My thoughts about Lady Bird (2017)

Written & Directed by: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts

The core conflict of the movie is between Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf). The reason they're always at odds with each other is because they are so alike. We see Marion counselling Father Leviatch (Stephen McKinley Henderson), and Shelly (Marielle Scott) remarks just what a big heart Marion has. We see these qualities reflected in Lady Bird, echoes of the same empathy, like when she ditches her date to hang out and attend prom with her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein).

This is why at the end of the film when Marion finds out Lady Bird has been accepted to a school in New York, she cuts off all contact with her. This devastates Lady Bird who doesn't understand why her mother won't even get out of the car at the airport to see her off. We see Marion's inner conflict before and after this moment. She feels betrayed that her daughter wants to leave her, but also there's an element of Lady Bird being able to go make something of herself. An opportunity that Marion feels she never got. And of course there's the regret that she wasn't able to bring herself to say goodbye, and the fear that she may never see her daughter again.

This isn't the only bad decision made in the film, but it might be the most devastating. Lady Bird is a coming of age story. Part of being a teenager is making bad decisions, and learning from your mistakes. Most of the teenage romance, and Lady Bird lying to try and fit in with more wealthy and popular kids made me cringe. I felt embarrassed because I too remember how awkward I was as a teenager, how difficult even the simplest of social interactions can be. There's a lot of shame involved with adolescence, because you're figuring out who you are. I think this is best demonstrated in the coffee shop scene with Lady Bird and Danny (Lucas Hedges).

He was Lady Bird's first love before she finds out he's gay. He visits her in the coffee shop to apologize for misleading her. Not out of malicious intent, but going to a religious school, Danny thinks that there's something wrong with him for feeling this way. When Lady Bird hugs him as he cries, she forgives him. This is a moment of healing and another example of her blossoming empathy.

Spirituality plays a prominent role throughout the film. After moving to New York, Lady Bird drinks too much and is hospitalized. After being discharged, she finds herself outside a cathedral on Sunday morning. If only for a brief moment, attending the mass heals something that is broken inside of her. In the final moments of the film she leaves a voicemail on her parent's answering machine. She thanks them for her real name "Christine". She's spent so much time trying to be someone else and I think she realizes how much that hurt her mother. Lady Bird was sent to Catholic school to avoid the path of her brother. While the film is critical of the views of the religious (in relation to homosexuality and abortion), religion as a mentoring and positive force is demonstrated by the priests and nuns at Lady Bird's high school.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★

My thoughts on The Thief of Baghdad (1924)

Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Written by: Lotta Woods & Douglas Fairbanks
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Julanne Johnston, Snitz Edwards

I'm in awe of the special effects used in silent films, because I wonder "How did they do that?" rather then just thinking about CGI. The second half of the movie has the Thief (Douglas Fairbanks) travel on a perilous quest through caves of fire, under the sea, and riding a winged horse. Meanwhile, the three princes vying for the hand of the Princess (Julanne Johnston), fly on a magic carpet. There's a rope that hangs straight up without being attached to anything, and the scale of some of the sets are a marvel to behold (for example, the giant statue which houses the magic crystal in its eye).

I was not expecting to be so caught up in the spectacle either considering what I thought of The Thief for the first half of the movie. He's so cocky in his flaunting of the law, and how he steals from, and ridicules those who live differently from him. He pursues the princess not because of love, but because he wants her, and he always takes what he wants. The second half of the movie is a redemption arc, but truthfully the redemption occurs during his plan to disguise himself as a prince and win the hand of the Princess. He is found out, flogged, and only saved because the Princess already having fallen in love with him, bribes the guards to save his life. Dejected, he seeks the Holy Man (Charles Belcher) he mocked at the start of the film, who sends him on his quest. I think what caused me to stick with such a despicable character for the first hour is Douglas Fairbanks' charisma. His expressions and his gestures. You gain an understanding of how much fun the Thief is having and how much he enjoys life, even while disagreeing with his perspective.

The Mongol Prince (Sojin Kamiyama) lives by a similar creed. He takes what he wants. What he wants is the city of Baghdad, but after meeting the Princess, he sees that he will leave the city with two prizes instead of one. He spies on the Princess, the other princes, and sneaks his army into the city walls. When he signals them, Baghdad is defenseless. It falls and his power is absolute. Only the Thief returning from his quest with magic powder is able to stop him, summoning an entire army to retake the city. The Mongol Prince is thwarted, but we do not see him punished for his crimes. Instead the film focuses on the happiness of the Thief and the Princess, riding off on the magic carpet in love with each other. Their joy is more important than any justice.

I watched the movie in two halves, one night apart. The first half was a slog to get through. I didn't like the Thief and didn't care that his heart was slowly turning because of the Princess. I stopped watching right before the Thief was going to be ripped apart by the palace ape. Throughout the second half, I was sympathetic towards him for wanting to turn his life around, and the lengths he was going through to do it. I marvelled at the special effects. I was emotionally invested in his triumph, and hated the Mongol Prince for his plan to poison the Princess, and then save her life with the magic apple. I'm impressed how the film was able to emotionally invest me when I had such low engagement during its beginning.

Personal Enjoyment: ★★★

My thoughts on The Shape of Water (2017)

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Written by: Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon

Most stories are about transformation. A character starts one way and by the end they're a different person. Elisa's transformation at the end of The Shape of Water is literal. After being shot in the chest and plunging into the deep, the Amphibian Man's healing magic not only cures her bullet wound, but the conveniently placed scars on her neck. The cause of her being mute becomes a strength as they turn into gills and allow her to breath underwater.

The Amphibian Man's touch is one of healing. He rests his hand on the top of Giles' head and cures him of his baldness. Holding Giles' cut arm causes the injury to disappear. This is an outer power, and it is what saves not only his life, but Elisa's. Elisa possesses an inner power. She is able to rally people to her aid. All of her friends feel alienated in the world. Giles is a homosexual, and Zelda is a black woman before the civil rights movement. Elisa, being mute feels at home amongst people who don't fit in, and perhaps that's why she falls in love with the Amphibian Man. Elisa is even able to reach Strickland. Of course he reads it wrong and becomes infatuated with a woman who can't talk back to him, but if the scene with General Hoyt is any indication, Strickland feels disillusioned as well. He is not allowed to make mistakes. His family and the possessions he buys bring him no joy, and to top it all off, his fingers are rotting away.

When the Amphibian Man is brought in he bites off two of Strickland's fingers. Elisa recovers them, and they are surgically reattached. Throughout the film they grow blacker and more corrupt until Strickland tears the rotting flesh away in front of Zelda and her husband. If the fingers are a metaphor, what do they symbolise? Is it the feeling of despair as the stresses of Strickland's job keep piling up? Is it his inability to accept his own failures, or the inability to fail in the first place? When the Amphibian Man walks towards Strickland before slicing his throat, I got the sense that Strickland while scared, was somewhat relieved the end was coming, and that he would die in the line of duty.

The Shape of Water has a fairytale like quality to it. Not just because Elisa and the Amphibian Man receive their 'happily ever afters'. Despite the scenes of gore, despite the bigotry of society, and despite Strickland and the system he symobolises, this is a sweet film. It evoked warm and happy feelings inside me, and I would easily recommend it.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★

Safety Last (1923)

Directed by: Fred C Newmeyer & Sam Taylor
Written by: Hal Roach, Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother

In my writing on Buster Keaton's movies, I mentioned how the stunts are so thrilling because of the single shot camera, and apparent lack of safety. In modern cinema, it is highly impressive that Tom Cruise pulls off all these death defying stunts for the Mission: Impossible franchise, but we do know that there are wires that are edited out, and other mechanisms keeping him safe. The stunts are still exhilarating, but there's a bit of a disconnect.

I felt the opposite when Harold Lloyd starts to climb the department store building in the featured set-piece of Safety Last. I think part of it is that even though his character has no skill whatsoever in such a feat, I know the actor is famous for his stunts, and so watching him climb clear handholds floor after floor left me a bit cold.

I started feeling differently during the infamous clock scene. Lloyd is hanging from the minute hand of a giant storefront clock as it has opened up. He's dangling floors up from the ground. It's spectacular.

After reaching the top of the building Lloyd is hit on the head and drunkenly staggers on the ledge of the roof. I held my breath. Obviously such acting would be meticulously worked out and rehearsed, but the actual performance raised my blood pressure. Only one thing needs to go wrong. Perhaps there's a safety net, perhaps the roof is actually a set built on a studio lot not far from the ground, but these thoughts did not cross my mind. We watched Lloyd struggle through climbing each floor of the building and he's built up the goodwill that this rooftop is legitimate.

That's not even the final stunt. Lloyd wraps his foot up in a flagpole rope and when he finally does topple over the edge, he's swinging from the roof of the building. This is the catharsis point. I burst out laughing and breathed a sigh of relief. Lloyd is reunited with his sweetheart and all is well.

The film is full of clever sight gags and moments of tension (the sequence where Lloyd is lying to Mildred about his position at the department store had me cringing. My feeling is that after all that lying and the feelings of inadequacy that caused it, the building climb is the redemption arc of Harold Lloyd. Not only because he receives $1000 for his stunt (I do wonder how much he'll give his friend seeing all the friend did during the whole feat was unsuccessfully try to ditch one policeman), but because he overcame a great struggle. They have the money to get married. At least in the time we spend with these two characters, we don't get to see the repercussions of Mildred finding out she was lied to.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Directed by: Anthony & Joe Russo
Written by: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo

The opening scene of Infinity War sets Thanos up as a threat. Not only does he smack The Hulk around, but he kills both Heimdall and Loki before destroying the Asguardian ship. And this is before he starts collecting the Infinity Stones. One question I had is why it's taken him so long to start searching for them. Thanos has been a looming threat since the first Avengers, and all of a sudden he proactively hunts down the stones. He's always been a threat, and he's always been formidable, but it seems that this accelerated timeline is just for the sake of Thanos finally getting off his throne and showing us what these films have been building him up to be. I think it only half works.

The draw of Infinity War is seeing all of the Marvel characters finally come together and play off one another. To see the Guardians of the Galaxy trade quips with Thor and Tony Stark, to see Dr. Strange trade quips with Tony Stark. Stark is kind of the centerpiece of the movie. I don't know if I'm projecting my own lack of enjoyment but it feels that the characters don't seem like themselves. There's so much of James Gunn in the Guardians, and after Taiki Watiti leading Thor in a new direction, the characterization feels flat. Mind you, there's a lot going on in this film so the characters aren't given the time they need to be themselves, but even their base motivations and one-liners, seem off.

Let's discuss Thanos' motivation. Seeing that he ends this first of a two part movie victorious, it would make sense for the audience to understand where he's coming from. The prime conflict of the movie is one life verses the lives of the many. It's illustrated through Dr. Strange telling Tony Stark and Peter Parker that if it comes to it, he will sacrifice their lives to protect the time stone, for no single life is as important as half the lives of the universe. Later he sacrifices the time stone to save Tony's life. Before he disappears himself, Dr. Strange mentions that it had to be this way. Earlier he used the time stone to see all the permutations of the future to find a way through. This suggests to me that he found out that not only was saving Tony Stark's life important, but letting Thanos enact his plan as well. This is a comic book movie after all. It wouldn't be too difficult to bring back everyone killed through the power of the stones.

Thanos believes that only by destroying half the life in the universe can it be saved. He saw his own planet destroyed through over population and decided that he had the will to enact genocide on a grand scale to stop this happening to others. It's kind of a silly plan because it only prolongs that which he's trying to prevent. Given enough time, the populations will reach breaking point again, and such an act would need to be repeated. Because Thanos believes that no life is ultimately important, he is able to sacrifice his daughter Gamora to retrieve the soulstone. It hurts him, but he continues on his quest. I thought perhaps that great a sacrifice might lead him to have doubts on inflicting the pain he feels on so many others, but that is not explored. In the end he wipes out half the life in the universe, including many of the heroes before the movie ends.

I wonder if my dislike of the film will be changed once part 2 comes out. Viewed as a whole, Infinity War might resonate more, but after that first sequence it was all downhill for me. I was engaged superficially as the plot kept moving forward but sadly the film wasn't able to make me care. I wasn't emotionally invested.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★

Our Hospitality (1923)

Directed by: John G Blystone & Buster Keaton
Written by: Jean C Havez & Clyde Bruckman
Starring: Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge, Joe Keaton

Our Hospitality was quite different from Sherlock Jr. That film mostly dealt with a fantasy, where Keaton's character was a clever man who used his ingenuity and tenacity to outwit the villains. In Our Hospitality, Keaton's character is a young man thrust into a bad situation. Unbeknownst to him, he's the youngest member of one of two families in a blood feud. Returning to the town of his birth to take over his father's estate, he runs afoul of the Canfields who try their hardest to kill him while not breaking the rules of hospitality. You see, the Canfield's daughter Virginia has fallen for our hero, and invites him to dinner. Once he's outside the property however, the rules of hospitality no longer apply, and a death defying chase ensues.

This final chase scene is the centerpiece of the movie. Keaton scales down a cliff, and saves Virginia from going over a waterfall by swinging from a rope attached to a rickety log at its edge. Some of the cliff stunts looked like they may have been filmed on a sound stage, especially since the landscape behind the cliff does have a painted backdrop quality to it, but that could be the quality of the film. It wouldn't surprise me if all the stunts were filmed on location. And yet, nothing that Keaton accomplishes here made my jaw drop like certain sequences from Sherlock Jr. I think it might be the film's tone. While there were plenty of little chuckles to be had in Our Hospitality (the train ride to the town, and when the dam gets blown up and hides Keaton from the Canfields comes to mind), there's a grim spectre lurking behind the comedy. The blood feud. That these men are willing to kill a young man they don't know because of the family he's from. It's a grim premise to base a comedy on.

At least it has a happy ending. Willie (Keaton) and Virginia are married as the Canfields are about to kill him. A priest is in the room. He witnessed Willie saving Virgina, the two are in love and now they're family. For one final gag, when they accept Willie, he takes out all their missing guns from his belt, implying that if the blood feud had continued, he might have had the upper hand. Willie McKay is at least as resourceful as Sherlock Jr, even if his victories amount to dumb luck for comedic purposes. Here, Keaton didn't get to escape into fantasy while things worked themselves out. The victory was more hard fought and perhaps should be all the sweeter because of it, but I'd rather go back and watch Sherlock Jr.

Personal enjoyment: ★★

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie & Bruce Geller
Starring: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames

Henry Cavill can't be this bad an actor on purpose. In the opening scenes where we're introduced to Walker, his repartee with Ethan Hunt is so stilted and badly delivered, it seemed inevitable that he would be the movie's villain. There was no warmth or good nature in their exchange, no undercurrent of "we're going to end the movie the best of friends". I wonder if that's where the film went off the rails, because except for the bathroom fight sequence and the rooftop chase, I was disconnected throughout the movie. The movie didn't give me any reason to care about characters I have cared for previously, and maybe it's because there was no tension in the majority of these action sequences. Even though the stakes of the final sequence was the detonation of two nuclear weapons, the only tension I felt was that there was a brief moment where I thought Benji was going to die, and the visceral reaction to how Walker finally met his end.

People in the cinema were openly laughing at the helicopters on the side of the cliff. There's this shot of them trapped in this tight crevasse before they fall further to the final plateau. As I saw this shot, part of my brain was telling me "That's a really cool shot. I should be loving this", but I wasn't. Maybe the disengagement came even earlier than Walker's introduction. I was expecting the movie to open with action. Instead it opened with a wedding that was actually a nightmare, before a business exchange goes wrong. The wedding scene lays out what the film is after and it runs counter to why I enjoyed Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation. My expectations for these movies is to watch high tension action setpieces where I marvel at the skill involved (especially with the actor's performing their own stunts). This film was interested in continuing a story from a series where each film has largely stood on its own. I should have seen it coming from the title of the movie. Yes, the plot is largely about nuclear weapons, but the word 'fallout' is screaming that consequences from earlier actions are going to play out.

I'm wondering why the tension of Rogue Nation's final sequence in the restaurant worked so well while the final sequence of Fallout in Kashmir had little to no effect. Is it the stakes? Rogue Nation's finale was personal. Benji's life, as well as the lives of the surrounding block are at risk. There is an action scene afterwards, but the important part is Ethan outplaying Lane and winning their duel. The final knife fight, chase, and capture is a cathartic reward after enjoying the villain being out-maneuvered. In Fallout, the stakes are high (a third of the world's population will likely suffer and die if these bombs go off), but aside from our heroes being caught in the blast radius, there is no outplaying the villain. In fact, it almost feels like luck saves the day as the bombs are deactivated with only a second left. Ethan and his team have no plan going into this finale except how to stop the bombs. Everything is improvised. In the back of my head, I know they're going to win, so watching them go to such ludicrous lengths to save the day feels flat compared to when Ethan and his team were in control.

Personal enjoyment: ★★

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Written by: Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C Clarke
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

I love that local cinemas are showing prints of old movies. I got to see the 4k transfer of 2001: A Space Odyssey yesterday. My only criticism, the volume in the cinema was too loud. It helped in places, as the classical music soundtrack was all the more powerful when you're in the middle of its bombast, but two sequences in particular almost deafened me. One was when HAL disables the life support systems of the crew in hibernation, and the other was when the Monolith on the moon transmits its message to Jupiter. It certainly made me sympathise with those poor spacemen.

2001 takes its time. Everything moves at a slow and deliberate pace, and it never becomes boring. Even the black screen before the film, after intermission, and after the end credits is made tolerable because of the music. The long sequences of spaceships travelling and docking is made passable by the music, and the "tripping balls" sequence as my friend put it is such an affront of image and sound, that you can't help but be mesmorised.

Even though the majority of the film feels slow, it astonished me how quickly the HAL story moved. We meet the crew of this Jupiter mission, HAL discusses some concerns about the mission before mentioning a malfunction in the craft. The crew go to fix it and it turns out there is nothing wrong with it. Frank and Dave believe HAL is a danger and talk about disconnecting him. He turns on both of them, and Dave barely makes it back to the ship to disable HAL. It speeds along into the final sequence.

I thought about the hero's journey. That if HAL had knowledge of the Monolith and its purpose, perhaps humanity had to prove itself before reaching Jupiter, before unlocking the secrets of the universe. The final shot of the film, the "space baby" returning to Earth makes me think of Dave being completely reborn and ready to lead humanity on its next step (how the Monolith appears to the apes at the start of the movie and inspires them to use tools). When he's in the room at the end, time works in a strange way. It leaps forward in chunks with him in two times at once before fully committing to the future. Whether the old man to space baby transition is a metaphor for the afterlife and a new state of being, or the Monolith is telling Dave that he can jump back in time as well, I don't know.

What I do know is if you have a chance to see 2001 on the big screen, please take the opportunity. 

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Directed & Written by: Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell

As I was watching Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, I felt that the film had no characters that I could get behind. While I could understand their motivation, it didn't excuse their behaviour, and often their behavior was unconscionable. This changed for me at the midway point when Chief Willoughby takes his own life, leaving letters for his wife, Mildred, and Dixon. I had seen Willoughby as an antagonist because Mildred is the protagonist. She feels that the local police aren't doing enough to find her daughter's killer, and the purchase of the three billboards is what kicks off the story. Even without the billboards, Willoughby would have still taken his own life, but perhaps the events that directly follow the suicide would not have happened. Dixon's violence, firing, and redemption.

Dixon changes more than Mildred. It's fitting that the end of the film is the two driving to Idaho to murder a man who they are not quite sure is a rapist. It's as if their anger and vengeance is dissipating. Whether it's because of their close proximity to each other or just what they've gone through, I am unsure. I think Mildred is so twisted up inside, that the only person who can be near her without setting her off is someone like Dixon. That's why the dinner with James is so depressing. James comes across as a good man. Mildred is too damaged for a good man. Maybe she always was, considering her ex-husband. I wonder about him, for the ditzy 19 year old he's parading around doesn't seem to set off his rage like Mildred. He even says to her at the end that anger just begets greater anger. Mildred is like a radiator, her anger glowing even in the one scene we get before the death of her daughter.

There's an undercurrent of black humour. The previous film by Martin McDonagh was Seven Psychopaths. While violent, it was funny. Three Billboards has humour, but it feels sub-textual. Like the whole story is a farce. For instance, in the letter Willoughby writes Mildred, he mentions that a lot of these types of crimes get solved by the killer being overheard in a bar. Sure enough, Dixon overhears someone discussing a similar crime while drinking, gets beat up in order to grab his DNA, and when the tests come back, it turns out this guy wasn't even in the country when Angela was killed. The scenes between Mildred and Willoughby or Mildred and Dixon in the police station have a fencing quality to them as barbs are tossed back and forth. Dixon for all his violence and racism is a joke of a man. The film is telling us to laugh at him. That the ending leaves things unresolved also feels like a dark joke. That this is just how life goes. It sucks doesn't it? Maybe if someone learned something, than it makes things a little better. Dixon gives Mildred some hope at the end of the film, just as their doubt in the excursion to Idaho gives the viewer a little hope that maybe things won't get worse by seeing this through.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★

Nanook of the North (1922)

Directed by Robert J Flaherty

I am unsure if Nanook of the North is the first ever documentary, but I thought a lot about the creed of the documentarian to not interfere with the subject matter, at least when it comes to nature documentaries. Here we're tracking the survival of an Inuit family in the arctic circle. The film opens up with screens of inter-titles explaining Robert Flaherty's history in discovering the power of documentary, and then creating one around a person. It also lets the audience know that his subject Nanook, died of starvation during the time Flaherty was back in Hollywood putting his film together. It lends a grimness to the capturing of this jovial and accomplished hunter on celluloid.

This family goes days without food. Fish, Walruses, Seals, these are scarce, especially during the winter months. The pelts that Nanook and his family wear are from arctic foxes and polar bears. The kayak and sleds are stretched from seal skin. Everything that keeps these people alive is taken from the land, and is dangerous to acquire. There's a long sequence of Nanook and his fellow hunters sneaking up on a family of walruses. They're so hungry when they finally capture one, that they carve it up and eat the meat raw. Near the end of the film there's an extended sequence of Nanook pulling a seal out of a hole in the ice. It takes the strength of everyone to make sure the creature doesn't escape. When describing Nanook, the film tells us that he has killed many polar bears with nothing more than a harpoon. I gained a huge respect for the skills of the man.

One of the most impressive sequences was how quickly they built an igloo on their journey through the wintery wastes. The inter-titles tell us that it takes about an hour. Nanook licks his ivory knife so the saliva that freezes instantly into ice will add to its cutting power, creating blocks of snow. Nanook cuts a sheet of ice to use as a window, and uses snow to reflect the sun through it. There's a separate igloo for the husky puppies so the larger dogs who are just as hungry as Nanook and his family don't eat them.

It's the dogs that hurt the most. In the final shots of the film, Nanook and his family sleep in an abandoned igloo while a winter storm rages. The dogs left outside are pelted with snow and lie in small, frozen looking clumps on the ground. Asking a friend about this, she told me that huskies are built for this sort of thing and the dogs were most likely fine. This leads back into my original thought of the role of the documentarian. I have a feeling that Flaherty and his team were not going cold and hungry. They were never on camera so must have taken care of their own survival. They must have arranged matters with Nanook as to this being the case and Nanook sounds like he was happy about the film. I guess it sits a bit sour treating another human being like any other documentary subject, especially when life in the arctic cicle is so unforgiving.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Directed and written by: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Jeremy Renner

The draw of the Mission Impossible movies is that you watch them to see Tom Cruise pull off ridiculous stunts. The stunts are real, and the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Wrong TV series. The film opens up with Ethan Hunt hanging off the side of a plane as it takes off, and then keeps upping the ante with one meticulously put together action set piece after another. Ethan has been after a group called 'The Syndicate'. They're an anti-IMF (impossible mission force). Meanwhile the IMF is shut down because Alec Baldwin as head of the CIA thinks that Ethan has made up The Syndicate to excuse his reckless behaviour. Can Ethan uncover and stop The Syndicate while keeping one step in front of the CIA, and why do both sides keep giving Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) so many second chances?

I'll be interchanging the names of the characters with the names of the actors that play them. As stated above, I'm here to watch Tom Cruise pull off ridiculous stunts while Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, and Ving Rhames support him. The highlight of Rogue Nation is the opera sequence. There's an assassination planned. There are three shooters to make sure the job gets done. The hit is going to be masked by a crescendo in the opera, and the use of the set, the editing, and music are used to not only increase tension, but so we know exactly where every player is and wonder how such a plan is going to be thwarted. Ethan's decision, and how it later ends up not mattering doesn't lessen the sequence in any way. It was the stand out of the entire film for me.

It's also rather early on, yet the action sequences that follow aren't diminished for not living up to it. The true impossible mission in Casablanca works because of the ridiculous technology, and timing required to pull it off. I will admit I rolled my eyes when Ethan was about to insert the chip into the computer that would allow Simon Pegg access to the facility, and then a rotating winch clocks him in the stomach, causing him to drop the chip. I was disgusted with what I felt was the artificiality of causing a hiccup in the plan. 

The final sequence almost rises to the brilliance of the opera but in a different way. The opera was a lot of moving pieces that we were able to follow. The ending is a classic "how are they going to get out of this" scenario. Sitting down at a table in a crowded restaurant with a bomb strapped to Benji, Lane (Sean Harris, the leader of The Syndicate) tells Ethan that he foresaw this ending from the moment he trapped Ethan in the record shop at the start of the movie. It becomes about motivation and character behaviour. Ethan as our hero is so much better than Lane. His outmaneuvering allows defusion of the literal ticking time bomb. They escape, Ilsa has a brutal knife fight, and Ethan traps Lane in a box. I don't understand why at this point Lane wanted to kill Ethan rather than capturing him because of the information in his head, but it was a satisfying conclusion nonetheless.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★

Spider-Man Homecoming (2017)

Directed by: Jon Watts

Written by: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley

Starring: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr.

Spider-Man Homecoming is an example of how it's important to go into any movie with little or no expectations. Not only were the Sam Raimi films on my mind, but also the lukewarm critical reaction to Homecoming. Nothing negative, but not really any praise either. It seemed a middle of the road Marvel entry. Imagine my surprise when I had a smile on my face for all of Act one, and the Act 3 reveal and build up both shocked and excited me. Shock because I didn't see Toomes' reveal as Michelle's dad coming, and excitement for how the story built to its finale from that reveal. My only real complaints are that Act 2 kind of dragged (especially leading up to the Ferry action set piece), and some scenes of genuine emotion were undercut for a joke (the most egregious being Happy with Peter in the bathroom at the end of the movie).

I like that Homecoming didn't bother with an origin story. Tony Stark finds Peter Parker during the events of Civil War and at the start of this film gives him the Special Stark Spidey Suit™. When his best friend Ned finds out that he's Spiderman, we get a brief exchange about how he was bitten by a radioactive spider, but the rest of the story is implied by small details like mixing his web solution in chemistry class. Incidentally, as a Spidey fan (he's always been my favourite superhero), I prefer when he creates the webs naturally from his body, but I appreciate that this detail explains what version of Spiderman we're dealing with in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I'm less sure about Karen. That's the name Peter gives to the Stark suit's AI when he gets Ned to unlock the training wheels protocol. There's some fun moments with Peter not used to everything the suit can do (including its lethal and interrogational capabilities), and it gives him another personality to quip back and forth with during the action scenes. It comes in handy too, but I think it plays into the larger theme of the movie, that Stark and the Avengers are not what Spiderman is. While the suit is useful (just like how Peter's desire to help on a greater scale with The Avengers is useful), by relying on that power, things can get out of hand. Maybe it's the finale with the Vulture on that airplane that cements this idea in Peter's mind that the risk versus reward is too great, especially when his duty as an Avenger clashes with his desires as an adolescent in high school.

I've always liked The Vulture as a villain. When I was collecting comics, he was a decrepit old man dying of cancer, but his flying suit, evil gaze and remorseless attitude stayed with me. Keaton imbues the character with a cocksurety and cold calculation that feels like it shouldn't work. He's a working class guy who's all buddy buddy, until he kills you. The best part was his speech to Peter before he brings the roof down. It's similar to Killmonger from Black Panther in that The Vulture isn't wrong in his motivation, but he's wrong in his actions, or at least he's wrong because he's in direct opposition to our hero. I also appreciated that he didn't die at the end of the film. Spiderman saves him, and the first of the post-credits scenes show him in prison facing off with a character who I assume is going to be The Scorpion. I wonder if we'll get a build up to a Sinister Six movie.

Finally, I think the post-credits sequence of Homecoming is my favourite post credits sequence in any Marvel movie.

Personal Enjoyment: ★★★★

Broken Blossoms (1919)

Directed by: DW Griffith

Written by: Thomas Burke & DW Griffith

Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp

I had some reservations about Broken Blossoms during the intro credits as one of the main characters was called 'The Yellow Man'. The film starts off in China, and while it casts Asian actors to play Asian people, I was unsure of The Yellow Man. At times he looked Asian, and at times he looked like a Caucasian playing an Asian. He's also referred to as a "chink" after moving to Limestone, in London. Even Lucy, the girl he nurses back to health says to him, "Why are you so good to me chinky?". I was shocked by how casually the slur was thrown around. Especially because The Yellow Man is technically the hero of the story, and the film sympathises with him. Perhaps "chink" was not a slur in 1919, or perhaps racism was less of an issue for audiences. 

A point of interest in regards to this idea is that when Battling Burrows discovers that Lucy has been staying with The Yellow Man (Burrows is a drunken lout of a boxer who found Lucy as a baby and has been raising and terrorising her), the film tells us that there is nothing he hates more than people who weren't born in his country. This reads to me as motivation for him to assault The Yellow Man rather than getting the audience to sympathise with the villain in any way. Although I felt that his anger towards Lucy at the end of the film was because he thought they had slept together and he had sullied her, rather than him just hating foreigners. 

This is the third movie by DW Griffith I have seen (The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance being the other two), and I have a general feeling of his aesthetic as a filmmaker. His inter-titles have a poetry to them. He names characters after archetypes or characteristics and uses the text to talk about their yearning or internal motivations. Broken Blossoms helped me see one of the strengths of silent film. Using the inter-titles, you can set up a scene with the emotion and action you are after and then let the moving image pay off what you have set up. What the actors are saying to each other doesn't matter because the audience knows what is supposed to be happening. The tragedy of this story is amplified by how lovingly Griffith talks about these characters as the events are playing out. It also helps that the cinematography is excellent in capturing the emotions of our main three characters and the interactions between them.

Donald Crisp who plays Battling Burrows is a magnetic screen presence. His rage is palpable. You would think a boxer would be able to get rid of his pent up aggression, but no, Lucy faces the brunt of it, even after a match. She lives in constant terror that this man will kill her, and sadly that's exactly what ends up happening. That The Yellow Man kills Burrows almost means nothing because the horrible death of Lucy has already happened, and a swift death for Burrows doesn't feel like justice. Even worse, before the police arrive, The Yellow Man commits suicide next to the body of Lucy, who he loves. The film ends and makes one wonder what was it all for?

Is it meant to show us just how unfair life is for so many people? How even someone with such beauty, or a man trained for peace in the ways of the Buddha can be knocked around by fate and meet a sad and untimely end? Is it showing the horrors of abuse and racism? Is it meant to show that even through tragedy love between two unlikely people can blossom? There's a line in the film about The Yellow Man's love being so innocent and pure that even his enemies have to admit to it. Is it a film about naivety? The Yellow Man seems to be adrift in life, having lost his way after moving to Limestone. Lucy is a teenager and has nothing that brings her joy. Burrows despite being a good boxer is nothing but a personification of rage and terror. I wanted to cheer for Lucy and The Yellow Man but it's not like they have a relationship so I don't see comparisons to Romeo & Juliet and the idea of star-crossed lovers. When the film ended I was shocked and saddened by the outcome.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more confused I am about what Broken Blossoms is actually trying to say.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★