Part 94: 2019
MOVIES:
Vice
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
A Star is Born
Green Book (winner)
Roma (hidden gem)
BlacKKKlansman
Black Panther
Vice
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Alex MacNicoll, Aidan Gail, Cailee Spaeny, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Colyse Harger, Lily Rabe, Violet Hicks, Jesse Plemons, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Eddie Marsan, Bill Camp, Don McManus, Shea Whigham, Stephen Adly Guirgis, John Latzer, Vishesh Chachra, Jeff Bosley, Camille Harman, Jillian Armenante, Matthew Jacobs, Sam Massaro, Robert Hughes, Paul Perri, Brandon Sklenar, Fay Masterson, Kyle More, Kirk Bovill, Melissa K. Marks, Chris Dougherty, John Hillner, Michael Reilly Burke, William Goldman, Tony Forsmark, Adam Bartley, Kevin J. Flood, Paul Yoo, Brandon Firla, Matt Champagne, Joseph Beck, Tony Graham, Alex Kingi, David Fabrizio, Mark Bramhall, James Hornbeck, Bob Stephenson
Oscar Wins: Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Christian Bale), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell), Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Picture
In Vice, Christian Bale expertly transforms from The Caped Crusader to a malevolent potato, bringing to life one of history’s most complicated, secretive, and ruthless figureheads: Dick Chaney.
Often shrouded in darkness, Bale’s Chaney is a man who operates most comfortably in the shadows. The only time we see him full-on in the sun are the moments we see him fly fishing, moments director Adam McKay seems to drop into the story like lures…a symbol, however obvious, that Cheney is one slippery fish.
Like many American politicians, Dick Chaney starts out as a young man in a hurry to go nowhere. After dropping out of Yale, he returns home to Wyoming, where he pursues his interests in booze and cigarettes, working as a utility company lineman when he finds the time.
But Dick is saved from ruin by the stern intervention of his fiancée, Lynn Vincent (Amy Adams), who basically gives the guy an ultimatum: he either gets his shit together, or she’s walkin’.
Her reading him the romantic riot act would have far-reaching consequences for ol’ Dick Chaney. In that pivotal moment, he looks her in the eyes and swears he’ll never disappoint her again. The central theme of Vice is that Dick kept his promise. Yet everyone else – including his daughter Mary (Alison Pill), thousands of American soldiers, thousands of Iraqi civilians, and just about everyone else on the planet who cared about justice, democracy, and simple human decency – paid the price.
Story wise, Vice makes the same mistake you often see in these types of movies – it tries to cover way too much ground. It jumps from Cheney’s college days to him meandering through six different presidencies, then finally lands us smack dab at the start of the Bush years and Cheney’s time as VP (and alleged puppet master).
Vice also employs many of the same techniques used on The Big Short – straight-to-camera explanations, quick-cut montages, and other weird additions like credits in the middle of the film and a narrator (Jesse Plemons) that turns out to have a bigger role in the whole story than we originally thought. It’s entertaining, sure, but it also makes light of a very dark time in America and offers a somewhat sympathetic interest in its real-life monster.
As Cheney, Christian Bale – no surprise – offers an enjoyable, intelligent performance where he excels in doing more with less. Often slumped over, immobile, and round-shouldered, his Cheney is really only animated when he’s reaching for a confidential document or a morning pastry. But he’s a quick mover when it comes to politics. His devotion to his wife is also genuine, but what motivates him above all is the study and acquisition of power, a vocation in which he has Lynn’s fierce and unwavering support.
Their marriage is not unlike MacBeth and his Lady: tactical and political. Behind every bad man, there’s a woman who is even worse…and Vice is not forgiving to the woman who encouraged her husband to manipulate the president to do his bidding.
On the professional side of things is Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell), a man who has an equal hand in creating the Dick Cheney we know today. Dick and Lynn’s marital saga is mirrored against this Machiavellian buddy comedy in which Dick and Don make their way through the legislative and executive branches of government, stumbling through various presidencies to make their own way to the White House.
To the question of “How did he do it?” or more to the point, “How did he get away with it?”, Vice offers a lukewarm answer: because Cheney is always the smartest guy in the room…and the rest of us were just too dumb and too distracted to stop him.
The film ends with a focus group discussing politics. Bored with all the partisan bickering, two women chat about the upcoming Fast and Furious movie. Is this supposed to be hypocritical? It’s hard to tell. But it still feels like a sneer directed at the audience, an expression of contempt for the public that the movie shares with its villain.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker, Meneka Das, Ace Bhatti, Priya Blackburn, Tim Plester, Dermot Murphy, Dickie Beau, Jack Roth, Max Bennett, Neil Fox-Roberts, Michelle Duncan
Oscar Wins: Best Actor (Rami Malek), Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing
Other Nominations: Best Picture
While I’m not a fan of Baz Luhrmann’s directing style, I can appreciate the fact that he picks his subjects well. Who better to direct a movie about Paris’s sexual revolution, Shakespeare’s iconic and tragic lovers, or the closest thing America ever had to a rock n’ roll god?
His movies might be chaotic, but they make sense for the subject. Bohemian Rapsody could have benefited from the same treatment.
Any film about Queen, or Freddie Mercury in particular, has the right to be outlandish. It should rock out with the passion and intensity of a thousand suns, sparkle and shine with all the flamboyant, loud, vibrato Freddie expressed in his performances. Bohemian Rapsody, however, decides to play it safe, which is a disservice to the band and what it stood for. Queen was unlike any other group at the time – and it’s a shame this film is like every other biopic that’s ever existed.
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Well, it’s both, actually.
Freddie, born in Zanzibar (as Farrokh Bulsara) (Rami Malek) is not a poor boy from a poor family…rather, he’s the son of a proper Parsi family that resides in London. The nightlife of the city lures Freddie in like a flame, coxing him out of his shell and presenting to him a world that holds every possibility he could imagine.
When he learns that Smile, a local band he’s been following, has lost its lead singer, he belts out an impromptu croon in front of the band’s other members, including guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy). As soon as they hear Freddie’s incredible range, they hire him on the spot.
Lucky for him, Freddie already has that scarf-tossing pansexual look of a post-glam rock star, yet he’s also still a British gentleman. He becomes the band’s leader, renaming them Queen and encouraging them to sell their rickety touring van to make enough money for a demo tape. And, like most lead men, Freddie possesses an awesome belief in his own talent – right down to the four extra teeth on his upper jaw, which he proudly claims add to his vocal power (and make him look like a Muppets reject but that’s neither here nor there).
Yet there’s a captivating sweetness to Freddie. He treats everyone with the same regard (at least, until he becomes a prima donna) and falls into a sweet and intimate relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). When he struggles to keep the relationship going after discovering his attraction to men, it’s not just because he’s concealing his erotic drive…it’s as though he can’t bring himself to break Mary’s heart.
I think this has less to do with the story and more to do with Rami Malek, whose imitation of Freddie goes beyond the famously prominent teeth. He brings a warmth to the character at the beginning of the film, then taps into Freddie’s ferocious energy in the second half – particularly in the concert sequences that pulse with electricity and drive.
But, for as good as Malek is here, the real star of the show is the music. Bohemian Rhapsody takes us through the band’s modest beginnings, up to their rock-star peak, then ends on an amazing recreation of the legendary performance at Wembley Stadium for Live Aid, all the while peppering in the hits we know and love: “We Will Rock You”, “We Are the Champions”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, and, of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Unfortunately, we don’t get much more than that. The movie doesn’t offer much insight into the creative process. We don’t learn about how the band carved out their wall of sound, how they wrote their music, or what inspired them. We get a few token scenes of Freddie writing in a notebook, but that’s about it.
We also don’t get much of the one thing that made Freddie such an icon: his sex life. The tensions of being a gay man in the 1970s are not handled or even addressed in the movie. Freddie himself seems totally unaware of his own sexual desires. His relationship with Mary is put front and center, while his attraction to men is limited to weird stares and intimate conversations. Refusing to acknowledge queerness as an artistic force for Mercury is a deep disservice to him, his band, and the fans.
As a biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody honors Mercury the showman but never really gets to Mercury the person. As a performer and public figure, Freddie Mercury defied all stereotypes and boundaries, representing the underdogs and the outnumbered. While still an enjoyable experience, it’s a shame that Bohemian Rhapsody didn’t quite stand up to that same level.
The Favourite
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith, Mark Gatiss, Jenny Rainsford, Jennifer White, Lilly-Rose Stevens
Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Olivia Colman)
Other Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Emma Stone), Best Supporting Actress (Rachel Weisz), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Picture
The first Yorgos Lanthimos movie I saw was The Lobster, starring Colin Farrell. In it, he plays a man looking for love – but he has to find it in a set period of time or else he’s transformed into an animal of his choosing. When I first saw it, I wasn’t sure if I liked it…and I think that’s true of all the other Lanthimos films I’ve seen since, including The Favourite.
Almost all of his movies have to sit with me for a day or two and, in pretty much every case, the longer I sit with it, the more I like it. I don’t find this to be a fault at all, but rather a side effect of truly amazing storytelling.
The Favourite is probably Lanthimos’ most approachable film, combining all the best parts of Dangerous Liaisons, All About Eve and Barry Lyndon. All his films have a perverse sense of humor, and he seems to enjoy creating artificial universes where different rules apply. So, the early 18th century British court, where bored lords and ladies bet on duck races and devise elaborate ruses to win the favor of the queen, seems a natural playground for him.
The Favourite follows Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman – ICONIC), one of the lesser-known monarchs of England who reigned in the early 1700s during the war with the French. Overweight, depressed, riddled with gout, and plagued by suicidal thoughts, Queen Anne isn’t what one might call a confident ruler. She relies heavily upon her friend and lover, Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), to offer her political advice and rub down her sore legs (as well as tend to Anne’s other fleshly needs). Anne’s chamber is also home to 17 rabbits, each symbolizing one of her failed pregnancies. Girl was busy!
This order gets quite the royal shakeup with the arrival of Abigail Masham (Emma Stone), Sarah’s penniless cousin who humbly accepts a position as a servant while courting an agenda of her own to restore her glory days. At first, Sarah lends Abigail a genuine helping hand, but soon realizes Abigail has her own hidden agenda. Things reach an urgent state after Abigail works her way into the Queen’s chamber, where she soothes more than her aching legs. “I like it when she puts her tongue inside me,” Anne teasingly tells Sarah, prompting a power struggle for the Queen’s attentions.
The rest of the film plays out like a competitive political-erotic love triangle between Abigail, Sarah, and Anne as Anne’s two lovers do whatever they can to win over the Queen’s affections. And with these women, nothing’s off the table.
There are also a few male characters (Nicholas Hoult and Joe Alwyn being the most memorable) that come and go, but the world of The Favourite is solely driven by the desires of women. The women in Queen Anne’s court may be cleverer than the men who surround them, but that doesn’t make them any less petty, greedy, or cruel. The true appeal of this movie is in watching these three formidable women treat each other – and everyone around them – horribly. As Coleman herself said, “All human beings are the same. We’re all multifaceted, many-layered, disgusting and gorgeous and powerful and weak and filthy and brilliant.”
The films of Yorgos Lanthimos are hard to recommend. They’re very weird, often extremely sexual, and find humor in the intimate and dark moments of humanity…but I think that’s why I love them. They will make you squirm. They will make you cringe. But they’ll also challenge your views, your thoughts, your beliefs. This one may not be my own personal favorite, er, favourite, of his, but I seriously loved every second of it.
A Star is Born
Director: Bradley Cooper
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Rafi Gavron, Andrew Dice Clay, Anthony Ramos, Dave Chappelle, Drena De Niro, Greg Grunberg, Shangela, Willam Belli, Ron Rifkin, Barry Shabaka Henley, Rebecca Field, Michael Harney, Lukas Nelson, Don Was, Victor Indrizzo, Lenny Castro, Eddie Griffin, Luenell, Marlon Williams, Brandi Carlile, Alec Baldwin, Halsey, Don Roy King
Oscar Wins: Best Music (Song) ("Shallow")
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Elliott), Best Actress (Lady Gaga), Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Picture
Self-care is watching the first half of this movie, then turning it off!
A Star is Born is such a great Hollywood story that it’s no wonder studios keep telling it. Two lovers collide on their opposing paths – as his star fades, hers rises to the top. This fourth version (or fifth or sixth if you count films like La La Land and Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood) is a beautiful one in which two people fall in love with each other’s talent as much as anything else, inspired by one another in ways artists often are. You may have heard this song before, but A Star is Born finds a way to make this familiar story feel fresh and new.
Similar to the previous 1976 retelling starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, A Star is Born takes place in the contemporary music world. This is a world that’s both exciting and suffocating, crowded with ravenous fans, crushing performance demands and the unfortunate reality of “celebrity”. And it’s this world that has created, and is currently destroying, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper, who also directs the film), a country-rock musician whose beautiful ruin is set adrift on an ocean of booze.
But things change slightly when Jackson meets Ally (Lady Gaga). A chin-up survivor herself, Ally is a singer with a powerful voice and a true instinct for songwriting. But life hasn’t quite afforded her the opportunity to perform at anything bigger than a local drag show at a dingy bar. And it’s there where these two meet for the first time.
Her performance has him swooning, and the two enjoy a late night at the only place that’s open – a convenience store. She sings him one of her songs and, almost instantly, you can see her star born in his eyes. As flirtation gives way to deeper feelings, they fall in love. And when Jackson brings Ally on stage, then on tour, with him, her rising star power is shadowed only by Jackson’s inevitable decline.
As Ally becomes a household name, she gets plopped right into the 21st century pop machine. Gone are the powerful ballads, the heartbreaking lyrics about depression and acceptance. Now she’s rocking a new glam look with flaming red hair, singing about jeans and shopping. Ally almost willingly puts on the mask that Jackson worked so hard to remove. It’s a progression that may as well mirror Lady Gaga’s own rise to fame as a pop icon, and one that Jackson can’t handle.
And that’s why he drinks. And he drinks a lot. When Jackson is drunk, he’s sloppy. He’s mean. He’s borderline abusive (verbally, mostly) with the woman he loves so much. But Ally never wavers. Part of the power of A Star is Born is that their relationship is never one-note. It’s tender, sexy, angry, sad, jealous, and fun all at the same time. She knows he’s a victim of his own world, a man not just broken by fame, but by his own history of growing up with an alcoholic father. She sees him for more than his faults. She never excuses his behavior, but she understands it. And that’s a powerful difference here.
Behind the camera, there’s no doubt that Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga have natural chemistry. When they sing together, it sounds like their voices were made for each other…and when they look in each other’s eyes, there’s love there. There’s respect. There’s understanding. As a director, and a star, Cooper has given us a movie that is beautifully organized and shot, yet is never showy about it, and one that doesn’t look like a movie we’ve seen rehashed a thousand times before.
And in her acting debut, Lady Gaga offers a character so like herself that the film almost feels autobiographical. She’s a natural performer, a gifted musician, and a talented writer. Her Ally is one we root for, one we sympathize with, one we recognize. When Cooper and Gaga are together, both in and out of character, they bring out the most beautiful and intrinsic sides of each other – and it’s a gift to the movie audience to see them like that.
It's a tale as old as time. One generation replaces the existing one. For one star to move up, a handful of others have to swallow their pain as the spotlight starts to shift. Most real-life examples of this (Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, for example) turn ugly, with the fading star doing whatever they have to in order to remain relevant…but A Star is Born turns that transaction into a heartbreaking, honest, beautiful love story…bring your tissues!
Green Book
Director: Peter Farrelly
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini, Sebastian Maniscalco, Dimiter D. Marinov, Mike Hatton, Von Lewis, Brian Stepanek, Joseph Cortese, Iqbal Theba, P.J. Byrne, Don Stark, Frank Vallelonga, Jr., Nick Vallelonga, Rodolfo Vallelonga, Louis Venere, Brian Currie, Daniel Greene
Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Picture
Other Nominations: Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen), Best Film Editing
Ugh I really wanted to hate this.
When Green Book came out, it was one of those films that I refused to see on principle. Like The Help, The Blind Side or Hidden Figures, I assumed this was just another formulaic movie about a white person and a black person, each with different backgrounds and different personalities, getting thrown together under unusual circumstances. They learn from each other, change each other, then – guess what? – they discover they’re not so different after all!
Well, Green Book is very much that, but damn it if it’s not also hella enjoyable.
Green Book is a road trip movie set in the 1960s, long before Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze. As these two characters make their way from New York to Alabama, you can basically hear Siri’s voice telling you what’s up ahead: “Turn right after you laugh at the black guy not knowing what fried chicken is.” “Carry on ahead past the Italian guy folding an entire pizza in half and shoving it into his face.”
There’s virtually no milestone in this story of interracial male friendship that you won’t see coming, but – like any good road trip – that doesn’t make it any less fun.
Inspired by a true story, Green Book is told from the perspective of Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), a nightclub bouncer and all-around meatball of a man who’s looking for a few extra bucks to give his family a nice Christmas. He agrees to take a job as chauffeur/valet/muscle/problem solver to one Don “Doc” Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a gifted African American jazz musician who is going on tour through the Jim Crow south.
Armed with The Green Book, a guide to hotels and restaurants hospitable to black people, Tony and Doc set out on the open road. Now, it’s no secret that Doc is everything Tony is not: educated, meticulous, articulate, sophisticated. As they make their way from New York to Alabama, the two men warm to each other in different ways, each using their stereotypical “skill” to “change” the other person. For example, the educated Doc helps Tony craft beautiful letters to his wife. Tony, in return, introduces Doc to fried chicken and the musical stylings of other black musicians (more on this in a bit).
Indeed, the main pleasure of Green Book comes from watching Tony and Doc banter as they make their way from town to town – engaging in small talk, getting to know each other, and getting on each other’s nerves. And though the entire plot is about as subtle as Little Richard, we can’t help but have fun with these guys. We connect with them. We root for them. Outside of the fairly obvious politics, Green Book doesn’t constrain itself to just racism – there’s more to these two than surface- level stuff. Doc is a withdrawn, lonely man who struggles to find camaraderie in any social group. Tony is an anger-prone simpleton with no regard for culture or class. In a similar movie, it would be Doc who is the savior – who changes the views of a racist white man in just under 2.5 hours. But that’s not the case here. Both men lack qualities that the other has and it makes for a great duo-arc between the two of them to learn from one another.
But like in any movie like this, there are tone-deaf scenes, too. In an early moment, Tony arrives home to find two black men enjoying a glass of water after helping his wife fix something in the kitchen. After they leave, Tony throws the glasses away. Then, on the drive with Doc, Tony is suddenly an expert in black culture, introducing Doc to Little Richard, Chubby Checker, and Arethra Franklin (all of whom Doc has never heard of somehow…as a jazz musician?!?!). There’s also a comical, albeit cringy, scene when Tony clues Doc into the wonders of fried chicken, the food of black people – according to Tony. Doc holds a drumstick like he’s never seen a chicken leg before. It’s one thing for us to assume Doc has never eaten scrumptious fried meat, but it’s a whole other thing to assume this racist Italian knows more about black culture than an actual black man because he listens to black musicians and eats fried chicken.
But, the fact of the matter is, this isn’t a story about Doc. It’s a story about Tony. It’s a Civil Rights-esque movie told from a white character’s perspective. And that (rightfully so) is where a lot of the criticism comes from.
Of course, that’s no surprise when you learn that the screenplay was co-written by Tony’s son, Nick Vallelonga – with zero consultation from Don Shirley’s surviving family members (who have called the film “full of lies”). While Tony was written so honestly, Don Shirley was written as a snooty artist with a bizarre resistance to his own heritage, making it painfully obvious that the screenwriters had no idea how to craft this character as anything other than an enigma.
At the end of the day, Green Book doesn’t have a hidden agenda. It’s not here to educate you or change your views. It’s simply here to entertain. And it does a great job of that. If you want to understand racism and the intolerance faced by African Americans, there are other movies that do that way better than this one. But that doesn’t mean we should fault this one for not doing that.
Roma
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Fernando Grediaga, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Nancy Garcia, Veronica Garcia, Jose Manuel Guerrero, Latin Lover, Zarela Lizbeth Chinolla Arellano, Clementina Guadarrama, Nicolas Perez Taylor Feliz, Kjartan Halvorsen, Jennifer Armour
Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film
Other Nominations: Best Actress (Yalitza Aparicio), Best Supporting Actress (Marina de Tavira), Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Picture
Roma opens with a shot of a stone-paved pathway. Soapy water cascades over rock, as a brush slowly pushes the water towards the drain. In the reflection of the water, we can see the sky, then a plane flying overhead. These moments are simple in theory, but they reflect a lot of the themes of the film – a natural flow of life – water, stone, air – while also presenting us with the idea of the micro within the macro – the personal story against the backdrop of the larger one.
In Roma, Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron uses a large canvas to tell a story of a life that some might think small: that of a young indigenous woman who works as a maid for a middle-class white family that is falling apart. Using panoramic lenses often reserved for war films, Roma uses both intimacy and monumentality to express the depths of an ordinary life.
Roma shares its name with the neighborhood in Mexico City where this film takes place. It’s a town where families live behind locked gates, and where maids, cooks and drivers busily keep homes running.
In one such house, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) lives with and works for a multigenerational family that scarcely seems capable of doing anything without her. She wakes the children. She puts them to bed. She serves meals and does all the laundry. There is also dog excrement everywhere, left too frequently for Cleo to clean up before it’s stepped on or rolled over by car tires. We get the impression that this family is unable to deal with its own shit.
Yet, this is her everyday routine and, by extension, the parameters of her life. Things start to get interesting for Cloe when a series of catastrophes slowly upend the stability of this simple life – starting with the most innocuous of all – a business trip.
More is made of the women of the house than the man, Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), who is often away on work trips that occur so frequently that you can’t help but question his intentions. He is a clean man, a careful man, a lesson we learn as we watch him expertly park his car in his cramped driveway and get a glimpse of the pristine interior. But he’s not as squeaky clean as he seems.
We also never really get a good glimpse of the guy. It’s almost always pieces of him – his hand, his foot, or a profile shot. It’s all his family sees of him, and all we see of him, too. When we do find out what ol’ Antonio has been up to, it’s not treated as some epic revelation – it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene that puts everything into place. Miss it and it won’t ruin anything for you. Catch it, and you’ll have a little piece of the puzzle the rest of the characters don’t have.
With Antonio so absent, the film instead focuses on Cleo and the other women of the house, including the mother, Sofia (Marina De Tavira), and the grandmother, Senora Teresa (Veronica Garcia), as well as the children. Together, these women and the young ones experience all facets of life, including natural disasters, unexpected pregnancies, death and betrayal. In one of the most shocking scenes, Cleo and Senora Teresa watch a student demonstration turn into a police riot. This incident isn’t identified – known as the Corpus Christi Massacre of 1971 – but the film fills these moments with visceral flashes of chaotic violence, including a woman cradling a dying man and people being shot point blank in the face.
Inevitably, Roma is a film about class. Cleo’s dual role as servant and confidante in the household means she occupies an awkward space between employee and family member, both exploited and embraced. She is beloved by this family but also invisible to them. The sad irony, of course, is that she is a girl without a child, yet is more of a maternal figure to the rascally group of children than their own mother. But Roma never treats her as “the help”. She’s a fully fleshed character, a girl with a job – but also a life. She has friends. She has dates. She has her own romantic entanglements. She speaks her own indigenous language. The film respects her by showing us all aspects of her life. She’s not just a maid, she’s a human being – and Roma does her the honor of showing that to us.
The ending of the film brings us back to those opening shots – water. Water has long served as Cuaron’s visual shorthead for death and maternity, from the sexual discovery in a swimming pool in Y Tu Mama Tambien to Sandra Bullock’s baptism in the ocean at the end of Gravity. In Roma, water is elemental to the story – giving life and taking it away. Through it, our own life is reflected. And like it, our life ebbs and flows, bringing with it moments of great joy and profound sadness. It is a unifier, reminding us that class plays no part in the reality that we all grieve, we all celebrate, we all try to live a life worth living, whatever that means for us.
BlacKKKlansman
Director: Spike Lee
Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace, Jasper Paakkonen, Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser, Ashlie Atkinson, Corey Hawkins, Steve Buscemi, Ken Garito, Robert John Burke, Fred Weller, Harry Belafonte, Alec Baldwin, Isah Whitlock, Jr., Nicolas Turturro, Damaris Lewis
Oscar Wins: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Other Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Adam Driver), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music (Original Score), Best Picture
Two monumental scenes bookmark the film, BlacKKKlansman. We begin with one of the most recognizable scenes in cinematic history, that of Scarlett O’Hara stumbling through a train station filled with wounded Confederate soldiers in Gone with the Wind. It should be a reminder of a time long past, a shocking scene that showcases an America torn by racism and prejudice. It should show us how far we’ve come, how much we’ve evolved. But it doesn’t. Against the scenes that conclude this film, this opening shot just proves how little has changed.
Set in 1972, BlacKKKlansman tells the real-life story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), an ambitious recruit who is hired to be the first black police officer in Colorado Springs. While this is meant to be a step forward for race relations, Ron is still hidden away in the records room, taking abuse from his fellow police officers.
When an opportunity arises for an undercover assignment, Ron jumps at it. He is sent to Colorado College to attend the rally put on by an important black activist named Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins). The force is so happy with his report that they decide to move Ron into the intelligence division.
To say Ron hits the ground running might be an understatement. On his first day, he responds to an ad in the paper about a new KKK chapter starting up in town. Speaking in his best “white voice”, Ron agrees to meet with the leader of the group…but he clearly can’t go to the meeting himself. Instead, he enlists the help of Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), a fellow agent who also happens to be Jewish, to be his body double at in-person meetings. Ron is Ron on the phone, and Flip is Ron in person. This insane arrangement requires these two to work closely in getting their stories straight. One false move and the whole thing can come crumbling down.
Things get more serious (and hilarious) when Ron begins a friendship with Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace), who will stop at nothing to “Put America First!” and make the country “great again”. The parallels are obvious, sometimes painfully so.
As Ron and Flip gather more information about the KKK, certain members of the organization become skeptical of the whole production. Flip may be white, but he looks awfully Jewish. And as Ron’s KKK initiation draws closer, things get even more complicated when the real Ron Stallworth is hired as security detail for the Grand Wizard himself.
Like most of Spike Lee’s films, BlacKKKlansman sparks both gasps and laughs. It’s a film built upon dualities, both obvious and ambiguous. Ron’s relationship with student activist Patrice (Laura Harrier) is shadowed by a creepy and affectionate scene in which a white supremacist cuddles with his wife while they conspire to kill black people. A declaration that police officers are “family” who “stick together” chimes with the KKK’s own twisted code about brotherhood. Angry cries of “white power” and “black power” ricochet around the film. Even Trump’s famous line about there being fault on both sides makes an appearance.
While this film is certainly a crowd-pleaser (it’s produced by the same team that brought us Get Out), it’s far from perfect. Like Django Unchained, BlacKKKlansman makes the mistake of turning the KKK into a bunch of buffoons, essentially sterilizing any danger they might present. Law enforcement also evades much criticism, with just one officer, in a cartoonish way, outwardly opposing Ron’s arrival on the force.
The acting is also a bit weak. As Ron, Washington (the son of the great Denzel Washington) doesn’t quite live up to his dad’s abilities. He felt a bit flat to me, becoming more defined by his Afro than the character that inhabits it. Adam Driver was better, flipping the switch between mild-mannered ally to vitriol-spewing monster in an instant. Topher Grace is actually the most charismatic character in the film, which is certainly appropriate for a great villain – but it sucks when the bad guy is more charming than the hero. Beyond all of them, the rest of the cast falls into tropes: the strong, independent black woman, the token crazy redneck, the crooked cop, etc.
The bookmark that ends the film takes us into modern times. The 2017 Unite the Right rally, including the hit and run attack that killed and injured protesters, is shown against the words of the real David Duke and President Donald Trump. It ends with a dedication to Heather Heyer (who was killed in the attack), before showing an upside-down American flag, then fading to black. We want to say that this isn’t the America we know. This isn’t Gone with the Wind. This isn’t the race wars of the 1970s. We want to say all of that…but the end of BlacKKKlansman doesn’t give us that luxury. This is America. Torn. Broken. Divided.
Black Panther
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, Atandwa Kani, Isaach de Bankole, Connie Chiume, Dorothy Steel, Danny Sapani, Sydelle Noel, Marija Abney, Janeshia Adams-Ginyard, Maria Hippolyte, Marie Mouroum, Jenel Stevens, Zola Williams, Christine Hollingsworth, Shaunette Renee Wilson, Nabiyah Be, Trevor Noah, Stan Lee
Oscar Wins: Best Costume Design, Best Music (Original Score), Best Production Design
Other Nominations: Best Music (Song) ("All the Stars"), Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Picture
OK, let’s get this out of the way. I’m not a fan of Marvel movies. I don’t care about Captain America or Infinity Wars or big green dudes with throbbing arm muscles. If anything, I’m more of a Batman girlie, but even that’s pushing it (I’m more a fan of Michael Keaton than Batman). So, that being said, I mean no harm with my mediocre review of Black Panther. My dislike for the film has nothing to do with the content of the movie and more to do with the fact that I just don’t like CGI-heavy movies. The quick cuts, the weak storyline, the over-the-top visuals – it’s just not my jam. If you love superhero movies and agree with almost everyone that this is a great film, well that’s awesome! That’s the beauty of movies. I promise I will not be offended if you just skip this review and go on your merry way.
OK, now that the black cat’s out of the bag, let’s get on with it.
We begin in Wakanda, a nation of Africa that is highly advanced in terms of technology and natural resources. Life here is at once urban and rural, futuristic and traditional, technological and mystical. Spaceships zoom over soaring buildings with thatched tops. A train hovers over a market with hanging woven baskets. This world is beautifully created and showcases a people who are both forward-thinking, yet tied to their roots.
The main natural resource responsible for much of their scientific accomplishments is an element called “Vibranium”, which allows them to have superior weapons, indestructible structures and impenetrable attire. Wakanda is also home to a magical plant that has remarkable healing, strengthening and protective properties. All of this allows the people of Wakanda to live a stress-free life of altruism and higher learning. They are further isolated from the outside by something which resembles a Hogwarts-esque hologram, rendering the country invisible to the rest of the world and reinforcing the idea that it is an extremely primitive and impoverished country.
When the king of Wakanda dies, his son T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is recalled back home to assume the crown and title of the Black Panther. He leaves the real world and summons his former girlfriend, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) to attend his coronation. Nakia is a Wakandan spy and is committed activist, working to correct social injustices in Africa. She wants to bring Wakanda technologies to the rest of the world, but many in Wakanda fear that their technologies could be used for evil, rendering the world a much worse place.
And, of course, a lot of those evil-doers already know about Wakanda and all her advancements. One such man is Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), a one-armed villain straight out of a James Bond movie. He’s in cahoots with Erik “Killmonger” (Michael B. Jordan), a psychopath who proudly sports the number of people he’s killed directly on his torso. Both men want that “Vibranium” for different reasons and are willing to kill anyone in their path to get it.
For a good chunk of Black Panther, we’re veering all over the place – from Wakanda to South Korea. There are a ton of callouts to James Bond, with a whole scene devoted to exploring fun gadgets and cars, as well as a swanky casino scene. There’s even a chaotic car chase that turns the film into a car commercial – par for the course for movies like this.
But no influence was as obvious as The Lion King, Disney’s 1990’s blockbuster that continues to be a fan-favorite to this day. Like The Lion King, Black Panther is obsessed with what it means to be a good king and how to differentiate yourself from a beloved father that was taken too soon. Both films have a young king driven by feelings of guilt for failing to save his father. Both films have the villain be a pretender to the throne who wants a more egalitarian mode of rule. And both films end with the hero embracing his role and moving his kingdom into a greater period of prosperity. Black Panther even has a Rafiki-like shaman in Zuri, played by Forest Whitaker.
These parallels didn’t bother me. In fact, I kind of enjoyed all the James Bond moments (it’s always fun to see what gadgets the props department can come up with for movies like this!). But what did bother me was that the plot seemed unnecessarily complicated. It’s common in most comic book movies, and I don’t understand why. The film is also very top-heavy, with many great scenes at the beginning of the film, then it tends to lose steam as it nears the end. The final battle between T’Challa and Killmonger is so CGI-generated that it doesn’t even look real anymore. And while I fully understand that a lot of people love that type of stuff, that took me out of the film completely.
But Black Panther did have some good moments. For one, the cast is insane. A movie like this is only as good as its villain, and Micheal B. Jordan is in his element here. He lures you in with his swagger before revealing just how vicious he can be. He walks that fine line between being consumed by revenge and being a man of true passion and noble motivations. It’s the classic complex bad guy, and he pulls it off effortlessly.
This is also a very female-driven storyline, with women playing advisors, comforters, scientists, rulers, protectors, warriors, and lovers. With a cast that includes heavy hitters like Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, and Letitia Wright, Black Panther shows us that not just women, but black women, can be instrumental to a hero’s success…and that’s a powerful message in any movie.
While Black Panther will never solve (and is not meant to solve) the issues of marginalization and systemic racism that plague black people in North America, it’s nice to have a big, high-profile movie that speaks so strongly to an audience that is usually ignored by big-budget entertainment. Black Panther is not the greatest superhero movie, nor is it the first big picture with a black lead (or even the first superhero film with a black lead), but that doesn’t deem it any less significant. It may not have been my cup of tea but, then again, this film wasn’t made for me. If Black Panther gave just one kid the courage to stand up, to be proud of his or her heritage, to treat someone else fairly and without judgement, to do what is right, well, that’s the true power of cinema.
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