Why Three Billboards Sends a Better Thematic Message for our Times than Get Out

When we champion films for nominations and wins during awards season, especially in this day and age where critics see less distinction between cultural commentary and ascetic judgement, what we're often talking about is the predominant societal message we want to see Hollywood express in the wake of whatever we feel are the primary cultural obstacle of the present day. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Get Out are twoof the nine films that have been nominated for Oscar outside of the nine films that have both been discussed as contenders for Best Picture and they’re to consider in tandem because they have contrasting ways of dealing with the same problem.

Get Out is a classic horror film created by Jordan Peele who I have a lot of respect for as an actor (standing out on a show that is spiraling downward as he did with Mad TV deserves a special kind of praise) and as the co-creative mastermind behind Key and Peele which mined the same thematic territory-- the awkwardness of racial tension -- as Get Out.

One of the main tenets of comedic effect is the release of tension (further academic study has also added recognition as a comic trigger so the more societally relevant) so Key and Peele's sketches already have a head start on our funny bones because they center on the tension we all recognize.

Like the 2016 film  Keanu in the action genre last year (not a particularly notable film depending on which film critic you ask), tailoring Peele's thematic message to a different genre comes with challenges. In the case of Get Out, the metaphor for racial awkwardness is presented not within the benign confines of comedic sketch but a more aggressive genre. More so, this is a genre with a protagonist and antagonists in the form of a well-meaning couple (a Guardian article, uses the term Liberal Racists ) who profess themselves Obama supporters but are decidedly less comfortable with their daughter dating a black person.

The film has been said by its creator to embody truth and Peele's achievement of authenticity is worthy of applause. HOWEVER, the question with regard to the film in terms of award season is if this thematic message is THE thematic message of the year. Such things are apples and oranges but Get Out is essentially microaggression: All the metaphor boils down to well-meaning people unintentionally making the black experience worse than they thought. Moreso, it's a celebration of anger (at least when seen through critical lens) at racial inequality.

The sheer number of articles in the culture sphere coming out on a daily or weekly basis
expressing anger at Hollywood (a known ally for liberalism) for not being inclusive enough, isn't so far removed from the anger that the Get Out audience is encouraged to feel (through literary means of
amplification) against an ally for not being inclusive enough.
On top of that, there's increased references I see in articles and, particularly on twitter, to the idea of anger being not just a valid response to hatred but a productive emotion. Amber Tamblyn (an actress I admire, to be clear), for instance, has labelled her political stance in several interviews as pro-anger.

Suffice it to say, I'm not sure that meeting microaggression with anger or defining yourself by that emotion is what we want to be THE message of the year.

In contrast, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri is about a society that's consumed by anger. How entirely prescient. Most of the film’s characters live in a state of down-trodden weariness that characterizes much of the American rust belt. The film is ugly and bold enough to know that people aren't going to have an easy time processing it (from the critics of various factions to someone like myself who walked out of the theater feeling a sense of intense confusion before eventually loving it) but it's ultimately a film about the extremely difficult journey two people make in dealing with an unfair and yes, angry world and that journey begins with finding a semblance of inner peace.

In this sense, Three Billboards is the inverse of Get Out: The former desires to show us anger beneath the surface while the latter tells us what we already have known for a while: We live in an angry place and time.

More importantly: The former encourages us to take awareness we might not have previously had, convert it to anger, externalize it, and direct it towards a villain. The latter encourages us to look at the anger within ourselves before we engage with the outside world.

Personally, I think society could use more of the latter message.

2017 Golden Globes Reaction and Hopes for the Upcoming Awards Season

Source: http://www.korsgaardscommentary.com

The first in-depth piece I read on the Golden Globes was by Richard Roeper who did an expose in his book about how the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was a near-fraudulent organization of some 80-something journalists who don’t represent anywhere near the cream of the crop in terms of film critics or reporters.

But looking over the lists of nominees, I hardly care: Despite having to go first, these guys generally manage to fall in the same region of adventurous mainstream artistry that the academy favors which is a lot harder to do when you’re up earlier in the season. But more than that, they’ve allowed people like Colin Farrell (In Bruges), Gene Hackman (Royal Tenenbaums), Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven), Gael Garcia Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle), Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) to thrive that didn’t get recognition at the Academy or Oscars. Mozart in the Jungle is a solid show that will always get overlooked by best of lists considering the plethora of Golden Age TV, but it can always call itself a Golden Globe winner.

This year, Jason Bateman in Ozark, Katherine Langford in 13 Reasons Why, and Freddie Highmore in the Good Doctor (let’s call this collateral for his Bates Motel snubs) are surprisingly astute picks. Eric McCormack (the blandest cast member of an entirely unnecessary reboot) and SMILF are both pretty puzzling but when you have such a small sample size of 80 that’s part of the fun.


Other notes:

-Three of my four favorite films this year are all in the comedy category: Big Sick, Beatriz at Dinner, and Baby Driver so I had plenty of horses in this race and was somewhat disappointed. Selma Hayek gave a tender performance that went for big laughs in a wonderful movie that encapsulated the best of Mike White-style awkwardness. Similarly, the omission of Holly Hunter, Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, and the screenplay of Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani are all extremely disappointing. Watching Ansel Elgort get nominated for Baby Driver was a small consolation prize. Overlooked in all the hype of the movie is Baby Driver isn’t just a great technical achievement but Edgar Wright’s most emotionally poignant story with Elgort at the center. However, I think Lily James might also have been deserving.

-For my money, the nicest surprise would have been Tom Cruise in American Made. The actor has been relegated to strictly low-risk action since Oprah-gate and this is the first role in years where Cruise is committed to creating an interesting character while letting loose. Tropic Thunder was a nice cameo, but Barry Seal was a fully realized anti-hero and he was a lot of fun.

-With the horror film Get Out (a film I’m not crazy about), the indie stylings of Sean Baker (The Florida Project), and the fantastical Shape of Water, this is an awards year in which genre ghettoization will be broken open and I predict that will be the story of the 2017 season.

-Though I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele, I worry that Get Out will displace a better film because it’s getting an exaggerated spike from a film criticism community that leans towards the social justice liberal end of the spectrum. At the same time, I’m not attuned or experienced in the horror genre to fully get the nuances of the film. I would recommend that awards bodies go for Mudbound instead (which got snubbed by the Globes). 

-While I think the idea of being unable to separate the man from his art in the case of Kevin Spacey is absurd, I can certainly respect Ridley Scott’s decision to remake the film and it’s a testament to his genius and efficiency that he reshot All the Money in the World in a week and it was wonderful to see him rewarded.

-For the life of me, I can’t understand the fuss with Mary J. Blige. It’s such an understated performance, I can barely remember her at all. Mad props to Blige for taking on a challenging project for her transition to acting, but if these awards bodies want to award the film’s fantastic acting, Jason Clarke or Jason Mitchell deserve the nod in the supporting actor category. 

-Ughh, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep. Of course, these are two very good actresses but the former is always getting slots for Oscar-bait (she's already been nominated twice for playing Monarchs including Victoria herself, Chocolat was lightweight and Iris was a dry biopic that had no appeal outside of the acting challenge of playing an aging author culminating in Alzheimer's) and Streep has just been nominated too many times to feel any joy for her 21st film nomination.

-Lastly, seeing your favorite films get love on awards ceremonies is nice but it also makes one wonder about the “what ifs.” Todd Haynes and Richard Linklater are both directors who rarely go wrong and one has to wonder what they possibly could have done differently with Wonderstruck or Last Flag Flying to get the critics’ attention. Are they deserving films? Both films were on my must list but by the time I got around to stopping by the theater to see them, I discovered that they both were quietly dropped within a week or two.

Themes of all 2017 Films I've Seen To Date

All films, even schlock, have thematic messages. In that spirit, I'm challenging myself to see if I can draw out three themes from every film I've watched in 2017. Incidentally, this is also my ranking of these films from best to worst.

1.       Florida Project-Invisibility of the lower class; lower class stretches across color lines; incredible and unexpected capability of children to maintain innocence

2.       Baby Driver-Possibility of redemption; neither criminals nor life in general can be trusted rendering future planning pointless; nature vs nurture (Baby’s influenced by being raised by a deaf man and having no parents, yet has natural ability)

3.       Big Sick-Religious tradition vs. decisions about marriage are never easy; effect of family/parents is inescapable; power of camaraderie/comedy to combat suffering

4.       Dinner with Beatriz-Capitalism as inevitable enemy of good; complicitness vs obedience of social mores; female intuition vs. male capitalist-based thought 

5.       American Made-The universality and thinness of the American Dream (Seal's life is so exciting because everyone can envy what he has), draconian nature of American bureaucracy; opportunity favors the bold (and perhaps a better chance at fortune as the original proverb states)

6.       Beguiled-Sexuality as a legitimate danger to youthful development; underlying violence behind sexuality; emasculation

7.       Lost City of Z-The pursuit of new knowledge can be worth even more than human life; challenging the Euro-centric view of the third world; sacrifice of greatness (in this case, the protagonist is an absent husband and father)

8.       Murder on the Orient Express-Illegal isn’t always wrong; the ripple effect of an evil act (one man’s kidnapping plot has destroyed so many lives); Inevitability of being caught for a crime (more of a fictional trope than something that happens in real life)

9.       Logan Lucky-Creating your own luck in the face of socio-economic expectations;  Karma/morally relative universe; challenging red-state stereotypes (the idea that the family is cursed fits in with our idea of how red staters are disadvantaged)

10.   Mudbound-Prejudice is cyclic and inherited like poverty; war buddies as a metaphor of understanding through shared experience; the scarring effect of racial hostility (in this case, the metaphor is enforced literally)

11.   Wind River-Invisibility of Native Americans; the danger of male sexual aggression when left unchecked; Community can be adopted and that can be good

12.   Dunkirk-War makes human life fragile; war as a time and place that creates heroes for those who step up; honoring the greatness of those who fought and contributed to the war effort (if these themes don’t strike you as very complex, it also should be noted, I didn’t think Dunkirk had much to say outside of special effects)

13.   Circle-Beware of utopia; the costs to emotional connection in living your life online; the addictive nature of sharing yourself and the dangerous consequences 

14.   Wonder Wheel-Love and morality are two different spheres (taken to its logical conclusion, Allen argues in favor of wronging someone if you’re following your heart); the promise of a better future as a driving force to get one through the day (it worked positively for Humpty and Carolina and led to Carolina’s downfall); love and jealousy being intertwined

15.   Cars III-How a heroic figure deals with aging; self-determination vs corporate interests; power of self-belief in victory

16.   Wonder Woman-Women as keepers of security; fruitlessness of war; maturation through the classic odyssey (as in leaving your homeland and going into the unknown a la Homer’s epic)

17.   Deidra and Laney Rob a Train-The increase in pressure to succeed when you’re in poverty; the cyclical nature of poverty vs the power of family (in this film, sticking together as a family and being supportive helps them fight poverty); legally wrong vs morally wrong

18.   The House-Legally wrong vs morally wrong; the stifling financial burden placed on the American middle class; the thrill of illegality

19.   Colossal-He who brings peace to himself brings peace to all the universe (this comes from a Hebrew prayer); cross-culture cultural consumption as an alien force; redemption

20.   Little Hours-Destructive libido can appear in women as well as men; questioning whether human sexual suppression has matured throughout history; be careful what you wish for  

21.   Get Out-The limits of white allies to the black rights movement; the reduction of blacks in the genre; the American black experience being fundamentally different than the white experience through perception of others

22.   Kong Skull Island-The dangers of the militaristic mindset; the essential goodness of nature (even though, in this case, it’s presented through laughable means); human inclination to fear nature when it’s large and foreboding

23.   Atomic Blonde-The capability of the female as action hero; betrayal as part of human nature; war begets cynicism

24.   How to be a Latin Lover-Valuing love for your family (of birth) over romantic goals; value of sincerity in courting; don’t be defined by age

25.   The Great Wall-Challenging history from a Euro-centric view; contributions of both genders in war; positive power of cultural assimilation (the Matt Damon hero is empowered in war through learning Chinese ways of warfare)

26.   The Discovery-Dark side of scientific progress; possibility of love in dark times; genius is blind (the man who invented the afterlife couldn’t foresee the effects)

Wind River Review and Taylor Sheridan Retrospective to Hell or High Water and Sicario

On the heels of acclaimed films Sicario and Hell of High Water, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s latest film (this time he directs as well), Wind River, is a snowy noir that continues to solidify Sheridan’s brand. Despite the admirable placement of female leads in these films, Sheridan’s brand is one of rugged masculinity and a desire to explore different slices of Americana through a fine-tuning of the tropes collected from westerns, police thrillers and noirs. While Hell or High Water is his grandiose neo-Western, Sicario is his police thriller, and Wind River is his inversion of a noir, there’s a relative thinning of the walls between all three genres in these films.

Sheridan displays not just a strong penchant for vividly-painted settings but for arenas where the American dream is in danger of imploding from within. Sicario explores the threat to the integrity of American law enforcement when the pressure from violent cartels forces the good guys to play dirty. Hell or High Water re-frames the housing crisis as the classic American Western all over again with the Western ranch—an image ingrained in American iconography--seen as something under threat not by Injuns but by a loose regulatory system. The social commentary here is that the true “bad guys” are laws and infrastructures that undercut American integrity.

Similarly, Wind River is a fully immersive experience with a haunting sense of place but it’s also underlined by a social message, or at least an attempt of one. As revealed in the closing text scrawl before the credits (and interviews with Sheridan himself), the semi-autonomy of Indian reservations has the unintended side effect of lawlessness because all police below the federal level don’t have jurisdiction. A problem here is that this extremely specific message (more of an observation) is more on deep background than something that’s implicitly known to the viewer (at least this one).

Elizabeth Olsen plays an FBI agent who flies to Wyoming’s Wind River reservation to investigate a dead body found in the middle of the woods. Like a game of Mist, this is a story that’s nicely devoid of any hints. Was it a murder? Who even knows?  She’s extremely unprepared (the natural Hollywood inclination to cast an actress climbing her way up the A-list here doesn’t do this film any favors if it wanted to aim for realism and cast someone who reads at least 25) and relies on a hunter from the National Fish and Wildlife Service (I think?) played by Jeremy Renner and a police chief played by Graham Greene for help.

Through the investigation we see a bleak picture of a place where kids are more likely to get into drugs than go to college, the promise of a bed and warm meal makes jail comforting, and the loneliness of a drill job brings out the worst instincts in men. What’s even more telling is the expression on the faces of the local populance: In particular, Graham Greene and Gil Birmingham (two of only three Hollywood actors of Native American origin I can name offhand. If it threw in Adam Beach, we'd have the trifecta) go about their business with a cynical weariness. The latter is somewhat understandable because, well, he just lost his daughter, and his relationship with Renner’s character is the emotional centerpiece of the movie (and bonus points to the film for not pivoting it to a romance since, again, Olsen looks like she’s 20 and it’s a bit cradle-robbing).

Renner’s backstory is pretty standard (child killed, unsolved mystery, yada yada yada) but he’s a capable lead who fits nicely into the film’s meditative pace. What’s perhaps more interesting is he’s unabashedly Caucasian but identifies with the community because he married into it and has two Indian kids…ok, maybe it’s not that interesting after all (Score one for identity politics? Score one against identity politics? Is there a point in keeping track?).

Like Sicario, the film culminates in a massive release of violence. In that film, it made more sense since the death toll is so immense (at least in the public imagination) along the Rio Grande. In this case, there’s a Mexican stand-off which is a bit jarring. To expect that every single person at that rig would be comfortable not just covering up a murder as well as a rape is a bit much, but this is a film that asks us to believe they’d all casually decide “let’s kill a dozen more people”. Up until this point, it’s a filmic world that really puts a lot of care into realism of violence and the value of a life. The shoot-out gives us a sense that the screenwriter cared very little whether three or five or nine people died in that scene so much as guns were firing and people were falling down. 

On the whole, Wind River is ambitious, beautiful, and highly watchable. Despite a conclusion that left me unsettled (to be honest, Sicario didn’t end satisfyingly for me either), this is another one in the plus column for Taylor Sheridan.