Falling short - 2022 Animation shorts

Woof. I'm an animation fan. When I posted a tweet last week in the vein of a lot of the chains going around entitled: "10 films to get to know me" (I'll be writing more on that later), two of those ten were animated films. I read and wrote comics for years, so it's kind of a natural segue between the two media. With that in mind, I'm usually most excited to see the animated shorts when they come around every year, but this year was kind of a trial. Three of the five ranged from forgettable to outright awful; one was at least interesting and the fifth (thankfully the last) was fantastic. It basically saved what was otherwise a pretty poor outing for what we usually expect from these mini-festivals.

An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It: This was the one that had an interesting premise and was at least funny in parts. It's the story of an office worker who realizes that he's trapped in an animation studio and that everything around him is less than it seems. It uses one of my favorite animation techniques, which is stop motion. I'm a diehard Ray Harryhausen fan from when I was a kid, so that labor-intensive process and the slightly jerky motion (much better with modern processing than it used to be) will always have an instinctive appeal to me. Director Lachlan Pendragon not only has a cool name but also was a student when he created this film, which makes it that much more impressive. The fact that Neil (voiced by Pendragon) breaks the fourth wall in a fairly oblique fashion by discovering the processes and the different parts that make up himself and the other puppets, rather than communicating directly with the audience, is another excellent approach. The overarching theme of modern office work being detached from the "real world" is present, but not used as a bludgeon. Why is it an ostrich that clues Neil into what's really happening? Perhaps as a metaphor for people not being willing to notice what their world is until told by the bird who willingly blinds itself according to legend? Perhaps just because it's absurd? Doesn't matter. This was a smart little piece that deserves the notice that it has gotten.

The Flying Sailor: This was an abstract reconstruction of the Halifax Explosion in 1917, centered mostly around the story of Billy Wells, who was hurled almost two kilometers by the blast but survived. While it did heed historical details, like the fact that Billy's clothes were torn from his body in the initial shockwave, it veered off from there into a perspective that Billy might have had in terms of his life flashing before his eyes and taking time to look at the stars while he was hurtling through the air. That's fine, but it doesn't leave us with a whole lot to latch onto, story-wise. It is only an eight-minute film, so I don't think it was intended to deliver anything grandiloquent, but it also didn't say enough to leave much of an impression at all. If you didn't already know that it was about Halifax, you'd come away with even less than that, so I'm a little lost as to how it got nominated in the first place.

Ice Merchants: This one delivered a bit more in that its story was completely fantastical, about a man and his son living in a house perched on a mountainside where they make ice every day and skydive to the town in the valley to sell said ice, losing their hats in the process of the dive and buying new ones every time before they return on their motorcycle winched from the ground. One wonders why they wouldn't just ride the winch to the ground so that they could keep their hats, but I suppose that would deny them the thrill of their power dive every time. It also would spoil the rather indifferent ending when the warming (of the climate? of the seasons?) of the mountainside threatens both their home and their livelihood. I suppose that metaphor about climate change is the most likely and that's all well and good in principle, but one could just as easily draw a metaphor about consumerism with the constant waste of their hats and their need to buy more. Is the awesome heat created by the furious looms down in the town, weaving new hats every day, part of what's contributing to the change that threatens to ruin their lives? That's probably spinning those threads (ahem) out a bit far, but it's that kind of speculation that's needed to really make something of this story that left the feeling it was a bit lacking and, three films in, left me feeling rather underwhelmed about the whole evening until we got to the next film...

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: ... which was irredeemably awful. In all the years that we've been doing this, I don't think I've ever encountered a short film that I really wanted to walk out of, but there's a first time for everything. This film is dreadfully tedious. I'm all about the overall themes of empathy and kindness, but there really has to be something at least mildly dynamic about characters, story... something! Everything in this story was blasé from the opening moments of the insipid soundtrack. The animation technique was at least somewhat interesting, with the shifting pencil marks outlining the watercolors of characters and scenery, but everything else was soporific and I know it was because I caught myself starting to doze a couple times, which is never a problem in what is usually a collection of interesting perspectives (not just the animation, but all of the shorts on offer.) Tricia compared it to Winnie the Pooh, but even the stories about Pooh had a character like Tigger, who would at least provide some contrast to the fretting and timidity of Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore. There was no such contrast here, as all of them were collegial nihilists, bemoaning their state of affairs while reassuring each other of how fond they all were of the others. At 34 minutes, this was already borderline too long for a short. Given the subject matter, it was about 33 minutes too long.

My Year of Dicks: But the evening was thankfully saved by the best film of the night, which was the last one. Pamela Ribon's story of her fifteen-year-old self trying to force her own sexual awakening was hilarious, familiar, and hugely entertaining, both visually and textually, for its entire 24 minutes. It struck a chord with the whole audience (a packed Michigan Theater screening room) because it unabashedly hit at sensations that everyone in that room had had at one time or another, whether in the role of Pamela or one of the boys that she tries to make her co-conspirator in the plot toward teenaged orgasm. The highlight, of course, was the cascade of anguish and emotion surrounding "the talk" with her father. I really appreciated the funhouse mirror approach to her feelings and expressions and everything that you remember in your own inner visualizations while having those excruciating moments with your parents. This was vastly more inclusive and understandable than the dreary Hallmark animal parade. But since it actually talks about real emotions and not fantasy ones, it will almost certainly lose the statuette to the wooden Pooh facsimiles. It's not like you can imagine anyone on stage actually voicing the title on national TV, anyway, even if they did acknowledge these film creators during the live broadcast, which they no longer do.

So, yeah, a somewhat underwhelming end to our three-day excursion. I think Live Action walked away with my personal "best of"s this time, as I'll remember The Red Suitcase and An Irish Goodbye for a long time, I think.

Crafting short stories - 2022 Live Action shorts

There's a certain art to crafting a short story. To many people, short stories are just short novels, which really isn't the case, as it often takes a different frame of mind and a whole lot of restraint to recognize that what you have isn't really novel length and is best delivered in a form that will give just enough of a story for the reader/viewer to come away with the message that you'd like to deliver (or simply the tale you'd like to tell) and not be subsumed in the world that you've created. They're glimpses; snippets; insights. The writers and directors of this year's submissions took a variety of angles toward that goal and, for the most part, produced some excellent films that embodied the concept.

Ivalu: This is a story told half in the dreamworld of intelligent ravens and memories and half in the brutal reality of a missing sibling and a dire situation at home. It's based on the graphic novel of the same name by Morten Dürr and you can tell that directors Anders Walter and Pipaluk K. Jørgenson wanted to stick to Dürr's visual style, as they create several long, focusing shots on key elements in the story: the expression on a face, the seeming intelligence in the blank eyes of a bird, and so on. This is very much a comic, panel-by-panel approach and it does a good job of sustaining a narrative without dialogue. They also decided to layer in a lot of narrative dialogue by Pipaluk, the younger sister of the namesake of the film who is desperate to find her older sibling and bring her home, half out of concern and half out of Pipaluk's own fear of the menace that exists at home. It's a solid story but, like the perhaps unneeded dialogue, I think it went too far into the reality of the situation when the implications were already plain as sunlight on a glacier from the very beginning. If the intent was to show Pipaluk's transition out of her escapist fantasy that she used to try to shield herself from what was happening, then that was accomplished. It just felt to me like they had taken an excellent indirect approach and then abandoned that in the third act to just present the problem that had caused both sisters so much anguish. It feels like the message might have been stronger without simply portraying the horrific reality. That said, it was still wonderfully shot, with great visuals of the culture and scenery in Greenland and is well worth the watch.

Night Ride (Nattrikken): This entry was an unusual story of a little person who inadvertently steals a local tram somewhere in Norway and then has to figure out how to deal with unruly passengers and their harassment of a trans person. It's a great story about the continued persecution of many among us for their size or their identity or anything that the majority deems "not normal." In some ways, this was the bluntest of presentations of the five films, since it didn't have any of the stylistic approaches of the rest but simply presented its story, including spending a fair amount of time showing Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord) trying to figure out how to pilot her stolen tram. Of course, that's part and parcel of the whole story, in which she's dropped into multiple uncertain situations and has to find a way out of or through them. In that way, it paralleled "real life" moreso than the rest and didn't bother to try to reach for any deeper a moral message than what was displayed by the actions of its characters. It's the second year in a row that a little person was the star of one of the live action shorts and it's nice to see that there are continued opportunities for those who don't fit the standard billing, as it were. I wouldn't rank it as one of my favorites of this set, but it was solid.

Le pupille: In utter contrast was this film that was almost overloaded with a production design and approach that was vastly beyond any of the rest of the entries (and was by far the longest presentation, as well), including musical interludes, filming at different speeds, and attempts at absurdist humor both visual and dialogue-driven. This was the one entry where you might think that the writers needed a stronger editor because it was teetering on the edge of trying to cram a novel into a short story and not succeeding at either. We're given more detail than is really needed about the situation of these girls in a Catholic orphanage, including one getting to go to her family for the holidays while the rest are left behind, the presence of a man posing as a nun inside the orphanage while his desperate girlfriend prays for his return, and an inclusion of the chimney sweeps at said orphanage, first as background scenery and then as key figures in the conclusion. It all felt a bit disorganized and wasn't helped by my recoiling from the ardent hypocrisy of the Church and its instruments of instruction (aka nuns.) While it did have one of the most amusing scenes of the night, as the girls are forced to pose in an elaborate nativity scene while the local townsfolk come to plead for the prayers of the orphans, it all felt a bit too much and too long and, again, like it missed the point of a short story. Unfortunately, given its elaborate presentation, I have a feeling it will end up being the one to take the statuette home.

The Red Suitcase: But then we came across one of my favorites of the evening in a story about a teenaged Iranian girl in the Luxembourg airport, desperately trying to avoid the moment where she meets up with her arranged husband, a much older man who has paid her family for her. This was an excellent depiction of the most traumatic half hour of this girl's life and which she, Ariane (Nawelle Ewad), brilliantly portrays without speaking a single word throughout. All of the dialogue is from other characters asking her questions that she can't understand and her intended husband asking her father questions on the phone that he can't answer, as he's shipped his daughter off like a package to be picked up. Central to the story is her old, red suitcase that she continues to clutch at every opportunity, as it contains the elements of the life that she'd like to live and which she knows will be denied to her if she can't escape from the man that has bought her. This period of constant tension is occasionally broken by the unanswered texts from her father, at first inquisitive about her location and then increasingly frantic at her silence and unwillingness to complete the business deal that he has made. It's a story of isolation, betrayal, abominable traditions, and determination. It spotlights a brief time of crisis but tells a lifetime of meaning. This is a proper short story and, thus, a proper short film.

An Irish Goodbye: How appropriate that in a year where a darkly comic film about an Irish community is one of the favorites for Best Picture (The Banshees of Inisherin), an absurdly but also darkly funny Irish short film about two brothers dealing with the passing of their mother is in the running for its own trophy. This was easily the funniest film of the evening with Father O'Shea (Paddy Jenkins) stealing most of the scenes that he's in ("Does she feel... still warm to ye?") But Turlough (Seamus O'Hara) and Lorcan (James Martin) also have plenty of moments of their own as they try to come to terms with each other while both still grieving for their lost mum. It was especially heartening to see Martin, who has Down syndrome, essentially play it straight as someone afflicted with the same condition who, contrary to everyone else's expectations, is still fully capable of determining the direction of his own life but really wants to pursue that life alongside his older brother. This is a much bigger tale which alludes to a lot of the history that makes up the characters in front of us, but only tells us about what's happening right now. That's a smart writer, director, and editor. It's a great story with a quite predictable end, but which still ends up being very satisfying.

If there's any justice in the world, Banshees will win Best Picture and Goodbye would win Best Live Action Short but I have my doubts. I could also make a serious case for Suitcase as the best film of the night, as it embodied the art form and was gripping from beginning to end. Tomorrow night we wrap up with Animation.

Wars to walruses - 2022 Documentary shorts

It's that time of year again and we'll be seeing all of the Oscar-nominated short films over the next three days. Like usual, it was a solid selection that didn't have any "bad" or misplaced selections, but there were a couple that I think elevated themselves above the rest.

How Do You Measure a Year?: I appreciate this one in principle but mostly for its social analysis contexts. Director Jay Rosenblatt decided to try to document the mental and emotional growth of his daughter, Ella, by asking her the same set of questions on her birthday every year from the age of two to the age of eighteen. While many have chosen to see this as a documentary about their changing relationship as she (and he) aged, I was much more interested in her sense of self-awareness and awareness of the world around her as she developed. I think my perspective may have been different if I'd actually had children of my own with the concern that many parents develop about how their kids will see them and whether their relationship of absolute devotion with a toddler may radically change with that of a teenager and an adult. My experience on a daily basis in that respect is solely with the teenager and adult stages, so I wasn't as taken with the cute or tender responses that Ella gave as a youngster, but I could see absolute parallels between the stages she displayed from the age of 13 onward with those that I'd seen in Tricia's daughter, including the same use of language (employing "like" before every three words at the age of 14; "I think, like, we're, like, fighting all the time, but we still, like, make up at the end...") and beginning to question the standards that are set before her. The most amusing point was when she had taken a shine to ASL at the age of nine which was, of course, completely absent by birthday #10. I think it was a good effort, if a bit simple when compared with the other four.

The Elephant Whisperers: While the story of this one was also relatively simple- a south Indian couple, Bomman and Bellli, tend to the health of a young elephant, Raghu, and others around him -what really came through for me was the old "film is a visual medium" angle. The cinematography of this one was excellent and was able to convey much of the story and the reality of their lives in Mudumalai National Park without any needed explanation, although both humans kept a running dialogue between themselves and their charges, Raghu and a later addition, Amma, so that we all knew the reasons for their respective involvement and how much the elephants meant to them. The camera took much time to examine the other sights of the park, including the everpresent gray langurs who were more than happy to help themselves to any food that the elephants weren't interested in eating. Probably the most interesting aspect to it was Bomman's insistence on speaking to Raghu as if the latter would understand him and, of course, he largely seemed to. Whether that was because of repetition or the fabled intelligence of the species is up for debate. You can't doubt their devotion to the animals in their care, though, and it's also open to question whether they looked on Raghu and Amma as beloved pets or beloved friends. I'm tempted to say the latter. Again, I really enjoyed the visuals of this one, even if the story itself was probably the thinnest of any of the available selections.

Stranger at the Gate: This was a very powerful story about a former Marine and veteran of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan who learned to hate and fear Muslims and planned to act on those emotions by bombing the local Islamic center in his home town of Muncie, IN. It's a very straightforward depiction of learning to think of "the enemy" as subhuman in order to make it easier to commit violence upon them, only to have to return home and realize that "the enemy" are every bit as human as you are. Director Joshua Seftel had read Richard "Mac" McKinney's story in an Indiana newspaper years earlier, but decided he wanted to hear the side of the people that Mac had been intending to kill. His straightforward interviews with the Bahrami family, Jomo Williams, and Mac's ex-wife and daughter present a very crisp, documentary style that doesn't hinge on dramatic moments, but still provides both a level of tension and an excellent message of understanding from everyone involved. The visual storytelling is similar, in that it's presented in a very "investigative reporting" style but doesn't come with an agenda about anyone involved. Taking the time to interview the police who had become aware of Mac's plot was a really nice touch, as well. I was pretty much enthralled with this one and have it tagged as the eventual winner. More than any of the rest, this one is worth taking the half hour to absorb.

Haulout: This would probably be considered the most unusual of the offerings. Directors Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev arrived on an isolated beach in far northeastern Siberia when they were working on a documentary about the Chukchi people. There they discovered an equally-isolated marine biologist, Maxim Chakilev, who was studying walrus migration patterns and the impact that they're feeling from the lack of sea ice in the Arctic created by climate change. They decided to switch focus and stayed with him for the few weeks of his study, where they were completely hemmed in by almost 100,000 walruses and couldn't leave his tiny, ramshackle cabin. He was there to observe the walruses and they were there to observe him while they were all trapped together and you definitely get the mild claustrophobic sensation of being stuck there, but also the tragedy that has beset these creatures who are now all crashing into this beach, exhausted, because they have nowhere to rest on the open sea as they're accustomed to. They spend some time observing Chakilev, in turn, as he goes about both his work and simply existing in this distant corner of the world. No real dialogue occurs other than his taped reports (to be later transcribed) of what he's seeing and they don't bother to go into much detail, other than when he's stating the particulars of the corpses of the dozens of dead walruses left on the beach. They let the pictures tell the whole story, which was ideal in this circumstance.

The Martha Mitchell Effect: As one of the largely untold/misremembered aspects to the Watergate burglary and Richard Nixon's downfall, this was an interesting example of a mid-20th century case of political gaslighting. Former AG and Nixon campaign manager, John Mitchell's outspoken wife, Martha, was one of the first voices of outrage about the connections between the Watergate crimes and the White House. In a typically paranoid response, Nixon declared her Public Enemy #1 within his circle for a few months and tried to have her publicly discredited as "hysterical" and otherwise mentally ill. All of this story is told through archival footage from news programs and the later talk shows that Martha was interviewed on once everyone figured out that she had been telling the truth about the whole sordid affair. There are occasional quotes from various news figures involved at the time, both living (Connie Chung) and passed (Helen Thomas.) While I don't find myself particularly fascinated by rehashing Watergate yet again, it was interesting to see someone whom I'd only known as a minor detail in the whole event be revealed as someone that the media and public tried to ignore except as a source of entertainment, only to finally take her seriously for the couple years preceding her death, until eventually forgetting about her once they were past that. It's a sad commentary on the media's urge to flock to whatever is sensational at the moment, while looking askew at anyone who questions the propriety of what was going on in the august halls of Washington (New York Times, that's your cue...) I liked this one, even if the subject matter is a bit tired.

So, yeah, I think Stranger at the Gate was the runaway winner, both for technique and subject matter, but all of them were worth the time. Tomorrow: Live Action. (Still waiting for the "Unlive action" category.)

They think you're the mark

"If you can't tell who the mark is in the first five minutes, then you're the mark." Some variation of that phrase is usually uttered in most movies or TV shows about gambling because most people think gambling is about losing. Or, well, most people actually think gambling is about winning, but most people end up losing because they're the walking example of that adage. Similarly, most people don't know how casinos actually function and, well, most people don't know what good writing actually is and, well, we can keep going in this vein for a long time before we run out of obvious examples. All of them lead to a situation where you could argue that Poker Face is actually a good show and you'd be wrong because it isn't and it took me getting all of 45 minutes into the first episode to tell you why. Tricia is currently finishing the last ~15 minutes of said episode while I'm writing this opening paragraph because she's willing to give it that much more consideration before deciding whether it's worth it.

First off, production design. It's shoddy, obvious, and stupid. If you're setting up a situation where you don't want to try to keep dancing around being set in the most obvious of locales (Las Vegas), then you probably want to at least set yourself up so that your replacement for Vegas seems like it's a realistic situation. The show seems to be set in "Frost County", because the big guy who owns the casino where most of the action happens is Sterling Frost. The county is named after him. The police answer to him. The casino that he owns is named after him. His son, Sterling Frost, Jr. (Adrien Brody, the only performance worth watching in the limited time that I could sit through; we'll get back to that) is named after him. Ego will often take you a long way. If that's the case, why would your ego think that it's necessary to name said casino "Frost Casino" like you never made it past the opening pitch of the series to some idiot producer, rather than something both more self-serving (just "Frost" might have worked, since everyone knows what it is, like "MGM Grand") and even vaguely more intelligent for the viewer? Does said viewer need to be reminded more than once that this place- where most of the essential action takes place -is the casino or do you think they can figure that out on their own? Similarly, no actual casino in the world has a blazing neon sign that announces its high rollers room as the HIGH ROLLERS ROOM. That is, unless the target audience for your show has both a) never actually been in a casino and is b) stupid. Just FYI: Most people with that much money don't want to be bothered by nosy spectators watching them lose that money, so the big neon sign to attract people would generally be seen as a poor choice.

Second, plot. The basic story of the first episode is that your lead character, Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) can tell when anyone is lying, so Sterling, Jr., the casino's manager, is going to use Charlie to help him beat a high roller in a game of poker, since she'll always be able to tell him and his inside guy when said high roller (Mr. Kane) is bluffing. There's a lot more going on in the episode involving a murder, but that's the basic premise around which everything else revolves. And that would be fine for a pilot that introduces Charlie, her ability, and how that will be used to set up the "murder of the week" situation that the entire series is supposed to work with except that said basic premise is bullshit because that's not how poker works. If Charlie always knows that someone's lying and, therefore, bluffing, OK. But what if they don't need to bluff/lie? If they think their three kings beats everyone else at the table and they bet on it, they're not lying. And if you think your two pair beats everyone, you're still losing to their three cowboys. So how does Charlie give you an edge in that situation? How could you even imagine that she would give you an edge unless you'd never played poker in your life and really had no idea how the game worked? They were also setting up cameras to see all angles of the room. If that's the case, then they should be able to see the mark's hand and play into it whether they have Charlie there or not, so what's the point of involving her? Are there really that many people out there who've both never played and never been in a casino that are willing to ride along with this situation because Lyonne and Brody's acting somehow make it worth watching?

Third, acting. Yes, Brody, like usual, is excellent, shifting from mildly perturbed to casually menacing to quietly plaintive and back again with aplomb. Lyonne, OTOH, brings a lot more fire and light to a lot of what happens, which seems to be her whole purpose in the general proceedings. The person who keeps turning over that page that people might not want turned seems to be her Sisyphean rock (e.g. she has to keep doing it, even if it's not really what she wants.) That's fine from a character motivation/goal standpoint, but it's also a situation that can get tiresome for the viewer right quick. She already fills her role with some level of exasperation. How long until that starts being the role of the audience, as well? The reason that some people find sitcoms to be more annoying than humorous (waves tiny flag) is that they're prescribed situations. You have to be willing to be set up to be knocked down and that's just not really entertaining to me because those characters are bowling pins, rather than bowling balls. They don't roll forward. They just stand there to get knocked down and set up to be knocked down again, over and over. They don't make progress. That's what this is and it's usually pretty tedious by the third or fourth time around. But in this case, it's not even the typical Colombo-style "murder-of-the-week" because Charlie's magical ability lets the writers do a shortcut. They don't even have to set up clues and do all that deductive reasoning nonsense. They can just set up one bowling pin to lie and the other pin will know that they're lying so we can just cut right to the chase, almost literally.

But, clearly, I am the exception to the rule because not only has said series been critically hailed (99% on Rotten Tomatoes! 99%! With an 8.6 average!), but intelligent people like Gail Simone are declaring it to be one of the best shows on TV, at the moment. I have Peacock because it's the only way I can be sure to see all of Liverpool's Premier League matches, so I definitely didn't go out of my way to pick it up in order to see Poker Face and I can tell you right now that no one else should, either.

Not quite clearing the bar

A couple years back, I told Jaime and Larissa (our regular Michigan Theater partners) that I would write something about each film that we saw there because they were usually good films with something to say and I, in turn, would usually have something to say about them. I've almost kept that promise, but occasionally have had to step back and deliver in a partial way because what we've seen just hasn't been that inspiring. There are three films that come to mind in that respect, from one we saw the week before Christmas (Decision to Leave), to one we saw a couple weeks ago (Living), and one we saw last night (To Leslie.) They were all good films, but they didn't strike me in a way that compelled me to sit down immediately afterward and start typing away. So, instead, as I've done a time or two before, I'm going to put together some condensed assessments of all three of them.

Decision to Leave. This was the most surprising of the three in that I found a lot to enjoy about it on a technical level, but then found myself without much to remark on beyond that. It's co-written and directed by Park Chan-wook, who has achieved legendary status among Korean filmmakers and for good reason. His characters are sound and his stories are almost always interesting. In truth, Decision may be his best work since Oldboy. But when I walked out, the first thought that came to mind was: "That was essentially a remake of Basic Instinct.", where the cop falls for the woman in a way he can't really understand, but who eventually wrecks his life and career and the audience is never quite certain whether she's doing so intentionally or whether he is just driving his life into the ground because he can't quite give her up. As with other Park films, these characters are more developed and far more subtle than those in Verhoeven's shockfest, but the plot still follows the same trails, including incorporating other cops, corrupt and not, into the plot and leaving everyone questioning each others' motives and true involvement in what goes on. It's a great example of story pacing, as every shot seems appropriate and leaves you with something interesting to look at in terms of either story element or setting, if not both. And, in the end, it's far more of a romantic tragedy than it is a thriller, especially when it comes to the fairly poignant ending. But something just didn't work for me when reflecting on what I'd seen. I would definitely recommend it, especially to Park fans, but there just wasn't much grist for the mill, as it were, in terms of writing that says much more than: "Technically superior, as always."

Living. This is Ikiru, full stop. The screenplay is adapted from it and the direction follows in Akira Kurosawa's path almost note-for-note. There are a couple minor deviations in character interactions, but this is basically Ikiru without as much of the dramatic thoughtfulness that tends to permeate Kurosawa's characters and stories. In that respect, I'd say that if you want to see this story, you should go watch the original, not only because it's better, but also because it won't leave you with the impression that you're watching something that's being spoon-fed to a Western audience by presenting them with something more familiar in order to make it go down easy. Nothing against screenwriter, Kazuo Ishigiro, or director, Oliver Hermanus, but it's difficult to really get excited about a remake that doesn't really present anything novel about the approach or give any real foundation for remaking a film that is still completely relatable to modern audiences. Bill Nighy does well as the lead character (and was nominated for it) but lacks the genuinely hopeful energy that Takasi Shimura displays in the original because displaying that kind of energy would be a very non-proper-English thing to do, in the same way that emotional restraint is an aspect of Japanese culture. But in the case of Shimura, pushing back against the dolor drove the film's purpose, while Nighy doesn't do that so much as simply try to evade things until the inevitable end. Living literally didn't do anything that I hadn't seen before. I own a copy of Ikiru because it's one of my favorites of Kurosawa's, which means that this film had a steep hill to climb from the get-go, but it was still mildly disappointing to just walk to the finish line.

To Leslie. I thought this film started strong. Andrea Riseborough (who has been nominated for her lead role, like Nighy) created a tragically detestable person that we followed around through all the travails of blaming everyone else for her problems, while creating more for herself and everyone around her. In other words, the perfect addict. Along the way, we're introduced to a dozen other characters, all of whom fulfill the tenets of my essential assessment of character: Do they seem like real people? They all do because they react with emotion and confusion and in ways that characters written strictly to a role wouldn't do. But once we get past the crux point of our very interesting character study, we end up in a happy-ending scenario that simply doesn't come off as real and the enormous promise that the film held up to that point withers away. It's not a bad story. It just takes something that has texture and crosses the border from simple, which it always was, to smooth and simplistic, which is kind of a shame. As with the previous two films, there are any number of solid performances here alongside Riseborough's tour de force. It was great to see The Wire veteran, Andre Royo (Bubbles!), show up on the screen again, too. But, in the end, the ending was just too uplifting for the depths that we'd been asked to explore up to that point, which made it seem like something was changed late in the creative process when a producer objected to leaving the audience feeling like they'd actually seen a slice of someone's real life (as we'd seen in the wonderful, Red Rocket, for example), as opposed to the representation of one. Due credit to Riseborough, who was brilliant, but I can't say that this one stood out beyond that.