2017: Tʜᴇ Mᴏᴠɪᴇs part two

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In theaters:

The Boss Baby (2017): I wasn't that interested in this movie until I read an article saying that the filmmakers tried to bring a traditional 2D sensibility to 3D animation. The books (1, 2) are great reads---at least as the current owner of a baby I think so---but the trailer showed that the movie was going to stray pretty far from the basic concept they present. In fact, having now seen the movie, it introduces even more high-concept nonsense that could very well have overwhelmed it with bad attempts at making absurdity rational. Many a kids' movie has perished under such a pressing. What makes Boss Baby not only survive but thrive under this weight is its open embrace of childhood imagination. And the 2D sensibility comes into play here. Many of the openly imagined scenes look crafted by Mary Blair or other midcentury concept artists / Golden Books illustrators. In other words, this film gives us what we think we want from a modern animated film, and delivers it through the medium of what our souls actually crave. I hope it's a harbinger.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): This is just pure, crackling entertainment. Laffs. Tears. Surprises. Action. Reversals. Reveals. Joy. Sadness. Explosions. Suggestions of depth. Arguments for meaning. Color. Charm. Pleasure.

Wonder Woman (2017): Another great superhero movie with more than the average blockbuster's amount of depth. A lot of the movies wonder grows from watching Diana develop from a naif to one with wisdom. It's hard-earned. But Gal Gadot was up to the task. If this role doesn't overwhelm our impressions of her, she'll be around a long long time and should have an interesting career. Also: her theme is one of the greatest of all time. The first time I heard it (earliest trailer) it already felt like it had been hers since the birth of metal.

At home:

Back to the Future (1985): With bis brothers both gone to Grandma's a couple days, son #2 deserved something special and in this case that was letting him watch a movie he's been begging to watch ever since his older brother got to see it two Decembers ago. I wasn't so excited to see it again so soon, but wanted the experience to be as special for him as he hoped it would be. So I faked enthusiasm. Didn't take long for the enthusiasm to turn real, however, as, let's face it: this is a pretty great movie. Of course, no he wants to watch the sequels....

The Puffy Chair (2005): Ah, the birth of mumblecore! The movie that launched an empire! This film was filmed on the cheap^* (and it shows), but it's well written and well acted and small enough to fit in the budget. I'll never watch it again and I don't know that I would necessarily recommend it, but I get why it's a touchstone and I thought it was truthful about things in a way that I understood, even if this is not my life. (In a way that, say Linklater's Dazed or Boyhood did not for me.)

Son of Kong (1933): This is a straight sequel to the original King Kong, bringing back several key and side players of the original cast (or crew, I suppose, being primarily men of the ship). The set-up is strong, but it loses its way a bit on the island---Kong junior plays for laughs a few times, mugging the camera and everything. And just as the story is taking off, they find treasure and a simultaneous earthquake/hurricane destroys the island. So while a lot of the instincts here were good, the execution of the last two acts gets more rushed and more sloppy until it's suddenly just over. Still: kid-friendly.

A Town Called Panic (2009): The kids got into this almost immediately, notwithstanding their aversion for subtitles. And of course! It's hilarious! But what interests me about the film is how much madness and absurdity it manages to hang on an extremely traditional structure.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016): I'm still filled with regret for not voting with my dollars and seeing this in theaters last summer, but hey! We watched it! It was good! My stomach doesn't ache from laughing as I expected, but it was funny---Sam Neill is brilliant, the kid is ... um, is "the boy Rebel Wilson" unkind? And Rhys Darby is a bleeding treasure. My dad would love this movie ... I'll bet you will too.

Fun and Fancy Free (1947): Although I've seen "Bongo" a time or three and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" many many times, I'm not sure I've seen the full, connected package before. (And I'm fairly certain I'm more familiar with the Ludwig Von Drake-narrated version of M&thBs that was made for tv.) To my surprise, the kids' favorite part of the show was probably Charlie McCarthy's snide remarks. Time to break out the Bergen!

To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters (2016): I was confused the first half hour because I was certain the severe stout sister must be Anne and confused at the role she was taking in the family. Once I got the casting sorted out, I did much better. The cinematography is beautiful. And you know, for all the tragedy, what a family to be born into.

Midnight Special (2016): Acting, editing, cinematography, etc very real. As Lady Steed says, "It felt real. Like it could really happen." The end even has realistic loose ends. In fact, it seemed to suggest new loose ends (was that flicker a "twist"?). And I didn't like the Tomorrowland-esque visuals at the end. I don't know that attempting to execute, say, a heavenly look would have been better or not. I dunno. It's weird for such a good movie to be rather ungood. Perhaps---perhaps it improves with further viewings. I can see that.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016
): We watched it with the boys and I have to say: it's better the second time.

Noroît (1976): This is a strange, strange movie. Which is fine, but in this case I think I would have been well served to do some reading up on it before digging in. The way it uses an old play in English (probably by Middleton) and the artistic choice to reimagine the utility of language in film took me most of the movie to figure out on my own. My favorite part is one of the murder-by-dance sequences at the end. The film this most reminds me of is Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead in how it incorporates old theatrical elements into the movie. This one, however, manages to get less and less filmic just as it starts introducing techniques that only exist in film. Curious movie.

Hail, Caesar! (2016): The scene with the religious figures was the best of its kind since Hudsucker Proxy; the film homages were delightful even when they highlighted my ignorance; the religious aspects were honest; Clooney was underutilized; I really need to see it again to figure out just what I think.

All the President's Men (1976): We had to keep pausing this movie so we could chat and make sure we were grasping all the threads and the end comes in a massive rush of type, but overall the movie was terrific and eerily NOW. Lady Steed was convinced Woodward and Bernstein were going to die. All I can say is, when reporters start dying, that's when the American experiment will truly be over.

Sully (2016): The structure of this film is pretty interesting---how it keeps circling around the central incident, showing it from different angles, perspectives, understandings. It takes a couple shortcuts in storytelling (the bureaucrat's a meanie! now he's not!), but they're classy enough that they don't really damage the experience too much (understanding their motivation in making certain assumptions would have been nice, but okay). Certainly it was stressful when it was supposed to be---which is important even in a disaster movie where no one dies.

The Handmaiden (2016): In retrospect, probably should not have watched this. Those sex scenes may well prove sticky. That said, this movie was wonderfully crafted. Complex, circuitous, ambiguous, confusing, revealing, beautiful. I needed to read the Wikipedia article to clear a few things up---probably because I watched the movie in three or four pieces over six weeks---but even with those moments of confusion, it was coherent and lovely. Hitchcock would have been impressed.

Elsewhere:

Romeo and Juliet (1968): I am so intimately familiar with this movie now that I can tell when someone's reaction begins a shade too soon or the edit reveals someone facing a slightly different direction. In other words, I'm moving past opinions of good or bad and into something purely factual. I'm prepared for every finger-wiggle. It's weird to watch a movie from the perspective of omniscience.

The Ghost Writer (2010): I just read the book and so I wanted to see the movie. This is a case where that was a grave mistake. Based on the reviews, it seems like it must be a pretty good movie, but it didn't fare so well in the side-by-side comparison. Some setpieces (eg, the ferry footchase and the concept [if not the execution] of the denouement) count as improvements, but knowing what was coming weakened the film beyond repair. Perhaps it's unfair to come into a thriller knowing its twists. Then again, how many times can one watch Vertigo without it losing its thrills? (Answer: at least one more.)

Romeo + Juliet (1996): To me, this film is as fresh and as vital as the first time I saw it (2005?). But I realized this time around that it might not seem that way to fourteen-year-old anymore. I'm also worried that their filmic vocabulary is too limited to really understand what they're seeing. I'm not sure. Never base conclusions on one set of kids. As for me, this is the only cultural event I missed during my mission that's tinged by regret.

Fences (2016): I know this play extremely well. I've been teaching it about three years now and read it at least a dozen, probably twenty times. I know it. The first half of the movie I had the same kind of experience as with The Ghost Writer---it was just people saying words I knew. But the second half of the move tore out my heart and shredded it and then built me a new one prone to weeping. Terrific movie.

Forbidden Zone (1980): I heard about this movie on a podcast and decided I needed to watch it. Now, in my opinion, this kind of madcap surrealism, even when well done, is best finished under ten minutes. This is over seventy. (Also, I discovered after watching it, it's been colorized. I don't know how easily available the original b&w is to find.) But it's pure madness. I could cite you references and similarities all day, but here are a few to help you get a sense: Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, pre-Mickey Silly Symphonies, Max Fleischer, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, Mary Reid Kelley, Nightmare Before Christmas.The plot doesn't really matter. The point is that the id has been loosed and we're lost in a dreamland with its own logic, absurd (and non-nice) as that may be.

Pride & Prejudice (2005): Every time I watch this movie I'm struck by the differences with the novel, but I still love it. The acting is terrific, the cinematography is stunning, the score is lovely. I will always have issues with the last two minutes, but overall I think it's a wonderful film. Man, those cameras! And I for one love the warmer Mr and Mrs Bennet relationship. And the general earthiness of the thing.

F for Fake (1973): This is a strange movie and I was deadly tired when I was watching it. I probably should have stopped it and just taken a nap, but I was afraid of losing hold of its many threads and kept going. I suspect that, regardless, this is a film not easily appreciated upon first viewing anyway. I can't honestly say that I liked it or disliked it, but listening to Orson Welles for 88 minutes is pleasure enough, don't you agree?

Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995): A charming documentary by his former partner and muse made largely from Welles's own unused footage. It humanizes him greatly. It shows that he could have been a master of YouTube had he hung around long enough. Clearly he never stopped working, even if fate and temperament kept him from finishing things. It also suggests a second something that may have gotten in the way: that very muse. He was clearly infatuated with her body---and so was she. In this film she includes a lot of her own youthful nudity. I think they may both have been seduced more by her youthful pneumatics than by his wisdom and experience.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): First time I've seen the unedited thing! Like most Americans, I've only ever seen this film on tv. Put together, it's marvelous. It's been long enough since I've seen it at all that I can't really speak to the differences between this version and the tvified version---I wasn't surprised by anything---but it was unquestionably a thing of beauty. Almost too beautiful, maybe, but true enough that skepticism doesn't stick.

Casablanca (1942): Gets better every time. EV ER Y TIME.

Spirited Away (2001): I love this movie, but apparently they're watching it in a couple other classes, so I need to substitute it for another Miyazaki movie. Maybe it's time to try Mononoke again....

Psycho (1960): I love watching/hearing jaded teenage audiences react to this movie.

Rushmore (1998): A couple elements of this movie have suddenly aged (mostly kissing scenes), but it's still a masterpiece.

Do the Right Thing (1989): I skipped about 90 seconds of a certain scene, and with that gone I have no regrets about using this film. It shakes the kids, it brings some needed diversity to what I'm teaching, it full of Filmic Stuff, its literary while pushing against our stereotypes of what that means. It's a rough movie, but it's so human we can take it.

The Iron Giant (1999): Anyone who saw it as a child---even if they watched it over and over---is amazed when they revisit it later and discover it is capable of tearing out your soul and shining the light of heaven through it.

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987): The end of this movie is truly beautiful, but the first two acts are centered around an almost documentarian set of scenes of a) Robin Williams performing and b) scenes of everyday life in Vietnam. As I've never found Robin Williams to be all that funny, this got tiresome. I don't regret waiting this long to watch the movie, but neither do I regret having finally seen it. It's a curious snapshot of what the Sixties looked like when they were only twenty years old.

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Myths of the Norsemen, Criminals, Imakulatans, and Mahometans

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075) Norse Mythology by Neil Gaimain, finished June 19

Two compliments which may not read that way:

This book reads like other books of myth I have sampled and enjoyed over the years like Hamilton or the D'Aulaires.

This book is a fun read and manages to have a through-line that almost tastes like plot.

I really only read this book through so quickly because I happened to see it on the library's new shelf and I have to return it before we leave town. So I rushed through it. Which was really the right way to read it and the opposite of how I anticipated reading it when, someday, I took it into my hands.

For instance, the sense of a beginning a middle and an end is the sort of thing that would have been lost, spreading Norse Mythology over a couple years. Also,
the names of characters and things would have required either confusion or frequent travel to the glossary. As it was, I didn't need the glossary. And I even caught a rarely-mentioned-god's-name typo I was so aware of my surroundings.

There's really no one better to take on the task of making Norse myth available to the general public than Neal Gaiman, and he's done a commendable job.

Although....

three or four days



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074) Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes by Matt Kindt, finished June 16

Here's a remarkable book. I would place it alongside my favorite crime novels, books like Glass City and Mr White and the Colorado Kid and that penguin novel. Yes, it's noirish. Yes, it speaks of clarity while while dropping the reader into a sea of confusion. Yes, it has much more to say about life and the human condition than about any specific crime. And yes, the crimes are fascinating and strange and compelling and unlikely.

I finish this book not even sure that cause and effect occured in the correct order.

Here's the skinny: a Holmes-level detective solves everything, but doesn't understand anything. He can't understand right and wrong until he crosses that line himself.

The art covers plenty of ground---part of the story is just word balloons, part is newspaper comics---and it all works.

It's bold and creative stuff. I'll have to look for more from this Kindt fellow.

two or three days



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073) Wyrms by Orson Scott Card, finished June 15

I got a stack of '80s Card from a rummage sale and I will (eventually) read them all. I was never particularly interested in this particular book but it had the most beat-up cover, so I taped it up and read it first. (Incidentally, the volume currently on Amazon shares my version's art, and I don't like it. That's nothing like what geblings look like! This perverted my ability to properly visualize the book!)

Anyway, plotwise this is lighter than Ender's Game; philosophywise, it's lighter than Speaker for the Dead. It was released immediately on the heels of those novels when his cachet was at its mostest, and it's a worthy successor. It doesn't quite reach the heights of those novels, but it's no slouch.

Let's talk characters first, then we'll get to plot and philosophy.

The main character is a precocious early teen---a deadly assassin, brilliant, emotionally aware. A typical Card protag, in other words.

She surrounded a mentor with an unknown hidden agenda. Distant (or dead) parents. Distrustful authority figures. Aliens whose minds and biology are radically different from our own.

Again, it seems like Card has taken the notions from the first two Ender books and reshuffled the deck. This is not a knock. He's very good at this stuff. And none of it is "the same"---we're in the distant, distant future on a faraway planet, for instance. And the world is wonderfully realized. It's good stuff.

The plot is a basic quest---young person goes out, is changed, comes back. And at times the structure is almost picaresque---I didn't realize we were on a quest until near the end of the book when I happened to glance at the back. I'm a bit embarrassed, but sometimes the trees are so fascinating you can miss the forest.

The philosophy rests on various comparisons between passion/desire, will, memory, relationships with others---and asking where is the true self located? The question is explored through pages of discussion between the characters, but also through the species that share the pages. Gaunts have no will. Dwelfs have no memory. Geblings share an "othermind" while humans are utterly alone within their minds.

One thing: my game of imagining how to film the novel I am reading was a grotesque failure this time. So much of what happens in this novel is hidden deep inside characters that filming it seems impossible. So much of importance has the sole visual of faces failing to reveal what they think. This is truly a novel of ideas and bringing them to screen would require a complete recreation of the novel.

Which is fine anyway as much of what is filmable is . . . problematic. And I just don't mean the creative and bloody violence. There's also [SPOILERS] a teenage girl getting raped by a giant space slug (and sometimes [but only sometimes] liking it)---and then making a life with a man a whole lot older than her. I haven't seen Game of Thrones, but I'm not sure even it went this far.

In the final analysis, this is a fine novel. Great for completists. Great for fans of the genre. Great for people who want to read just one Card book that will present much of what he is great at.

But not one of his clear masterpieces.

a couple weeks



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072) Cairo by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker, finished June 13

I know Wilson's work only in the form of Ms Marvel, but I wanted to know more. Starting with another comic.

This one takes place in Cairo (tada!) and is tonally separate from her Marvel work. That said, it is equally fantastic. A major character is a jinn, scenes take place in a -like "Undernile," and then there's this:

THAT's how you use a medium to move story forward in a way other media cannot.

Anyway, a couple American characters (one of whom starts out as a would-be suicide bomber), an Israeli soldier (were this to be made into a movie, the producers first question would be, can we afford Gal Gadot?), an Egpytian drug runner, an Egyptian journalist, a magical ganglord---you name it!

The story is coherent all the same and a delightsome introduction to some cultural concepts I'm pretty ignorant of (cf jinn). But it never really sang for me.
Part of that was the art. Overall it was fine, but sometimes Perker's humans didn't quite seem human. And sometimes Wilson left heavy lifting for the art (eg,
the romantic development), and the faces just weren't up to the task.

Plus, if you're thinking Ms Marvel was good for my kids, know that this has, you know, swears and icky violence and sexy dancers and such.

two days

Previously in 2017

These are the books

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071) Abstract City by Christoph Niemann, finished June 9

I know Niemann's work from The New Yorker and WIRED, but I hadn't given him much thought until I bumped into one of his visual essays on National Geographic. I then put every Niemann book our local library has on hold. Most were kids' picture books, and I liked them, but this book I liked very much indeed.

It's a collection of his visual essays. They range from slice-of-life to series of puns to humorous "science" essays to historical remembrances to memoir.... And the art that goes along with each essay is unique. Several, sure, use his inky style, but one, while in that style, is drawn with coffee on napkins. One is made from cut leaves. The Berlin Wall essay is composed of weaved black and orange paper (analog pixel art!). One is made of ... shall we call them voodoo dolls?

In other words, Niemann is succeeding at baizzerrism beyond even my stated intentions. So of course I like him.

Anyway, in essence, what we have here is someone pushing their skills into whatever whimsical direction he pleases, and uncovering delight every step along the way.
Or, in other words, here is a fellow who has held onto the fun in art.

The afterword is an essay I would like to bring to my classes. Creativity is always possible. It just takes work and work and work. That's all. Anyone can do it.
So long as they work.

a few days



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070) The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple, finished June 8

This is a book I found through BAC. I have no idea what it is or what it's about. I mean, sure, I can tell you scores of details, but no way I can answer the seemingly simple question, What the hell?

The book is scrambled in terms of time and geography and reality, its violence not only literal but in the very lines and colors smeared across the page.

Unquestionably, reading this book is an experience.

about a month



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069) Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham, finished June 5

I think, for girls, these things tend to be more intense (or perhaps this is more a comment on my people skills), but I recognize these feelings.

Shannon Hale's comics memoir (drawn by her Princess in Black-partner) is filled with the sorts of ambiguities we expect from good literature. In her afterward, she even says that she left some parts messy (that she would not have in fiction) because it was more true. Maybe, perhaps, I want more nonfiction from my YA novelists.

Because the messiness does make it more true. Even our hero engages in casual, accidental cruelty. And that cruelty may never be revisited because life is not that neat.

One of the most heartening things about this book---and part of the reason I expect it will become a classic---is that everyone is weak at times, everyone is strong.
Everyone is kind at times, everyone is cruel. And they all become real people.

And the future looks bright indeed. Ending on hope for that future is satisfying because it doesn't promise too much---while also promising the whole world.

one evening



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068) Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, finished June 1

The introduction from personal favorite Connie Willis set me up to expect to be immediately wowed.
I was not. I was, however, intrigued. And I kept reading.

Ish, our hero, is a man of his time. Like another book I read recently,
the novel is liberal-minded and thus exposes its of-the-time illiberal failures (racism, sexism) by how it attempts to be enlightened. (Makes me wonder what we'll sound like in seventy years.) But part of this, it ends up, is civilization itself.

Like Ish, I'm desperate to see this postapocalyptic life be redeemed by books and reading and education and civilization, goldarn it! (Skip to the ** to avoid grand-scale spoilers.)

It's when Ish is able to give up on civilization---or, more accurately, see that his bias for civilization is unjustified---that the book goes from being a just-fine postapocalypto to something startling, something that makes my soul feel like it's standing on the edge of a cliff with only clouds below.

And it's not just Ish's giving up on civilization that gives this feeling; it's also the way Stewart represents him as an old man. I don't know if that's what being ancient feels like, but it felt real. My insides feel emptied out and filled with ice.

I still feel a bit like that moment when the rollercoaster crests....

**I only heard about this book when a local oldtimer told me and Lady Steed it was a step up from Station Eleven, both because she found the newer book underwhelming and because Earth Abides takes place locally, which is nice added-value.

I disagree as to the relative qualities. I think Station Eleven is, overall, the superior novel, but that is no knock on Earth Abides which is powerful in its own way. And I agree that reading anything ever that takes place where you live is of itself powerful. We should all have that experience. Not just people from Manhattan.

Anyway, if you want to read a postapocalypse that lets the violence sing between the scenes and focuses instead on one man's mind and his relationship with other people,
the past, and the future, this is the one for you. It ain't no Road. And although Earth Abides apparently inspired it, I suspect it ain't no Stand either. It's too quiet a book for that.
But that's how it gets you.

more than five months

Previously in 2017

Circus Screams

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Lady Steed and I took our middle child (the only one to engage in either circus or music training with any seriousness) to see our friend Sam's Circus Screams last night. (The baby also came along and, happily, she slept through it.)

It was pretty great. A smorgasbord of artifice!* You can get a sense of its aesthetic by looking at video and photos on Twitter.

I didn't know the show was going to be funny. But it was, largely thanks to the work by Natasha Kaluza who played three characters and whose killer mime skills moved the show from the literal to the imagination---much of what happens in the show wouldn't make sense without her laying the groundwork. In fact, a scene near the end similar to her scenes lost some of my companions (we ran into more friends at the show) because the man executing them lacked Kaluza's ability to clearly signify that what we were seeing had left the realm of the literal.

But first and foremost, Circus Screams was a musical performance. We have the cd, but I think I will find my way into it more easily now having seen it live. Yes the circus performers / actors helped here, but just seeing the band make the music also gave it life. (If you've never been to see music live---complicated music you don't quite understand---this may be why you don't quite understand it. Having seen it, you might still lack understanding, but it will live for you.

But enough with the preaching in the second person.

For all the laffs and murder and discord and acrobatics and audience-participation screaming, the show closes on a quiet trumpet solo. A prolonged moment in which the violence and absurdity and artifice recede and the audience is pointed toward the direction of . . . reality? But I hesitate to call it contemplative and I hesitate even more to sully this post with an unpleasant word like "reality." So let's just say that it's a quiet moment at the end, and we can all make of it what we will.