The Killer of Sheep (1978) directed by Charles Burnett

Just when I thought I might be out of the blogging thing, I get the inspiration to come back. Well it is Juneteenth and I felt like celebrating in my own way so I finally decided to re-watch this one and well...Happy Holiday.

No better time than Juneteenth to re-watch this masterpiece. Think Los Angeles Story rather than Tokyo Story and it is a quiet storm! We see a slaughterhouse worker (the titular "killer of sheep") go about his job while slowly going insane in despair of how close to edge of poverty his family is living. This is the last generation that came to Los Angeles from the Deep South (likely Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Mississippi) and found ghettoization and alienation waiting for them. The vignettes of everyone living their and existing halfway between humanity and inhumanity is what the movie digs into. It's neorealism and surrealism combined and you hold your breath the whole time hoping Stan does not finally snap at the despair. 

This movie is of course Charles Burnett's masterpiece. It is the magnum opus of the LA Rebellion Film Collective in totality (yes even more so than Daughters of the Dust) and it was criminally withheld from release for decades because the licensing for the soundtrack (one of two Burnett features to suffer such a fate along with My Brother's Wedding). Like much of the LA Rebellion of this time, it is done in the neorealist style of on-location and no professional actors and it works like magic. It feels like a dark fairytale world when it is just South Los Angeles in the late-70s. The area was yet to be completely consumed in gang warfare and crack-cocaine and we get to see it as it was before those two forces change it forever. 

I don't know what else to say, this is the best in American Independent cinema of this era and if you can watch it, watch it!

My Review of Hard Truths (2025) directed by Mike Leigh

 British as this was, it may as well have been about my family. All of us have at least one relative like Pansy that complain all the time—whether warranted or not—about everything and everybody. They isolate and get isolated from folks and can't help being the authors of their loneliness.

The true heroine of the story is Chantelle (who could've been a character out of a Chekhov story), the sister of the main anti-heroine Pansy, who is the positive focal point of the family in this film. While Pansy's husband and son feel like prisoners (though the feeling is mutual on her part), Chantelle's daughters are way more positive in how they deal with life—even when things don't go their way. Chantelle is the one person who does not actively avoid Pansy despite getting treated the same (or even worst than) everyone else by her. It seems their mother Pearl played a big part in how each sister saw the world.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste acted the hell out of the lead role of Pansy! She was a human volcano either about to erupt or actively erupting on screen. Michele Austin got the easier assignment of playing the one normal human in the cast. I can't believe this is my first Mike Leigh movie as I swore I watched something else by him.

At the end, I can at least say that Pansy's son Moses got a happy ending if no one else did.

My Review of American Masters: Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny directed by Chana Gazit & Jeff Bieber

 This was an interesting doc on the famous scholar of tyranny and authoritarianism. I knew of her work on this, but also knew of her contradiction in endorsing authoritarianism in the United States with her support for Jim Crow laws in the American South (her views on feminism and human rights are also sketchy). The fact that she was driven out of Germany for the same reasons, but could easily defend American race laws has always put her at arms-length with me. Learning about her liberal zionist sentiments gave me insights to how she holds these different views—though it was unfortunate that the documentary did not cover the above controversial views that she held, the most it goes is the fallout over her coverage of the Eichmann trial. Certainly she was not the only Jewish refugee from Germany to hold such views, but it is disappointing that one who should know better felt so comfortable with the moral hypocrisy (and yet she could not understand how her idol Martin Heidegger could be an unrepentant Nazi). 

The documentary does not give a thorough outline of her opinions or works, but a rough, safe look at the most notable points of her life & career. I was surprised this documentary got made at all given the current crackdown on anything with US funding that criticizes totalitarianism, fascism, and the like. Arendt came to the USA as she thought it was the only free democratic multicultural country, but the Cold War and Red Scare showed her how easily the empire embraced totalitarianism. 

As surface level informative as this documentary is, it skips and glosses over too much for my taste.

My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 23 by Koyoharu Gotouge

Two years after finishing this manga I still wish they did the ending over. I remember how much people complained about the finale of the last volume of My Promised Neverland, but I take that finale over this one anytime. Hopefully the movie adaptation does better. 

  Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 23 by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Talk about a hard-fought, bitter-sweet ending! To no-one's surprise, Muzan was defeated. But he made good on his vow to destroy the Demon Slayer Corps―specifically the elite Hashira fighters. It wasn't until this last volume that I picked-up on the analogue between the Hashira and the Seven Samurai. While the core team of Tanjiro and company survived, I wish Koyoharu Gotouge didn't see fit to kill-off every likeable supporting character in the story just for the drama.

Given that this last volume was written at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it may explain the somber, but hopeful tone of the ending and afterward. Also, I felt that the story and art clearly drops-off in this volume, especially after Muzan is finally dealt with. I felt that the author is alternatively rushing and packing in filler at the end, and does not really feel like dealing with the story after the goal is achieved. The ending is suppose to be hopeful/happy, but it becomes corny (again, I think Gotouge was exhausted dealing with this book and COVID at the same time so I am not totally unsympathetic). We could've had Muzan defeated and everyone just go their separate ways—the time-skip feels painfully forced.

For me, overall, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has been an amazing manga (and anime until late).I think the final arc is the last to be adapted and hopefully they do a little better than the recent adaptation of Swordsmith Village arc (volumes 12-15) and the snails-pacing of the story (back-story has always been the Achilles Heel of this book and shonen as a whole).

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My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 22: The Wheel of Fate by Koyoharu Gotouge

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 22: The Wheel of Fate by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[I wrote this part after I had read the book on April 10, 2023, before I came back to Goodreads]

The penultimate volume of one of the greatest manga of all time. This is the first-half of the last battle against Muzan and it looks as bleak as ever for the surviving heroes, after Tamayo's death and Tanjiro is temporarily knocked-out by Muzan. Of course , Tanjiro recovers and they have to keep Muzan occupied for an hour until the sun comes out and kills him—the longest hour ever.

The dynamic art-style in this volume sees Koyoharu Gotouge operating at the height of his powers. Weirdly, we are still getting backstory this late in the game (this time for the Serpent Hashira Obanai Iguro and some more on the first demon slayer Yorichii).

[current note, January 2024]
I'm writing this having finished the series and I can say this volume and the preceding two volumes are the book at it's peak.

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My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 21: Ancient Memories

This review was written on Oct 29, 2021. I think this volume and the volumes before and after it was the series at it's peak. I know the trilogy of anime movies ending the franchise are covering manga volumes 17-23, but I think the last volume is one of the big let-downs and it makes me nervous for the final Demon Slayer film. By contrast, I am hype for the penultimate film and hope the studio gives it the same treatment they gave the last movie.

  Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 21: Ancient Memories by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This volume picks-up right where the last one left off. The most powerful Upper Moon demon is defeated, but he takes some crucial folks with him, and the ranks of the heroes are further thinned out...just in time for Muzan to break-out of Tamayo's hold and we lose her as well. Despite that the last Upper Moon Demon to die was actually No. 4 who was controlling the battlefield and she is used to push Muzan outdoors (as he can only be killed by sunlight), unfortunately it is still an hour and a half until dawn and given the casualty rate, it seems impossible for the Demon Slayers to hold out for that long. This is truly one of the great genre reads I've come across in the last few years and I can't wait to read the last volumes. Happy Halloween!

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My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 18: Assaulted by Memories by Koyoharu Gotouge

I decided to post the rest of my reviews of the six remaining volumes of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba to the blog. With the movies coming out over the next 2-3 years I thought I might as well share these.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 18: Assaulted by Memories by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This volume was a bit more heavy on plot-contrivances and back-story, but it was still really good on the art. One battle with one of the main antagonist-lieutenants finally comes to an end. This guy was one of the most notorious villains of the series besides the big bad since the end of the Demon Train-arc. Meanwhile, the most hated of the Upper Moon lieutenants since this final arc began is still giving one of the protagonists a hard time, but then my favorite of the protagonists and the best child shows-up ready to rumble. I hate that Gotouge had to concoct a contrived backstory between Inousuke and the demon to give some motivation to the heroes (this is a meta-problem with Demon Slayer that I may comment on further when I review the series as a whole for the last volume, but safe to say that the concept of "women in refrigerators" plot-laziness that was so well articulated by Gail Simone is in full-effect throughout this series—sometimes justified as a part of the world of the story, but often not). Besides that, this volume is still really good–if not as strong as the last volume–and I can't wait to read the next volume.

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Read on Dec 26, 2020