Movies: BlacKkKlansman

Time for me to make an embarrassing confession: the only other Spike Lee "joint" I've ever seen is The 25th Hour. But I did really like that movie. And I really liked this one, too.

For those not in the know, BlacKkKlansman is an adaptation of the true story of Colorado Springs' first black police officer Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington). In the early 70s, Stallworth infiltrated the KKK with the help of a white narcotics officer named "Flip" Zimmerman (portrayed here by Adam Driver). There is, as one might expect, a fair amount of tension in the situation. But it's been well tempered by lighter moments. In all, it's just a really good and engaging movie: well acted and thoughtfully composed.

Lee is a weensy bit heavy handed in the parallels to today's political climate, but the comparisons are justified. Unfortunately, a movie is unlikely to make a difference in people's ways of thinking or behaviors. The kinds of people Lee is preaching against are the kinds that won't be watching BlacKkKlansman anyway.

Then again, the movie also touches on the militancy of the other side, at least at that time. Stallworth attempts to reason with his activist girlfriend who insists all cops are racist pigs (without knowing that her boyfriend is a cop). She rejects his diplomacy with a very "for or against, no middle ground" kind of attitude. So maybe the message here is that neither side is correct, and that the truth and the good in the world lies in the middle, in the gray areas.

Still, the sides are not equivalent. There is a difference between sexual assault, shooting, and bombing and peaceful (if loud) marching and protests.

In all, the movie made me want to read Stallworth's book. And it was a really entertaining film in its own right.

Movies: I, Tonya

The whole Nancy Kerrigan thing happened during my senior year of high school. My parents and I weren't sports people, and we didn't watch the Olympics. "The incident," as this movie calls it, was barely on my radar. I only knew enough to get the jokes.

And I wonder how many other viewers of this movie are like me: knowing just enough to get the jokes.

Or maybe many went in knowing even less about Tonya Harding.

I, Tonya is a faux documentary based on real interviews with Tonya Harding and her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly. I think the information embedded in the movie is interesting, and I think the movie is largely engaging. It's visually interesting (which may be why it got an Oscar nod for editing). The acting is quite good as well, and certainly Janney has earned all her accolades, though she drops out of the film for a large stretch.

That said, some of the choices distracted me. Breaking the fourth wall, for instance. Clever, perhaps, but it draws too much attention to itself because of the inconsistent use. The soundtrack also felt disruptive. I know some of the music was true to Harding's skating routines, but again, the choices seemed designed to pull attention from whatever else was happening on screen.

And I couldn't decide how to feel about the abuse. It was presented so matter-of-factly, and yet I suppose we're also supposed to question whether it actually happened since we're getting multiple POVs? The resulting confusion about the abuse means it isn't given the weight it maybe should carry; it almost feels like a punchline (no pun intended).

All this said, the film on the whole is quite good. A very visceral moment came when young Tonya stood crying outside her father's car as he left her mother. That's something that will stay with me.

Felt a little long for two hours, but still very entertaining. Worth viewing.

Television: ACS: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, "Manhunt"

Ugh. I can't even with this show.

They have yet to give me anything that makes me care about what happens to anyone involved.

Going backwards a bit from the day of the actual shooting, we see Cunanan arrive in Miami Beach and befriend an HIV-positive gay guy named Ronnie who . . . I guess is homeless kind of? I can't even tell, or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention because I. DIDN'T. CARE.

I do wonder how much of this is documented and how much of it is conjecture/coloring in.

The FBI continues to fumble. Cunanan hits up a rich old guy and gives him an American Horror Story-like thrill. Versace and his sister have a semi-competitive fashion show.

Yawn.

I honestly don't know if I'll be able to stick out this season. It's dragging, and this is only the second episode. But I do try to give everything at least three chances, so we'll see how next week goes.

Television: American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, "The Man Who Would Be Vogue"

Okay, so my first question is: Why should I care?

This season's pilot episode begins with the contrast between Versace's opulent lifestyle and his murderer (Andrew Cunanan) sitting on a beach and then beginning to wander around Miami Beach. We know—well, people who know anything about this story—how this will end. Then again, if you look at the season's title you know how it will end. But since I'm given next to nothing about Versace's character, nor am I given much of anything about Cunanan . . . I just don't care.

Yes, yes, I know we're going to go back and find all that out. But the assassination has zero impact here because I don't care about either the victim or the murderer.

So then we rewind and it turns out Cunanan is, you know, fucked up in the head. Okay . . . So what sets him apart from so many other murderers then? He's a pathological liar. So are a lot of killers. He charms his way into people's lives. So do a lot of killers. There is a very cringe-y scene in which he pesters Versace at a bar in San Francisco because he either doesn't pick up on social cues or chooses to ignore them. But really, he's just unlikable. Which is maybe the point, I don't know. But I don't want to watch a show about a guy I don't like.

Let's look at Versace then. Well, I mean, he's dead, so . . . Aside from the morning routine before his murder, we see him only in a few flashbacks where Cunanan is worming his way into Versace's circle. There's not much to go on. Sure, we're sorry he's murdered in a nothing-like-that-should-happen-to-anybody way, but not in a personal, what-a-loss way. We don't know this guy, except that he was a well-known fashion designer. Doesn't make him a sympathetic character, though.

Meanwhile, Versace's sister Donatella sweeps in to take over the company and basically sideline Versace's long-term partner Antonio. So she's a bitch, and we can't like her, either.

The FBI agents screw up everything. Can't like them.

Who the hell are we supposed to root for in this?

Maybe I'm not the right audience for this. Maybe I don't worship enough at the altar of fashion or something. There's a sort of reverence around Versace here that I just don't buy into. Maybe I need to in order to care about the story being told.

I'll keep watching. As they fill in the backstory, maybe I'll find reasons to invest in some of the characters. But so far I'm not wowed.

Movies: Snowden

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Rhys Ifans, Zachary Quinto
Directed By: Oliver Stone
Written By: Kieran Fitzgerald and Oliver Stone, from the books by Luke Harding and Anatoly Kucherena
Endgame Entertainment, 2016
R; 134 minutes
3.75 stars (out of 5)

_______________________________________________________

I know I should probably be more outraged than I am about the NSA culling private emails, phone calls, etc., but it's never fazed me. Still, I was glad to get a bigger sense of what was going on and how Snowden came to do what he did. Of course, with a movie like this, I kept asking myself what had been regrouped, so to speak, to make it easier to follow. What had been changed for dramatic effect. It can be difficult, after all, to make a bunch of computer stuff compelling for two hours.

They did a nice job of weaving Snowden's personal life into his career. I think this is largely done to make him sympathetic and personable. Otherwise Snowden would just be a weirdo. But while Shailene Woodley worked her tail off in this, I didn't feel the chemistry I needed to feel in order to buy in to the relationship. Maybe I'm supposed to read this as there being a barrier there put up by Snowden's secretive work, but it just came off as flat.

Still, that didn't mar the movie. There was a fun time of saying, "What's Nicolas Cage doing here?" and "What's Tom Wilkinson doing here?" because I didn't read anything about the film before going to see it. And then I had a great, "Look! Nicholas Rowe!" moment, which made me stupid happy and probably biased me for the rest of the film.

It's a good film. Nothing special in my book, but solid. Not the action-packed kinds of stuff audiences are used to these days, but . . . It gives a concise account of what happened, which I suppose is the point.

Movies: The Imposter

I'd meant to see this some time ago, then forgot about it, and then heard it mentioned again on Pop Culture Happy Hour, so finally sat down and watched it.

The Imposter is a documentary about how renown identity thief Frédéric Bourdin convinced a family in San Antonio, Texas, that he was their missing brother/son Nicholas Barclay despite speaking with an accent and having the wrong color eyes. The lingering question becomes: Did the family know from the start that Bourdin was lying, and if so, why did they go along with it? Did they just want to believe, or had they done something to Nicholas that they needed to cover up by having a stand-in?

Despite a not entirely satisfying ending, it is an interesting story. Bourdin candidly explains his methods for assuming Nicholas' identity. The family members attempt to explain the wide range of emotions that rocked them as well. But the real star comes late to the stage—private investigator Charlie Parker is quite fun to listen to. I also enjoyed the perspective of FBI agent Nancy Fisher.

If you like other documentaries like Catfish or Capturing the Friedmans, you'll probably enjoy this one.

Television: O.J.: Made in America"

Okay, so let me be clear about where I am with this. I caught part of the first episode while at the hairdresser's. Then I watched most of the second episode, and I've just seen all of the third. I believe there are five total, but at about two hours each, one can only absorb so much at a time.

We all know how it ends, but I'm enjoying the interviews and in-depth reporting. The people who made this documentary managed to get access to a lot of the players in the O.J. circus. And everything is visually interesting in the way it's edited together, interviews + archival footage.

This makes the American Crime Story show look campy, though that already did to a point. Now just more so by comparison. ACS appears glib next to this. Though I'll admit to saying, "Oh, that's the David Schwimmer guy" and so on when they show old footage.

Things like the Bronco chase happened just after I graduated from high school, so I wasn't really paying much attention. We weren't sports fans in our house, so I had no particular feeling for O.J. Simpson one way or another. I'd seen him in a couple movies maybe, and I knew him from commercials, but whatever. There's a newness to all this, for me, that might not be there for those who were more invested when it all went down. That is to say, others may not find it as interesting since for them it might all be a rehash.

At the time of the trial, I was only marginally aware of it, though I remember my college roommate turning the TV on to watch the verdict. No one was going to class; everyone wanted to know. I had no opinion about the case itself, whether he was guilty or not, because I simply hadn't been paying any attention. Looking at it now, I have definite opinions, but I don't want to start any fights, so I'll keep them to myself.

In short, I'll say again that I'm enjoying this documentary miniseries. If this sort of thing interests you, give it a look. I'll be watching the last couple episodes in the next few nights.

Television: American Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson

I don't even know where I left off with this; it all just blurs together. As I've mentioned before, there's something so . . . It's like a mashup of daytime television and Cops. One big re-enactment done with all the earnest, over-the-top-ness of the re-enactments you see on those crime shows.

The trial is taking place now, and it's taking a toll on everyone's personal lives. Marcia's ex-husband is lobbying to take custody of the kids because she's never home. She's being attacked in the media for her looks. Johnny [Cochran] is likewise trying to keep his personal life out of the media spotlight. Meanwhile, he and F. Lee Bailey continue to snipe with Bob Shapiro as well.

I'm not even sure what is compelling me to watch this. The trial itself isn't terribly interesting; they haven't gotten meaty with it. Instead the focus seems to be more on the characters than the story. O.J. himself is hardly there at all.

Well, whatever. Despite the heavy tone, this is light fare that does not require me to spend a lot of energy on watching it. Sometimes that's all I'm looking for.

Television: American Crime Story, "The Run of His Life"

In which we get the famous white Bronco chase.

I'll say again that I wasn't paying much attention to this when it actually happened. But watching what amounts to a re-enactment makes me wonder: Did the writers pull this from records? Or are they just riffing on what they think it might have been like to be in that Bronco? Like, is the dialogue coming from things that were actually said or . . . mere conjecture?

Rob Thomas tweeted the other day that this show is like "a dark comedy being played straight." And it really is. Or, as I mentioned above, it's almost like watching one long crime re-enactment from one of those Cops shows. There's something so schlocky about it, yet the actors all seem to be in earnest.

I don't know what else to say. It's like a train wreck. I can't keep from watching even though it's so awful. Awful in a good way? I still can't decide.

Television: American Crime Story, "From the Ashes of Tragedy"

I can't tell how seriously I'm supposed to take this show. Are the filmmakers in earnest? Are they going for schlock? It seems to be a little of both, and it's confusing.

Okay, so I had just finished my senior year of high school when the murders occurred, and I was only vaguely aware of the whole thing. O.J. Simpson held no particular interest for me because I wasn't a sports fan, so the sensational aspect of the murders and trial were diluted for me. And all my energy was bent toward getting ready to go to uni. The events covered in this series, then, were only so much background noise for me at the time.

I guess what I'm saying is, I walked into watching this without much working knowledge of what had happened. I knew: O.J. Simpson, bloody glove . . . Yeah, that's about it. Oh, and the white Bronco thing, of course. Which I guess a lot of people watched on television when it happened, but I didn't. ::shrug::

Anyway, as for ACS, I . . . guess I like it? But again, I'm really confused by the way they're coming at it. Some of it is so over the top, and yet some of it seems meant to be genuine. Every character, though, comes across as oddly punched up to the point of near caricature as opposed to real people. That's where it begins to feel schlocky and absurd. It's as though as viewers we're meant to ogle rather than sympathize. Maybe even point and laugh. I can't tell.

I'll keep watching and see if things become any clearer.

Movies: True Story

So this one didn't do well at the box office, and has 45% from the critics at Rotten Tomatoes, 42% from viewers. But I didn't think it was all that bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful.

True Story IS a true story, though whenever something gets filtered through Hollywood . . . Well, but anyway, it's about ex-New York Times writer Mike Finkel and how he got entangled with murderer Christian Longo. Longo killed his entire family then went on the run using Finkel's identity. As a [recently disgraced] journalist, Finkel smelled a story and dove in.

My guess is most people didn't like that this is a talky movie. It's a lot of close-up shots, a lot of back and forth. There's no real action, though director Goold does at least try to alleviate things with flashbacks to the crime. It's a dark film—Longo killed his wife and three children—and heavy, and there's no real redemption in the end of the kind we've been trained to expect in movies.

Jonah Hill as Finkel and James Franco as Longo do a nice job, though Franco sometimes appears semi-catatonic, as if the movie is putting him to sleep even as he films it. He does play "psychopath" nicely, though. Felicity Jones plays Finkel's wife or girlfriend (not clear which) Jill, who later confronts Longo, but the scene is not quite earned. Though we see Jill get increasingly put off by Finkel's interest in Longo, and then Longo calls and weirds her out . . . It wasn't quite all there to make the scene of her lecturing Longo pay off.

In the end, True Story is an interesting character study. I'd like to maybe read the book now. But I can see how difficult it is to film something like this and make it compelling, which is why I think it tanked a bit with audiences.