Month of Movies: January 2018

Films Watched for Class: 10. End of Watch, The Grapes of Wrath, Wendy and Lucy, Sin Nombre, The Namesake, Saving Face, Far From Heaven, Moonlight, 25th Hour, Strange Days.

Other Films Watched: 7. It Follows, I'm Not There, The Post, A Ghost Story, Inside Man, The Double, Total Recall.

Top Two Films: Moonlight and 25th Hour. This is the second time that I've seen Moonlight. Now that I've rewatched it and thought more about the film-making aspect of it, it's become one of my favorite films of 2016. It also emphasized how weird it is that this small, strange movie actually won Best Picture. It jumps between three timelines, only one of which has anything resembling a plot. It cuts to a black screen with mysterious strobing lights in between the sections. A movie that opens with a blast of Boris Gardiner's "Every Nigger is a Star" and follows a gay black man in poor Miami won the most prestigious Academy Award. It's remarkably nuanced with so much subtext to the characters and their dynamics.

On the other end of great black directors is Spike Lee's 25th Hour. This wasn't going to be in my top two movie for the majority of the film's runtime. It's a day in the life of a drug dealer who's about to be sent to prison, set against the backdrop of post 9/11 New York City. The performances are great and Lee is a very dynamic director, but I wasn't fully connected. The two relationships between grown men and high school students was off-putting and the subplot about who turned Edward Norton in was uninteresting. But damn if that ending didn't completely win me over. It just keeps going and going, becoming a dream about escapism and the allure of small-town America from a father trying to comfort his son. That set-piece hit me so hard that it edged the movie into the top films of the month.

Movie Death Match: Period pieces with small roles for Bruce Greenwood and David Cross- I'm Not There or The Post? I am totally in the bag for both of these movies, at least in theory. An Oscar-caliber drama about the importance of journalism and holding the powerful accountable for their actions, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep? A sprawling, high-concept look at the life of Bob Dylan broken down into multiple timelines? These both sound amazing. I mostly enjoyed The Post as a somewhat blunt but really well-made movie about the Pentagon Papers and the struggles of the Washington Post at the time. It's just solid filmmaking: not much extraordinary and not much weak. I'm Not There alternates between being kinda messy and being completely brilliant. I think three of the timelines are incredibly well-done and the pacing that Todd Haynes uses to juggle everything is impressive. Streep is really good, but I'll take Cate Blanchett's irritated Dylan impression every time.

In terms of the two actors I highlighted above, it's a tough call. Greenwood and Cross both in the same section of I'm Not There, as a British TV reporter and Allen Ginsberg. I really liked Bruce Greenwood in both of these movies and they both give him a big scene that fits into the tone of the film. The Post has him arguing with Meryl Streep as Robert McNamara, defending his actions before even comes out; I'm Not There traps him in a surreal dream-scape set to a cover of "The Ballad of Mr. Jones." As for Cross, he's undoubtedly better in The Post. His Allen Ginsberg has a fake beard he stole from the Arrested Development set and just shouts gibberish at Cate Blanchett for two minutes of combined screen time.

Longer Thoughts About: The Namesake. This was assigned for the class' unit about immigration and coming to America. This was easily the second-best of the three movies I saw for that week of class. Mira Nair's sweeping story about an Indian family trying to shape their identity in America has some really solid moments.