Posts from the ‘Art’ Category

Mar 18

10 Movies on Netflix for your Quarantine

Hello my friends. Social distancing is the best way to prevent the spread of the virus, which for most people means lots of Netflix. Here are 10 good movies on Netflix — I have checked, they are all available in the US for at least the month of March — to enjoy while apart from friends.

(Or with friends, thru the Netflix Party app on Chrome).

Note that besides Spider-Verse and The Two Popes, none of these are appropriate for family viewing.

Marriage Story

Length: 2 hours 17 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 93
Description: An incisive and compassionate portrait of a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.

Burning

Length: 2 hours 38 minutes
Language: Korean
Metacritic: 90
Description: The difficult life of Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo), a frustrated introvert, is complicated by the appearance of two people into his orbit: first, Haemi (Jong-seo Jun), a spirited woman who offers romantic possibility, and then, Ben (Steven Yeun), a wealthy and sophisticated young man she returns with from a trip. When Jongsu learns of Ben’s mysterious hobby and Haemi suddenly disappears, his confusion and obsessions begin to mount, culminating in a stunning finale.

We the Animals

Length: 1 hour 34 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 83
Description: Us three. Us brothers. Us kings, inseparable. Three boys tear through their childhood, in the midst of their young parents’ volatile love that makes and unmakes the family many times over. While Manny and Joel grow into versions of their loving and unpredictable father, Ma seeks to shelter her youngest, Jonah, in the cocoon of home. More sensitive and conscious than his older siblings, Jonah increasingly embraces an imagined world all his own.

Moonlight

Length: 1 hour 51 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 99 (!)
Description: Moonlight is the tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

There Will Be Blood

Length: 2 hours 38 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 93
Description: When Daniel Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there’s a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads there with his son, H.W., to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the Holy Roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday, Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value—love, hope, community, belief, ambition, and even the bond between father and son—is imperiled by corruption, deception, and the flow of oil.

Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse

Length: 1 hour 57 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 87
Description: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales, and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.

The Irishman

Length: 3 hours 29 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 94
Description: The Irishman is an epic saga of organized crime in post-war America told through the eyes of World War II veteran Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a hustler and hitman who worked alongside some of the most notorious figures of the 20th Century. Spanning decades, the film chronicles one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history, the disappearance of legendary union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and offers a monumental journey through the hidden corridors of organized crime: its inner workings, rivalries and connections to mainstream politics.

The Two Popes

Length: 2 hours 5 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 75
Description: Behind Vatican walls, the traditionalist Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) and the reformist future Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) must find common ground to forge a new path for the Catholic Church.

Candyman (1992)

Length: 1 hour 39 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 61
Description: The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster’s myth.

*This isn’t a great movie, but Jordan Peele has a remake coming out this summer, so watch the original before seeing that.

Good Time

Length: 1 hour 41 minutes
Language: English
Metacritic: 80
Description: After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Constantine Nikas (Robert Pattinson) embarks on a twisted odyssey through the city’s underworld in an increasingly desperate—and dangerous—attempt to get his brother out of jail. Over the course of one adrenalized night, Constantine finds himself on a mad descent into violence and mayhem as he races against the clock to save his brother and himself, knowing their lives hang in the balance.

Feb 9

My Oscar Picks

Tonight, the awards season comes to its annual close with the 92nd Oscars. Good news this year! Even if the worst Best Picture nominee wins tonight’s award, it will still be better than Green Book!

We all know that award ceremonies do not pick the best films. A Hidden Life was seen by only a handful of viewers across the country because Fox Searchlight / Disney bombed its distribution. It makes sense it wouldn’t have any nominations, even though it was my decisive pick of 2019. The Farewell fared well at last night’s Indie Spirits awards but was somehow snubbed outright from the Oscars. Why and how did the faith-based film Breakthrough get nominated for Best Song for… a very mediocre song? Over Wild Rose? Can someone explain why Joker received 11 nominations? Cynthia Erivo of Harriet is the only actor of color nominated, which is an undue weight for any single performance. This will earn it more votes than it should, but also take away votes because others want to compensate for those they predict will give it sympathy votes. (If diversity were normalized, it wouldn’t need to be politicized.) These odd games are what one writer last year called “the inscrutable politics of the Academy.” Other voters are saying the same about Parasite: why give it Best Picture if it is going to win Best International Film? Answer: because it is the best picture.

(And don’t get me started about Uncut Gems, better than 8 of the 9 Best Picture nominees, and Sandler’s lead performance, better than 4 of the 5 nominees. The Sandman threatened to make a movie “so bad on purpose” if he was snubbed, and the Academy voters called his bluff. He wasn’t bluffing.)

It takes a few years for the dust to settle and the critical consensus to solidify around the year’s best films. Everyone has a stake in the game, and our personal allegiances to certain actors and directors skew our takes. Not to mention the difficulty of seeing everything the year it comes out. Not to mention that “best” is so wide-open as a category that it stops meaning anything at all. We lose sight of what films are for: not just excellence in an abstract sense but excellence at some specific goal or in service of a particular advance in filmmaking. Monos was the best war movie of the year, A Hidden Life the best hagiography, Climax the best experimental film, Midsommar the best horror, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood the best role-model film to show to children. Without some further purpose in mind, labels like “best” picture seem apt to go to watery, room temperature oatmeal movies like Green Book. Or as could happen tonight, Ford v Ferrari. So, the work of film critique doesn’t reduce to the Oscars, or even resemble it.

But hey, whatever, here are my picks (bold) and my predictions (~~~).

Best Picture

“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Little Women” (2)
“Marriage Story” (3)
“1917” ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Parasite” (1)

Lead Actor

Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Adam Driver, “Marriage Story”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker” ~~~
Jonathan Pryce, “The Two Popes”

Lead Actress

Honestly I have only seen three of these (Judy, Marriage Story, Little Women), and none stood out to me as better than the others, so I don’t know what to pick.

Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet”
Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story”
Saoirse Ronan, “Little Women”
Charlize Theron, “Bombshell”
Renee Zellweger, “Judy” ~~~

Supporting Actor

Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes”
Al Pacino, “The Irishman”
Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” ~~~

Supporting Actress

Again, only saw three of these, but Laura Dern as the manipulative lawyer Nora is my top performance of the year, and I doubt see Richard Jewell or Bombshell would change that.

Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”
Laura Dern, “Marriage Story” ~~~
Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”
Florence Pugh, “Little Women”
Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”

Director

Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
Todd Phillips, “Joker”
Sam Mendes, “1917”
Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Bong Joon Ho, “Parasite” ~~~

Animated Feature

Hahaha I saw zero of these.

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” Dean DeBlois
“I Lost My Body,” Jeremy Clapin
“Klaus,” Sergio Pablos
“Missing Link,” Chris Butler
“Toy Story 4,” Josh Cooley ~~~

Animated Short

“Dcera,” Daria Kashcheeva
“Hair Love,” Matthew A. Cherry
“Kitbull,” Rosana Sullivan ~~~
“Memorable,” Bruno Collet
“Sister,” Siqi Song

Adapted Screenplay

“The Irishman,” Steven Zaillian
“Jojo Rabbit,” Taika Waititi ~~~
“Joker,” Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
“Little Women,” Greta Gerwig
“The Two Popes,” Anthony McCarten

Original Screenplay

“Knives Out,” Rian Johnson
“Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach
“1917,” Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Quentin Tarantino ~~~
“Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho, Jin Won Han

Cinematography

“The Irishman,” Rodrigo Prieto
“Joker,” Lawrence Sher
“The Lighthouse,” Jarin Blaschke
“1917,” Roger Deakins ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Robert Richardson

Best Documentary Feature

Only saw Honeyland, and only saw half of that before turning it off.

“American Factory,” Julia Rieichert, Steven Bognar
“The Cave,” Feras Fayyad
“The Edge of Democracy,” Petra Costa
“For Sama,” Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
“Honeyland,” Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov

Best Documentary Short Subject

Only saw In the Absence (no theaters around me screened the ShortsTV program for docs), so can’t say.

“In the Absence,” Yi Seung-Jun and Gary Byung-Seok Kam
“Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone,” Carol Dysinger
“Life Overtakes Me,” Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas
“St. Louis Superman,” Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan
“Walk Run Cha-Cha,” Laura Nix

Best Live Action Short Film

“Brotherhood,” Meryam Joobeur
“Nefta Football Club,” Yves Piat
“The Neighbors’ Window,” Marshall Curry
“Saria,” Bryan Buckley ~~~
“A Sister,” Delphine Girard

Best International Feature Film

“Corpus Christi,” Jan Komasa
“Honeyland,” Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov
“Les Miserables,” Ladj Ly
“Pain and Glory,” Pedro Almodovar
“Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho ~~~

Film Editing

“Ford v Ferrari,” Michael McCusker, Andrew Buckland
“The Irishman,” Thelma Schoonmaker ~~~
“Jojo Rabbit,” Tom Eagles
“Joker,” Jeff Groth
“Parasite,” Jinmo Yang

Sound Editing

“Ford v Ferrari,” Don Sylvester
“Joker,” Alan Robert Murray
“1917,” Oliver Tarney, Rachel Tate ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Wylie Stateman
“Star Wars: The Rise of SkyWalker,” Matthew Wood, David Acord

Sound Mixing

“Ad Astra”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“Joker”
“1917” ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Production Design

“The Irishman,” Bob Shaw and Regina Graves
“Jojo Rabbit,” Ra Vincent and Nora Sopkova
“1917,” Dennis Gassner and Lee Sandales ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Barbara Ling and Nancy Haigh
“Parasite,” Lee Ha-Jun and Cho Won Woo, Han Ga Ram, and Cho Hee

Original Score

“Joker,” Hildur Guðnadóttir ~~~
“Little Women,” Alexandre Desplat
“Marriage Story,” Randy Newman
“1917,” Thomas Newman
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” John Williams

Original Song

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” “Toy Story 4”
“I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” “Rocketman” ~~~
“I’m Standing With You,” “Breakthrough”
“Into the Unknown,” “Frozen 2”
“Stand Up,” “Harriet”

Makeup and Hair

Only saw three, so no clue who will win, but Rene Zellweger’s total transformation into Judy Garland was really the only good part of that movie, so I get why that is the front-runner.

“Bombshell”
“Joker”
“Judy” ~~~
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”
“1917”

Costume Design

”The Irishman,” Sandy Powell, Christopher Peterson
“Jojo Rabbit,” Mayes C. Rubeo
“Joker,” Mark Bridges
“Little Women,” Jacqueline Durran ~~~
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Arianne Phillips

Visual Effects

“Avengers Endgame”
“The Irishman”
“1917” ~~~
“The Lion King”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”

My Score

There are 24 awards. I predicted 22 awards and got 13 correct. Of my 19 personal picks, 7 won and for that I am happy. Parasite, in particular, got the glam it deserved.

Dec 18

Best Films of the Decade

Thirteen days early, I present to you my picks for the best films of the decade. Some notes before we start:

• Uncut Gems, Little Women, A Hidden Life or Star Wars IX could conceivably make the cut, but they get snubbed for releasing in the final week of the decade.

• I haven’t seen everything, obviously, so I can only pull from the 273 feature-length films of the 2010’s I have seen.

• Zero of these films are family-friendly. Do not watch them with kids. (Honorable Mention Faces Places would be the sole exception).

• I also include info on how to rent/buy/stream each film.

Honorable Mentions: Faces Places (2017), We the Animals (2018), The Master (2012) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Arrival (2016), Mad Max: Fury Road (2014), The Favourite (2018).

10. Moonlight (2016)

Barry Jenkins directs this adaptation of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s autobiographical play “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.” The film explores the life of Chiron Harris, a gay black man raised in poverty in Miami. Moonlight depicts his coming-of-age with an abusive family, his sexuality, and his struggle to find belonging in the black community. Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes portray Chiron as a child, teen, and adult, each performance flawless. Moonlight is a film of pure visual poetry, always showing, never telling, never pausing to explain or justify itself. The simple beauty of the film is in its visual style and its narrow focus on one highly intersectional experience. It won Best Picture after the famous La La Land gaffe, as well as winning Best Adapted Screenplay and the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Drama.

Available on: Netflix (subscription), Amazon Prime ($2.99), or YouTube ($0.99).

9. Leviathan (2014)

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, this Russian film follows a man’s eviction from his home, divorce from his wife, and battle with the town’s corrupt mayor, all at once. Leviathan doubles as a cipher for the Biblical character Job, and the everyman of Putin’s Russia, trying to survive in a system of pure power. One critic writes, Leviathan “deals with some of the most important social issues of contemporary Russia while never becoming an artist’s sermon or a public statement; it is a story of love and tragedy experienced by ordinary people.”

Available on: Youtube ($0.99) and Amazon Prime ($2.99).

8. Lean on Pete (2018)

Andrew Haigh’s latest film follows Charley Thompson (played to perfection by Charlie Plummer) as his already decrepit life completely falls apart. He has nothing but a trusty horse named Pete. Charley’s journey interacts with issues of fatherlessness, teen homelessness, and life in “flyover country” America. Haigh’s visual style is perfect for this coming-of-age character study, which he filmed with maximum compassion and humanism. To be honest, I may be the only person putting Lean on Pete in my best of the decade list, half because it connected with me in a unique way and half because it went criminally under the radar. Critic Austin Dale listed it his favorite of last year, calling it “both the most American film of the year and the year’s toughest sell.”

Available on: Amazon Prime (subscription) and YouTube ($0.99).

7. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

Based on the pre-civil war slave memoir of the same name, 12 Years a Slave follows Solomon Northup’s kidnapping into slavery and years of toil on the plantation. Steve McQueen directs a rockstar cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Luita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, and even Brad Pitt for a moment. Guys, this movie is so brutal. Don’t watch it lightly. It is jarring and should make you very, very angry. It also withstood historical scrutiny better than most period pieces: Emily West, a historian who specializes in this period, commented that she had “never seen a film represent slavery so accurately.” Which is to say, so horrifically.

Available on: YouTube ($0.99), iTunes ($3.99) and Amazon ($3.99).

6. Boyhood (2014)

Filmed scene-by-scene over 14 years with the same child actor as he grew into adulthood, Boyhood is Richard Linklater’s masterpiece. The plot structure is unique: per Wikipedia, Boyhood “began without a completed script, with only basic plot points and the ending written initially. Linklater developed the script throughout production, writing the next year’s portion of the film after rewatching the previous year’s footage. He incorporated changes he saw in each actor into the script, while also allowing all major actors to participate in the writing process by incorporating their life experiences into their characters’ stories.” What emerged from this process resembles life itself, with its ongoing aimlessness punctuated by briefly meaningful moments. Boyhood is the ultimate coming-of-age movie. I am not convinced that a better one could be conceived even in theory.

Available on: Amazon Prime ($2.99) or The Criterion Channel (subscription).

5. Parasite (2019)

How do you make a movie twice as good as that year’s second place? Bong Joon-ho knows, apparently, and everyone else has been put to shame as Parasite enjoys its perch atop the Letterboxd Top 250 films list. Literally, it sits at the #1 highest rated film of all time, above both Godfathers. The film follows a poor Korean family as they… fold pizza boxes. (Hahahahahahaha). That is all I was told going into the movie, and honestly, the less you know, the better. Likely winner of this year’s Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film.

Available on: there is currently no legal way to view Parasite. It will release on Amazon Prime on January 14, 2020 for $14.99. Around the same time it will probably also reappear in theaters as Oscars season heats up.

4. First Reformed (2018)

Ethan Hawke stars in this instant-classic as a country pastor in a dwindling congregation. First Reformed offers a provocative commentary on the relationship between capitalism and religion, a commentary as enlightening as it is horrifying, mystifying, and electric. The ending is intentionally incomprehensible. It doesn’t make any sense and it isn’t supposed to make any sense. I have come to love viewing this movie against its precursors (Wise Blood, Winter Light, and Diary of a Country Priest), because Schrader is not generating his own narrative as much as he is parodying and inverting these existing narratives into something new. In that sense, First Reformed is at once completely unoriginal, and highly, highly original. You probably won’t like it, but First Reformed plays like lightning.

Available on: Amazon Prime (subscription) and YouTube ($0.99).

3. A Separation (2011)

This Iranian drama won a billion awards including Best Foreign Language Film and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay (rare for a non-English movie). Its subjects, a married couple seeking divorce and the husband’s senile father, become enmeshed in a web of spin and half-truths that by the end create a disaster threatening to ruin lives. The dialogue comes fast and heavy and disorients your sense of objectivity. I recommend you drink a full cup of coffee before pressing play.

Available on: Netflix (subscription), Amazon Prime ($2.99) and YouTube ($0.99).

2. Burning (2018)

An erotic philosophical thriller, and perhaps the only film to receive all three of those adjectives, Burning was my #1 of last year — by far. Set in South Korea and following a devolving love triangle between the protagonist (Yoo Ah-in), the antagonist (Steven Yeun) and the girl (Jun Jong-seo), the film slowly descends into a purgatory of confusion and disbelief before pivoting and diving into absolute hellfire. Burning explores male sexuality in an honor-shame culture, leading to a very different analysis than Western audiences would expect. It also threatens to destroy you, the viewer. When the film finished I sat immobilized in raw shock for what felt like an hour. I have never seen anything like Burning.

Available on: Netflix (subscription), YouTube ($0.99), and Amazon Prime ($2.99).

1. The Tree of Life (2011)

“Is it hyperbole,” asks my friend and fellow reviewer Travis Kyker, “to call this cinema’s Sistine Chapel?” No, Travis. No it is not. The Tree of Life is the Magnum Opus not only of Terrence Malick’s career but also of Christian filmmaking in general. The non-linearity, the abstract plot structure, the twenty un-interrupted minutes of footage of life’s evolution on Earth, this one’s got ’em all, baby. Understanding The Tree of Life on first watch is as likely as understanding the Bible on first read, or maybe less likely. It is a film so simple in structure and execution that it ends up meaning everything. What makes The Tree of Life so unique, in addition to the plot, cinematography, acting, scripting, pacing, special fx, framing, themes, and overall concept, is that this movie emanates from the heart of Malick’s own religious experience. Nobody else could have directed this film, for the technical reasons above but also because it would never mean anything coming from someone else. This film exists in the narrow space between impressionism and expressionism: Malick expressing himself in a way that only impress its meaning upon the viewer insofar as the viewer already shares Malick’s expression in themselves. The Tree of Life speaks a double code language, indecipherable to those outside the world of art cinema, but more importantly, indecipherable to those outside the transcendent religious experience Malick explores.

Available on: Hulu (but only with Cinemax add-on for $9.99/month), Amazon Prime ($3.99), or YouTube ($3.99).

That’s all!

Thanks for reading. I will be posting my Best of 2019 list soon.

Nov 11

Joker (2019) and Mental Health

Joker has always been my favorite villain. Throughout the comic lore and the two Joker movies I saw growing up (1989 with Jack Nicholson and 2008 with Heath Ledger) the character was wild and unpredictable, a force of sheer anarchy, in d&d terms a Chaotic Evil. He sat on a billion dollar cash throne, just to torch it for fun. He had no ideology. He “just wanted to watch the world burn.”

Todd Phillips reinvents the character. His incarnation of Joker (played well by Joaquin Phoenix) is the victim of unspeakable child neglect and abuse at the hands of a psychotic mother. Phillips portrays him not as a supernatural force of chaos but the very regular and predictable outcome of a society that left him behind.

Until the 1960’s, mental health patients were placed in insane asylums (“institutionalized”) which were a cross between hospitals and prisons. But eventually, new psychiatric drugs hit the market which could help most of those institutionalized be functional members of society. This, combined with a human-rights-based pushback against asylum imprisonment, created a movement called Deinstitutionalization. Rather than house mental health patients in prison-hospitals, the government would fund “community-based mental healthcare” so that a local distributed network of doctors at small clinics could meet regularly with patients. For most, mental illness was no longer a totalizing thing. It was one illness among others, so why not be free in society, as long as the needed support system is there?

JFK signed the CMHA (“Community Mental Health Act”) in 1963. The asylums were slowly drained of patients and new distributed networks became available so that former patients could integrate into society well. However, unlike the jumbo asylums that could not be easily defunded, the community-based systems had their budgets cut annually. They were never fully funded anyway, and over time shrunk at the hands of austerity. At the same time, the cost of private medicine continued to rise. Mental healthcare was less and less available over time.

Notice that Phillips sets Joker in the 1980’s. This is intentional. During the Reagan administration the budget cuts to mental healthcare accelerated. Reagan repealed the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 (passed during the Carter administration), allowing state-level austerity to continue to dismantle the system. What happens in the movie? Joker goes to his local mental health office weekly, checks in with his therapist, and goes on with his normal life. Until the city government cuts the facility. Joker asks his therapist, “how am I going to get my medicine?” “I’m sorry,” she replies.

Then, absent his medicine, Joker slowly but absolutely loses his mind. Many people are killed. His bizarre fantasies become grandiose and violent. The film picks up its pace at this point, and the rest is pure showbiz.

Phillips didn’t make a movie about the Joker. He used the Joker to make a movie about us, and about those we have left behind.

After deinstitutionalization and the decimation of community-based mental healthcare, many people with mental illness have become homeless, and even more have become victims of mass-incarceration (so, prison-hospitals without the hospitals). For example, it is estimated that 1/3 of Cook County jail inmates have mental illness. This is why, rather than hire another warden, a few years ago they hired a psychologist as executive director of the prison. This is the insane asylum, but worse: less funding, less treatment, less patient rights, less trained staff, and on an unprecedented scale.

Joker may seem to pose the question “How could someone become so far gone?” Instead, it poses the reverse: “How could we do this to them?”

Apr 14

1 Comment

I’m pro-life. “Unplanned” is not worth seeing.

Unplanned_promotional_poster

Put aside production quality failures and Unplanned still does not work. Forget issues with lighting, camera angles, editing, pacing, colorization, any of it. Disregard whatever expectations you have of cinematography — because, let’s be honest, directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman of God’s Not Dead I & II fame are not trying to make a beautiful or sophisticated film. Meet Unplanned where it is at, which is not a film but a message-movie. Let’s focus only on the message.

I’m going to be generous here.

The argument against abortion in Unplanned is threefold. First, abortion looks gross. Visually you cannot watch it happen. To watch an abortion is to watch something bloody, gory, something alien to our sanitized suburban lifestyles. When you see an abortion on-screen you go, “Eww, gross.” It evokes a negative mind-body reaction. Second, the administration at Planned Parenthood is bad. Planned Parenthood makes profit-maximizing decisions and does not treat their employees well. They compare fetuses to french fries and soda, they speak in strict subject-predicate syntax and never use the passive voice, and they arbitrarily reprimand their employees (and later SLAPP sue them). Third, some people who stand at the Fence on Saturdays are good people who want to support women and provide them other options than having an abortion. Other people at the Fence are mean, but these certain ones treat women with respect and genuine kindness.

That’s all.

Grossness, Meanness, Kindness. These reasons can motivate any given person to become pro-life. I’m not denying that. And they come from Abby Johnson’s personal memoir. I see no real reason to doubt that these three reasons were significant in her conversion to the pro-life cause. (Though other aspects of the narrative are disputed). But they are unconvincing beyond sheer emotional appeal. Unfortunately that was not the case for the pro-choice arguments. As Abby becomes a Planned Parenthood advocate the audience is treated to many of the arguments that convinced her: (1) Women should have the right to choose, (2) Many women are in vulnerable living situations and can’t justify having a child, (3) Many teenagers are too young to responsibly raise children. These arguments can be easily diffused. Watch this: (1) Yes, but choices must be made in the moral-legislative context of democracy, so ultimately, we all must choose what we want our society to look like, whether pro-choice or pro-life. (2) Yes, which is why adoption matters. (3) Yes, which is why adoption matters.

I understand that the arguments are more complicated than this. But these basic argument-objection conversations were 100% absent from Unplanned. The movie didn’t go over any of them, at all. The only ones it attempted to address were that the fetus is a baby and that abortions are medically unsafe. (Neither of these are communicated fully in language, but they do get visually gruesome scenes). However, both of these objections are incorrect given the movie’s own reasoning. The movie depicts a 13 week fetus struggling against an abortion — this is Abby’s big conversion moment — but according to the oft-cited report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the fetus cannot feel pain until 27 weeks, the third trimester, at which point most States ban abortion. The other point, that abortions are medically unsafe, was depicted with a young woman almost dying from a perforated uterus. However, medical complications from abortion are exceedingly rare. Honestly, let’s admit it, abortion isn’t an unsafe operation (for the woman!). Medical safety isn’t why we should reject it. We should reject abortion on other moral grounds — and anyways, if the whole argument is medical safety, then when medical science advances and abortion becomes less dangerous (for the woman!) than it already is, the argument gets even weaker.

So, Unplanned left me with a powerful emotional journey as Abby converted from the pro-choice to pro-life cause. That is an important testimony and a sign of God’s grace in her life, personally, and the power of God to transform anyone, whatever they are “complicit in,” as the movie interestingly remarks. Not “guilty for,” but “complicit in.” This is good language for discussing sin that we did not ourselves commit…

Unfortunately, Unplanned failed to say really anything else meaningful about abortion.

Notice that I have avoided mentioning the technical, formal failures in this movie. There are so many. But in order to not look like a film snob who missed the directors’ point, I’ve withheld my specific critiques. And even now I won’t say them. Just watch the movie yourself, you will immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY spot them.

The production failure upset me, though, because abortion is a really serious topic. I believe that abortion is killing and that in the vast majority of cases such killing crosses a moral threshold into murder, so far past that moral threshold that it ought to be outright banned in nearly all contexts. We need a ban for the good of society at large and because abortion will have no place on the Mountain of God. This is eschatology in action, that one day all of humanity “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” The scalpels, clamps and suction devices used in abortion will one day find a new use in the New Jerusalem, a use that builds rather than destroys life.

So when this movie does such an awful job, cinematically, it upset me. Poor filmmaking makes a mockery of its subject. The directors of Unplanned should have known better, tried harder, and done more with their (honestly good-sized) budget ($6m). Abortion deserves a serious film.

I left the theater not more passionate about my pro-life convictions, but less.

Mar 7

5 movies you SLEPT ON in 2018 — and how to watch them now

It happens every year. Some movies don’t get the press they deserve and others become known only after the awards season ends. While in one of these cases it is an outrage that it received no Academy Award nominations (Leave No Trace), the other four simply did not get enough recognition to be considered. Here are five movies that I think deserved awards but got SLEPT ON, and how to view them.

Lean on Pete

Image result for lean on pete poster

Andrew Haigh directed this movie with enough empathy that a sociopath could feel moved by the end. With an unsuspecting, tired premise (boy and his horse run away from home on an adventure across the Wild West), the plot quickly moves into its own territory. Haigh explores teen homelessness, what a distant father does to masculinity, and having to grieve without support. He does this in a script that easily beats half the Adapted Screenplay nominees. Charlie Plummer gives a stellar acting performance (he won Best Young Actor @ Venice IFF) and is supported by the also-stellar Steve Buscemi and Chloe Sevigny. Steve Buscemi deserved the Best Supporting Actor nomination for this, much more than Sam Rockwell playing George W. Bush. Lean on Pete joins the next movie on this list in somehow creating a whole world of transcendence, a world hinting at another world lurking just around the corner or behind the next mountain range. Magical. Was it the camera angles, the shot lengths? I couldn’t tell how Haigh achieved this effect, but when you watch it, you will feel it. Sadly, Lean on Pete got SLEPT ON this year.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime, free. iTunes, $3.99.

Leave No Trace

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Will and his 13 year old daughter Tom live off the grid in a forest. Unfortunately for them, the State considers this not just an alternative lifestyle but rather homelessness. When they are discovered, they must adjust to life in civilized society. Along the way director Debra Granik captures the most visually beautiful film of 2018, and her leads (Ben Foster and Australian newcomer Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) gave knock. out. performances. marked by subtlety and tension. The cinematography by Michael McDonough and original screenplay by Granik were deserving of full Oscar wins, not to mention nominations, but sadly Leave No Trace got SLEPT ON this year.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime, free. iTunes, $5.99.

Eighth Grade

Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade (2018)

Packing in all the cringe he possibly — and I mean possibly — could, director Bo Burnham captured the true essence of the middle school vibe. Hilarious, but also deeply concerning, Eighth Grade will give you an eye into the pressures teens face today. Social media and easy-to-access technology have changed the landscape so much that the middle school experience of Kayla (Elsie Fisher) barely looks like mine. All the same awkwardness, all the same pettiness, but in a whole new world. Despite receiving zero Oscar nominations, Eighth Grade won the Indie Spirit Awards for Best First Screenplay, and was far better than Green Book, winner of the original screenplay Oscar. Though in fairness, Green Book didn’t deserve that award either. Elsie Fisher’s performance and the film’s painful clarity make it worth watching, if not as a research piece then at minimum as great comedy. However, with exactly zero Academy Award nominations, Eighth Grade got SLEPT ON this year.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime, free. iTunes, $4.99.

Beautiful Boy

This film from Belgian director Felix van Groeningen follows a father (Steve Carell) and son (Timothée Chalamet) as the son’s methamphetamine addiction tears their relationship apart. Heavy drug use — rock bottom — sobriety — critical situation that threatens the tentative stability of newfound sobriety — right back into heavy drug use. We see this cycle unfold four or five times in the fast two hour run-time, and it gets more painful with each. Timothée Chalamet played a difficult role and did it flawlessly, and the artistic directing was also great, evoking a certain light, airy wistfulness while the characters’ lives go to hell. I strongly recommend this film, though it is not for the light at heart. Some critics did not like the editing style in Beautiful Boy which I understand though personally I loved it. But that held it back from getting the major awards recognition that it deserved. For this lame reason and no others, it got SLEPT ON this year.

How to Watch: Amazon Prime, free. Nowhere else, as Amazon produced it.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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Mr. Rogers! This documentary made the shortlist for Best Documentary Feature but then… didn’t… get nominated? I’m not sure what happened there, since this was better than all the other documentaries besides Minding the Gap. Following the career of Fred Rogers, this happy little film weaves between Roger’s social commentary (having a black co-star in a children’s program in the 1960’s), the big moments of happiness, the political success of his 1969 Congressional testimony, his doubts about the show, and the religious philosophy that supported his work. You will laugh, you will smile, you will cry, and you will be a better person for having watched Will You Be My Neighbor? Don’t be a fool and ignore this movie, like the Academy, which SLEPT ON it this year.

How to Watch: Because HBO picked it up, you can either pay the full $14.99 to buy it, or you can use your one week HBO free trial (via Hulu or Amazon Prime) and make sure to cancel before the week ends. That way, it’s free.

Feb 22

1 Comment

My 2019 Oscar Picks

What a year for movies, and what a disappointment that became this year’s Oscar nominations. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the downright-snubbed. Several films were left out (Leave No Trace being the most egregious), and others made it that should NOT have (Bohemian Rhapsody for BP, Vice for BP, Skin for live short, Animal Behavior for animated short). I watched all the movies for Best Picture, all 15 short films, four of the five documentaries, and a few other stray 2018 movies that scored nominations. That means that, for the first time, I’m able to have an informed opinion! But not on all the categories. Where I haven’t seen the majority of the nominees, I haven’t voted. That leaves me with 19 selections.

These are preferences for what should win, not predictions for what will win. The only one I will rank fully is Best Picture. As a courtesy, though, I have listed my second favorite in each award. Speaking of favorites…

Best Picture: The Favourite, then, A Star is Born

Best Picture, Ranked:

1. The Favourite
2. A Star is Born
3. Roma
4. Black Panther
5. BlacKkKlansman
6. Green Book
7. Vice
8. Bohemain Rhapsody

Actor in a Leading Role
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody, then, Christian Bale, Vice

Actress in a Leading Role
Olivia Colman, The Favourite, then, Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born

Actress in a Supporting Role
Emma Stone, The Favourite, then, Amy Adams, Vice

Actor in a Supporting Role
Mahershala Ali, Green Book, then, Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman

Directing
Alfonso Cuarón, then, Yorgos Lanthimos

~~Adapted Screenplay~~ only 2/5 😦
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
BlacKkKlansman, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Spike Lee
Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins
A Star Is Born, Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper, and Will Fetters

Original Screenplay
First Reformed, Paul Schrader, then, Roma, Alfonso Cuarón

~~Foreign Language Film~~ only 1/5 😦
Capernaum, Lebanon
Cold War, Poland
Never Look Away, Germany
Roma, Mexico
Shoplifters, Japan

~~Animated Feature~~ only 1/5 😦
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Original Score
Black Panther, then, Mary Poppins Returns

Original Song
“Shallow,” A Star Is Born, then, “I’ll Fight,” RBG

Documentary Short
Period. End of Sentence., then, Black Sheep

Cinematography
The Favourite, Robbie Ryan, then, A Star Is Born, Matthew Libatique

Best Documentary Feature
Minding the Gap, then, RBG

Production Design
Black Panther, then, Roma

Sound Mixing
Black Panther, then, A Star Is Born

Costume Design
The Favourite, then, Black Panther

Film Editing
BlacKkKlansman, then, Vice

Sound Editing
Black Panther, then, A Quiet Place

Animated Short Film
Late Afternoon, then, Bao

Live Action Short
Marguerite, then, Fauve

~~Makeup and Hairstyle~~ only 1/3 😦
Border
Mary Queen of Scots
Vice

~~Visual Effects~~ only 1/5 😦
Avengers: Infinity War
Christopher Robin
First Man
Ready Player One
Solo: A Star Wars Story

Thanks for reading! Be sure to comment all the reasons why I’m wrong!

Image result for the favourite dancing gif

Jan 31

Don’t Lurk

Your biology class lectures happen in an open field. Philosophy class is done while you rock climb. Your major classes are held during competitive team sports. While you practice archery, a professor explains how to write good thesis statements. Who knows the things you can learn about while white water rafting?

Can you imagine a college like this?

Everything is FUN!

Everything is EXCITING!

Nothing is BORING!

A professor told us about this school — supposedly real, though I don’t care enough to research where this college is located or if this characterization is accurate — in class one day. And my mind wandered to how awesome this school would be. How I would be so, so much more happy in this kind of environment than where I am now. But my professor took a different angle. One that has stuck with me.

He said, “You would be so bored, so fast. In a few weeks, you would be over it. College isn’t about entertaining yourself with fun activities; it’s about creating something.”

Yes! This is true… but I am bored, too. Normal college got so boring, so fast. It only took weeks for me to be over it. So maybe I’m making in my own life the mistake that Fun Outdoorsy School is making at an institutional level?

Question: what makes college so boring? Answer: that we aren’t creating anything, anything meaningful. Creative work is our original calling. God has created us to “image” him back to the creation. We do this by working and tending things in this world, ruling over and taking dominion of the created order.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” …

2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. …

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

A task of ordering, shaping, dominating, tending, sorting, and ultimately, creating. It is only because of the Fall that this ordering, working, sorting task becomes tedious and painful. God curses humanity (represented by Adam):

3:17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

This curse applies to all people because Adam and Eve represented all people in this narrative. And so, we too feel the “thorns and thistles” of frustration, pain, suffering, and meaninglessness while we try to fulfill our calling from God to create. But it wasn’t meant to be this way! This is a diversion from the original purpose! We were made to “image” the glory of God in all that we do. And so this creative work is basic to finding meaning in life and to being fulfilled as a human being.

Another angle, less theology this time: Social Media has three types of people. Content Creators are the 1% of users who make and share new content of their own. Interactors are the next 9% who comment, like, or share other people’s content, but they don’t make things of their own. Lurkers are the next 90% who intake Content Creators’ work and Interactors’ interaction with that work, but do nothing with it besides see and enjoy it. They do not share, they do not comment, and they make nothing of their own.

Here are pictures.

Azad Blog 1

The same thing is true in college. In high school you are a Lurker just intaking ideas and information. But college makes you start to Interact with ideas, critique them, argue about their merits, and share them with underclassmen who are starting to wade into the discussions. The ultimate goal is to make you a Content Creator, someone who knows enough about the topic to really contribute new work that other people can take in. This means you have to specialize in one thing, because a 22-year-old doesn’t have the knowledge to speak into more than one debate at a time. So you pick a major and start to work, and work, and work, until you can produce new, quality work of your own.

That’s the point of college. The more time you spend creating something, the less tedious and frustrating and boring it will be. Those classes you hate? They are so painful because you have decided they won’t help you in your creative project. Even if you aren’t sure what that project is, you have a sense, and this History of Chinese Politics class just ain’t it.

(It could be that the class really isn’t helpful, and Liberal Arts colleges suck. Or maybe you just have a bad attitude and refuse to see how the class will help. Probably both.)

All of college boils down to Neil Gaiman’s dictum, “Make Good Art.” But instead of art, it can be anything. Make good biology research. Make good athletic training preparation. Make good philosophy writing. But whatever you do — whatever you do — do not Lurk. Find meaning and fulfillment by doing what you are created to do: create.

Jan 29

🛴

Check out my new playlist on Spotify, “🛴”.

This playlist is ideal for long solo car rides, for background music while studying, and for walking quickly (to the beat!) during the winter, and so, not lollygagging in the cold.

Photo is Albert Einstein as a boy. My friends suggest that either I’m secretly adopted and am his grandson, or that I am his reincarnation. Okay.

The title, 🛴, was the clear favorite over a distant second, 🎠.

Enjoy.

Aug 24

The Berlin Holocaust Memorial: Dehumanizing, haunting, and larger-than-life

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe by architect Peter Eisenman was built in 2003-04 in the urban center of Berlin. The abstract, grayscale memorial occupies the space of one city block with rectangular prisms (“stelae”) rising out of the uneven ground. Stelae are situated into a row-column grid, though slightly uneven. The stelae are mostly the same height, but as the viewer walks to the middle of the field, the ground sinks to reveal deeper “heights” of the concrete blocks. The memorial is controversial, yet not an outrage or a scandal; it presents the subject matter in a way that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. And disagree they have. However, despite the at-times divided public reaction, the memorial makes a memorable and effective impression on the viewer through its desolate presentation and uneven construction.

Eisenman’s design was selected in 1997 as the replacement for a previously selected memorial which received backlash from the city’s Jewish community. After years of stalling from politicians maneuvering to avoid losing public support, and eventually the Bundestag itself taking on voting authoring for the project, construction began in 2003. It was not long until the press reported that anti-graffiti-coating company was also the company that produced Zyklon-B, the hydrogen gas that was used to kill millions of Jews in the Holocaust — to understandable outrage. The decision was made to proceed with the construction anyways — also to outrage — and the memorial opened on May 10th, 2005, near the 60th anniversary of the end of the war.

It is worth sampling even a few of the reactions, as catalogued by PBS Frontline. Michal Bodemann criticized the memorial for existing at all, saying that a constant focus on Germany’s racist past is used as a shield against Germany’s racist present. Julius Schoeps writes, “I find it regrettable that they decided on a design that can stand for everything and for nothing.” Ilka Piepgras comments that an effective memorial to an atrocity like the Holocaust should overwhelm and overpower one’s emotions, though even that cannot be enough to match the true tragedy of the events. She claims that the Berlin memorial fails to do this, and asks, “Shouldn’t it be disturbing rather than inviting a picnic on its stones?”

Conversely, Heinrich Wefing praises Eisenman’s work, calling it “a new type of memorial”: a beautiful abstraction that “does not dictate what its observer should think or experience.” An American critic of architecture, Nicolai Ouroussoff, claims that the memorial “conveys the scope of the Holocaust’s horrors without stooping to sentimentality — showing how abstraction can be the most powerful tool for conveying the complexities of human emotion.” Many more have opined on the success or failure of the memorial, in proportions that do not seem to overwhelm each other.

The memorial, in my brief experience, successfully and lastingly impressed upon me both the dehumanization at work in the Holocaust, and its grave extent. Though often cited in criticism of Eisenman’s design, I found the lack of names, or placards, or designations, or really any other words at all, to be disturbingly plain. The barren stone bespoke a time in the not too distant past when humans themselves were reduced to barren, lifeless bodies — alive, but only in a strictly biological sense. In the same way that the stelae are “memorials” only in the strictest sense (after all, they would not memorialize anything in particular without the whole field being given a title), the Jews had become “humans” only in the strictest sense. In every other way, they were reduced by the Nazis to the status of mere animals. I found this aspect of the memorial compelling and haunting, even nearly three months later.

The uneven, disorienting construction also left a substantive, lingering impression. As I walked deeper into the belly of the memorial, the ground itself shifted and sank. Rather than have the blocks grow higher and higher (though that was partially happening), Eisenman had the floor sink from beneath the viewer. Viewer may be the wrong term, for in an all-encompassing, larger-than-life experience like this, I became a more than a viewer: a participant, all of me caught up in the remembrance of the murdered Jews in Europe. As the floor sank, so too did the depth of the dehumanized concrete reveal its true depth; as the Holocaust progressed, so too did the depth of dehumanization become more and more pronounced and intentional.

To create a memorial that is not just viewable, but inhabitable, is to create something on the border. Not the border of “void and monument, between vague symbolism and a denial of interpretation,” as Tom Dyckhoff wrote in the London Times. No, more than a void, the other pole of the tension is tangible experience, something that could do much to help regular people remember the tragedy of the Holocaust.