Tag: highly recommended

MoviesLeave a comment
Civil War

Civil War

msobczak1138

When I first saw the trailer for Civil War, I was underwhelmed.  It looked like a standard action movie, so much so that I wondered when Gerard Butler (star of the “Has Fallen” franchise) would show up to save the country from itself.  The combat footage didn’t look special, and the plot of the movie appeared to be entirely about how “America is fighting with itself”.  It wasn’t until people that I follow on social media explained the movie that I reconsidered seeing it.  While Civil War may be a nightmare scenario inspired by the Trump presidency, the movie isn’t about that at all.  For example, the movie’s Trump surrogate (a perfectly cast Nick Offerman) is barely shown in the movie.  (Not that I needed more than I got.)  And while Civil War may look like a traditional war movie at times, its primary focus is on how wars are represented by the media, specifically journalists.

Continue reading “Civil War”
BooksLeave a comment
Lord of the Flies (novel)

Lord of the Flies (novel)

msobczak1138

I was familiar with the premise of Lord of the Flies long before I read the book.  The book has had a continual presence in Western culture since it was released in 1954, to the point where the title has become a established metaphor for describing a group of unruly children.  My impetus for reading Golding’s novel now was the Showtime series Yellowjackets.  I’d read that the series was originally conceived as an all-female adaptation of the book, but that the writers behind the show decided instead to use the story as the basis for an examination of teenage hierarchy.  Even though I’d read that Yellowjackets diverged widely from the book after the setup, knowing that Flies was one of the sources of its inspiration finally motivated me to read it.

Continue reading “Lord of the Flies (novel)”
MoviesLeave a comment
Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomy of a Fall

msobczak1138

Anatomy of a Fall looks and sounds like a standard courtroom drama.  It opens with a startling scene, where a young boy named Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) returns from a walk with his dog to find his father dead on the snowy ground outside the chalet where his family lives.  Daniels’ mother Sandra (Sandra Hüller) rushes outside and calls for an ambulance.  When the police arrive, she explains that she was asleep when Samuel (Samuel Theis) jumped to his death.  The police, however, don’t buy her story.  After analyzing the crime scene and digging into Samuel’s past, they conclude that Sandra pushed her husband to his death.  Charges are filed against her, and the resulting trial includes the requisite scenes of prosecutor/witness pyrotechnics.  On this level, the story would serve as a gripping episode of Law & Order: The French Alps.

Continue reading “Anatomy of a Fall”
MoviesLeave a comment
American Fiction

American Fiction

msobczak1138

American Fiction belongs to a genre of films that I always appreciate, the portrait of the frustrated artist.  This genre includes artists who work in various mediums (painters, sculpture, etc.), musicians, actors and of course writers.  American Fiction is about a writer named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), and the reasons why he is frustrated with his career are made evident within the opening minutes of the movie.  Monk’s latest book has been rejected nine times, so he’s forced to teach to earn a living.  He hates the job because he doesn’t suffer fools lightly.  Monk believes he’s the smartest person in whatever room he walks into, and even though he’s usually right, nobody wants to have it rubbed in their faces.  He brandishes his intelligence like a sidearm and is willing to duel with anyone who dares disagree with him about anything.  When a white student says she’s offended by the n-word, he bluntly tells her that if he can get over it, so can she.  When an antagonistic colleague critiques his output and lack of publishing success, Monk retorts that quality takes time and that being purchased by travelers when they buy their neck pillows and Cheese-Its is not an achievement.  Monk’s insistence of his intellectual superiority over others dates back to his childhood, when his siblings gave him the nickname “Detective Dictionary”.

Continue reading “American Fiction”
MoviesLeave a comment
Past Lives

Past Lives

msobczak1138

Everyone knows a couple who are so perfect for each other that you can’t imagine them apart.  We think of them as soulmates, two people who were destined to be together.  The notion that there is someone out there who is only meant for you is an incredibly romantic one.  You hope that you’ll find that special someone one day, and consider yourself fortunate when you do.  Sometimes, finding your soulmate is incredibly easy.  Past Lives tells the story of Na Young (Moon Seung-ah, Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min, Teo Yoo) who, beginning when they were twelve-years old, are obviously meant for each other.  They’re inseparable at school, laughing at their private jokes.  Na’s outgoing and friendly personality and Hae’s quiet and sensitive nature compliment each other perfectly.  When their mothers arrange a playdate, they are immediately convinced that Na and Mae will be married one day.  Unfortunately, fate intervenes when Na’s parents decide to emigrate to Toronto.  This is devastating news for Hae, who is the hopeless romantic between the two of them.  Na is also sad at leaving Hae behind, but she embraces this big change in her life.  She wants to become a writer and tells her classmates that Korea has never produced a writer who won the Nobel prize for literature.

Continue reading “Past Lives”
MoviesLeave a comment
May December

May December (Netflix)

msobczak1138

May December is not merely clever, it’s diabolical.  That’s the best way I can describe a movie that adopts a persona to hide its true intentions–while telling a story about characters who do the exact same thing.  On the surface, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is a professional actress who wants to learn everything she can about Gracie (Julianne Moore), the basis of her next role in an independent movie.  Like the real life case involving Mary Kay Letourneau, Gracie seduced Joe (Charlie Melton) when he was in grade school.  Elizabeth says she wants to give a true performance of Gracie and does what actors normally do to prepare for their next role.  She interviews the people involved, scouts locations and scours the media coverage of the incident.   However, it soon becomes evident that Elizabeth’s intentions aren’t as noble as she says they are.  Additionally, understanding Gracie and Joe is difficult, given how they’ve learned to shield themselves with their own performances for the past twenty years.

Continue reading “May December (Netflix)”
MoviesLeave a comment
The Holdovers

The Holdovers

msobczak1138

We’ve all met a person like Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) in our lives, perhaps more than one if we’re particularly unfortunate.  He’s a stickler for the rules, insisting that whatever is to be done must be in accordance with the policy manual.  Any deviation from the established order must be penalized.  If your Paul Hunham probably wasn’t a teacher, he probably was a colleague at work, a relative or a friend of a friend.  You do your best to tolerate people like this as best you can until you are free of them, because there’s no way around them.  Their sole purpose is to make your life miserable by enforcing the rules and then seeing you are called out for failing to do so.  (Full disclosure: I’ve been a taskmaster from time to time.)

Continue reading “The Holdovers”