“For a minute. Just a minute. You made it feel like home.”
Those are the final words we hear in the last seconds of Bones and All, the new film from director Luca Guadagnino. With a quiet, contemplative score by duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, those words, sung by the Nine Inch Nails front man Reznor, cut right to the bloody, visceral heart of Guadagnino’s picture.
No matter what you hear about the movie – it features graphic violence and vivid depictions of cannibalism – its real power lies in capturing the almost ineffable experience of finding a sense of home, belonging, trust, and deep love in another human being. Bones and All is about finding in someone else that illusive sense of home in an inhospitable, cruel world.
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As with his previous films The Big Short and Vice, director Adam McKay’s insufferably smug tone, and a level of nuance that’s about as subtle as a piano falling from a third-story window, make his climate change satire, Don’t Look Up, virtually ineffective. His film also suffers from being overstuffed; it careens from one ridiculous scenario to the next with wildly uneven results.
I need to add the same disclaimer that I appended to my review for Vice – and, for that matter, The Big Short; it seems this will be a running theme for my reactions to McKay films going forward. I whole-heartedly agree with the point McKay is making and the urgency with which he’s making it. But the way he’s chosen to go about it is the worst example of holier-than-thou preaching-to-the-choir sanctimony. It undercuts his own goals.
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Aaron Sorkin’s sophomore effort in the director’s chair – after 2017’s Molly’s Game – is just as compelling, erudite, and masterful as his first. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is one of the best movies of the year so far. All of Sorkin’s strengths are on display here. His screenplay is brimming with his signature style of crackling dialog. He examines with nuance and complexity mature themes like patriotic dissent, justice, and what makes American democracy function. His characters are all fully fleshed out people, not merely two-dimensional dialog delivery devices.
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“More than 900 little ships came from Britain [to Dunkirk], evacuated the British and French forces and ferried them across the Channel to safety. They were able to rescue thousands of troops over the course of several days. This is often reported as an example of wartime British bravery and comradeship.
What is rarely talked about is the fact that many troops in the French Army were from Africa, and the little ships refused to take the Black soldiers. They left them on the beaches for the Germans to capture, and many ended up in Auschwitz. Senegalese director Sembene Ousmane mentions this in his film Camp Thioroye, which is based on the true story of a massacre of African soldiers by the French Army during the war.” - From the website ancestralenergies.blogspot.com
The inconvenient facts described above lay the groundwork for the most damning criticism of Christopher Nolan’s otherwise thrilling new film Dunkirk. How much more complex and challenging of an experience could Nolan have presented by simply making a noticeable percentage of the troops desperately trying to get aboard the rescue ships ones of color? Soldiers from India, Senegal, and Morocco (to name but a few) fought in the war to end fascism as part of the British and French empires.
Instead, Nolan and his casting team made the film a 99.9% white affair. That’s not cause enough to junk the picture. On the contrary, there is a lot to praise (which I’ll get to soon) about Dunkirk.
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Bridge of Spies is a tale of two films. The second half of Steven Spielberg’s newest historical drama is a good representation of the high level of quality associated with the director’s work. The finale is dramatically tense and emotionally powerful while remaining understated in the message it conveys. The first half stands in stark contrast to all of that; it’s hindered by its rote execution and the way it delivers moral lessons as subtly as an atomic bomb. Bridge of Spies could be leaner and more effective if Spielberg and screenwriters Matt Charman and the Coen brothers had concentrated solely on the second dramatic arc of the story. As it is, the film gives the overall impression of being unfocused.
The movie begins in 1957 as the FBI arrests Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) on suspicion of being a Soviet spy. The evidence against Abel is quite damning, but the U.S. government wants to show the world that everyone, even those accused of espionage, is afforded the same protections under the law. This protection boils down to having access to competent legal counsel. To that end, the FBI convinces James Donovan (Tom Hanks) – an insurance settlement lawyer with criminal trial experience – to represent Abel. Donovan believes in the American justice system, so he provides his client with a zealous defense, even moving forward with an appeal when Abel is convicted on all counts. He does this to the chagrin of his colleagues at the firm, the judge in the case, and even his own family.
It would be one thing if the writers stuck to the maxim of “show, don’t tell” to illustrate the moral superiority of treating even the worst criminals with the same dignity and humanity granted all U.S. citizens. After all, the case can be made that it’s a lesson worth re-learning since the war on terror began – especially for those in positions of power. But Charman, Spielberg and the Coens don’t just show. They tell, and tell, and tell. Tom Hanks is one of the finest actors of his generation, and his performance in Bridge of Spies is as good as you would expect. But by the fifth or sixth time he explains the importance of due process to those who want blood, the point becomes excruciatingly belabored.
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