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.

Movie review: "First Man"

dir. by Damien Chazelle
written by Josh Singer
Oscar-bait biopics are one of those genres where technical execution is everything. Films like this are, by their very nature, contrived to exhibit performances, and more often than not tend to place their emphasis on time-tested emotional beats rather than any sort of more experimental approach. The mainstream biopic is inherently pulled between ambition and pandering: it needs to appeal to a wide audience, but it also needs to live up to its subject's legacy. Biopics often contain significant artistic accomplishments, but almost always within the confines of the genre's cliches and formulae.

First Man, which combines that with the longstanding tradition of expensive Hollywood space movies, is a perfect example of that. It's in many ways a familiar story, hitting on cliched emotional beats regarding family and grief, but it's well-paced and well-acted, especially from The Crown's Claire Foy, who gives depth to Janet Armstrong despite having little support from the script. Also present is the superstar powerhouse that is Ryan Gosling, here providing a somewhat more grounded performance than his usual persona, and the established directorial talents of Damien Chazelle, who turns each shuttle launch into a sort of horror movie without abandoning the requisite sense of wonder. As familiar as it can be, First Man is an example of how satisfying this genre can be when it works.

Movie review: "Mandy"

THROND'S CHOICE
directed by Panos Cosmatos
written by Panos Cosmatos, Aaron Stewart-Ahn

For several years now, Nicolas Cage has been largely banished from mainstream cinema. Since 2013's Joe and excepting the occasional Paul Schrader joint, the Oscar-winning, internet-beloved actor has been largely relegated to direct-to-video dreck, and low-budget trifles. Recently, however, that's begun to change, with Mom and Dad receiving a cult following out of TIFF 2017, and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies casting him as none other than Superman himself.

But neither of those movies has accumulated as much momentum as Mandy, Panos Cosmatos's mesmerizing, intensely stylized, frequently absurd evocation of both B-movie pulp and prog-rock grandiosity. Cosmatos blends self-serious, droning aesthetic experimentation with pandering machismo, creating a hallucinatory, genuinely transporting landscape all in the service of watching Nic Cage kill biker lizardmen and druggie cultists. This film's perverse blend of highbrow stylings and lowbrow content marks it as perfect cult film material.

Movie review: "Mile 22"

directed by Peter Berg
written by Lea Carpenter

For years now, director Peter Berg has collaborated with Mark Wahlberg on dramas about American tragedies. Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day all took real-world events as their subject matter, with varied but generally positive critical reactions and widespread popularity. Clearly, Berg and Wahlberg have a comfortable relationship, so although the former previously failed to craft a successful summer blockbuster with 2012's Battleship, a new action film from the duo still had potential, especially given Wahlberg's continued box office success.

However, Mile 22 suggests that Berg should have stuck with what was working, as he struggles to find a story compelling enough to compensate for the lack of real-world inspiration. More importantly, the film features some shockingly bad editing, and lacks even a single visually coherent action scene, instead waiting not even a second between cuts. The basic responsibility of any action movie is to ensure the audience can follow the action, and in that sense, Mile 22 is perversely inept. Considering that fundamental failure, it hardly even matters that the film also has an unlikeable protagonist and terrible dialogue. All anyone wants from an action movie is clear, comprehensible action, and this film can't even deliver that.

Movie review: "BlacKkKlansman"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Spike Lee
written by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmot, and Spike Lee

For a good while now, Spike Lee has balanced his for-hire work with much more idiosyncratic projects, every Oldboy remake or NBA 2K story mode balanced with oddities like a Chicago-set adaptation of an ancient Greek play, or a story about a man cursed with a thirst for blood. Given that recent history, BlacKkKlansman is one of his more straightforward premises, a biopic based on a particularly strange piece of history, with a lot of work already done by the premise. On the other hand, the film comes as not only Lee's first Palme d'Or competitor since 1991's Jungle Fever, but also as the winner of the second-place Grand Prix at that same festival.

Indeed, it's the relative accessibility of the film which is its greatest strength. Here, Lee has crafted a funny, tense crowd-pleaser while intertwining pointed social commentary into the humour and narrative, and the result is a film which is equally thoughtful and entertaining. The film is professional and straightforward without being mindless, and at the same time it's intelligent and righteous without being self-indulgent... well, mostly. Come for the crazy premise, stay for the sharp critique of American institutional racism.

Movie review: "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

dir. by Ron Howard
writ. by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan
One of the key themes of December's Star Wars: The Last Jedi was that obsessing over the past is futile, and yet, Disney has seen fit to fill the gaps in its yearly release schedule not with intriguing new stories from disparate corners of the galaxy, but with yet more prequels which tell stories we already know about. Solo: A Star Wars Story, despite having its fair share of new characters, is a worse offender than Rogue One, as it insistently strings together explanations for nearly every aspect of Han Solo's persona in the original trilogy, while including at least a minor reference to every single piece of backstory which had been mentioned in those original movies.

That doesn't leave Solo with much room to take significant risks within its own story, so thankfully it instead takes on an upbeat tone and a breezy pace, diverging from grim foreboding of Rogue One in favour of a lightweight caper, albeit at the expense of the novelty and unique style of the earlier film. But if Solo contains few of Rogue One's strengths, it also fixes its primary weakness with a far more memorable cast of characters, and the action at the very least remains imaginative and exciting even if it's far less stylish than other recent Star Wars entries. Solo is the most disposable of the recent Star Wars films, but as a fluffy summer blockbuster, it is more than satisfactory.

Movie review: "Hereditary"

THROND'S CHOICE
written and directed by Ari Aster
I'm not very well versed in the horror genre, but when I do watch horror films, I tend to prefer them to be on the artsy side. Great films like The Babadook and The Witch have been major highlights of their respective years, and the latter established distribution company A24 as a major purveyor of weird, artsy horror films, with a similarly harrowing release in last year's It Comes at Night cementing this reputation. Even more than the aforementioned films, however, Ari Aster's Sundance hit Hereditary seems tailor-made to alienate mainstream audiences, an exquisite slow burn which only explodes very late into its running time.

It's peculiar, then, that what holds Hereditary back from greatness is that it's not weird enough. While certain themes are carried through into the horror elements, others actively compete with them, resulting in the curious effect that the film becomes less moving as it gets scarier. Approximately half of Hereditary is a powerful meditation on grief and guilt, while the other half is a sharp, imaginative modern horror feature. But despite the latter half gaining much of its effectiveness from the former, the actual imagery offered here has very little to do with the psychological depth which the film is so successful in establishing. But even with that disconnect, it's hard to resist a movie which is this accomplished on a scene-to-scene basis.

Movie review: "Mute"

dir. by Duncan Jones
written by Michael Robert Johnson and Duncan Jones
Duncan Jones has, allegedly, been trying to get Mute made for some decade and a half. Presented as a sequel of sorts to his excellent 2009 sci-fi film Moon, this new film represents Jones's return to science fiction after the critical failure of his video game adaptation Warcraft. Given the pedigree of Jones's previous work, it's not hard to expect that this would show him regaining his footing after that brief stumble, but it's also a relatively safe career move. That it was Netflix who ultimately distributed it could indicate that it was too challenging for the traditional studios, but it could also simply indicate that the project wasn't coming together.

Netflix's willingness to let filmmakers do whatever they like allows for ambitious projects to gain a mainstream pedigree, but it also means they have a low standard of quality. In Jones's case, there's a reason the major studios wouldn't touch this: if Mute is a passion project, it's hard to see where the passion is directed, as this is a droning, persistently generic neo-noir project, and while it's admirably committed to its scattershot ideas, those ideas are overwhelmingly derivative, gracelessly grafting a Blade Runner ripoff aesthetic to a tediously creaky mystery. The downfall of Netflix's approach, it would appear, is that there's nobody to tell a filmmaker when their efforts just aren't working.

Movie review: "Wind River"

written/directed by Taylor Sheridan
It's hard to begin a discussion of Wind River without acknowledging the recent pedigree of writer-director Taylor Sheridan. Over the past two years, Sheridan has emerged from a supporting role on Sons of Anarchy to write exquisite scripts for Sicario and Hell or High Water, both of which suggested him as a major talent in film writing. When news broke that he'd be directing a film as well, anticipation was high; after all, when your first two films were that good, how could they not be?

The surprising thing about Wind River, then, is that it's actually Sheridan's weakest script by some margin, boasting less nuanced characterization, uneven dialogue, and some dubious survivalist philosophy. Instead, what makes the film thrilling is Sheridan's assured direction, emphasizing a harsh, freezing sense of place and crafting from that not only great tension but great action as well. Above all else, it possesses a taut, bleak beauty which allows it to transcend the deficiencies of its script and become compelling in spite of itself.

Movie review: "War for the Planet of the Apes"

dir. by Mat Reeves
written by Mark Bomback and Matt Reeves
2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes held a unique place in the summer blockbuster scene. Despite certain issues such as uninteresting human characters, it was nuanced and ambitious in ways that few of its contemporaries were. It depicted a tense situation between the titular apes and the world of men, and offered both positive and negative actors on each side, and boasted a lot of depth in its characterization and ambition in its narrative which are still rarely seen in films of this budget. It was a dark, somber, and long blockbuster, but it paid off with narrative profundity even if it wasn't always much fun.

The final installment of this trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, is still impressive for its sympathetic characterization and soaring ambition, and it's easily the most technically accomplished film of the trilogy, but somewhere between the two films, something was lost. War is a film which strives for narrative depth while shying away from anything which might compromise its black-and-white morality, and while the film is still gorgeous and more exciting than its predecessor, it still takes itself too seriously to justify its simplicity.

It ain't bad, but I wish I saw what the rest of you see in this.

Movie review: "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

dir. by Gareth Edwards
Rogue One is a story about hope, like many stories in the Star Wars universe. In many ways, it's a darker chapter in the franchise, but at its core it still encourages hope, even at the most hopeless of times, and even when it requires the greatest of risks and sacrifices. At a time where hope is in short supply, such a film is undoubtedly appealing, but while Rogue One succeeds as a sturdy, entertaining blockbuster, it never becomes more than that, even in spite of the greater desperation found in its story. It's a minor side story dressed up as a big epic in its own right, and while it has the look, the characters - the heart and soul of so many of these movies - are sorely lacking.

Movie review: "The Birth of a Nation"

dir. Nate Parker
When Nate Parker's passion project gained awards and rapturous applause at the Sundance Film Festival, it thrust him into a spotlight which has not been entirely beneficial to the film itself. While an artist should be separable from their art, there is a reason why Parker's past actions are mentioned so often in reviews of the film, as he's taken the writer-director-star role, and the content of the film sometimes makes the rape charges hard to ignore. If The Birth of a Nation were a great film, it might have been able to rise above these issues, and while it's well-shot and acted, Parker's severe limitations as a first-time director are consistently apparent, and his conventional, hagiographic script struggles to truly dig deep into its subject matter. There are surface pleasures here, but whether they're enough to satisfy will likely vary wildly.

Kubo and the Two Strings film review

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by Travis Knight
Laika's work in stop motion has always been fairly prestigious. Films like Coraline and ParaNorman received no shortage of critical acclaim, their unconventional form of craft often being placed among such great studios as Ghibli and Pixar. In films like the aforementioned, the studio's craft often complemented the films' disturbing visuals, creating films which, while not strictly horror, were able to construct a fairly unsettling tone in the former and an effective genre homage in the latter. Kubo is in some ways a departure, taking the form of a sweeping epic journey more akin to a fantasy film than their earlier works, but this change in tone is revelatory, because Kubo and the Two Strings is the surest realization of their craft to date and stands a good chance of going down as their masterpiece.

Deadpool movie review

dir. by Tim Miller
In 2009, the enduringly popular Marvel anti-hero Deadpool, real name Wade Wilson, made his first appearance on the big screen in the critically lambasted X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This appearance, which largely ignored his defining characteristics in the comics, proved wildly unpopular, and fans have been clamouring for a better representation of the character ever since. Now, in 2015, we have Deadpool, which isn't quite the movie this character deserves, but should please fans enough until that movie does come.

Room movie review

BEST NEW FEATURE

dir. by Lenny Abrahamson
Deserving of all the critical acclaim it's gotten, Room contains so many fascinating and important topics within its intense two hours that it's undoubtedly one of the best films of the year.

Black Mass movie review

dir. by Scott Cooper
With September already more than midway through, gangster drama Black Mass begins the Oscar bait season in typically dull fashion.

The End of the Tour movie review

dir. by James Ponsoldt
BEST NEW FEATURE
This independent film based off David Lipsky's obituary of David Foster Wallace is a fantastic road trip movie filled with rich dialogue.

Straight Outta Compton movie review

dir. by F. Gary Gray

New music biopic about the influential rap group aims broadly in its scope, and proves a thoroughly entertaining watch despite its issues.

Shaun the Sheep movie review

dir. by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak

BEST NEW FEATURE
Aardman's newest animated film, based on their hit television show, is every bit as charming and clever as is expected from them.

Jurassic World movie review

Jurassic Park is widely regarded a classic, but its sequels are... less so. Jurassic World seeks to reboot the series, with an all-new cast and all-new technology. So does it reach the heights of the original? Not even close.