Here is where I will keep track of the flicks I've watched. If you see typos or errors, or you really like what I wrote, or maybe you flat out disagree with me. Don't be shy! Lemme know what YOU think.
Hello Destroyer 2016 written and directed by Kevan Funk Hello Destroyer was the last film of the TIFF Top 10 showing in Vancouver tonight, simultaneously with a screening in Toronto. That meant that the director wasn't able to attend, but there were 5 guests for the post screening Q&A - one of the producers, Haydn Wazelle, and other members of the cast: Sara Canning, Kurt Max Runte, Paul McGillion, and drum roll ....future most valuable NDN player....Joe Buffalo.
It's a hockey movie, but mostly it's a movie about the toxic trap of masculinity. Working title of this could have been "It's Hard Being a Hockey Boy", because holy shit it is! Guys have it rough, and they are brutal with each other, and especially brutal engaging in their sport, and to those of their sex who don't keep to the gender lines.
The movie uses the milieu of junior hockey to show how tragically narrow the acceptable parameters that comprise masculine identity are, and the terrible toll such restrictive roles can take. Also the ruthless capitalism and exploitive nature of sports and industry as a whole is an overarching theme.
In the Q&A, I asked if the inclusion of native iconography in the film was deliberately provocative and the producer said yeah. The team is called The Warriors, and there's a scene in the beginning where the game star is given a headdress regalia to wear in the locker room after the game as a reward for his prowess as a player. bleagh. There's also a character who is NDN - my fav - played in his first feature role by the wonderfully understated and emotive Joe Buffalo. He's one of the few characters allowed to show compassion for the hockey boy sundered from his team. After I asked my question about the Native content - he threw it back to me - saying he loved that the team was called The Warriors because a Warrior is a good thing to be, and of course for us NDN's, hell yeah that's f'n right on :D He asked me what I would have them be called. I said I didn't know, but then in that so common way, after the moment had passed, my answer came to me - I would have used Spartans - since they were famous for sacrificing the members of their tribe no longer deemed useful.
It was a sad sad f'n film, and how could it be anything but - the commodification and exploitation of athletes and the dearth of allowable human expression our society affords for male identity is so detrimental to the psyches of our men, and that our boys are currently learning how to contort and suppress their natural human impulses and needs in order to become the men this system demands is the most pressing and ongoing disaster our society collectively faces - see TRUMP.
More of that provocative NDN content in this scene:
I believe it's getting released in March. Not sure how wide, or if that's a theatrical run, or on a streaming platform or what, but however it plays, you'll get your chance to see it this spring.
Directed by Dan Mazar from a screenplay by John Phillips
This was my first promo screening this year, the only one I tried for so far, and it turned out to be an entertaining watch. I told someone I hoped it would be like Bad Santa, and when I looked it up while waiting on the screening to start - yes! Written by the team who brought you Bad Santa and Borat, among others. :D
First the good - it's rude as fuck, and really funny - I laughed a lot. It's sexy, silly, and sweet, and it has anti-materialistic, and follow your bliss, heart positive, along with sex positive values. And in spite of the rudecrudeness, it's very family values oriented too. De Niro and Efron have the most screen time, but I thought the scenes with the supporting characters had the best humour. Aubrey Plaza kills, as an unashamed girl on the make, with that inimitable dead pan delivery of the filthiest lines. She's got that schtick down pat. Adam Pally plays the most inappropriate cousin ever, and Jason Mantzoukas is an over the top ridiculous drug dealer with the best connections.
Now for the bad - it's super white bread, with a trajectory you can see a mile off, and it's chock full of stereotypes standing in for real people. The plot has Zac Efron as Jason Kelly, a thwarted photographer pushed into business law, who's about to get married to a horribly shallow fiance, in order to solidify his father's as well as his own career. Robert De Niro, Dick - of course that's his name - Kelly, wants to rescue him from that doom, by taking him on a spring break road trip to Florida. Dirty Grandpa is an old school "real" man, ex-military type, reifying and endorsing paternalistic, patriarchal values, where women are sexual objects, and/or mothers, men bond by insulting and abusing each other, while shoring up their masculinity identities by putting down queers and women. All that's framed as right on, men being men, kinda shit.
That it's casually and constantly homophobic was also irksome, especially since the way the token queer character is handled is supposed to redeem De Niro's queer-baiting commentary.
Dirty Grandpa spends all his interactions with this lone queer character, Tyrone, (Brandon Mychal Smith), making fun of him, until he witnesses him being harassed in a bar, by a group of homophobic and hostile black men. Tyrone isn't capable of defending himself, of course - It's De Niro to the rescue - with the aid of his Grandson - teaching Zac the importance of taking a punch to the face, and defeating them with his mad special ops skills - nobody makes fun of that queer but me! Later he charms the same thuggy men with his weed and Wu Tang knowledge, because that's what black people respect, I guess. White man to the rescue! And that's another thing - the big reveal on Dick Kelly is that he was training insurgents during his military career, not just being a mechanic like his family thought. Hmmm, I read that as unacknowledged superhero man, but the fact that De Niro has to keep that shit on the down low, and his country got major blowback in the form of 9-11 is pretty right on in terms of condemning those values. There was a scene where De Niro gives a major head injury to a jerky jock and that was just way too much too. I dunno. I'm on the fence about this movie - is it condemning mas macho? Kinda sorta depends on whether you agree with those values or not, I guess.
Finally, I was totally squicked by a scene where a father sees his child interacting with Zac Efron in a way that looks sexually abusive, even though it's totally innocent, and also some by the way Aubrey Plaza fetishized De Niro's oldness. Tell me that you've fallen and you can't get up - ridiculous right??? I might be reacting on an ageist level there, but it seemed like the implication was she was recreating previous sexual abuse. In both cases I laughed, but there was definite discomfort - why da F did you go there??? - in my laughter too. I'm uncomfortable when sexual abuse is made light of. :(
It's such a dumb movie that it's hard to take any of it seriously, though, and I think most people who will watch this, won't notice any of the things I took issue with. And that's kinda sad, because the patriarchy is invisible almost always to the people who uphold it.
I saw 30 movies in February: One film festival, 2 shorts, 9 documentaries, 18 narrative films, and most of a movie marathon. Even though I saw What We Do In The Shadows 3 times, it wasn't my favourite flick. That would be Dog Day Afternoon - one of my 9 rewatches, first time seeing it in a theatre though. 50 Shades of Grey is my worst movie of the month, maybe ever. It's super bad and not in that good campy way. Though it has the possibility to get elevated to a great comic experience if people get clever with comeback lines. I don't see that happening except in a rifftrax way. That would make it watchable. It's a well made movie with pretty people, and great locations, just it's brain dead and offensive on a dialogue/plot level. Even with the advantages of AVX size, I came very close to ditching the tedious show, and I regret that I contributed to its box office take.
I was super excited about the 24 Hour Movie Marathon that The Cinematheque put on, but as it unfolded and yet another movie I'd already scene came on screen, (of the 15 films they showed, I'd seen 12), I lost my enthusiasm. It's to be expected, maintaining attention over 24 hours is a dicey proposition to begin with, but especially when you get tired, it's harder to care about or stay awake if it's a story you already know. I wish they'd shown better movies at the end. I had to stand up to get through Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure without falling asleep.
I really liked what programming I caught at The Toronto Black Film Festival. Specifically, the documentary, "Sound of Torture", about the kidnapping of Eritreans in The Sinai desert, and "Ninah's Dowry", a narrative about a Cameroon woman in an abusive relationship that illuminated the societal aspects supporting that abuse, were both especially captivating and harrowing.
AIDependence, about the plethora of NGO's operating in Haiti was an eye opener around the negative consequences and self serving nature of charitable enterprises.
Here's my list, rewatches in italics.
Vancouver Asahi
This is a highly entertaining and educational movie, even if you don't like baseball. It's so well done with super high production values. They recreate Vancouver's Japantown in a seamless fashion. The racism that the Japanese people had to deal with is hard to watch though.
Through A Lens Darkly
Great documentary about Black identity through the medium of portrait photography. It also played at The Toronto Black Film Festival.
Keep On Keepin' On
Clark Terry mentors a blind musician. Super music doc!!
Dog Day Afternoon
I saw this in Toronto as part of the Cineplex Classics. It was great getting to see this on a big screen. Al Pacino is so good in this, plays such a likeable psycho guy.
Project Almanac
Omg such a dumb movie. Kids doing idiotic stuff when they find a time machine.
Jupiter Ascending
I had high hopes for this since it was made by the Wachowski's but it's a serious disappointment. I fell asleep during it. :(
Wild Card
Solid man movie entertainments. A remake of Heat (1986), starring Las Vegas!! (and Jason Statham), based on a William Goldman novel/screenplay.
Toronto Black Film Festival
Growing Up Positive
Contrast of 2 young women, one black and one white, and their respective experiences growing up HIV positive.
Sewing Hope: The Story of Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe
Uganda's Civil War created soooo many orphans. Sister Rosemary set up a training school to help some of these young women. Narrated by Forest Whitaker.
AIDependence: The Many Ills of the NGO system
Charities are self serving opportunistic drains on poor nations.
Betty's Blues
Awesome music and super cool animation!
Ninah's Dowry
This movie was hard to watch. Women are chattel still in Cameroon. Well done.
Sound Of Torture
This documentary made me cry. The failure of the world at large in responding to this Eritrean tragedy is unconscionable.
What We Do In The Shadows
Funnest fauxmentary ever!!
What We Do In The Shadows
The Wrecking Crew
Doc on the session musicians responsible for most every good song made in the US in the 60's though to the 80's.
The Girl Who Walks Alone At Night
Style and ennui for days.
True Romance
Glad I got to see this on a big screen. Dennis Hopper reminds me of my dad in this soooo much. I love you daddy!!
King: A Filmed Record...Montgomery to Memphis
Racism is fucked up. Really good historical doc. Watch this if you want to see the real story behind Selma.
Nightcrawler
This should have got some kind of Oscar nod. Best breakdown of capitalist tropes and the snakes that get ahead since Wolf of Wall Street.
50 Shades Of Grey
Bad, bad movie. The makers of this should be punished.
The Lazurus Effect
Well made and entertaining horror with SF trappings, if predictable and trite. Nothing you ain't seen before. Think Flatliners + Event Horizon - space.
What We Do In The Shadows
The Duff
Solid teen romantic comedy in the vein of John Hughes. Like Mean Girls or Easy A, takes on the clique system and bullying in high school with aplomb.
24 Hour Movie Marathon
Groundhog Day
One of Bill Murray's best roles. Nice to see it on a big screen.
Memento
Was good to see this on a big screen, but watching the terrible drama unfold knowing the outcome, is much worse than puzzling it out cold.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
More silly teen time travel. Super romantic - I'm sure its target audience appreciates it though.
Primer
Watching it again, knowing the time travel aspect, I appreciated this more as an explication of the interpersonal politics of start up businesses.
Orlando
This was my favourite view of the marathon. It's super gorgeous and interesting on more than just a narrative level. Metafeminist happenings abound.
A Brief History of Time
I ducked out for some of this to get Subway. Good companion piece to The Theory of Everything in terms of showing more of Hawking's life, but it doesn't cover his latest theorizing.
This January, I saw 26 movies, 3 of them documentaries, plus 5 shorts. The first was on Netflix, and the rest were in various theatres: Vancity - 8, Cinematheque - 5 +3 shorts, The Rio - 5, International Village - 3 +1 short, and Scotiabank - 3.
My favourite movie this month was Cabaret.
I see most of my flicks at Vancity and The Cinematheque because it's free for me, plus they have great programming, but I will go to any theatre if they're showing something I want to see. The Rio is fun, and has a very casual laid back atmosphere. They have the best late night retro programming on Fridays, not to forget affordable cheap date movies on Mondays and Tuesdays. I appreciate their creative drink menus and grown up boozy food combos, plus there's a grilled cheese option. International Village has more art house programming, and I like their new drink machine - so many pop flavours you could try! Some of the theatres there are small, but they also have quite a few seats with armrests that lift up to make cozy twosomes. The best screen, aside from IMAX, is at Scotiabank though. The main AVX theatre there, is massive with spectacular sound. I love love love seeing movies there, just the hugeness and rumble sound at the start of their feature presentation trailer is enough to get me grinning. I didn't see anything at Metropolis, or 5th Avenue this month, but I like them too. 5th Avenue tends towards showing indie/arty stuff and Metropolis has AVX too, but it's their DBOX seats that makes it worth the trip for the blockbuster shows. Once in a while I'll make it out to Landmark's cinemas in New West or North Van. And I like seeing movies at SFU Woodwards too. Cinematheque has the best popcorn though. Real Butter!!! Plus they have so many things to sprinkle additional flavour on your corn. I'm a fan of blending yeast, spike and Valentina hot sauce.
Trailers for everything I saw, except 3 of the shorts.
Cronenberg could have made this as the third offering of his as yet unfinished violence trilogy. It reads like a more sophisticated Wolf of Wall street or Scarface in it's take on the examination of capitalism - greed as the invisible hand that like a medusa midas touch turns everything it grasps for to stone.
It's got the 80's down pat and that reminded me of Scorcese - the Sopranos. it's such a NY state of Mind movie - mostly take place in New Jersey. You'll understand why people rank on NY as a shithole when you see the locales they use to shoot.
Javarier Bardeem was supposed to be the Oscar Issaac character Abel B? but he dropped out for some reason, and Jessica Chastain campaigned hard for her boy - they went to acting class together at Juiliard.
Dude is talented man.
so is she. Looking all Michelle Pfieffer with her blonde drape and armani wardrobe - totally authentic, the fashion house lent them stuff from 1981 after chastain requested, saying she thought her character would only wear Armani.
A Most Violent Year comes out today and this soundtrack song sums it up real well. I liked it. Think Sons of Goodfellas or The Sopranos. Dude trying to get on up in the straight world, but it operates just as wicked as the thug life.
2014 was a such a great year for me in terms of movie watching. I started volunteering at an art house theatre again, so I've been able to see far more and better movies than I managed to in past years. I didn't see as many movies at the 2014 VIFF, since I had family visiting while it was on, but I still got in 30+.
Thinking on what I saw this year that impressed me most, I keep coming back to Le Sel de La Terre, (The Salt of the Earth), which is actually a documentary about the reknowned photographer, Sebastião Salgado. It's somewhat a false dichotomy to pit docs against fictional fare, but for sure documentaries are impressing me more than the nonfic films lately, and I don't think that's because I'm seeing bad movies either. Seems like more resources are spent to less effect making shitty movies, but that's a whole other subject. Primarily written and directed by Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, with Wim Wenders, Salt is a gorgeous, gorgeous film, that has devastating insight into the problems facing humanity. What's more important, it offers hope and solutions too, principally through showing the efforts of one man. Granted, most of us don't have as much personal wealth, social pull and power, to work with as he does, but it's definitely inspiring to see what he has done with his sway. The world and society aren't doomed, and that you can make a difference, is what I came away with. I missed the beginning, which I don't think matters much in my evaluation either. I just missed out on more awesome examples of Salgado's premier photojournalism. I can't wait until I get a chance to see it in it's entirety, I only wish it could be at the Performing Arts Centre's humungo screen again.
In terms of fictional films, I saw sooooo many good ones. Birdman, Dance of Reality, The Editor, Force Majeure, Foxcatcher, Grand Budapest Hotel, Locke, Mommy, Nightcrawler, Nymphomaniac, Snowpiercer, Under The Skin, and Whiplash, are some of the standouts released this year that I managed to see, and I saw a lot of older films that were awesome too. Finally got to see Touch of Evil! Not to forget the Cronenberg and Jodorowsky stuff I was missing, plus I got a few more Godard films under my belt as well.
I saw a ton of good docs too, volunteering at a documentary festival definitely helped my numbers there ;) 69: Love, Sex, Senior, 1971, 20,000 Days on Earth, Advanced Style, Art and Craft, A Brony Tale, The Case Against 8, Crazywater, A Fragile Trust, Freak Out!, Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians, Honour Your Word, The Internet's Own Boy, Jodorowsky's Dune, Life Itself, Mirage Men, The Overnighters, Plot for Peace, The Red Army, The Reunion, Whitey: The United States vs James J. Bulger, are the best that I can recall at the moment.
My top 2014 regular movie pick is Wild though, and I notice while it's not a documentary, it is a dramatization based on a true story - the memoir that Cheryl Strayed wrote about her epic 1800 km hike along the Pacific Coast Trail. It's my top choice because it's one of the films that had the most emotional resonance for me, and also because it had a very humanist theme of acceptance. Plus, visually it's practically 100% camping porn. I think Reese Witherspoon has a good shot at taking home an Oscar for her performance.
Perhaps films based around real life experiences are simply bound to have more profound and relatable emotional payoffs.
I loved the soundtrack too.
Since I've been watching more and BETTER flicks, I've noticed I generally have less desire to articulate my opinions on them. I don't know if that's because I have less time to so, what with seeing more altogether, and having time taken up by work too - probably both. In any case, I've decided I'll make time to at least keep track of every film I see and post a trailer or poster pic, even if I don't express any judgements about them. This is my film nerdery rising up I guess, but there's something oh so satisfying about making lists, and documenting your actions.
I have yet to see these 2014 offerings: A Most Violent Year, A Most Wanted Man, Accused, American Sniper, Annie, Begin Again, Belle, Beyond The Lights, Big Hero 6, Black or White, The Book of Life, The Boxtrolls, Cake, Calvary, Camp Xray, Cheatin', CitizenFour, Corn Island, Dear White People, The Drop, Elsa & Fred, End of the Tour, The Equalizer, Exodus, The Fault in Our Stars, Fort Bliss, Fury, The Gambler, Get On Up, Goodbye to Language, The Guide, The Homesman, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Humbling, The Hundred Foot Journey, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Inherent Vice, The Judge, Kill The Messenger, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, Leviathan, Love is Strange, Low Down, Magic in the Moonlight, Mateo, Men Women and Children, Miss Julie, Mr. Turner, My Old Lady, Obvious Child, Olvidados, The One I Love, Pride, The Railway Man, The Rover, Rio 2, St Vincent, Selma, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, Song of the Sea, Still Alice, Two Days, One Night, Tangerines, Timbuktu, To Kill a Man, Top Five, The Tribe, Unbroken, Wetlands, White Bird in a Blizzard, White God, and Winter Sleep, among others.
So good movies and the opportunity to opine on them abound in my queue still. :)
Nebraska was my first VIFF gala and what a great way to start off the 2013 festival. I predict Oscars for both Alexander Payne, and Bruce Dern - at least nominations, if not the actual awards.
It's such a warm, touching flick. At times hilarious, while others will make your heart all squishy. I liked it so much, when I got an invite to a promo screening, it was a no-brainer to see it again. I enjoyed it just as much the second go round, but I took more notice of the values it both criticized and exalted.
It's a beautifully human film, that visually stuns with Phedon Papamichael's Walker Evans style, B&W cinematography. He packs it full with long static shots of endless prairie vistas and medium shots of small town, and rural life, that imbue the stark imagery with a retro longing quality for times gone past. It made me oh so homesick and nostalgic for the prairies. It has a lovely instrumental soundtrack too, produced by Mark Orton and the rest of the Tin Hat Trio rebanded, (as Tin Hat), for the first time since 2005, to create their varied takes on American roots music.
Alexander Payne is known for his relationship tales, and usually they involve more upper and middle class protagonists - this one is a little more down to earth in portraying rural farm folk, and small town people, but it still contains the same acerbic criticism, and upholding of certain values of Payne's other flicks. There's a privileging of the values of the have mores, over the lesser blessed. And although there is much criticism, ultimately, the ideals of patriarchy and it's egoic concerns, are implicit in the content and resolution of conflicts within the plot.
The plot is simple. The Grants are a small family of 4 living in Billings Montana: David, an electronics salesman, (Will Forte), his older brother Ross, a local news caster (Bob Odenkirk,) their parents, Kate, a former hairdresser, (June Squib), who is a reductive caricature of the foul mouthed, and hostile nagging female, that constantly hectors everyone, especially the silent and stoic alcoholic father, Woody, (Bruce Dern) who suffers from the effects of Alzheimer's. Woody believes that he has won $1,000,000 through a magazine sweepstakes mail out, and wants to collect his winnings in Nebraska, since his family is unable to convince him that the sweepstakes is a scam. Much of the humour in the film is through the interactions with their extended family. Woody is the youngest of 7 brothers, and his brothers never left the small town of Hawthorne, Nebraska, where they grew up.
What struck me most in the film, was how selfish everyone was regarding their actions with one another. Everyone kept a ledger that was very unbalanced, noting only where they gave, and not when they benefitted from the generosity of others. This attitude reflects the American ideal of the so called self made man, which in turn gave rise to the disconnected nuclear family, all of which are based on the hierarchical patriarchal mode. There is criticism of this mode, but acceptance of its primacy is ultimately supported through the actions of the characters.
There is a exploration and dismissal of the value of fairness in the film too. There is a distinct differentiation between wealth that is perceived as earned or unearned. The recognition of fairness is something that is innate, and not just to humans - we are born with a moral capacity to judge others for their behaviour around fairness, and William Damon's 1970's studies demonstrated that equality bias in how children would rather something of value be destroyed than see it unfairly divided. The operational modes that dismiss these values are supported by many factors and over the course of the film the justifications and reasons behind the foibles of the main characters are revealed.
Stacy Keach's character Ed Pegram, reminded me of my father with his aggressive macho posturing. Pegram was a prime example of the selfish perspective - yeah this is a the nature of being human - we see everything through the lens of our own needs, but in this instance the relative wealth of his old partner became intolerably unfair. As Ed puts it, the windfall money Woody didn't even earn - it wasn't right that Keach didn't have a stake in it. From his perspective, he had given more to Woody than he got, so he was the victim! The fact is, when you look at things from a relative perspective, it's always possible to cast oneself in the poor unfortunate category, vis-a-vis another. And doing so justifies selfishness. It's just as easy to see yourself as better off, but that will generally create discomfort, and since the idea of fairness is so ingrained, we come up with reasons to justify inequity - based on merit and personal accomplishment.
When Will punches Ed in the face, I guess we're supposed to cheer at the old bully getting his comeuppance - an eye for an eye and all that. But the way Ed's face fell when he saw how carefully Woody folded the letter and placed it in his pocket, it was apparent that Ed understood that he'd been being needlessly cruel to an old befuddled man. Ed looked ashamed. This could have been a moment for transcendence of the violence as a resolution to conflict model, but no. David's measured and deliberate response plunges us back down into the usual old egoic macho competitive concerns. David defends his dad's honour and decks an old man. The young bull pushes the old one out of the dominant position. It doesn't represent any kind of change really, just a change in who's doing the bullying.
What are the roots of the silence and stoicism of the Grant men? Could it be they are all PTSD traumatised from their war experiences? Could the very model of masculinity that demands they maintain a dominance over the earth and everyone else in their lives, women and children included, and also a similar control over their devalued "feminine" feelings be the cause? When one of the wives tells Woody that his brother has an injured foot. The brother's response? "It's ok. It just hurts." Rigid gender roles do hurt - men and women both. The Grant cousins Bart, (Tim Driscoll) and Cole, (Devin Ratray), delight in showing dominance over their cousin David's leisurely drive to their town from Billings. They operate out of a competitive, zero-sum, paradigm. You're either on top, or on the bottom - there's no such thing as equality. In addition to being of lower consciousness, they're low status too - unemployed, and most troubling, they're also convicted sex offenders doing community service for rape - though they and their mother deny that reality. And of course the denial of rape culture is very strong everywhere, but especially in this conservative family values community, the acceptance of men hurting women seems to be par for the course. In fact there is a de-facto acceptance of violence in many forms, though from the females it's more verbal. Kate is very vicious in her treatment of everyone - she's always been a bitch as Ed flat out tells David. Women who exert any form of power, especially sexually, well they're sluts and bitches ain't they?
The old homestead, that was hand built by the grandfather with the help of his brothers, had been abandoned and left to moulder back into the land. The value of family helping one another - these are what Payne seems to be championing throughout the film, that mythical past of living on the land, "salt of the earth" as Kate references one family, is not a lost utopia either. Here too, there's rot in the foundations of that patriarchal model. When Woody is in his parent's bedroom, he says "I would get whipped if they found me in here." He seems oddly nonplussed when he says, "There's no one here to whip me now." The reins of power in the hierarchical patriarchal model are those very same same whip hands that subjugate.
And the satisfying moment in the film where you discover how much Woody wanted to be the provider of THINGS for his sons - sure he wanted a truck and a compressor, but mostly he wanted to leave the money for his boys. He was ashamed that he had failed to provide for his grown up sons, long out of the house and living their own lives. David tells him he shouldn't worry about that, they're fine and he turns the tables and provides for his father those totemic objects of desire. The satisfying resolution of the film is when Woody gets to act as if he won a million dollars; he's driving down his old hometown streets in his prize winner hat, waving to the folk and leaving them with the impression that he's now a rich man. What does this illusion support? The idea that what other people think is MORE important that truth. That it's a pretty great thing to pull a fast one, and have the appearance of relative success, then lord it over the folk and community you abandoned before you take off with all that supposed unearned wealth. Of course it's just a fantasy version of doing that, but there's still something really smug and soulless in taking pleasure in the idea of simultaneously thumbing your nose and humble bragging about wealth.
And what of the road not taken? Ed tells David he wouldn't have been born if not for his intervention - Ed was the one who convinced Woody to stay with Kate instead of leaving her for the woman he loved - as Ed describes her "a halfbreed from the reservation."
There are only 2 instances of POC in the movie, this off hand and derogatory mention of a Native woman, and a scene where Woody goes to the garage he used to own. The first reference is a brief example of the NDN standing in for freedom and spiritual truth, which of course patriarchy does not allow. Hohum. In the 2nd, there are 2 Hispanic, presumably Mexican immigrant men working in Woody's old garage and Woody's attitude towards them is judgmental. He dismisses them, saying "They don't know what they are doing." This is an almost invisible recognition of the racist realities of rural white bread America's hostile reaction to the increase of POC in the population.
One of the most poignant scenes of what could have been, arises near the end when Woody is driving through the town saying goodbye. He passes by Peg Nagy, (Angela Mcewen), the woman he dated before he met the woman he'd spend the rest of his life with, and the expression on her face at his leaving was one of tender longing and contemplation for that imaginary life of love they could have had. Made my heart rise in my chest.
There was one scene that I had to ask the writer Bob Nelson about after the gala screening. Towards the beginning of their travels to Nebraska, David and Woody pass by a double locomotive with the engines coupled in opposing directions. This was such a perfect visual metaphor for the way Woody was at odds with his family, I wondered if Nelson had written it into the script. He hadn't, and he couldn't tell me whether it had been a deliberately created scene, or just one of opportunistic synchronicity. I lean towards the latter, but who knows, because there were a lot of visual puns, one which made me chortle aloud, when Woody and David take a leak on the roadside next to an farming irrigation apparatus.
No they aren't peeing here:P
Nebraska is a road trip flick and that style of film always brings to the fore, the issues in the relationships between the folk on the journey. The strength in Payne's film derives from his understanding of the mysteries of family - how we can fool ourselves into thinking we know and understand our loved ones completely. Especially the roles of family can be barriers that keep us from seeing our family members as wholly unique and complex. We are all many faceted and often present only a slice of ourselves in interactions. With some people we are merely acquaintances, or coworkers, to others life partners, to our parents and our children, we will too often be confined in the dynamic of child or parent. But really, we are capable of being much more whole in our interactions with all people, not simply presenting an aspect of who they expect us to be.
The movie emphasises the value of love and support for your family, for good or ill, and that can be problematic if that enables selfish or self destructive actions, but honouring the values of acceptance, forgiveness, and above all love, are generally speaking, practices that have the potential to create a better place for everyone. I think the film overall is more an exploration of problematic values than supportive of the status quo, and it's really such a great flick in terms of the performances that I can't in good faith do anything other than highly recommend it.
I was trepidatious some about going to this, leery that it was going to be awful like all those terrible sitcom like, bumbling man, sexist comedies, Seth Mcfarlane and ilk, like making, so I almost bailed on going, especially since my husband didn't want to see it. I decided to go though, because I was pretty sure it was a remake of Starbuck - a film that got great buzz the year it screened at the VIFF. And yeah, it is a remake and it's even written and directed by the same guy, just transplanted from a Francophone Montreal locale to a more marketable NYC English language setting.
Vince Vaughn is a bumbling man child in this, but he's a doofus with an arc, and yeah it's the usual guy gets serious about shit when he's about to become a parent tale, but this flick adds in the so ripe for hilarity complication of his having to deal with 533 biological children wanting to meet their sperm donor dad, known to them only by the ID "Starbuck".
I liked it. I've always liked Vince Vaughn, even in his asshole roles, since I think he's a cutie-pants sweetheart, but especially that his character in this is a lovable fuckup, is something I can relate to. I'm really comfortable identifying with the characters who stumble and struggle eh? :P
It's a fun movie with the a sweet message about family values, and doing the right thing. Sure it's got a happy ending, but what's wrong with that? Every movie doesn't have to be all traumatic and dramatic to have some deepness. Yeah, it's a male lens on parenthood too, but I'll overlook its white bread, falsely presented, middle class positioning, in favour of it's over arcing messages on the importance of love, accepting, redemption, and family.
The chubbed up Chris Pratt, is really funny as the best friend lawyer, and I'm pretty sure I saw Patrick Huard, (who played Starbuck in the original), in a small uncredited cameo. And I'd say seek out the original too, if you'd rather hear this story told on a smaller, culturally specific, scale - en Francais.
I read the Orson Scott Card book this movie is based on when I was a teenager, but the only thing I remembered clearly was the arc of the boy becoming a Nietzschean superman soldier, and how he ended up shrugging off that training in the face of his encounters with the supposed enemy bug race.
The movie pays short shrift to that transformative end, and is basically a bunch of Harry Potter kid soldiers in kamikaze training school, who spend most of the flick playing zero g quidditch laser tag. It's a bombastic pro-military recruitment flick, and its fascist, or would that be speciest?? mentality was way to ugh for me. I found it specious for sure, and even though the effects are great, it's actually pretty boring. I liked the portrayals of bullying and social engineering, but the best part for me was seeing all the tough little guys in the movie. Ben Kingsley has a small role as a Maori with honorific facial tattooing and he looks awesome.
On the way home from the movie, I passed by a launch party for the latest release of Call Of Duty Ghosts. And it struck me that this is exactly the crowd the movie was made for - it's bound to appeal to the kids and other folk with childish black and white morality toolsets, who are into playing war games. It's a natural fit, since I think they buy into the horrible idea of killing being honourable, especially when that murder has been justified through the idea of othering the enemy to be inhuman. Also, through the emphasis on "national defence", which too often is doublespeak for aggressive offense, of course. Unfortunately, it's a sad truth that a majority of people have been indoctrinated in these terrible beliefs worldwide, and this movie does more to reinforce that mentality than plant the seeds of peace and redress briefly referenced in the coda.
I was born shortly before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, so I grew up steeped in the mystique and glamour of the astronaut. I think every kid of my generation had dreams of being an astronaut, at least until we realized how much talent and work that would entail. This movie is about as close as you can get to the experience of what that would actually be like in terms of the amazing visuals. For sure, it's a gorgeous, spectacular, technical achievement, but I don't know that it's a very accurate portrayal of what those space folk get up to task wise though. In fact I doubt that it is, because it for sure isn't accurate in depicting how I imagine astronauts would behave under the circumstances presented in the flick.
Sandra Bullock commands the most screen time, but she's framed as a doofus in comparison to the mission commander played by George Clooney. It's his last mission and he's channeling his usual charm of the cock of the spacewalk, and has oodles of experience compared to the neophyte startrekker, Bullock. She was recruited to install some kind of medical scanner of her design, that has been repurposed for space use, so she's a genius engineer. As Clooney says, NASA doesn't waste it's time on uselessness. However she sure doesn't act like she's got any brains in her head for much of the flick. I kept thinking, did she even go to astronaut school? She's mentions that she had 6 months of astronaut training, but whatever for that, because the whole movie she's bumbling her way through one crisis to the next, doing DUMB things. I kept groaning at the way she was written. It was just way too much like misogynistic, WOMAN DRIVER bullshit. Especially since there was no need to have her making stupid mistakes either - the beauty of a space tale, is with the setting being such a hostile environment, things could just HAPPEN without the need for human error.
Bullock's character does have an arc - she's lost a child and since then has been living a very circumscribed life - just working. Not living to work, or working to live - work is the only thing that keeps her going. So literally and virtually, she's lost in space. And the way this is resolved I found irksome too, because when she regains her will to live, through a spiritual moment - she gives credit to CLOONEY, for choices she makes on her own. Ok, these are aspects of spirituality that I can get behind - to honour the ineffable and have a sense of awe or transcendence, also a feeling of connection to the people we love who have passed, and it's great too to recognize that we don't do anything on our own, but build on the work of others. Unfortunately, I thought that the movie framed these spiritual truths in a very dualistic male/female manner with her being the ignoramus and receiver of edjumacations - the usual humble female role thang eh?
And there was also the fact that the first guy to die - the red shirt - well he had a brown face. And the bad guys in this could have just been asteroids, or circumstance, but NO - they're RUSSIANS cluttering up the orbital areas of the earth with their malfunctioning space junk. Too sexist, too white, too Manifestdestiny Pro-American. Still it looked real good, and it's exciting as hell. I think it's going to be especially enjoyable for those not prone to notice its embedded disdain for women.
I just found out about this short film made Alfonso Cuarón's son Jonas - he's also the co-writer of Gravity.
I really liked seeing this mirror perspective to the same scene from Gravity, because in the film, I didn't understand the language of who it was she was talking to when she was undergoing her egoic death. I had assumed he was Chinese, maybe a Laplander. I had an inkling it was somewhere Northern because of the dogs, but that was just guessing. What I did understand was that he was a simple man who had a family. And what's the point of this scene? I think this high tech flick about a women who is not in touch with her needs, contains this portrayal of Native People because the Cuaróns are using them to represent a "natural" life style, where human relations are paramount over ego, and its concerns for achievement. That's what movie folk tend to use us Indigenous types for anyhow - spiritual shorthand for living in balance with nature. This is something that is a timely and important value, and since it's a concept that is so undervalued in current society, the fact that the NDN's are invisible is actually quite appropriate.
Spoilers….I had a lot of problems with Gravity and they all related to
gender. I really didn’t like how incompetently Bullock was framed in
context with Clooney. She was always doing STUPID stuff, at first being the
stumbling, bumbling, screaming, female being rescued and hauled around by
Clooney, and then doing her usual flustered lady thang, in reaction to the
implacable relentless monster – space. After some thought though, and
after seeing the short film Cuaron’s son did – it shows the conversation
Bullock has with the guy on Earth from his perspective – I came around
to understanding that aspect being a direct result and possible subversion of patriarchal gender values. Yes, the way she was portrayed had too much of the awfulness of gender stereotyping, but she could just as easily have been a male character. I think the choice of casting the role as a woman was deliberate: not
because women are incompetent compared to men, but largely because patriarchal values read women as having a higher humanistic capacity BECAUSE of their gender and life
giving caregiver roles. It’s more the norm for women to have feelings, than to repress
them, and for them to be vulnerable and grow is also more acceptable. That these aspects of herself were parts she had lost and rejected, set the arc of her character's growth, and framed the moral message of the film - to reify the importance of our connection to others, the earth and the environment. In some ways it might have been more of a push back against gender stereotyping to have a male character transforming this way, but I think having a woman navigate the vacuum of space jockey ego achievement, gave more strength overall to the rejection of the patriarchal systems that puts so much weight on things that have very little to do with the rest of society. True her return could also be read as her failure to get er done up there, and a call out to "get back to the kitchen and make sammiches", but that's a small mind response, and really what's more important than making sure our kitchen - the earth - is looked after, and each other too.
This was a really well made adaptation of the award winning novel by Markus Zusak. With the great performances and high production values in this WWII coming of age period piece, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets tons of nominations once the award season rolls around. I enjoyed it while I watched it, and took pleasure in the ways the story was clever with the construction, making note of all its pointed writerly references. What's the title of the rescued banned book read to the Jew hiding in basement? The Invisible Man of course :) Death as the narrator, voiced by Roger Allam, had some of the most poetic and beautiful lines. And it's definitely got book loving as its hardcover core value, but its greatest strength is in terms of showing the development of a writerly personality.
The girl, played by Monsier Lazar's Sophie Nélisse, can't read, but she's got a brain and she works hard to learn with the help of her foster father - Geoffrey Rush in one of his sweetest roles ever. He's not a bastard for a change! He paints her an alphabet wall in the basement, where she can chalk the words she's learning in one of the best depictions of DIY dictionary use ever. (The Color Purple and Nettie's homemade post it notes is another good one.) It's the foster mom that's the shrew with the hidden heart of gold that shoulders some of the antagonist work until the real bad guys show up. (Nazis in case you were wondering, duh.) And that stereotypical female role, with Emily Watson wielding the sharp tongue of the witchy wife, paired off with her sadsack husband, that leads me into the area of criticism.
The story is super sentimental with fairly shallow characterisations of most of the supporting roles, and it's trying to be profound, but I didn't buy its using a backdrop of genocide and fascism to dramatise a very personal story.
For starters, I didn't like how it had the mom being all megabitch. Hohum for positive depictions of female power. But especially the fact that it was another case of whitewashing history is what irked me.
There's a heavy handed metaphorical moment where Mein Kampf gets it's inner pages painted out so the girl can put her words there.
Yes that's such a sweet idea eh? And of course it's a humanist perspective too - a book of hateful ideology repurposed for creative use - but I also think it's a dangerous one.
It's analogous to the scene where the Nazis are burning the books they see as degenerate - the ideas which the regime figured were dangerous to their ideology.
But you can't and shouldn't try to erase or skew historical truth! It's such a revisionist view of Nazi Germany too. Very similar to Life is Beautiful, which I also found offensive in terms of presenting a false view of the reality of the horrors of Italian fascism. By implication, we're supposed to believe that all those Germans were of the same mind as the protagonists, or that there were sooo many of them with their morals and ethics held hostage by their crazy leaders. And while there's some truth to that on an individualistic level, for the most part it's a goddamn lie. And that kind of lie is the most insidious of all, because it allows us to keep on accepting bullshit ideas and excuses for NOT behaving in human ways to one another. It's the system man! What can you do against an evil amorphous bureaucracy? Howl at Hitler in the safety of an echo chamber? shrug. The truth is we ARE the system; it's made up of all of us acting in concert in ways that exploit and dehumanize others. We're all complicit in that we benefit from the suffering and exploitation of many many people. Just one example: the people who made the technology we're using to read this are, at the very least wage slaves, if not actual slaves!
Yes, there are repressive regimes where it's dangerous to display your opposition, but I prefer stories that showcase the bravery of open resistance. While I understand the fear that keeps people silent in the face of injustice, I think it's sad and retro to make heroes of people hiding their beliefs under a bushel because of the hostility of the dominant culture. Because really, Silence = Death; the death of the opportunity for a dialectical process that leads to change, and in truth, actual death. Othering, hatred and genocide didn't end with WWII eh?
The best thing you can take away from this flick is the importance of using your voice to speak out on anything that matters to you. Just doing that creates space for others to do the same.
Think Columbine but with media savvy film students documenting their process. That's giving away the story, but the beauty of this found footagey flick, is in how that unwraps. As they say, the devil is in the details, and this flick is devilishly clever in it's construction, but not so much in terms of saying anything new about the bullying and lateral violence that leads up to retaliatory spree killings.
I really enjoyed it though. It's so very film fannish. I didn't like how the crazy aspect was addressed, but it was accurate in how that aspect ISN'T addressed in our society too. Crazy gets short shrift and that's exactly why these kinds of situations happen. And it's crazy how callous we are in respecting other peoples' needs. It's distressing to see how violence in so many of our interactions is viewed as normal. WTF people, why can't we see that the other is our brother? Our mother? Sister? Father? We're all connected, and when we do things to others that don't honour that fact, it hurt us too.
It's got some good musics too, and style to spare. I recommend it.
This based on a true story flick by the Canadian director of the awesome C.R.A.Z.Y., is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen this year. Dallas Buyers Club is bookended with scenes of Ron Woodroof, as portrayed by a shockingly bone rack thin Matthew McConaughey, rodeo riding massive bulls, and that image so symbolically portrays the tenacious bravery of the man who battles the government, crosses borders , bluffs and bribes his way around international law, and just generally doesn't ever, ever, give up in his pursuit of health.
Ron doesn't take shit from anyone, he's a Texas tough ass scrawny mother fucker, Rooster Cogburn type, roused up through self interest to battle at the injustices of the parasitical relationship between the FDA and Big Pharma. The movie is part procedural, and part lionising character study, except Woodroof is an unlikely hero. He's a homophobic, slutty cowboy; a drug selling, hard drinking, gambling man. Sure he's an ignorant trailer trashy electrician roughneck, but surface first impressions are deceptive. Don't be so quick to judge because you can never tell how people will respond to crisis, and illness is probably the most common personal crisis around that everyone eventually becomes familiar with, granted they live long enough.
And this guy has an arc too. He has a strong moral and ethical core, but the good ole homophobe gets enlightened around his ignorant prejudice and selfishness. Suffering can create compassion because it's hard to keep a hate on for people in the same exact situation as yourself.
Jared Leto was awesome, as the gorgeous pre-op transwoman, Rayon. She's dressed to the glamourous 9's for much of the film, with fierce style and sass for days. And she won't tolerate no bullshit when she meets her hospital roommate, Mr Mas Macho, and dishes it right back. She loves Marc Bolan and the glam looks, and so tragically wastes away throughout the film. Her looks are so important to her identity, and to see her coming to grips with their fading, along with her vitality, was so so heartbreaking to see.
The film pulls no punches in portraying these folk, they're unapologetic hedonists, just they got sick eh? And illness knows no morals - a virus has no agenda. It's an equal opportunity villain.
Rayon was one of the "lucky" ones, being among the first of the AIDS patients chosen for a double blind study on the efficacy of AZT, that actually received the drug instead of the placebo given to the control group. She would have been better off with the sugar pills as AZT had serious side effects - which were suppressed in terms of getting the go ahead for FDA approval for the treatment of AIDS. And this too is what's messed about drug testing: early days of research for human trials are hell. As Woodroof says when the nature of the study is explained to him, "You're going to give dying people sugar pills?"
Jennifer Garner does a good job as the doctor working inside the medical establishment. She's privy to the fact that the study patients are NOT doing well on AZT, while the border crossing club patients are faring much better. "Fuck all y'all!" The doctor echoes Woodruff's dismissal of the medicos, when she finally bucks the broken system she's been compromising her values to stay within and be the good little doctor just following the orders she knows are immoral.
The AIDS crisis of the 80's was a crucible of fraught circumstances - a disastrous epidemic that snuck up on the populace and was at first ignored because who was it killing? Folk who challenged the mores of the status quo - the queers and the liberals, the degenerate fucking drug users - fucking being a literal multi use term here. Of course those with a fundamentalist conservative agenda felt good gloating over god's hand directly intervening in their hateful world view, to strike down and punish the ostensible sinner. In fact there are conspiracy theorists, who are certain AIDS was deliberately created to eliminate undesirable portions of the population. That's pretty out there, but in any case the sentiment that this plague was a case of just desserts, was and is very widely held, still.
The biggest problem in the film was not so much AIDS, but rather, how the pharmaceutical industries operate in their pursuit of profits. The drug companies have an unhealthy relationship with the FDA where the agenda around legitimising some treatments of illness and discrediting others, is entirely suspect due to the incredible amounts of money to be made if a drug gains approval. The FDA, which is supposed to be an independent body protecting the interests of a populace that has expectations of their health being paramount - that ideal is entirely compromised, when the FDA is made up of former drug company CEOs, with lobby groups and their fat pockets petitioning for laws that favour the companies bottom line interests. In truth, the FDA function is more lapdog lackey to Big Pharma, and its practical operations are all about restricting access to alternatives to the Big Pharma offerings. The FDA is the dog in the manger of treatment options barking at the behest of the pill pushers who want to keep their possible markets as far far away as law can mandate, from accessing alternative forms of therapy.
Health is so NOT the primary concern, when you look into the shenanigans the developers of new drugs get up to in search of FDA approval.
Last spring, on a flight back to Van from Montreal, I sat between two guys who oddly enough ended up being from the same small town in NB, as we discovered in the course of conversation, but I mostly spoke to the one who worked for a Canadian pharmaceutical company. His specialty was getting contracts for analogue drugs for distribution in Canada. Mostly this involves tweaking an existing drug so that its patent life and money making window is extended. It's a fairly complicated legal process, but the most important aspect of our conversation relates to the fact that the profit imperative directly opposes health. There's a lot of older drugs that may be very effective, but are considered worthless in terms of distributing, because they are longer able to produce the revenue shareholders demand. He was proud of how his company was continuing to produce some drugs for "orphan diseases", in spite of the fact that they weren't making money off of them, and he explained too how for some of these effective drugs that weren't profitable anymore, they were still viable commodities in terms of dumping them in 3rd World Nations. Probably getting a big tax write off to balance their end of the year bookkeeping too, as it's not cheap disposing of medical waste. So yeah charity! And yeah, it's still all about the money eh?
Even more disquieting are the results of a recent sting operation where a bogus cancer study was sent out to a number of peer reviewed scientific journals to test the level of thoroughness in inspecting the veracity of any submission. 70% published the fraudulent study!!!
The game is rigged. Too much authority and power in the hands of too few, and too much money at stake, means peoples' health is sacrificed to the almighty dollar. Greed is definitely not good in this area, and profit being such an unregulated factor in this industry increases the probability of corruption, and flies in the face of peoples' quest for wellness.
First do no harm is the hippocratic oath, more like hypocritic oath seems like.
In any case it's a good film, and I predict if not Oscar wins for Matt and Jared, at the very least they'll be nominated.
And here's a couple great interviews: Jean-Marc Vallée talking up Matt and his movie, and McConaughey doing his take on things.
And here's an article about the FDA going after a walnut company because the packaging referenced the omega 3 fats found in the nuts as being beneficial. Something is nuts there and it sure ain't the walnuts.
