First a follow-up to a previous
documentary recommendation on Netflix.
On Chinese reaction to American Factory: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-02/tale-of-chinese-factory-in-america-prompts-online-buzz-back-home.
Then, looking
back to the storied summer of ’69, and the 50th anniversary of the
most iconic music festival happening of modern times, here’s another documentary
recommendation on Netflix: Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a
Generation. This PBS production recalls many fascinating details behind
the event. A
Even better and
more significant is another PBS documentary production—the almost six-hour,
three-episode series Chasing The Moon, written, produced
and directed by Robert Stone. It’s streaming on the Kanopy platform which can
be freely accessed with a public library card. Assembling a trove of archival
footage and commentary the series—Episode 1 “A Place Beyond the Sky”, Episode 2
“Earthrise”, Episode 3 “Magnificent Desolation”—has many revelations and, like
the excellent book by Oliver Morton The
Moon: A History for the Future, doesn’t avoid the troubling domestic and
international controversies of the times (Cold War rivalry and paranoia, systemic
racism, social injustice, Vietnam, the aftermath of assassinations).
The American
entry into the space race was clearly provoked by Soviet firsts—Sputnik as the
first satellite to orbit the earth in 1957; the first man in space in
1961. Hence the political push that
funded the Mercury and Gemini programs.
These were much aided by the post-war immigration of some 120 German
scientists, led by “rocketman” Dr. Wernher von Braun, an ex-Nazi who had
designed the V-2 rocket for Hitler. The U.S. first put a man in space in May
1961, and later that year JFK made the famous commitment to land men on the
moon and return them within the decade.
Less well known is that in 1963 in an address to the United Nations
Kennedy proposed a joint mission to the moon in cooperation with the Soviets.
LBJ repeated the promise of peaceful cooperation but it was never taken up
after Khrushchev’s removal. There were also spectacular failures in the
program, the worst being the 1966 launchpad fire on Apollo 1 that killed three
astronauts. One learns much, much more, including about events of
world-historical moment, such as the Christmas eve 1968 photo of “earthrise”—the
blue marble—taken from the Apollo 8 mission orbiting the moon. Given the limited transmission capabilities
of the time, the actual real-time images of the iconic Apollo 11 July 1969 moon
landing were in ghostly black and white.
It’s interesting to note that CBS had hired Dalton Trumbo, the
special-effects wizard behind Kubrick’s 1968 masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey, to film simulations that were shown to TV
audiences as such. (Sorry conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers.) After their
return the Apollo 11 astronauts were sent on a good will global tour including
to Communist and Third World countries.
But at home the enthusiasm wore off and the Apollo program ended in
1972, although it did generate huge technological spinoffs.
You probably
have to be in your 60s like me to have much of a memory of the Apollo
achievement. But whether or not you do this series will be highly informative
and sometimes awe-inspiring. Highest
recommendation. A+
Luce (U.S.
2019 https://www.lucemovie.com/)
This edgy drama helmed by Julius Onah,
adapting the J.C. Lee play, generated considerable buzz when it premiered at
Sundance. Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is an Eritrean war child adopted by Amy
and Peter Edgar (played by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, who were previously a
screen couple in the savage 2007 American remake of Michael Haneke’s sadistic Funny Games). They have invested years of love and
nurturing in Luce, a bright and seemingly model high-school student. That is
until one of his teachers Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer) is alarmed by his
essay on Frantz Fanon, an advocate of revolutionary violence, and a bag of
illicit fireworks are found in the locker he claims is shared with others. There
are also questions about Luce’s associations and relationship with a
girlfriend. Ms. Wilson, coping with a mentally disturbed sister, has her
suspicions aggravated by a fire at the school and hostile graffiti sprayed on
her windows. Luce, on track to be the class valedictorian, insists on
innocence, and adoptive mother Amy especially defends him. The question left
hanging—could there be games behind the façade?
B+
Balloon (Germany
2018)
Thirty years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall memories are fading of what a symbol of terror it was for a divided
Germany. Hundreds of the many thousands
of East Germans who tried to cross to the west perished, and all were branded
as traitors. This absorbing drama
directed by Michael Herbig is based on the true story of two families with
young children in the town of Thüringen who, a decade earlier in 1979, attempted
the crossing by hot-air balloon. The details of this homemade project are truly
extraordinary as secrecy was imperative given the totalitarian East German
“democratic” republic’s obsessive surveillance of the population through its
feared “Stasi” secret police network. The older boy of one family was also
sweet on a neighbor girl whose father was a Stasi officer. A first attempt failed when moisture brought
down the balloon short of the heavily militarized border fence. That triggered
investigations up the chain of command.
The “traitors” had to be found and punished. The families, knowing they were being
pursued, facing imprisonment or worse, gambled on a second desperate clandestine
attempt. It was a race against time, and up against the full resources of a
ruthless state. Tragedy or triumph would be the result as this film strikingly
recreates the atmosphere of those times. A-
Tigers Are Not Afraid (Mexico
2017)
Among the many casualties of Mexico’s
lethal drug wars are children who are the principal subjects of this
award-winning drama from writer-director Issa López now reaching North American
theatres. The title is spoken by a young girl Estrella (Paola Lara) who, after
her mother disappears, joins a pack of orphan boys led by one called Shine
(Juan Ramon López). He has stolen a gun and a phone containing incriminating
evidence from a local politician “El Chino” who also controls a murderous gang,
the Huascas. Into this dark violent
setting, with the children pursued by thugs, López introduces magic realist
elements from a moving line of blood to shifting graffiti shapes appearing on
the walls; in one scene even an actual tiger.
Would that one could wish away the horrors of this urban jungle. But, as a lengthy review by Anthony Lane in
the September 2 New Yorker concludes:
“The phantasmal … offers no respite; it is simply part of the detritus that
litters the townscape, making it that much easier for the residents—who are all
too accustomed, God knows, to a ruined reality—to accept the imagined as true.”
B+
The Peanut Butter Falcon (U.S.
2019 http://www.thepeanutbutterfalconmovie.com/)
From writer-directors Tyler Nilson and
Michael Schwartz, this audience award winner at the SXSW festival stretches the
odd couple genre. We meet Tyler (Shia Laboeuf, soon to be seen in Honey Boy), a rangy grifter stealing
crab catches off the Carolina coast who flees after setting fire to fishing
equipment. Meanwhile, the tubby Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a 22-year old man with
Down’s syndrome stuck in a retirement home because there’s no other place for
him, keeps trying to escape despite the sympathetic attention of a volunteer
caregiver Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). Eventually he succeeds, clad only in white
briefs, helped by an elderly gent (played by Bruce Dern). Zak’s stowing away on Tyler’s boat begins an
increasingly odd journey, later by makeshift raft. Zak has obsessively watched
old wrestling videos starring a character named “Salt Water Redneck” (Thomas
Haden Church). Add a jar of peanut butter and bottle of moonshine to the odd
bond with Tyler, and Zak emerges as the “Peanut Butter Falcon”. Eleanor finding Zak just leads to another odd
twist even as Tyler is pursued by angry wronged crab fishers Duncan (John
Hawkes) and the heavily tattooed Ratboy (Yelawolf). There’s still Zak’s wrestling hero worship to
be satisfied. And I’m leaving out even odder elements until the story takes a
Florida turn … what are the odds? B+
Ready or Not (U.S.
2019 http://www.foxsearchlight.com/readyornot/)
I’m not a big fan of the horror/ritual
sacrifice genre and this one, from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler
Gillet, is wackier than most. Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien) is marrying Grace
(Samara Weaving) in style at the grand family estate, after which she’s
informed by patriarch Tony (Henry Czerny) that entering the family requires she
play a game at midnight, part of a poisoned legacy, and when she pulls the
dreaded “Hide and Seek” card things get lethally crazy fast, with a devilish
by-dawn expiration date. Among the
cultish family members are an axe-wielding witch-like aunt. Alex’s brother
Daniel (Adam Brody, looking very grown up from his TV “OC” role) looks
deceptively “normal”, but this night even children get to play. Grace’s desperation to escape leads to
chambers of horrors, blood and fire. Not
for the squeamish. B
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