Movie Review: Birth Of A Nation

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A somewhat faithful retelling of Turner’s Rebellion with some campy Hollywood crap thrown in for kicks.  Pretty good acting, though.

Turner’s Rebellion is a very strange footnote in history to build a narrative reclaiming movie over.  “Narrative” isn’t the right word, but I can’t come up with a word that fits.  For those of you who don’t know, the original “The Birth of a Nation” movie was both groundbreaking movie making and pretty racist in its portrayal of Blacks as lesser human beings and the KKK as righteous protectors.  So when a Black filmmaker/writer/actor creates a movie called “Birth of a Nation”, as Nate Parker has done, there are strong overtones of reclamation of a racist past in the hopes that people will remember the latter instead of the former.  That’s why it’s strange to me to use a story of a religious zealot who led a failed slave revolt that indiscriminately killed slave-holding families and resulted in the brutal subjugation of both slave and freed Black as a vehicle to reclaim that narrative.

Then there’s Nate Parker’s unfortunate history of taking advantage of a drunk and passed out woman as a sophomore in college, of which he was acquitted of rape charges, of which he also shows no remorse even though he admits it was morally wrong, whatever that means.  Though horrible, this wouldn’t be germane to the movie at all if it wasn’t for Parker’s use of two ahistorical rape scenes (one absolutely brutal) to drive Nat Turner’s quest for vengeance.  Using the rape of a woman as a plot device for a man to take revenge is lazy film-making at its worst.  It’s inexcusable in modern film.  Especially for a film which has Oscar buzz.  Doubly especially for a film created by a man who you can’t help but wonder is saying, “What I did isn’t rape, THIS is rape”.

Despite all of its baggage it’s a decent enough movie, though I’m not sure why there were such rave reviews leading up to its release.  There are some brilliant moments, capped in my mind by the hauntingly sad rendition of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, and great acting all around.  These pluses kind of get overshadowed by pointless Hollywood moments like “the face-off” and “the betrayal”, of which the former is eye rolling and the latter is ham-handed.  All of this leads me to the conclusion that “Birth of a Nation” will only be remembered for Nate Parker’s unfortunate choices both in life and in story choices and not as a narrative redefining film.

America’s Penis Is About To Get Blown

Hurricane Matthew is currently bearing down on Florida’s east coast and it’s still a doozy.  140 MPH sustained winds and showing signs of possible strengthening.  Current forecast shows it moving straight up the east coast of Florida, tickling Georgia and South Carolina and then circling around for a possible second hit of Florida.  Ouch.  There’s also a possibility that it will then cross Florida and hit the Gulf of Mexico whose warm waters might turn it into a hurricane once again, but that’s too far in the future to predict with any accuracy.  You can check its progress here.

This is shaping up to be a very serious threat to Florida.  Not only will southern Florida have to deal with the hurricane surge itself, but it may come just as it is also experiencing high tide in the middle of the night.  You’ll recall what happened to New York when a similar scenario happened with hurricane Sandy which only had 70 MPH sustained winds at the time.  If you know anyone in eastern Florida, be sure to let them know that this isn’t a hurricane to mess around with.  Get away from the sea and stay indoors.

If Matthew does strengthen and continue along its projected path, we could be getting an early glimpse of what the state of Florida will look like in 50-100 years with the predicted sea level rise due to general warming and the ice caps shrinking.  Of which, the Arctic just experienced its second lowest ice extent minimum by the way.  So yeah, things are really shaping up for planet Earth.

Movie Review: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A movie with some charm but pales in comparison to the 1960 version.  A little long but still better than “Seven Samurai” in that it didn’t waste an hour showing a peasant crying in a barn.  “But look at Kurosawa’s masterful use of lighting and shadow”, blah blah blah.

I can really sum up this review by just saying go see the 1960 version of the movie and be done with it.  But that might just be nostalgia talking so a reviewing I shall go.

When looking for when the original movie was released, I discovered that there was also a TV series with the same premise back in 1998-2000.  So yeah, this ground has been covered quite extensively.  And there’s good reason for that.  It’s a compelling story filled with a motley bunch of do-gooders and over the top bad guys and underdogs who persevere despite adversity.  Really, though, it’s the motley bunch of do-gooders that we’re here to see.  2016 doesn’t disappoint in that respect.  The cast of misfits, led by Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, are entertaining if a little flat around the edges.  The villain, played by Peter Sarsgaard, is sufficiently over the top without being cartoonish.

The biggest issue with this movie, and maybe the original suffered from it as well but I do not recall, is one of motivation.  Why are these seven people helping these poor villagers in what is almost certainly a suicide mission?  The only two that really make solid sense are Chisolm’s (Denzel Washington), pride and revenge, and Jack Horn’s (Vincent D’Onofrio), piety and righteousness.  Jack Horn is probably the best character in the film and despite little face time, he manages to tell a complete story.  The rest vary from “to get my horse back” to “I am a Comanche” to “I’m with him”.  More depth here would have been much appreciated and it is the one thing I appreciated about Kurosawa’s original.

My one other major complaint is how lazy the action was.  The final fight was kind of an underpants gnome version of a plan.  We’ll put almost everyone out in front of the town and somehow this will lead the bandits into the middle of town where we can pick them off.  This abhorrent plan could be forgivable if it led to some cool, if useless, action sequences, but there was not much to really see.

Like I said at the beginning, just go see the 1960 version if you’ve never seen it.  Barring that, just wait for this movie to appear on your favorite streaming service.  It’s not a bad movie, but it’s been done before and better and you have better things to do with your life.

Oh, and funny story.  For the longest time I thought Jack Horne was played by the guy that played Hodor on “Game of Thrones”.

Movie Review: Sully

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A story that everyone should hear.  Suffers slightly from poor direction.

Everyone likely remembers the events of January 15th, 2009 when US Airways Flight 1549 emergency landed onto the Hudson River with 155 souls on board and all lived to tell the tale.  It was an amazing feat in so many different ways.  You have Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and First Officer Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) deftly water landing a plane with no working engines.  You have the ferry pilots who raced to the scene to rescue the survivors.  You have the scuba teams.  You have the fire fighters.  You have the police.  You have the Red Cross.  All these disparate groups came together and worked tirelessly to save the stranded passengers and crew.  Very few cities in the world can pull off what New York did that day.  The people on that flight owe their lives to a combination of excellent infrastructure and even better first responders.

The world needs a hero, though, and that hero is Sully.  His name and likeness were plastered on every news show and late show for weeks.  His life is not at all atypical of most airline pilots.  Flew when he was young.  Flew during the war.  Made a career as an airline pilot.  His is a simple story of lifetime commitment and practice and nerves of steel under extraordinary circumstances.  Heroes don’t fall apart until after the crisis has passed.

If there is a bad guy in this film, it’s the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), US Airways, and Airbus who try to pin the water landing on human error.  US Airways and Airbus make sense.  They have a lot riding on proving that there’s nothing wrong with their craft.  The NTSB, however, doesn’t make much sense.  It makes me wonder if there were liberties taken in the portrayal of this governmental entity or if they really do take that much guidance from the airlines and manufacturers.

The only real issue with the film is one of flow.  Sully’s younger years are thrown in as kind of an afterthought and they don’t really add to the movie except to show that he’s been flying planes for a really long time.  They show the landing multiple times to little effect.  Then there’s the weird plan crash dream that gets repeated too.  They’re all odd choices.

Despite the flow issues, this is still a movie that is well worth watching if you don’t know the whole story of the Miracle on the Hudson and its aftermath.  It’s got Tom Hanks in it so you at least know you’re going to be treated to good acting.  As a plus, Aaron Eckhart kind of steals the show in the scenes he’s in and he seems to work well with Tom Hanks.  I’d like to see the two of them do another movie together.

Movie Review: Hell Or High Water

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Two buddy movies in one.  Great dialogue.  Banks suck.

“Hell or High Water” is a buddy movie.  In fact, it’s two buddy movies.  You have the two brothers who are bank robbers and you have the two Texas Rangers hot on the robbers’ trail.  All of this is set in the backdrop of rural Texas where foreclosures are rampant and banks prey upon the elderly in schemes to get their land.  Really, this film could have been shot in any rural community in any state, but Texas has one thing going for it that make it the correct choice; it contains Texans.

The bank robber brothers are Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine) Howard.  Tanner is a career criminal and Toby is of the quietly desperate persuasion who turns to crime to pay for his recently dead mother’s land before the bank forecloses on it and the oil it hides, but also so he can provide a sense of safety and security for his two estranged children by giving them the deed to said oil.  Yes, they rob banks, but much of the film actually takes place in cars or in diners or on their mother’s land as the two brothers talk through life.

The Texas Rangers are Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham).  Hamilton is near retirement and Parker is his long suffering partner.  They pursue the Howards with a sort of quiet determination.  This is what real police work looks like.  They go from bank to bank looking for clues and patterns and then just sit in restaurants and hotel rooms waiting for the robbers’ next move, eventually trying to be a step ahead before that move occurs.

This movie is what I call a talkie.  Yes, banks get robbed, cars are chased, and violence ensues, but those are just tiny pieces in a story that is only marginally about crime and law and order.  Instead it’s about relationships and trust and loyalty.  Both the cops and the robbers in this film exhibit all of those characteristics and the line between them is only what life has dropped on each.  All of this plays out with some terrific dialogue.  A talkie.  One well worth your attention.

Listen Up, Libertarians and Greens

You cannot win this Presidential election.  To believe that you can requires a level of self-delusion that puts you up there with believing the moon landing was faked or that the government is spraying chemicals on us with airplanes.  Not only that, you don’t deserve to win.  You simply have not put forth the effort to make your parties a reliable political entity.  You’re like a Starbucks barista with five years of experience believing that they should be CEO.  Neither of your parties have won elected office much past Dog Catcher.   Libertarians only have 143 elected representatives in office nationwide right now.  Only 43 of them were labelled as Libertarian on the ballot.  Greens are even worse.  They only have 137 in 16 states, half of which are in California.  There are over 500,000 elected offices nationwide.

Even in this election where we are supposed to take you seriously, you just haven’t put forth the ground game to be worthy of the Presidency.  Jill Stein isn’t going to be on the ballot in all 50 states.  You’re missing South Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, and Georgia and you likely won’t be in Oklahoma and Nevada either.  That’s 45 electoral votes definitely down the tubes and another 13 likely down the tubes.  You need 270 votes to win.  Those 45 electoral votes is 17% of that number.  Add the other 13 votes and you’re at 22%.  Not to mention, you’re still waiting to see if you’ll be on the ballot in four other states.  Libertarians, you’re a little better.  Johnson will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states (though you’re still missing Kentucky, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire as of this writing), which will represent the first time you’ve achieved that goal.  This has more to do with an upswelling of support from insider Republicans against Trump than it does the power of your party so take it with a grain of salt.  Maybe there’s a future there, maybe not.

Then there’s the fact that half of your base in both parties is kind of crazy.  The Libertarian party is by far the worst offender.  Your conventions are equal parts Burning Man and entitled selfish pricks.  The Greens suffer from this as well, though.  Your party is infused with woo.  You have a large anti-vax population, you’re strangely anti-GMO despite no scientific proof it’s dangerous, and your chosen candidate actively panders to that segment of your population which proves it’s not insignificant.  The Green Party is at least getting better in this regard.  You used to be really anti-science and are now just mildly so.

To all those new to the Green or Libertarian party, yes the two party system is fucked.  Thank you for finally starting to pay attention.  Enlightenment is good.  Your parties are still laughably unready for the Presidency, though.  The Presidency is about building coalitions to pass meaningful legislation and you have zero support at the national level.  How do you think that’s going to work?  The only “message” your vote will send is that you’re not worthy of being courted at the national level.  Maybe I’m wrong and this will finally be the turning point that will dissolve our two party system, but I’ve got over two hundred years of history that says I’m right.  If you want real change, you should assume I’m right and get an entry level job as a barista.  Then you can get out there and manage a Starbucks store or three.  Then go on to become regional manager.  Earn that CEO position.

Book Review: The Eisenberg Constant By Eugen Egner

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

This is more of a short story or maybe novelette than a book so I’m not entirely sure why it came as a stand alone story, but that’s what you get sometimes when you buy e-books in bundles, I guess.

The premise of this story is pretty cool.  A technology exists which can create a time loop which allows super rich lonely people to relive the same week over and over again.  You have full autonomy and can basically do whatever you want but your actions have no consequence and at the end of the week, everything kind of gets reset.  Since reliving the same thing over and over a la “Groundhog Day” would get pretty tiresome pretty quickly, the technology has some randomness added to it using a device called the Eisenberg Constant.  People aren’t necessarily going to be in the same place at the same time, individuals won’t react the same way in the same situation, etc.  Things are going swimmingly for Henry Selinger until things seem to start going awry with the Eisenberg Constant.  A locomotive-like vehicle has crashed into a nearby field.  Strange voices can be heard in his bathroom.  The news on the radio is getting weirder and weirder.  An exceedingly frightening creature is haunting his dreams.  And the Eisenberg Constant repairman won’t be here until Monday!  What’s a man to do?

I should probably give this story 4 stars because it really is a fun and interesting read, but man is the ending unfulfilling.  The curse of the short story.  Egner has a very interesting writing style and he clearly describes some pretty absurdist stuff in this story.  It would be interesting to read some of his other works.  Unfortunately, it looks like this is his only story that has been translated from his native German into English.  Oh well.

Movie Review: War Dogs

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A true story about two schmucks who look at a website to make money from the government.  It’s a lot better than that sounds.  Boy, the Department of Defense is messed up.

Imagine if there were a website where anybody could bid on landing government contracts where you could supply weapons to our armed forces.  Well, there is!  And that’s the basic premise for “War Dogs”.  Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) has a small time company that takes small bids from said website which the big companies won’t bother with and fulfills the arms orders.  As he grows and makes a name for himself, he convinces his friend, David Packouz (Miles Teller) to join him.  Things do not progress smoothly.

The timing of the release of “War Dogs” couldn’t have been better what with the announcement that the U.S. Army can’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars.  The procurement process for the Department of Defense is broken beyond repair.  While the problems between the audit and the events in “War Dogs” are unrelated, together they show the amount of dysfunction in the department that spends over half of our government’s discretionary spending.  And before you get worried, no there is not $6.5 trillion dollars missing.  That would mean every dollar since 1993 the Department of Defense spend is missing.  This is more of an issue with bad paperwork and multiple accounting systems across disciplines causing items to be accounted for multiple times.  Still, it’s no way to run a department.  But I digress.

“War Dogs” is a well put together movie.  It takes an incredibly complicated real-life story and streamlines it so that it is easy to follow while still telling a solid story.  It also helps that Jonah Hill plays a really convincing asshole.  The second act of the movie slows down some near the end which kind of messes with the wonderfully established flow of the movie, but it picks up again in the final act.

As with all “based on a true story” movies, it would be nice to know what was real and what was manufactured and there are a few moments in this movie where things set up a little too perfectly and you wonder if it was done that perfectly for the film’s sake or if, of all the crazy things these two knuckleheads did, these select scenes happened that perfectly in real life.  Regardless, what we have here is a movie that is well worth your time and money, if only to get a glimpse into the shadier side of what is done in our name during war time.

Book Review: The Bestiary edited by Ann VanderMeer

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading “The Bestiary” is like reading a more mundane version of a Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual.  It is a collection of short stories from various authors each of which describes a not-quite-of-this-world animal.   I am not sure how the authors or the stories were selected for this compilation or if the stories were written specifically for this compilation, but it is interesting how similar in scope much of the bestiary ended up being.  I would say fully half of the stories describe either parasitic or mimetic animals.  I found this very strange until I thought about it for more than a few seconds.  Bestiaries of the past were fantastical because so much was unknown.  A modern bestiary needs to be somewhat more grounded into the reality we now know and the obvious choice for animals are those that can blend and those that live off others.

Overall, this is an ok collection of stories even if some are a bit of a slog to get through.  They range from the mundane to the fantastical to the downright weird.  There are 28 beasts in total, one for each letter of the alphabet plus two non-alphabetic animals.  I will say that I had more of an affinity for the parasitic type stories just because they seem more believable.  There were also a few mind controlling ones that were fun reads as well.  Favorites include “The Counsellor Crow” by Karen Lord, “Daydreamer by Proxy” by Dexter Palmer, “Pyret” by Karin Tidbeck, and “Zee” by Richard Howard.

Can I recommend the book?  Eh, yes?  I would say that if you love reading Monster Manuals, this book has a lot to offer even if it is missing the “claw, claw, bite, rake” portions of Monster Manuals.  For others, I’d give the same warning that I give every collection of short stories:  There’s good stuff to be found here, but as with every collection, your mileage may vary.  Personally, I think that as long as there are a few gems, it’s worth reading.  This collection doesn’t quite hit that mark but it comes close.

Movie Review: Pete’s Dragon (2016)

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A fair to middling children’s movie.  Cute in all the ways it needs to be.  Karl Urban will always be Dr. McCoy.

I don’t remember much from the original “Pete’s Dragon” cartoon from the 60s, but I know this remake has almost nothing in common with it except there is a kid named Pete (Oakes Fegley) and that there is also a Dragon named Elliot.  This 2016 version is decent enough in an “everyone learns their lesson way too easily” sort of way, but it’s not a good sign when the height of drama happens in the first five minutes of the movie where Pete is left orphaned in the middle of the woods after a car crash that takes both of his parents.  Pretty grim stuff by Disney standards, but it’s handled admirably.

Bryce Dallas Howard is Grace, a motherly type forest ranger who, along with her daughter, Natalie (Oona Laurence), finds Pete in the forest and helps to reacclimate him to civilization.  I remember thinking when seeing she was in the movie, “Oh, Bryce Dallas Howard is in this film I like her.  What do I like her in?” Turns out that the answer to that is nothing.  I like her in nothing.  Well, no, I like her in stuff, but “Pete’s Dragon” may be the best movie she’s ever been in, which isn’t saying much.  I liked her in this too and I am happy to report that she did not run through the forest in high heels. *cough* “Jurassic World” *cough*

I feel bad for Karl Urban.  He’s a decent actor.  He’s also indelibly imprinted into my brain as Dr. McCoy from the new Star Trek franchise.  In “Pete’s Dragon”, he plays Galvin, a self-absorbed lumberjack who is constantly pushing boundaries for no reason whatsoever and who is as close to an antagonist as the film comes to.  The problem is every time there is a close-up of him, I expect a Bones witticism to escape his mouth.  Maybe he lacks facial depth which is why he was so good in the “Dredd” movie where he was kept in a helmet the entire time.

Robert Redford plays Meecham, Grace’s dad and the only adult to believe that dragons are real.  Hint: they are.  He belts out his lines in a very Robert Redford-y way.  It’s hard not to like him even if this wasn’t exactly the most challenging of roles for him to play.

Then there’s Elliot the Dragon, played by about a million animators and artists who obviously spent most of their time watching puppy videos on YouTube.  Elliot behaves in almost every way like a dog would except in those moments when they needed her/him to behave elsewise.  This makes him an enjoyable, if hollow character.  I guess there are also humans who only seldom (seldomly is a useless variant word even though it would sound much better here) show intelligence, but we don’t make movies about them, now do we?  Also, would a dragon who breathes fire really be covered in fur?  Intelligent design, my ass.

“Pete’s Dragon” is a cute movie for the kiddies and a good movie for adults to share with their kids.  Beyond that, it’s decent enough of a film if you’re into those feel good movies without much of a point.  Despite it also being released in 3D (which I didn’t see it in), there’s not much need to see it on the big screen, though some of the forest scenes are pretty majestic.