Review: Fruitvale Station

This review was originally posted in my column at Towleroad

Fruitvale Station, the first legit* Oscar Best Picture contender of 2013, hit a few theaters last Friday after months of pre-release buzz.

The buzz was fueled by a double triumph at Sundance this past January where it took home both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. The feature debut of 27 year-old writer/director Ryan Coogler tells the true story of the death of a 22 year-old African American man named Oscar Grant, who was shot by police on New Year's Day in 2009 at the Fruitvale BART Station in San Francisco. Watching it last Friday it felt like a modest success, a solid specific slice-of-life drama if not a great or ambitious one. But context is a funny thing. The very next day it was feeling much bigger.
 

Nothing exists in a vacuum and that includes the movies. On Saturday George Zimmerman was found "Not Guilty" in the death of Trayvon Martin, another unarmed black man (this time he was only a teenager), whose life was snuffed out nonsensically. The Weinstein Company who distributed the movie couldn't possibly have had better (or sadder) timing. If Fruitvale Station were a fictional drama, it might have felt unnervingly prescient opening when it did but since it is also based in fact it arrives like a stinging reminder of a shameful national pattern.[more...]

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Burning Questions: Should We Still Reference Mr. Smith?

Serious Film’s Michael C here. With the Fourth of July around the corner it’s a perfect time to examine a classic piece of Americana that has recently re-entered the national conversation.

Last week the movie on the front pages of America's newspapers wasn’t Man of Steel or World War Z. It was a 1939 Capra classic starring Jimmy Stewart. There wasn’t, alas, a nationwide burst of interest in cinema history. Rather, it was the story of Texas state senator Wendy Davis holding the floor in a dramatic 13-hour filibuster in opposition to a bill proposing draconian restrictions on abortion rights. Journalists had to reach back nearly three quarters of a century to the thrilling filibuster climax of Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to capture the drama of the incident. Just as Capra's It’s a Wonderful Life is synonymous with sob-inducing Holiday sentiment, so too is Jimmy Stewart’s wide-eyed senator intertwined with courageous political underdogs.

Of course, Capra isn’t such a high pedestal in critical circles as he is in the popular culture. Despite three Oscars for directing, he is often considered corny and clunky, his films hampered by starry-eyed idealism. So with the subject fresh in the news, it seems appropriate to ask if we should update our cultural touchstones.

Is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington still relevant? Was it ever? [more after the jump]

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Welcome to the Academy!

Every time I see a grumpy post on the internet about how the Oscars don't matter or the Oscars are irrelevant or passe or [insert gripe here] my face contorts into a 'oh, that's cute' type of look, the one you might give the very naive if possibly well meaning transfer in your high school comedy.

I love her, she's like a Martian.

The Oscars have always mattered. The very fact that people can't stop bitching about them, for 80 some years now, suggests that they still very much do and always will. The Oscars have been synonymous with movie greatness for so many generations that whether or not any greatness is actually happening in their selections is the point of discussion. It's also why one wishes the governing body of AMPAS wouldn't act like such nervous jittery freshmen themselves, forever worrying about what they're wearing ('does this rule-change make me look fat?') and if they're listening to the right music ('no, yeah, i totally love that ____. Didn't you see my expanded BP playlist?!'') .

The Oscars are the cool table that everyone wants to sit at and 276 new kids (after the jump) have been invited to do just that.

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What Would Superman Do? A Superhero's Guide to National Security Crisis

[Editor's Note: Please enjoy this guest post from the recently Reader Spotlighted Andy Hoglund. We haven't said much about Man of Steel (Nathaniel hasn't even seen it yet!) so here's Andy to do some thinking about it for us!]

Life is about choice, particularly in America. Coke or Pepsi. Elvis or Beatles. Biggie or 2pac. The choices we make engulf us, setting course for the lives we lead and informing the men and women we are to become.

No choice is more indicative of who we are than a decision made by most early in life. Though perhaps aided by circumstances out of our control – marketing, household income, geographic location – I feel nothing better defines a person’s character than their answer to this simple question:

Batman or Superman?

Sure, at first it’s a distinction without a difference, maybe even a little inane. After all, both are superheroes owned by the same parent company, originated in the same decade of American pop culture and, indeed, arguably the two most beloved superheroes in the country (sorry Iron Man).

But, in a rare streak of bipartisanship, politician fans of both characters have crossed the aisle to support their favorite superhero. Their endorsements may underscore nothing less than our continued capacity for a broad political discourse. [more...]

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Blue is the Hottest Controversy

Julien K. here, your special correspondent in Paris, reporting on the recent controversy surrounding the latest Palme d’or winner, Blue is the Warmest Color. 

As those of you who are familiar with the French film industry may know, director Abdellatif Kechiche’s work has been consistently lavished with praise for the last decade. In 2005, his sophomore effort L’esquive –a raw, direct exploration of teenage sexual politics in the banlieues (the French suburban hoods) by way of eighteenth century playwright Marivaux- unexpectedly trumped critical favorite Kings and Queen and populist heavyweights A Very Long Engagement and Oscar nominee The Chorus at the César Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The same thing happened in 2008, when his powerful immigrant family drama The Secret of the Grain defeated a pack of prestige Oscar contenders (La Vie en Rose, Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in the same top categories. 

But now that he’s won the most prestigious award of them all, Kechiche is facing a harsh backlash. [more]

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