March 2018’s Feature Filmery

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Inside Out (2015):

It's hard to express how important this movie is to me. And when a kid wants to watch it, I say yes. Because I think watching this film can make you a better person.

This time through I was thinking about representation, so let's admit this is white, heteronormative, and cis. At least on the surface. When I started thinking about it, I realized the various looks inside people's heads are a bit more complicated. But honestly, I'll save these questions for other movies. Inside Out is doing too much important work in other parts of my psyche. I really believe that regular viewings of this film will keep us healthy and in communication with one another. Plus, it lets me cry in front of my children. So there's that.

ELSEWHERE

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016):

This seems to be a film that will always be enjoyable, every time viewed---not just funny and entertaining, but warm and heartfelt.

HOME

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993):

First, what a cast. The new cover Amazon's providing shows this better than the original, which though Joe Montegna was the biggest deal, but deigned to mention Ben Kingsley and Lawrence Fishburne. It also includes, in smaller roles, William H. Macy, Laura Linney, and Tony Shalhoub. That's not it but, I mean, Macy's credited as Tunafish Father. Heh.

The movie holds up,* and the scenes I remembered are still the highlights. But it also has a certain poignancy it didn't have before. The main kid we now know would drop out of college. The antagonist kid was abused as a child. Bobby Fischer came in and out of hiding and was basically insane all the way through death of renal failure. Not a lot of happy endings after the credits rolled.

* Unfortunately, our viewing experience was far from ideal so I don't know how trustworthy my thoughts are. The HDMI cord kept losing video and some weird glitch with the dvd made audio disappear; then I would have to reset the movie to just after that moment of loss so we wouldn't lose sound again but also miss out on as little as possible. The movie ended up taking us two nights to watch. Absurd.

Also, what is Ben Kingsley's accent here? And what's his real accent?

Whatever. It was good. That's enough.

ELSEWHERE

Fences (2016)^x2:

This movie gets better each time I see it. Choices I disagreed with on early viewings or didn't understand (including camera work which I originally thought drew too much attention and now find invisible in its support of the story) I have come around on.

Although! If I ever have the chance to ask Denzel Washington one question, I'm going to ask what's the deal with those windows Troy keeps looking at.

Two scenes are guaranteed to make me weep. The first is Viola Davis's Oscar clip and the second is Cory breaking down as he and Raynell sing together. But there are plenty of other highlights. Troy's inability to keep a proud face after Rose takes the baby. The montages, notably the shot of Gabe's bed. Gabe's pain when the horn won't blow and his matter-of-fact pleasure when it does. Terrific writing supported by terrific acting and solid direction.

HOME

Colossal (2016):

Here's an interesting thing:

Given the cast and the trailer, I expected a comedy. And, sure, it is a comedy. At least Aristotle would likely say so. But it's not a comedy as you and I instinctively define comedy.

This is a pretty serious movie. Depression, alcoholism, abuse. The fact that a silly monster-movie conceit does not collapse under this weight is impressive, frankly. But it does not.

I have a couple nitpicks: the paper suddenly coming loose at the right moment, the length of a certain airplane flight, the suspension-of-disbelief-damaging stupidity of Koreans. That's really it. Only the third one got in the way of the experience, and when dumb people are the least believable part of a monster movie, you're definitely in a proper monster movie.

I didn't know I wanted a cozy kaiju movie. This is why it's best to make the movie you want and not guess what the world wants.

Then again, it lost money. At least considering box office only. But most of my favorite movies land that way. And I'm not saying this is my favorite movie, but it will be for a lot of people. It will find its audience. Wait and see.

ELSEWHERE

What We Do in the Shadows (2014):

This is the third time I've seen this movie and it's gone from less than I hoped to more than I remembered to a comfortable favorite. Would happily watch again! Invite me over!

ELSEWHERE

Chinatown (2006):

This documentary doesn't exactly give one optimism for our abilities to cross cultural boundaries. Here we have people---all of whom have good intentions and assume the best intentions in others---who are constantly and utterly flummoxed by differences in expectations and understandings that they simply could not imagine and cannot understand.

What's most frustrating, maybe, is that it's what has attracted the Swedes to the Chinese that causes the Swedes problems, and it's what attracted the Chinese to the Swedes that causes theirs.

The world is complicated place, largely, thank you, to the people it carries.

ELSEWHERE

Frankenstein (1931)

The more I see it, the better it gets.

ELSEWHERE

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Same with this one. Although, those homunculi never get less weird....

Previous films watched

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Dig into genre

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018) The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, finished March 13

Although not a propulsive as the blurbs claimed, this is still a fun book. But part of its fun in 2018 is trying to figure out what,
in 1969, was cool new science and what was imagined science. And how well the novel predicts our world today. Crichton's no dummy---he was off by some decades at times, but he had a fairly good sense of where computers were going, and medical tests.

The novel is, in conceit, a work of nonfiction drawing on formerly classified texts to recreated the five days in which Earth was invaded by an alien microorganism. The primary characters are reasonably well drawn and the use of background info and science feels very honest and real. It reads, in other words, like a work of popular nonfiction. The Hot Zone would be an obvious parallel.

The book even has a references section! And while some of the articles cited are by the fictional characters, others look quite legit.
But articles published in Nature sixty years ago are hard to Google---especially when the results are flooded by Andromeda Strain bootlegs....

One thing that built suspense was the authorial editorializing on errors the scientists make in their hurried studies. But that suspense is largely deflated when the novel ends in a deus ex machina that deflates any issues that had once seemed terrifying.

If I had written this post immediately after finishing the book instead of waiting a couple hours, I might not have realized that the ending was so deus-y, but it totally is. Just suddenly the problems gone! Woot! It's a relief in the moment so it takes a moment to realize it's a bit of a rip-off. In Crichton's defense, however, Jurassic Park's entire raison d'être, arguably, is to redeem the overly simplified conclusion of this his first science-fiction novel. So good on ya, Crichton.

This book has been on my shortlist since high school, but it never quite became the book I spent my money on. I picked up a free copy a few years ago, but it wasn't until the Big O read Jurassic Park and Lost World and wanted more Crichton that this book got read. And then he pushed it on me. I'm so glad to have finally knocked it out.

I don't intend to read more Crichton outside, I hope, someday rereading Jurassic Park and then, perhaps, following it up with Lost World, myself.

under two weeks


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019) Star Wars Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to a Galaxy Far, Far Away by Tim Leong, finished March 22

This was a pretty disappointing book. I was expecting more actual facts like comparing the number of words per opening crawl or whether light-side or dark-side characters talk more about the force. (And those, few, pages were great.) But a lot of these charts merely chart Tim Leong's opinion (for example, he considers walking carpet to be the harshest zinger in the Star Wars universe [tied with slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler], but no random bar graph can prove that), or are poorly designed jokes.

Plus, frankly, I just don't care about the tv shows. I'm never going to watch them.

two or three days


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020) Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, finished March 25

I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend, who thinks it would make a better template for a Supes movie/show than the schlock of late. The basic concept is this:

In a world that is essentially our own, this poor kid growing up in smalltown Kansas is always getting razzed because his name is Clark Kent.
His relatives always give him Superman-themed gifts and the kids at school never tire of pushing him over. Then, one day in adolescence,
suddenly, holy crap, he has superpowers. Roughly Superman's.

Let it rip.

I enjoyed the story, but at first I thought it was too meta to work as a film. And that's sort of true of the first percentage of the book.
But eventually it outgrows its meta beginnings and grows into something new and exciting and pretty remarkable.

Clark grows up, falls in love, shares his secrets, gets married, has children, grapples with being a father, grapples with old age.

Sure, there's superheroing going on in the background, but this Clark Kent values his privacy far more than his fictional namesake---hardly anyone knows he exists.

And so this is a book that using superheroing as more than a metaphor for adolescence (I'm stealing from Busiek's intro here), but explores how that metaphor works at other stages of life as well. And with aplomb.

It's not totally unique in this respect of course---Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come explored ages far from adolescence, and I'm hopeful the Incredibles are going to continue looking at life writ broad. But this is one life from near-beginning to near-end, and that patience of scope made for a good read.

But I don't see a film here. I see a LIMITED TELEVISION EVENT of, say, five or so hourlong episodes. That's how I would want it done.

three days


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The other books of 2018

1 – 4

001) Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 3 by Ta-Nehisi Coates &‎ Brian Stelfreeze & al., finished January
002) The Complete Peanuts 1950-2000 by Charles M. Schulz & al., finished January
003) The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, finished January 10
004) El Deafo by Cece Bell, finished January 12

5 – 9

005) Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice by Mike Maihack, finished January 13
006) Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve by Ben Blatt, finished January 15
007) Glister by Andi Watson, finished January 18
008) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 20
009) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun by J.R.R. Tolkien, finished January 21

10 – 11

010) The Vision by Tom King et al., finished January 23
011) Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds, finished January 24

16 – 16

012) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished February 8
013) The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee, finished February 14
014) Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle, finished February 21
015) It Needs to Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen, finished March 7
016, 017) Fences by August Wilson, finished March 8

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* the most recent post in this series *
_____________________


final booky posts of
2007 = 2008 = 2009 = 2010 = 2011 = 2012 = 2013 = 2014 = 2015 = 2016 = 2017

Boy, at this rate, the pile of books I read this year may make it all the way to the bottom of the bedspread.

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011) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished February 8

I'm so done with this book. But then I heard from the sophomore teachers that a bunch of their students listed it as the best book they've read in school.
So. Here we go again.

a week


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012) The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee, finished February 14

I found this 1990 collection, Lee's second, because I'm a fan of the poem "A Story." The collection follows the poem's lead---it's largely about parental relationships, memory, the past bleeding into the present. I found it a bit repetitive, but it also had some killer, killer lines.

this week


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013) Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle, finished February 21

My march continues. A Wrinkle in Time is beautiful and moving. A Wind in the Door is overly philosophical and drags.
Many Waters is the best read, so far. I didn't start with high hopes; Sandy and Dennys start the book still in Frank and Joe Hardy mode, and, to be frank,
they never quite distinguish from one another, but the world they fall into and the characters they interact with are interesting and real in a way most of the characters in those previous two volumes were not. Which isn't to say this book too isn't rife with poetry and philosophy and reachings toward meaning, but story is king here. Which isn't to say this book is some sort of boilerplate thriller or fantasy novel---far from it. In the largest aspects, our protags have very little agency available to them. But in the day-to-day of their adventure, they do have agency and they use it well. And there's something very honest about that.

Anyway, here's the set-up: Sandy and Dennys come home from a hockey practice and fool with an on-going experiment by their father, sending them back in time to antediluvian desert where they meet Noah and his family and neighbors. The reality of God (El) and angels is clear and unquestioned by the text, and our rational,
practical brothers have to come to grips with their new reality. Which they do. They live there most of a year.

This is a much more grown-up book than AWIT or AWITD. Sandy and Dennys become adults. Have to make adultlike decisions. Sex and childbirth are important to the story.

It's also a very feminist book. And very Christian. And thoroughly provocative. If you like L'Engle and have missed this one, highly recommended. Maybe just get one without the cover mine has.

three-plus months


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014) It Needs to Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen, finished March 7

Great book. Coming out in May. I'll have more to say, but I need to find a venue....

maybe a month


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015, 016) Fences by August Wilson, finished March 8

Unlike Anthem, I am so not done with this book. Every read a kid points out something I haven't seen before and every time the class reacts so deliciously to certain lines. (E.g., spoiler alert, "You a womanless man.")

Great, great play. Even the stage directions are poetry.

four days


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The other books of 2018

1 – 4

001) Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 3 by Ta-Nehisi Coates &‎ Brian Stelfreeze & al., finished January
002) The Complete Peanuts 1950-2000 by Charles M. Schulz & al., finished January
003) The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, finished January 10
004) El Deafo by Cece Bell, finished January 12

5 – 9

005) Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice by Mike Maihack, finished January 13
006) Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve by Ben Blatt, finished January 15
007) Glister by Andi Watson, finished January 18
008) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 20
009) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun by J.R.R. Tolkien, finished January 21

10 – 11

010) The Vision by Tom King et al., finished January 23
011) Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds, finished January 24

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

* the most recent post in this series *
_____________________


final booky posts of
2007 = 2008 = 2009 = 2010 = 2011 = 2012 = 2013 = 2014 = 2015 = 2016 = 2017