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shadowkatJust finished watching two movies rented via "on demand", for about $3.99 and maybe $4.99. Much cheaper than the movie theater, which is $16.99. Plus I could rewind, stop in the middle, and eat whatever I want during. And talk back to the television screen. Granted my mother interrupted me twice with a phone call -- but we can't have everything.
1. If Beale Street Could Talk -- directed by Barry Jenkins and adapted from James Baldwin's novel of the same name.
This is the movie that should have gotten the Oscar nomination and won, not Green Book. The fact it is the opposite speaks volumes about our establishment and why the Oscars are well...
Anyhow, the film is about a young woman upon discovering she is pregnant, pulls out all the stops to attempt to get her falsely convicted lover released. It wasn't what I expected. It's told almost entirely through her perspective and through her mother and family's perspective. Regina King plays her mother.
The film made me angry, and is not a feel-good movie, but equal parts indictment, and an uplifting piece about hope, family, and making the best of a bad and impossible situation, despite the insurmountable obstacles in your path.
Tisha Rivers Falls in love with Fonny, and has been in love with him since she was a child and vice-versa. He's a true artist with wood, and works to get a living. Unfortunately they get on the wrong side of a racist cop working a beat in their area, and when the opportunity arises, the cop sets up Fonny to take the rap for a rape case. A woman was raped, she doesn't know who did it, and when pushed by the cops -- picks the suspect they want -- in short the woman lies, then runs away.
But the focus is not on the rape case. We don't see Fonny get arrested, nor do we much of the case. It's told through Tisha's perspective and sort of after the fact. The film starts with Tisha informing an incarcerated Fonny that she is pregnant, and then her family, and then his. And slowly we're told why he is incarcerated, how they fell in love, how she got pregnant, and what she's trying to do to get him off.
The cinematography is beautiful in places...and reminds me a bit of Roma in it's elegant simplicity. And the focus is on the characters and their relationships with each other. How they need money to help Fonny, to buy a ticket to send someone to Puerto Rico in order to talk to the woman who was raped and try to get her to see reason and realize it wasn't Fonny, and to aid in his defense. And the obstacles lined up against them by racist system that cares little for the victim and even less about Justice, and more about furthering power for the privileged few. Words from the book are used in the narrative...and they are poetic, pulling us, the viewer into the characters heads and point of view, and showing how they struggle to survive in a world that works at every level against them.
The story doesn't end tragically, but neither does it end on a false happy note. It's more along the lines of The WIRE, hyper-realism. Where the characters achieve the best possible scenario that they can under the circumstances. Tisha has her baby, delivered by her Momma in a bathtub of all places, and the final scene is her bringing her ten year old son to visit his father in the prison. They talk, color, and eat chips around a table in the prison's visiting area, while a guard looks on. Fonny had taken a plea -- his case like many others had gotten lost in the system.
Never really brought to trail, and without bail, he would have been left to rot in lock-up. With no hope of getting out. So, by taking the plea, he gets less time, is no longer facing the death penalty, and can visit with his family -- also is put in a better prison. It's not a good deal, but better than the alternative.
Not a feel-good movie but a real one - that makes you feel the characters pain and their struggle.
2. Into the Spiderverse
Watched this as a palate cleanser for the first -- I needed something funny and positive.
This is the film that got the Oscar for best animated film -- and, it deserved it.
It's a brilliant piece of animation, blending multiple styles, to provide a complex and layered story. Along with a commentary on the comic form and superhero stories, showing why people love them so much.
If you are a lover of graphic art, animation, and the medium, this is a must see all on it's own. It blended at least five different animation styles and did it seamlessly. That, my friends, is hard to do well. I've seen other try it and they did not accomplish it nearly this well.
Also, it does a lovely job of commenting on the number and variations of a superhero, and why there are numerous variations -- making it both a joke, and also a theme. The over-arcing message is a simple one -- "we all can be heroes, if we choose to be, anyone can be Spiderman".
The plot is rather simple - Miles Morales, a smart African-American/Carribbean, kid from Brooklyn, his mother is a nurse and his Dad, a cop, gets into a top-tier high school -- where you have to live there. It's not close by. And on the sly hangs out with his Uncle Aaron, doing graphic art in subway tunnels. On one of these outings, Miles gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and whoops, develops powers. When he goes in search of answers -- he runs across Spiderman (Peter Parker) fighting Green Goblin and the Kingpin's goons -- who are working to get a collider that opens up parallel universes -- allowing them to collide with each other. Kingpin hopes to bring the love of his life and his son from another universe to him, as a means of regaining them. Instead he brings across various versions of Spiderman or Spiderpeople. Miles not only has to find a way to put the Spider-people back in their verses before they die, but stop the collider so the world doesn't implode.
It's comical at times, as the original Peter Parker makes fun of the plot, and Miles does as well. But the heart is there, and the art is amazing. I was blown away by it.
Highly recommend.
1. If Beale Street Could Talk -- directed by Barry Jenkins and adapted from James Baldwin's novel of the same name.
This is the movie that should have gotten the Oscar nomination and won, not Green Book. The fact it is the opposite speaks volumes about our establishment and why the Oscars are well...
Anyhow, the film is about a young woman upon discovering she is pregnant, pulls out all the stops to attempt to get her falsely convicted lover released. It wasn't what I expected. It's told almost entirely through her perspective and through her mother and family's perspective. Regina King plays her mother.
The film made me angry, and is not a feel-good movie, but equal parts indictment, and an uplifting piece about hope, family, and making the best of a bad and impossible situation, despite the insurmountable obstacles in your path.
Tisha Rivers Falls in love with Fonny, and has been in love with him since she was a child and vice-versa. He's a true artist with wood, and works to get a living. Unfortunately they get on the wrong side of a racist cop working a beat in their area, and when the opportunity arises, the cop sets up Fonny to take the rap for a rape case. A woman was raped, she doesn't know who did it, and when pushed by the cops -- picks the suspect they want -- in short the woman lies, then runs away.
But the focus is not on the rape case. We don't see Fonny get arrested, nor do we much of the case. It's told through Tisha's perspective and sort of after the fact. The film starts with Tisha informing an incarcerated Fonny that she is pregnant, and then her family, and then his. And slowly we're told why he is incarcerated, how they fell in love, how she got pregnant, and what she's trying to do to get him off.
The cinematography is beautiful in places...and reminds me a bit of Roma in it's elegant simplicity. And the focus is on the characters and their relationships with each other. How they need money to help Fonny, to buy a ticket to send someone to Puerto Rico in order to talk to the woman who was raped and try to get her to see reason and realize it wasn't Fonny, and to aid in his defense. And the obstacles lined up against them by racist system that cares little for the victim and even less about Justice, and more about furthering power for the privileged few. Words from the book are used in the narrative...and they are poetic, pulling us, the viewer into the characters heads and point of view, and showing how they struggle to survive in a world that works at every level against them.
The story doesn't end tragically, but neither does it end on a false happy note. It's more along the lines of The WIRE, hyper-realism. Where the characters achieve the best possible scenario that they can under the circumstances. Tisha has her baby, delivered by her Momma in a bathtub of all places, and the final scene is her bringing her ten year old son to visit his father in the prison. They talk, color, and eat chips around a table in the prison's visiting area, while a guard looks on. Fonny had taken a plea -- his case like many others had gotten lost in the system.
Never really brought to trail, and without bail, he would have been left to rot in lock-up. With no hope of getting out. So, by taking the plea, he gets less time, is no longer facing the death penalty, and can visit with his family -- also is put in a better prison. It's not a good deal, but better than the alternative.
Not a feel-good movie but a real one - that makes you feel the characters pain and their struggle.
2. Into the Spiderverse
Watched this as a palate cleanser for the first -- I needed something funny and positive.
This is the film that got the Oscar for best animated film -- and, it deserved it.
It's a brilliant piece of animation, blending multiple styles, to provide a complex and layered story. Along with a commentary on the comic form and superhero stories, showing why people love them so much.
If you are a lover of graphic art, animation, and the medium, this is a must see all on it's own. It blended at least five different animation styles and did it seamlessly. That, my friends, is hard to do well. I've seen other try it and they did not accomplish it nearly this well.
Also, it does a lovely job of commenting on the number and variations of a superhero, and why there are numerous variations -- making it both a joke, and also a theme. The over-arcing message is a simple one -- "we all can be heroes, if we choose to be, anyone can be Spiderman".
The plot is rather simple - Miles Morales, a smart African-American/Carribbean, kid from Brooklyn, his mother is a nurse and his Dad, a cop, gets into a top-tier high school -- where you have to live there. It's not close by. And on the sly hangs out with his Uncle Aaron, doing graphic art in subway tunnels. On one of these outings, Miles gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and whoops, develops powers. When he goes in search of answers -- he runs across Spiderman (Peter Parker) fighting Green Goblin and the Kingpin's goons -- who are working to get a collider that opens up parallel universes -- allowing them to collide with each other. Kingpin hopes to bring the love of his life and his son from another universe to him, as a means of regaining them. Instead he brings across various versions of Spiderman or Spiderpeople. Miles not only has to find a way to put the Spider-people back in their verses before they die, but stop the collider so the world doesn't implode.
It's comical at times, as the original Peter Parker makes fun of the plot, and Miles does as well. But the heart is there, and the art is amazing. I was blown away by it.
Highly recommend.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-08 03:02 am (UTC)