War, Baby

Films: A Farewell to Arms
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on laptop.

This is another of those reviews where I feel I have to come clean at the start. I studied literature in college and have a BA in it. That means that I’ve read a bunch of classics including my share of the works of Ernest Hemingway. The truth of the matter is this: I think Hemingway was one of the finest craftsman of short stories the English language has ever seen, but I hate his novels. I hate them. I find his style to be oppressive when it goes on too long, and the man was incapable of writing a woman character who was anything other than a conduit for a man’s ego. This left me with scant hope for A Farewell to Arms.

And sure, I expected this to be grim. This also happens to be a case where my set against the source material could be slightly mollified because the movie diverges significantly from the book to the point where Hemingway himself evidently hated this film. But, it’s still Hemingway and it still manages to use a lot of his dialogue from the book. Worse, the characters are absolutely drawn from the novel, and that’s where I have the biggest problem with the story.

Wednesday Horror: The Borrower

Films: The Borrower
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Strap in, folks. This is going to be interesting.

I do try to give each movie I watch a fair shot, but I had literally no real hopes for The Borrower. The fact that it was directed by John McNaugton as the film following Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer did not fill me with hope. There were several reasons for this. First, this movie has not managed to show up on the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They list of 1000 best-reviewed horror movies. That puts it as less than a lot of really shitty movies. Second, the top-billed actor is Rae Dawn Chong. Not even the potential awesomeness of having Antonio Fargas in the cast can counteract that.

Proud Mary

Films: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
Format: DVD from Lena Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

I’m not sure where to start with What’s Love Got to Do with It? except to say that I’m a fan of Tina Turner despite not really being a huge fan of her music. I like her attitude; I think she’s bad-ass and I don’t think I need to love her music to think that. I’ve been trying to get this movie from NetFlix for some time, but it’s always on a very long wait, so I finally broke down and ordered it from a library. I didn’t want to see this specifically because it’s more or less Tina Turner’s biography (although Turner herself claims it’s not really close to factual) but because it stars both Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, and I really like both of them.

So, as I just said, this is essentially the biography of Tina Turner, but highly fictionalized. From what I understand, it covers the broad strokes without getting much right in the way of detail. I think I’m okay with that, although I often object to a complete rewrite of history, but it does present an interesting problem with the film. The fact that Ike Turner (Fishburne) was an abusive asshole and Tina (Bassett) had to fight for her right to perform independently and keep her own name is pretty well known. Because of that, it’s the details that are of interest here, and evidently the details aren’t close to the reality.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1954

The Contenders:

Humphrey Bogart: The Caine Mutiny
Bing Crosby: The Country Girl
Marlon Brando: On the Waterfront (winner)
Dan O’Herlihy: Robinson Crusoe
James Mason: A Star is Born

Lord of the Dance

Films: Billy Elliot
Format: DVD from Somonauk Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

I’ve almost certainly mentioned on this blog before that both of my daughters are dancers. When you tell someone that your daughter does ballet, they tend to assume that your daughter is about six and can do a clumsy plie while wearing a little tutu. My older daughter is 19 and graduated with a four-year degree in dance performance at 18. My younger daughter is 14 and spent last summer at the Joffrey in Chicago. I’m not fucking around when I say that they are serious dancers, and neither are they. Because of this, I’m not really sure I can be objective about Billy Elliot.

This is a story you’ve seen even if you haven’t seen this version of it. Our title character, Billy (Jamie Bell) is about 11 and lives in coal mining country in England. His mother has died unexpectedly, leaving him to be raised by his father Jackie (Gary Lewis) and his aggressive brother Tony (Jamie Draven), both of whom are miners and both of whom are on strike. He also lives with his grandmother (Jean Heywood), who is suffering from either Alzheimer’s or dementia. Money is tight, but Billy’s dad scrapes together 50p for Billy to take boxing lessons once per week.

Maui...Wowie!

Films: Moana
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s not often that a studio gets two films nominated for Best Animated Feature in the same year. I think that is generally because it’s hard for a studio to release two animated features in the same year. In the case of 2016 and Disney, though, both Zootopia and Moana were released and both were nominated for Best Animated Feature. I watched Zootopia months ago and enjoyed it well enough. Moana made it to NetFlix streaming, which meant I knew its time was coming.

Here’s the thing. The basic story of Zootopia is that racism is bad. Admittedly, that’s not like a staggering revelation, but the entire story is based on the idea that racism is destructive. It’s a fine message even if the movie misses a great deal of the actual problems with racism as experienced in the real world. Moana is an adventure tale about a young girl going to sea to save the island of her people and to connect with the wandering explorers of her people’s past. And Moana is a better argument against racism than Zootopia despite having not a damn thing to do with it.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1935

The Contenders:

Michael Curtiz: Captain Blood (write-in)
John Ford: The Informer (winner)
Henry Hathaway: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Frank Lloyd: Mutiny on the Bounty