Small Axe episodes 1 and 2 reviewed

 Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020) - 8/10

Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, 2020) - 7/10

There’s an extent to which my opinion on this series just isn’t that important. It’s not just that I’m a white man, whereas these two films are fairly personal stories about Caribbean immigrants, it’s also that neither is entirely to my aesthetic tastes. Mangrove is a fairly conventional courtroom drama about police brutality, and Lovers Rock is a plotless series of dance numbers; in both cases I can’t muster too much criticism aside from explaining what parts of either film don’t appeal to me, and I think those issues are particularly subjective. And while my interest in either film fluctuated significantly from moment to moment, they’re both so well directed that I find myself wanting to accentuate the positives.

Mangrove is a dramatization of the true story of the Mangrove Nine, a group of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in Britain who were arrested while protesting unwarranted police raids of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. It’s neatly bisected into two halves, with the first half dedicated mostly to the attacks on the Mangrove and the second half dedicated to the trial proceedings. Neither half is particularly nuanced – this is the kind of movie about celebrating the protagonists’ victory over an oppressor – but the latter half has a little more going on than the first half, because the trial proceedings introduce difficult questions about what tactics would serve the defendants best. They mostly decide on a strategy of provoking the court, which allows for a bunch of crowd-pleasing moments. By contrast, the first half doesn’t have a whole lot going on aside from celebrating the milieu and getting outraged at police brutality; to the extent that it stands out from a billion other movies on this topic, it’s mostly down to a bunch of strong performances. Shaun Parkes is particularly impressive as put-upon restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, though the entire cast is remarkable.

This doesn’t really have the snappy pace that I prefer in this kind of movie, though it does have its moments of humour. The relationship between Crichlow and Black Panthers activist Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letita Wright) is especially amusing in the early going. There’s also an abundance of speeches, which is indicative of the black-and-white conflict depicted here, but they are pretty consistently rousing, both due to the writing and performances. It’s also handled with enough sensitivity to not seem heavy-handed, even though we know exactly who’s good and bad from the very beginning, and even though at least one character is shown as little more than an archetypical racist. This is probably in part due to the strong performances, but it’s also down to McQueen’s direction, which emphasizes the atmosphere of the Mangrove and underscores the righteous fury of certain big moments. McQueen’s intentions seem more noble than, say, Aaron Sorkin with The Trial of the Chicago 7, but this is basically the same project of inviting viewers to feel good about being on the right side of history. But it’s also a very good one of these, and a bit more deeply felt than the usual Oscar bait.

McQueen’s direction is even more impressive in the far less formulaic Lovers Rock, which I admire immensely even though I’m biased against movies about dancing. I’m most engaged by movies where scenes develop to incorporate new information of some sort, even if it’s just small character moments or new jokes. Lovers Rock, by contrast, is a somewhat repetitive mood piece, reliant entirely on how much you are moved by the milieu of marginalized people having a night just to have fun within their own community, swaying to a killer soundtrack. Simple dancing of this sort doesn’t compel me, but this movie really does a remarkable job of capturing this atmosphere. It also differentiates its characters just enough that you can discern a lot just from looking at how they move, though not enough that the skeletal romance that suffices for a plot here works on any level other than the intuitive. Alas, love on the dance floor is not an emotion I can easily relate to, so my interest in the main couple mostly declined after a certain point. There’s a certain sensuality to the interactions between the main couple, but their chemistry is mostly rooted in the vibe of the party itself; there’s not much specificity to it otherwise.

It’s not quite accurate for me to simply dismiss it as “not for me,” however. Part of it is that its camerawork is particularly impressive, enhancing the atmosphere by sweeping through the crowd, often at eye-level; it will often linger on specific pairs before hovering over to the next, and then cutting away to some other corner of the dance floor. There is something charming about just watching these people cut loose, and my attention spiked every time the song changed; the soundtrack consists of a wide variety of great reggae, and each new song brings a new dance. Two scenes in particular stand out, and have been noted by pretty much every review of this movie – one where the music suddenly drops and the crowd starts singing acapella, and another where a character with a chip on his shoulder starts thrashing around. The former is such an intense shot of communal bliss that even I felt my jaw drop, and the latter thrills because it implies something more unpredictable and dangerous than what we see elsewhere.

That danger also pokes its head in the occasional scene of white people staring from just down the street, as well as a notable scene where a sexual assault disrupts the fun. Furthermore, the protagonist has some sort of issues in her past that she might be trying to escape, but this is never expanded upon. Mostly, it seems like all of this is there to more sharply define the mood of this party. For me, at least, the problem is that every scene – including the acapella – goes on for the entire length of the song and then some, often with the same visual ideas sustained for the entire time. But to tell the truth, I do think that’s appropriate for what this movie is trying to do. Personally, I would never go to a party like this; as such, I’m mostly here for the highlights. But if you’re into this kind of thing – that is, if communal dancing is something you cherish, or if onscreen dancing strikes you as inherently compelling – then I think this has a lot to offer.

McQueen’s intention with this project is to elevate stories from Black British history, and as such, I’m probably not the best writer to expound on its significance. Both of these films are intriguing in large part because of how they relate to that goal, and how they present scenes of triumph, resilience, and solidarity from that history. I’m not quite as in love with either of these films as many other people seem to be, but that’s not to say that I take issue with them. They’re both remarkable in their own way, and well worth seeing even if – like me – your tastes don’t necessarily align with their approach. Who knows, maybe one of the other three films in this series will be something I can really get behind.

What I saw at the 2020 Calgary International Film Festival

 

This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Calgary International Film Festival has employed a hybrid model, with restricted seating for the in-cinema screenings and the introduction of both drive-in screenings and streaming video for at-home audiences. Because of this, the streaming movies don’t correspond to any specific date of the festival, and in many cases I watched them before the in-cinema or drive-in screening. Personally, I watched these films entirely at home; the cinemas may be opening, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go. Besides, the in-cinema screenings were largely sold out by the time I bought my tickets. Alas, my internet and the light levels in my apartment are both less than ideal, so the viewing experience was not up to the same standard – then again, there’s also a shortage of major festival hits this year, given that Cannes was cancelled and the fall festivals were scaled down, and the most visually striking films I saw still impressed.

Despite these conditions – or, perhaps, because of them; I have plenty of free time right now – I still managed to catch seven films at this year’s festival. Here are short reviews of each:

"Hamilton," defining a "film," and year-end qualifications

I watch a lot of video media, much of which does not qualify as a feature film. This is often a subject of debate among cinephiles, who regularly debate the merits of film vs. television, and argue over whether a miniseries or filmed performance qualifies as a "movie." I like to define the medium broadly, but if I tried to cast my net wide to encompass every form of motion picture, I would never be able to keep up with anything. I personally prefer feature films because they're self-contained, as opposed to TV shows, and popular, as opposed to short films. But with the 2020 coronavirus pandemic leading to a significant decline in film releases, movies and TV are more direct competitors for attention than ever, and some of things that generated the most hype in film circles have not been feature films in a traditional sense - the ESPN documentary series The Last Dance, for one, and more recently the recording of Lin Manuel-Miranda's musical Hamilton on Disney+.

If you ask me, the distinction isn't that big of a deal, but since video is an increasingly ubiquitous form of entertainment, I do still want to set some ground rules for my year-end lists, just so I have some limitations to work within. To explain those, I'm going to explain why certain films are disqualified.

The Good Place

I don't watch a lot of television live. The Good Place, which concluded its fourth and final season in January, was an exception, leading me to get some actual use out of my cable subscription and watch each new episode within a week of airing. That season ventured too far into series-finale sentimentality for my tastes, but its mixture of sharp sitcom writing, serialized high-stakes narrative, and irreverent philosophizing made for a consistent treat, and the show maintained a high standard of quality from start to finish. Unfortunately, with so much TV out there, I don't believe it would be fair to award the one great show I watched in a timely fashion, especially when there are highly acclaimed series like Better Call Saul out there which would require weeks to fully catch up with. For now I think I will leave TV to the TV critics.

The History of the Seattle Mariners

A miniseries like this - or The Last Dance, which I have yet to see - very much straddles the line, as it conveys a single narrative and has a consistent creative team. In the past, I included O.J.: Made in America on a top 10 list, with the excuse that all seven hours of it were screened as a whole at a film festival. At the end of the day, though, miniseries exist in a different format, and aren't necessarily different from one season of a serialized TV show. People don't necessarily watch series like this the same way they do feature films, which I think is an important distinction. But ask me again in December and this is the category I might be most willing to budge on.

This is also part of a broader YouTube series, so I will mention that I will also generally disqualify online videos because they tend to be either short in length or unscripted live events. Some fit all of the qualifications of feature films, and if I watch a particularly good one of those this year, I might consider putting it on a year-end list. But something like a video essay is part of an overcrowded, esoteric category, and probably belongs on a list of its own, and so will be disqualified.

Hamilton

This one is mostly a judgment call from me, as I don't think the recent filmed version of this is particularly interesting in and of itself; I love it, but only because it's Hamilton. Last year's Beyoncé concert film Homecoming also derived most of its value from the quality of the show being recorded, though I wasn't as concerned with that one because the distinction between performances was a little more obvious and it was interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage. In both cases I'm hesitant to praise something as one of the best films of the year just for recording a great live show. Still, I like the Disney+ Hamilton just as much for what it represents, as having this perennially sold-out show easily available through streaming has the potential to change change how Broadway conducts its business. I may still give this one an honourable mention come January.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

I struggled with whether to put this on last year's top 10 list, and ultimately my decision is that it was better to boost it now rather than wait over a year. For the sake of convenience, I'm going to regard both the festival premiere and the wide release premiere as equally valid - the former because it's the first time the public can watch the film, and the latter because most people won't go all the way to Toronto or Sundance, and because it's when interest will be highest. I don't want to arbitrarily exclude new movies just because I saw them at a festival, but if I didn't count the wide release date, most of the movies I see for half of the year wouldn't qualify for the year-end list. So for my own sake I'm counting both.

That's not an entirely comprehensive list of exceptions, and I may need to clarify more further. I still might give each of these a special mention on the year-end list, but they won't be in the top 10. Of course, these rules aren't really relevant until December, but since Hamilton has inspired a small discourse about what counts as a "film," I thought it was relevant now. But I really only care about that distinction for year-end list purposes. I've written about TV before and I will probably do so in the future. There are differences between feature films, short films, TV shows, and filmed performances, but the similarities are even more significant, and at a time when the process of watching each is essentially the same, I only really care about the distinction for the sake of convenience. I watch a lot of feature films and am always behind on TV shows, so listing my favourite feature films of a year is what I feel most qualified to do. That's all there is to it for me. 

Game of Thrones (HBO, season 8)

(originally published May 11, 2019)

E01: "Winterfell" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]

E02: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (David Nutter, 2019) - [6/10]

E03: "The Long Night" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [7/10]

Last season I felt pretty comfortable endorsing the direction this show had taken after running out of book, but its increased reliance on pandering repetitions of battles and reunions, as well as the increasingly contrived invulnerability of the main characters made it still feel like a watered down version of the first few seasons. That trend has largely continued into this new season, and in particular, the first two episodes comprise a largely-interchangeable process of table-setting, first by getting everyone in Winterfell, and then by assembling nearly every possible combination of characters. Both of those episodes are comprised almost entirely of talking and consist of very little narrative momentum, and while I do truly love most of these characters, there's just so many of them now that it's hard to remain invested in every single conversation, especially in the second episode, where every conversation is bittersweet and moderately funny, but they're all bittersweet and funny in basically the same way. 

When this show tries to generate interest just by reuniting two characters who had a relationship in the past, or by trying to explore how two popular characters would interact, it feels cheap, especially since the show isn't interested in making much of these new connections. But the slow pace of the storytelling does allow it to build atmosphere, and although the show simply doesn't have a whole lot of story left to tell, it takes those scraps of story and explores all of their implications. It's a very admirable approach, and it's where much of the show's remaining integrity comes from. That's why the relatively bleak third episode is so refreshing, even if it's just another epic battle. For much longer than I thought possible these days, the show is unremittingly bleak, showcasing an extensive process of abject failure. Alas, it still comes down to a few contrivances which allow the named characters to prevail. Too often someone shows up out of nowhere, right in the nick of time, and for a show which is still so slow-paced and serious, it's immensely frustrating. 

What makes episode 3 really stand out, though, is its strange, experimental visual style, which looks like nothing else in the show. The entire episode is cloaked in the darkness of night, and at its best, this results in gorgeous images where brief flurries of motion and small pockets of torchlight pierce the fog of war. But it's clearly not optimal for viewing conditions in a bright room, and too often, the episode fixates on a barely-visible face as if the audience is supposed to see their emotions. It works far more often than it doesn't, and better yet, the battle itself is tense and carefully paced, more than making up for the sluggish first two episodes, and it really demonstrates what a gorgeous show this is, even when nothing is happening but banter. Even the CGI is particularly impressive for television. The show's storytelling has been questionable for years, but the dialogue, the characters, and the visuals have lost none of their power. 

Also, I actually liked episode 4, but I'll write about that when the season is over. We'll see how the rest unfolds. 

(originally published May 20, 2019)

E04: "The Last of the Starks" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]

E05: "The Bells" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [6/10]

E06: "The Iron Throne" (David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, 2019) - [6/10]

Spoilers follow. 

How do you end a show like Game of Thrones? For whatever reason, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss seem to have faltered in this last season, despite having set up the two prior seasons with (admittedly unwelcome) increases in sentimentality and optimism. They were putting the dark power games behind to finally confront the greater threat. But there were too many unanswered questions: What does Jon's true parentage mean? How should we feel about Daenerys? What is to be done with Cersei? Betraying the tone of the first five seasons is probably the only way to bring this story to a conclusion, but it was never easy to imagine an optimistic answer to those questions. 

Maybe that's why these final three episodes feel even more packed with contrivances and cheesy sentimentality than the previous three. "The Last of the Starks" marks a strange turning point from contrived survival to contrived deaths, but in some ways it appeared like an appealing step back towards moral ambiguity and political intrigue. But the lack of narrative momentum throughout this season was felt in the rush of "The Bells," which somehow struggles to justify character developments which had been foreshadowed for years, and contains some of the most wretchedly maudlin scenes in the show's entire run. It's at its most abstract, rather, that the show is at its most powerful; the scenes of King's Landing being destroyed have a visceral impact, even if it's unclear why Daenerys is causing them in the first place. 

And it's true that optics of her descent into villainy may leave something to be desired, and it's easy to see why a lot of people are disappointed by a man taking the throne in the end - not to mention that he then filled his council with more men. But Daenerys has always been established as unmerciful, with little patience for her enemies, and believing in part that the throne was her birthright. Those developments suffer because, for some reason, the last two episodes shift focus away from psychological complexity. It brings up the question of why these events are so rushed when so little happened in the first two episodes. Clearly this is a meatier story than the White Walkers, and yet that's where the show wasted the most time. 

What bothers me more is how cheesy those last two episodes become. Both are filled with moments of overblown sentimentality, and the last episode wraps everything up in a tidy bow that seems so much less nuanced than I know the show can be. The show didn't earn several of these moments, and it relies on overly emotive music and crummy dialogue to tell the audience how to feel. For anyone who cares about these characters, many of their endings do feel appropriate, and even those which are disappointing carry a bit of poetry or humour. None of it is necessarily out of line with the dumbed-down version of the show presented in seasons 6 and 7, and it never fully gave up on the qualities which have kept it watchable even through its biggest blunders. But that doesn't make it any less of a shame to see the show end up this way. 

Russian Doll (Netflix, season 1)

Originally published June 6, 2019

Ep. 1: "Nothing in This World is Easy" - [8/10]

Ep. 2: "The Great Escape" - [8/10]

Ep. 3: "A Warm Body" - [8/10]

Ep. 4: "Alan's Routine" - [9/10]

Ep. 5: "Superiority Complex" - [8/10]

Ep. 6: "Reflection" - [8/10]

Ep. 7: "The Way Out" - [9/10]

Ep. 8: "Ariadne" - [8/10]

Groundhog Day-esque miniseries about a woman who finds her day restarts every time she dies. It's an immaculately produced and very stylish piece of filmmaking, full of sharp dialogue and appealingly coarse performances. Only three directors worked on the show, and all three retain a gorgeously precise visual style, full of careful framing and warm colours. I think what's most remarkable about this show is how smoothly it transitions between comedy and drama, which I think it accomplishes by blending the two together: most of the comedy has a dark undercurrent, and the dramatic scenes are still given some levity by the irreverent dialogue and performances. I actually found several long sequences in this series to have a strange, hazy feel, visually expressing the characters' numerous downward spirals. It's also full of thrilling twists, and yet despite featuring a strong central mystery, it mostly just uses the reset technique as a jumping off point for its fascinating character study, as well as for a wide variety of unpredictable narrative shifts. The mechanics of time travel are never made entirely clear, but perhaps that's for the best, as such stories are best when they don't get bogged down in minutiae. Rather, it's a truly idiosyncratic and at times challenging series, and a lean one as well: a mere half hour per episode over eight episodes. All of that makes it a very compelling binge-watch, but it's also thematically layered and psychologically complex, and it's the show's dramatic integrity that truly sets it apart. 

The History of the Seattle Mariners (miniseries, SB Nation, 2020)

[9/10]

Episodes:
"This is not an endorsement of arson" - [9/10]
"Ken Griffey, Jr. and his quest to save the Mariners" - [91/0
"The Battle for Seattle" - [8/10]
"The Seattle Mariners build a death star" - [8/10]
"The Age of Ichiro" - [9/10]
"The Seattle Mariners enter the great beyond" - [8/10]

Alex Rubenstein is probably my favourite of Jon Bois' collaborators so far. Felix Biederman, who wrote SB Nation's MMA docu-series, matched Bois' attention to weird little details, but his brand of political cynicism strikes me as heavy-handed. Meanwhile, Kofie Yeobah matches Bois for personality, but their series about breaking video games lacks the human interest of Bois' other work. Rubenstein, however, is a statistics geek, which means that his and Bois' Dorktown series doubles down on the exploration on graphing historical narratives and the anomalies within. 

This Seattle Mariners miniseries is Bois' third long-form documentary, after the MMA one and a two-part trifle about athletes named Bob. What I really like about his work is how he extracts pathos from mere statistics - the visuals of his videos tend to consist entirely of minimalist slideshows full of charts and newspaper clippings, but he makes the emotional significance of those charts accessible. In The History of the Seattle Mariners, Bois and Rubenstein will crawl through the team's statistical achievements at the same time as a plebiscite determines their fate. Visually, this sequence is little more than basic graphs and lists of numbers, but combined - and in the context of the occasional personal anecdote - these two charts give each other meaning and build significant tension. Little moments like these, combined with the expected smattering of bizarre smaller stories, find Bois and Rubenstein putting their subjectivity aside and wearing their investment on their sleeve, and in the process they unearth the drama and humour of sports history. Sometimes the charts are replaced with a lengthy procession of headlines, and sometimes the two are mixed evenly, but in each case the effect is the same. 

As someone who doesn't know anything about sports and often struggles with statistics, there are stretches where I couldn't quite keep up, and on top of that Bois and Rubenstein will occasionally belabour a point for a bit too long. I ultimately prefer Bois' smaller works; his video on NFL punts is a favourite of mine. And yet the bigger picture is one of his more poignant works, and the much greater scale here is undeniably impressive. Here, he's building to a thesis about the very nature of sports fandom, explaining not only why a losing baseball team like the Seattle Mariners could attract such devotion, but how that devotion differs from fandom built on victories and World Series qualifications. It's enlightening for an outsider like myself, and resonant even outside the realm of sports. I crave this kind of opinionated take on subjects I don't understand, and this is one of the most sophisticated and accessible examples of such - but of course, that's what I expect from Bois. 

Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

[8/10]

This is a lengthy dramatization of the Zodiac Killer investigation of the 1970s, clocking in at over two hours and detailing every little step with extreme attention to detail. For a long while, there’s little in the way of human drama, as all is subsumed to an avalanche of facts, but it’s kept lively by way of stylish direction from David Fincher and top-tier performances from a star-studded cast. In the central roles are Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist Robert Graysmith and Robert Downey Jr. as crime journalist Paul Avery, both working at the same major San Francisco newspaper, as well as Mark Ruffalo as Dave Toschi, the lead detective on the Zodiac case. Gyllenhaal is intriguingly off-kilter as a well-meaning but obsessive amateur sleuth, with a few weird tics that take on a new meaning as the character is increasingly consumed by his obsession with finding the Zodiac. Downey Jr. provides the same sort of performance expected from him, essentially turning Avery into another variation on his usual role. Ruffalo reportedly does a highly effective job of imitating his real-life counterpart’s mannerisms, and elevates the role with a mixture of moderate charisma and creeping exhaustion. 

Those are the emotions that prevail across all three characters, albeit across different time frames and in different ways; this is a single-minded, detail-driven true crime story, but in doing so it makes a highly convincing case for that mountain of inconclusive evidence being the road to madness. The script ultimately falls back on archetypical scenes of troubled marriages, declining careers, and mental breakdowns, and often neglects to deepen what happens to these people beyond a broad outline. But it compensates formally: the torrent of evidence is compelling simply as a mystery, as it provides enough puzzle pieces to promise solvability. When the evidence inevitably fails to add up, that uncertainty becomes highly evocative of the mounting frustration brought on by the case. Fincher arguably dwells too long on the murders, especially in the first scene; I don’t particularly care about the personal lives of the victims, though these scenes are effective in developing an atmosphere of unease. 

Obsession with the case increasingly has a negative effect on the protagonists, and as lead after lead goes nowhere, it increasingly it becomes clear that it might be best for them to cease their pursuit.  As a consequence, the later scenes where Gyllenhaal continues his investigation can seem somewhat belaboured; it’s most likely that none of the people he runs into are going to kill him, and as his investigation grows increasingly futile, it becomes increasingly difficult to be invested in the outcome. And yet, the uncertainty still hangs over the film: suspicion falls onto a projectionist at the exact wrong time in the film for anything conclusive to come up, and yet his presence is still threatening simply because his guilt is as likely as anything else at that point. Perhaps that's why, after so extensively revealing the folly of this obsession, the film still retreats to an easy answer. 

Spoiler alert

Arthur Leigh Allen was probably not the Zodiac killer; even the closing credits admit that DNA evidence cleared him. But that, alongside the nagging lack of conclusive evidence, seem like drops in an ocean; the final image is Allen being pointed out of a lineup, and the closing credits fixate on him even after revealing he was cleared. It seems almost like he was implicated so the obsessed can be at peace. The contradictory nature of the ending, which dwells on Allen even when the evidence rules him out, is definitely provocative, but I’m not entirely sure how much the ambiguity is deliberate. The ending seems determined to paper over the nagging facts that undermine his guilt, an event which seems almost like the film backing down from the theme it had spent so much time developing. Graysmith was ultimately rewarded for his self-destruction with a factual error. But if it’s a misstep, it’s an oddly relevant misstep; if settling for a flawed answer is the consequence of obsession, then there’s something to be said of a film which is structured after that.

Reviewed: The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy

I watched the extended cuts of all of these. 

There's an extent to which I just don't like this story. It has well-developed character arcs, but there's little in the way of moral ambiguity; every single character, even those who may seem to inhabit shades of grey, can be easily characterized as either a hero or a villain. This even seems to extend to entire species and groups of people. There are so many Haradrim, and yet none of them care to oppose Sauron? And then there are Orcs, who conveniently serve as a morally uniform army for the peoples of Middle-Earth to fight against. The setting is richly textured, but many elements of the story are told in broad strokes; if Tolkein's novel was more detailed, then Jackson eliminated a lot of nuance in favour of raw spectacle. 

And frankly, I think raw spectacle is the level on which these movies are most successful. Despite the primitive aspects of Tolkein's storytelling, The Fellowship of the Ring remains delightful; even at three hours in the extended cut, it plays as a brisk jaunt through a spectacular, imaginative fantasy world. It's the only one of these films with constant forward momentum, and although it's way more lighthearted than the other two, that makes its moments of darkness all the more meaningful and gives its character arcs room to breathe. Tolkein's themes about greed and valor already shine through, and the central friendship between Frodo and Sam has already taken the shape that it would more or less retain through the rest of the series. 

My favourite films of 2019

The way I used to write movie reviews just wasn't working. This year, to save myself some time and effort, I decided to commit to a 400-word format for reviewing most movies, which can mostly be found at my Patreon and my Letterboxd. All of my attempts to monetize this have failed, but I still want to write about movies, and I still want to put my opinions on them into words. And I actually think I may have been able to write more this year than ever before because of it.

In any case, 2019 had a lot of great movies. This year I struggled with how to define the list - one of the films I have included hasn't finished its festival run yet, whereas other movies I previously had as honourable mentions premiered at festivals in previous years. By the end, everything lined up, but in the future I don't think I will worry too much about it. As always, I have found myself privileging dramatic films, perhaps because I don't find myself with too many opportunities to watch documentaries - had I watched it in time, Minding the Gap would certainly have made last year's list. And of course the list favours prominent English-language productions. I fear that my picks are usually too predictable, but at the same time I truly do believe these movies are great.

Also, sorry about the list being late this year.

Now, on with the list!

Reviewed: The "Star Wars" prequels

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999): [5/10]
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002): [6/10]
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005): [7/10]

These movies should be better. 

At the very core of this narrative, Lucas has a really interesting storyline. Across these films is a fascinating, multifaceted tragedy about a man who tried to stop death but could only create it. The world Lucas creates is fascinating even in the weakest of these films, and his imagination is unparalleled. But, at least at this point, he was a shockingly incompetent filmmaker. Each of these movies is noticeably better than the previous one, but they retain fundamental flaws with such basic things as acting and pacing. Lucas is a visionary with a keen eye for worldbuilding, but he clearly has no experience with writing a tragedy, and it's abundantly clear that his work in the 70s and 80s only turned out well because he had more talented people to fix his mistakes. 

The Phantom Menace is the most fundamentally flawed of the trilogy, in part because the visuals are the least advanced, but also because it's nearly devoid of character development and boasts such a ponderous, disjointed story. It's a corpse that has been picked clean, but it bears repeating just how dull the backstory is; the banal trade dispute facilitates the film's heavy-handed allegory for the rise of fascism, but it provides no real emotional stakes. Worse still, despite the skills of Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson, the lead characters are all two-dimensional and thin. They don't really grow or change, and most of them have few defining characteristics. 

But even if these storylines were interesting, the film gets bogged down in a lengthy diversion on Tatooine. This section becomes relatively interesting, because it sets up the tragedy of the later films; it's very significant that Anakin was a slave, and the scene where he is separated from his mother is genuinely heartbreaking. But almost all of the acting is wooden and emotionless, and almost all of the dialogue is leaden and unnatural. Much has also been said about the film's pervasive use of racial stereotypes for the aliens, which is nowhere worse than the deeply annoying Jar Jar Binks. 

And the CGI really is distracting, mainly because the green screen work is incredibly obvious, deflating the impact of most of the action scenes. But the climax is suitably exciting, and the lightsaber fights have remarkable choreography even if they aren't as kinetically filmed as they could have been. However, that doesn't fully explain why I didn't fully hate this movie, as sluggish and annoying as it is. Returning to Tatooine is somewhat disappointing, given the scale of this universe, but the world is still imaginatively and beautifully rendered. Behind all of the dated CGI is a wealth of astonishing artistry, to the extent that I think this movie would be much better with all the dialogue removed. 

Lucas would make several steps forward with Attack of the Clones, which at least wraps its dull political story in an intriguing mystery, and features actual character development by doubling down on Anakin's tragedy. The story has actual momentum here - rather than getting bogged down with a weird diversion about betting on pod racing, this one wisely cuts between its main story (Obi-Wan investigating Jango Fett) and Anakin's character turmoil, granting both of them more momentum. But the story actually makes even less sense than The Phantom Menace: once the mystery is finally resolved, the storytelling suddenly becomes increasingly muddy, to the point where I wasn't entirely sure what anyone's motivations were during the climactic battle. 

This movie benefits a lot from a higher density of action scenes, and because the CGI had improved between 1999 and 2002, they look a lot less cartoonish and unconvincing. The green screen effect is still obvious a lot of the time, but the improved effects make it a lot less of a problem. But while stretches of Attack of the Clones are genuinely compelling, they're often the parts with the least dialogue, as the infamous central romance of this film might be just as agonizing as Jar Jar Binks in the previous one. Lucas's attempts at humour have improved this time around, though it often comes across as a vague approximation of the original trilogy, but a lot of his writing is still stilted and unnatural, and his romantic dialogue is absolutely agonizing. 

A big part of the problem is that he just cannot direct actors, and the chemistry between Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman is nonexistent to the point that it seems like they must have genuinely hated each other behind the scenes. Portman's Padmé is a major weak link of these films - Lucas gives her little to work with, but Portman makes no effort to make it seem like she likes Anakin at all. Meanwhile Christiansen tries very hard but is thoroughly unnatural, as if Anakin is trying to delude himself into loving her. But he also keeps packing exposition into places where it doesn't belong, which is a continuing issue with these films. He cannot write an organic conversation. Other issues that were less significant in The Phantom Menace also stand out more because Lucas's filmmaking has improved, most notably the jarring transitions. For whatever reason, scenes always cut away just when something new is starting to happen, leaving the film with a herky-jerky rhythm that constantly breaks the film's momentum. 

And yet. Christiansen does a very poor job of conveying Anakin's internal turmoil, but it's the one bit of writing that really works in this movie. He is established here to be impulsive, and he is haunted by visions of his still-enslaved mother dying, so there is real emotional weight when he finally discovers her. Watching the build to his massacre of the Tuscan Raiders is genuinely haunting. Plus the action scenes are all tremendous, even though they grow increasingly goofy as the film goes on, and the worldbuilding of the franchise remains intoxicating to me. People say this one is worse than The Phantom Menace because so much of it is the terrible romance, but in nearly every other way it seems like an obvious improvement to me. 

That trend of improvement is even greater in the final installment, Revenge of the Sith. Suddenly, Lucas's filmmaking became almost competent. There are still issues with editing, pacing, acting, and dialogue, but each of those is significantly diminished, and the CGI is mostly convincing. Moreover, the tragedy takes centre stage here, meaning that this movie has a story that not only makes sense but is also genuinely exciting. This is not as good as A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, and both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi would be significantly better, but it is operatic and tragic where it needs to be, and it contains more than one of the franchise's best action scenes. 

General Grievous, a lieutenant of Count Dooku from Attack of the Clones, is a major villain through the first half of this one, and although he barely has more of a personality than Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, he is present for much more of the film, and has a generally charismatic presence. The sequence of Obi-Wan hunting him down is genuinely exciting, even though Lucas cuts away from it at completely baffling moments. A lot of what happens here seems to exist only to keep the film exciting as it tracks Anakin's temptation to the dark side, including a completely superfluous thread of Yoda hanging out on the front lines of the civil war, but it does a great job of setting the scene, and all of that activity is admittedly effective in keeping the film entertaining. 

The romance scenes are still a major weak link, alas. Lucas's dialogue has improved dramatically since Attack of the Clones, but there are still some completely baffling exchanges between Anakin and Padmé, and those actors seem to be the only two who haven't figured out how to work around Lucas's lack of direction. In addition, Anakin's temptation to the dark side is clearly rushed; we don't get a full sense of how much influence Palpatine has had on him, and he goes through his arc unnaturally quickly. But the complexity of the story still shines through: he is afraid of losing those he loves, the Jedi Council is largely neglecting him, and Palpatine keeps telling him exactly what he wants to hear. Lucas's intentions shine through the flaws in execution, and the tragedy of is genuinely affecting. Anakin committed atrocities, but all he really wanted was to protect the people he loved, and only the fascist dictator took him seriously. 

Other issues stand out even more because of the improvements. There is still some jarring editing. The green screen effects still occasionally fail. Christiansen and Portman are embarrassing, especially with Ewan McGregor now running circles around them. And for whatever reason, Lucas has pushed Yoda's dialogue into self-parody, which is probably the most irritating thing about this installment. But I was able to look past that because, for a long time, it was coherent and exciting and thoughtful. Alas, the final act becomes increasingly silly, as it repeats Yoda's nonsensical acrobatics from Attack of the Clones, has Obi-Wan and Anakin fight on a volcano planet for some reason, and increases the rate of ludicrous plot points. The ultimate effect is more like a soap opera than a Shakespearean tragedy. But, y'know, it's a pretty good soap opera, and even amid ludicrous moments like Padmé losing the will to live, there's still a lot that is genuinely powerful about this story. 

It makes no sense that it took Lucas so long to reach a level of baseline competence. That he had no oversight in making these movies explains a lot of the dubious creative choices, but it's far more conspicuous that, with his decades of industry experience, he still struggles with the basic technical qualities of filmmaking. It's hard not to wonder what these movies would have been like had he solicited outside help with shaping the overall narrative, and gotten other people to direct, edit, and write. But his imagination is one of the most impressive in the industry, and there is a reason why Star Wars remained popular during this era. I probably don't ever need to see The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones ever again, but they are fascinating messes with significant high points, and Revenge of the Sith is a worthy entry in the series even in spite of its faults. It is said that nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans, but by the same token, I wonder if these movies would be able to inspire so much bile if they didn't have any good in them. 

These movies really should be better, but even in such a compromised state, there is a reason why Star Wars is so popular. There is still good in these movies.