Month of Movies: August 2018

Total Films Watched: 11. L7: Pretend We're Dead, Chi-raq, Mississippi Grind, Tokyo Idols, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, His Girl Friday, Children of Men, Mulan, Amy, The Princess Bride, Draft Day.

Top Two Films: Children of Men and Amy. A lot has already been written about Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, so I will just add two small points. First- the movie has always been cited as an especially prescient version of a near-dystopia. But while I was writing this, I read a GQ article about rising male infertility that could end humanity, so that narrative around the movie will keep getting louder. Second- I want to mention how many animals are in the movie. They're everywhere, from the untouched wilderness at Michael Caine's compound to the war-torn immigrant camps. It plays into the obvious Biblical aspects of the movie, which centers on a miracle child being smuggled to safety. But I also think it plays like a cruel joke on nature's behalf- man cannot reproduce, but all these other species are still breeding as normal.

In all honesty, The Princess Bride is easily the second-best film I saw and arguably the one I love watching the most. But I ended up on a music documentary binge and wanted to shout out the high-water mark from that subgenre. Amy Winehouse is a very compelling musician and director Asif Kapadia gets across so much about her as both a performer and a person. What pushes it above the L7 film for the top slot are the consistent style and focus. The talking head interviews are always off-screen and feel like the voices are in conversation with each other. I also love the touch of the lyrics appearing on-screen, which emphasizes her lyrical skills and makes the footage more dynamic. It could be a little shorter and not through the interview names up for literally every moment they have, but I enjoyed the movie a lot overall.

Movie Death Match: Female-led, Asian-set musical films- Tokyo Idols or Mulan? These are possibly the most disparate movies I've thrown into a death match. One is a completely obscure documentary about J-pop and the devoted fandom these teenage singers build up. The other is a relative classic among the Disney canon, a musical comedy about finding your true self and murdering an entire army.

Seriously, Mulan causes an avalanche that wipes out almost the entire Hun army and then explodes the main villain with a fireworks display. It has to be the biggest act of destruction caused by a Disney hero, and especially a Disney princess. The movie is formulaic, except for when it has strange pacing. I was shocked by how long it takes for Mushu to appear and how much shoe-horning it takes to get him into the main plot. The songs are fine, if strangely paced out, with a few that are excellent. It's definitely not my favorite of the decade (which would be either The Lion King or, on a technicality, Fantasia 2000) but it's a good watch.

Tokyo Idols is not so compelling. There are definitely interesting threads in the movie. I knew next to nothing about this Japanese pop scene- the girl groups with national auditions, the economy of music clubs and livestreams, the intense fandom of older men that the performers inspire. Kyoko Miyake wants to show the whole scene and explain the importance of every aspect. But it's way too much. RioRio is a compelling central figure. She's a young woman who cares deeply about her music and seems to understand her place as a minor star in the J-pop constellations. And Miyake does a decent job showing her fans and addressing the sexual tension of the middle-aged men who adore her. But I just couldn't connect. I don't have an ear to fully appreciate the music and the film keeps losing focus. The scene as a whole is not as interesting as the singers in the scene, so the movie drops off dramatically when it loses focus on Rio and her work.

Longer Thoughts About: How to Talk to Girls at Parties. I know very little about John Cameron Mitchell as a director. I've seen clips of the musical numbers from his first film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which seems like something I would enjoy. And I played the dead son in a high school version of Rabbit Hole, so I watched some of that movie as well. But I came into this movie more as a general sci-fi adventure and a bit of a Neil Gaiman fan. All I knew is that it combined punk rock, British teenage angst, and aliens. Alex Sharp plays Enn, the main character who loves music but can't get a girlfriend, Elle Fanning is a curious alien, and Nicole Kidman is a music promoter called Queen Boadicea. There's also a best friend who has a sexual awakening that is handled with just enough subtlety, and Matt Lucas as the exact same alien he plays on Doctor Who.

There's a lot about this movie that doesn't quite land. The effects were never going to be incredible at the budget Mitchell had, and he made the right choice by making them intentionally heightened and stylized. Still, the visions of orbs that Enn has are so poorly explained and jarring that they probably could have been cut and still gotten the themes across. There's a similar lack of explanation about the aliens. The six species/ sects/ subgroups/ populations are supposed to have distinct philosophies and approaches, but only two and a half make any sense by the end. I don't need to sit down and get a full description, but the tension at the end of the movie comes partly from understanding what the normal views of each group are. Mitchell seems to understand the punk and sex scenes, which makes sense from what I know of his previous works. But those can operate without much explanation or background; complex alien species don't work in the same way.

When the movie works best is when all the disparate pieces are really forced together. I prefer it when the alienness isn't just used for fish-out-of-water gags but lends some unique elements that would otherwise be absent. Halfway through the movie, Elle Fanning's character is forced to perform at a punk show. She barely knows what punk music is and can't sing that well, but channels her planet's chants and it slowly morphs into a credible punk track. It then gets really trippy at the end, with Mitchell steering fully into the impressionistic effects and visual metaphors. Like with Sing Street, it's a fantastic performance that really serves as a highlight of the film.

The final act of the movie also operates in a similar way. Kidman doesn't have mush to do besides lounge around in David Bowie's wig from Labyrinth. But her scenes with Fanning are among the best in the movie and the clash of worlds really works when they storm the mansion. The majority of my understanding about the species comes during the fight, when their approaches to exploring the world are used in strange forms of combat. The low-budget aesthetics feel more enjoyable and the movie suddenly has stakes that feel somewhat realistic. It also has some of the best jokes in the movie.