Sunday 20 December 2020

First Cow

 

2020’s First Cow, directed by Kelly Reichardt.

 

Starring John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewen Bremner, Scott Shepherd, Todd A. Robinson, Kevin Michael Moore, Eric Martin Reid, Ted Rooney, Phelan Davis, Mike Wood, Gary Farmer, Sabrina Morrison, and Lily Gladstone.

What is it about?

In early 19th century Oregon County, a cook and a criminal team up to sell baked goods, with their crucial ingredient of milk being from the region’s most valuable import- a cow, owned by neighbouring British captain. During a time of colonial upheaval and great change, the 2 of them make hay while the sun shines until it doesn’t.


Why is it worth seeing?

Director/Co-writer Kelly Reichardt has described her films about being about, “just glimpses of people passing through.” First Cow, one of the very first theatrical victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, is certainly that. Its 2 protagonists’ dreams of (somewhat) upward mobility, practically uses a microscope to peek through the larger and more traditional plot elements latent in the film’s frontier America setting.


Deftly stepping aside other tales’ grand ambitions of showcasing the historical conflicts and dramas that beset the founding of modern day America, or even a pot boiler about someone facing great odds to return to their loved ones- this isn’t The Revenant. Told in her trademark patient pace, Reichardt is in no hurry to show the 2 characters of Cookie, and King-Lu, navigating through the practically Paleozoic formation of the American dream. It’s no coincidence that the film opens with a freighter slowly crossing a river- if history’s not in a hurry to arrive, then why should we be?


Like most characters in Reichardt’s films, there is a sweet decency to Cookie and King-Lu’s relationship, based off of trust and respect. Nestled amongst rude fur trappers, sometimes hostile Natives, and genteel Englishmen eager to settle scores, their trusting relationship is a balm amidst the ugly reality that was the founding of civilized America. They grow to like each other, and take comfort in their mutual reciprocity of the platonic. The time period of America’s founding is not a pretty one- entrenched in deceit and genocide, of brutal men imposing their will upon others. Here’s a film about 2 people whose quiet acts of kindness are practically revolutionary- as long as you can stomach their means of securing ingredients for baked goods…


While the history of colonial WASPS introduction to America isn’t pretty, Reichardt’s showing off a painterly eye for composition, framing her 2 protagonists as connected elements of the setting- is. Her lenses’ occasional modest glimpses of beauty, complement the film’s more than occasional feelings of brilliance. Even when some honest-to-goodness conflict breaks out in the film’s final third, this is a film devoid of exclamation marks- but packed with poetic ellipses. Regardless of where one sees it, Cow is one of the year’s best films.

 

Rating:

4.5/5

Saturday 30 May 2020

Top 10 Films of 2019


2019 was an interesting year, as it also ended the decade, resulting in best of the decade lists to go with the best of the year lists. That’s just catnip for movie lovers and cinephiles alike, and it was an interesting exercise for passionate list makers (biggest takeaway? Nobody gets this stuff completely right the first time).
2019 saw Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, creating an entertainment colossus possibly never seen before. Now owning Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Fox, it has become almost impossible to avoid intellectual property emanating from a studio not underneath Disney’s umbrella. Of the 10 highest grossing movies of the year, the first 9 of them were exclusively Disney property (for those interested, 10th place was Hobbs and Shaw, from Universal). Their box office dominance may explain what motivated renowned auteur Martin Scorcese, in the midst of promoting one of the better films of his career (will he make this year’s list? See below!), to take a shot at the Disney juggernaut. Saying that the Marvel franchise films were closer to theme park rides than actual cinema, it greatly disturbed the ocean floors of the movie business in kicking up a lot of fuss. What’s more interesting though, was Scorcese’s debut of his film on streaming platform Netflix- an overt admission that the movie business, regardless of having one mega company make the films that everyone sees, is currently in a great state of flux. Simultaneously, the great theatre chain disruptor, MoviePass, with its exponentially affordable deals but bizarre business model concepts, went out of business, leaving a great deal of people to decide between paying their rent or going to the movies. Certainly, people went to the movies, as Avengers: Endgame didn’t become the (unadjusted for inflation) box office champion of all time for nothing- but for the 17th straight year, ticket sales haven’t matched or exceeded 2002’s grosses. Wherever the film industry ends up going, there is still greatness to be found, inspiration to be absorbed, and a gaze worth making. Here’s some of the favourites (with honourable mentions) that I was able to discover this year:


10. Honeyland
Documentaries are typically a blind spot for me, but I did manage to see a few that really made an impression. For this list, it came down to either American Factory, the sociologically tinged tale of an Ohio manufacturing plant reopening with Chinese and American workers, or the exotic Honeyland, the intimate portrait of a woman living in Macedonia. While Factory was very strong (and I have few qualms about its Oscar win for Best Documentary), Honeyland had an artistic flourish to it that felt more comparable to a work of nonfiction, while also taking a less is more approach in its portrait of a woman (Hatidze Muratova), who dares to be completely congruent with her environment (which straddles the line between rustic and abject poverty), living amongst few people but never being lonely. Its biggest charms are in the questions that it doesn’t ask, in how it shows someone too busy living in harmony with the land and taking care of her elderly mother to worry about the life that she doesn’t lead. The first FOMO you should feel about someone who couldn’t care less about FOMO, this documentary about a beekeeper is sweet.
After making my #3 movie of 2015 (the unnerving It Follows), I was looking forwards to writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s next work. While Under the Silver Lake features some tense and suspenseful scenes, it’s a departure from his previous work in that Lake is made more in the shaggy stylings of a comedic noir, a kind of The Big Lebowski embroiled in a Chinatown sized conspiracy. Lake’s charms involve pounding out a never-ending stream of symbols, codes, riddles, and non sequiturs to an indifferent but increasingly frazzled Andrew Garfield, who may just stop leering at women long enough to be able to solve them- and maybe celebrate with a tomato juice bath to erase the stench emanating from him. Regardless of the outcome, while the universe may be an’ indifferent machine of causality, Lake is hysterical at times, and on the short list of cult movie classics destined to join midnight movie fare such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Room.
8. Little Women
After Lady Bird, writer/Director Greta Gerwig had a fair amount of cache moving forwards for her next project (parallel to Jordan Peele’s experience from Get Out to this year’s Us). While Women is an IP that has been covered many times previous, Gerwig’s strengths in creating relatable and strong female characters, combined with jumbling the film’s timeline of the girls’ journey to adulthood, makes the period piece material sing as a more than worthy addition to the canon. Laura Dern (better here, than in Marriage Story), Saoirse Ronan, and Florence Pugh (my favourite actress of 2019), are particularly strong as members of the March family, and composer Alexandre Desplat puts in excellent but never dominating work in crafting one of the year’s best scores. Amongst the adversity of the period’s civil war hardships, deadly diseases, and patriarchal mindsets, good vibes and estrogen powered fraternity are prominently featured. Spend some uplifting time with a bunch of women who are anything but little.


7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The auteur known as QT returns in his 10th film (yes, he’s made 10 of them!) to make an elegiac love letter to Hollywood around the period of the Tate murders that along the free love fringes features his usual acidic meanderings. As per QT’s strength in casting and coaxing career best performances, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and especially Brad Pitt are superb in their roles as actor, actress, and stunt man/potential wife murderer. As always, Tarantino loves to subvert expectations and show off his freak flag (flame thrower anyone?), but the most endearing part of Once Upon is its similarities to QT’s more somber and mature works like Jackie Brown, as this is a hang out movie that showcases an era that belonged to a more innocent time and was gone before anyone really realized it. Like the shot of the strip lighting up after the sunset, by the time you realize its importance- it’s vanished.

6. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The most romantic movie of the year. I’d heard a lot about the film Portrait, but wanted to see the goods for myself- it’s the real deal. Writer/Director Céline Sciamma’s simple story, about a portrait artist travelling to a remote island to paint a commissioned portrait of an unwilling subject left an impression on me so strong, that it just may be underrated. A quintessentially French film in terms of its unapologetic passion and oddly matched characters, its portrayal of the artistic process is almost as commendable as its romantic aspirations, as Marianne (
Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) take turns inverting each other’s gazes and seeing through the other, as Héloïse’s portrait continues to be refined and perfected, stroke by stroke and brush by brush. Featuring no sex but tons of glances so piercing it could be mistaken for erotica, Portrait burns like few others.

The most entertaining movie of the year, Writer/Director Rian Johnson continues his penchant for making more smart than they need to be popcorn crowd pleasers in Knives. Featuring an incredibly stacked cast (some, like Chris Evans, really playing against type, others like Daniel Craig being right where they need to be), they bicker and scheme while surrounding a promising break out performance from humble young heroine Ana de Armas (immensely likable). Johnson pays homage to other Clue-like capers in his comedy-noir about a family patriarch (Christopher Plummer) who’s death may have involved foul play, and who has an estate that his family is definitely interested in inheriting. Johnson never hesitates to wink at us, through scenes such as essentially fan boys breathlessly shushing others who have the nerve to interrupt a character explaining the ins and outs of the caper, and when we’re not laughing at how preposterous the respective situations are, we’re trying to wrap our heads around the story’s hole inside the doughnut hole of it all. Wherever in the doughnut you land, don’t miss this one.

4. The Irishman
After throwing some shade at Marvel, Scorcese returns, and makes another gangster picture starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel. Been there done that right? Wrong. This generation’s most revered master takes a familiar cast and does something completely new with it- at least in terms of where we end up. Think Goodfellas if Henry and Karen were followed around for another decade or two after going into witness protection. Scorcese, never shy of the influence religion had on him as a child, in showing the typical rise to prominence for his crime minded characters, shows what happens to the soul after the fall, and then what happens after that too. Certainly we all have consequences that illustrate the weight of choices made throughout a life, and in typical masterful fashion, he quietly but effectively shows it here. It’s difficult to recommend to non cinephiles a film that’s 3.5 hours long (yup, longer than Godfather Pt.II), but if you can forgive the butt numbness, it’s worth it- especially when its essentially a Netflix production to be viewed from home anyways.
3. Uncut Gems
I thought the Safdie brothers had done all they could do in showcasing cinematic anxiety, through “feel bad scumbag yarns” such as Heaven Knows What and Good Time, but I was wrong- Uncut Gems is on another level. Its story, of a diamond district jewellery dealer (Adam Sandler, who has more bravura performances like this one than you would think), who’s a gambling addict who can’t stay loyal to his wife or out of trouble with his loan shark brother-in-law, exudes a frantic energy that you can’t tear your eyes from and is exhausting in the best of ways. With a scary good Kevin Garnett performance in the background, the Safdies dig deep (literally in some scenes) into Sandler as he travels all over New York, attempting to dig out of a hole that he dug himself- by digging deeper. Dripping with a love for NBA basketball, constantly roving chaotic frustration, and people interrupting each other, the Safdies’ now trademark non glamourous lighting has never highlighted the ways deeply flawed people have tried to convince others they’re this close to reforming any better. As far as films go, this is one gem that’s flawless.
2. Marriage Story
As a child of divorce, stories about irreconcilable differences between consenting adults are like catnip to me. But after seeing Marriage Story, with its characters’ reasonable intentions gone awry, what comes across is how achingly sincere the characters are in trying to officially stop being a couple without destroying their family. The most humane of films about 2 people going in different directions, Director/Writer Noah Baumbach’s most mature and accomplished film features superb work by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, as 2 halves of a couple who have had a child together and now wish to divorce. Baumbach never tries to get us to pick a side (although we all will anyways!), but shows how a family, can tear itself apart after it tries to be as amicable as possible. Getting snagged up in the logistics of enmeshed extended family members and close friends (check out the hysterical Mistress America-like comedy of the service scene), as well as the gears of the legal industrial complex (both Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, as the lawyers who have no shame or squeamishness in grandstanding for their respective side’s victory, are delicious here), it’s a dilemma thick with differing opinion on how to achieve the same result. Driver and Johansson are as helpless to a clean break as we are to not falling prey to the film’s drama of what happens when a couple stops saying, “I do”.
Unusually popular for a foreign film (South Korea) of such technical skill, Parasite’s charms include that it’s as enjoyable to watch as it is difficult to categorize what genre it falls into. It’s definitely a class consciousness satire (the title is well chosen), but with loads of thrilling moments, has a formal charm but is at times oddly hilarious, has the shifty mechanics of a surprising grifter but pursues integrity, has some horror elements but never feels threatening, and has some stirringly downbeat moments while never feeling like a downer- it’s a real trick to pull off. Director/Co-Writer Bong Joon-Ho’s pristine camera work and divine sense of setting perfectly anchor a sterling cast and tack-sharp script to create a perfect storm, that like a flood, has a habit of starting slowly- before overwhelming your senses and annihilating the world you once knew. Filled with superlatives while never trying to be more than it actually is, it’s my favourite film of the year. A resounding commercial and critical success- and something tells me it will age well in time moving forwards.


Honourable Mentions:

11. Ad Astra
12. The Nightingale
13. The Souvenir
14. Waves
15. Peterloo
16. The Art of Self Defence
17. Us
18. Avengers: Endgame
19. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
20. Good Boys


Good, but just missed the cut:

American Factory, Midsommar, Toy Story 4, High Life, Dolemite is My Name,  Light of My Life, I Lost My Body, Little Woods, Plus One, Joker, Relaxer,  Booksmart,  The Beach Bum, Triple Frontier, Her Smell, Dragged Across Concrete, Zombieland 2: Double Tap.


Seen and destined for oblivion:

Long Shot, Pain and Glory, Hustlers, 1917, Gemini Man, Ford Vs. Ferrari, Bombshell, JoJo Rabbit, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Terminator: Dark Fate, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, Captain Marvel, Coffee For All, Polar, Hustlers, Alita: Battle Angel, Charlie's Angels, Brightburn, Star Wars IV, Six Underground, The Dirt, Murder Mystery, X Men: Dark Phoenix, The Red Sea Diving Resort, The Kitchen, Fighting with my Family, Wine Country, Late Night.

Tuesday 26 May 2020

Favourite Scenes of the Year- 2019


The Irishman. The Nursing Home.
Scorcese, ever the director of kinetic energy, after a 3+ hour movie depicting mob men and their consequences, can’t resist bringing some of that that jazz to the old folks home for one last go. It’s an inspired but odd choice, for Scorcese to slowly pan down the hall, flashing forwards, before whipping it back to the same place again, indicating that (even more) time has passed. It’s one of the more anti climatic cuts you’ll see that is exciting, but more prone to sadness than thrills.

Parasite. The long and rainy walk home.
After an epically tense sequence of trying to not be discovered as squatters and to get out of the family’s home without being their identities being discovered, the resourceful Kim family are able to escape and begin their trudge home. As they travel through the city, they go across and down, resembling a downward descent into if not hell, then at least a flooded sewer. Joon-ho’s framing, of the family inching their way downwards, shows the talented film maker’s eye for composition and energy, and demonstrates more metaphor for the part social satire film’s views on class. It all culminates in one of the most memorable images of the year, as there’s no place like home- except the pool.
Little Women. The 2 sisters on the beach.
Despite a lot of buzz from her success in past projects as a writer, actor, and director, Greta Gerwig’s take on the VERY familiar 19th century novel by Louisa May Alcott didn’t invite a lot of hype in terms of bringing something new to the text. But that changed when I was entranced at the beach scene of Jo (Saoirse Ronan) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) talking about whether or not one of them would let a loved one die from their disease. Gerwig’s direction, of framing the fiery with resoluteness Jo, and the young and brave Beth, with their environment, combined with Alexandre Desplat’s delicate score, create a sequence of delicate motion that never stops to mourn, fret, or sulk. The result is magic, closer to something from The English Patient than Sense and Sensibility. Magic.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The Introduction.
In Céline Sciamma’s scorching romance, portrait painter Marianne (played by the sturdy Noémie Merlant) needs to paint stubborn Héloïse (intoxicatingly played by Adèle Haenel)’s portrait. Not only does Héloïse not want to pose, but in their first encounter, they meet outdoors, and Héloïse sprints for the edge of a cliff. Fearing Héloïse will copy her now deceased sister’s suicide, Marianne takes off after her in pursuit, before she’s even able to see Héloïse’s face. The conclusion is one of the more breathtaking, blink and you’ll miss it, introductions in film that I’ve ever seen.
Bonus Scenes- pretty much the whole film.
High Life. The Fuck Box.
Claire Denis’ first English feature had one particularly unforgettable character- that of the Fuck Box, a hybrid box/device of pleasure placed on the doomed and modestly budgeted spaceship of criminals (lead by Robert Pattinson) set adrift in space. Constructed for you know what, built by god knows who, and possessing the same kind of sounds and body horror ejections as a machine from David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, it lets the Juliette Binoche pseudo witch character let her freak flag fly, before the conclusively guttural gurgle slop drains into the hallway- now if only in space you could have a cigarette.

Terminator: Dark Fate. Carl.
This year’s latest iteration of the moribund Terminator franchise featured nothing worth mentioning- save for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance (yet again) as the iconic T-800 cyborg from the future. Yes, that means we get to watch more footage of the septuagenarian unloading rounds of ammo into yet another unstoppable CGI creature, but what stands out is what he does that’s new for an icon not known for his acting range. His character, the robotic assassin, having accomplished its sole mission in the beginning of the movie, goes into standard infiltration mode. That is, infiltration of a family, functioning as a safe and supportive husband and doting dad, and of society, working at a job that you probably wouldn’t have guessed. His take on the idea of possessing a conscience (not to mention hospitality), of giving to something larger than yourself, is inspired and even inching towards something resembling pathos. Channeling something more akin to Maggie (with dad jokes and comments about appropriate drapery), rather than The Expendables 3, if there’s (mercifully!) never another Terminator movie, at least this is a performance that hints at the potential of memorably fading into the sunset, rather than groaning into the green screen abyss of death.
Under the Silver Lake. The Music Man.
In a movie drowning in symbols, codes, messages, and pointless nudity, Andrew Garfield’s deadbeat detective struggles to make sense of it all, whether it’s his aimless life or finding a fetching neighbor who suddenly goes missing. He finally gets to have his Neo meeting the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded moment, meeting the man (hilariously played by Jeremy Bobb) who wrote perhaps ALL of the pop culture songs in society’s history, suggesting that there are meanings behind them that subliminally controlled our actions. His arrogant glee at revealing a fraction of his secrets, contrasted with Garfield’s baffled stupor, is one of the funniest scenes of the year- but mind the over the top violent conclusion that’s perfectly in synch with David Robert Mitchell’s delightfully original and chauvinistic comedy-noir.

Marriage Story. The Argument.
For a movie about a couple separating and going to court for a custody battle, it’s a fairly civil affair. That is, until Adam Driver’s ex-husband and Scarlett Johannsen’s ex-wife get together and decide to let each other know what they really think of each other- about what they’ve holding onto all these years. After getting to know the couple, it’s an emotionally charged trainwreck that you want to look away from, while knowing that you can’t, grounded in reality, and captured in perpetuity. A doozy.
Bonus scene- The supervised visit sequence.

Avengers: Endgame. Mjolnir’s friends’ list expands.
As a studio tentpole blockbuster franchise entry, Endgame is already notable in how well it wraps up the twentysomething movies that came before it, but in the film’s moving and epic finale, we see a new wrinkle to a character’s arsenal that is so effective that it has been known to induce applause in theatres. If Endgame is the last moviegoing mass cultural experience before the death of movie theatres as we know them, this scene encapsulates a worthy choice that will make your soul sing as a character, exclaims, “I knew it!”.

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Portrait of a Lady on Fire


Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), written and directed by Céline Sciamma.

What is it about?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes place in the late 18th century. An artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is sent to an island in France to paint a portrait of the countess’ (Valeria Golino) last surviving daughter. Marianne has her work cut out for her as the daughter, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) has refused to pose for artists in the past, and Marianne plans to complete the portrait in secret. As Marianne spends time with Héloïse and attempts to make a portrait of her without her knowing it, the island’s remote setting provides a backdrop for the ladies finding muses of inspiration in each other that they never saw coming.


Why is it worth seeing?

It’s easy to point out the dismal state of American studio romances currently, and comparing writer/director Céline Sciamma’s 4th film to them not only feels unfair (to the competition), it takes away from how powerfully singular Portrait is. It’s no simple Trompei Loeil to make something so captivatingly swollen with passion.


It’s safe to say that Sciamma has good taste- she herself at one point dated French actress
Adèle Haenel, and between Haenel and Noémie Merlant, as the key protagonists thrust together for a brief sojourn of time on an isolated island, they provide a plethora of terroir ocular delights to feast upon while acting slightly off putting- is there anything more quintessentially French? In terms of cuisine for the eyes, it’s a feast.


As the characters start the process of their delicious encounter, filled with enticing glances, intoxicating stares, and embarrassed look-aways when caught, Sciamma’s narrative macguffin of an artist observing their subject starts to reverse itself, a case of the observer being observed, through scenes of hypnotic rawness, both at the hunter becoming the hunted, and the id leaping in front of superego. It’s a delirious phenomenon, in that the film moves along at a leisurely pace, cut often with breathtaking out of control moments that feel like a sprint. It’s telling that a film with so much dedication to realism features several fantasy sequences.


Sciamma’s dialogue (winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival) has a sense of authenticity, and supports a film featuring no actual sex to be sexy, with words more naked than the characters could ever hope to get. Being a period piece, there are mentions of the sociological implications of the time, with the arranged marriages, barbaric medical practices, and inability for women artists to paint male subjects, but those realities are background to a foreground that constantly has the sound of a crackling fire within it. Similar to the ending to Martin Scorcese’s Silence, everything burns with a poetic irony in this movie- and you will too.


As Marianne goes through her artistic process of rendering her subject, through observing, sketching, modelling, underpainting, and painting, she builds a portrait that with each attempt gets closer to the heart of her subject, sharpening and refining the artistic process to portray reality as it actually is, the 2 characters defining themselves through choices and enduring consequence. This is one of the best movies of 2019- take note studios.

4.5/5

Monday 18 May 2020

The Last Dance

The Last Dance (2020), directed by Jason Hehir.

Why is it worth seeing?

In The Last Dance, director Jason Hehir’s 10 part electrifying docuseries about Michael Jordan’s path towards sports immortality, we see the monumental chasm between Jordan, the icon, and Mike Jordan, the person, start to shrink just a little. But not through a lack of trying to widen it at the same time.


For Last Dance, as usual, Jordan’s timing is perfect (this footage has sat in the can since at least 1997, awaiting his approval along with subsequent interviews). Jordan’s been retired as a player for almost 2 decades (longer, if like most people, you completely ignore Jordan’s Washington Wizards' tenure), and with talk abuzz about how LeBron James is the greatest NBA player ever, along comes a series to show why Jordan was the greatest to ever lace up his (sponsored) sneakers. It couldn’t come at a more robust time- not only a good of a time as any to remind people of his legend, but with the NBA season suspended due to Covid-19 concerns, the NBA has a gap in content via the very playoffs that Jordan once dominated so thoroughly.



Hehir intriguingly starts the series out at the beginning of the 1997-1998 NBA season, where the Chicago Bulls, lead by perpetual MVP candidate Jordan, hyper capable second banana Scottie Pippen, and manic personality Dennis Rodman, are dealing with the fall out from General Manager, Jerry Krause’s declaring that regardless of the team’s outcome for that year, head coach Phil Jackson would not be re-signed to the team the following year- leading Jackson to call the season their, “Last Dance”. The circumstances at the time were that the Bulls had just won 2 consecutive championships, and in 5 of the last 7 years- and they again were favoured to win it all that year, rendering Krause’s decision making to be questionable. While moving forwards through that last turbulent season of their championship run, Hehir simultaneously rewinds to show how the Chicago Bulls became one of the most successful dynasties in sports history, and how their lynchpin Michael Jordan became the most successful athlete of all time.



Previous documentaries on Jordan, such as 1993’s Air Time, 1990’s Playground (made by a guy named Zach Snyder), and 1989’s Come Fly With Me, were glorified puff pieces (not to mention 1996’s Space Jam) sponsored by the NBA (and Jordan himself) to build the mythos of their, and corporate America’s, favourite cash cow. A basketball fan, wanting to become more closely acquainted with Jordan’s considerable star power, wouldn’t be disappointed by footage of the spectacular athlete, but would be told the same story every time- that after being cut from his high school basketball team (which Last Dance exposes as not being actually true), Jordan turned himself into essentially a hyper competitive martian from outer space who could dunk from half court, and simultaneously being a corporate spokesperson that could never make middle class white America feel threatened- while never actually getting to know the human being. That’s the near miracle of Last Dance, a Jordan approved product, that not only assembles interviews with Jordan and peers/NBA personnel, jaw dropping game footage set to eclectic and bold music tracks, and parlays through back rooms and gyms not seen before- it’s that it exposes Jordan’s more human side.



For reasons both obvious and known only to him, Jordan has rarely allowed the curtain to be pulled back on his carefully created mystique (Even more allegedly personal work, such as 1993’s Rare Air: Michael on Michael, are closer to publicity stunt than they are to an actual personal revealing). As pointed out in Episode 5, Jordan rarely, if ever, used his cultural power to speak out on politically charged issues, summing up his philosophical approach as, “Republicans buy shoes too”. That same episode shows how Jordan became a victim of his own success, and was alienated by his boundless fame. While the media loved to hound him ceaselessly, and mocked him for attempting to audition to play for a major league baseball team, Jordan never strayed from the script, maintaining that he was a basketball player, first and foremost, a cyborg on the court, and cipher off of it. Just ask writer David Halberstam, whom in the late 90’s tried to write about Jordan’s life (1998’s Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made) through an insider’s view, who was told yes, and then was told no, resulting in one of the stranger write arounds in memory, an alleged insider sports book about a guy who didn’t actually appear in any of it. That’s what makes The Last Dance remarkable- it’s that brand Jordan does acknowledge some of the uglier pieces of his story.



As the documentary ably shows, Jordan had a physically dominating but acrobatic and balletic approach to the game of basketball, that combined with his competitiveness and skills in public speaking, lead to both a dominating Q score and an all-time winning percentage that few previous basketball players (short of the 1960’s Bill Russell Celtics teams and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) could compete with (and hasn’t been matched since). That combination of grace, winning percentage, and corporate ubiquity, lead to a zeitgeist so steeped in adulation for Jordan’s exploits that Gatorade commercials sang about an inexhaustible desire to be, “like Mike”.



But Dance is more interested in some of the dynamics that lead to Jordan’s life at times being more of an ugly wrestling match, than an elegant dance. From questioning Jordan about his leadership style, which included relentless teasing, goading, and trash talking (that occasionally lead to actual fights with teammates), his only wanting “yes men” coaches (looking at you Doug Collins), and a gambling addiction that had such features of denial as Jordan wearing sunglasses indoors while insisting proof of him not having a problem included him having employment and not being homeless. Jordan (and his emotions) are surprisingly forthcoming about some of these questions, particularly regarding if his leadership style was indeed the best approach. Statisticians (and proponents of the win at all costs approach) will tell you that it was- but Jordan’s reaction suggests that perhaps he had second thoughts after years of reflection. It’s really something to see Jordan consider losing his composure, after not only his legend has grown, but been copied by future NBA Most Valuable Players like Kobe Bryant, who clearly took the Gatorade commercials to heart.



Last Dance
doesn’t come without flaws. While it features a considerable amount of discourse as to whom Jerry Krause, the general manager who assembled not 1 but 2 Bulls juggernaut title squads, was as the deeply flawed individual who then dismantled one of the greatest teams of all time, it barely acknowledges that Krause deserves more credit for actually building those teams in the first place- although maybe not as much credit as Krause would have liked. If Krause hadn’t been as shrewd building those teams, Jordan likely never would have become anything more than a stat filled, highlight generation machine, lost in time to history’s list of winners.

Another feature that it can’t get around is how responsible the owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, was for signing off on Krause’s moves. The General Manager of a sports franchise does nothing without the owner’s approval- so in reality it was Reinsdorf who ultimately dismantled one of the greatest teams of all time, and one of its biggest cash cows ever. Watching Reinsdorf defend his actions, as the guy who says he warned Scottie Pippen not to sign a contract that would end up with him turning Pippen into one of the game’s most underpaid players, is some all time spin machine stuff.

It’s also hard to take talk too seriously the prestige of head coach Jackson’s mythos regarding his methods and his zen stylings. While winning 11 championships as a coach is impossible to discredit, 2 things that stick out about Jackson’s resume, is how overrated the Triangle Offence is (which was brought to prominence by assistant coach Tex Winter. Since the 1990’s, the offence has only been successful when facilitated through multiple first ballot hall of fame teammates), and how thin Jackson’s coaching tree of influence is- suggesting that his methods could have been inimitable, simply impossible for others to implement into NBA franchises, or perhaps, just a mirage coated in incense, a suggestion that Jackson couldn’t win it all- unless carrying a stacked deck.



Like all things, the end of Jordan’s career in the NBA didn’t actually end with him retiring after winning his 6th championship. Jordan would be unable to feel satisfied not playing the game he loved so much (and the player power/celebrity buzz that came with the stature) and would return to the league with his physical powers greatly diminished. The sight of Jordan, trying to compete in a league that he no longer dominated, on a not competitive team (that ironically he had assembled himself), compromised Jordan’s larger than life mythos. That, and a truly horrendous career as a General Manager and then owner of a perpetually underachieving team, is some more context that diminishes the god-like stature of his legend, but makes him infinitely more relatable and interesting- something more human. But like a Prom Queen sweetly reflecting on those glory days of yesteryear, the good years were truly great, and not only can nobody take them away from him- this docuseries encapsulates them better than anybody else before.

4.5/5

Saturday 18 April 2020

Kristen Stewart's Top 10 Perfomances

One of the pleasures of writing an unpaid blog is the ability to do things on a whim. After considering whom I thought had the most dynamic decade as an actress, I did a thwack of research and came to the conclusion that it was (drum roll), Kristen Stewart. A considerable amount of disagreement (and bemusement) was offered to me when I was considering this project, but this list is a rebuttal to the popular opinion that Stewart just can't act. Of course, given where she started the decade, Stewart didn't do herself (or this article) any favours, with the majority of her 2007-2012 work being borderline unwatchable. But starting off the decade in such a low place, and finishing it on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a convincingly diverse and nuanced body of work, is why she receives the vote. Moving forwards into a decade pregnant with possibility at the age of 30, the only question is if Stewart can work towards finding projects that are as strong and unique as she has become.

Honourable Mentions: 


JT Leroy
(2018)

Stewart portrays both Savannah Knoop, the sister in law to infamous author Laura Albert, and Laura’s male avatar, JT Leroy- who doesn’t actually exist. It’s fascinating watching Stewart play down her naturalness in trying to sound like a cripplingly shy man-child in hiding, but watch her personality explode through at times, before going back to her character's original self who likes pretending to be someone of importance far more than she would care to admit. 



Speak (2004)
Stewart’s first film as a high school student sets the table for the roles that would later go on to entrench her Hollywood persona as a teen with a lot of anxieties to figure out. It’s a bummer, being so good at that thing where you get typecast for after for years. She’s great here, as the high school student who is sexually assaulted, and doesn’t know who to turn to to express her self. At least a part of her resume that landed her the Twilight series.



10. Adventureland (2010)

A rare gem in the most challenging phase of Stewart’s career, she brings a sense of youthful revolt to her character, simultaneously leading on young and naive buck Jesse Eisenberg and married soon to be way too old to be working at an amusement park handyman Ryan Reynolds. It’s a good look for her as she portrays someone trying to find romance, but instead is plunged into confused lust and real world consequences.



9. Charlie’s Angels (2019)

In this modern day remake/sequel to the forgettable early 2000’s remakes of the dispensable 1970’s television show, Stewart is anything but as the impish and plucky agent who gives Black Widow a run for her money in terms of making her marks think they’re having their way with her when she’s actually tying them up for the kill. Stewart’s introduction to physicality (and Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters styled musings) combined with her usual magnetism is tough to take your eyes away from.



8. Cafe Society (2016)

Stewart is excellent as a participant in one of Woody Allen’s ping pong of the heart stories, and Allen’s choice to photograph Stewart exclusively in magic hour hues results in her never looking better. It’s easy to emphasize with the male protagonist (Jesse Eisenberg, in his 3rd appearance with Stewart)’s challenge in getting over her.



7. Lizzie (2018)

While the late 19th century set drama is not very much fun, Stewart’s portrayal of the hardscrabble Irish servant for Lizzie Borden’s now infamous family is quietly searing (with a lovely Irish accent to match). Off to the side of Chloe Sevigny’s vacant stare, there’s a lot going on behind the eyes of Stewart’s desperate, alone, and subservient human.



6. Catch that Kid (2004)

Don’t let the Ocean’s 1 Nickelodeon styled caper vibes fool you- this is what a star looks like when it is preparing to burst supernova. Shockingly head and shoulders above everybody else in the film (apologies to Sam Robards and John Carroll Lynch), Stewart’s barely teenager aged performance evokes shades of glamour and intrigue beyond her years that can’t be faked.



5. Seberg (2019)

In this true story, Stewart may not sound like the iconic 60’s French New Wave actress Joan Seberg, but she embodies the dream-like and naive qualities of the doomed American who hit it big while living in Paris, before the FBI systematically destroyed her life for supporting the Black Panthers. One of her more iconic and effortlessly graceful roles, it’s a shame the uneven film (and great cast) can’t keep up with her when things get raw.

4. Panic Room (2002)

One of the best child actor performances ever (Stewart turned 10 on the set). In a film featuring 3 Oscar winners (Forest Whitaker, Jodie Foster, and Jared Leto) and a memorable Dwight Yoakim, Stewart is incredible as an adolescent daughter who during a home invasion has to team up with her mother to combat burglars and the threat of a diabetic coma.

3. Personal Shopper (2016)

I’m happy to swap this with #2 below, but either way Stewart is mesmerizing as a Paris based spirit medium who is trying to make contact with her recently deceased twin brother, while she pays the bills as a personal assistant. Stewart’s penchant for naturalistic and casual performance is never better as she travels around Europe for her job, but the scenes of tension involving ghosts, and murder, up the stakes and help us empathize with her.



2. Still Alice (2014)

Longtime favourite of mine Julianne Moore won her Oscar for her role as a professor/mom who slowly succumbs to early onset Alzheimer’s Disease- and at times is eclipsed by Stewart, as one of her daughters. Stewart seems to gather momentum as the film goes on, and by the film’s final scene it feels like a torch is passed from the formidable Moore to Stewart.



1. Clouds of Sils Marie (2014)

Stewart’s best performance came seemingly out of nowhere, and announced that she was done with trying to fit in with the Hollywood system and ill fits with directors and projects that didn’t cater to her strengths. Stewart more than holds her own as the subordinate to Juliette Binoche’s aging actress character, and the movie feels mountainously empty when Stewart is not in the frame. A riveting start to the triumphant mid point of her career.

Sunday 8 March 2020

The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez

What is it about?

In 2013, Los Angeles Emergency Responses received a call from a mother saying Gabriel Fernandez, her 8 year old child, was unconscious. Ultimately, Gabriel would die in hospital care 2 days later, and authorities intervened and discovered a horrific sequence of abuse that was never acted upon by community professionals. The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is the story of what happened to Gabriel.


Why is it worth watching?

One of the sad things about child abuse that’s taken for granted is that while its impacts are both immediate and life lasting- at times its prevention can be nigh impossible. Since the industrial revolution and the advent of child labour laws, government policies, and a zeitgeist articulating that children are vulnerable citizens actually worth protecting, systems have been put in place to ensure kids can be as safe from harm as possible. The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, a slick and overly long documentary series about the 2013 horrific torture and death of a 8 year old Californian boy, is about what it looks like when those systems cease to work. For all the right reasons, it’s grueling. For its graphic descriptions and testimonials of a boy’s life being ended by cruel people that he so desperately wanted love from, for sure. But what Trials really gets into is the amount of time an incident takes, in the excruciating delay of any kind of resolution, for society to resolve just 1 specific case of substantiated abuse that traumatizes almost everybody that it touches. It says a lot about the Sisyphean task of protecting society’s more vulnerable citizens, that by the resolution of Trials, we’re presented with yet another case of child abuse- virtually identical to the one we just spent nearly 6 hours analyzing. 





Filmmaker Brian Knappenberger assembles a mountain’s worth of archival photos, talking heads segments, and glossy reenactments, that flow together to highlight its grisly subject matter’s charged emotions. Cobbling together the various family members who had a hand in raising Gabriel before he was returned to his mother, first responders, social workers, journalists, jurors, and heaps of court footage involving the case, there is no ugly stone unturned in prosecutor Jon Hatami’s quest to enact justice for young Gabriel. While the trial involves the mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, facing the death penalty for their crimes against Gabriel, their stories are briefly explained, and rarely highlighted. Part of the reason is they themselves never agreed to be interviewed for the series to tell their respective stories (leaving us to only wonder at the couple’s motivations for abusing one but not all of their children), but its mostly because Knappenberger has a more complicated story to tell- that of the safeguards of society failing to protect children.





Today’s phalanx of human services are sometimes referred to as the poverty industrial complex, where organizations such as the police and child protection services are designed to protect society’s more vulnerable members precisely like Gabriel, so the question throughout the series remains- how could this happen? The implications were so deep that 4 social workers involved in the case were also tried for murder (unprecedented in Californian history)- having to testify that they were not guilty of criminal negligence, while the police, also involved in dealing at various points with the family, did not. It says a lot about the stakes involved for child protection. The lack of an appropriate response from the professionals involved begs the question- were the respective child protection social workers poor fits for their mandate of protecting children from harm? To its credit, the series explains that child protection remains a complex and emotionally charged branch of social work practice, and those looking to make a difference in human service professions should take note at the point made here that people invested in impacting social change can be overwhelmed by the investigative and intrusive aspects of child protection- a point that perhaps not all child protection employers (and schools) make evident to prospective employees. The lack of fit creates conditions where social workers, educated in the science of building relationships to foster meaningful social change, contribute to some of the factors that lead to oppression, fostering burn out in workers, and in some scenarios, tearing apart communities through action or inaction. The documentary’s sequence of what some removals/apprehensions can look like, accompanies well documented evidence of the attachment challenges and psychological effects borne of being taken away from one’s caregivers- no matter the abuse that they suffer from those same caregivers. The stakes involved the carrying out of their jobs, are certainly a recipe for some workers to go through what theorists call, “compassion fatigue”- which leads to numb workers unable to appropriately respond to concerns voiced by concerned community members. At least in private, Police members will talk about the difficulties of their jobs in law enforcement- that people want nothing to do with their law and order, that is until their most vocal critics need them to keep them safe. Social work is similar, in the sense the industry faces criticism for being too intrusive in people’s lives, and then not enough. Knappenberger frames this dynamic with degrees of nuance, showing a home visit from a social worker (to what appears to be a protocol investigation on a foster parent) that some would label invasive and unpleasant, and others that not enough work is done to prove the child is safe. It goes to show that it might just be an impossible job.



But after seeing the evidence presented by multiple reporters to Gabriel’s abuse, the answer may not lie in the individuals involved in responding to the case, but to an enormous gap in the system. The amount of sheer work that the system makes its workers generate in the name of actually doing the work, may be the greatest threat to blocking human services’ mandates of protecting vulnerable citizens. And as the series shows, the institutions that govern people may be more invested in protecting themselves, than their clients and employees. It’s a salient possibility, that while the series’ production of evidence into what happened to Gabriel is stomach churning, the scope of possibility involving things of its nature happening again (and again) is the stuff nightmares are made of. Anyone who has read the novels, A Child Called It trilogy, or has heard about the Fritzl case, will feel a familiar bile filled pang of recognition as to the difficulties of being human, and how we as a society need to do better in our response to abuse. 





Told simply as a court room thriller, from the crime(s), to the investigation, to the trial, to the juror discussion involving consequences, and of course, the verdict, the results are electric and highly susceptible to binge watching. Given the train wreck attraction to the documentary series that essentially writes itself, the choices of interviewing some of the social workers involved and family members are welcome features (in particular the incredible outcome of one of Gabriel’s birth to toddler caregivers), but telling us about the counsellor’s lives and motivations, as well as creating a reality show dynamic towards the end, comes across too much as grand standing. And a mid story introduction to a data algorithm in Pennsylvania, that purports itself to be a superior screening assessment tool is not only unnecessary to the telling of the story and functions more as a Silicon Valley advertisement than branch of a narrative, but also ignores the fact that social workers don’t need more assessment tools (digital or otherwise)- they need more resources, more boots on the ground, to actually do the work. But quibbles and errant left turns aside, Trials is something worth bearing witness. We know the stakes and how much we love children- that’s why we watch, hoping that in the future we’ll be compelled to act more appropriately to avoid more tragedy.





4/5