Sounder (1972) directed by Martin Ritt

 I wasn't planning on reviewing this movie before February, but with the death of Cicley Tyson (1/282021), I changed plans. This movie is a beautiful almost-mystical film about love and endurance. It's a Hollywood neorealist film that looks at a family that endures in rural Louisiana during the worst of The Great Depression and American apartheid. Paul Winfield plays a father living under a blatant kleptocracy who decides to go to desperate measures to feed his family and is thrown into prison. This leaves his wife played by Tyson in one of her greatest roles hold the family down through crooked-bosses, the police, and the judicial system that was blatantly rigged. As she keeps the family together on this front her son, played by Kevin Hooks, goes in search of his father as the white officials have refused to tell them where he was taken to. He goes on this journey that really becomes more about his future than simply searching for his father accompanied by his dog: the titular character Sounder.

The dog becomes the symbol of the families struggle and triumph. Despite the hardships and brutal struggle that is dished out to them all, they somehow survive and overcome it. The ending of this movie is one of the most beautiful and moving in cinema; Sounder is a film that becomes a rewarding experience to watch each time. All the praise given to it is well-earned and few films have been made with the same genuine earnestness.

Boy (1969) "少年" directed by Nagisa Oshima

 This is the most "accessible" of Oshima's work and was my introduction to the Japanese New Wave proper. Osima's work totally destroys the line between New Wave and Exploitation cinema, but this is his most tamed work. This is a film about a Japanese couple that fakes car accidents to scam people and get their son, the titular "Boy", in on the job. It is a crazy look and commentary on the paradoxes of Japanese families at this time using an actual incident as the model. While this film is no 400 Blows, it is decent for what it is.

It Must Be Heaven (2019) directed by Elia Suleiman

 After the ending of The Time That Remains (2009), I thought that Elia Suleiman had said everything he wanted to say in regards to the fate of Palestinians in The Holy Land. I mean despite the brief optimism of the Arab Spring, things got much worse and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza have been total. With the majority of Arab states no longer ignoring it diplomatically or opposing it, Israel can now treat the Palestinians any way they want with no threat of recourse. It seems Suleiman has recognized this too, so after 30 minutes of the audience catching up with him after 10 years (his mom has died―the last recognizable person of his first 3 films), and with his Palestinian neighbors looking like characters from The Iceman Cometh, he decides to leave. Suleiman's first feature film sees him come into Palestine from exile in New York City and Europe and now he is taking the reverse journey.

We first see him, after an interesting plane ride, in Paris just in time for Bastille Day celebrations. He finds Paris intriguing and very welcome change of pace (we find out interestingly that Suleiman, like Akira Kurosawa, is an ass man). We then see how the charm of Paris quickly fades to bewilderment at the culture change takes him by surprise (this is an actual thing called...Paris Syndrome). It should be noted that Suleiman is still playing his actual-self, so people recognize him as a film-maker throughout the film and he is often doing things concerning his film projects in this film (in this way, this film bares a big resemblance to Chantel Akerman's The Meeting's of Anna (1978)). We also can't miss the commentary of a man inspired by Jacques Tati making a film in Paris. But of course we have to move on to New York City.

Well, upon reaching Trump-era America...it is a trip. Besides being treated as invisible or passive aggressively-like in Paris his first interaction after not being in the USA since the 1990s is a taxi driver who is amazed at actually meeting a Palestinian (his second as we learn). He goes to a grocery store and is shocked that everyone in the store has a gun (this is not something you'd see in New York City, but if he was down South it would certainly be accurate) and it is a hilariously over-the-top scene. Once we get to Central Park the tone for this section of the film is set. The diversity of the city is unlike anything seen in Nazareth or Paris; the mania is also very uniquely NYC. After seeing all the folks with their weapons in the earlier scene we see a Palestinian woman engaged in a protest and is immediately swarmed by NYPD: the scene is very reminiscent of Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996). More call backs from 'Chronicles' come when we see his various speaking engagements in an art school and a Palestinian-American conference. We get a brief meeting of Suleiman with Gael García Bernal and a meeting with a fortune teller over the destiny of Palestine. 

After he finishes his stay in NYC, he goes back home a little happier and a little wiser, he realizes that at this point-in-time, there is no point leaving Palestine, because the world has become Palestine. It is a bittersweet realization, but a hopeful one for Suleiman.

New Year

 I decided my first post on here of this new year would be a non-review. New government in power in here in the United States, but the plague has been going as strong as ever. We've gone a step closer to the end of the republic, but these things never happen all at once. I have no idea what more I'll be doing with this blog beyond what I've been doing, but I'll see as I go along.

The Fate of Lee Khan "迎春閣之風波" (1973) directed by King Hu

 After A Touch of Zen (1971), King Hu did a slight, but important change-up. Ying-Chieh Han, who had been the action director on King Hu's films since Come Drink with Me (1966) was replaced in the role by the prodigy and contemporary of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung. Hung had played roles as an elite mook in various other King Hu films (most noticeably in A Touch of Zen where he is one of the personal bodyguards too the final boss). While Han's fighting-style for cinema, rooted firmly in Beijing Opera, Hung (who grew-up in a Beijing Opera school with Jackie Chan) was part of the generation that was directly influence by of the generations that was directly influenced by Bruce Lee. Because of this, while Hung's action directing and choreography is greatly in Beijing Opera the quick movements and minimalist techniques of Bruce Lee is very apparent in this film compared King Hu's previous ones. Even Ying-Chieh Han's fighting is accelerated more than in the films where he was action director. I'll talk more about Han later. 

This movie, like Dragon Inn (1967), takes place mostly in an inn. Like Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, the movie is named after the antagonist. What sets this movie apart (also like 'Sansho') is that it is set in the Yuan/Mongolian era of Chinese imperial history—an era that is not usually filmed. Most historical Chinese films take place during the Ming or Qing dynasties (the Ming Dynasty is King Hu's preferred setting). This means that the costumes are very different from what we are used to seeing—especially with the antagonists.

This story is another King Hu espionage caper—but this time he is not putting his protagonists against the secret police, but the regular government. The protagonists are at a place called the Spring Inn to thwart the plans of the brutal regional Lord Lee Khan. The problem is that both Lee Khan and the Han rebels have spies everywhere.

Another interesting thing about this movie is the playing-against-type going on in this film. Ying-Chieh Han had always played antagonists in King Hu films (most notably the final boss in A Touch of Zen), but this time he is on the side of the protagonists. Meanwhile Hsu Feng–who was the main female protagonist in A Touch of Zen–is The Dragon in this film (Lee Khan's fateful daughter). It is amazing to see these two in the role-reversal and it reminds me of Feng's role in Raining in the Mountain (1979).

At two hours, this is one of the shorter King Hu films and possibly the most normal one to get into of his. I also like that, while it is a "Han vs..." film it does not engage in the same crude xenophobic-stereotyping of the antagonists as so many Shaw Brothers films do. And it is a Golden Harvest co-production to-boot (home studio of Bruce Lee). I am happy to watch another King Hu film, and happy to recommend it to you. Happy New Year!

My Goodreads Review of The Promised Neverland, volume 17

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 17 by Kaiu Shirai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last English-translation manga volume of The Promised Neverland for the year. This has been such an exciting book to read this year and it is crazy to think it will all be over in 2021. Of course, the Japanese-language version has already ended and season two of the anime is expected to premiere early 2021. In any case, this title has been one of the most interesting and intriguing comic books I've ever read and I can't wait to give my overall thoughts of the franchise when I read the last volume next spring/summer.

This volume has the beginning of the final battle. The parties to that conflict though may not be who we think, though. Emma and Norman have completely different agendas that will see the final conflict play out very messily and sorrowfully.

Posuka Demizu art work is almost better than the story, the dynamism on every page is just incredible and in an action-packed volume like this is used to great effect.

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My Goodreads Review of God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont, art by Brent Anderson

This is I believe my first (non-Japanese) comic book review posted on this blog.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite watching the 1990s cartoon as a child and watching the movies, I have read relatively few X-Men comics since I started reading comic books in 2013. Most of what I have read has been of the newer works—particularly Brian Michael Bendis' run on the books. I have not read a lot of the classic stories though I most of what they are about because of how they have been adapted for film and television. This is one of the most famous X-Men stories written by their most prolific writer Chris Claremont as a stand-alone graphic novel. It is illustrated by Brent Anderson pre-Astro City. It's one of those stories that sticks with you from the word go.

The graphic novel begins in a way that few comics would dare do in this era to establish the atmosphere, with the lynching of two black mutant children by an anti-mutant militia under the orders of a disgraced veteran turned right-wing evangelical named William Stryker. Stryker's aim is the full extermination of all mutants and he uses his militia, the Purifiers, with the goal of carrying out that plan. Their bodies are quickly discovered by Magneto, the Malcolm X avatar of the X-Men world who declares full on war against Stryker. If you've seen X2: X-Men United then you know where this plot is going. It is certainly an interesting story to read in 2020. The art is very interesting look at early Anderson who've I've only ever looked at in Astro City. Despite this book being a fairly heavy book, it is still obviously a book set in the late-Bronze Age of Comic Books (which where the majority of Claremont's works come out of) and the social realism is very apparent. Claremont wrote this book in response to the rise of Christian fundamentalism in during the Reagan era. Interestingly he pits a religiously-motivated antagonist against the most famously-religious superhero team in comics (this book in particular uses Kitty Pryde (Jewish), Nightcrawler (Roman Catholic), and Storm (traditional/Nubian)). It creates a very interesting dynamic when they go up against Stryker.

The interesting about this book is that, like Batman: The Killing Joke, this was meant to be a one-off story not in-canon with the main X-Men story. Like Killing Joke the publishing company ignored that fact after it became a hit and Stryker and the Purifiers have been popping-up ever since. Even still, this story still holds it's relevance as one of the most significant stories of this franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srwfA...

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