Film Flash: Ad Astra

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)


A film with moon pirates and space baboons sounds awesome but isn't. Pretentious snoozer

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Film Review: Blinded By The Light

Sexuality/Nudity Acceptable
Violence Acceptable 
Vulgarity Acceptable
Anti-Catholic Philosophy Acceptable


Sometimes, especially in your teens, music reaches you in a way that is hard to describe.  Your emotions are running in every direction and you have a hard time expressing them or even understanding them.  But then there is a song or a singer that seems to capture exactly what you are feeling and saying it better than you could.

That is the experience that is captured in Blinded By The Light.

Javed (Viveik Kalra) is the son of a Pakistani immigrant in 1980's England.  He is constantly surrounded by prejudice while at the same time feeling the pressures from his traditional Pakistani home.  His father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) pushes his lower-middle class family hard.  All money they earn comes to him so that he can pay the bills.  He wants his son to pursue practical careers to make money to help the family.  But Javed wants to be a writer.  The pressure continues to build as his father loses his job, his relationship with his best friend Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman) becomes strained, and he falls for his classmate activist Eliza (Nell Williams).  Feeling torn apart, he begins listening to a cassette tape given to him by his classmate Roops (Aaron Phagura) that contains the songs of Bruce Springsteen.  Javed has an almost ecstatic experience listening and so he begins to build his whole life on the worldview presented by Springsteen's music.

Blinded By The Light does a great number of things very well.  It's greatest strength is that it accurately captures that time in a young person's life that so many of us experience.  There are moments of incredible, overwhelming exhilaration, like when we see Javed, Roops, and Eliza dashing through the streets to "Born to Run."  There are the moments when an adult encourages you to nurture your talents, as when Javed's teacher, Ms. Clay (Hayley Atwell), pushes him to sharpen his writing.  But the movie is not an overly sweetened view of teen life.  Writers Paul Mayeda Berges, Gurinder Chadha, and Sarfraz Manzoor are careful to mostly avoid oversimplifying the characters.  Adolescents tend to be horribly self-centered, and Javed is no exception.  The movie does an amazing job of showing you Malik's struggle and humiliation as he is unable to be the provider that he knows he should be.  It is true that he is standing in the way of Javed's dream, but Javed is too selfish to see how much his family is struggling.  There is a scene in the movie where Javed sneaks out of his sister's wedding to buy Springsteen tickets.  This moment is not without consequence as Javed puts his own needs ahead of his family.  There are times when you want to be Javed, experiencing the thrills of life.  There are times you want to slap Javed because he is behaving like an entitled punk.  All of the characters are flawed, but rather than repelling, it makes them more relatable.

The performances are very good.  Kalra carries the movie on his shoulders and he is likable enough.  He and Williams have good chemistry throughout.  The real winner is Ghir, whose performance as the father should not be overlooked.  He knows that he is asking too much of his family and there is the constant presence of shame in his eyes that all too understandable.  It is the shame that any husband or father feels when they feel in their bones that they have failed somehow in the most fundamental way.

Director Gurinder Chadha does a perfectly fine job with the movie.  As I said, there are moments of insight and elation.  He has some incredibly creative ways of incorporating Springsteen's lyrics visually into the narrative.  But the movie never really reaches greatness.  Everything about it is good.  It just never soars too high.

One of the things that acts as an anchor is how the movie very oddly political.  All of the troubles that the family is experiencing are explicitly and repeatedly laid at the feet of Margret Thatcher.  I am not an expert on this time and place in history, but I have the feeling that things are much more complicated than the movie lets on.  Also, anyone who does not share the activism politics of Eliza is painted as a right-wing bigot.  In and of itself, this isn't really a problem, but the movie goes out of its way to co-mingle all right-of-center politics with hateful white supremacy.  These moments take you out of the movie, which is a shame because the film gets so many other things right.

Blinded By The Light is a fine and dare-I-say delightful film that has some real moments of insight, nuance, and heart.  While it didn't reach levels of greatness for me, I could see how someone could watch this movie and have it speak to them the way Springsteen has to people over the years.

Sunday Best: Emmys 2019 Predictions

photo by Alan Light

Tonight are the 71st Emmy Awards.  In the past I would have set up a guessing game to see who could guess the winners.  But this year, I didn't feel up to it since I haven't seen most of the shows nominated.  For the most part, I have no dog in this fight.  The only show I am really rooting for is Game of Thrones, which evolved from empty pornography to a story about complicated choices and sacrifice.  Fans of the show might say that those elements were always there.  I would say that they were obscured by the sheer volume of vulgarity.  This season jettisoned most of those disgusting elements and was the most watchable and, in my opinion, the best season of the series.  (I will write more on this later in its own post)

I predict that this Emmy Award will be very low-rated for that reason.  The most watched shows of the year (The Big Bang Theory and NCIS) have few nominations.  While popularity is not always a sign of quality, it can be a sign of how in-touch TV critics are with mainstream audiences.

Here are my thoughts about the major categories.

BEST SITCOM: Barry

Simply because has a lot of heat on him now and I've heard good things about the show, I think this might win.  Of course, with politics being what it is, Veep might come away with it.

BEST ACTOR, COMEDY - Bill Hader, Barry

I don't watch any of the shows for which the actors are nominated, but again, because of the heat he has in the last few weeks, I would guess he would get it.

BEST ACTRESS, COMEDY - Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag

I haven't seen this show, but Waller-Bridge is very popular with the Hollywood elite, so-much-so that they brought her on to play the feminist droid in Solo.  Something tells me they want to give her an award.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY - Henry Winkler, Barry

He won last year (I think), and Emmy's tend to stick with the same horse for years (look at David Hyde Pierce).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY - Olivia Colman, Fleabag

She just won an Oscar and TV critics like to think that they are just as cultured as movie critics, so I would guess that this would follow.  Haven't seen the show, but she is a talented actress.

BEST DRAMA: Game of Thrones

I'm going out on a limb on this.  There was such a big backlash against this final season, but I think that voters will want to honor the series as such in the finale.  I could be horribly miscalculating on this one, though.  We will see.

BEST ACTOR, DRAMA - Sterling K. Brown, This is Us

He won last year and his performance this year was even better.  Like I said, Emmy tends to stay with their favorites.

BEST ACTRESS, DRAMA - Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

Critics love this show (which has Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a writer).  This really should go to Emilia Clarke this year, but whatever.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA - Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones

Dinklage is fantastic in the role and this year was no exception, even if most people didn't like the story.  I would hope that this year Chris Sullivan would be recognized for his under-appreciated role as the ever hopeful Toby.  But we will see.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA - Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones

Williams has always done a terrific job on this show and her skill hasn't faltered.  This would be the last chance for Emmy voters to recognize her body of work in this series, so tonight might be her night.


OUTSTANDING REALITY SHOW - Queer Eye

I don't think this has anything to do with quality.  If it did, The Amazing Race would win every year.  I think the political climate will dictate that the winner will be either this or RuPaul's Drag Race

THOUGHTS?

Film Flash: Rambo - Last Blood

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

A gorier and darker version of Taken.  Seriously, it is gory.  (I miss Rambo's mullet)

Film Flash: Brittany Runs a Marathon

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

Funny, insightful dramedy about gaining self-respect and accepting the love of others.

New Evangelizers Post: Journeying As Evangelization

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

In my last article, I wrote about how if you give tacit approval to people who are doing something morally evil then you are complicit.

However, I believe I should also make a bit of a clarification. We want to avoid giving scandal and leading people into sin. But we also want to be careful about cutting ourselves off from others that we deem sinful. Pope Benedict XVI once wrote that the Christian and the atheist both struggle with uncertainty as part of God’s plan. He said that if either could be shut away in their towers of absolute certainty, then they would not encounter each other as fellow travelers on an uncertain sea. God wants us to not only love Him, but love each other. And we can only really love people with whom we share life’s journey.

To be sure, if the company we are keeping is a bad influence on us, we may need to separate ourselves for the good of our own souls. There is no shame in admitting when we lack the spiritual strength to be heroically virtuous. God can give strength to all situations, but we should not be arrogant about our own holiness.

Having said that, if we can, we are called to journey with others, even if they are on the wrong path.

In the movie Speed, Keanu Reeves’ character is on a bus that will blow up if it goes below 50 miles per hour. At one point, they have to get an injured man off of the bus. So the police drive a truck parallel to the bus so that the man can be transferred and taken to safety.

If someone is living a life of sin, they are on that bus to destruction. That bus is going to blow up. The only way to get someone off is if you pull up alongside them and run parallel to them in their life and travel the same path next to them. You cannot save someone from the sidelines and just shout “Stop sinning.” You need to be journeying with them.

It is also important that this journey is one of genuine care. Sometimes people feel like we are simply trying to entice them onto a different path without actual care for their lives. As a teacher, I teach God’s word to large groups of young people several times a day. And while this is an important part of the processes, it is also important to let the students know that you care about them individually as persons. It is fine to talk to groups, but you cannot love groups. God doesn’t not love mankind. He loves each man. Jesus refused to be crowned king by the crowds, because He is not the leader of a mob. Jesus is the King of individual hearts.

God did not simply send life-instructions from His heavenly throne. He became one of us in the Person of Jesus and He journeyed with us as a man.

So how do we journey with others effectively with others?

You can read the whole article here.

Sunday Best: STEVEN SPIELBERG MOVIES RANKED - #24-#21

#24 - War of the Worlds

We are still in the bottom half of Steven Spielberg's filmography.  And there is a period between 1998 and 2012 where he made a truly excellent movie (Catch Me If You Can).  I call this his "Blue Period."  This partly because the movies tended to be darker in tone but also because there is actually a blue tint to a lot of the color in these films, including War of the Worlds.

The basic conceit of the movie is that it is an alien invasion movie told from the perspective of an average man-on-the-street.  There was a strong post-9/11 feeling to the tone of the entire movie.  The strongest part of the movie is the first half when Tom Cruise is doing everything he can to keep his children safe from this overwhelming and terrifying force.  That half has some really powerful images of disasters in the streets.  Spielberg uses some incredible single shots to give you a claustrophobic sense of panic while moving through the winding streets.  Also, the horrifying image of bodies floating down the river in full view of Dakota Fanning is a shocking moment of brutality destroying innocence. 

But the second half falls off the rails.  The son inexplicably runs off to fight somehow.  And then Spielberg decides to get weirdly metaphorical about how 9/11 turns Americans violent and crazy.  It only served to underscore how stitched-together and episodic the story was.  Another critic once said that this movie was a dead-beat dad's fantasy: you are a terrible father most of the time, but when the chips are down, you rise to the occasion and save the day. 

#23 - The Post

From my review on this blog:
Steven Spielberg is the greatest filmmaker of all time.  But even Babe Ruth would have a swing and a miss.

Having just rewatched All the President's Men, I know that the era and the subjects involved in The Post are ripe for some real political drama.  Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided on telling the story from the least interesting perspective imaginable.

... And when the story is told through the eyes of the leaker Daniel Elsberg (Matthey Rhys), it hums along with real tension.  But the movie always feels like it is walking two steps behind the real story.  The entire time you want to follow the The New York Times as they break the story.  Or you want to stay with Bagdikian as he hunts down the clues for the Post.  But instead, we are stuck in the family drama and moral dilemma of [The Post's publisher] Graham.  I always felt like I wanted to leave that story and get to the real story.

There is a clear attempt on the part of screenwriters Liz Hannah and Josh Singer to capture the supposed zeitgeist of the time, capitalizing on the "I'm with Her" movement in anticipation of having the first female president.  The fingerprints of this thinking are unmistakable in its ham-fisted highlights of the casual sexism of the day.  There is a scene towards the end where a female legal aid is being yelled at by a US District Attorney and we are meant to take it as a snapshot of how women are demeaned.  All I kept thinking about was how all legal aids are put through the ringer by those in power.  And if that wasn't subtle enough, one of the last shots of the film shows Graham walking slow motion down the steps of the Supreme Court as a line of young women look at her in awe of her persistence.  The message itself is not the problem, but that it feels like a finger-wagging lecture rather than a piece of entertainment.

Spielberg is still using all of his visual skills to make the movie come to life.  The close-up shots of the newspaper machinery are fascinating to watch.  Still the master of the single-shot, he knows how to draw out the drama and when to cut it up.  It is able to visually increase the paranoia and pressure on the people involved so that there is some real tension.  But all of this is undercut by going back to Graham's storyline.  If her story had been another facet in an ensemble picture, it would be fine.  But putting her in the spotlight unbalances the whole narrative.

And it's a shame because there are some really wonderful questions to be explored here between freedom of speech and the necessity of state's secrets.  Where is the line?  And the movie does explore when to follow your conscience even in the face of existing law and loyalties.  These are all things that should have been explored in much more depth, but time was taken away to admire Graham's bravery in every scene.

...

The Post is not in any way a bad film.  But there is little to recommend it in an already crowded field of films.  It clearly belongs to the category of "Lesser Spielberg."

#22 - The Lost World: Jurassic Park



This movie has so many problems in terms of its actual substance.  The biggest problem is how little it regards human life and places the lives of the dinosaurs as higher.  This is embodied in Vince Vaughn's eco-terrorist character.  His actions lead to the deaths of dozens of human beings both on the island and on the mainland.  And this character never pays a karmic price.  He is presented as virtuous and the people capturing the dinosaurs are evil.  This is so morally absurd that it takes away so much of the film's re-watchability.

The reason that this film is not placed lower is that some of Spielberg's action sequences are wonderfully done.  I can still see clearly the glass beginning to crack under Julianne Moore's hands, the tall grass pathways being made by the unseen raptors, the giant T-Rex sticking its head in the tent, and the raptor diving at into the hold under the door.  Spielberg intentionally made a film with a different tone than the first Jurassic Park, but he lost all of the wonder and awe and instead had the movie devolve into a monster movie.


#21 - A.I. Artificial Intelligence

I hated this film when I first saw it.  I still don't care for it as much, but it has grown on me.  This movie was originally being developed by Spielberg's friend Stanley Kubrick before he died.  You can see that this is his attempt to make a Kubrick movie with Spielberg touches.  This is different than Minority Report, which is a Spielberg movie with Kubrick touches.

AI is visually rich and it wants to take on the tone of a modern fairy tale.  And to his credit, there are moments that work along with Haley Joel Osment's performance.  It touches on the the primal need of a child for their mother's love.  To be clear, the movie is too long and often a bit boring, but David's journey is intense and pure in its quest.  The final scene is overly long, but has the benefit of being emotionally satisfying.