cinematicallusions

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Swiss Army Man

I knew going into this film that it was going to be quirky, but that’s about all I knew - I didn’t know and was surprised ( I can’t say pleasantly, but I can’t say it was unpleasant either) by how uncomfortably base it was. The first big gag in the movie was a fart joke coming out of Daniel Radcliffe’s pale yet hairy butt and it was beat to death just enough to signify what else was coming - porn, masturbation to one’s mother, the culture around using the word “retard”, lust, stalking, sexuality, obsession. Which - when a movie’s theme revolves around what is socially acceptable - is acceptable.

What I enjoy about cinema, and what Swiss Army Man does perfectly, is that it stands on its own as a narrative but also is able to comment on itself as a vehicle for fantasy and subjectivity. The movie can be analyzed in multiple ways.

How do I mean exactly? (SPOILERS BELOW)

1) We can take Swiss Army Man at face value, which is that Paul Dano was stranded on an island, found a multipurpose tool guy, rode his farts to civilization - i.e, everything that happened on-screen, happened.

2) One level down is that Paul Dano was stranded in the woods, found a dead body, imagined himself in all the scenarios, and dragged the corpse to civilization.* Dead bodies don’t have karate-chop action, after all, nor do they talk. This is most likely the easiest way to understand the movie, and by easiest I mean the protagonist doesn’t come out sounding too much like a pervert.

3) Or, Paul Dano wasn’t stranded at all, but instead was stalking Mary Elizabeth Winstead and hiding out behind her house, and found a dead Daniel Radcliffe - this is heavily implied in the third act when everyone follows Paul Dano back to his hideout, which is within walking distance of both the beach and the suburban home.

4) It’s all of the above. In the very last minutes of the movie, where you just begin to believe that Paul Dano may be an insane stalker, Daniel Radcliffe farts to life and jets off into the sunset while Paul Dano’s father nods and smiles; presumably relieved that his son was telling the truth.  Which, of course, causes our brains to do mad backflips - corpses don’t come to life except in fantasy situations, which means that Paul Dano was right, which forces us to accept that Dead Daniel Radcliffe did all of the other fantastical things in the previous 90 minutes, and we have to question what was real and what wasn’t.

And that is the great thing about cinema - it’s not real life, it’s real dreams. Multiple truths can be told at once, and it is under no obligation to make sense to you. I would like to thank The Daniels for reminding us of that.

* I read a good analysis where Hank is imagining Manny as an unfiltered version of himself, to the point where when the police find him he has named himself Manny and has to to re-identify himself on the news as Hank in order to come clean. This specific analysis imagines Hank as a closeted transgender (hence him wanting to dress up in drag, kiss Manny underwater [in a scene of underwater rebirth], and stalk a woman in order to more identify as one) who outs herself at the end of the film, to the long-awaited approval of her father. It’s a great take, and the best part is that the movie is open-ended enough for that to be a reality.

#Swiss Army Man #Paul Dano #Mary Elizabeth Winstead #Daniel Radcliffe

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Taika Waititi is quick becoming a household name, with mainstream hits Thor: Ragnarok and Moana on his resume - and his 2016 film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, is a sleeper hit whose influences can be seen in the aforementioned blockbusters.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a film that follows an outline oddly very similar to Pixar’s Up: an overweight boy (Julian Dennison, who plays basically the same character in Deadpool 2) and a grumpy widower (Sam Neill, who I did not know was from New Zealand; assuming instead he was from Jurassic Park) drive each other crazy in the jungle, find a rare bird, deal with a crazy old man who is hiding from society, and return back to their communities more active in each other’s lives. It’s uncanny, but as they, there’s nothing new under the sun - and of course, it’s how a story is told, not what kind.

What seems like a cutesy Wes Anderson film set in New Zealand (many similar shots, scene pacings, and camera work) has a distinct flair all its own; comparing it to Wes Anderson seems almost unfair - so we’ll stop there.

My one complaint would be the fridging of Aunt Bella - the trope where female characters are injured or killed to advance the plot for the male characters - I wish there was a way around it, and I’m sure in the future it’ll be something to look out for. Interestingly enough, I learned about the trope from Deadpool 2, which Julian Dennison was also in.

Waititi uses nearly all New Zealand actors, many Maori - and the representation is refreshing. It’s also a great feeling to see cross-generational interactions, as cliche as it may be by now. Mostly, it’s nice to see a wholesome film that hits all its beats correctly.

#Sam Neil #Taika Waititi #hunt for the wilderpeople #julian dennison

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Netflix’s The Punisher

Man what a series this was. I have to hand it to The Punisher, they really tapped into the zeitgeist of the last few years and seem to be appealing to a very specific demographic - chalk it up to Netflix’s amazingly creepy data analysis ability. 

 Which demo am I talking about? Let’s reverse engineer it. What qualities does Netflix’s Frank Castle entail?

-  Lone wolf - doesn’t want or need group therapy

-  Strong, silent type - I’m sure every man wishes they had his presence when he walks into a room, to be an immediate alpha 

- Secret Badass - you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry 

- Blue collar - he can’t code but he sure can fix your garage door

- Too much honor for women, even when they throw themselves at him

-  Inner turmoil only he can understand - yea we get it your wife is dead you don’t need to keep flashing back to it

Boy, does the idea of a lone wolf secret badass with inner turmoil who isn’t smart enough to computer but doesn’t need to because he can seduce your girl easily and fix things with his muscles resonate with you?  If so, why? 

 I have this theory that there are a lot of young men who identify with the Punisher, who, in this day and age, is a more problematic character than ever. The struggle with writing Frank Castle is to have to prove that his methods are wrong - that extrajudicial killing is immoral, which seems such a weak argument in face of its effectiveness.

I imagine that inside, many young men feel that they are secret badasses, spurned by women (whose attention they reflexively deem, “unnecessary”), and that they fancy themselves Frank Castle when they really are Lewis Wilson (who I realized is in the show to act as a foil to Frank - this is what the Punisher is without his sense of self)*.

Moving on: In a weird story arc Frank embeds himself as a surrogate father-figure to his friend David’s family, essentially emasculating him. How incredibly uncomfortable it is to have to watch another man raise your kids, fix things around your house, eat food your wife made. But of course it’s taken one step further: Not only is Frank able to do these things - David wasn’t even able to do them when he was around (he would have to call a plumber to fix the sink, etc.)

 It’s the emphasis on divergent “blue collar vs white collar” (Frank vs David) that I find problematic. There are merits for both lines of work but The Punisher, which already decided it wants to target young adult (probably white) males, is already in bed with the blue collar side (let’s not forget that The Punisher as a character is a huge favorite of gun-rights “activists” and whose logo is problematically used by Chris Kyle and his defunct company Craft International as well as others).

In an era of cyber-espionage, Wikileaks, and ICBMs it’s blatantly true that computer proficiency is cutting-edge in national security, yet why do we love our boots on the ground so much?**

Frank doesn’t understand friendship. He understands camaraderie, which he got from being in the Marines, but that is different. Camaraderie is a “good ol’ boys” shtick, and yes, these are guys you would die for and for whom you have each other’s backs and a code of honor (“You have my word” is a big motif in this series) but friendship is different - sure Frank is loyal to Karen, to the death, but because of something that is not friendship and yet is not romantic. David is the closest thing Frank has to a real friend - they get drunk, talk about their wives, sex, argue, and are so close there is palpable sexual tension - from David showing Frank his penis to him using his teeth (to clip the sutures) when stitching (nursing) Frank back together. 

There is a definite alpha-beta relationship that becomes most apparent when David is screaming at an unconscious Frank “call me a piece of shit! Call me a son of a bitch!”** , even though Lieberman both saves his life twice and gets the drop on him twice.

I worry that this series will suffer from “Wolf of Wall Street” treatment, that the lessons to be gleaned from Frank Castle’s destructive lifestyle are lost in how badass he acts.

Frank eventually does go to group therapy, works with the police, and makes real friendships - but this is all in the last hour of the thirteen hour long series. The real morals - the importance of friendship, the family unit (note which characters have the strongest moral compass - Madahni and Lieberman - and how concrete their family unit is****), the problems with vigilantism - are almost long along the way.*****

 * “I’m not evil! I’m the Punisher! Corporations are who are evil!” - guy holding up a grocery store 

 ** because MAGA 

*** “Daddy!’’

**** The Lieberman’s are able to consummate their marriage again, something that Frank would never have. This is important to show on screen because it 1) re-emasculates (remasculates?) David, who has been cucked this whole series, and 2) it reunifies the Lieberman family. 

***** I didn’t even have time to talk about Billy Russo and what the hell kind of character he was, nor how cool it was to have an Iranian-American family on screen with Shohreh Aghdashloo as matriarch

#The Punisher #Netflix #Jon Bernthal #Daredevil

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Ladybird

Spoilers ahead

I think about this movie a lot, because Greta Gerwig did something that I couldn’t put my finger on until just now. She wrote a script where the two main characters (mom and daughter) are so carefully crafted every imperfection is perfect. Ladybird’s aspirations are so big to her but so quaint to us, and her selfishness is something with which we can all identify. She is written with the experience of someone who has been there before - and that’s where this movie is both clever and frustrating. It’s just way too sweet to pass up that one good clapback you wish you had for that one time in high school.

Remember in high school when you were too shy to ask out that guy/girl? Ladybird did it. When you lost your virginity, and you were on top? When your boyfriend didn’t want to go to prom, and you worked up the courage to tell him you did and you left him?

Hiding her fragility is an external shell of confidence, one we wish we had at that point in time, that could have protected us at our most emotional.

Ladybird was written so that teen girls of this age can find the confidence to stand up for themselves. That if they’re the outcasts, that it’s ok. That if they want to have sex, it’s ok. That if they’re sad, it’s ok. 

Ladybird herself is secretly - and she takes it for granted - surrounded by a very supportive network. Her father, the nun/teacher she pranks, her brother and sister-in-law (for lack of a better term). Her mother is technically supportive but wrathful enough that I hesitate to include her. The whole letter writing thing at the end is...problematic.

I wish the movie ended before she moved to New York, perhaps with her on the airplane heading that way. It’s not entirely bad that it didn’t but I felt like the reset button got hit in the last five minutes of the movie.

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Gook

Spoilers below – this analysis will read better after a viewing

This film develops like an urban Tennessee Williams play – it’s black and white, muggy, tense, and characters alternate between friendly and vicious at the drop of a hat. I admit that the pacing is weird, slow in some places – but the character exit/entry is spot on and props are used to great effect.

Gook is set on April 29th, 1992, the day that the Rodney King case reached many “not guilty” verdicts, resulting in mass looting and rioting in South Central. Early in the morning, Eli (Justin Chon) gets jumped simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his day goes downhill from there.

I was worried before watching that it was going to be a film of Black vs Korean interactions (see: Latasha Harlins) but my fears were allayed by the well developed characters.  Each main character had a “good” side and “bad” side: Eli has a volatile, destructive temper that contrasts with his desire to keep his “family” together (Daniel and Kamilla).

Daniel (David So) is a softie who wants to be an RnB singer, Kamilla (Simone Baker) is a hard worker who shoplifts and refuses to go to school, and Keith (Curtiss Cooke Jr.) who is easily the most violent character - works a day job at a burger joint, is also trying to keep his family together, and whose anger is understandable (he’s a young black man in Los Angeles who has to also be the man of the house). The character’s don’t just fight each other, they fight the stifling environment that is keeping them trapped.

Being trapped is a strong theme here and is a sentiment reflected by much of L.A.’s urban youth: Eli and Daniel are stuck running a business that their father started, Mr. Kim stays behind his bulletproof glass, Eli’s car runs out of gas, and later they are cornered on the roof – there is nowhere for them to go, there is no escape from L.A.

“Your father and I came to America to give you a better life.”

Late in the film Mr. Kim drops one of the best lines, not because he says it, but because he leaves right after. He doesn’t acknowledge that their life is or isn’t better, and he doesn’t apologize for being wrong. It’s not a confession, it’s a statement.

Another great scene is when Eli is explaining the word “gook” to Kamilla. He doesn’t tell her it’s a term of hate, rather, he explains what it is – a generic term for country.

“America? That one’s my favorite…me gook.” [miguk]*

What is painfully clear in this film is how the unchecked male aggression spirals – without strong female guidance (there are no motherly characters in any format) the destructiveness of the young men leads to some very “Do the Right Thing” moments. Eli, Daniel, and Keith emanate a sense of anger and despair that many young men can identify with, but fortunately not all those young men are in a place where those feelings can fester.

Even Mr. Kim, with all his Old-Asian-Man wisdom, can only offer the young men a male perspective of things. He doesn’t suggest peace so much as surrender. 

This means Eli must be the default maternal and/or even - savior figure. 

In fact, for all his f-bombs and vitriolic temperament, the only person Eli strikes in the film is his own brother – allowing others to unload on him in a very Christ-like way (The biblical references are strong - his relationship with Daniel is already pretty Cain and Abel-esque). There is even a great character arc for Eli – in the beginning, he gets a black eye** for trying to protect what is his, but by the end he is giving away to those who would hurt him, and starting anew.

This film drew ire for being weirdly paced and overdramatic, the pacing I acknowledge but I was impressed with the tightness of the character entry/exit (seems like someone is always driving up at the right time) and as for the drama: I mean, it’s written like a Korean Drama what do you expect? Along that same note, I don’t know why we should expect a movie about people of color to be perfect when there are so many that are not about people of color that aren’t either. It’s the same argument that plagued Wonder Woman – the expectations for which were insanely high, and fortunately met.

—–

*I’m recollecting that quote from memory, as I cannot find it online, so it might be wrong. You get the idea anyway.

** One that I swear the makeup department put on the wrong eye

#gook #justin chon

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on A Ghost Story

“Infuriating” is the best one word to describe this film for so many reasons - the decision to shoot in 4:3, the Instagram-filter color palette, the milquetoast relationship that Casey and Rooney (their characters don’t have names) share in their Limbo of a house, how long it takes to eat an apple pie, how incorrectly Rooney eats said pie, the offensiveness that is the 2$ budget ghost costume, Kesha’s guest appearance, and Will Oldham being “that guy” at the party - there’s more I’m sure I’m forgetting.

But it’s not all bad - the movie is better on a second viewing, or a quiet reflection. The drawn out apple pie scene makes more sense after we’ve gained an understanding of the ghost’s perception of time (fifteen minutes of pie eating lasts fifteen minutes, but a hundred years passes in the blink of one jump cut). Casey and Rooney’s relationship makes them seem like they’re the dead ones when our identification shifts from them to the ghost. The film plays with (or distorts, depending on who you ask) perspective, time, and space. Ghosty develops the ability to manipulate physical objects, but not to the point where he can pick a hole in the doorframe, and for whatever reason he doesn’t leave the house - there are rules to being a ghost, but they are never clearly explained, only insinuated.

If I wanted to watch a minimalist experience on screen with zero action and stoic dialogue, I’d just watch more Terrace House. This movie caters to the crowd who enjoyed the just-as-infuriating starkness of Lost in Translation, down to the vague ending.*

*I’m convinced Rooney Mara just drew a penis on that slip of paper

#Casey Affleck #Rooney Mara

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Beatriz at Dinner

There’s a great clip from the satirical animated show The Boondocks where a white man is confronted by a black man on the streets and the interaction is as follows:

[They bump into each other]

Black Man: [Angrily] Watch where you’re walking, bitch!

White Man: [Angrily] What did you - wait a minute [starts laughing] I’m white!

[White Man sips his coffee and continues walking away]

I love that little clip because it speaks volumes on hundreds of years of white privilege and systemic oppression, and in a nutshell, is essentially what the entire movie Beatriz at Dinner is about.

The film starts as an awkward “fish out of water” dinner situation - the upper-class whites take petty small talk to a bogglingly artistic level- choosing to gossip and compliment and skirt around their personal issues that Beatriz cheerfully dives into headfirst (Kathy’s relationship with her friends is so impersonal they don’t even know that her daughter had cancer). It is hard to get an initial read out of Beatriz and understand whether she is purposefully removing blocks from this Jenga Tower of a dinner party or if she is just flying blind, but either way it is squirmy.

“You think killing is hard? Try healing something.”

Enter John Lithgow, beaming pink-faced with one-percenter privilege. He commandeers the party and knows it, every line of his brimming with smug certainty and self-assuredness (he interrupts the host and apologizes, fully knowing that he will regain the floor). While everyone else is at his beck and call, the irrepressible Beatriz burbles on forth. Of course, her being a lower-income woman of color and he so WASPy Mitt Romney would blush...they butt heads.

“My relationship with that man...paid for this house!” * 

And butt heads they do - Arteta’s camerawork lingers on their faces -  to the point where the visionary Beatriz is ejected from the party, and also about where Mike White seems to write himself into a corner. For all intents and purposes, Doug Strutt has won. He’s got the money, the power, adoring fans, and the infuriating ability to sleep well at night - short of murder, there is nothing Beatriz can do to shake him because well, he’s a rich white dude and she’s not.

So how would one conclude a third act neatly where there’s an obvious character to root for and one to root against? How do you stop a column of tanks from rolling into Tianmen Square? Well, you’re not going to find out from this movie, that’s for sure.

* Easily one of my favorite lines from this movie, reminds me a lot of the Princess Bride Line “Need I remind you your job is at stake?”

#Beatriz at Dinner #Salma Hayek #John Lithgow #Mike White #Miguel Arteta

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on The Big Sick

I highly recommend this movie.

In this modern century of blockbuster triple-A films with big budgets and star-studded casts sometimes we forget that it’s the simplest stories that are the sweetest.

Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily V. Gordon pull from their real life experiences to give us something that we all enjoy - universal truths through insights in other people’s lives.

Billed as a romantic comedy but so much more - in the wrong, disillusioned hands The Big Sick could have been as melodramatic as a Nicolas Sparks or John Green story. Instead, all involved work together to avoid that - this isn’t the early 2000s anymore, the audience is smart and keen on dramatic tropes. A story about two young lovers tragically separated? It’s been done for hundreds of years. If one wants to make a rom-com nowadays, it has to dig deeper than Titanic-esque star-crossed lovers.

Here’s the thing with relationships - you don’t just meet a person, you meet their whole family. You don’t just love them - you love their past and their future - love in four dimensions! The Big Sick realized this and is smart about it - we meet both families and learn their struggles, how they shaped the two main characters, and we can reflect on our lives and how our own parents screwed us up.

And of course, it is always great to have representation - Who’d have thought post 9-11 we’d have a Pakistani-American romantic lead (who’s not a doctor) dating a Caucasian woman?* And yet onwards we march towards a idyllic world of beautiful hapa people who are probably tolerant of everyone’s views.

The Big Sick is a long, slow burn, but the beats hit naturally and it doesn’t feel like the viewers are being dragged out to sea so much as carried along by the current.

And most importantly, Ray Romano’s still got it

*There is a problem here that both The Big Sick and Master of None gloss over, and it’s the idea that native women are not the hegemonic American ideal. I know that in real life Emily is Caucasian and in Master of None it’s part of the story but representation is powerfully important and moving forward we do have to be careful to not make it a trend, even if it means cherrypicking our stories.

#The Big Sick #kumail nanjiani #Zoe Kazan #Holly Hunter #Ray Romano

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Wonder Woman (2017)

Note: There will be spoilers, you have been warned

 I enjoyed this movie.

I feel like I have to say that first, unfortunately - There has been so much pressure put on Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot. That it has to be a success. That Wonder Woman has to be a good role model for girls. That Gal got the role because she is pretty, and not because of her acting abilities. That Gal isn’t the right role because of her political beliefs. That she’s too skinny. 

That a movie with a female lead has to be feminist.

That much pressure is absurdly unfair. There’s a famous saying (now backed by data) that black men have to work twice as hard to get just as far (as a white man). How unfair it is that for women of color (I’ll include Gadot for that) it seems to be four times as hard!

What’s scary is that if Wonder Woman was bad, future movies of her would have been axed. Which is nuts because all the Superman movies post-Reeve’s Superman II have been horrible, or milquetoast at best, yet they keep pumping them out. That’s unfair.

But Wonder Woman wasn’t bad. So far it’s raked over $100M at the box office, the most important metric (the only color Hollywood cares about is green). It has 8.3 on IMDB and 93% on RT. Little girls line up to pose with cardboard Gadot at their local theatre, grown women recognize in their hearts that this was them when they were younger (and even now). The movie exceeded expectations, and I can let out a sigh of relief.

It did suffer from some fundamental problems - a simple plot, too much orange/blue, really dark in some scenes, prop goofs (THE TANK AND THE WATCH. AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS - and no trench whistles), bad CGI, and bad acting. But it’s a comic book movie about a daughter of a greek god from an island of all women and she has a lasso of truth and fights in WWI against Germans and also Ares and in the comics she also has an invisible jet. Cut them some slack! There’s bigger things at play. The victories outshine the goofs, for they are home-runs.

For instance, the third of the DC trio finally has her own theme music (Superman’s got his John Williams theme, Bat’s got two -his Danny Elfman theme and the Hans Zimmer one) by Hans Zimmer and played by Tina Guo (girl power!) It seems trivial but it’s important that she gets what’s hers.

Secondly, the fact that we even have a Wonder Woman movie is way overdue, the last representation of Wonder Woman being on the silver screen by Lynda Carter ( I almost typed Mary Tyler Moore). The ‘90s and ‘00s were not kind to women on screen, let’s be real. Gal has a presence on screen.

Thirdly, the diversity of the supporting cast. I love Said Taghmaoui in anything he is in, and Eugene Brave Rock had a great character (even though there’s no reason he would be on the Western Front). A short night scene between him and Wonder Woman solidified the world and helped develop her understanding of the world of men.

Lastly, the controversy. All good products are polarizing - you have to be wary, as a creator, if your baby is received lukewarmly. “It was nice, it was fine…” are death sentences. There will be debates on whether Wonder Woman was feminist enough. Why there were women-only screenings. If a sex scene with a man was necessary for the plot and the movie. It’ll be tough. But creating these kinds of conversations are important.

Philosophically, I think it’s interesting that in comics, physical violence is often a catalyst for social justice issues. (see also, Luke Cage, X-Men, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Incredible Hulk*). I mean, how fantastic is it to be a black man that is bulletproof. To crush people who have gassed your family. To punch Hitler in the face. To finally say, “That’s it, I’ve had it up to here with the status quo,” and step out of the trenches and do something about it. It’s a cathartic release, and we relish seeing justice delivered because it happens so slowly on our timeline.

The legacy of the movie is cemented, I believe, as a success. There’s going to be memes and gifs and it will be cited in articles and studies (also, I think Chris Pine single-handedly brought back the Hemingway fisherman turtleneck).

Little girls have a Lawful Good role model to look up to that looks like them, that empowers them, that tells them they can do anything and be anything.**

  *The Hulk is the quintessential guy that everyone can identify with when they’re mad. He literally overpowers anything that oppresses him. Don’t we all wish we had that power!

 ** Ironically, after my friends and I got out of this movie and went to go get burgers, a guy from the table next to us came over and sat down uninvited and began what I call “chill-bro harassing” where he began to talk up one of our girls and when she told him to leave he acted upset like it we were the ones being rude. Then his other friend came over and began to talk her up too. It’s like, dude, we all just came out of WONDER WOMAN DO YOU WANNA DIE?

#Wonder Woman #Patty Jenkins #Gal Gadot #Robin Wright

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Power Rangers (2017)

Power Rangers was a movie I was going to see regardless of anything - it is not problematic like the live action Ghost in the Shell, which simultaneously is problematically racist and ruins my childhood - the original MMPR is already so campy, cheesy, and racist that anything with a modicum of common sense would be a better film*. With moral quandaries nonexistent, I was free to enjoy the movie, Krispy Kreme product placement and all.

Let’s also be clear of another thing - Power Rangers isn’t about to win any awards. I am not watching this movie to gain a deeper understanding of myself or to appreciate the craft of filmmaking. I am here to see giant robots fight giant monsters and teenagers with attitude fight an evil alien sorceress.

Spoilers for Power Rangers below, if you care about such a thing:

The movie starts off at 100 MPH as we find out that Bryan Cranston was the original red ranger and as such the Power Rangers were the ones who called down the Chicxulub meteor that killed off the dinosaurs and put Rita into stasis. It’s a common opener to start off action films with an Action Prologue, and this one is so over the top I’m on board and ready for the rest of the ride.

The movie then turns into a Breakfast Club / Stranger Things self-aware mashup: Jason Scott (Dacre Montgomery) get sent to detention*** where he has his meetcutes with half the members of the future rangers (there’s a nice trope-defying stand-off where he beats the class bully for picking on Billy).

Right about here is where it got nostalgic for me, Jason rides his bike to his (new) friend’s house, they do some science in the basement, “borrow” mom’s van and go exploring - basically what my teenagehood was like, right down to the van!*****

Most teenagers feel alone and powerless in that time of their life; how good it must feel to meet others that feel that way and talk about running away from it all - or even better, getting the power to change that feeling. Giant robot powers notwithstanding…

The movie begins to lag in the middle, with a lot of flip-floppy character confrontation - Jason and Zordon butt heads (figuratively) and some needless drama - but the last half hour of the movie begins, which is where most of the budget was spent and for what we have been waiting: the power rangers in action.

Elizabeth Banks must have had an absolute blast playing the over-the-top Rita Repulsa, screaming out winner lines such as “Make my monsters grow!” and “Crush them!”

The Zords come out guns blazing to the power rangers theme song, there’s some crazy karate fighting versus the putty patrol, the Zords combine into a giant meka and pimp-slap Rita into outer space. Love it.

What the movie did do well was representation. The black ranger was an Asian actor (Ludi Lin) who (CRAZILY) spoke English well (what!), was bad at kung-fu (what!), and in what was apparently too hard for the Iron Fist series, spoke Mandarin well. The Blue Ranger was on the spectrum, but not typecast as a Rain-Man-esque savant. Both the Pink Ranger (Naomi Scott) and the Yellow Ranger (Becky G) were women of color - and that’s the one of the messages the original power rangers show meant to convey, albeit hilariously misguided - that together, because of our diversity, we are strong.

Additional Thoughts:

Regarding Stranger Things: It’s funny that this 2017 movie is reminiscent of Stranger Things, a 2016 show that is made to be reminiscent of 80s-90s movies/tv shows - of which Power Rangers was. This idea of kids riding bikes, exploring and finding supernatural things, hanging out with girls...Ah, to be young again!

Regarding the Krispy Kreme product placement: Yes it is blatant, but consider this: what other major food chain could have been there? Mcdonalds/Burger King/Starbucks would break the fourth wall (too obvious), and Krispy Kreme is the right amount of familiarity and those-are-still-around incredulity. Imagine if Goldar destroyed an In-n-Out, we would have nuked that a-hole.

* After all, when the original had a black actor playing the black ranger and an Asian playing the yellow ranger and the actor of the blue ranger being picked on for being gay the only place to go is up**...

** that being said, it is AMAZING how intolerant the 90s/00s were. Can you imagine the Juggernaut Bitch! Video coming out today? Those guys would get ax-murdered by SJWs

*** during an incident where his fellow bro jerked off a cow to climax, lest we forget****

****Also, Jason’s dad is played by Roy from the Office, which is very fitting

*****the van not making it past the train is a nice twist to the car-racing-towards-a-perpendicular-train-and-making-it-just-in-time trope that we see all the time, most recently in Logan which funnily enough came out a few weeks before. Two car-vs-train sequences two weeks apart.

#Power Rangers #MMPR #Ludi Lin #Bryan Cranston #Elizabeth Banks

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Moana

I am going to just out and say that I am predisposed to liking this movie, being from Maui (the island named after Hawai’iloa’s son Maui, who is named after the demigod Maui), a movie about Polynesian culture was long overdue. Long overdue!

It’s great to:

A) have a mainstream movie focused on Polynesian culture (I said this already, but for the sake of lists i’m saying it again): oceanic voyaging, taro/coconut farming, tattoos, hula and tahitian dancing, as well as Polynesian mythology.

B) Have it written by, and featuring the voices of people of Polynesian descent and island culture (Moana’s dad is Jango Fett)

C) Feature a fully-arcing female character who defines herself as not a princess - in fact all the women characters in this film are great - the mom, the grandma, and the goddess Te Fiti.

D) Everyone is brown! It’s glorious! Finally some representation!

There have been so many movies made exalting the mythology of the hegemonic west (Greek, Roman, Nordic) that it is refreshing to see some from the other side of the world that is not being blatantly whitewashed (I’m looking at you, live-action Ghost in the Shell, live-action Akira, and The Great Wall - whatever that is).

It does not matter that the story is simplistic - it’s a Disney movie for children, after all - the important thing on a meta-level is that kids of color see role models of color. I already know parents whose kids want to dress up as Moana instead of Elsa, and it warms my heart.

#Disney #Moana #Dwayne Johnson #auliicravalho #lin manuel miranda #jermaine clement #temeura morrison

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on La La Land

“I dreamt of worldly success once.” - Musashi

I was very hesitant to see this movie, almost to the point of boycotting it - does the world really need another pairing of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling*? Not to mention, why should I care about two white twenty-somethings trying to hack their dreams together? In what bubble world does that warrant enough drama to be a movie**?  Especially since one of them is blatantly appropriating black culture?

I will say that I do love musicals, tap dancing, and use of bold color - stuff that this movie had a-plenty. Stone and Gosling also did a fantastic job acting, especially Emma, who moves with mesmerizing energy, a contrast to Gosling’s loping around (he lopes even when he tap dances). I am not complaining there. I am complaining because I feel patronized.

Emma Stone: I hate jazz.***

Ryan Gosling: I’m a white male and jazz was never part of my culture so let me mansplain it to you

John Legend: You’re holding onto the past, but jazz is about the future.

Ryan Gosling: Uh huh yea thats cool neat let’s never refer to this conversation for the rest of the movie. By the way I’m going to open up a club for pure jazz.***

Emma Stone: Also it only took me five years to succeed in Hollywood in this movie lol I know it took Jon Hamm 17***** irl what a sucker.

So the movie pulls you in with color and song and whimsy, and then tugs your heartstrings, so what? There’s another movie that did it better, and without the self-stroking of the film industry - Les Parapluies du Cherbourg******.

In Umbrellas, the two main characters do not get what they want and go their separate ways - the moral of the story is that puppy love is for puppies, and adults have responsibilities, but in La La Land they do get what they want - Gosling gets his “Pure Jazz” club, and Stone becomes a famous actor. Which raises a different question: When we achieve our dreams, when our purposes are achieved, will we be happy? Do we even need to be happy? Or was that (as evident by the alternate reality flashback/forward scenes) just one of many possible outcomes, and that’s the way it is, so shrug your shoulders and drink your tea because that’s life, buddy? What if this, what if that, what if?

“Shhh,” you say, “I’m trying to look at Ryan Gosling.”

I do realize Chazelle did his homework and watched musicals, paid homage to cinemascope, and got the “mood” of Los Angeles correct. There is also a hearkening towards an earlier Golden Age, a greater love of cinema (bluntly bashed over our heads with Emma’s weaselly boyfriend and the closing of the rio alto theatre or whatever it was called). There is nothing wrong with this movie on a fundamental level. The problem is its pandering. But hey, the modern romance genre was never for me anyway.

///

* Stop trying to make EmmaRyan happen, it’s not going to happen

** the good ol’ Hollywood pat-ourselves-on-the-back world apparently, as - surprise, surprise - this movie racked up fourteen Oscar noms and seven golden globe wins

*** Ben Ratliff at Slate brought up a good point that the director Damien Chazelle’s previous film Whiplash (which I thought I wrote about, but I did not) also has a white male jazz musician’s white girlfriend who hates jazz. Food for thought.

**** And i’m never going to define what pure jazz means. So the audience will have to assume it’s unmuddled, pure-bloodline jazz even though jazz is an evolving, living form of music. So feel free to draw your own conclusions of your own definition of “Pure Jazz”...hmm I feel a jazz version of Godwin’s law coming on. 

***** Jon Hamm moved to LA in 1995, got Don Draper’s role in 2007. Also did you know he was arrested for sticking his thumb up the butts of a bunch of college boys

***** Yes I am aware Chazelle had screenings of this film to inspire La La Land, i read Wikipedia

#La La Land #Ryan Gosling #Emma Stone #Damien Chazelle #Whiplash #Lose Angeles #John Legend

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Hidden Figures

I wanted to see this film as soon as I saw the commercials, but I was also wary - historical dramas typically exaggerate for dramatic purposes, and with such sensitive topics - racism, feminism, and The African-American Experience - it is very, very easy for a well-meaning script to be clunky and ham-handed*. The last thing we need in this political climate** is blatant patronization towards one of the most marginalized groups in American history.

That is why I am extremely happy that Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder (writer of Mean Girls 2, unrelated) wrote such a great script. While some parts were arguably...rose-tinted*** and dramatically confrontational****, the rest of the film was done with what I imagine (since I was not around during the 1960s) is great attention to detail and nuance. There are many scenes with racial charge to them, but the impact is so subtle that they sneak up on you later, after the movie is done - and you realize that yes, though it seemed normal at the time...it is incredible how systemic it is.

There is a great example of this when Octavia Spencer is taking her kids to the library and there is a civil rights demonstration across the street. She ushers her kids inside and tells them to not pay attention to that - but when she herself is confronted inside the library, she responds in her own way - later explaining to her children why she did what she did (in the back of the bus)!

Another one was Janelle Monae’s ongoing conflict with her husband - he complains to her that she is not active enough in the civil rights movement, and insinuates she is even detrimental to the movement as she is working for The Man. She responds that she is fighting in her own way, and by the end of the movie, proves herself right.

The film is such a slow burn that one takes every little win with a great sigh of relief. The tides of change rise so discretely that unless one looks back and sees how far we’ve risen do we notice.

We see in this film how much of an equalizer merit is. Kevin Costner doesn’t care that Katherine is black - he only cares that she shares his vision and can get a man into space. Octavia Spencer was able to set up the IBM and got her job. Math is one color, bureaucracy is not.*****

We can also see how much educational opportunity can either hamstring or propel us. America is amazingly lucky that Katherine Johnson was able to go to a private school.

Hidden Figures is a film that everyone - especially young girls-  should see.***** This is the true story of groundbreaking women of color in STEM!  Sometimes all it takes to inspire future leaders is for them to know that it is possible...what better way to show that than showing explorers that look like them achieving the unknown?

p.s. shoutouts to Glen Powell for his charismatic portrayal of John Glenn. That guy could charm a cat out of a tree.

\\\

* After all, Jim Crow Laws were made with the intention of well-meaning, weren’t they?

** Black Lives Matter, the transition of the 44th and 45th American Presidents...

***  Cottonmouth as a love interest? Didn’t you see him kill his own henchmen in Luke Cage? I was worried he was gonna ice Katherine in a fit of rage…

**** Pretty much anytime Kirsten Dunst is onscreen, though I hesitate to say “dramatic” as I have no frame of reference to the kinds of ignorance Black people went through in the ‘60s. Also, Janelle Monae delivering the “If I was a man, I’d already be [an engineer]” was a bit too hokey for my taste...though I did hear women in the audience cheer at that line so whatever floats their boat.

***** Additionally we can see how much harder POC ( and especially Women of Color) had to work for equal opportunity, and we must ask ourselves if it is still the same now. (for extra fun, compare the presidential qualifications of Obama and Trump)

******* The International Women’s March was yesterday, an amazingly powerful symbolic movement - the signs of the times seem to be poised for women; and I welcome it.

#Hidden Figures #taraji p henson #Janelle Monae #Octavia Spencer #Kevin Costner #Kirsten Dunst #mahershala ali

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on The Hustler

“We have a contract of depravity; all we have to do is pull a blind down.” - Fast Eddie

I remember hitting play on this film and thinking, “Two hours? How are they going to make a movie about pool hustling two hours long?”

I continued thinking this well into the first act after Paul Newman finishes playing against Jackie Gleason, the best hustler in America. Usually the way it works is that the scrappy main character has to earn his fight against the big boss, but in this film the guy just waltzes in and gets the showdown within the first fifteen minutes. “What’s going to happen the rest of the film?” I thought.

And then The Hustler really takes off. It becomes a film about the toxicity of winning, a reach down the throat and a grab at the guts. Eddie destroys himself, his friends, his partner, in pursuit of “winning”. He eventually does win his pool game - but it doesn’t mean anything.

Paul Newman, Piper Laurie* and Jackie Gleason all do amazing jobs acting. Amazing! Piper is a lady, Jackie’s a man who can’t be shook, Paul Newman has got that wounded animal look nailed down. But to me, the man who stole the show was George C. Scott. He’s introduced and you immediately know this is one. Bad. Dude. While not as physically intimidating as Gleason, you get the feeling Scott is dangerous. Gleason may beat you, but Scott will kill you. Every scene he’s in he commands. That is acting.

This is a film that stayed with me; that I think of often. The story is timeless, the acting fantastic, the cinematography gorgeous. I love the closing credits scene complete with clean-up and freeze-frame, as if to say, “yup, he won his pool game, and that’s all she wrote.”  

* Fun fact she owns the Packard Mill in Twin Peaks

#The Hustler #Robert Rossen #Paul Newman #George C Scott #Piper Laurie #Jackie Gleason

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on The Magnificent Seven (2016)

“White people food…is for dogs.”- Red Harvest

Let’s face it - if you’re a smart movie-goer you already know the plot of The Magnificent Seven. Evil Man threatens Poor Pious Town, Poor Pious Town hires Ragtag Group, Ragtag Group protects town for Honor, some of Ragtag Group dies. So why spend your evening and fifteen or so bucks to watch something you already know when you could watch Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven (1960), A Bug’s Life, or even Thirteen Assassins*?

Because, and I often use this Ebert quote, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.”

There’s a good Jorge Luis Borges short story about a man who wants to rewrite Don Quixote so faithfully that he rewrites it word-for-word**, yet the story is changed because of the context of a different era. It humorously raises questions pertaining to appropriation and interpretation - something that the new Magnificent Seven also raises.

The 2016 version has been written for a new audience, one that’s savvy and one that doesn’t have time to rewatch a movie. The cast is multi-racial, the recruiter is a woman***, there’s a few more explosions, the quips fly fast and snarky. A hallmark of Westerns is usually its slow burn, but in Fuqua’s direction the beats are tight and the cuts are quick. Not necessarily bad…but indeed different.

The cast is the strongest point of Magnificent Seven: Denzel and Ethan are Fuqua staples, Chris Pratt and Vincent D’Onofrio come in riding high on the commercial success of Jurassic World (Vincent also plays a mean Kingpin in the Netflix Daredevil series). Pizzolato and Wenk did a great job pairing off the more famous actors with the others - I particularly enjoyed the camaraderie of Hawke’s character with Byung-Hun Lee’s (I’d watch a show of them running cons on unsuspecting ranchers; it’s also funny that this is Lee’s second time as an Asian cowboy**** -  much respect we need more of those). I do wish that Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s character was more developed as most of the time he was a punching bag for Chris Pratt. The villain is standard, much more intriguing was his Native-American, Union-uniform-wearing, henchman.

The ending could have been stronger - the staple of the Seven Samurai storyline is that these ronin are looking for redemption; and that they have no personal stake in this fight makes it that much more honorable. The fact that Denzel does have a personal stake in it makes it less impactful.

___________

*not a good date movie, by the way

** “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”

*** after tricking us into thinking it would be a guy, and also tricking us into thinking there would be a relationship with one of the seven, which would of course be in poor taste.

**** The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, also in Magnificent Seven he gets to be James Coburn’s character as the sort of cowboy ninja guy, so I guess his agent is amazing

#magnificent seven #denzel washington #ethan hawke #antoin fuqua #chris pratt #byung-hun lee

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Deliverance

“Everything is about sex, except for sex. Sex is about power.” - Oscar Wilde

Boy, talk about a movie that will change your life. Where to even start? This film creates dialogues that perhaps you’ve never wanted to bring up, feelings that are numbing and take time before you can it laugh off, concepts that men need to come to terms with and that women already have (and are waiting for the men to catch up), all under the guise of a manly man-vs-wild adventure.

I wanted so badly to talk about this movie with anyone, but since very few people from my generation have seen it (no surprise there), I had to track down co-workers during breaks and slyly work it into the conversation - and let me tell you, Deliverance does not make good water-cooler talk.

40 year old coworker: so what’d you do this weekend?

Me (planning and waiting for this moment): I watched Deliverance.

Coworker: You watched Deliverance? (laughs)

Me: Yup.

Coworker: Yup.

And that’s how the dialogue went in about three separate conversations with three different people. More unsaid than said.

“No one needs to know about this.”

Masterfully filmed, excellently written, tangibly acted, uncomfortable to watch. The multiple close-up shots trap the actors inside the frame, hemmed in by the forest on both sides. The live stunts on the real rivers and rocks (Jon Voight climbed the cliffs himself, crazy man!) and the sense of “aliveness” doesn’t shake the sense of foreboding that permeates the entire film. It reads almost like a teleplay or live stage reading, a sort of wild Glengarry Glen Ross.

“Where you goin’, city boy?”

What do you do when your masculinity is on the line and you lose? It’s one thing to go out into the wild and fancy yourself a wild man* - but what happens when you run across a real wild man? When you walk down a empty road and see a man coming towards you, and he’s got a gun and you don’t?

The most famous scene from this film should reveal a lot about ourselves - how much empathy we have, what kind of social cues we are able to pick up** and how we would conduct ourselves up after. Most men I know, fancying themselves rugged action heroes, after seeing this would probably yell out, “why doesn’t he fight back? Why don’t they fight back?” which is of course, some of the dialogue that the film is meant to raise.

There’s a lot of “what-ifs” to this scenario, which to some is worse than death. What if Lewis and Drew had gotten there earlier? What if Lewis and Drew were the ones that got there first? And so on.

What this film does bring to light, if ever so dramatically, is the invisible burden that men seem to carry with them wherever they go. The call of the wild, the need for dominance, the burying (literally, in this case, underground or underwater) of their shame and defeat. It’ll wake them up at night. It’s something they can’t tell their wives, can’t tell their kids, but their friends will nod, and never speak of it.

At the beginning of the film Lewis seems like the protagonist - brash, invincible, charismatic - but by the end, when he’s laid out and shivering, busted leg and all - it’s Ed - the median friend, who is our “hero”.

One thing that stood out out to me was the shot of Ed’s home and family - peaceful, suburban, and super ‘70s. It felt like peeking at a home movie.

*Looking at you, McCandleless

** The wild man touching Bobby is outside of his frame of reference; Bobby is really lost, literally and metaphorically. He doesn’t know it yet but he’s already lost all power.

#Deliverance #Burt Reynolds #Jon Voight #Ned Beatty #Ronny Cox

[cinematicallusions]

A Quick Essay on Spotlight

What a film! I love movies that unfold like plays. You also don’t get to see Boston featured too much in movies - this one and The Town are the ones that come to mind* - so it was nice to see that as well.

This film has an all-star cast (John Slattery, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Ruffalo) which sets the talent bar extremely high: it makes it that much more impressive how good Liev Schreiber was. That man, much like Nick Offerman, has mastered the art of stillness. Schreiber walks on-screen and never raises his voice yet has command over the other characters, the audience, and the scene itself. Amazing.

The story is both true and heavy and could have easily been mishandled, so all props to the writers Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. All the people I know that get excited about investigative journalism (all three of them) were very pleased with this film, as they should be - it is art of high caliber.

* Ok well here’s a list of 99 movies that take place in Boston so I guess I should have thought of Good Will Hunting and Boondock Saints and The Departed, but none of them are currently on rotation on cable TV so that’s my excuse

#Spotlight #John Slattery #Michael Keaton #Boston #Liev Schrieber #rachel mcadams #mark ruffalo #stanley tucci #Billy Crudup