How Many Tim Burton Films Have You Seen? (Originally Published at The Solute)

Originally Published at The Solute

Overview: I’m a fan of Tim Burton but I can’t unequivocally say I’m a fan of the Gothic art that inspires Burton himself. In other words, if Tim Burton and I were to walk through an art gallery, I’m sure we’d be drawn to different paintings, but I would still want to see the world through Tim Burton’s eyes. Burton’s visual style can best be described as if a city’s architecture were modelled on the interior of a Halloween haunted house with a dash of German Expressionism thrown in.
Burton is one of the most visually distinctive directors of moviedom today. He is apologetically drawn to the same thematic and stylistic territory through roughly thirty years and counting, and his fans have mostly been onboard. Thematically, Burton loves stories of outsiders and estrangement. Negligent or completely absent parents are a common theme. In terms of source material, he’s chosen a comic series about a superhero filling in the hole of his dead parents (Batman), an orphanage for children (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children), a girl named Alice who must have some pretty free range parents if they leave her alone to her own devices so much (Alice in Wonderland), and Willy Wonka whose emotionally distant dad (Christopher Lee in one of his best roles) is posited as the source for his loopiness. On top of that, Big Fish is about a man who can’t separate the fact and fiction of his father which is sufficient meta-commentary on the emotional distance between a kid and his father.

The two least Burtonesque films outside of the ones done as studio favors (Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks) were rich biographical examinations of artists that inspired the director: Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood and Margaret Keane in Big Eyes. Unlike his Planet of the Apes remake, which no one really thinks of as a necessary installment in Tim Burton’s filmography, these two films epitomize Burton’s vision but in a more personal way.

What makes Burton worth watching isn’t just his visual prowess or his singular vision, but he deserves credit for handling human relationships as well. Whether it’s relationships between people and their found families, romance, mentor-protége relationships or father-son, there’s a certain sugary sweetness that the fantastical nature of his stories can give him leeway to pull off.

A Brief Biography: Tim Burton was born to a murderous barber and a the Queen of Hearts—okay, seriously, Tim Burton was born in Burbank to a father who was a minor league player before settling to work in the parks and recreation department (probably not as fun as the 2009 NBC show) and a mother who owned a cat-themed gift shop (that sounds pretty interesting). Just like many of his characters, he found his suburban life bland, felt disconnected from his father, and was very much a withdrawn loner in school. He did play water polo at Burbank High School, however (anyone know where that places you on the social food chain in Southern California high schools?). Another commonality that he has with the protagonist from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was that from age ten to his high school graduation the left his parents to live with his grandmother.

Burton watched a lot of old-school horror films, B-movies, German expressionist films, and was especially intrigued by Vincent Price. He first gained notice for his artistic talent through winning a local contest by designing an anti-litter poster. After high school, he was accepted on scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts which was dubbed by the LA Times as the “Harvard Business School of animation.” Although the CIA has turned out directors like Sofia Coppola and James Mangold, the vast majority of its alumni are animators and a lot of them (at least at the time Burton graduated) went straight to work for Disney. Despite not having a style that meshed with Disney’s family-friendly vision, Burton took advantage of the job placement and worked at Disney. As one would expect, Burton clashed with colleagues but contributed to a couple of Disney features in the 80s and still impressed them enough with his talent that he got the green light to make “Vincent” with a $60,000 budget. “Vincent” is about a young kid who was obsessed with Vincent Price which, again, is pretty autobiographical. He then made his first live-action short, “Frankenweenie,” which was turned into a 2012 film. Then Paul Ruebens came along and eventually Beetlejuice and Batman and that gave him box office clout.

Throughout his filmography, Burton would be careful to keep an eye on pre-existing intellectual properties so he could justify big budgets because those ornate gothic visions don’t come cheap. Today, Tim Burton lives in Ojai and although he hasn’t spoken with his father since high school (although it’s possible that his father died since I read this), he has a younger brother, Danny, who’s a working artist and supposedly is more avant-garde than Tim. He’s also associated romantically with Helena Bonham Carter who he’s not technically married to (as far as my research shows). He is often recognized in public with his disheveled hair and dark sunglasses.

A couple more interesting bits of trivia: Burton revealed on the Batman DVD commentary that he was “banned” from comic con for his film deviating from the canon. Also, Joel Schumacher who many believe to have ruined what Tim Burton built with Batman is good friends with Burton. For two people with such different styles, who'd have thunk?

How many have I seen: Thanks to a Tim Burton discussion I attended at DC’s Cinema Lounge in which I was forced to up my game, I’m up to 8. It’s also possible that I saw Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a kid and don’t remember it. The others are Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, and Big Eyes.

My Favorite: There are three films on this list I think are absolutely brilliant, but I’ll stick with the one that’s his most highly praised film (though I’m sure there will always be debate): Ed Wood. The concept  portraying history’s worst film maker as a success story because the man never knew who bad he was – is gold which gives the film a solid headstart. The execution is even better: There’s the scene in which he gets advice from Orson Welles and the decision to stop the film as they’re walking into the premiere (a la Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). As previously stated, this is a film with less visual showmanship, but the film still has its touches. One thing that’s a little disappointing on a rewatch I had a few years ago: Johnny Depp doesn’t really show as much range here as he usually does and his overeager naivette is a little overly reminiscent of the way he chose to portray Willy Wonka.

Underrated: I’m going to break my rule and go with a tie. I’m sorry! Because it was released on Christmas day of 2014 by the Weinstein Company, Big Eyes got a fair amount of Oscar hype but its bad box office cooled the movie’s awards season hopes significantly although it got some love at the Golden Globes. Too bad because this is a very unique experience. It’s a can-do story of underdog artists that pulls the wool over our eyes midway through as it morphs into a full-on domestic horror film. Christophe Waltz goes from sly opportunist to the husband from Hell and the culminating courtroom finale is a great female empowerment moment.

Batman Returns is a film I felt somewhat frightened of as a child, but as I’ve grown older and have seen more Burton films, I’ve come to see it as the most quintessentially Burtonesque work and a triumph of the man to be able to meld his style beautifully with a pre-existing story. The 1989 Batman suffers from the same problem that The Dark Knight did (at least in my eyes): The Joker is a villain that lends itself to actor bravado. Batman Returns, in contrast, (and the rest of Nolan’s trilogy) has a much more balanced story that allows the director to be more of the star. The film is fantastical, absurdist and strangely grounded in two origin stories that seem like more than just excuses to get the film from the first to second acts. Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer really own their parts but the exposition for Cat Woman and the slow creep of The Penguin into the scene are both delicious. (The Penguin is first revealed after the prologue, as a deformed hand jutting out of a sewer grate as a newspaper alludes to him in its headline. Later you see his lair and minions before seeing the Penguin in the flesh.) The design of Wayne manor and the playful villainy of the Red Triangle Gang are also highlights. The film ends on a tragic note but with its artistry, it’s a tragedy of epic proportions.

Overrated: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ve always found the source material weird and kind of a misguided allegory, and the Gene Wilder version creeped me out as a child, so I might not have been the ideal audience for this. Burton handles the adaptation kind of well and properly highlights the holes the novel doesn’t really explore: Willy Wonka is kind of a cruel and weird person that children might not want to idolize so much just because he has candy. However, the visual scheme didn’t really do it for me. The bright colors looked kindergartenish, the army of identical little people was more aggressive-looking than charming, and I couldn’t tell if the film was trying to make commentary on Michael Jackson (who was kind of hated by the public at the time) and felt the film should have gone one way or another with it.

Blind spots: The three most acclaimed films I haven’t seen are Big Fish, Sweeney Todd, and Beetlejuice. My idea for this entire feature (the blind spots part) came about because a movie theater usher gave me one of those “You haven’t seen ____?! How can you call yourself a movie person without seeing ___” when I told him I didn’t see Beetlejuice. I think I’ll forever proudly define myself as the guy who has never seen Beetlejuice just to piss off my usher friend now. Sweeney Todd – the story of a murderous barber – sounds like the exact opposite of what I’m looking for in a musical. Other than that: I just saw the trailer for Mars Attacks! and that looks really interesting. The film apparently flew under the radar because Independence Day eclipsed it at the box office and gobbled up the “weird alien movie” press that year. Big Fish, I hear is a great great film, and I’m happy agreeing with that assessment without having watched it. I just have a hunch based on what I’ve read. I’d watch it too, but if I have to pick one, I would go with Mars Attacks!

Filmography as Director (20 films)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Big Eyes (2014)
Dark Shadows (2012)
Frankenweenie (2012)
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride (2005) (Co-Director)
Big Fish (2003)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Ed Wood (1994)
Batman Returns (1992)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Batman (1989)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
“Frankenweenie” (1984)
“Vincent” (1982)

How many David Lean films have you seen?

Originally Published at The Solute

Towards the end of the century, the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute released lists of the top 100 films of the 20th Century. He’s the most honored director on the British Film Institute list with Brief Encounter at #2, Lawrence of Arabia at #3, Great Expectations at #5, Bridge on the River Kwai at #11, Doctor Zhivago at #27, Oliver Twist at #46, and In Which We Serve at #92. Additionally, he has three films on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 epics list with Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai. 

It’s not surprising that astute British cinemaphiles might have missed some of Lean’s earlier films because to many Americans and casual movie goers, Lean is known for the glorious epics that he made over the latter half of his career. None of the six films he made from 1957 to 1984 clocks in at less than two hours and forty minutes. 

In a way, Lean is one of the most avant-garde directors I have watched because of the sheer length of his films. Although Lean appears to be a traditionalist in terms of narrative, there is something uncompromising about going to a studio and declaring “I’m going to make a film about a relatively obscure World War I general, it will have no women, and it will be three and a half hours long!” I watched Lawrence of Arabia as a high school freshman for a history assignment on Lawrence. I remember thinking “hmmm, shouldn’t this movie have ended by now?” but I certainly thought it was interesting. Perhaps, it was the novelty of seeing a different kind of film that was clearly a product of its period. The next year, our European History teacher decided to show the film in class over several periods and our reaction was, “yes it’s a pretty movie, but seriously, it’s this long?!”

A couple weeks ago, I was visiting my father at his swimming pool when he was conversing with some friends. I was reading a book review on the Russian Revolution from the Sunday newspaper and asked him what the Russian revolution was and his friends started telling me I should watch Doctor Zhivago. I mentioned that although I liked some of David Lean’s films, some of them like Lawrence of Arabia are excruciatingly long and one of them said “yes, but there’s not a wasted minute in it.”

This past week, I watched the first half of Doctor Zhivago (I plan on watching the second) and I have to agree with his assessment. The film isn’t bloated but narratively ambitious in a way that few are. Like his other epics, it’s a film that’s uninterested in telling a simple three-act narrative to get one to a happy ending: Lean is somewhat Altmanesque in weaving a tapestry but in a more linear fashion towards an end goal. It’s a film that meanders but it builds up story and character as it veers away from the main arc. The imagery in David Lean’s films are often striking and not simply in terms of cinematography. Watching Doctor Zhivago, I’m struck by the way Pasha (Tom Courtenay) is framed with his scarred face or of the scene in which Yevgraf (Alec Guiness ) trails the titular character through dark alleyways or the military march in which Pasha loses his gun or the image of Yuri being bombarded by peasants who have cordoned off his own home or…well, you get the point.
Additionally, Lean directed a whole slew of praised films before his epic phase that were largely adaptations of beloved literary works. His first three films he directed solo were adaptations of Noel Coward plays. He followed this by two Charles Dickens novels—Great Expectations and Oliver Twist—that are considered two of the best and most faithful cinematic adaptations of Dickens’ work.  Ironically, some critics would take issue with his later deviation from the source material in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.

Brief Biography:
Lean was born in Croydon, England in 1930. He was raised in a Quaker household where he was not allowed to see movies due to his religious upbringing. At Quaker School, Lean was a mediocre student but he displayed a passion for photography though his parents discouraged him from making a career out of it. After working for his father’s accounting firm, he was convinced by a friend to follow his passion to be a cinematographer and worked from Gaumont British Studios in 1927.  He eventually worked his way up a series of jobs to editor before Noel Coward himself invited him to co-direct and eventually direct solo his productions. He was known for being autocratic (closed off to outside input) on sets but not overly difficult on actors. Another Oscar-winning director. Kevin Costner, was inspired by his films in thinking that an epic was ideal.

In addition to directing, he was also the founder of the production company CineGuild with Roland Neame. In addition to 28 Academy Awards being awarded to his films, he was knighted in 1984 and received an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award a year before his death in 1991 at the age of 83. Another interesting distinction: In 1970, he was Hollywood’s all-time top directorial grosser (adding the money made from all his films; a title Spielberg holds today). He did plan an eventual retirement in Tuscany but he was working until the day he died on the unfinished film Nostromo. He asked for his ashes to be buried in the three places he loved most: Tahiti, Tuscany, and India.

Films I’ve Seen:
I’m making my way through my 5th. I’ve seen Summertime, Lawrence of Arabia, Passage to India, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Doctor Zhivago.

Favorite:
Bridge on the River Kwai – My favorite war film. It’s lush, it’s rich in story, and conveys the senseless tragedy of war with just one scene that has remained etched in my mind. It also has a quartet of indelible characters: William Holden pulls on the charisma as a soldier roped in for one last mission, Geoffrey Horne plays a green-eyed private with a palpable sense of fear and naiveté about killing another person; Alec Guinness is a morally complex man with an ironclad sense of integrity that leads him astray ever so gradually, and Sessue Hayakawa is a worthy sparring partner.

Underrated:
Passage to India – A story about the grandeur of India (circa 1928) and the racial prejudice, conflicts in national loyalty and sexual repression that lurks underneath. For a film that starts out centering around one character—a stuffy British magistrate played by Nigel Havers– almost entirely irrelevant by the end of the story, this is a film that’s extremely fluid and doesn’t feel draining time-wise.

Overrated:
I am ok with leaving this section blank if I don’t think anything’s overrated. I thought Summertime was uneventful and lackluster but I was assuming that film was panned. TCM.com classified  it as a hit, though, so yes, Summertime. It’s basically Katharine Hepburn having a Connecticut socialite’s version of a spring break experience in Venice with a hot local. The film has its moments and there’s something slightly interesting about just how unapologetic the film is at hewing so closely to the Latin lover archetype with the male lead.

Blind spots:
If Brief Encounter is the #2 all-time film according to the BFI, who am I to doubt them? One of David O Russell’s favorite films (or at least in in 2016) is Hobson’s Choice. Ryan’s Daughter is another epic but one that even the critics felt didn’t justify its long running time, so maybe?

Filmography as Director (17 films)

A Passage to India (1984)

Ryan’s Daughter (1970)

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Summertime (1955)

Hobson’s Choice (1954)

The Sound Barrier (1952)

Madeleine (1950)

The Passionate Friends (1949)

Oliver Twist (1948)

Great Expectations (1946)

Blithe Spirit (1945)

Brief Encounter (1945)

This Happy Breed (1944)

In Which We Serve (1942)

Major Barbara (1941)

A quick-take Bohemian Rhapsody Film Review

Films that draw on historical subjects can produce an interesting divide in the viewer based on how familiar you are with the subject. A great deal of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" reviews to date have expressed disappointment because it's a paint-by-numbers of all the major points of Mercury's life. 

As someone who grew up in a household where my father listened primarily to classical music and my mom listened to a radio station called "The Sounds of Sinatra", I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with most music before 1998. My knowledge on Queen boils down to A) songs I recognize by Queen like "Bohemian Rhapdsody", "Killer Queen", "Somebody to Love", and "We Will Rock You" and B) songs that play on commercials or in summer festivals or movie soundtracks that I knew of but didn't know they were specifically Queen like "Under Pressure", "Another one Beats the Dust", and "We are the Champions" (thanks "The Mighty Ducks" for the assist on that one) and little information on the band members. I honestly have no idea how people can keep track of the names of so many band members of groups that came before their time. The point, however, is that your knowledge of Queen is going to affect how you see this film. 

If follow school of film criticism that the film's intent matters, I'd suggest that this film was made for people like me. Reading the interviews with Queen's surviving band members, director Bryan Singer and producer Graham King, this was a passion project because they wanted to educate. Look at Graham King's quote:


But I was also fascinated with the idea that there is so much about Freddie Mercury and Queen—arguably one of the greatest bands in history—that the general public does not know....This is such an important story to tell, and, for me, it was crucial that we not only celebrate their music and achievements, but also give people a better understanding of the band’s history.

At the same time, if you're not going to see the film specifically to rediscover Freddy Mercury from a backstage perspective, this will read kind of like every other rock biography in existence. The protagonist is a man driven by pure id and does whatever he pleases and, for the most part, doesn't care who's in his way. It's the result of having all the right creative instincts and being isolated from reality by handlers who want to feed off of him. The protagonist's ego becomes oversized and he sews his wild oats. He either gains self-control or doesn't (they often dies young) but the audience is encouraged to see his beautiful soul and his contributions over his sins because that audience is biased before the movie stars by an appreciation for the music.
It's not really the fault of the film if it all follows a predictable script: The screenwriter is beholden to the details of the subject's life and Freddy Mercury is what they had to go with.

Some of these entries (Love and Mercy is a good example) manage to transcend the genre even with figures who fall into the same narrative but Bohemian Rhapsody is largely beholden to the genre. As interesting as Mercury was of a person, the story flattens some of the more interesting chapters of his life by not involving his origin as a Parsi immigrant (his family is largely absent beside the opening chapter) or a promising student. His conflict with his surname and legacy and status as an immigrant is never explored.

Similarly, there was a harmony among the members of the group that is overlooked in the film because conflict is juicier. To what degree were they ok with his gay lifestyle? There are erroneous complaints that the film straight-washes Mercury (not true), but it would be interesting if his band mate's reaction was covered. Similarly, the band was held together because "they were a family" but I was told that more than I was showed it.

Part of the problem is screen time: With his marriage to a woman that fell apart because she was upset with him for being bisexual (it seems that there is a misunderstanding over whether bisexual means faithful), his bandmates, his family, his lecherous manager, his exploration of himself some of these chapters get short shrift.

On the whole, it's certainly watchable but my immediate reaction is it had more unanswered questions than room to fill.

Capsule Reviews: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Killing Eve, and Ozark

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 4A)-

Some of the most memorable episodes of the show came out in this bite-sized six episode sample: Specifically, the one where Lily turns a tech conference into an orgy and Lily goes toe to toe with her late lover's daughter for her inheritance (I guess Carol Kane is the MVP).

Like Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's other project, 30 Rock, there seems like an unspoken centrifugal force in this universe that wants to keep its four principal characters from finding any sort of permanent comfort. Kimmy switches projects from working at a start up to writing a childrens book and Titus goes from executive producer of The Capist to high school drama teacher to landing an acting gig. Titus as a showbiz personality is more conducive to the gig economy while Jackie and Kimmy are being whiplashed a bit more inorganically to fit the template. Still, knowing what I'm in for at this point leads to easier suspension of disbelief.

The shortened season feels like I just got an appetizer-sized portion than a full meal which is why it might not make my top ten.

Killing Eve-I can understand why this show is a critical darling and I wanted to like it too. It was slick and stylized; it offered an engaging and tight plot; and an even better lead. Sandra Oh's Eve Polastri doesn't have an overriding gimmick (like say, autistic in The Good Doctor, an a-hole in House, or victim in Jessica Jones) but she's pretty intriguing in a lot of subtle ways: As an Asian-American in a man's field, she's a fish out of water in more ways than one; she's outspoken but not in a way that feels inorganic, and she's legitimately uneasy because she is not field-tested.

On the other end of the spectrum is a psychopathic serial assassin who's meant to be a doppelganger. She's an intriguing villain but like Francis Underwood in House of Cards, she does so much bad that you start getting invested in wanting to see her punished. The problem is the show doesn't really treat her like a serial killer. Either that or they have massive strokes of stupidity when trailing her. In one episode, Eve's colleague follows her into a nightclub unarmed without even calling for back up. Later on, they go after her without even carrying any weapons? The last episode I watched featured our heroine twice facing our villain unarmed without defensive measures. Villanelle's colleagues are equally ridiculous around her.

As far as I can tell, the show isn't about catching a killer as it is exploring Eve's relationship with the killer. She was singled out in-universe for her fascination with Villanelle and the show's overtones are a bit Hitchcock/Cronenberg. The scenes with Eve and her colleagues meeting Villanelle face-to-face recall the Seventh Seal without the ghastly imagery: facing death personified. 

However, it sure is awkward when the rest of the show aims for a more gripping form of realism.

Ozark (though Episode 8)-Shows like Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and The Americans have led to a popularization of the notion that great TV is about characters being irrationally ordered to do impossible things from all sides. 

Take Ozark as an example:

A) The cartel holds Marty Byrde responsible for the Snells when its pretty nonsensical to think that Byrde can control a pair of criminals who are often hell-bent to doing the polar opposite of what would be prudent.

B) Wilkes (along with cartel pressure) wants the Byrdes to single-handedly change the voting of the entire Missouri legislature by upending nearly every other player in the state. 

C) Meanwhile one unchecked agent, Petty, is abusing his power in every conceivable way to make life impossible for the Byrdes. Petty's demand of Rachel to get dirt on Marty is pretty impossible to fulfill if Marty's not saying anything

D)  On top of that, there are a number of wildcards like an ex-pastor who suddenly turn murderous, because of course he does. Rather than think strategically, he instead makes a superfluous demand --he wants his son back in less than 24 hours or else Wendy is dead-- which isn't realistic considering the speed of bureaucracy. 

The tension on this show has gone from satisfying to an adrenaline high. At what point, however, does the show's credibility cancel out any gains? The second season is imminently watchable because watching characters maneuver out of tight situations is as hard to turn away from as an explosion or fight scene or juicy romance. But could the show be made better if it wasn't based on contrivances? As sacrilegious as it is to take shots at the above-mentioned shows, I blame the effect of the three shows above for setting such a template and having the flaws in those shows go unexamined.

Another question at stake is the intrigue of the anti-hero which has played out in many shows including the ones listed above. Through several of the episodes, Marty made the flimsy justification (overtly or tacitly) that he was protecting his family but what about the costs to other people's families? How would FBI protection not protect his family? It wasn't until the very end of Breaking Bad that Walter White came to terms with his selfishness. The Americans had a pair of complicit anti-heroes coming to terms with it in opposite ways which remained something that enriched the show greatly in later seasons.

Marty started out this season as a zombie of sorts: He turned his moral barometer off and retained a tunnel vision on his goal imagining his river boat casino would liberate him. The more interesting version of the show has come in the past couple of episodes as he started to veer off his original course with acknoweledgement to the consequences for Wyatt, Julie, and Rachel (the only characters worth caring about when this show is at its least interesting).

I'm on episode 8. Let's see where this show ends up.

Fun Summer Movies are No Longer an Option, Are They?

For all the evidence you need that the days of leaving identity politics out of movie reviews are over, look no further than the critical treatment of two of the most care-free popcorn comedies of the summer over at Rogerebert.com. Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz laments on “Set It Up”, “We never gain a sense of what it means for these two to be in charge of—and yet isolated within—a predominantly white workplace and the film” while “Tag” gets called out by Glenn Kenny as “a lazy, vulgar celebration of White Male American Dumbness.” That the films’ racial politics are prioritized over their aesthetic appeal or even their apolitical contexts shouldn’t surprise any casual consumers of movie reviews lately. 

What was originally intended as a movement for greater inclusivity has made way for a brand of hyper-specific criticism leveled against perceived offenders of progress that has come to dominate entertainment writing. What is desperately needed for consumers and writers in the industry is to consider the effects of having so many critics cluster together on the political spectrum.

In 2007, Ebert himself reviewed the Wes Anderson film “Darjeeling Limited” and praised the film’s “Indian context” noting,“ Anderson and his co-writers Schwartzman and Roman Coppola made a trip through India while they were writing the screenplay. It avoids obvious temptations to exoticism by surprising us.” Anderson’s quirky visual style and life-affirming themes of belonging, however, don’t really register to film critics in 2018 as his potential for creating offense has now been prioritized.

Odie Henderson, writing on the same website writes about his 2018 film:

“Unlike that Roald Dahl adaptation, “Isle of Dogs” does not have a compelling story, and even worse, it has the most egregious examples of its director’s privilege since “The Darjeeling Limited.” .."But as entertaining as it is to look at “Isle of Dogs,” I couldn’t get past Anderson’s usual clumsiness when dealing with minorities. This is a film where a character is literally whitewashed, an act that makes him more agreeable afterwards. “Isle of Dogs” treats this as a sight gag. It plays more like a confession."

Each of these three aforementioned film reviews has a problematic dichotomy that begs for a critical examination of its own.

When Seitz notes in his review on “Set it Up,” that the “film plays differently on characters who are African-American and Chinese-American, and therefore had to fight their way into a corporate workplace that welcomed most white people of a certain social class” he either egregiously assumes that all African-Americans and Chinese-Americans followed the same path of struggle or erroneously posits that every film must represent the quintessential member of the minority they depict on screen. This flies in the face of decades of cultural writing that advocates for putting people of color in leadership positions without portraying it as a big deal.

“Tag”, is a similarly innocent comedy about a group of adult friends who have played the playground game continuously for 30 years. Kenny writes: “No one should be surprised, I think, to learn that the actual group of men on which this movie is based are in fact all white. It’s not so much that I’m under the impression that tag is a game most sensible persons of color might consider corny. It’s more that, well, try to imagine a group of African American men feeling safe enough to play "adult" tag at their places of work or various other public spaces. You get the idea?" Kenny is now calling any film that features white people on screen having fun without overtly commenting on racial relations in the U.S. racially insensitive. By that same logic, is Ed Helms’ character required to comment on the Flint Water crisis or the lack of drinking water in the Third World when he gets thrown into a pool?

Henderson’s review of “Isle of Dogs” first and foremost attempts to posit Wes Anderson as a controversial figure when no such controversy existed. In addition to Roger Ebert’s neutral review on the film’s cultural context, a glance at Rotten Tomatoes shows a general critical consensus that took issue with the film’s redundancy but had no such issue with Wes Anderson’s whiteness. In contrast, Henderson never gives Wes Anderson the wiggle room to safely delve into the territory of the Japanese director he’s trying to pay homage to in the film. His review echoes those accusing Anderson of sloppy cultural appropriation which is part of the newfound trend of narrowly defining cultural appropriation as a red flag signaling malicious intentions despite the fact that many have pointed out cultural appropriation has been a necessary ingredient of cultural development that has rarely discriminated between oppressor or oppressed.

This is just the tip of the ice berg for some essays I'm trying to write at the moment following my publication last year film criticism being overly based on identity politics. I look forward to continuing to publish more. 

Every Film I Saw in 2004 Ranked

1. Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson-Didn’t fare as well as some of the other Anderson films at the time, but the theme of enemies and friends and estranged family members overcoming their detachments because of a need to belong is still prevalent in a very touching way and it’s a feast for the eyes.
2. Aviator, Martin Scorsese-Everything about this film feels grandiose in a good way. It’s a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood from a man who’s arguably Classic Hollywood’s most prominent fanboy. The biopic is compelling, the hokey sentiment at the ending works, and I also like the lack of resolution. I went into the film knowing very little about Howard Hughes as well.
3. Sideways, Alexander Payne-The moment in history where Alexander Payne’s neorealist screenwriting style and critical tastes aligned. It’s a tense and funny story that treats its characters with gentleness and understanding.
4. Spanglish, James L Brooks-It’s high ranking with me is affected by the fact that it mirrors my own life story because I had a live-in Spanish-speaking nanny and her daughter stay with us when I was young. But seriously, I don’t understand the hatred for this film. Aside from that, I think it’s a very well-balanced story tonally and cleverly shifts audience loyalties between the neglectful wife, the nice guy husband, and the house interloper.
5. Anchorman, Adam McKay-My first bit of education that making a good comedy can entail the same degree of artistic difficulty as a good drama. The layers of absurdism, the strength of the characters, the timing of the jokes, everything clicked to the point that I was literally laughing throughout at least 80 to 90% of the film’s running time.
6. Ray, Taylor Hackford-The debate over whether to put Ray or Finding Neverland first was a tough one. Ray was a bit more of a known story, whereas Finding Neverland found a lot of nuance in the unknown. Ray was downright inspiring though and the redemption at the end (while not a complete redemption at all) was tear jerking. I remember leaving the theater thinking, “OK, I am not gonna let my disability hold me back.” The cast of characters rotated so often, the film felt like a series of vignettes but there was enough centrality to hold it all together.
7. Finding Neverland, Marc Forster-The film appeared a little stuffy but the theme of defining your own family resonated very well and, like, Ray, the film was quite a tear jerker.
8. Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore-Whether you agree with the politics or not, Michael Moore has really broken open the mold of a stale genre. Before Michael Moore, I wasn’t a fan of the genre at all: Talking heads, newsreel footage, self-satisfying photography. No thanks, I’ll go read a book.
9. Manchurian Candidate, Jonathan Demme-Yes, it’s a remake but the story’s one of my favorite of all time so I don’t mind seeing it again, it’s transported very appropriately to a new setting, it plays well like a thriller, and Denzel, Liev and Meryl are fantastic reinterpretations.
10. Kinsey, Bill Condon-A very interesting way to tell a story that’s largely about collecting data (even if it’s about very sexy data). The central conflict is about a scientist’s struggle to present a truth in the face of moral naysayers but it nicely meanders in talking about the man’s detachment from emotional love and his complexities. In delving into side characters, it’s an early template for so many of the great serialized shows (Dexter, Transparent, House of Cards, Orphan Black, Masters of Sex) that start with a subject and work their way out.
11. I Heart Huckabees, David O Russell-An extremely innovative and resonant form of comedy. The scene of Mark Wahlberg panicking about the state of petroleum in the world while he has a real-world problem right before him in the form of a wife leaving him, spoke to me so much as someone in my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scratch my head, but it was really something else.
12. Mean Girls, Mark Waters-The film that launched Tina Fey into the stratosphere still holds up very well as a quintessential teen movie. The dialogue is sharp, edgy and relatable to anyone who’s felt like an outsider in their adolescence. It also captures very well how all those cliques and aliiances that you’re obsessed with in high school seem to dissolve at some point and you realize what’s ultimately important.
13. Dodgeball, Rawson Marshall Thurber-Like Anchorman, this is a film that knows where to pin its jokes for maximum effect. It’s a brilliant sports parody, pure unadulterated fun and encapsulates Vince Vaughn’s screen persona better than any other film.
14. National Treasure, John Turteltaub-I probably would’ve ranked this more in the middle of the pack back in 2004, but it’s a more memorable film down the road and one I would rewatch in a heart beat. The premise is absurd but the marriage of history and adventure is done in a much tighter way than Da Vinci Code and it skates by on a sense of fun the whole way.
15. Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock-Morgan Spurlock’s grotesque piece of performance art is the only known example besides Michael Moore I’ve seen of a documentary breaking the mold and showing something you couldn’t get out of reading a book on the same topic.
16. Spiderman 2, Sam Raimi-Back in the day, this film got amazing reviews and topped (whatever would have been the equivalent back then of) the Rotten Tomatoes chart, and was even included in AFI’s ballot for the 100 Greatest Films of All Time. I’ve never been too keen on the Spiderman universe because the characters feel so rigidly drawn to archetypes (James Franco is the best friend but why? Can Kirsten Dunst be any more Girl Next Door?), but the story takes the hero into new territory, the special effects are very impressive and story relevant, and there’s a grandiosity to the whole film.
17. Silver City, John Sayles-A wonderful little satire and ensemble piece about government corruption and a peon in the system (Danny Huston) finding a little piece of political redemption.
18. Shrek 2, Andrew Adamson-Not sure if I loved this cartoon as much as Chadwick Bozeman’s recent SNL character but this was a great movie about how to deal with the aftermath of happily ever after. A thematically mature cartoon is pretty rare. The laughs weren’t AS strong as they could be because they were overly character-reliant and the characters -- an ogre who’s not that bad and a donkey who’s a vehicle for Eddie Murphy humor -- wore themselves out by the end of the first film.
19. Maria Full of Grace, Joshua Marston-I don’t watch foreign films nearly as often as I should because stuff like this does give me a nice insight into another part of the world. It was nice to see a protagonist like Maria here who wasn’t entirely helpless and could advocate for herself.
20. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry-It’s hard to separate the film from the critical love for said film. You know why it’s a great film. I don’t remember it as much. I believe a major distraction of the film was the focus given to the Elijah Wood-Mark Ruffalo-Kirsten Dunst-Tom Wilkinson as a separate B-plot rather than just a framing device. The jumps in time gave me whiplash and not in a good way (“500 Days of Summer’ steps into and out of time more gracefully). But, yes, it has a lot of great stuff in it as well.
21. Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich-It goes up several points based on how well I remember it. Even though it’s extremely implausible, the plot’s not nearly as flimsy as 2012. It fits well with Emmerich’s milieu of large-scale disaster and is a fine ensemble piece. Some of the visual imagery (such as the characters outrunning cold itself or the initial onset of the storm) is indelible.
22. I Robot, Alex Poyras-Like Kinsey, this is an extremely difficult story to adapt so I have to give the film credit for making a coherent story that’s somewhat thought-provoking (what the Asimov intended his work to be) and has a genuine element of mystery. The jaded cop angle was a little strained. There was also a bit too much exposition but it would be hard not to do with source material
23. Terminal, Stephen Spielberg-There were parts that were a little schmaltzy, but it played with some interesting cinematic and spatial space (re-thinking the airport as the setting of a movie rather than a transition point) and I found the film lined with quite a bit of philosophical depth if you consider the airport to be a purgatory of sorts. The film has a nice bit of tension between Stanley Tucci’s character and Hanks. One weakness is that Hanks is a bit Tom Hanksian in a been-there-done-that kind of way which is a shame since he’s based on an actual characterthis tough.
24. Wimbledon, Richard Lorcaine-It’s not a particularly ambitious film, but three things in the film’s favor: 1) A very endearing romcom 2) one of the few sports films dealing with staying in the game past your peak 3) making tennis (an already underrated sport) sexy and exciting through great action shots and the like
25. Welcome to Mooseport, Donald Pietrie-It has a reputation buoyed by its reviews of being bland and vanilla, and to make matters worse, it’s rumored to have scared Gene Hackman into retirement, but I don’t care. To me, the film is a pleasant throwback to the 90s era of wholesome family-friendly comedy. A bit of fish-out-of-water stuff and a nice love story
26. Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford-Hard to judge this super-objectively since I saw this for a literary class on Merchant of Venice and not really for pleasure. Al Pacino deserves accolades for going for broke here and doing Shakespeare. I’d much rather see him do this than a cop or mob member or robber. Visually nice.
27. Around the World in 80 Days, Frank Coraci-When I first saw this, I thought it was a shameful dilution of a great literary work simply to give Jackie Chan a vehicle for his blend of martial arts and children’s comedy. Then, I rewatched it and discovered how marvelously fun and virtuosic a Jackie Chan movie can be. The film’s humor can seem unimpressive at points but it’s consistently filled with the kind of jokes that would delight a 12-year-old and if you meet the material halfway, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to let your inner child out.
28. Troy, Wolfgang Petersen-When I first watched the film in 2004, I felt it was shameful that the film stripped the Iliad of its cultural specificity in favor of a more broad story. Looking at the irritating complexities of Game of Thrones or Westworld or Orphan Black, I don’t necessarily think simplifying a narrative is the worst thing you can do anymore. At the same time, the film loses a little by keeping this a tale only of humans when the source material was a more extravagant opera of Gods and humans on opposite sides of a battle. If you accept that this movie is just a watered-down Brad Pitt vehicle and lower your expectations as such, it’s an easily digestible epic.
29. 50 First Dates, Peter Segal-Not a fan of Adam Sandler’s man child screen persona but he occasionally puts his characters in solid enough plots that they cancel out the weakeness of his presence enough to make a good movie. The only three Adam Sandler films I liked were Mr Deeds, Big Daddy, and this one. Sandler films are juvenile in their jokes but they also are sincerely enveloped with a lot of heart. This is an interesting premise for a love story and it mostly works in spite of how little I like Adam Sandler as an actor.
30. After the Sunset, Brett Ratner-The film strikes just the right playful tone. Pierce Brosnan, who was as heavily associated with Bond as he would ever be, had an odd penchant for playing Bond-like figures in Tailor of Panama, No Escape, Matador, and this. All four characters are what I would describe as sleazy versions of Bond. This one is an interesting role for Brosnan because it’s laced with a playful sense of (very un-Bond-like) homoeroticism between Brosnan and Harrelson while simultaneously trying to aim for a monogamous love story. Like many of Bond’s most famous films, it’s also set in the Caribbean and has a chase scene in the Junkanoo just like Thunderball.
31. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Kerry Conran-My reaction is pretty much entirely neutral. It was pleasant and technologically innovative but the technological innovations were quite distracting.
32. Incredibles, Brad Bird-I just didn’t feel particularly inspired by this. I preferred “Sky High” or the underrated Ben Stiller vehicle “Mystery Men”
33. Taxi, Tim Story-One has to admit the scene of Queen Latifah breaking all laws of traffic (and perhaps physics) to get a passenger to Laguardia in fifteen minutes is pretty solid. And who doesn’t actively fantasize about a taxi driver (or perhaps an Uber) who actually cares about getting you somewhere on time? The premise is thin, the show is inoffensive and fun, and harkens back to the days when Jimmy Fallon didn’t make me want to stab someone. If he was better in films, he might not be imposing his annoying giggly fits on the late night landscape.
34. Stepford Wives, Frank Oz-A remake of a 1975 film starring Nicole Kidman is a burnt-out TV executive whose supportive husband moves her away from the city to a pleasant suburban enclave. This is an attempt at suburban satire that morphs into a Shyamalanesque eerie town mystery. The thru-line between the former and the latter is the peril of conformity but it’s a completely different picture in the second half which invalidates much of the first half’s thematic thrust. First, the film is about a woman learning to relax and open up; than bam!-- they’re all zombies or robots or something. The film does have a twist or two but by then it’s a little too late.
35. Garden State, Zach Braff-It’s an extremely typical coming-of-age story that doesn’t have a lot of forward momentum that is overly filled with quiet spaces. The protagonist has some issues to resolve but he’s so internal and broody, that it’s not translating on screen more than a guy voicing first world problems. Aside from an extremely typical romance with a young lady, who as far as I could tell seemed mentally ill (sorry Natalie Portman, you are an Oscar winner but I couldn’t swallow your interpretation here), basically amounts to a guy trying to decide whether to go off prescription medicine of not. There is one meaningful conversation he has with his dad and when I pulled the quote on IMDB, there was a sense of poetry to that one scene, but everything else was blah.
36. Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess-Napoleon Dynamite has some genuinely sweet moments between its central teenage characters but I don’t find the characters to be particularly iconic. I also don’t think Idaho (from my experiences in the state) deserves this portrayal as the capital of bland weirdness.
37. Catwoman, Pitol-It had some iconically cringe-worthy scenes (the basketball game choreographed by people who don’t know how the sport works) but it was moderately watchable. Not a high compliment, I know.
38. Ocean’s 12, Stephen Soderbergh-On the one hand, the film is crafted by Soderbergh with a genuinely impressive level of slickness that helps remind us why he won a Best Director Oscar in a competitive year. On the other hand, putting all the technical expertise in the world to an ending that basically says f--- you to the audience for caring about the story doesn’t absolve you. It’s also a self-indulgent mess. You think George Clooney and Brad Pitt are egoless actors? Nearly all of their dialogue is self-praise which is even more obnoxious considering that Pitt and Clooney are doing it on a meta-level and think it’s a wonderful use of our time to revel in their smugness.
39. Lady Killers, Joel and Ethan Coen-Part of my extremely low ranking here is high hopes. Like all Coen brothers films the sense of place is very strong and I very much enjoyed Tom Hanks’ acting here. His fast-tacking huckster is a delight and one of the best performances of the year. But no one else in the movie was remotely memorable (this was the second film that Spring I’d seen featuring a character who had IBM and I found it equally unfunny the first time) nor did the group have any discernable sense of banter. The pacing between the heist and the subsequent struggle against their landlady (Irma P Hall) was a bit abrupt which made their doom feel empty in a tragic way. The original felt less ambitious but the symmetry of the character’s success and demise made for an effective moral tone poem in its simplicity.
40. The Whole Ten Yards, John Lynn-I remember almost nothing about this film and what’s even worse news for this film’s chances of implanting itself into my memory 14 years later: I remember almost nothing about the original except that it features Amanda Peete naked and that Bruce Willis subverts the mold of a hitman by also being humorous and affable. When has Bruce Willis not been affable? I don’t even remember the decision that led to me thinking I want to put myself through a forgettable two hours.
41. 13 Going on 30, Gary Winick-I don’t believe in using the word chick flick because a movie with a female-centric character or a romance can always be appealing if made well. This is not one of those movies. The story, a gender switch on “Big” starring Jennifer Garner, is short on plot movement and overindulgent in a bath of cutesiness (makeover scenes, karaoke-filled sleepovers) that’s carried entirely on the back of Garner’s gifts for physical comedy. Garner is on screen nearly 100% of the time which gives the added disadvantage of denying us any narrative-breaking B story or plot meander.
42. Along Came Polly, Jon Hamberg-Philip Seymour Hoffman, you’re so much better than this. Why did you think channeling Jack Black was a good idea here? The film has little chemistry and the tension before the two get together was skipped which made me care less about these two. Also, could they think of nothing more sophisticated for a character trait than IBS?

Disobedience (2018) Review

Rachel Weisz stars as a Rabbi's daughter returning to an Orthodox Jewish community that's shunned her because she didn't want to adopt their ways. This is a common problem in Orthodox communities when people choose a different belief system than the one they were raised with. It presents a myriad of challenges to navigate and this film portrays it with the utmost delicacy.

The film has a brilliant pseudo-horror vibe with the voyeuristic looks that her disapproving peers inflict upon her with as she sits with them at dinner or walks through the streets alongside them. 

The film is advertised as a film about a lesbian relationship, but it's really a film about free will because being in a pre-marital sexual relationship, dating a secular jew, even having secular Jews in your friend circle or getting an education all lead to the same end result of shunning anyways. 

Perhaps it's my experience in this type of community, but the film is beautiful, spot-on, tense, sexy , and treats each of the three leads (Rachel McAdams and Allesandro Nivola) and their character arcs with a great sense of respect.

Orange is the New Black Season 5 (aka the one where they riot)

I was hesitant to watch the fifth season (AKA the one with the prison riot) of Orange is the New Black because I was worried about the way the show’s thematic messages were being read by a critical sphere that I’ve made no secret in knowing I have issues with. To review, the show’s fourth season ends with the cruel reign of MCC culminating in a revolt. Poussey Washington, one of the show’s many breakout characters, is accidentally killed by one of Litchfield’s greenest  officers, Bailey Baxter, in the ensuing chaos. The ideas being floated around in response to this episode – that Baxter was representative of the recent wave of newsworthy police brutality against the black population or that death of Washington was analogous to some sort of in-show racism – seemed antithetical to the spirit of the show itself. 

Through its first four seasons, OitNB has been an extremely illuminating show that teaches empathy for people at all ranks of society. Villains and heroes emerge from every rank and position, regardless of race or sexual orientation and regardless of whether one is a correctional officer or prisoner (although we find ourselves having a surprising amount of sympathy for the prisoner). The idea that the Litchfield experience has been less fair to the black population is simply not true although that’s not to deny that the backstories illustrate those inequalities outside of Litchfield quite well.

This is a show that, for the most part, has never told its viewers what path it should take in terms of differentiating wrong from right. This is why it’s somewhat upsetting that it never makes much differentiation between manslaughter and murder in terms of Bailey. Another move that doesn’t move discourse forward is filling Bailey with no emotions but guilt. The narrative has no interest in giving Bailey a man with any forward path to redemption or even sound restoration of mental health. The narrative is geared towards its viewers  who are upset about the persecution of blacks in the U.S. but don’t have the effort to think about the logistics about anything else. In other words, Bailey is a projection of what Black Lives Matter must want for the purveyors of black violence to do and think, and he’s just as easily a projection of their lack of anticipation that someone like Bailey could be anything else. 

The fact is Piscatella was clearly the villain of the fourth season whereas Baxter was one of the more humane members of his guard. Taystee and her fellow negotiators could be forgiven to some degree for having imperfect information,  but by how much? People more invested in the Black Lives Matter movement than myself will find nobility in her cause. 

I, on the other hand, spent my time thinking about how counter-productive her actions were and how they mirror the danger of tunnel vision with advocates pushing too strongly for any one cause of which Black Lives Matter is no exception: She did little to stop the PTSD-inducing experiences her fellow inmates were giving the guards, she felt “justice for Poussey” was more important than advocacy for Daya or keeping the only trained medic out of harm’s way, she failed to recognize the logistics involved in MCC’s limits when she was negotiating, and she didn’t take into account the needs of other prisoners when negotiating. 

The final episode posits Taystee as a Javert-like figure who’s seen the errors of her ways, but the question remains how other viewers interpreted the season. I’m not going to delve into the reviews and it’s not the responsibilty of the show to tell us how to think one way or another. It’s only my wish that the critical movers and shakers in TV see Taystee’s downfall as a legitimate part of her arc that makes sense in-universe. 

On the whole, though, the creative minds behind this show balance dozens of character arcs and get more leeway to mess up a couple. This season still gets a raving review. It has the same levels of nuance and masterful plotting and possibly deserves more credit for experimenting with the time frame. The whole season takes place over a four-day period in which the prisoners go bonkers and this world is turned upside down. Watching this season 16 months after it premiered without any knowledge of how this madness would end was quite thrilling. 

Random notes:

-This season is built like a classic tragedy. It's a study in human folly. What generally happens with tragedies in moviedom and on stage is the story spirals down to the worst case scenario and the title credits roll and we're left to think about the irony of people who could have done good having messed everything up. Audiences traditionally don't want to wallow in the aftermath because that's just plain sad. Let's see how Season 6 will navigate such a tricky balance. 

-I felt more than ever like skipping over the flashbacks. We are glued to the storyline at hand we don't need anything to break the tension at this point. They are completely unnecessary.

 

-I can't remember the name of the Hispanic prisoner who used Gloria's strategy against her but, ethically, it was entirely fair and I'm glad someone got pardoned by the governor.

-There should be a lesson here about how pharmacology and medicine are highly precise science and you shouldn't play God with other people's medicines. It was kind of amusing how Morello felt like "the new doctor" but that plotline could have carried more weight.

-The season kind of reminded me of the film "King of Hearts"

-Biggest plot hole: If Caputo's hands weren't tied, couldn't he have just taken his chances against Leanne and Angie when they were shoving him along to the poo. He had the element of surprise, and at that point, pretty much everything was going to become screwed.

-The show relies pretty heavily on pair bonds in various forms.  There’s: The unlikely friendship of Boo and Pennsatucky; the extremely likely friendship of Leanne and Angie who serve as this season’s most effective comic relief; the aggressive courtship of Nichols to the now-married Morelo; the reconnection of Sophia and Gloria after one hurt the other, and the Chapman/Vause romance that’s now being framed as true love rather than toxic co-dependency. This was a season in which a lot more couples- Flacca/Maritza, Pennsatucky/Boo, “Von Barlow”/Boo, Nichols/Morelo, Chapman/Vause, Angie/Leanne were going through positive phases and weathering the storm significantly better because they had someone by their side. It’s a stark contrast to Taystee and Soso who both felt isolated because they felt the weight of their friend.