is unhappy. She's too smart for the fakeness of LA. She considers the art she showcases to be "junk". Her relationship with her husband is cold and bordering on hostile.

One day, a manuscript arrives at Susan's door. It's a proof of a novel titled "Nocturnal Animals", written by her first husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), and dedicated to her. Edward includes a note suggesting the two of them meet up while he's in town.

Susan begins to read the novel and the movie within a movie begins. I won't give much away here (spoilers below), but the book is about a man who faces an incredibly violent, tragic event and seeks justice by any means. The main character in the novel is Tony (also played by Gyllenhaal). The violence and darkness of the novel shocks Susan, and we see the events of the novel interspersed with Susan's memories of Edward, the sweet man she married who dreamed of becoming a novelist but didn't seem to have the talent. It turns out that he DID have the talent, as evidenced by "Nocturnal Animals", and given Susan's not great relationship with her current husband, you can see regret and hope infuse her features and she makes plans to meet with up with Edward.

The framing story--that of present day Susan and the flashbacks of her relationship with Edward--is a good, if soap-y story. But it's the movie within a movie, the plot of "Nocturnal Animals", that is the real showstopper in this film. Whereas there is an emotional remove between the audience and Susan's poor little rich girl life, giving the frame story a cold, if interesting, feeling, emotions flood the plot of "Nocturnal Animals". The story is terrifying, thrilling, suspenseful, gripping. Some reviewers criticized the film Nocturnal Animals as a whole since is feels a little all over the place, but I actually thought the juxtaposition of the noirish, violent inner movie with the cool, campy drama of the outer movie worked well--like pairing a nice, dry cabernet with a bloody steak.

Those who want to avoid spoilers can stop reading now--and I do recommend Nocturnal Animals.

Grade: A-

***

Spoilers below!

I mentioned above that Nocturnal Animals is as much about the male ego as it is about anything else. There is a distinct parallel between Susan's relationship with Edward and the violent events Tony faces in the plot of "Nocturnal Animals". While Edward is courting Susan in their early 20s, Susan's conservative, materialistic Texan mother (played--I think--by Laura Linney) discourages Susan from marrying Edward, saying that Susan is too strong for Edward. That he is a romantic, but ultimately "weak" man. Sure enough, as the years go by, Susan becomes dissatisfied with Edward, saying that he is a dreamer who is satisfied with a simple life. Edward says "you think I'm weak, don't you?". Their relationship ends when Susan has an abortion as well as an affair with Hutton (this is the really soap opera-ish part of the movie).

In Edward's novel, "Nocturnal Animals", Tony Hastings and his wife and teen daughter are driving across west Texas when a group of hooligans run them off the road and then accuse Tony of running *them* off the road. This scene takes its time, but you know exactly where it's going. The trio of baddies, led by Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, in a ballsy role as a sociopathic redneck), start off by offering to change Tony's tire (which they themselves stuck a knife into) and then ride to the next exit to report the accident to the cops. But they insist on taking Tony's wife (played by Isla Fisher, who looks like Amy Adams) and daughter in their car and making Tony follow.

What do you think happens? Tony manages to escape, but after contacting the cops, they discover the bodies of his wife and daughter. The detective on the case, Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon in a flawless performance) gruffly relates the cause of death to Tony: his wife was bashed on the head and his daughter suffocated. A small thing I noticed in the film is that Tony is silent as Andes related the violence visited on his wife and child, until Andes adds "and they were both raped", which causes Tony to emit a sob of grief.

Tony of course could do nothing to save them. He was physically restrained by the bad guys. But he is forced to endure what is the ultimate...I don't know, pain? Humiliation? Psychic destruction?...that a man can endure: failing to protect "his women". And knowing that in addition to his wife and daughter dying, they were forcibly fucked beforehand. Tony is beyond emasculated--just as Edward was emasculated (albeit in a less intense way) by Susan, who aborted their child and left him for another man.

Tony in the novel ends up teaming up with Andes to mete out justice outside of, uh, "proper protocol". But even when the opportunity presents itself, Tony has a difficult time meting out violence. It's only during the final confrontation between Ray and Tony, where Ray tells Tony he's "too weak" to possibly kill anyone, that Tony finally is able to pull the trigger (literally).

Given the violent plot of the book "Nocturnal Animals", what is Susan supposed to think? What are we the audience supposed to think? Did Edward write this book as the ultimate "fuck you" to Susan? Is it a revenge fantasy where Ray is a stand-in for Susan? And what of the ending of the movie, where Edward agrees via email to meet Susan for dinner, only to stand her up?

Nocturnal Animals is, in some ways, about reaping what you sow. It's not so much that we're supposed to think Susan is a bitch and a terrible person for leaving Edward. Her true sin is not owning her own life. She rejects her mother's advice only to follow it and end up unhappy anyway. She denies her own talent and creativity (she originally wanted to be an artist, but ultimately became an art gallery owner--the facilitator of other peoples' dreams) and settles for a safe, wealthy life...but she is not safe at all. She looks to the men in her life to make her happy, or change to suit her needs, and this plan fails--twice. Nocturnal Animals--at least the framing story--seems to me to be a warning about not owning your shit. And the inner story is about men not confronting their weakness and figuring out how to deal with powerlessness until it's too late.

One thing I want to add: there is not a single bad performance in this entire film. From Gyllenhaal's double-role as sweet Edward and grieving Tony, to Adams' complex role as a woman who has it all and also has nothing, to Shannon's gruff, uber-badass detective, every acting job is A fuckin' plus. I'm giving the movie an A- rating because it is an excellent film with some mild flaws (I groaned at the abortion twist, and also thought the ending was a cop-out). That said, I highly recommend the film. It's beautiful, dark, thrilling, and vastly entertaining.

Grade: A-

They Come In Peace

Movies: Arrival

*Sigh* I always assume I'll enjoy Denis Villeneuve's films based on their descriptions and trailers. But when I actually watch them there's always a cold, glass wall between me and the films--not unlike the transparent wall that separates linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) from the squid-like aliens in Arrival.  

Take, for example, his 2013 film Prisoners, about a man (Hugh Jackman) who will go to any lengths, including kidnapping and torturing a mentally disabled man (Paul Dano), to find his missing daughter. Prisoners should inspire outrage, anger, fear, empathy...something. It left me cold and unimpressed.

And then his follow-up, Enemy, was even worse. Described as an "erotic thriller" (HA.) starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who meets another man who is exactly like him (are they twins? the same person but living on different planes of reality?), the film is neither erotic nor thrilling. The two emotions I experienced while watching it were confusion and annoyance.

I haven't seen last year's Sicario, and I heard it's really good. But I'm not champing at the bit to watch it.

And now Arrival, about mysterious black obelisks that show up at various points around the earth, hovering just above the ground, arrives in theaters. And I will admit that it's not as disappointing as Villeneuve's previous efforts--if only for it's sleek, artful cinematography--but it still didn't make me feel much beyond a vague interest.

As mentioned above, Amy Adams plays a linguist, Louise Banks, who is recruited by the US military to communicate with the alien creatures who have arrived mysteriously around the earth. Banks teams up with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner, playing a refreshing role as a male sidekick), a mathematician, to see if they can figure out the aliens' language and ask them why they have arrived before more macho political figures decide to say "fuck it" and bomb the aliens to hell.

The scenes where Banks and Donnelly communicate with the aliens are the best in the film: the humans are sucked up into the aliens' pod, and through a glass wall they can see the creatures that look like giant squids (they name the aliens "heptapods"). The creatures communicate by spraying an inky substance that forms itself into a complex, detailed circle--almost like an entire sentence in the form of a shape:

Banks, Donnelly, and their crew eventually figure out how to "read" the aliens' ink circles and are able to ask them questions using a software that translates their questions into the heptapod language. How they do this is, perhaps mercifully, glossed over in favor of spending more time on the consequences of their (mis)communications with the aliens. When they ask "Why are you here?", the creatures respond "Give weapon to humans" and the governments around the world read this as a threat, despite Banks' insistence that the aliens might mean "tool" instead of weapon. The film turns into a race against time to clarify what the aliens' purpose is before the Chinese government uses a tank to blow the aliens right out of the sky.

Of course, there is much more to Arrival than this straightforward plot. I won't give anything away, but I'll say that I found the ending both surprising and eye roll-inducing. I wish Villeneuve had stuck to directing a sci-fi thriller instead of rubbing a bunch of MEANING in my face at the very end.


So, while Arrival is, in many aspects, a pretty solid movie--it's quite beautiful, it has an interesting plot, and it has a third act that upends the first two acts--I still came away feeling empty. As with the director's other films, I feel like I should feel something, but that cold, glass, frictionless wall is in the way. I don't think Villeneuve is a bad director, I just think he's not the director for me. Just like some people hate Wes Anderson while I practically worship him, it all comes down to how you connect (or don't) with a certain aesthetic and worldview.

I don't consider Arrival a waste of my money or time, but I also know that I'll forget it and never have any interest in watching it again.

Grade: B-

Sleeping With the Enemy

Movies: Allied

I really love movies and books about WWII. There's just something about the era: the music, the clothes, Rosie the Riveter, handsome American soldiers fightin' Nazis.

About that last one...hmm, it's a little weird watching a movie about the evils of Nazism when the call is coming from inside the house nowadays.

But I digress.

At its heart, Allied isn't actually about WWII or about fightin' the Nazis. It's about trust and whether or not you can truly know someone even if you sleep next to them in bed every night.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, Allied has a distinctly old-fashioned feel. It recalls 1940s film noir: dames in silk dresses wielding guns; men in uniform meeting in underground bunkers; lovers stabbing lovers in the back (psychologically, at least). Allied received mixed critical reviews, but I found it to deliver on its promise to thrill and entertain.

If you've seen the preview, you know the plot: Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play Max Vatan and Marianne Beausejour, spies put on assignment in French Morocco in 1942 to play a married couple and Nazi sympathizers so that they can gain entry to an elite party and assassinate the German ambassador. Marianne is especially good at playing her role, explaining the cultural customs of Casablanca to the less detail-oriented Max. She also tells him, after giving him a very convincing smooch in front of friends, that she "keeps the emotions real. That's why it works."

In a completely unpredictable twist, the two fall in love and decide to marry after their assignment is carried out. They move to London and Marianne gives birth to a little girl. All's swell in paradise.

Until Max is called into work one day and taken by his commanding officer, Frank (Jared Harris--yay, Mad Men cameo!) to meet with a high-ranking officer who informs Max that they have reason to suspect that Marianne is a German spy. They've discovered messages being delivered to the enemy from the vicinity of Max and Marianne's neighborhood and they also have reason to believe that Marianne took the identity of a French resistance fighter to infiltrate even deeper into Allied territory.

They inform Max that he will be given false information during a late-night phone call and he is to leave it where his wife will see it. If the false information is leaked, they'll know Marianne is indeed a spy and Max will "dispatch her" with his own hand. Now, that last part seems a little...not right? As my mom pointed out after the movie, wouldn't it make more sense for them to arrest Marianne and torture her for more information? That's the American in me--wondering why they'd waste a perfectly good opportunity to waterboard someone until they squeal, right? But I guess forcing a man to put a bullet in his own wife's head or be hanged for treason just has more dramatic *oomph* to it.

I thought Allied did a pretty good job of keeping you guessing about Marianne until the end. Half of the movie is Brad Pitt disobeying orders and trying to find out on his own whether or not Marianne is who she says she is by doing some hugely shady (and likely treasonous) stuff. But every time it seems like he might have an answer, something throws a monkey wrench in his way.

I admit that while Allied is certainly elegant in its cinematography, it's not particularly elegant (or believable) in its plot. But it really does have its moments--two excellent scenes take place during parties: the first when Max and Marianne carry out their assignment to assassinate the German ambassador and the second during a party at their home in London, after Max has been briefed about his wife's possible double life but before he knows for sure.

Allied isn't a ground-breaking film. Quite the opposite, in fact: it's old-fashioned, a throwback to films of earlier eras. It sucks you in and offers, despite it's suspenseful plot, a measure of comfort and assurance. And I was all too happy to tune in and drop out of reality for a couple hours.

Grade: B

Born a Poor, Black Child

Movies: Moonlight

We live in a racist society. When the president-elect appoints a known white nationalist as his Chief Strategist, we can without a doubt say that these are dark, troubled times indeed. Seeing Barry Jenkins' lovely, dreamy, moving film Moonlight under these circumstances was a unique experience and I hope that anyone reading this blog will consider seeing the film, which is the coming of age story of a black, gay man shown in three parts: as a young boy, a shy teen, and a full-grown man still angry and still hurting from his difficult childhood.

For those of you who don't like sad or difficult films, especially during sad and difficult times, I can assure you that the main theme of this movie is not despair, but love and hope. It's not a film that offers escapism, but it's one that tells a story rarely seen on screen: a black man's coming of age.

The first third of the film is titled "Little", the nickname of Chiron, a nine-year old boy growing up in Miami with a crack-addicted mom. Alex Hibbert plays young Chiron--a quiet, meek child with large, observant eyes. Naomie Harris plays Paula, his mother, in a fully fleshed out portrait of a woman who feels love for her son but can't pull herself out of her own addiction long enough to truly be there for him as a parent. Instead, she yells at him when he doesn't behave, despite being unable to model good behavior herself. Harris does an amazing job with a character who isn't cruel, just very weak and deeply flawed.

After running away from bullies, Chiron is discovered hiding in an abandoned home by Juan (Mahershala Ali, who is on the verge of stardom after his turn as Cotton Mouth in Marvel's Luke Cage), a crack dealer with--yes--a heart of gold. He lets Chiron stay the night with him and his girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monae). Teresa becomes a mother figure in Chiron's life, giving him a place to sleep and a warm meal when things are hard at home. Juan, too, becomes a parental figure to Chiron--in a beautiful scene, he teaches the boy to swim, supporting him in his arms in the lazy, Floridian waters. The scene reminds one of a baptism:

Additionally, when Chiron asks Juan and Teresa what a "faggot" is after he gets called one at school, the two adults explain that it's a word to "make gay people feel bad". Chiron asks "Am I a faggot?" and Juan answers "No", indicating that while Chiron might be gay, he should not feel bad about it. 

The second act is titled "Chiron" and takes place during Chiron's teen years (he is now played by Ashton Sanders). Chiron has a close friend from childhood, Kevin (played by Jharrel Jerome as a teenager). Although Chiron continues to be bullied, he and Kevin remain close. Their relationship culminates in Kevin giving Chiron a hand job on the beach one night. The scene is much more emotionally deep than you would think given the phrase "hand job". I liked that the two young men engaged in this lower stakes form of sexuality since it seemed more realistic than two teen boys having full-blown intercourse. The scene feels more like a passionate expression of friendship instead of horny fooling around (at least to me; others may have different feelings about the scene).

The next day, however, Chiron's main bully, Terrel (Patrick Decile), goads Kevin into punching Chiron until he falls down. Chiron keeps getting back up, forcing his friend to keep hitting him until the bullies jump Chiron. The day after the beating, Chiron comes to school and breaks a chair over Terrel's head and is carted off to prison.

The final chapter is titled "Black" and takes place when Chiron is probably in his late 20s/early 30s (played by Trevante Rhodes). After his stint in juvie, Chiron turned to drug dealing (much like his father figure, Juan) and has been successful at it. Chiron is tall and jacked--no longer a skinny boy who is easily picked on. He is rich with a gold mouthpiece and a nice house. His mother has since entered rehab and now works at the rehabilitation center. It seems like (other than the less than legal career path he chose) Chiron has moved beyond his tough childhood. But when he receives a call from Kevin (played by Andre Holland, who is sexy as hell, let me tell you), who works at a diner, Chiron can't help traveling to visit his old friend. They share dinner and wine at Kevin's diner and then go back to Kevin's place. You might expect a hot sex scene, but the two just talk about how their lives turned out--Kevin reveals he has a child (but isn't married to the mom) and he also went to prison. This revelation is so casual, as if all black men expect to go to prison in their lives. After being tight-lipped most of the evening, Chiron reveals that Kevin is the only man who ever touched him sexually and that he hasn't been with anyone since. The film ends on this meaningful note.

Ok, I just realized I basically laid out the entire plot. But the plot is simple enough to allow those meaningful moments of everyday life shine through: when Juan teaches Chiron to swim; when Kevin and Chiron kiss on the beach; when Kevin and Chiron reconnect years later. And all the little details that reveal how hard life is when you're a black man--especially a gay black man and especially a poor, gay black man. But life didn't destroy Chiron. As he gets older, he gets more power, through money and physical strength. But on the inside, he's still "Little"--quiet, meek, unsure of himself. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

There is so much to praise about Moonlight: the excellent performances (not a single bad one in the entire film), the gorgeous cinematography (I was reminded of Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, also a film with dreamy cinematography and also about a gay man of color, poet Reinaldo Arenas), the humanistic attitude toward the world that the film takes where there are no heroes and no bad guys--only people doing what they can despite tough situations. 

But I guess what I like most about Moonlight is that it exists, it's in theaters, and people are seeing it. We need stories about black people, gay people, poor people, etc now more than ever. And not The Pursuit of Happiness type movies about the one guy who beat the odds. We need stories about people  who didn't beat the odds. We need stories about people who are doing their best and whose lives are valuable even if they aren't minority success stories. The trick to ending racism/sexism/homophobia/etc isn't putting down white, straight people--it's getting those white, straight people to see people who aren't like them as human. That's all there is (well, not really, but it's a start). When you humanize someone, it's hard to see them (and treat them) as fairytale monsters.

I used to walk down the street and feel that stab of fear I was taught to feel when a large, black man passed me by. That's my inheritance as both a woman and a white person--you are told to fear two groups: men and people who look different than you. But during the past couple weeks, I've been feeling differently. I've been thinking that the people I instinctively fear are not the real enemies. It's my own people--white people. Straight people. Middle class people (men are still scary, tbh). Maybe not *me* and maybe not my friends, but people like me. The group I'm part of. We've been sold some lies about who is scary and who is safe in this world. But I'm starting to see those lies for what they are, and I'm starting to see the people who are different from me as the ones I owe something to. 

No one is perfect. Everyone is human. Movies like Moonlight show the beauty--and struggle--of being human.

Grade: A

Gifted Hands

Movies: Doctor Strange

Hello readers! I'm sorry to be reviewing Doctor Strange so late in the game, but in case y'all are unaware, America decided to go to shit over the past couple weeks and elect an outrageous fuckhead as its leader, so I've had other things on my mind.

And I realize the irony of giving this review the same title as Ben Carson's memoir. Hey! It fits with the themes of Doctor Strange!

And onto the review.

***

While I enjoyed Marvel's latest big-budget superhero flick and have nothing bad to say about it, I also didn't love it. It's the movie equivalent of a turkey sandwich: yummy and filling, but not exactly anything to write home about. That said, comfort food in the form of movies is nothing to knock, especially in these troubled times.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Dr. Stephen Strange, a neurosurgeon with exceptionally gifted hands who is a minor celebrity in the world of surgery. Stephen apparently enjoys being a cliche because, like all surgeons, he's arrogant as hell. And why wouldn't he be? He's wildly talented, fantastically wealthy, and he literally plays God everyday, saving the lives of thousands of people with his mad surgery skillz. Well, fate has a little shit-kicking in store for Stephen.

While driving to a party, Stephen is in a car accident (he's talking on the phone! Don't talk and drive! He's using Bluetooth, but still...). The accident destroys the nerves in his hands to the point where he will likely never perform surgery again. Because his hands are his life and identity, Stephen falls into a deep depression while also seeking cutting edge medicine to bring his hands back to their former glory. Along the way, he hears tell of a man named Jonathan Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt in a nice cameo) who fully recovered from a severe spinal cord injury. When he finds Pangborn, the man tells him to head to Kathmandu and seek out Kamer-Taj, a secret compound.

Having nothing to lose, Stephen makes the journey. He meets a sorcerer, Mordon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a master sorcerer known only as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). After scoffing at the idea of magic, the Ancient One reveals her (should I say "her"? Ancient One would probably identify as agender on Tinder) powers, shocking Stephen to the core. Although the inhabitants of Kamer-Taj reject him for his arrogance, Stephen grovels long enough to be given a chance to learn the secret ancient arts of...all kinds of shit. One thing the sorcerers do is create portals that let you jump around all over the earth. They're also able to play with time--but that is forbidden to everyone except the Ancient One because of its inherent danger (y'all saw The Butterfly Effect, right?). Of course Stephen, who is a fast learner and thinks rules don't apply to him, wants to uncover and learn the forbidden knowledge.

Meanwhile, a traitorous ex-pupil of the Ancient One, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), is gathering minions and planning to overthrow the Ancient One and tap into a dimension where time does not exist, thus granting him and his followers immortality. Once you actually get to see this timeless dimension you're like, "well, this is a piece of shit. Who would want to live here for a day, let alone eternity??" But I digress. One cool thing about Kaecilius is that he's a bad guy who doesn't think he's bad. In fact, he believes that the Ancient One is a liar who disavows the timeless dimension and its dangerous powers to her pupils while also utilizing energy from it to give her a long life. So Kaecilius loses faith in the Ancient One for good reason.

If this all sounds really woo-woo, well, it is.  Doctor Strange definitely has a very different feel than many of the other Marvel films. It feels strongly embedded in fantasy, whereas some of the other films, such as Iron Man, are more embedded in science-fiction. But like other Marvel films, it's very well made, funny, and has great actors showing up and doing a great job (unlike *cough*DC movies*cough). Benedict Cumberbatch is delightful with an excellent American accent in that deep voice of his. His famously weird-but-sexy looks work well in a movie filled with characters who all have otherworldly looks, from the dark makeup around Kaecilius' eyes to the Ancient One's bald head. Truly, the film is as much character driven as it is plot driven.

The central message is about gifts, talents, and purpose. Stephen Strange, like so many characters in literature and movies, must fall hard and be humbled before he realizes his true potential (which was...*sniffle* inside him all along). And he has to accept that the closing of a door might mean the opening of a window that, hell, you didn't even know existed in your house. It's a very positive message in an overall positive (but not sentimental) film. The only thing that annoyed me was the not great gender ratio. There is one clearly female character in the movie--Stephen's ex-lover and fellow doctor, Christine (Rachel McAdams, sweet and strong as she always is), who gets some screen time, but her character is there to prop up Stephen's and doesn't really have her own story. And then I guess you could consider Tilda Swinton's Ancient One as female, but she's really more agender as I mentioned above. Which is cool in its own right I guess. Still, Doctor Strange is one more on a long list of superhero movies that tell a (usually white) man's story with women and minorities bolstering that man up.

But other than that quibble, I found Doctor Strange to be a solid, fun movie. In the wake of this election, where it feels like we're living in an alternate reality--and not a good one--Doctor Strange is ideal escapism: it gives you the escape you need with side helpings of hope and heroism. It's important to remember than good can still destroy evil.

Grade: B

Past Imperfect

Movies: Birth of a Nation

Anyone who keeps up with film culture knows the controversial story behind Nate Parker's passion project, The Birth of a Nation. The film depicts the story of Nat Turner, a slave who led a rebellion in 1831. The film is not entirely accurate to history (more on this below), but the true controversy lies in Parker himself.

Accused of rape in 1999, Parker was acquitted, but his roommate (and co-writer of The Birth of a Nation), Jean McGianni Celestin, was found guilty of rape and spent time in prison. When these charges re-surfaced while Parker promoted the film, he choose not to address them.

Is Parker a rapist? It seems very probable (despite his being acquitted) given the circumstances of the night in question. His accuser was extremely drunk to the point of not being able to consent. But let's say for the sake of argument that Parker didn't touch his accuser and in fact is not guilty of rape--why then, would he still keep the company and share a writing credit with a man (his friend and roommate) who WAS charged with rape? Why would he not address the accusations head on when they arose during the promotion of The Birth of a Nation?

I wasn't there in the room the night Parker and Celestin likely had sex with an unconscious woman, so I don't know with 100% certainty what happened. But given what I do know about rape culture (victims are often ridiculed and rarely see justice served) and the way Parker has acted (as if the rape charges are beneath him--as if he doesn't need to address them in a serious, honest way), I'd say this guy is 1) guilty and 2) an asshole.

So why did I go to see The Birth of a Nation? Well, because I wanted to. I was curious as to what a story of violence and objectification would look like in the hands of a man who likely committed violence and objectification himself. A man who claims that God gave him a vision to bring this story to theaters.

Everyone approaches this issue differently. Some people go out of their way to avoid art created by known (or heavily assumed) rapists/criminals, such as Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, David O. Russell, and Bryan Singer. (And it's not just men. Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of the beloved Mists of Avalon series, was accused by her daughter of sexual abuse). I highly respect people who make an effort to not support work done by people who have been accused of abuse and rape, mostly because I am not as pure as that. Although I haven't seen a Woodly Allen film since Midnight in Paris (mostly b/c his recent work tends to suck), I have watched Roman Polanski films and Michael Fassbender movies (Fassbender was accused of domestic violence in 2010) for the only reason that...well, I wanna. I don't really have an excuse other than I simply want to see these movies.

But everyone has their limits. And here is perhaps a chilling thought: these are only the people *we know* have been accused of rape/violence. What about the almost certainly hundreds or thousands of actors, directors, musicians, and public figures that we admire who have committed similar crimes, which as of yet have not come to light? Or, what about the people we interact with everyday--family, friends, partners--who have committed acts of violence that we simply don't know about?

In any case, maybe I'm just justifying myself. The point is, I saw The Birth of a Nation, and while it is imperfect, it's actually not that bad of a movie.

The film follows Nat Turner, a man born into slavery in Southampton Country, Virginia. Turner was taught to read by the wife of his owner, and he grew up to be a preacher among his fellow slaves. The film depicts Turner's life on the Turner plantation (his owner was Benjamin Turner, who eventually died and left everything to his son, Samuel) as relatively pleasant and non-violent. Turner even married an enslaved woman who lived a few miles down the road and the two had a baby together. But when Samuel Turner started taking Nat to other plantations to preach to slaves, Nat began to see how the lives of other slaves were filled with wretchedness and violence. Seeing this led him to plan and carry out a rebellion in 1831 in which a group of 70 or so rebel slaves and free men of color killed around 60 men, women, and children. The rebellion was quickly squashed and Nat Turner was hanged for his crimes.

I'm not a history major, so I know fuck-all about Nat Turner expect for the fact that he led a rebellion. Turner's history, it turns out, is difficult to tease out since the historical accounts are shaky and marred by propaganda and hearsay. This article goes into more detail about Nat Turner's story vs. what is depicted in The Birth of a Nation.

The film itself is quite good. Parker plays Nat Turner with a zealous conviction. It's interesting to ponder how Parker wanted to portray him--Turner believed he had a mandate from God to engage in a violent rebellion, and in the film you see him go from conflicted preacher to, well, kind of a crazy man with a wild look in his eyes and the kind of fiery conviction needed to lead dozens of men to almost sure death. Did Parker intend to play Turner this way, or did Parker's own convictions and supposed vision from God to make this film blind him to Turner's own faults and weaknesses?

The film contains historical inaccuracies and cleaning up of the Turner legend. For example, Turner is spurred on to rebellion after the gang rape of his wife, an event that apparently did not occur (although maybe it did! Female slaves were raped all the damn time in the Antebellum South). Also, when the rebellion occurs, you see Turner and his fellow rebels kill men. Evil, slave-owning men. What you don't see is that they also killed the slave owners' wives and children--including infants.

The long and short of it: Parker re-wrote history to make the Turner Rebellion appear more "clean" than it actually was. Now, here's the thing--filmmakers re-write history all the time. But there is something especially icky about a man accused of rape re-writing history to suit his own needs. Art imitating life a little too closely.

The acting in The Birth of a Nation is undeniably good. Parker gives a great performance, as does Armie Hammer as Samuel Turner--a man who grew up with Nat and was his childhood friend...until he became master of his father's plantation and a virulent alcoholic. Penelope Ann Miller has a great role as Elizabeth Turner, the mistress of the plantation who teaches young Nat to read, thus setting in motion everything to come.

The film is appropriately violent without being sensational. Multiple rapes of enslaved women happen off screen. Additionally, Nat sees the brutality of other plantation owners, particularly in a devastating scene where a slave on a neighboring plantation who refuses to eat has his teeth knocked out and a funnel shoved into his mouth and is force-fed gruel. It's a fucking gruesome scene, but it serves to awaken Nat to the hell that other slaves experienced.

If someone were to ask me "should I see this movie", I would say no, you don't have to. Other films--12 Years a Slave comes to mind--do what this film does, only better and with fewer rapists involved.

That said, The Birth of a Nation itself is not a bad film. It's also not great. What it is is a decent film tainted by its creator, whose "magical thinking" not only adds to the dishonesty inherent in this film, but to the dishonesty inherent in his own life.

Grade: B- 

Woman on the Verge

Movies: The Girl on the Train

Last summer I reviewed Paula Hawkins' best-selling novel The Girl on the Train and said that while I appreciated that Hawkins allowed her female characters to be incredibly unlikeable, and never glamorized alcoholism (alcoholism plays a central role in the film and the book), The Girl on the Train is no Gone Girl. I get that books and movies should be judged on their own merits and not in comparison to other books and movies,  but it's really hard to separate The Girl on the Train from Gone Girl since the two are both wildly popular crime/mystery novels with unreliable narrators, flawed protagonists, deep undercurrents of misogyny and violence, and...well, they both have "girl" in the title.

Be it book or movie, The Girl on the Train wilts in comparison to the superior Gone Girl.

The Girl on the Train follows Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt, an elegant actress who does a great job playing vulnerable and pathetic), an out of work, alcoholic, divorced 30-something basically living out every woman's worst nightmare: she is an object of pity. She is unwanted, not sexy, lonely. And she is unraveling. Even though she lost her job a year before, she still takes the train into New York City every day, spying on the house she used to share with her husband, Tom (Justin Theroux, sexy as hell), who still lives there with his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and their infant daughter.

Consumed with sadness and envy, Rachel also spies on Tom and Anna's sexy, young next door neighbors--she fantasizes that this couple have everything she lost: true, real love. A happy home. A strong bond. So when she sees the female half of the couple kissing another man, it enrages her. She proceeds to get black out drunk at the train station and runs off to confront the woman. She wakes up covered in blood and vomit, with no memory of what happened. When she sees that the young woman, Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett), has gone missing, Rachel wonders if she saw something that night. Or worse, did something.


The film switches points of view between Rachel, Anna, and Megan. All three women seem to match up with a stereotype of womanhood: Anna is the perfect, beautiful mother who has it all: happy baby, sexy husband, nice home. Megan is the sultry (slutty?) young woman with a talent for using her feminine wiles to manipulate men. And Rachel is the sad loser no man would want. Hollywood apparently didn't have the balls to take Rachel's portrayal in the book the whole nine yards: in the novel, she is overweight in addition to being an alcoholic. While Emily Blunt slums it a bit, she's nowhere near being fat.

You'll notice that all of these women's personalities and dreams require men to be in the picture. Anna is wanted by a man for her beauty and stability; Megan is wanted for her sexuality, but easily discarded after being used. And Rachel isn't wanted by men at all. I believe Hawkins was attempting to subvert these stereotypes in her book, but in my opinion she didn't subvert them enough.

In the end, of course, it's the men in their lives that drive these women insane. It's men--not other women--who hurt them and play them against one another. Who become jealous when they interact with other men. All three women in the book/movie might be flawed, but it's the men who are destructive.

Both the film and the book seem to want to say something deep about relationships and gender roles, but struggle amidst the massive amount of plot going on. With a constantly shifting point of view, flashbacks, unreliable narrators, an numerous twists, turns, and surprises, The Girl on the Train feels overstuffed and pulpy. What I liked about Gone Girl was that it was so ruthlessly, relentlessly bitter. Gone Girl had some inconsistencies and flaws as well, but it was more focused. The Girl on the Train, much like its protagonist Rachel, is sloppy and all over the place: it hits some of the notes and misses many others.

Still, when the final confrontation happens, the visceral thrill of seeing a beaten down woman fight back is as heady as anything. Most viewers will guess what happened to Megan Hipwell long before the final reveal, but the final scenes are still very good (if, again, pulpy).

The Girl on the Train, like the book it's based on, isn't a masterpiece. But it's not bad either. It's a good popcorn flick for a grey, rainy day. Just maybe don't watch it with your boyfriend or husband.

Grade: C+

Movie Dump, pt. 3

Movies: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Knock Knock, Holy Hell


Yes, another batch of movie reviews. But if you're into full-length reviews, fear not--I'm seeing The Girl on the Train and The Birth of a Nation later this week and will give them each their own blog entry.



***

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Based on the novel by Ransom Riggs (which I have not read), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is an entertaining, yet forgettable fantasy film with beautiful visuals and a confusing, overstuffed plot

Directed by Tim Burton, Miss Peregrine is a step up from some of the director's more recent fare, such as the Alice in Wonderland movies, but it's also not among (or even close to) his best work. At his best, Burton uses his signature quirky storytelling style to help audiences connect emotionally to the characters in his film--think of innocent, yet scary-looking Edward Scissorhands trying to fit into a candy colored suburb, or endlessly optimistic Ed Wood getting his awful movies produced. More recently, Burton used some restraint in his movie Big Eyes and the result was the heartfelt story of a female artist manipulated by her domineering husband. Burton knows how to tell a story and get audiences to care. He has proven it time and again.

At his worst, however, his movies forsake plot and nuance for wacky visuals and cartoonish characters (see: both Alice in Wonderland films). Miss Peregrine is only barely on the "right" side. Visuals are valued above all else, and what visuals they are! In Miss Peregrine, teenager Jake (Asa Butterfield) honors his grandfather's dying words to find Miss Peregrine, the woman who ran the home for children that Jake's grandfather grew up in. According to stories his grandpa told Jake as a child, Miss Peregrine had the power to turn into a bird, and all the children she watched over were "peculiars"--they all had abilities or quirks, such as the girl who was lighter than air and had to wear lead shoes to keep from floating away, or the boy with a hive of bees living in his stomach.

Jake and his disinterested father (Chris O'Dowd in a thankless role) head to the Welsh island where the grandfather grew up. Jake finds Miss Peregrine's home--it's a pile of rubble since the Germans dropped a bomb right on it in 1943. But when he explores the shell of the house, he runs into the peculiars who lure him through a passage and into a "loop"--basically, they live the same say--Sept. 3rd, 1943--over and over, setting back time right before the bomb lands on the house.

From here, the movie brings together a mishmash of fantastical themes: time loops (one can't help compare certain scenes in the movie to Groundhog Day), children with supernatural abilities, evil scientists, and grotesque monsters. While the film is enjoyable enough, it's difficult to 1) follow the plot, especially when the gang of peculiars starts traveling to *different* time loops and 2) really care about any of the characters. There are any number of relationships to be explored in this film: Jake and his beloved grandfather, Jake and his barely-giving-a-shit dad, Jake and his peculiar love interest. But there's not enough time or space in the movie to truly explore these relationships. Too much plot gets in the way.

I can't compare the movie to the book, as I haven't read the book...but books are able to juggle multiple themes over the course of hundreds of pages. In directing a movie adaptation of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Burton may have bitten off more than he (or the audience) could chew.

Grade: C

***

Knock Knock

The Eli Roth film Knock Knock is garbage, plain and simple. It's really just an awful movie on so many levels.

In Knock Knock, Keanu Reeves plays Evan, a 40-something married man with a lovely wife and two adorable children. The artistic family--Evan is an architect and his wife, Karen, is a sculptor--live in a fancy home filled with art, music, and love. But when Karen takes the kids on a beach trip and leaves dad at home for the weekend, temptation strikes.

By temptation, I mean two scantily clad young women, Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas), who knock on Evan's door and beg to be let in from the thunderstorm outside and to use his phone to call an Uber. The two young ladies become increasingly flirtatious with Evan, who behaves like a complete gentleman--avoiding the ladies' flirtatious caresses, turning his head away from their nubile bodies, etc.

Ultimately, the two women practically force themselves on Evan, who succumbs to temptation and has a threesome with them. But what's super gross about all this is that Evan is literally saying "No! Stop!" over and over while Bel and Genesis shove their hands down his pants. What is this, dear readers? The correct answer is, of course, sexual assault. But the movie doesn't see it that way. Instead of presenting the women as fucking rapists, they're presented as naughty nymphs sent to tempt a happily married man. Sure, eventually Evan "participates", but only after saying "no" eleventy-billion times.

When the women don't leave the next day, Evan begins to realize he really is fucked. I won't reveals what happens after the first act of the film, but long story short: Genesis and Bel are psychos hell-bent on destroying this man's life for no reason other than their own amusement. It's misogynist trash that suggests that women--especially young, beautiful women--are crazy bitches who just can't want to destroy men. And men, of course, are totally innocent and weak in the face of feminine wiles.

Knock Knock is labeled as "erotic horror". That's a fucking laugh. There is nothing erotic about this movie, or the women who are INCREDIBLY annoying. Sure, they have nice bodies, but OH MY GOD they are awful in every other way.

My advice is to read the wikipedia article on Knock Knock is you want to know what fate befalls Evan. Don't bother watching the movie, which is an insulting waste of time.

Grade: D+

***

Holy Hell

Yes, it's another cult movie! Unlike The Invitation and The Sacrament, which I reviewed recently, Holy Hell is a documentary about a real life cult. Director Will Allen was in the Buddhafield cult for 22 years before he left (along with many others who had been in the cult since the 1980s) in the mid-2000s.

Led by a bizarre and charismatic man, Michel Rostand, the Buddhafield started out as more of a hippy-dippy commune where young people lived together, worked together, and by all accounts lived happy, healthy lives. Allen interviews a number of ex-cult members who recall wonderful friendships and experiences that came out of being part of Buddhafield.

But as the years went on, Michel, the leader of the cult who claimed to have a direct connection to God (don't they all?), became more and more narcissistic and strange. It became less about searching for God and looking inward and more about worshipping Michel, who was obsessed with his own beauty and ego (he underwent so much plastic surgery he began to look flat-out scary). The ex-cult members recall feeling angry and dissatisfied but unable to leave. Indeed, it was as if Michel was in an abusive, co-dependent relationship with all of them.

The big reveal, which isn't really a surprise if you know anything about cults (or hierarchical religion, for that matter), is that Michel was raping/sexually abusing dozens of the young men in the group for years. They would come to him for "therapy" sessions, he would fuck them against their will (Who can say "no" to a living god, which Michel believed he was), and then make them pay for the sessions. An interview with one of the ex-cult members is particularly distressing as he bitterly recalls being forcibly fucked by Michel weekly for 5 years.

What makes Holy Hell unique is that many of the members ended up leaving the cult (although Michel is still out there with a gang of followers) and now can look back with sober clarity at the years they wasted following a rapist and a fraud. The members, now in their 50s and 60s struggle to find meaning in the two decades they spent in the Buddhafield and realize that their friendships with other members gave meaning to those decades. Allen directs Holy Hell with sensitivity and understanding--he, too, believed in Michel and was raped by Michel. The ex-cult members are not portrayed as foolish weaklings or crazy people, but as complex human beings who see both the positive and negative in their experience with Buddhafield. Although many of them ended up traumatized by the emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, Holy Hell shows that many of them are now on a path of healing and acceptance.

Grade: B