"The Navigator" - Film Review

Buster Keaton’s Rollo Treadway is, like many Buster Keaton characters, placed in the most unlikely of situations. He finds himself taking a trip on a ship mistaken for one owned by a nation the country is at war with. This leads to Rollo being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, when the ship is sent off to sea by international spies. One crazy happenstance after another has Rollo scrambling, scared and witless. But through it all is Keaton’s signature stoic, deadpan expressions as he quietly suffers through one situation after another.

Unlike Charlie Chaplin, the other most ubiquitous silent film comedian, Keaton was never one for emoting. The other actors around him certainly do, including Kathryn McGuire as the luckless female companion who accidentally ends up on the titular Navigator. But Keaton has since garnered attention for how understated his performances are. Zany things are frequently happening around him and yet he grins and bears it. Part of the film's charm comes from how reserved Keaton is at every turn. Also unlike Chaplin, Keaton’s movies frequently have a dry sense of humor. There’s subtle wit and sarcasm throughout The Navigator. After his engagement proposal is rejected, he refuses to get chauffeured around; instead claiming he plans to take a long walk to clear his mind. Cue him walking right back across the street to his house.  

The film is filled with some incredible setpieces, including notably the ship itself which was an actual passenger liner purchased by Keaton, and some impressive stunts by Keaton (who did all his own stunt work). Though it's not Keaton's best work, it's still has some great slapstick and surprisingly intense action, especially in the film's climax.

Grade: B+

The Walking Dead - "Clear" - Review

The Walking Dead is not a show known for taking time out from its narrative to tell more isolated, self-contained stories. It’s a series that at best is propulsive, action-packed and filled with a few great horror setpieces. It does this well and it’s mostly entertaining but these sequences tend to come in the middle of uneven patches either within individual episodes themselves or between longer stretches of episodes that just plain don’t work. However, it’s never been a series all that good at anything but breakneck action and zombies splattering. While this is fun, it’s hard to service a series entirely in just the name of zombie kills, especially in this particular medium.  

The Walking Dead never seems to reach that level that the best television dramas achieve. Everything about the series merely seems to be a pretext for zombies and zombie kills and this has been at the expense of everything else, particularly the characters. Even occasionally uneven series such as Lost and Homeland have such great characters that the actors cover for a lot of the plotting’s sins. The Walking Dead, on the other hand, has the complete opposite problem; its plot often covers for the lack of nuance in its characters. The best portion of the series thus far had been the first half of this season, which ramped up the pace, killed off several characters, and spearheaded its way through a surprising amount of plot. The weaker episodes have been its more low-key episodes that often find characters running in circles and bickering. The three episodes after the return from the mid-season hiatus have been the most disappointing of the third season. With the pace tuned down, it was easy to be reminded why the second season was frequently frustrating. These characters aren’t well-developed enough to care about them and their problems. When last week Andrea stood over the Governor, switchblade drawn, I felt nothing. There wasn’t anything to be felt; Andrea is practically a non-entity who’s schizophrenic in her decision making.    

So if you told me a character focused episode would be arguably the best episode the series has produced this season, I’d probably just have laughed really hard. And yet “Clear” shows a lot of daring I wish the show would take more often. Cutting out all but three of the main characters and telling a story that focuses on just Rick, Carl, and Michonne, along with the welcome return of Morgan (played excellently by Lennie James). It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but rather unexpectedly it uses its more tightly honed story to zero in on these three characters and explore them. 

After complaining for so long about Michonne being underdeveloped, we finally see glimpses (no matter how small) that Michonne is not just a badass with a sword but a talking, walking, breathing human being. When she reassures Rick that him seeing visions of dead people is fine, noting how she used to talk to her dead boyfriend, it’s a moment that's just enough to give Michonne a more well-roundedness she has been oh-so lacking. We also spend some more time with Carl, a character who has also felt pointless beyond being Rick’s son. He’s kind of disturbingly become efficient with a gun, but he’s also a boy who misses his mom and who’s scared for his sister; a kid forced to grow up too fast. The unlikely pairing between them brings out some interesting sides to their characters and it’s a much needed exposition upon these two even as it manages to find ways to integrate horror, zombies, and blood galore.

Rick has the heft of the story and the most gripping of the two plots as he returns to his home town where he last left a man, Morgan, and his son behind with a radio. He told them to contact him on the radio he provided them. But of course Rick lost track of the radio once he found Laurie and Carl (not to mention nutjob Shane). When Rick finds the radio lying amongst the crate of guns only to then see sprawled in graffiti, “Duane has turned”, tell me your heart didn’t give out just a little bit. It’s these little details that I wish the show placed in more often to form atmosphere and create emotion. This detail carries out all over the episode, from the bookended scenes of a would-be hitchhiker (or eventually of what remains of a hitchhiker) to the burned pile of victims and the Mad Max-like barricades to trap walkers, the show establishes with these background details nicely observed elements that make the world feel lived in and also remind us just how far into the zombie apocalypse we are by this point. Much of the episode demonstrates just how far Rick, Carl and Michonne have come. They’re almost automated. The walkers don’t phase them; sure they fear them but they’re not surprised by them; it’s business as usual. 

Morgan’s son has since died (at the hands of his zombie mother no less), and in the aftermath, Morgan has, not surprisingly, gone a little crazy. After making him realize who he is, Rick tries to convince him to join Rick’s merry band, but Morgan’s no fool. He immediately notes Rick stockpiling guns and calls him on the fact that someone must want the prison. “Yea, but we’ll win though,” Rick says with feverish enthusiasm that borders on obsession. Morgan has already lost too much to get sucked into this disaster in the making. May be Morgan has got it figured out. Rick has lost plenty and his craziness has descended him into a maddening conflict with an almost equally fanatical man, the Governor.   

But what’s best of all about this episode is that it feels like a short story. The episode doesn’t feel like anything lacks purpose or is just there to kill time, and this is all the more impressive and surprising for the fact that much of the episode is heavy on taking its time, as if it’s a “breather episode”. Much like the Game of Thrones’ episode “Blackwater”, I kept asking myself, “Okay, when are they going to cut back to the prison?”, and then it became increasingly apparent that that wasn’t going to happen. That made me incredibly happy and I was quickly on the bandwagon. This is the type of storytelling I’d like to see from the series more. “Home” had some slower character driven plot in it but it failed to be as engaging an episode because firstly it was a hodgepodge of elements, secondly because the action sequences were often completely out of place and didn’t fit with the direction of the plot, and finally because it failed to be honest in its observation of its characters. It was an episode asking us to follow it as it explored these characters without ever actually exploring them; rather just skimming the surface and pretending the pond scum was the mud at the bottom of the lake. Instead, “Clear” by honing in is able to do some nice, believable character work without sacrificing action or plot. It even finds a way to advance a bigger story arc by having Rick, vicariously through Carl, accept Michonne as a member of the group. 

The confidence to set aside characters for an episode and to tell a story about just a handful of characters and still pull off the show’s great horror setpieces (without it being at the expense of the story) make “Clear” a standout episode in a flawed but mostly entertaining season of television. 

Grade: A

"Wild Strawberries" - Film Review

The arthouse masterpiece Wild Strawberries is one of writer-director Ingmar Bergman’s best films. With its evocative, intimate story of an old man haunted by memories, troubled past and missed opportunities; the film is a moving portrait of aging.

Plagued by shadowy dreams that he can’t quite shake, the elderly professor Isak Borg (played wonderfully by Victor Sjöström) takes the lengthy journey to receive an honorary degree for his long academic career. If his work has been satisfying and pleasing, his life elsewhere has been filled with countless rough patches. His first love cheated on him and spurned him for his cousin. His love life didn’t fare much better after that; his wife was constantly having affairs and yet he couldn’t stop loving her in spite of this. If that wasn’t enough, his overbearing, cold as ice mother still lingers at ninety-six to complain about how none of her progeny ever visits her anymore except to borrow money. The noticeable parallel of loneliness between Isak and his mother is unmistakable.

Long stretches of the film go spelunking around the psyche of our protagonist. Large portions of the film are literally spent inside Isak’s dark, sad, sometimes foreboding dreams. When he revisits an old summer home, his mind returns to the day his first love, Sara (played by Bibi Andersson, who also plays the affectionate hitchhiker of the same name whose attention her two male friends vie for) was unfaithful. The dreams keep adding up to one thing in his mind: that he’s already dead and only just playing at living. He’s clearly a troubled man, barely coping with the many unfortunate, occasionally tragic moments from his past. He’s getting older and death feels like it’s just around the corner. Indeed, in his first, and most surreal, dream he witnesses a hearse dumping a coffin onto the street only to discover the man lying inside is himself.      

It’s not surprising then that for most of the film’s journey, he spends it with young people in the prime of their life to juxtapose and heighten matters. When two young hitchhikers (Folke Sundquist and Björn Bjelfvenstam) he’s taken on as passengers start arguing about whether there’s a God or not, it feels like empty, youthful arguing that ultimately amounts to nothing. At worst it’s certainly not putting his weary mind at ease. His daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) is also troubled, and he sees in her an opportunity for the future. She fears she and her husband will end up like all the older people in her life so bitter and jaded about life. She’s pregnant with a child and she’s decides that the buck stops here: she’s going to raise this kid right without all the fear and anxiety and loneliness.

Thought provoking, warm, humanistic and emotionally resonate, Wild Strawberries is a beautifully rendered story of facing death and growing old. 

Grade: A

"Last Tango in Paris" - Film Review

Last Tango in Paris was considered shocking upon its release for how provocative its sex scenes are (including a now infamous one involving a stick of butter). But what those who upheld the film at the time saw and what still remains to be true of the film is how it uses these eroticized elements to neither turn us on nor disgust us but to tell a highly intriguing story of two disaffected people.

Two nameless individuals meet to fuck and fuck and fuck in spare apartment. He’s (Marlon Brando) a 45-year old American living in Paris. His wife committed suicide and he’s at a loss of what to do with his life. She’s (Maria Schneider) an attractive 20 year-old Parisian and engaged to be married to a lame filmmaker she doesn’t love. As their passionate inexplicable love affair goes on they explore their sexual appetites to increasingly destructive ends. Neither can seem to escape it though; they say that the outside world has no place inside the apartment when they’re together, but they’re increasingly drawn to eachother. 

The film is surprisingly subdued for a film with such overtly sexual content. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro  glazed the film with an orange tint that’s sleepy and dreamlike. 

Last Tango in Paris is a flawed film; its parts are much greater than its whole. It’s an occasionally (sometimes unintentionally so) funny, deeply dark, twisted descent into the minds of its two protagonists. The scenes between the two of them are the most interesting parts of the film and much of the rest of the film seems beside the point. Writer-director Bernardo Bertolucci gives the narrative a grandeur (in the arthouse vein and typical of Bertolucci’s style) that doesn’t always fit with the low-keyness of the story. However, Schneider and Brando give some great performances and the erotic content is as striking as it was upon its release.       

Grade: B

"The Last Picture Show" - Film Review

In a small Texas town, Anarene, teens are about to graduate from the local high school. The adults keep pestering kids for losing the big football game, but they’re too busy meeting the guy or gal they’re going steady with at the local movie theater.  It all seems so quaint, so perfect; a picturesque postcard of 1950’s America. In deed, The Last Picture Show is designed to perfectly evoke 1950's America and the films released then.

But something’s not right for the citizens of the town. All the adults keep yearning for a time long since gone by, and the youths don’t know just how good it is to be young. Under the surface of The Last Picture Show is a poignant, bittersweet ode to growing old, loss, and isolation. The dusty, one horse town has an inimitable sadness hanging over it at every turn captured in wide angle shots where people seem so small upon the landscape. Before they know it, the kids have graduated and they’ve turned into the adults they always told themselves they’d never end up like. Before the year has passed friendships are tested, sexualities explored, and the local theater will hold its last picture show. 

It sounds like a simple tale, but writer-director Peter Bogdanovich tackles the subject matter with a level of sincerity and frankness that give the film a world weary realness. Bodanonvich has a particularly keen eye for depicting social and sexual mores with a surprising level of honesty. The amount of nudity and sexual authenticity is rare for its time. 

The beautiful cinematography by Robert L. Surtees with an incredible use of black and white photography is matched only by the slew of great performances from countless actors. In particular, Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Cybil Shepherd (in her debut role) in some of their earliest work are fantastic as the young adults of the film. But there’s so many countless memorable supporting roles by Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn, and Eileen Brennan. 

Gorgeously shot and filled with wonderful performances, The Last Picture Show is one of the best coming of age stories.  

Grade: A

"I Am Cuba" - Film Review

On the surface I Am Cuba is just a propaganda piece, and, to an extent, it totally is just that. The film was produced jointly between Cuban and Soviet film studios, and the overlying story is essentially “Hurrah Communism!” However, what remains striking today about the film is how visually stylish and energetic the film is. It's some of the best black and white filmmaking I've ever seen.

Sergei Urusevsky’s cinematography creates some beautiful imagery that’s filled with great use of low-key lighting. The visual imagery is incredibly expressive and evocative, particularly early on in the film. The accompanying music by Carlos Fariñas is vibrant and dizzying, ranging from utter exuberance to total mourning. 

The film doesn’t have a singular storyline. Instead it feels like a series of loosely connected short stories. The real character on display here is Cuba, who even is personified and provided a female voice who continually repeats the titular refrain, “I am Cuba”. 

These stories, however, have a connective tissue between them, telling the story of why Cuba turned to communism and why that was ultimately the right decision. It starts with dance halls and prostitutes taken advantage of by inconsiderate Americans and ends with guerilla fighters taking back their country. The political idealism is a bit quaint and simplistic in hindsight, but it's not really the point of seeing the film anymore. Though it loses some of its immediacy and urgency as it increasingly leans more clearly on the prophandistic elements, there’s consistently some wonderful scenes throughout. The long take that starts on top of a building, inexplicably floats down three stories, and goes into a pool represents one of the many memorable examples that demonstrate the film’s keen level of craftsmanship.  

The stories are nicely self-contained, humanistic, though dated, pieces, and the visuals are utterly stunning.

Grade: B

Community - "Alternative History of the German Invasion" - Review

The study group has never really branched out beyond their little niche. It’s not entirely unexpected; people frequently get caught up in their own lives at college. The study group is constantly having one crazy adventure after another and, also on top of that, is deeply, deeply codependent and tightknit. However, there’s a much wider world at Greendale. One which the show has slipped in every now and again with some hilarious supporting characters, but due to the fact that we only ever meet these individuals through the perspective of the study group, we never truly see these people as anything except oddballs. But they must have lives beyond their brief, fleeting interactions with the study group. Garrett takes classes; Fat Neil is pursuing Becky; the gang treated Todd like absolute shit.

It's the kernel of good and it's something the series has only touched upon this in passing every now and again; pointing to how the antics of the study group are isolated in a bigger world that gets shut out, but the series never taken it on so directly. It’s an interesting note to play and it’s one the show couldn’t have managed in earlier seasons, but it's also one that the show doesn't necessarily want to play. The group’s reaction to it comes off as slightly hollow. Not that they’d be totally taken by surprised and upset with themselves, nor that they’d do something to fix matters (or “give reparations” as Jeff describes it) , but rather the PSA style cleanup they perform which just doesn’t ring true to these characters. However, the initial thematic and narrative beat reads better than anything the fourth season has done up until now, even if it comes completely out of nowhere. The flashbacks demonstrating how the silliness of the study group that we’ve come to love has been problematic and detrimental to other members of the campus were amusing, if poorly chosen (particularly the one to“Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”), and I’d have liked to have seen them go further with it. 

Malcolm MacDowell was a welcome (if underused) sight as a no-nonsense history professor whose recently been fired from Oxford. His utter straightness worked well in contrast to the rest of the character’s increasingly broad sensibilities. His presence was particularly great for a scene where the study group assumes the Occupy Wallstreet style protest by students angry at them was all a ruse staged to teach them a lesson (as if this were some feel good 90’s sitcom such as Boy Meets World). The way it undercuts this moment after the seven of them talk themselves into this absurd notion is hilarious and the cast bounces off eachother so well in this scene.        

I was surprised to find Chang wasn't the aspect I found most problematic. Chang was always a character the show had problems with especially as it increasingly contrived reasons to keep him around even though the study group wasn’t being taught a class by him. Some of his worse character traits are suppressed (due to what appears to be amnesia or “Changnesia” as that awful reoccurring gag put it) which makes the Dean-Chang scenes slightly bearable. Ken Jeong is good in small doses and this was the right amount of usage of this character. Chang in many ways represents the worse aspects of the show: he’s self-involved; he’s far too broad; he’s far too weird; and when he’s utilized poorly he’s grating and annoying and frustrating and difficult to stomach. That may be an overstatement in terms of parallel to the series, but Chang is the worst handled character and I simply don’t find his character funny. Plus there’s never been enough emotional backing to justify the character beyond his shtick, thus if you don’t find him funny than you’re not going to see any point to his presence. Not to mention him returning at this point stretches all logic, all sense of credulity, all plausibility; they might as well have had him not return. 

The Germans are at times even more frustrating than Chang. It wasn’t like any of us were asking for the series to return to the well and draw out the German caricatures from "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism". Not only that but we don’t get the original actors but a new trio. This is a shame because Nick Kroll totally sold that group of characters and made them palatable. Here there’s not that underlying level of sincerity to make them rise above stereotypes (which there are plenty of in this episode to mixed results). 

The spoof (Hogan’s Heroes) is way too understated for a show like Community (then again I don't know much about Hogan's Heroes - However, having Jeff outright state the homage that they were attempting was way too on the nose) but if the Hunger Games’ spoof from the premiere is proof, overstating a high concept this far into the show’s run may just not be a good decision.

This is a grab bag of ideas, some of which I thought were really good at least on paper, but most of them didn't work in of themselves or were jarring when put together with everything that came before it.

Stray Observations:

-Jim Rash’s acting when he reacts to Chang’s return is priceless.

-“Hear us out … they offered us money”

- “Damn them and their perfectly crafted time pieces”

-There’s a Little Munich near Greendale. They sell non-FDA approved sausage.

-Displays of nationality and racial and ethnic pride are apparently illegal at Greendale.

-That closing gag just didn't work. "We have a thing," even in the hands of Donald Glover just isn't funny and make the whole segment feel incredibly pointless.

Grade: C+