 Gave a heck of an Oscar speech This was the first film that I had heard Awards buzz about, premiering at Venice Film Festival and later winning Toronto Film Festival’s top prize and, as of this writing, the People’s Choice Award. Early reviews celebrated Frances McDormand’s performance, anticipating the top prize at next year’s Oscar, with Sam Rockwell cruising right behind her, having been under the radar throughout the last decade or so, with only director Martin McDonagh’s previous film Seven Psychopaths (2012) getting Rockwell back onto the screen (though in fairness, I didn’t remember him from the film; nor much of the film overall). I enjoyed In Bruges (2008), though not necessarily on board with its cult status, where it felt like for the next five years or so it was near or at the top of most people’s favorite films list. I thought Seven Psychopaths was okay, but I struggle to remember much of what happened, never feeling like the film found its soul amongst its clear and clean synopsis. Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri fits somewhere in the middle of both narratives, abandoning all of the action and shoot em ups in order to focus on a more intimate character study, though again failing to ever penetrate the surface of what are just a bunch of wacky characters, feeling as though it wanted to be part Coen brothers, part Tarantino, part Jeff Nichols, and about a half dozen other filmmakers, leaving it with so much flavor that it all devolves into muddied dish, never deciding what it wanted to be. The story involves Mildred Hayes (McDormand) whose daughter had recently been raped and murdered. With the police failing to make any progress, she purchases three billboards in the town of Ebbing, Missouri - right down the street from her house, painting them with the cryptic three lines: “Raped while dying”, “And still no arrest”, “How come Sheriff Bill Willoughby?”. Sheriff Willoughby in this case is played by Woody Harrelson (who I didn't even know was in the film), as the small town’s policeman who been recently diagnosed with cancer. Part of his ragtag team of deputies is the volatile and racist alcoholic Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) who has allegedly - and maybe admits, I can’t remember - to torturing black people amongst other forms of complete disregard for the law. The police, particularly Dixon, are offended by Mildred’s act, though while Willoughby wants it down, he also empathizes with Mildred’s frustration and demand for justice. The protest attracts some local media attention, which brings back Mildred’s ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes) who, while gaunt, pale, and just plain weird looking, is able to begin dating a fairly attractive 17-year old - who the type of character people should be offended by being played as a vapid airhead, unable to comprehend the situation around her; as though pulled straight from Mean Girls (2004), Can’t Hardly Wait (1998), or any other popular teen comedy. In this deep southern town, where everyone’s overweight and has some accent, the valley girl was completely out of left field. So this is the general plot, which by all accounts, is pretty interesting, and while I was expecting some type of Prisoners (2013) or Mystic River (2003) type of film (I wasn’t familiar with McDonough's name to know his previous work), it’s as though he simply wanted a world to set this situation in order to insert a bunch of other quirky characters, as very little makes sense in this story at the micro level. Getting into some significant spoiler territory, we can start with the bizarre scene between Mildred and Charlie, when the news is starting to pick up, him and his mom get into an hackneyed and foul screaming match, leading her to dump cereal on her their son Robbie Hayes’ (Lucas Hedges) head, just as his dad then arrives, who again is sickly skinny and pallid, launching into a fight that felt straight from an intro acting class, especially when the 17-year old girlfriend comes in, asking something so stupid that I can’t even remember what it was (it might have been about the bathroom), other than thinking - beyond the illogic of her failing to hear this fight - of all reasons to come in the house, this had felt done a billion times for similar situations in which an outside and irrelevant party enters an argument with a family, stumbling in respons. It quickly escalates into domestic violence, a knife comes out, and I was left thinking - what the fuck did that have to do with anything? By being such an uninspired scene, there was no character development; as it felt like everyone was playing a version of a famous stage personality. Another bizarre issue occurs when Sheriff Willoughby, although only early into his cancer treatment, decides to kill himself after taking his gorgeous wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and two young girls to the middle of park next to a river, in order to sleep with Anne outside in the woods, where you then realize his wife is British, which isn’t weird, it just creates questions that I don’t really think have all that interesting of answers (not that it necessarily needs answers), but again, similar to the 17 year old girlfriend, could have been so much better if casted as a more believable local character. At twenty years younger than Harrelson and looking that much younger in the film, this would mean when Willoughby was a 45 police officer when he hooked up with 25 year old wife to be. A little creepy. Any way - he decides to shoot himself in the head after their date, leaving his wife to find him with his head blown off in a barn, leaving his girls without a father, and while maybe it was in some way related to the shame he had for not finding Mildred’s daughter’s killer, it just felt like a needlessly dramatic and shocking scene that could have better worked by keeping him alive. Sam Rockwell’s story is by far the best, though again it falls into a strange illogic, as after Dixon tries to strongarm the advertising owner Red (Caleb Landry Jones; who I’m excited to see more from) who’s renting the billboards to Mildred to break the deal. Red refuses and so Dixon assaults and nearly kills the man by throwing him out a window, returning to the office and finally getting fired when the new African American sheriff Abercrombie (Clarke Peters) sees the act. The scene is all done in one take, and while it could have been cool with purpose, I just couldn’t agree that a police officer would be this stupid or last this long, not to mention when his former friend and fellow officer then invites him back to the station to drop of his keys after hours, where he then just so happens to catch Mildred tossing Molotov Cocktails at the station, trying to burn it down. A perfect example of plot serving at the expense of logic. I could go on into other details, such as the character James played by Peter Dinklage who once again is the butt of a bunch of dwarf jokes, leaving me wondering if Dinklage was offended or not, as this can’t possibly happen to every single one of his characters and it didn’t need to happen here, as having been in the town so long, you’d think these cheap jokes would get old. The film never really wraps or goes anywhere, so much as each character is essentially taken to the limits of an unresolved the story. Dixon and Mildred then join forces after Dixon suspects one of the locals of being the rapist, entering into a manhunt that goes so far as the car, and while I kind of appreciated the ambiguous ending, it felt like where the film ends is where the midpoint should have been. Ultimately, maybe it’s because I’m from Chicagoland, but the biggest problem is that this film feels like it’s just poking fun at a bunch of stupid midwesterns. It provides a cursory look at what could have been a broad range of fascinating people, abandoning insight for unmotivated action and some cheap jokes. While In Bruges made me feel like the filmmaking team had been there, understood and grasped the culture, Ebbing, Missouri felt fake, as though it could have taken place anywhere else in rural America. For identifying such a specific place, I expected far greater depth, as the Coen Brothers have established with Fargo (1996) and the honest world they portrayed. This felt like it was created with a glance, abandoning all of the details that makes an area great in order to insert shiny bells and whistles with colorful character and big action. BELOW: Cool oner, just not sure why it was needed Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page
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 A brilliant performance from Saoirse Ronan Director: Greta Gerwig Writer: Greta Gerwig Cinematographer: Sam Levy Producer: Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Evelyn O'Neill by Jon Cvack While writing this, Greta Gerwig has started to win award after award for this film - Best Director and Best Film at National Board of Review, Best Film at New York Film Critics, and I’m sure she’ll grab either best screenplay and director at the Independent Spirit Awards (it was the former). I think this is a good movie, providing an intimate portrait in a time of a young woman’s coming of age; from a genre that, at first thought, seems to be lacking and yet when looking back is actually filled with rich material from the female perspective.. Recently I watched Now and Then (‘95) which is the female Stand By Me (‘86), and while not quite as morbid, possesses all of the qualities that make any great coming of age film; capturing a period in time that makes you excited for the summer and all its adventure, all while reflecting on your own teen years and the lessons you learned. Other famous additions include Sixteen Candles (‘84), Heathers (‘88), The Virgin Suicides (‘99), Mona Lisa Smile (‘03), Juno (‘07), and An Education (‘09), all phenomenal films, some told by women, others focused on women, and each providing intimate portraits of women which extend beyond the superficial elements of boys and love; showing a side of life that a male dominated industry doesn’t often get to have. Before Lady Bird, the most recent popular addition is from Lena Dunham and her incredible debut, made for under a $100,000, providing a deeply vulnerable tale of a confused fresh college grad trying to figure out where she’s going, which would pave the way for her hit series Girls. The last few years have brought awareness to the appalling lack of women and other underrepresented directors and storytellers, and as the market attempts to correct the problem, unfortunately I think that many are using Lady Bird as as indication of how quickly the market has corrected. Unfortunately, for a movie that has adopted many of the tropes from its predecessors I think there’s an overreaction going on, which again, isn’t to say the movie isn’t great, but in terms of being the Best Film and Best Director of the year, seems a bit like an overreaction. And for those who might decry sexism, I’d fully support Kathryn Bigelow and her highly underrated and incredibly important film Detroit (2017) winning any of the top awards (which was ignored entirely), as at least it was removing the curtain on race in America and shedding light on a deeply tragic moment in history, all told by immersing us into the period, looking as though the filmmakers had teleported. Every year I anticipate the indie-film-that-could, as there’s always one a year which balances comedy with quirky characters and deadpan humor. Little Miss Sunshine (‘06) , 500 Days of Summer (‘09), Ruby Sparks (‘12), Safety Not Guaranteed (‘12)- films that feel as though they were all produced and written by the same filmmaking team who were attempting to replicate and mildly improve upon the previous year’s quirky indie film. These movies aren’t bad so much as feel so manufactured, embodying the alleged essence of “Independent Cinema” at the expense of a unique worldview. While Lady Bird contains far more heart that most of these films, I just can’t understand why or how this film is celebrated when so many before it have failed to gain the same recognition, and when there were so many other incredible movies by female directors - The Beguiled (in which Sofia Coppola was accused of whitewashing history), Detroit (in which Bigelow was chastised for sensationalizing white on black violence), and Lynne Ramsey’s You Were Never Here (listed as one of 2018’s best of the year). I can’t help but think this is a different form of discrimination, in which strong female driven stories are overlooked in favor of commercially successful films, making Greta Gerwig’s success fall simply on the fact of making the most accessible, agreeable, and safest film. Lady Bird is an autobiographical story that takes place in Sacramento in 2002. The title character is Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, played by Saoirse Ronan who steals the entire show, as a high school senior whose dad has been unemployed for years while her mom Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf) tries to pick up as many shifts as possible at the vet. Nevertheless, the family is poor, nervous about Christine’s desire to go to an East Coast college as her parents can hardly afford a state school as it is. Lady Bird has a scholarship to a Christian School where she joins the small theater team with her best friend Julie Steffans (Beanie Feldstein; Jonah Hill’s sister) who’s an overweight student who of course has that weirdness required of any best friend in a quirky indie film. Lady Bird begins dating Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges; son of filmmaker Peter Hedges who made What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (‘93) and Pieces of April (‘03), amongst other films), leaving her thrilled to finally have a boyfriend, until she catches him making out with a dude in the bathroom. She then meets the the bad boy in a band Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet) who is introduced reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History” and talks about his commitment to abandoning money. Lady Bird ends up losing her virginity to him under the pretense that he too is a virgin, only to learn that he can’t remember how many girls he’s slept with. As the story often goes, Lady Bird descends further and further into despair, nervous that she can’t even get into the colleges she wants to go to, let alone pay for them, trying to maintain a healthy relationship with her mother, and struggling to maintain her bond with Julie when she befriends the most popular and gorgeous girl in school Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush), leading her to start ditching Julie as she starts going out partying with some new friends. Each of these chapters contains a solid balance between drama and comedy, as for instance, when her ex-boyfriend Danny approaches, breaking down in tears for being caught with a boy, begging her not to tell anyone what happened, or when Lady Bird finally understands that Julie is, in fact, her best friend, and provides one of the most touching moments of the entire film. The problem is most of these conflicts and rights of passage have been done so often before, and while maybe if the film wasn’t being regarded as the Best Film of the Year, I could actually look past the repeat of tropes (it’s what makes the genre stay fresh, as each generation has their own coming of age story), it’s the very fact that it’s being so celebrated when incorporating so many unoriginal elements that I can’t help but wonder why this film when so many others were overlooked in the past? I have a feeling it’s about correction and unfortunately, with so many other great female directed stories this year, it’s a confusing decision and seems to simplify a far more complex problem. A woman shouldn’t receive critical acclaim just because of a financially successful film, especially when so many other female-directed films pushed the audiences in new directions and progressed the format forward. I could relate to many of these moments, of flirting with the popular crowd and abandoning friendships; of first loves gone awry through confusion and misunderstanding; and the overall alienation one can feel in high school as you’re attempting to understand who you are and where you fit. Similar to Dunkirk (2017) in Epic World War II films, I think Lady Bird could hold up with the best coming of age stories, and maybe its celebration is in some ways a correction to that problem, as so many other great female driven coming of age stories have been abandoned. I just hope that this doesn’t become the norm, where similar to how many Best Actor Oscars Awards (both male and female) are now awarded for an overall career rather than based upon an individual performance, voters will now overcompensate by looking to what’s easy and digestible rather than what’s challenging and progressing the medium forward - which many female filmmakers accomplished this year, though were often castigated for attempting. That’s the larger tragedy. BELOW: A great scene and my very first introduction to Timothee Chalamet Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  Vegas, baby Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Hampton Fancher and Michael Green; story byHampton Fancher; based on characters from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Cinematographer: Roger A. Deakins Producer: Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Bud Yorkin, and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin by Jon Cvack Continued from Part 1... K lives in Los Angeles, in a vision that’s becoming increasingly more realistic given the rapid population growth and should the city ever do anything about the housing crisis and basically reject all NIMBY suits and actually accommodate the needs of the people. K's apartment is small and while not necessarily showing us all of the tiny details and technologies, it’s primarily run by what we might call a augmented individual named Joi (Ana de Armas) who’s a beautiful woman that exists as a hologram - capable of everything from preparing dinner (or at least scheduling the kitchenware to create dinner) to putting on music and sexy outfits; everything but the ability to touch and kiss. The entire city operates as kind of throwback to Taxi Driver’s version of Times Square, where in addition to prostitutes, is the endless marketing of sexy assistants just like Joi who could provide the contentment men desire. While it’s never shown, I got the impression there was another tool that men could hook up to as they experience these virtual women. While the rest of the story is pretty good, I thought this subplot was the best part of the film, leaving me to consider the idea for weeks after. If Robots could experience consciousness, then why couldn’t a simple machine represented through an image? Does consciousness need to take the shape of a human to require our empathy? What if there was a machine that was able to generate ideas and art that could progress humanity - even if we never saw their face? Joi and K have affection for each other, and it was either’s ability to never fully come across as human and yet demand my care and worry which made the question all the more engaging. While the film’s weakest point is the overall story - in which it seemed too focused on continuing on from the last film, in which we get yet another Grand Cameo from Harrison Ford, feeling the same as seeing him in The Force Awakens, in that, he is not just a megastar, but an historic figure in the history of Hollywood. When he appears in a film that’s trying to be contemporary I always feel pulled out, as though the story freezes for a moment and the lights come on with the MC declaring a special appearance. This isn’t against Harrison Ford, as I believe he’s one of the greatest actors in Hollywood history, so much as him being in these films pulls your attention away, making you aware that you’re watching something that is trying to be as great as its predecessor. The plot feels so committed to incorporating Rick Deckard that the fascinating plot of a rogue getting pregnant gets muddy. There are some great set pieces - such as the musical holograms - but I found myself wishing it had taken a different direction. What if it didn’t lead to Deckard, but to a whole new individual and storyline? Even the title, having to honor Philip K. Dick’s timeline (the original film took place in 2019 and I don’t think we’re quite there), sacrifices reason in order to accommodate Deckard’s inclusion. I don’t think this will be Los Angeles in 32 years. Maybe in a 132 years, or at least far enough where I’ll be long past dead and unable to ever know if could have happened. The plot becomes so intricate at this point that even reading it on Wikipedia leaves me confused with all of the names, revelations, and reversal, all seeming needlessly complicated. There’s a giant corporation that makes replicants called the Wallace Corporation that left me considering a figure in which the global oligopoly starts to have significant control over world governments, establishing massive headquarters around the globe that are exempt from national law, but the film doesn’t at all get into this, instead having Jared Leto play CEO Niander Wallace who’s had his eyes replaced with AR machines or something, who's committed to finding ways to impregnate replicants in order to expand global colonization. This is such an awesome idea that it could have offered a fascinating journey and yet I was constantly pulled out of it by having to remember references to the original and a plot that’s not all that interesting when it wraps. Nonetheless, I think this is the most beautiful sci-fi film I’ve ever looked at, where I could easily watch the whole with solely Hans Zimmer’ score, Deakin’s photography, Dennis Gassner’s production design, or Denis Villeneuve’s direction without hearing a single word. I'll have to revisit it again, but seems like the reluctance to let it be it’s own thing held back its potential. BELOW: A beautiful scene that captures the essence of the original; no big SFX, just simple and perfect set design Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  Gosling makes for a solid robot Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Hampton Fancher and Michael Green; story byHampton Fancher; based on characters from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Cinematographer: Roger A. Deakins Producer: Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Bud Yorkin, and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin by Jon Cvack I haven’t seen the original Blade Runner (1982) since college, and while it was a pretty good film, I remember wondering what the big deal was. The world was vivid, the characters were interesting, yet for a film that has been revered as one of the finest sci-fi films ever created, I was left disappointed. Of course the first thing people tell me when I this is to watch the Director’s Cut, which I was about to do until I couldn’t find the disc, with even Amazon having a six week delay and charging $30.00 for the Blu Ray. However, with Denis Villeneuve behind the director’s chair I was thrilled to see this movie, confident that if anyone could continue, or in my case improve the world, it would be this guy. He has continually pushed his abilities with each film he does, and while I also didn’t really like Arrival it was clear that Villeneuve was on track for great things and Blade Runner 2049 came pretty close to maximizing that potential. A book that most aspiring filmmakers read is "Shot by Shot" by Steven D. Kartz which includes a storyboarded scene from the original script that was cut from the film - which Villeneuve recreates shot for shot (or so I’ve read and would have to confirm, though is strikingly similar to what I remember). Replicant “K” (Ryan Gosling) lands his police cruiser in the foggy farm fields in order to hunt down another rogue replicants. For those who don’t know (cause I couldn’t remember), in the future enslaved robots were bioengineered to have as many of the same features as humans, varying from an ability to blink to an ability to bleed, with some becoming self-aware, going rogue, and leaving other replicants to hunt them down. These hunters were called Blade Runners. The first thing you notice is the meticulous production design, with the wardrobe and props having an unbelievable amount of detail. I had read Shot by Shot many times while growing up, and though I hadn’t picked up the book in years, everything I watched seemed strangely familiar - the bizarre farm equipment, the dark and lonely house, and especially the tea kettle. I didn’t know the reference going into the film and was surprised to see it, with that strange familiarity suddenly making sense. While the scene itself was far from the most inspired idea (a fight breaks out between the detective as he tries to detain the rogue), and yet it was how it was done, with each shot looking flawlessly designed, providing an endearing throwback to Ridley Scott, which opens all kinds of questions and fun thoughts as to how filmmakers could take an older generation’s work and honor by incorporating it with all of their own skill and craft. After the fight, K discovers a coffin buried beneath an old, dead tree, containing a rogue with a foetus inside. He reports the information back to his superior Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) who orders him to destroy the evidence, professing how disastrous it’d be for the world. There was a recent article in The Atlantic that mentioned how few sci-fi films are continuing its foundational mission to imagine a world far into the future. The many comic book and Star Wars franchises, being dependent on older properties and universes, are inherently limited in scope, as veering too far from the base material risks what has made them successful. The only element that ultimately changes and improves in the films is the technology used to make them. When I look up the best sci-fi movies of the 2010s what I get is Looper (2012), Interstellar (2014), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), etc. and while all of these films are great, few of them have portrayed anything particularly new or insightful about the future they inhabit. The movie that’s best advanced this conversation was Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) and possibly The Martian (2015: though The Martian is more of a modern day film, taking place just a few years into the future). Everything else I look up fails to really examine where the world would be and what that would mean for humanity. Think of what The Matrix (1999) did - and still does - for the genre and the general conversation about man and machine’s relationship. The thing I think I might have missed when I first watched Blade Runner is the comparison between any marginalized group versus those in power. I can imagine a world where one day people from all types of backgrounds could live in relative peace, and while I think it’ll take far longer than thirty years, it does open the question: if we ever achieve a tolerant world, should we extend that same tolerance to machines who develop consciousness? It’s such a generic idea and yet it as a robot in China gains citizenship, Boston Dynamics invents robots that scale obstacles, run, and can work in warehouses, AI is increasingly developing and replacing low skills jobs, and soon it seems such machines - whether drones or robots - could be ubiquitous. In which case - should they achieve self-awareness, what rights should they ultimately have, especially if they’re far more intelligent and powerful than any human being? Continue to Part 2... BELOW: Pretty close to what was storyboarded by Ridley over two decades prior Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  The age old struggle of couples enjoying baseball together Director: George Stevens Writer: Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin Producer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cinematographer: Joseph Ruttenberg by Jon Cvack This was the first of nine films starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, of which I think I’ve seen about half, with Desk Set (1957) being the most recent (and making a lot more sense when I think of how great their chemistry was). Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) is a successful columnist and concerned about current affairs, feminism, and world politics, living in a lush New York penthouse. Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) is a sports columnist, who’s use to watching the ball games with a roomful of his white male colleagues, all smoking cigars, chatting up women and sports, and drinking booze, if they care to. When Tess writes up an editorial disparaging baseball, Sam scolds her in the middle of the office, forcing management to have to interject, leading Sam to invite her to a ballgame where she learns about the sport. Recently getting into baseball much to the annoyance of my girlfriend who pretty much despises the game, I had particular affinity for where the story goes. Tess and Sam look past their differences, fall in love and get married in record time, and the two binary personalities are forced to adjust to domestic life. Sam is what some might call an old fashioned type of guy, though it’s getting to the point where the phrase no longer reflects the reality. While Tess had enjoyed her life as an intellectual celebrity, Sam now wants her abandon all that and become the traditional domesticated wife who would clean the house, cook his meals, and raise their child. Tess has zero interest in the prospect, going on to accept her Woman of the Year Prize, opting to adopt a Greek orphan rather than get pregnant, all to Sam's vehement disagreement; taking her to the utter brink of leaving him. For a film that was released in 1942, you can’t help admiring its celebration of feminism, with many of its characters likely inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt or her ideas. It’s no wonder that Criterion would provide the release with a pristine BluRay edition. The film is an important document not just for including radical ideas in mainstream texts (let alone for a film starring two A-list celebrities), but also for demonstrating that the same ideas we're debating today existed 75 years ago. It shows that the fight for equality and a celebration of a woman for their leadership and mind has been going on for decades. It’s a film like this that shows you how much has been accomplished and how effective the fight can be. In the final scene, Tess even shows her humanity by willing to find a compromise between her ambition and family, attempting and failing to cook a breakfast, showing that adjustments aren’t made through superficial domesticity, but by appreciating and loving someone else through other means; such as appreciating the details of a ball game, or an enlightening conversation, or changing the world for the better. BELOW: I'm not a huge Katharine Hepburn, but she's got some solid comedy chops in this one Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  Such a cute movie couple Director: Robert Zemeckis Writer: Clark Gregg; story by Sarah Kernochan and Clark Gregg Cinematographer: Don Burgess Producer: Jack Rapke, Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis by Jon Cvack I remembered always loving the first of the film, liking the second third and not at all enjoying the last third. I also remember going back to this movie thinking maybe I was wrong, being disappointed again, and I still I went back to the movie, feeling maybe this third or fourth time was the charm. Per usual it was received the same. Zemeckis would follow this misstep with a similar classical homage with Allied (2016), which is arguably his worst film. For those wondering why they can’t make movie like they used to from the 40s and 50s - whether Hitchcock or Curtiz - Zemeckis offers exactly what you see from the period, but adding more sex, language, and action than you’d usually find. The problem is that their somewhat disjointed plot stands in the way of the characters, in which even the greatest or more elegant camera work or movie stars could never save. The story is Hitchcockian through and through, involving a wealthy middle aged couple whose daughter has just gone off to college. The mom Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) is struggling with the empty nest, especially as she had given her violinist career in order to raise the kid. Left with little to do all day as her famous husband Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford) spends most of his time in his laboratory, working on his next cutting edge research project. New neighbors have moved in next door and in a Rear Window (1954)-inspired first half (or however long this goes on), after hearing some fights and with some strange interactions with the wife, Claire begins to suspect the neighbor husband has killed his wife. It’s here that the movie works well, until you realize that it’s all a wild goose chase. Claire confronts the neighbor husband at a party, accusing him of murder, who then reveals his wife and that they were, in fact, just having some marital problems. The issue is that, come the end, when you realize that these characters are never reintroduced nor play any further role from this moment on, you can’t help but feel annoyed that this was just a bunch of empty filler to occupy the two hour and change running time and help prolong the creepiest sections. Somewhere throughout this paranoia, Claire begins seeing ghosts, verging between what seems like a hallucination to the full fledged supernatural, though at times, I’m never sure where what she was seeing actually resided. The ghosts take the form of a young beautiful girl, which she sees in the bathtub and then in the lake outside their house where she then grabs an actual key from the corpse that leads to some other information later on, leaving you to wonder, if not a hallucination, why she didn’t want to call the police and say she had found a dead body in the lake that she pulled a key from? This leads to the third leg of the plot, in which she discovers that Norman had an affair with a young graduate student. During the film’s most bizarre scene, Claire gets made up and puts on a sexy dress, seemingly possessed with the hopes of seducing Norman, who sees her eyes even change color. According to Wikipedia, Claire evidently had suppressed the memory of catching the two have sex, though I don’t remember this at all. It’s here that the film then shifts, as possession aside, Norman later admits to the affair, taking us into the final act in which, given all his research, he couldn’t possibly have the truth revealed, killing the student and now willing to kill Claire. The story descends into a generic thriller as we watch the husband try and kill the wife who we know will come out on top. The film made me consider the state of classical thrillers the Hitchcock pioneered. In the documentary De Palma (2015), we discover a man who struggled to progress the formula forward. While taking them to their limits in films such as Blow Out (1981), come the 90s, beyond Mission Impossible (1996), it seemed that all of the angles that could be pulled from the classical genre had been explored. He goes so far as to offer a fascinating dilemma he dealt with in being unable to think of new and cinematic ways to keep exploring the genre. What Hitchcock did so well is make it seem as though a supernatural force was at play when really it was about coincidence or a villainous character deliberation. When first watching Hitchcock back before I was into film, I remember expecting more ghosts and scares. Zemeckis seemed to have a similar idea, opting for more supernatural elements within the format. Unfortunately, what I imagine both Hitchcock and de Palma struggled with was in having an adequate explanation. We never know why Madison’s ghost appears, and it continues its role through the very end, relying on a generic cheating husband/paranoid wife feud which has been long overplayed. While I understand the neighbor function more as a homage, I suspect that if that story was better incorporated into the plot, if not the dominant focus, that the story could have worked much better. It’s a great film up until the final third, worth watching until that point, then becoming one of the more disappointing films you’ll see - at least compared to how strong it started out. BELOW: A very sexy scene that I'm still a bit confused about Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  Worth watching for the set design alone The Man They Could Not Hang Director: Nick Grinde Writer: Karl Brown, George Wallace Syre, and Leslie T. White Cinematographer: Benjamin H. Kline Producer: Wallace MacDonald The Black Room Director: R. William Neill Writer: Arthur Strawn and Henry Myers; story by Arthur Strawn Cinematographer: Allen G. Siegler Producer: Robert North by Jon Cvack A Boris Karloff is the type of actor that I’m beginning to enjoy the older I get, as he had been so heavily parodied while growing up that actually seeing the man perform felt uninspired by comparison. The Man They Could Not Hang/The Black Room single disc double feature are two pretty good films made in the 1930s that star the man, providing that beat up black and white aesthetic of haunted houses, castles, and graveyards, now iconic and beautiful to look at, as limited by makeup and effects, they couldn’t do more than rely on creating atmosphere. Black Room involves Karloff playing a dual role, as twin brothers Gregor and Anton of the de Berghmann baronial family. With Gregor having been born first and with a lame arm, per primogeniture, he’s entitled to take over the estate. However, far from anxious for the responsibility, Gregor has decided to travel the world and leaves the castle to his temperamental brother Anton. Prophecy has it that one of the brothers is going to one day kill the other in the The Black Room, and with Gregor’s return, Anton begins devising a plan. Not expecting much from the film other than some great visuals, I was impressed with the story and Karloff’s performance. He shifts from the brooding and creepy Gregor to the charming and sweet Anton with ease. While I was expecting a happier ending, when Anton murders Gregor and dumps his body into the The Black Room I was left thinking of Hitchcock, with a film that pre-dated most of the master’s more modern work by four years. The entire story shifted from the murderous tension between two brothers to that of the town discovering the secret, utilizing the pet dog as a pure Hitchcockian plot devices that would go on to save the day. Classic Universal Horror films were made only three to four years prior, providing more eye candy than substance and that this film would follow, combining similar beautiful set design with a more engaging story, and yet The Black Room and its partner are far more engaging stories. While not completely horror, what they lose in terms of the supernatural, they more than make up for with simple plot wonderfully executed. The Man They Could Not Hang is an equally strong film, playing as a bizarre moral thriller. The story involves Dr. Henryk Savaard (Boris Karloff) who invents a machine to reanimate the dead, displayed within a young kid’s fantasy of a chemistry set. The film opens the night that Savaard wants to try the tool, with one of his medical students offering to be killed and then revived; having that much faith in the Savaard. His nurse Betty Crawford (Ann Doran) refuses to participate, running to the police who then rush back discovering the medical student dead and Savaard and his assistant on the verge of bringing him back to life. The police order him to stop. Despite his protests about the boy, they take him away, leaving the student to die. Savaard is sentenced to death by hanging, with his assistant later retrieving the body in order to reanimate the former student with the device. Revived, Savaard then assembles all those responsible for his death and failure to save the student’s life - from the nurse to police to judge - inviting them to a dinner party where he declares he’s going to kill them all off one by one every fifteen minutes. The film is also only 64 minutes long. While far from a perfect story, coming out in 1939, it continued the exploration of reanimating the dead while embracing a type of Agatha Christie murder mystery at the end. While feeling a bit disjointed, it’s hour and change running time makes it s work, and the final act is some of the most fun I’ve had with a film from the period. The closing sequence reminded me of Saw II (2005), and while this is the better film, I actually could have used another five or ten minutes of watching the victims get killed off one by one, as it was just so cool to see how even in an open room, they’d be forced into lethal situations, never feeling all that forced, especially given the period. Karloff offers another great and undervalued performance as a charming and erudite doctor, corrupted by a system that prevents his knowledge from helping mankind. I was fascinated by his descent from a man passionate for saving life and then toward destroying it. Given that the device could have saved millions, was it worth destroying a half dozen or so people that were standing in the way of that progress? It’s easy to condemn the behavior, and yet think of all those who were killed prematurely and what kind of lives they could have lived if things turned out differently; if the police had gotten there minutes later and Savaard had revived the dead. For a film predating The Twilight Zone by nearly fifteen years, I was left thinking about this one for awhile after. BELOW: Joe Dante (Gremlins ('84), The 'Burbs ('89)) on The Black Room Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  One of the all time greatest non-actor debuts Director: Sean Baker Writer: Sean Baker Cinematographer: Alexis Zabe Producer: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch, Kevin Chinoy, Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks, Francesca Silvestri, and Shih-Ching Tsou by Jon Cvack I’ve yet to see Tangerine (2015), as it had come out just a year or so before Road to the Well (2016) was finished and I felt too competitive to want to watch, fearing that I’d be furious at myself for having failed to make an equally successful movie for the same budget. I heard great things, though heard even more from people who, hearing he shot it on iPhone, wanted to then shoot their own feature film on a iPhone minus ninety-nine thousand dollars. One line producing job I had in particular was for a guy who wanted to make a classic creature feature/comedy involving a hand that comes out of the toilet, involving an elaborate set and prop piece. I created the budget and even on his shoe string of seven grand or so (I forget the exact number), he didn’t understand the reason to have an AD on set, let alone half the other positions. He referred to Sean Baker and what he accomplished, failing to look up that, although shot on an iPhone, it was very much a serious production, bending the rules where they may. As of writing this, I have not seen the film, but given how incredible The Florida Project is, that will change very soon. I had seen the previews for The Florida Project not knowing it was Sean Baker until the credits rolled. It looked like a quirky indie film, paired up with some Wes Anderson flavor and focusing on something a bit more serious. It opens at the purple Magic Kingdom motel, which aside from a few people passing through, is where a lot of the lower classes live. One of the first films that comes to mind is The Lower Depths or even The Iceman Cometh, focused on an often overlooked part of the world, and within America specifically. These are drug addicts and fuck ups, single mothers and those trying to get their lives together. It opens on three kids Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), Scootie (Christopher Rivera), and Dicky (Aiden Malik), who are singing while kneeling against a purple wall, exiting frame, and Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” kicks in, playing over the credits; serving as the film’s lone accompanying track. The camera then follows the three kids as they run through the Magic Kingdom and over to the neighboring Futureland Motel where others live. They head up to the second floor and begin spitting loogies all over a woman’s car, who begins screaming at them, before they ran off, hunting them down and back to the Magic Kingdom where she talks to the building manager Bobby Hicks (Willem Dafoe) and finds the kids. Moonee's mom Halley (Bria Vinaite) provides one of the greatest performances I’ve seen in a long time by what seems to be someone who’s never acted before. Her best friend and Scooter’s mom Ashley (Mela Murder) offers another great performance, and so we see how this small community all functions. They head back to the car to clean up their spit, convincing the woman’s daughter who’s similar in age to help and then recruit her as part of the group, taking her around to the area’s many tacky attractions - souvenir shops, and bizarre buildings; demonstrating the ways in which to work the system as a poor child. Sean Baker excels at immersing us into a foreign environment, examining what borders on third world conditions within an area we often associate with pleasure and happiness. Having gone on a handful of vacations to Florida, the overall look felt familiar enough, even if I hadn’t gone to that exact area. Beneath the facade of joy is a somberness and feeling of struggle; that although some can afford to make the trip to Disney World, spend the mountains of money, and forget all of their troubles, others live paycheck to paycheck, unable to find work, and are just one emergency away from the streets. Perhaps not since Truffaut with Small Change (1976) or Hallstrom with My Life as a Dog (1985) has a filmmaker so finely balanced a look at adolescence with the pains of adulthood. We watch as Halley hangs by a thread, unable to find a job, falling further and further into darkness, with Moonee providing her one source of joy and pleasure, when not numbed by weed and booze. There is no definitive plot to the movie, so much as providing a brief glimpse of the day to day lives of some of America’s forgotten citizens. While the film leans heavily on realism, Baker’s ability to integrate the tragic within a more colorful environment makes the film feel magical. Each scene with Moonee and her friends often involves an immoral act being committed against the backdrop of beautiful building or sunset, told through a child’s perspective who fails to grasp how serious it is. When they beg for money for ice cream the kids see it is as a friendly request, while the mother they ask is horrified. When Moonee goes to the restaurant with Halley and is allowed to order anything she wants, she finds herself in heaven, failing to understand the intensity of the situation. What made the scene with the pedophile so disturbing was the initial focus on the children dancing and playing along a creek, then introducing a creepy old man who wished to speak with them. The list could continue and yet it was this exact format that made the film so exciting to watch, knowing that what was to come next was often only loosely connected to what came prior, and continued to demonstrate the bittersweet disparity between what a child perceives and the reality that is taking place. The film contains a glorious cast of characters, many of whom I assume were from the area, featuring everyone from an eighty year old woman who likes to tan nude to an assistant hotel manager that can’t assert himself. Everything in the film felt so real and true and that I couldn’t help but have my heart ache, knowing that this is actually exists and that it’s going to continue to exist, and for as much as I respect the people for making as much good as they can out of a bad situation, and for Sean Baker to turn his camera to a forgotten area, it still hurts to watch a world that’s doomed for most. Sean Baker achieves what any perfect film does in connecting us with characters who seem entirely removed from our own worlds. It’s a beautiful story that has stuck with me for weeks, unlike anything I’ve seen out of American cinema for a very long time. There’s so much more to uncover that only repeated viewings would allow for me to discover the myriad of details and subtleties that add up to its perfection. I’ve never seen such a sad story produce such a strong desire for me to return. No matter how tragic it becomes, Baker preserves the tiniest glimmer of hope and joy in almost each and every scene; an accomplishment where I struggle to think of any other filmmaker who has ever produced the same result. It’s one of the best films of 2017. BELOW: Great Anatomy of a Scene from the New York Times Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  A perfect casting Director: Sean Penn Writer: Sean Penn; based on Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Cinematographer: Eric Gautier Producer: Sean Penn, Art Linson, and Bill Pohlad by Jon Cvack My friend had been urging me to read Jon Krakauer’s book since he finished it, which I found at a thrift store while on vacation in Donner Lake. I’ve enjoyed the two other Krakauer books I’ve read - Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven, admiring his ability to seamlessly navigate between such a broad range of ideas, from motives to the philosophy to science or history. Into the Wild accomplishes the same, all the more impressive for its 200 and change page length. I had seen the movie when it first came out, excited for Sean Penn’s fourth feature film (I actually thought it was his first, in addition to an early film The Indian Runner ('91) starring himself and sounding pretty good, he directed Jack Nicholson in two other films - The Cross Guarding ('95) and The Pledge ('01)). I recall liking but not loving this film, seeing its main character Chris McCandless as someone far too close to my own age and therefore coming across as kind of an asshole. Eleven years later, although the film started out with a terribly cheesy credit sequence, I soon discovered a film about an idealistic and naive young man whose strong convictions combined with a complete lack of outdoor experience caused his quick demise. What the film fails to fully capture is the brief timeline of his journey, let alone his destination. The story spans just two years, where he dies within three months of reaching his end goal destination of Alaska. College is just around the time I noticed how quickly life was accelerating and by now two years is but a blink of an eye, and yet he was able to live such a wild and respectable adventure that it poses a fascinating question that I recall debating when I first saw it - was what McCandless did noble? While the book and film diverge in significant ways, with Penn rightfully forfeiting some of the most interesting sections of the book in order focus on the more engaging visual portions, it’s also some of the best supporting material to help understand the question. Krakauer compares McCandless to numerous others throughout American history, all similar in age, who all felt a peculiar yearning for adventure and taking oneself to the limits of mortality. The reasons verge from grand political missions such as forfeiting all dependence on any government or person, to those who wanted to live a grand life of adventure. Jon Krakauer tells his own story about being a young kid who went climbing up a mountain alone in a remote region of the world, where due to pure luck he was able to be saved before starving to death, failing to climb the mountain, though not for a lack of going far further than he should have. It’s by telling these stories and learning of the broad range of reasons and purpose that Krakauer puts it on us the reader to decide where Chris resided on the spectrum. He was a smart kid, who was well read, and yet also referred to himself as “Alexander Supertramp”, wrote subpar poetry and, counter to Krakauer and the others, had little outdoor experience. The issue is that, having grown up in the suburbs, he had no control over his experiences. It was through reading Walden and Emerson and Jack London that he grew inspired to take a similar journey, demonstrating the vast power some books contain. Ideas of serious thinkers and phenomenal writers were enough for Chris to abandon what could have been a fulfilling and relatively comfortable life for most other people. It’s that alienation that I think most creative or outdoorsy types can relate to; wanting to surround yourself with something more meaningful and beautiful, and dealing with an environment where it’s increasingly more difficult to do that. To think Chris had the courage to at least try and live those ideas, however naive, is something that deserves respect. Unfortunately he was too young to know any better. Chris’ sister Carine (Jena Malone) narrates the entire story, taking us through Chris’ graduation and without a word to his parents or Carine, burns all forms of ID, donates his life’s savings and graduate school funds to charity, hops in his car, and drives to Lake Mead where his car gets caught up in an harbinger of a flash flood, where he then abandons his ride and proceeds to hitchhike to Northern California where he meets up with and couple and trailer nomads Jan Burress (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian H. Dierker) who’re struggling in their silver years. Jan takes a particularly strong liking to Chris, clearly seeing herself as a mother figure, who while we never know the details, can safely surmise that the possibility of children has passed, as the realities of their life decision have begun to take effect. Without heading into maudlin monologues about what they’ve learned throughout their years of travel, we understand their awareness. It is the life that Chris is headed toward, which perhaps not seeming all that bad, makes more meaningful relationships difficult, especially under the strain of tight quarters and little money. Later, Chris heads to South Dakota and meets up with satellite television pirate Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaugh; in one of his better roles). Eventually Chris reaches the Colorado River, and in the most supportive moments of Chris’ cause, deals with a park ranger who informs him that there’s a year and half waiting list for those wanting to kayak down the river. While I'm sure a mixture of government bureaucracy and what I’m sure is nobly intentioned environmental concerns, the fact that a person can’t freely travel a river when they want is absurd and Chris is aware of that, using his little funds to buy a kayak and journey down without a pass. Soon he meets a pair of sexy European travelers who invite him on a new trip, though after agreeing, a ranger is heard around the bend and Chris is forced to leave and hide in order to avoid getting a fine or going to jail. I was left wondering where he might have ended should the ranger not have come at that particular moment and whether he would have met the same fate. A scene that has long stuck with me is Chris’ return to Los Angeles, where his complete lack of funds and dependence on train hopping leads him to downtown and then to skid row where he’s fortunate to get a cot for the night amidst the record numbers of homeless people who’re forced to wait in the long lines with no guarantee. He tours the city, people watching, looking through restaurant windows and seeing himself and what could have been, getting overwhelmed into a borderline panic attack that he decides to hitch his way out immediately. Living in Los Angeles, I can only imagine what it’d be like to arrive with a gross antagonism to the idea of cities, as for a place that likes to consider itself liberal, has one of the most significant inequality problems in the nation; a contradiction that I’m sure contributed to Chris’ flighty exit. Soon he ends up in Salton City where he meets one of the story’s most interesting characters, Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook); a man who lost his wife and son in a tragic accident, turning to whiskey for years before kicking the habit altogether. What the movie doesn’t explain is the Salton City’s history, which was meant to be another posh desert getaway per the likes of Palm Springs and failed to develop, leaving people like Ron with a nice home with little community beyond the hundreds of hippies that have journeyed out there in the hopes of living off the grid and building their own community. Like Jan, Ron grows fond of Chris, feeling as though he’s a son, inviting him into his home, and while the two share time together, they eventually part ways in one of the film’s most devastating scenes. Chris ends up in Alaska and while there are moments of what appears fun and thrilling, also seems incredibly lonely, in which only by the mind going slightly crazy can one deal with the solitude. Humans are inherently social creatures; a fact that’s used to argue against solitary confinement due to the long term effects it can have on the mind. While I’m not sure if this could or did contribute to Chris’ poor judgment of eating toxic seeds (as the film and book demonstrate, they looked strikingly similar), what community does do is provide assistance with mistakes, either to help others avoid them, or to assist after they’re made. One of the most fascinating parts of the book (that film for some reason excludes) is how there were a couple ranger cabins within a mile or so of Chris’s camp, or that he if he walked a mile up the river he could have found refuge. One of the cabins had actually been trashed, and while the rangers do not suspect McCandless, it does leave you wondering if he was just too stupid, scared, or stubborn to venture much further than his bus. I’m sure there were areas of thick growth, but even under tough terrain a mile could be walked in about half an hour, and while walking in the exact direction of the cabin is less likely, not wandering at least a mile up the river to look for a clearing, knowing food would grow more scarce and you would grow weaker, made little sense to me. It’s a film that felt like the complete mirror the second time around, in which I saw it all from everyone else’s perspective. I respect and in small ways admire McCandless’ courage of his convictions and yet it was his selfishness in abandoning his family and all those he met who loved him that creates resentment, as he was so committed to his life and ideals at the cost of hurting so many others, it leaves you wondering what he was hoping to achieve. Bliss for him and pain for everybody else. At the same time, now being almost a decade from that I age, I recall the utter selfishness it contains, which can feel almost uncontrollable at times. He died before he ever progressed beyond that stage; before his mind could ever fully grasp the ideas he read and the larger implications they could create. This time I saw a film that was very much a coming of age story, and through taking place over just a few years, outshining most other lives by comparison and ending so tragically, it can stand pretty tall amongst most of them. BELOW: I bet this scene gets better the older I get Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page  With Allen on par with Denzel, makes you wonder what else Ray Allen could have gone on to do Director: Spike Lee Writer: Spike Lee Cinematographer: Malik Hassan Sayeed Producer: Jon Kilik and Spike Lee by Jon Cvack He Got Game is a movie that makes me realize how systemic racism is within Hollywood and its fans. The further I dig into Spike Lee’s filmography, the more I discover an exceptionally rich and complex series of films with a unique style that rivals any of his 80s/90s peers from the period - Coens, PTA, Wes Anderson, David Lynch, and so on. Until this year's BlacKKKlansmen, it never seemed like Spike Lee earned a comparable position, as after adding his filmography to my master list, I discovered almost a dozen films highly rated films, half of which I'd never even heard of. As I started to dig, I realized his style and voice is as exciting and unique as any of peers. One of the first of his lesser known films I checked out was Clockers ('95) which is an urban crime drama in which the colors and camera work nearly pop off the screen - allowing you to see the style that would evolve and culminate in 25th Hour ('01), and yet while he’s made a few other pretty good films (Inside Man ('06), Chi-Raq ('15)), nothing has come to the volume and craft of most of his work from the late 80s through the 90s. It left me wondering why so many of his more black-focused films were so seldom discussed or mentioned. While I don’t think it’s completely due to overt racism (though I'm sure it is for some viewers), I do believe it had to with white audiences and film critics alike never “feeling” like watching the films the way they would Summer of Sam ('99), Inside Man, or 25th Hour - films which coincidentally revolve around mostly white characters (i.e, racist-lite). Before I had begun to grasp Spike Lee’s style I had always assumed that He Got Game would be a more traditional sports film - featuring the struggles of aspiring athletes in the black lower classes per the likes of Hoop Dreams (1994) as a narrative version. And while exploring those ideas, it does so with Lee’s unique and brilliant voice. The film opens up with a lyrical series of images which, knowing Lee’s penchant for basketball, is very much his ode to the game. Never have I actually turned off my Netflix DVD to pay for an HD version of the stream, but the images were so gorgeous that I knew I was failing to fully experience the event. We then meet convicted murderer Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) who’s been called in by the warden regarding his son, Jesus (Ray Allen ; an actual NBA star), who’s the number one high school prospect, juggling countless lucrative offers to the elite basketball programs across the nation. The prison warden is buddies with the governor who’s determined to have Jesus attend “Big State University” and offers to release Jake in order to get his son to sign over, and if accomplished, will be released early. Jesus is dating the sexy Lala Bonilla (Rosario Dawson), who’s able to skate a fine line between love for Jesus and exploring other men behind his back. Jesus despises his father, where after practicing basketball as a twelve year old boy, was pushed too hard by his dad, vowing to quit the game and storming home where his family eats dinner. His dad arrives moments later and an argument breaks out, with Jake attacking his son, causing their mother to intervene who Jake then pushes, causing her to trip and bang her on the counter, dying shortly after. When Jake returns home, Jesus wants nothing to do with the guy. Life is no easier beyond Jesus’ strained relationship with Jake, as he faces constant pressure from every angle; from his coach to sister Mary (Zelda Harris) to even his foster parents, all who are hoping to get something from the innumerable offers - from a brand new car to the tens of thousands of dollars being offered with no strings attached. In some ways the logic is somewhat sound, as given these individual’s role in shaping Jesus, and that the schools seem to have zero reservations about offering such lucrative gifts, the aspiring athletes wonder why they can’t just take the gifts even if the school says no. In one of the most powerful scenes, Lala discusses how she knows where their relationship is headed - aware of the slattern white girls that will (and do) toss themselves at Jesus which he won’t be (and isn’t) able to resist. While he’s off getting a college education and on track to become a great NBA star, she’ll be left in Coney Island with little in the ways of opportunity. While Jesus does his best to calm her concerns, having just had a threesome with two prostitutes (or so they seemed), Jesus also grasps the reality. Meanwhile, Jake is struggling with living in the dregs of the city, living in the local brothel where he meets a prostitute Dakota Burns (Milla Jovovich) who’s chronically beaten by her pimp, with Jake eventually developing feelings for her that - as one of the few faults of the film - don’t really progress to anything beyond a raunchy sex scene between the two, leaving us wondering if Jake actually liked her or just needed to get off. The truth is ultimately revealed to Jesus, who resents letting his guard down to try and accept Jake back into his life when it was all for ulterior motives; namely, Jake's release. In the end, the two are left to play a game of one on one in order to decide Jake’s fate - if he wins, Jesus will go to Big State, if Jesus wins, he’ll toss the contract and Jake will return to prison. While Jesus ultimately triumphs in the game, blowing out his aging father, he decides to go Big State regardless. However, as he didn’t sign the contract, the warden and governor don’t think that Jake actually accomplished the goal, releasing a story that Jake had actually escaped and is now facing even more time tacked onto his remaining fifteen year sentence. The subtle blend of politics never takes the forefront, positioned subcutaneously, providing each scene with a dual layer - between that of a young man with a troubled past, attempting to remain righteous against a tide of others’ self interest, and the system that makes such a struggle so significant. While there doesn’t seem to be a racial component behind Jake’s conviction at first sight, one could argue that his commitment to Jesus’ success was in order to get him out of the streets. Denzel Washington provides an equally balanced performance, struggling between vice and virtue. He is far from a perfect man, and yet Washington provides such depth, where regardless of what he did and does, we respect the man. Reading the trivia, I learned that Ray Allen was an actual NBA star, in which the primary struggle was how to find a person that could look to be in high school. Throughout the film I was left wondering why the guy hadn’t gone on to do other projects as he's that good; another testament to Lee's talents. Both Jake and Jesus are up against a system that only seems to value their athleticism. It begins with the colleges, who while continuing to raise tuition, provide these lavish gifts. And while I’m aware of the satire, this is a common problem facing many young athletes courted by wealthy programs. To watch as the potential for money and expensive things blinds even those most close to Jesus, including his sister who starts to hear about the money, or Lala and her desire to at least get out of the city, which only his money could help her do, or his foster father who even goes so far as to accept a Mercedes in order to sway Jesus’ mind. The whole story takes on the feel of Greek tragedy, which Spike Lee would revisit more literally with ChiRaq, as it’s very much about the dangers of temptation - the danger of failing to give the people what they want (who Jesus loves); the danger of Jesus making himself vulnerable to his father, knowing the risk of pain; and the dangers of carnal desire, which he eventually succumbs to; whether women, the bottle, and his short temper. It all operates within a system that will only provide the wealth and glamor to those in the lower classes who have the raw physical agility to compete at the highest professional level. Allen and Washington portray two incredible, rich, and challenging characters that are able to preserve plausibility in a story that could have so easily become histrionic. The greater tragedy is how little, if ever, I’ve heard of this film, as aside from the standard definition, the old DVD couldn’t play on my new television, providing a strange aspect ratio. I can recall hearing about the film a few times, but never with the accolades it deserves. I was left wondering if Jesus ever loved the game, or whether he felt it was only way out. I’m finishing this on the first Sunday the majority of NFL teams reacted to Trump’s call to fire those who protest, all after he castigated Steph Curry for rejecting Trump’s invitation to the white house. Trump defended White Supremacists right to protest, calling some of them good people, but when a black player takes a knee in peaceful protest during the National Anthem, the President of the United States demands that he be fired for insulting America. It’s a moment like this where you wonder how he sees black people; not as equal members of a society which possess all of the privileges the constitution guarantees but rather as second rate humans, relegated to an arena where they perform physical acts (as Trump has criticized). He Got Game shows that side of life, with the governor and warden who use Jake as a means to an end, rescinding their agreement and making his life all the worse for it, never portraying an ounce of guilt. They would say it was all for Jesus’ future, and yet he’s just a thing to make many others rich; perhaps irreplaceable, but far from their concern or worries so long as he’s healthy, at which point they’d otherwise abandon him. This is a must see film. BELOW: Somehow not even nominated for an Oscar Like what you read? Support the site on Patreon Please report any spelling, grammar, or factual errors or corrections on the contact page |
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