Girls - "Video Games" - Review

The title of this Girls’ episode is “Video Games”; it comes from a line from the women, Petula, Jessa’s father is currently shacking up with. She’s a spacey free-spirited hippy obsessed with being organic. And she suggests that life is like a video game. The only way to move forward is to “level up”. 

This piece of advice sounds like empty hokum but when you actually consider it, it’s essentially the argument the whole series has always been making. Our protagonists, Hannah, Jessa, and Marnie (and as last week demonstrated Ray as well), are no longer kids anymore and they need to start growing up and accepting responsibility. Girls began with Hannah’s parents cutting all funding to Hannah, forcing her to face adulthood head on. And yet Hannah has constantly avoided being honest with herself. Even little breakthroughs such as the one in “One Man’s Trash” never really get taken to heart. Hence her lack of real advancement. 

The show has handled the implications of the brash self-involvement of the characters rather well so far, but it’s a theme and character dimension that can only be plumbed so much. So here, instead, we get a different aspect of our characters, one that suggests what’s wrong with them. If “Video Games” is about anything, it’s about parent problems. In another sense, it’s about the unintended effects parents can have on us. Jessa may deny that her and Hannah’s parents have nothing in common, but that’s not entirely true: their parents raised them in such ways that they’re both massively incapable of living.

We finally meet Jessa’s father this episode. He’s a mopey, loser-like fellow who keeps making excuses from the word go. When he doesn’t pick up Hannah and Jessa from the store at episode’s end, it’s not really surprising; this guy is a deadbeat that was never there for his daughter. Yet Jess can’t help but seek his approval. 

I like all the above in theory, but it didn’t need an entire episode dedicated to it. Nor did we need anyone else there besides Jessa. I would have liked to have seen the other characters (just in their own stories). Jessa has been underutilized this season, but there were other ways that she could have been sent over the edge. It’s not implausible that she’d up and leave without warning after the awkward meetup with her dad, but we know next to nothing about this guy and it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about Jessa. 

Stray Observations: 

-The moment Jessa’s dad started calling her “you beautiful creature”, I knew  he was an ass.

-“It’s not a theory, Camry drivers are cunts”

-“You’re the cushion”

-“She was a masseuse at the last rehab he went to”

-They eat pet rabbits in this family.

-Jessa’s dad can’t spend time with her because there’s lecture based on a Japanese study on “nuclear toxicity”.

-Drug of the Week: Whippits

-“I wrote a paper on corporations once. They’re evil”

-Lesson learned: don’t ever have awkward graveyard sex.

-“I was just trying to have continuity with you”

-“Who was your first time with?” “A girl…”
-Jemima Kirke's is very obviously pregnant by this point.
-The show should stop letting Hannah steal the spotlight of the story. It never seems to fully trust letting other characters carry stories. 

Grade: B-

"The Gods Must Be Crazy" - Film Review

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a one-note movie. Granted, its central concept sounds brilliant (and it initially is), but much of the film feels like it’s merely a justification for that one interesting idea.

When a Coca-Cola bottle is dropped carelessly out from a plane onto an African bushman village, the tribe has never seen such a thing before and soon becomes obsessed with the object. They assume their gods must have sent it down from the heavens for them to use. But when it begins to change their way of life for the worse, they send off one of their own, Xi (Nǃxau) to go to the “end of the world” to get rid of it.

It’s an amusing little story in the beginning and it hits all the right beats regarding the bushman’s reactions to the Coke bottle. But then the film begins to branch out and it starts to get convoluted. The film loses sight of the bushman and the Coke bottle and increasingly focuses on the story of a news reporter whose decided to teach children in Africa and the scientist helping her get to the town she’s supposed to work in. 

The film devolves into a series of sight gags of varying quality. Some of which just don’t seem all that necessary. Between the sight gags and the slapstick, the film has an aura of silent film homage.

One of the better aspects is the light but amusing satire. The criticisms of American consumer society in particular are only surface level deep but their still funny. There’s also other hit or miss jabs at African dictatorships and warlords, and ethnographic documentaries. 

The Gods Must Be Crazy doesn’t live up to its premise’s potential, but it’s a pleasant if not disappointing film. 

Grade: C+

The Walking Dead - "I Ain't a Judas" - Review

The Walking Dead has never been a great series. It’s a good series with occasional glimpses of a show that could be great; a show that would take its zombie façade to create gleeful horror setpieces and penetrating morally grey questions in equal measure. That is to say, it’s a version of the show that’s always been just out of reach from the writers’ grasps.

There’s so much potential here. For my money, there’s not another series on par in unused potential. Even episodes like the first three episodes of the backhalf (which have been mostly a letdown)  have all the makings of something that leaves you in awe and wanting more. 

For starters, there’s the obvious but potentially interesting parallel between Rick and the Governor’s descents into madness. It’s an instance where the show never makes the point explicit enough. The show could ask the question, one it keeps dancing around, about why Rick and co. are better than the people of Woodbury. Andrea’s decision of choosing between both camps could be deeply exciting and complex, but instead the show keeps returning to moral reductivism: Rick and the rest of our protagonists are the good guys because… they’re the protagonists. 

Another frustrating problem is that the show finds it near impossible to let the characters take seriously the leadership of anyone besides Rick. This logical fallacy makes no sense though; the way Rick’s been acting lately, Glen, Darryl, or a number of other characters could step up, and it would create new dynamics that would keep the show fresh. Rick going crazy isn’t idiotic because it’s bizarre; it’s idiotic because it hasn’t led anywhere (besides getting Tyrese to go to Woodbury). 

The show finds itself content to always return back to basics every time it opens up the possibility for new, captivating directions. Darryl off with Merle away from the rest of the group was a story that could have gone on for a few episodes more if the writers wanted, but, nope, Darryl has to plow through a character arc to make sure the status quo is maintained. Rick doesn’t trust Michonne and wants to send her packing; oh wait, Michonne is part of the group now. 

If the series had conviction in the stories it was telling, if it acted as if everything I was watching mattered and merited my attention, than it would be very entertaining. Such a plot treatment would mean characters are developing, alliances shifting, and dynamics changing. However, the only sense I’m getting here is that Woodbury and the prison will soon be at war with one another; a fact we’ve known since the beginning of this season.

This was a conflict the show made me look forward to at the start of this season, but, in the wake of the mid-season finale, the show is failing to make the aftermath of the first skirmish weigh heavily, consequentially enough on the characters and how they act. In terms of theme and character, it just isn’t working, and the plot just keeps chugging along with no real purpose other than “Oh, hey look zombie splattering”.  

Stray Observations:

-Andrea’s return felt very stilted. The reactions from everyone were in-character, but Andrea’s “I’m in the dark” act always strained just a little bit. Plus Andrea is the most poorly defined character.    

-Why are they so deadset on fighting the people from Woodbury? Yes, people have died, but they are outnumbered; it just doesn’t seem like a sound decision unless they can find some way to get the upper hand.

-The scene between Andrea and Michonne was great. I believe that’s the most expressive Michonne’s ever gotten.
-Merle is uneasily accepted as part of the group, although probably a bit too quickly. 

Grade: B-

"The Central Park Five" - Film Review

Before I get into my review, I want to speak about documentaries more broadly. We close off documentaries as a genre of films separate from all other kinds of movies. Too many people are unwilling to watch documentaries and it’s a shame because some of our best filmmakers are making documentaries and they don’t get the press they deserve. I know I’m as much to blame for this phenomenon as anyone else, but it’s my sincere goal to watch more documentaries in the future.

Everyone perceives documentary as people telling the “truth” about real life events. But the fact of the matter is that documentaries are carefully calculated and how documentarians present information to us is often just as manipulative as many well-wrought fictional narrative.  

The Central Park Five tells the fascinating story of five African American and Latino teens falsely accused of the rape and murder of a white woman in Central Park in 1989. The case soon blows up, and, pressed to find the culprit, the predominantly white New York police force coerces a confession out of the five teens. Years later the actual person responsible, a serial rapist terrorizing New York in that same year, admits responsibility to the crime. It’s too late though; the five have been gone through 6 to 12 year prison sentences and their lives have been forever changed. 

Co-directors Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon focus the story on the five victims as they recount events. Through their testimonies, the film creates a deeply humanistic, moving, frustrating story of racial strife and political expediency.

The film does a great job of couching the personal stories in greater social, historical, and cultural trends. It grounds the incident in a larger narrative of racial animosity, rising crime, and urban decay in New York City in the 1970s and 80’s.

It’s at times uncomfortable to sit through as one injustice after another is retold, but it’s an engrossing, captivating story that’s not only well-crafted but told with compassion and resolve.    

Grade: A-

My Thoughts on Season 1 of "The Sopranos"

 Spoilers on Season 1 of "The Sopranos" Below:

Imagine a family. In this family there are two brothers, born not too far apart from one another. The older brother down the line becomes a bit of a success; his parents are heaping on the praise, his business is doing well, he’s got a wife and kids; white picket fence; the whole nine yards. The younger one lives in the shadow of his brother his whole life. He’s a bit of a lovable screw up. Every now and again he does something right. Makes a nice investment here and there. But he just isn’t getting the same recognition as his brother from friends and family. In later years though, the older brother’s success begins to play against him. He gets complacent, a bit doughy, fat, and greedy. His business starts to waver and people in his industry begin to doubt his ability. The younger brother finally has an opportunity to get out from under his big bro's shadow. He begins to make a few notable business deals; he gets a girlfriend, and he doesn’t have the big house like his brother but he has a nice apartment and it’s clear that he’s on his way to getting engaged. Suddenly, his older brother is looking like the failure of the family.

If that whole parable didn’t make any sense, let me put it a bit more clearly: it’s the (slightly flourished) story of movies (the older brother) and television shows (the younger brother). As film studios became strapped for cash they pushed out middle of the run films (and the creative talent associated with them – including David Chase) that weren’t big budget block busters but, though not independent films, were creatively impressive. Even though the marginalized talent still believed in the greatness of cinema, they perceived of an opportunity to be had in television. Always a bit more cash strapped than the film studios, television networks became a breeding ground for quality visual media. So much so that many have argued that the past 15 or so years have ushered in a golden age of television that began to put television in many instances on the same creative tier as movies. Nowhere was this example more obvious than David Chase’s The Sopranos. 

To say The Sopranos was influential on television dramas is like saying that The Beatles were influential on music. Though the series is deeply indebted to many series that became before it (Hill Street Blues played around with the serialization that the show would go on to use so effectively, Oz told an antiheroism narrative that the show would come to adopt, and Twin Peaks was one of the first series to have the distinct stamp of one unique, auteuristic vision), it was so audacious and so flippantly breaking television conventions more than any series that came before it that it became impossible for it to not be part of the conversation at the time it was on the air. The Sopranos in turn opened the flood gate for a slew of excellent dramas; FX created The Shield because HBO proved that this type of drama could be successful; AMC was similarly inspired in its decision to take a risk on Mad Men and Breaking Bad (whose antihero elements are deeply indebted to the series); even Lost’s complex, intricate storytelling owes tribute to The Sopranos convincing television networks that given the right formula, people are willing to watch slow burn, long, complex television stories.    

A recent convention has cropped up where hating on The Sopranos and being cynical and angry at it (for the shortcomings in later seasons and its ending, which considerably divided and pissed off many) is almost the accepted norm. But that refusal to remember and acknowledge how damn good the show was and how much quality, ambitious, interesting television the show provided over the series’ run is unfair. The show had its flaws, no question about it (the depiction of race in "A Hit is a Hit" is very caricature, and the storylines for the kids were always just shy of being cliche). But come on: James Gadolfini and Edie Falco were acting powerhouses. And in the hands of the incredibly capable and competent hands of David Chase and his writing staff (including a burgeoning Matt Weiner who would go on to create Mad Men) the best of their, and the rest of the casts’ (particularly Nancy Marchand as Livia Soprano, who is an absolute monster), acting abilities were allowed to shine very bright in deed. 

So what made the series so groundbreaking? Well, for starters, it amped up the moral greyness, in its characters, in its themes, in its plot, in the questions in its audience asked themselves (David Chase has a dreadfully negative view of humanity and everybody in the show is on one level or another a bit of an asshole). This doesn’t seem like a big deal, until one considers the fact that for some 70 odd years’ prior, next to every tv series played it safe. They didn’t try to make you think deeply or complexly. They instead aimed to attract the broadest base of an audience to sell ads (I'm being purposefully noninclusive and broad in this statement here. Many would argue that television has been constantly forced to evolve to survive changing trends and tastes). The Sopranos had little intention of pleasing or appealing to anyone. 

It was a gangster show that wasn’t about gangsters. It featured gangsters and their dirty work, but In fact, the show arguably had more to do with Tony dealing with his personal life (his mother, his wife and kids, living in suburbia, talking to his shrink); most of the mafiosa business stuff tended to be in the subplots or background of the series. Thus it made great contrast and juxtaposition of these conflicting elements. 

The Sopranos also made infamous its penultimate episodes, establishing the trend of series putting their most climactic, explosive moments in their second to last episodes, and focusing on quieter finales that tied up loose ends. It’s largely a considerably better form of telling television that entails more satisfying, holistic narratives. 

The series told its stories with such confidence, and never held our hand through it. There’s no breather post-pilot; we’re immediately thrown into the deep end and left to figure out who’s who and what’s what on our own. 

The series also had a penchant for anticlimaxes; Chase wanted the show to feel true to real life, and so conflicts rarely ever boiled over, but instead fizzled out. It would often wrap up a story quickly than let it drag on like some shows might (this is apparent when Tony and Junior resolve their beef in the third episode. It’s a story that looks to be the driving force of the season and it ends in anticlimax). 

On a smaller scale, little details were noteworthy, such as exposition causally taking place in locations such as a strip club or on the side of the road, or people getting beat on or whacked for seemingly no reason (and often). 

But perhaps most important was the show’s sense of continuity, of the accumulation of past actions and events that weighed on the future. The series nailed down its characters and then never deviated from what we knew about them, and it used what we knew about the characters to bear on the plot and give it a richness of detail.  

As Todd VanDerwerf so accurately put it, the show isn’t exactly a series one adores, but one holds with a level of almost reverence. People really go out of their way to get people to see series such as Breaking Bad and The Wire (both excellent series on par in quality with The Sopranos), but The Sopranos is almost put on a pedestal where we don’t necessarily watch it to enjoy it but just to appreciate everything it’s choosing to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an entertaining series (with a dark, absurd sense of humor) but people tend to discuss the series as an out of body experience as if the show exists outside of itself, only mattering for how it came to bear on the whole of television. 

This short shrifts the series though. Chase built up a great world worth inhabiting and filled with interesting, fully realized characters. And he used both to tell some thematically rich and complex stories. 

It’s right there from the get-go. Just look at that theme. Has a theme ever so perfectly captured the essence of what a show was all about before? The visuals combined with Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning” playing over it provide our first entry point into the dark, twisted world we’re about to enter and it does it with steely panache. It’s utterly cool and stylish, but it’s dark and gritty; almost world weary. 

Now the series is really good in its Pilot, and its Pilot is rather confident and telling of the direction the series would head (there’s an overwhelming sense of dread and decay hanging over the episode that would continue throughout the first season), but it wasn’t until “College” that The Sopranos definitively became the series we know it to be today, and that it proved itself to be significantly different from television that came before it. While Tony is visiting colleges with his daughter Meadow, he sees a former mob member turned witness protection. The whole time you can’t imagine Tony killing this guy. This guy is a nobody; he’s done nothing to warrant being killed. And yet Tony does. The Sopranos wasn’t going to play by televisions rules. HBO was against the murder, but Chase stood steadfast arguing that viewers would respect Tony even less if he didn’t go through with it. It’s not just this moment that makes the episode so fantastic (there are some great scenes between Tony and Meadow where she asks him about the “family business”, and the scenes between Carmella and Father Intintola are equally interesting), but it’s this moment in particular where the series started to truly come into its own; to take risks that other series would shy away from.   

Those people who argue that we were or weren’t supposed to like Tony Soprano miss the point entirely. The show purposefully makes the relationship we invest with Tony to be incredibly complicated to the point where it becomes hard to decide whether we find him to be a monster or a man doing what’s necessary to provide for his family, or perhaps even a bit of both. There’s even the more interesting question of whether Tony’s therapy sessions actually helped make him better at his job. Does that in turn implicate Dr. Melfi as being responsible on some level for the many crimes Tony Soprano committed? 

I’m not going to belabor the point. There's plenty more to say (I haven't even gotten around to mentioning how awesome the show was at depicting interngerational conflicts, which remains to be my favorite aspect of it). Many and more have written about the series and what made it so groundbreaking, and they’ve done it much better than I have or could. Needless to say, to understand American television as it currently stands, you can’t get around having at least a basic knowledge of The Sopranos.

"The Conformist" - Film Review

Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is one of cinema’s most unremorseful, broken sociopaths.

He wants people to like him. He wants his mom to love him (even though she’s distracted and sleeping with the chauffer); he’s got major mommy issues. He wants to be in control, especially of the women in his life; he takes more than a little pleasure in a few rape fantasies. He’ll get people to like him any way he can; he’s conniving and deceptive to everyone, especially himself. 

He’s obsessed with appearances. He wants the outside world to believe he’s perfect. He’s a fascist, or at least he wants to Italian government to think this in order to advance his career. Thus he joins the Fascist party without a second thought. He’s suppressing some hidden homosexuality, and he chooses to marry a woman Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) because it’s the normal, good looking thing to do. At 34, he needs to marry or people will start asking questions, and he just couldn’t let that happen.

Above all else, Marcello is, as the title claims, a conformist. He could care less about his wife; he could care less about fascism; he could care less about cheating on his wife; he could care less about religion but he’ll still pretend to practice it. He mustn’t look bad. His outward appearance must conform to people’s expectations. 

Bernardo Bertolucci shoots the film with a calculated stillness; a rigid uniformity; a blue-hazed, hermetic, sanitized, dull facade. The world Marcello exists in is as empty as his cold black heart. 

Part of the secret police, Marcello is sent to kill a radical professor (Enzo Tarascio) in exile in France. There he seduces the professor’s wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), partly to take more pleasure when he kills her and partly because he’s attracted to her ability to cut through “conforming”, constricting social standards. The film is charged with noticeable sexual currents growing out of Marcello’s fractured sexual identity, his obsessive desire for perverted sexual experiences, and his interior state clashing with his disillusionment of the outside world.

This morbid, fascinating character study is delightfully twisted. The film works as both an examination of the effects of fascism and conformity more generally. Its sumptuous, absorbing visuals are equally matched by a penetrating look into the mind of its protagonist.

Grade: B+

"Yojimbo" - Film Review

Yojimbo is almost pulpy in its execution. From the 60’s blaring pop to the over-the-top (sometimes shoddy) fight sequences to its central plot about a lone warrior dead-set on stirring up trouble, it’s one part sensational to every part topnotch craftsmanship.

Of course in the hands of the always competent and ingenious writer-director Akira Kurosawa, this material is elevated to the point where it rises above some of its more lurid and junk qualities.

Though the plots thin, the story is too fun and energetic not to win you over. Stylistically the film heavily borrows from noir, gangster, and Westerns genres to become its own unique vision.  At times it feels more American than Japanese, like a good old American gangster showdown than a kung fu good versus evil matchup. Indeed, the former samurai (Toshiro Mifune) plays two evil rival factions vying for supremacy off eachother to rid the town of their ill designs. In the process he deceives, kills, and generally does bad things in the name of the greater good.  

The film is notable for its massive influence on the Western. Sergio Leone re-made the movie in A Fistful of Dollars, and Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name was heavily influenced by Mifune’s character. 

Kurosawa turned time and again to tails of samurai; he took the period trappings of Tokugawa and Post-Tokugawa Japan and plumbed the simple tales of samurai warriors to tell whatever story that pleased him. Here Kurosawa mines the simple narrative for all its worth and molds it into an immensely, purely fun film that’s highly cinematic and incredibly exciting.   

Grade: A-