Tag Archives: Movies

Cold War Marathon

This past Saturday I have several friends over for a three-movie marathon with the central theme being The Cold War. For some of the people attending the films were their first views, while others had seen at least some of the trilogy. With pizza to snack on we had a very enjoyable time.

We started off with The Manchurian Candidate, the story of poor doomed Raymond Shaw and of vast, complex international communist conspiracies to subvert the American democracy. For anyone who only knows Angela Landsbury as a sweet old lady solving mysteries, or as a welcoming animated teapot, this film is a revelation and a shock.

Following the paranoia of The Manchurian Candidate we skipped across the pond for the British film, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Spy follows the exploits of Alex Leamus, former station head of for the East German sector of British Intelligence. When Mundt, the head of East German intelligence, kills Leamus’ last agent, Leamus’ superior, code named Control, leaves Leamus in the field for one last operation in hopes if destroying Mundt. What follows is a cat and mouse game with secrets, betrayals, and the cynical premise that one cannot afford to be less ruthless than your enemy, no matter your ideals.

To counter the dreary themes of the previous two movies we ended with the black comedy Dr. Strangelove or How I stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. In Strangelove, General Jack D. Ripper, suffering a paranoid breakdown, orders his B52 bomber wing to attack the Soviet Union with its nuclear payload. Suddenly the Russian and Americans find them selves scrambling to find some way to avoid atomic war and the destruction of all life in the Earth’s surface. With farcical overdrawn characters this movie highlights the inherent absurdity and dangers of the Cold War’s nuclear standoff.

Overall I think the marathon was a success and that people enjoyed this bleak black-and-white peek at the bit of history that is not too far behind us.

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Sunday Afternoon with Film Geeks SD

One of the more fun things in San Diego is the group Film Geeks San Diego. For the last few years they have organized yearlong themed cinema celebration at the Digital Gym, a 48-seat micro-theater of art and international films. Past themes included Universal Suspects, featuring classic Universal Horror movies; Get Hammered celebrated the horror of British Hammer studios, and last year’s retrospective of John Carpenter movies.

This year’s theme, after a very close vote, is Noir on the Boulevard with each month spotlighting a different classic of the Film Noir tradition, one of my favorite genres.

This past Sunday I stopped by to enjoy a noir I had never seen, I Wake up Screaming, starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable, and Carole Landis. In addition to the feature presentation, the showing included a short introduction by Victoria Mature, daughter of the film’s lead.

After a spot of luck finding a parking spot just one block away, I entered the theater and discovered that the showing had sold out two weeks earlier. This prompted conflicting emotions. On one hand I wanted to see the movie and this was a personal disappointment, but on the other hand what coolness that the showing were generating greater interest and selling out. Luckily not all pass-holders, who account for about half the audience, showed up and all of us on the stand-by list were able to buy tickets and get in. I lucked out and I learned my lesson; buy in advance.

Victoria Mature was charming, she treated us to video clips and stories presenting sort of in-person bonus material. She also sang for us and her voice was lovely and powerful, filling the auditorium with her rich tones.

I Wake Up Screaming will not become one of my favorite noirs but it I am very glad I had a chance to see it with a live audience. The final resolution of the murder/mystery tracked about 50% with what I expected, and that was a good thing. Mysteries suffer from two common failure modes; so predictable as to be boring or so out of left field as to be utterly preposterous. (Really Agatha? How did everyone fit into such a tiny space?) This one threaded the needle presenting a solution that followed from the characters and yet was not telegraphed miles and miles away.

Next month they will be showing This Gun for Hire another I have not seen save for tiny clips appearing in LA Confidential.

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Black Panther and Wakanda’s Reality

Marvel Studios’ latest superhero movie Black Panther is proving to be a box office beast, pulling in audiences and on a trajectory to become the number 2 or 3 performing movie. (With dethroning Marvel’s: The Avengers not outside the realm of possibility.)

In addition to having a great script, sharp characters, exciting actions, and powerful performances, Black Panther had grabbed people by the heart with its vision of Wakanda, a fictional nation in the heart of Africa untouched by colonialism. For people of the African Diaspora the notion of a nation like Wakanda has proven to be powerful and liberating, but there have been people, such as Ben Shapiro, who have dismissed the emotional connection with a patronizing “Wakanda is not real.”

Of course Wakanda is not real.

Do you know what else isn’t real?

Camelot is not real.

Hercules is not real.

Paris, Helen, Achilles and Odysseus are not real.

The power of myth is not that it is real, that is history’s job, but rather myth informs us of who we are and more importantly who we want to be. Through myth people speak about the values that matter and the aspirations worth struggles and sacrifice.

Wakanda is a modern myth for people bereft of their own. For far far too many people of the African Diaspora genealogy is an impossibly, the Atlantic slave trade obliterated their history and their connection to myth. Make no mistake the attraction to Wakanda is not about the comic-book technology, the fictional metals, but rather about a culture that had flourished as its own culture, that celebrates its own people, that inspires without hand me downs from alien lands.
Something as simple has hair is fraught with the influences of colonialism and the horrors of the past. I can’t imagine enforcing a rule that expels students for natural hair and yet today such practices are too common, so a place where hair that has not been straightened and made to appear European is powerful symbol. The Wakanda myth runs far deeper than hair and appearance but it is not my myth and much of symbolism can only be an intellectual exercise for me, and one of empathy as I try to understand my fellow human beings and the world as they experience it.

I will close out this short essay with one more reference to someone who is not real.

Captain America is not real. Captain America does not represent the slaughter of native, he does not represent slavery, or Jim Crow, or any number of other ills that our country has participated in, but rather he is what we hope we can be, what our ideals demand of us. If people like Ben Shapiro cannot see that Wakanda and Captain America are really the same thing for different peoples it displays their terrible inability to see the world in any way other than their own.

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Streaming Review: The Cloverfield Paradox

This past weekend I finally got my new televisions set, a large 55″ 4K display with High Dynamic range. Naturally that meant I had to find some 4K content to watch on it the evening it was set up and ready. With a couple of friends over and after we had finished out board and card games for the evening we settled in for a movie.

Browsing through the selections on Netflix I suggested The Cloverfield Paradox, the next entry in the SF/Horror film anthology. I enjoyed Cloverfield, and 10 Cloverfield Lane, so I had decent hopes that this movie would not be a waste of time.

I was wrong.

Populated by decent actors who are entertaining to watch, The Cloverfield Paradox is ultimately a silly movie that more than strain disbelief it shatters its bones and grinds them into an abrasive power then flings that into your eyes.

The story set up is that in the near future Earth is running out of energy all our supplies are nearly exhausted. (That concept itself feels very 70s.) The only hope for humanity is an orbiting particle accelerator that if it works will supply limitless power to the entire plant. (Never mind such minor issue as a distribution grid and the like. All they need is for the thing to work.) The nations of the world are moving rapidly towards war of the lack of energy and time is running out for the station and her brave international crew.

Of course when the system is turned on there is the predicted catastrophe that had been ignored and now all manner of super strange stuff is going on. This is one of the SF movies where the writers feel that the phrase ‘Quantum Mechanics’ is an incantation that allows anything at all to happen, not matter how stupid or impossible.

Very quickly the crewmembers turn on one another and there are special effects driven deaths and injuries until this all leads to the principal character making their fateful decision and growing through their rather predictable arc.

Watching the film could have been more tedious had my friends and I not fallen into MST3K mode, but still this one is a miss. However, the space scenes and the visuals were beautiful so the TV works great!

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Movie Review: Black Panther

Ten years ago I went to the theater and watched Iron Man the little film derided at the time by mainstream Hollywood that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yesterday my sweetie-wife and I watched the latest release in the global phenomenon Black Panther.

Introduced into the MCU as a principal character in Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther continues the storyline of T’Challa (The Black Panther) as he returned home after the death of his father to assume the mantel of King of Wakanda. Wakanda is a mythical African kingdom in the MCU that is home to a reclusive and secretive people who possess both high technology and the only access to the metal Vibranium. (The material that gives Captain America’s shield it physics defying properties.) Once home T’challa is confronted with truths that have been withheld from his entire life, the complicated relationship with his ex-love Nakia, challenges to his rule, and deep moral question of what do we owe to our fellow human beings?

These story elements while clothed in comic-book action sequences, but are propelled by character and given depth by philosophy. The writing is spot on with characters having a distinct personality illuminated by dialogue and action that makes each person pop out the moment that appear on the screen. The history or Wakanda, its cultures, and the characters give a sense of deep world-building bringing verisimilitude to the fantastic setting and story, The actors are all wonderful in their performances, shining with talent and intelligence and I have my own suspicions on who will become fan favorites.

Aside from a few minor quibbles with SFX shots that are not quite up to par for the rest of the movie and a couple of gags that broke my willing suspension of disbelief this movie has set a high bar for the rest of the MCU films to follow. Of the 18 films so far released my favorites are Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War and now Black Panther. If you want me to rank them 1 thru 3 I cannot because which one takes the top spot will always be up to my mood at that moment.

Black Panther is worth full price IMAX tickets, go see this movie. It is fun, it is emotional, and it has interestingly things to say. In our current political environment we do not deserve Black Panther but we are fortunate enough to have it just the same.

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Revisiting Wonder Woman

The 2017 Superhero film Wonder Woman reached HBO and over the last two nights I have re-watched the movie. I did go out and see the movie in the theaters on its release and while the film did not wow me I did enjoy the experience, though not enough to go again or purchase the home video version. I thought it might be amusing to watch the film again and see if it still tracked to my initial reaction.

Overall the film is fun but flawed. I do not feel it was a waste of my relaxing hours to re-watch the movie but the overall effect has not changed for me.

The story is fairly basic, it is an original story dealing with the deep myth of Wonder Woman in D.C. Movie continuity. Set during the Great War, WWI for those who do not know by that title, Diana (Wonder Woman) leaves her sheltered paradise home to destroy the god of war Ares in hopes of freeing humanity his violent corruption and restoring all people to their noble versions of themselves. Along the way we are treated to truly entertaining ‘fish out of water’ sequences, a few stock characters as supports, and Diana’s love, Captain Steve Trevor. In the end Dian learns that she had not been in possession of the entire truth about humanity, war, or herself, and picks up the mantle of Wonder Woman, fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.

The script is rather simple and does not bear close scrutiny, particularly in relation to the Great War itself and the historical record. False dram is attempted by making an excursion into enemy territory as a peace-threatening event while great artillery pieces are pounded both sides. The development of a new and terrifying gas weapon provides a third act ticking clock but the mechanics of that clock are quite silly. (Really who would ever load up a bombed with a timer so you cannot leave it on the ground? Weather, often unpredictable, could doom your base and your brilliant scientist simply because you were forced to delay takeoff.

Originally Wonder Woman was a WWII set story but I can understand why they moved the period to the First World War. That war, now a hundred years in the past, is less well know by popular audiences, giving the filmmakers greater freedom in story telling, without the racists overtones and the Holocaust the morality of the war is murkier than WWII, and finally if your plot is going to revolve about a super weapon that Ares inspires humanity to create in hopes of destroying itself, well in WWII there is only one candidate for that device and that would place Diana squarely against the United States, a situation that would be untenable from a storytelling and box office position.

What makes this film enjoyable to watch is the quite skilled direction of its action scenes, hat tip to Patty Jenkins for excellent visual story telling, and the performances from its two leads, Gal Gadot as Diane and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor. This film struck a powerful cord in audiences on its release and a sequel is already in the works. I do hope that Patty and Gal get a better screenplay so we can see them really shine in a manner I am fully confident that they can achieve.

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A Power Historical Drama: Conspiracy

Monday night, when I came home from my local writers group meeting, I developed a migraine and was unable to write or read. After taking my medication I pulled up HBO Now on my apple TV and browsed for something to watch while I waited for the pill to work.

I selected the 2001 HBO/BBC production Conspiracy. It is a movie I have seen twice before and being something familiar that would work well with my migraine and I could watch just enough until the headache subsided and I could retreat to bed.

I watched the entire film.

Conspiracy is about the 1942 Wannsee conference where Nazi General Heydrich calls, at Hitler verbal directive, a meeting of the top ministries and military divisions of the Nazi government to settle the ‘Jewish Question.’ It is the meeting where the murder of millions was decided. The meeting was held under conditions of extreme secrecy, each participant was given one copy of the meeting notes and instructed to destroy them after reviewing the record. (Luckily for history Foreign Minister liaison Martin Luther failed to destroy his and the record was captured after the war’s end. It is his copy that the film script is based upon.)

With an impressive cast including but not restricted to Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci, and Colin Firth, the film is nearly a play. Set primarily in a single room, it is a large group of men talking, arguing, and giving vent to their hate. And yet with so little ‘action’ it is utterly captivating. The banality of their evil is a chilling reminder just how easily people slip between prejudice and murderous hate. How anti-Semitism comes in a sickening array of flavors, from the knuckle dragging brutes of the SS to brilliant legal minds warped by conspiratorial thinking and imaginary world spanning cabals.

The crux of the piece is of course how this meeting set the holocaust in motion, not by accident, not by lack of foresight, but by premeditated intent to murder millions.

It did not start here. It did not start with the hate, though plenty bathed in that hate and weaponized in their poisonous politics. No for Germany and its population it started with the scapegoating, the blaming, the lies and finger pointing to a marginalized population as the source of all of Germany’s troubles. It started with words.

Pay attention to the words hurled by others and those repeated by yourself, what starts as a political tactic can all too easily end on horror on unimaginable scales.

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Movie Review: The Shape of Water

I have been a fan, but not a devoted one, of Guillermo del Torro since I had the good fortune to catch Chronos during its theatrical run and from the first trailers The Shape of Water, is a movie I wanted to see.

Sadly I spent weeks in December and January sick with colds and flu, but this weekend I finally managed to make the time to go see the movie, properly in a theater.

The Shape of Water, clearly inspired by the classic Universal film The Creature from the Black Lagoon, takes place in a mythical USA, someplace between 1957 and 1961, when the country was locked in a spacer-ace and the cold war with the USSR. Elisa and Zelda work as janitorial staff in a secret government facility just outside of Baltimore when a new asset, the amphibian man is brought into the center. The new security officer, Strickland, is flat portrayal of 50’s white, heterosexual, patriarchy dominance and very much the villain and antagonist of the movie. Over the course of the story Elisa and others from marginalized communities, discover the humanity in that which is not human and the inhumanity in their own species.

The film is a fairly tale, one of del Torro’s favorite areas to work in, and the opening narration places within that genre as surely as if it had intoned, ‘One upon a time.’ The film is photographic beautifully, and the period is rendered in loving detail. The performances, over all, are sharp, layered, and nuanced. Strickland, for my tastes, is presented in a too one-dimensional manner and this weakens an otherwise strong script. I found it easier to accept a song and dance number deep within the movie than the broad, stereotypical villain. Still, it is a very enjoyable film, and one well worth seeing in a comfortable theater with good sound and image.

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