I’m working my way through
two composite posts arranged around different themes, which will go online soon. In the meantime, I will collect my off-topic
commentary under this heading, and update accordingly.
When my brother posted his
own Top 25 list of political movies, which I took as the sincerest form of
flattery, I endorsed his picks in turn, but they led me to two recent films I’d
missed, because I need a particular reason to see anything with a Metacritic
rating of less than 75. The only film on
his list that I hadn’t seen was Miss Sloane (2016, MC-64, AMZ),
and I was glad to watch it. Jessica
Chastain in the title role would have been enough, but the supporting cast is
generally good, and John Madden’s direction is workmanlike, though the story is
over-plotted and under-characterized.
Miss Chastain is a Washington
Chris mentioned Election as
one film he’d missed, and I replied that it would perfectly replace his one
clunker – with one of my all-time favorites, the film that made me a life-long fan
of Reese Witherspoon and director Alexander Payne. Thinking of Payne made me wonder what he’d
done lately, which led me to the overlooked Downsizing (2017,
MC-63, Hulu), and again I was glad to watch it, even if it didn’t come up to his
best. The film takes an intriguing
premise, and amusing set-up, to wander all over the map, both literally and
figuratively. Norwegian scientists have
discovered how to shrink people to a height of five inches, and propose that as
an answer to ecological disaster, as a way to use less of the world’s
resources. But science in the service of
capitalism and marketing means the creation of the ultimate in gated
communities for small people, where their assets in the big world buy them so
much more. Matt Damon is our bland
Nebraskan surrogate in entering this world.
Things do not turn out as he expects, and the story takes many twists,
too convoluted to recount, for him to end up linked with a peg-legged
Vietnamese dissident, a character who was criticized in p.c. circles, but whom
I found touching and very well acted.
Too ambitious and diffuse, this sci-fi satire is a departure for Payne
but still fun to watch.
I watched several
documentaries on the principle of “know your enemy.” Donald Trump found the answer to his own
question with William Barr, but Where’s My Roy Cohn? (MC-70,
Starz) explains why he was asking in the first place, by going back to its
subject, the sleazy lawyer whose smear is all over postwar political
shenanigans, from McCarthy to the mob to Nixon to Reagan to Trump, up to his own death from AIDS, in spite of denial by the closeted homosexual. This evil lizard of a man laid down many of
the rules Trump follows to this day: defend by attacking, win at all costs, by
any means necessary. It’s an amazing mystery
that such an odious person could succeed for so long as a power broker at the
highest levels. A mystery we haven’t
solved yet, though this film offers some clues.
Pairs well with PBS “American Experience” doc McCarthy to show
how America
Though he is off the main
stage these days, Steve Bannon is definitely one of the culprits in where we
are now, but I had to watch American Dharma (MC-62, Kanopy)
because I almost never miss an Errol Morris film. On the one hand Morris is giving Bannon a
platform he hardly deserves, but on the other hand revealing the man as a self-promoting
fantasist who fancies himself an American mythologist, deep thinker, and master
of all media. As with McNamara and
Rumsfeld and many other subjects, Morris reveals more about them than they can imagine as
they seem to be having their own say. His
directorial flourishes, burning flags and such, as well as some of his
interview questions, make it clear enough where he stands, but he does offer extended clips from the 1950s war films and Westerns that provide Bannon’s
myths.
Though I wish I’d seen the
last of Bannon, a number of comparative comments made me look up The
Brink (MC-71, Hulu). While it’s
not exactly enjoyable to spend another hour and a half in his company, Alison
Klayman’s fly-on-the-wall verité documentary does carry the so-called
“populist-nationalist” story through the 2018 midterms and out into the
world. After being dumped by Trump and
then Breitbart, Bannon marginalized himself by ardent support for pedophile
nutcase Roy Moore (to replace Jeff Sessions in Senate), then took his act on
the road to Europe, where he tried to form a consortium of neo-fascists in
Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, and elsewhere. While Bannon is more adept at self-promotion
than political action, it’s useful to see and understand how he is exploiting, and trying to extend, right-wing political movements around the globe.
At the opposite pole of
documentary portraits, Crip Camp (MC-86, NFX) follows a number of
differently-abled young people from a Catskill summer camp run by hippies in
the 1970s, where they first experienced acceptance and inclusion, to decades of
future activism and advocacy that climaxed with passage of the Americans with
Disabilities Act. A thoughtful and
empathetic recounting of a civil rights success, it’s no surprise that this is
another production sponsored by the Obamas.
To polish off my month’s
subscription to Starz, I re-watched 24 Hour Party People (2002,
MC-85), which I originally saw because of my interest in director Michael
Winterbottom but turned out to be my first encounter with Steve Coogan, and I
have followed their careers avidly since, both together and apart. Coogan plays Tony Wilson, a tv celebrity who
turned Manchester
I sought out the rural
Turkish picaresque Wild Pear Tree (MC-86, Kanopy) because I
follow the career of Nuri Bilge Ceylan (esp. rec. Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia), but I did so in a very disjointed way, which seemed to fit with
the leisurely and episodic nature of this long film. A recent university grad returns to his
provincial region, to hang out at his parents’ place, hoping to avoid either a
teaching or a military assignment. He
goes around with an autobiographical manuscript about the region, looking for a
way to get it published, and having extended conversations with businessmen and
political functionaries, authors and imams.
To call him hangdog would be a slur on our canine friends. He seems like a bundle of grievance and need,
and yet the conversations are engrossing.
Even one with a woman other than his mother or sister! Ultimately he comes across as understandable,
if not sympathetic. Though the author of
the book within the film makes a cameo appearance himself, you sense from
earlier acquaintance that Ceylan is painting a sardonic self-portrait on another’s
canvas.
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