Week Ending 1/12/24
The Bills are still alive
Crazy to think that just five weeks ago the Buffalo Bills’ season was over. But, just like when they lost to Tampa in OT and went on a run, they lost to Philly in OT and … went on a run. And with home field advantage for the first two rounds, things might just get interesting.
Work did get interesting this week, so I decided on the “take things easy” route rather than the “watch a bunch of blockbusters I missed” path. It was almost going to be a paltry two-movie week (the date-sensitive screeners I requested from publicists) until I saw I had an unsolicited screener of Jake Johnson’s SELF RELIANCE in the Hulu portal. The premise looked too funny to not carve out ninety minutes (worth it).
Another reason for not watching much was a return to gif-ing f-bombs. I was approached on Twitter by a censorship historian to submit my favorite examples for inclusion in a video he was reworking about the origins and history of the PG-13 f-bomb. His first video on PG f-bombs was very good, so I sent him clips of my top 25 to use in his next episode … a thirty-minute informative deep-dive with so many PG-13 f-bombs that YouTube has since age-restricted it like an NC-17 movie.
What I Watched:
INSHALLAH A BOY [Inshallah walad]
(in limited release; Jordan’s 2023 International Oscar submission)
First things first: Amjad Al Rasheed’s debut feature INSHALLAH A BOY is very good. With a compelling dramatic catalyst—the death of a Jordanian man leaving his widow (the always wonderful Mouna Hawa’s Nawal) in the hands of a court that holds hers and their daughter’s claim to his inheritance as inferior to all others related to the deceased—and a fearless drive to point out the many hypocrisies inherent to a government ruled by a patriarchal religion in the twenty-first century (not to mention how much America’s own legislators are adopting similar trends), the emotional weight equals the movie’s great production value.
Unfortunately, however, it also falls prey to a desire to not take its issues to their true (possibly nightmarish) ends. Yes, you don’t want the whole to fall into miserablism—especially considering a lot of what happens goes there anyway—but you also don’t want to subvert the message that one cannot simply rely on God by then letting God be reliable (albeit very late). Because I absolutely love how the first half of the film spells out the reality of the situation as God only “listening” to men. That God answers Rifqi’s (Hitham Omari) prayers for money through the death of his brother only to ignore his sister-in-law’s prayers for common decency.
The way co-writers Delphine Agut and Rula Nasser draw up the script, every pious necessity that Nawal has been indoctrinated by is gradually picked apart for its true purpose: to give men control over women’s lives. We’re watching life, justice, and even those who are supposed to be on her side (Mohammed Al Jizawi as her brother Ahmad) fail to support her in her time of need. We’re watching her faith be shaken with good reason—her eyes opening to the naïveté she didn’t know ruled her actions until her buffer’s absence (a husband doubling as guardian where Jordan is concerned) dumped everything at her feet.
One would therefore assume such an incisive and damning commentary on an unjust system would either find its victim empowered to overcome it or be forced to succumb. To show the horrors that befall this widowed mother and other more “modern” woman like Yumna Marwan’s Lauren (since Nawal is ostensibly being radicalized on-screen) is necessary to shine a light on how pervasive gender inequality is throughout the world, but so is providing hope it can be defeated or terror that it cannot. To choose to ignore those options and playing both sides as if nothing is actually wrong (awakening Nawal while also supplying a solution that further feeds the broken system) is disappointing.
It doesn’t ruin the experience, though. Al Rasheed doesn’t hide the fact that he’s moving towards the ending he inevitable gives us, so you do have time to make peace with the cop-out while also holding onto the belief he’ll get there in a way that won’t risk erasing the very truths he’s revealed through this embattled mother. And, despite that trajectory, Hawa is simply too good not to fully conclude that the potential “miracle” on the horizon won’t make her forget everything she’s seen. I wish the film did more to prove this prospect, but I’ll gladly assume it’s merely her chance to breathe a second so she can figure out how to leave Jordan and ensure her daughter will never endure the same injustice.
- 7/10
SELF RELIANCE
(streaming on Hulu)
I love the idea that Tommy (Jake Johnson) thinks he’s living David Fincher’s THE GAME only to discover it’s actually Jake Johnson’s SELF RELIANCE (he stars, writes, and directs). The notion of being on a dark web reality show wherein unknown assassins are trying to kill him (he’ll win a million dollars if he survives thirty days) conjures a pulse-pounding action thriller of death-defying odds in his mind. The financiers and audience, however, aren’t impacted by those same stakes. To them, Tommy’s just a depressive Joe Schmo living his boring life with the added bonus of also becoming the world’s punch line rather than just his own.
I also like that Johnson acknowledged the premise of his character’s plan to “beat the game” was flawed. Because while the “loophole” of no one being allowed to kill him if an innocent bystander might get unintentionally harmed allows for a “shadow” to keep him safe (Tommy tries to enlist a family member, but must settle for a paid vagrant in Biff Wiff’s genial James), the thought of having another contestant be that shadow is flawed. Because they wouldn’t be innocent collateral damage. They’d be incentive—like killing two birds with one stone.
As such, Johnson must carefully build this high concept kick-in-the-pants for Tommy with as much room to flip what we know to be true as room for absurd developments that must be false (but aren’t). It helps that Anna Kendrick is so endearingly likable as Maddy too. We stop trying to figure out how having two contestants together will inevitably get them both killed and start enjoying the hijinks and pure joy of life they both find themselves embracing for the first time in years. After all, there’s nothing like every day potentially being your last to finally make you live like it.
The comedy is great too—or, at least, the sort of comedy I personally enjoy. Johnson has a knack for jokes where the laugh comes in the silent consideration of a learned truth that’s hyper-specific and completely inconsequential to the drama at-hand. Like when he, Kendrick, and Gata stop their very serious conversation about survival to wax on about Wayne Brady’s brilliance as a performer. Add Andy Samberg playing himself and a disbelieving family (Emily Hampshire, Mary Holland, Daryl J. Johnson, and others) causing us (but never Tommy) to wonder if it’s all a delusion and we’re kept on our toes even if the stakes stay low.
Because, in the end, it’s not about the game. Or the “I told you so’s.” Or the regrets that have pushed Tommy into the type of corner that would make him agree to play in the first place. It’s about what he learns. Not about those around him (despite thinking he’d find answers in understanding their motivations), but himself. What does he want? What would make him knock on a closed door? If curiosity was enough, he’d have done it already. The thing he really fears is accepting that the only person in his way of happiness has always been him.
- 7/10
THE SETTLERS [Los colonos]
(in limited release; Chile’s 2023 International Oscar submission)
The first forty of so minutes of Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s THE SETTLERS is a bit of a slog. Less because of the pacing—which is actually quite brisk—and more because of the content. Because we’ve seen this set-up many times before. A wealthy colonist in Chile who’s exploiting the land and its native people hires a former British soldier to set out east to the Atlantic and clear a path for his sheep. The path, of course, is unsafe because of the “Indians” who, in their mind, want nothing more than to kill every last one of them.
That soldier (Mark Stanley’s Lieutenant MacLennan) is a brute and the man he’s forced to take with him is a loudmouth opportunist (Benjamin Westfall’s Texan Bill). Thankfully we have half-Native Segundo (Camilo Arancibia) to provide actual humanity—a young man roped into helping because he knows the land and is a good shot with the rifle, but one who doesn’t quite understand what it is they’re doing until his compatriots slaughter a defenseless camp of women and children.
It’s a familiar if brutal trajectory marked by very theatrical, almost stilted performances when the “men” get bored and decide to proverbially measure their penises. My mind found itself occasionally drifting, trying its best to find a witty “A Redcoat, a Redneck, and an Indian walk into the Andes” joke as the plot more or less finds its way to the exact place you assume it will go. Segundo wants to kill his companions but can’t. The group cross paths with someone to put MacLennan in his place. And the nihilistic merry-go-round continues.
Except something does surprise. Credit Sam Spruell’s memorably monstrous performance as a fellow soldier wandering the continent, but also Haberle and co-writer Antonia Girardi for seemingly acknowledging that they cannot simply tread that well-worn path of tragedy. Where they take us remains tragic—nightmarishly so thanks to the stories Señor Vicuña (Marcelo Alonso) tells after a perfectly placed time jump. But it’s also utterly transfixing in its presentation of his hosts’ bigotry and his own cutthroat deceit.
The final forty minutes are intense (enough to turn Stanley’s MacLennan into an unrecognizable ball of hunched over fear) to show the true cost of colonialism as a tool for power. Because no matter who wields that power or deigns to allow others to wield it for them (in return for fealty), it’s always the rightful “owners” of that land who suffer. It doesn’t matter if they assimilate, lose their souls, or escape to live a simple life devoid of the greed that makes such a life impossible. The moment a stranger lands on that shore is the moment that peace ceases to exist.
- 8/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This weekend sees THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008), FLAWLESS (2008), GOOD HAIR (2009), REDS (1981), and TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR (2023) getting added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com on Sunday, Twitter on Monday).
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 1/12/24 -
AMERICAN FICTION at Dipson Amherst; Regal Galleria & Quaker
“It's the dejection that allows Cord Jefferson's AMERICAN FICTION to work. This satire isn't educating us. It's not calling something out and then presenting a solution. No, it's simply giving life to the fatigue of our unfortunate reality.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
AYALAAN at Regal Elmwood & Transit
THE BEEKEEPER at Dipson McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE BOOK OF CLARENCE at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ride; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
GUNTUR KAARAM at Regal Elmwood, Galleria & Transit
HANU-MAN at Regal Elmwood & Transit
MEAN GIRLS at Dipson McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
MERRY CHRISTMAS at Regal Elmwood
Streaming from 1/12/24 -
DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS – Shudder on 1/12
LIFT – Netflix on 1/12
ROLE PLAY – Prime on 1/12
SELF RELIANCE – Hulu on 1/12
Thoughts are above.
MABOROSHI – Netflix on 1/15
JUNE – Paramount+ on 1/16
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE (1/9)
“While [Oprah] footage is the linchpin connecting the good will earned beforehand and slander that followed, Newnham does a wonderful job accompanying it with the context necessary to understand its relevance to both Hite's life and America at-large.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
FUGITIVE DREAMS (1/9)
“Svich and Neulander ask a lot of big questions with their allegory. Each is stated implicitly through its visuals rather than explicitly through its words.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
NAPOLEON (1/9)
“I'll give Scott credit for the battle on the ice, though. It's a fantastic scene rivaled only by Phoenix and Kirby goofing around as they portray their characters' silly flirtations.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
THE PAINTER (1/9)
THIS MUCH WE KNOW (1/9)
WAITRESS: THE MUSICAL (1/9)
BILLY IDOL: STATE LINE (1/12)
LACED (1/12)
THE NIGHT THEY CAME HOME (1/12)
T.1.M. (1/12)
From the press kit archive:
