Do nothing. Stay and fight. Leave.
These are the options up for debate in Women Talking. The people debating, the titular women doing the talking, are a self-appointed committee representing all of the women in their isolated Mennonite colony that eschews modern conveniences like electricity and observes a strict patriarchal hierarchy.
The reason for their secret meetings is about as horrifying as you could imagine. It’s come to light that certain men in the colony have been using cow tranquilizers on women and girls in the community in order to rape and abuse them. They know this because one of the victims caught them in the act.
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The greed, duplicitous plotting, double crossing, and murder in Fargo make that film feel like a Shakespearian tragedy, so, in retrospect, it seems obvious that the Coens would tackle the Scottish play, one of the Bard’s most famous and celebrated works.
Only, for the first time in their filmmaking lives, The Tragedy of Macbeth isn’t a collaboration between the Coen brothers. After nearly four decades of making movies together, The Tragedy of Macbeth is the first solo film by Joel Cohen. His stripped down, almost ascetic, version of the Shakespeare work is, simply put, a masterpiece.
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The subtitle of The French Dispatch could have been: Wes Anderson makes me feel bad about myself. Modern (useless) Facebook meme pop-psychology would tell me that no one but me is responsible for the way I feel about myself. And yet. As someone who tries to move through the world with a reputation of being a cinephile, it took me watching about 20 minutes of Mr. Anderson’s new film to realize (as I do when I watch any of the director’s other films) how little I really know about this art form that I claim to cherish.
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Director Chloé Zhao’s inspired blurring of truth and fiction in her newest film Nomadland reveals an emotional truth about the American spirit that is more profound than even the most probing documentary could capture. Her movie, in its own quiet way, celebrates the beauty and grandeur of American western landscapes and the human desire to drink them in, much like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. It also documents, like a modern-day Grapes of Wrath, the crushing poverty that forced these beauty-seekers on the road in the first place. It’s the blending of these two aesthetics that make Nomadland such a delicate treasure.
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Nuance is a good thing. That might seem like a bizarre sentiment to post here on the internet, where considered discourse goes to die. Wait, that’s not really fair. You can find plenty of nuance on the internet. It’s just usually drowned out by clickbait headlines and the outrage machine, which only has one setting: full volume. And, of course, let us not forget about the comments section.
Taking a contemplative and nuanced approach to what I write about movies is one of my most important goals. It’s right behind setting down my honest emotional and intellectual reaction to each movie, as well as putting the movies in the context of film history. Wes Anderson’s new film, Isle of Dogs, has made me think hard about being nuanced, especially when it comes to cultural appropriation. It’s what I’ll spend most of this review covering, because it was at the forefront of my mind while I was watching the movie.
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is the kind of movie that gets an Oscar Best Picture nomination because the people in charge think it’s gritty, meaningful filmmaking full of important social commentary. In actuality, it’s a movie that uses relevant social topics – namely police brutality and inaction – in a cynical ploy for cheap exploitation and shock value. This is a nihilistic movie that delights in trying to offend. There is a painful tone-deafness in how Three Billboards attempts to mix comedy and pathos. The plot machinations, especially late in the film, become so creaky that several key points are unbelievable, even laughable.
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The North Texas Film Critics Association (NTFCA), of which I am a member, voted this month to honor the best films of 2017. As an organization, the NTFCA is proud to call attention to outstanding achievements in the craft of filmmaking. I consider movies to be not only entertainment, but in the best examples, they are also art. They teach us about the human condition. Here are the winners for each category in which we voted:
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