2021 Media Roundup: Film
Dec. 19th, 2021 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby I guess I better start these, huh? It is, after all, a tradition.
I'll start with the shortest one: Film. I don't watch a lot of movies at the best of times, and while other people felt like sitting in a cinema for 3 hours in a mask with strangers who are not necessarily wearing masks sounds like a good time, I am not one of those people. Accordingly, I saw two new films with other people, both at the drive-in, and one new-ish film on my own. According to my calendar, there was also one of our online Charlize Theron-a-thons in 2021, though I don't remember which of the films we watched. That might have actually been it? I don't know. 2021 is a blur.
The new and new-ish films I saw were:
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: This was the first movie I saw in two years with other people in person, with popcorn and everything! So it's always going to be associated with the brief period where things were actually looking up. I really enjoyed it beyond that, though—it is basically a Marvel formula movie but with some important twists: a primarily POC cast, the female lead not being the love interest, and the origin story elements minimized. It was also quite funny, and the special effects were excellent in a way that enhanced the narrative rather than felt like filler. Also Simu Liu is a local guy and we stan him. I didn't know Michelle Yeoh was going to be in it either and I actually squealed out loud when she turned up.
The Eternals: I also saw this one at the drive-in, except in this case it was more about "omg I get to see another movie" than coming away with the sense that it was any good. It definitely had good moments and I appreciate its ambition, but I felt that its reach exceeded its grasp. What was irritating for me was that it pushed back at some of the things I dislike about superhero movies and teased at subversion but then left it alone. It raised issues that I wanted to see explored more in superhero/fantasy movies, like "why do hugely powerful characters waste so much time stopping crime when they could end the climate crisis," but the constraints of the Marvel Formula and Hollywood economics meant that they couldn't explore them, by, say, having the Eternals and the Deviants band together to overthrow the gods, or even by suggesting that the steam engine is responsible for a good lot of our problems.
Additionally, I'm not sure it's possible to make a movie in which aliens nudge human civilization forward without it being racist, even if those aliens are played by BIPOC actors. It sure was pretty, though.
Blood Quantum: This was objectively the best movie I saw in 2021. It came out in 2019 though. It's by Jeff Barnaby so it's gory as fuck and Problematic. Set on a Mik'maq reservation, it's about a zombie plague where Indigenous people are immune to zombification (but can still be eaten by them). A group of white survivors take refuge in Red Crow's fortress, and predictable horror ensues.
Zombie movies are best when they tackle real world politics, and this has it in droves. The zombie plague brings up not just genocide through disease, but the complex politics of multiracial identity, generational trauma, and gender politics. It's also wonderfully inventive, with stunning animated sequences and memorable characters, with particularly outstanding performances by Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Stonehorse Lone Goeman.
Winter break is traditionally my time to watch movies, so I'll probably see a few more (like Dune) this week. In lieu of me having anything to say about them, enjoy this article from the Jacobin about why movies suck now.
I'll start with the shortest one: Film. I don't watch a lot of movies at the best of times, and while other people felt like sitting in a cinema for 3 hours in a mask with strangers who are not necessarily wearing masks sounds like a good time, I am not one of those people. Accordingly, I saw two new films with other people, both at the drive-in, and one new-ish film on my own. According to my calendar, there was also one of our online Charlize Theron-a-thons in 2021, though I don't remember which of the films we watched. That might have actually been it? I don't know. 2021 is a blur.
The new and new-ish films I saw were:
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: This was the first movie I saw in two years with other people in person, with popcorn and everything! So it's always going to be associated with the brief period where things were actually looking up. I really enjoyed it beyond that, though—it is basically a Marvel formula movie but with some important twists: a primarily POC cast, the female lead not being the love interest, and the origin story elements minimized. It was also quite funny, and the special effects were excellent in a way that enhanced the narrative rather than felt like filler. Also Simu Liu is a local guy and we stan him. I didn't know Michelle Yeoh was going to be in it either and I actually squealed out loud when she turned up.
The Eternals: I also saw this one at the drive-in, except in this case it was more about "omg I get to see another movie" than coming away with the sense that it was any good. It definitely had good moments and I appreciate its ambition, but I felt that its reach exceeded its grasp. What was irritating for me was that it pushed back at some of the things I dislike about superhero movies and teased at subversion but then left it alone. It raised issues that I wanted to see explored more in superhero/fantasy movies, like "why do hugely powerful characters waste so much time stopping crime when they could end the climate crisis," but the constraints of the Marvel Formula and Hollywood economics meant that they couldn't explore them, by, say, having the Eternals and the Deviants band together to overthrow the gods, or even by suggesting that the steam engine is responsible for a good lot of our problems.
Additionally, I'm not sure it's possible to make a movie in which aliens nudge human civilization forward without it being racist, even if those aliens are played by BIPOC actors. It sure was pretty, though.
Blood Quantum: This was objectively the best movie I saw in 2021. It came out in 2019 though. It's by Jeff Barnaby so it's gory as fuck and Problematic. Set on a Mik'maq reservation, it's about a zombie plague where Indigenous people are immune to zombification (but can still be eaten by them). A group of white survivors take refuge in Red Crow's fortress, and predictable horror ensues.
Zombie movies are best when they tackle real world politics, and this has it in droves. The zombie plague brings up not just genocide through disease, but the complex politics of multiracial identity, generational trauma, and gender politics. It's also wonderfully inventive, with stunning animated sequences and memorable characters, with particularly outstanding performances by Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Stonehorse Lone Goeman.
Winter break is traditionally my time to watch movies, so I'll probably see a few more (like Dune) this week. In lieu of me having anything to say about them, enjoy this article from the Jacobin about why movies suck now.
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Date: 2021-12-19 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-12-19 06:18 pm (UTC)And it's been cool to see distributors create their own streaming services like Projectr. I dunno, I think in a lot of ways streaming opens the door for smaller operations (bc physical theaters are often locked into distro deals with studios/distributors).
I just think it's like, generally not worth it trying to make blockbuster cinema better & also like. If I were a major media outlet, I would use my time promoting and covering good cinema instead? I dunno, I don't mean to be a snob. If people genuinely enjoy Marvel movies, they should go see them and have fun! But if they don't & feel like cinema is bad, I think they'd be better served by people saying, here are some cool places to watch different kinds of films (often for free!).
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Date: 2021-12-19 06:57 pm (UTC)I was recently on the periphery of a heated discussion on the FB of one of the friends I saw both MCU movies with. He's Chinese and has been railing for a good long time about the lack of decent Asian representation in cinema. Both movies were a really big deal for him. Someone else in the discussion did the whole, well, Disney is shit, why don't you want Asian media of which there are many high quality examples? While said friend agrees that yes it is and yes there are, these don't in any way represent his experience as an Asian person living in North America, growing up on comics and superhero media, etc. (I don't want to speak for him here but the argument was roughly along those lines, and I am more or less in agreement.)
And I think, as someone who used to enjoy film a great deal and now finds very few films that she bonds with, there is still something to be said for mainstream film as a social force. I have always thought that the little indie movies and foreign films were better Art, but Art is not the sole form or purpose of culture. Given that there was a significant time period where Hollywood was producing really good, innovative content, I think it's worth examining the social and economic forces that put an end to that, rather than simply yeeting for greener pastures.
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Date: 2021-12-19 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-19 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-19 07:39 pm (UTC)oh my freaking God I hear him. I have had the corresponding argument for my ethnicity. I appreciate and want to watch awesome cinema from various African countries but I *also* want to see Black people in our complexity in narrative works conversant with the culture in the country where I live.
*beams strength to him*
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Date: 2021-12-19 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-12-20 02:58 am (UTC)-- I was also remembering all the joyful cultural celebration around Black Panther -- people bringing their parents and even grandparents and kids, and grandparents seeing it over and over again, the great costumes people wore, the sense of not just pride but "this is Our Thing." It was so lovely. Andyeah, I think especially with kids, they can get drawn in a lot more by a superhero or sff story than by an Important Indie Movie which might be more realistic, but depressing. Not that the movies like Fruitvale Station aren't necessary and important, but it's so tragic, and also dramatizing the tragedy they live with every day.
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Date: 2021-12-20 03:11 am (UTC)Black Panther is hands-down the best MCU movie and the only movie that I can take my mom, who does not like superhero movies or blockbusters, to. I think it's proof that even the present-day Hollywood studio system can produce something that's not formulaic and safe and that has artistic merit and sociopolitical significance. I still use it when I discuss the ways in which Western art has benefited from colonialism. And they get it because they all have a reference point.
Of course, it could only get made by playing it safe in some areas and Marvel being enough of a powerhouse that they could afford a bomb if it didn't go well.
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Date: 2021-12-20 03:51 am (UTC)(This is also where I tediously remind EVERYBODY that T'Challa was the ACTUAL hero of Civil War, the one character with a moral arc save maybe Natasha, and he gets the big speech of the movie signifying him as the hero, altho everyone overlooks this either in favour of Spiderboy, or that crushing threeway
hatesexfight scene at the end. And then in the credit scene he says he'll protect Bucky! And then he was an actual Ace Rimmer Disney Prince in What If?! T'CHALLA <333)ahem.
Luke Cage was also actually a fantastic Marvel/Netflix production, altho the critic Angelica Jade Bastién kept trashing every single episode of S1 ("noxious/grating respectability politics") to the extent where Coker overcorrected to the extent of making the writing staff read every single recap of hers while they were writing S2 it, but to no avail (she didn't recap S2 but called it "earnest but hollow" -- Bryan Washington's S2 recaps in Vulture were a lot better, but by then it was really too late). I was just gutted when it was cancelled, Mike Colter was so good.
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Date: 2021-12-20 12:39 pm (UTC)Mass media offers a space that independent media doesn't. They're just completely separate things in my head but both have their value.
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Date: 2021-12-20 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-12-20 12:41 pm (UTC)I'm not sure if teens go to movie theatres. I'm not sure who does, tbh. Other than the handful of kids I teach who have made movies their thing, they don't really have the attention span. I think it's more parents and little kids.
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Date: 2021-12-19 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-12-20 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-20 04:28 am (UTC)...so like my day job, then....
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Date: 2021-12-20 12:35 pm (UTC)