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BlacKkKlansman

This post is sponsored by DVD Netflix.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

Set in Colorado circa 1972, BlacKkKlansman follows the Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) as he navigates the racially charged atmosphere of his new job and community. Ron has a passion for police work but being the first black cop at his department means the odds are stacked against him. After he’s promoted to undercover work, he meets and becomes smitten with Patrice (Laura Harrier), a civil rights activist attending a Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) event. He’s then assigned to gather intelligence on a local chapter of the KKK. Caught between these two worlds, he devises a plan. He’ll inflitrate the KKK with the help of his white coworker Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) who will do undercover work in person while Ron speaks to key figures, including Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace) on the phone. The tension in Colorado Springs escalates as the Black Panther activists increase their activity and the KKK devises a bomb plot to take out protestors. Ron and Flip must find a way to save their community and themselves before their true identities are revealed.

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman makes a bold political statement about racism in an effective way. The film is based on the true story of undercover cop Ron Stallworth. Lee and his writing team used Stallworth’s memoir as the basis for the script but made some key changes including a shift in the timeline and the addition of the bomb plot. The final chapter of the film directly links the events in the story to those of the Unite the Right Rally  and the deadly car attack in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. By connecting the past and the present, Lee’s film is giving a clear warning to the future.

Stylistically BlacKkKlansman is stunning. It’s quite an achievement to make the 1970s, known for faded oranges, yellows and browns, look vibrant and colorful. I love how the film stayed true to the era but still finds a way to appeal to the modern eye. As a classic film enthusiast I’d be remiss not to point out how elated I was to see African-American performer and activist Harry Belafonte in the film. He has a small part as Jerome Turner, an elderly man who recounts his stories of witnessing atrocities. His scene is juxtaposed with a KKK initiation ceremony. That whole sequence packs a powerful punch.

BlacKkKlansman is nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Spike Lee), Best Supporting Actor (Adam Driver) and Best Film Editing. I highly recommend following up your viewing of BlacKkKlansman with the documentary Alt-Right: Age of Rage which I reviewed a few months back. 

As a DVD Nation Director, I earn rewards from DVD Netflix. You can rent BlacKkKlansman on DVD.com

Eighth Grade

This post is sponsored by DVD Netflix.

“Thanks for watching. Gucci.”

It’s the last week of eighth grade for Kayla May (Elsie Fisher), a shy teen who dreams of attaining the confidence that seems just out of reach. In her spare time she films and uploads motivational videos for her YouTube channel. She’s talkative on screen but at school she says very little and has no real friends. She lives with her dad (Josh Hamilton), and Kayla, like many kids her age, is overly concerned with how her dad’s behavior affects her social standing. We follow Kayla over the span of one week as she gets voted most shy, examines the contents of her 6th grade time capsule, gets invited to a popular kid’s birthday pool party, lusts after the hot kid in her class, befriends a high school girl and hangs out with a new friend and possible love interest, Gabe (Jake Ryan). Every single event, no matter how big or small, is fraught with tension, excitement, and fear. It’s clear that the advice that Kayla gives in her YouTube videos and the life she leads online is very different from her day-to-day reality.

Eighth grade is a pivotal time in the life of a young teenager. They are on the brink of a big shift in their lives both socially and academically with high school just around the corner. Still in the throes of all the changes that come with puberty, everything is new, different and constantly in flux. Every social situation to them is life or death. Their status in eighth grade sets the bar for what’s to come.

Director Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade is an ode to coming of age in a world where social media is part of our every day lives. But for adults watching the film, it’s also a story about anxiety and its overwhelming effects. As someone who was as timid as Kayla was at her age and as an adult who deals with social anxiety every day, I found this film and Kayla’s character endlessly relatable. Just watching the film brought up those feelings of anxiety as I was embarrassed on Kayla’s behalf. I know those situations so intimately and the memory of them is so vivid. That moment when Kayla is at the pool party, looks through the pane of glass to the kids outside, takes a deep breath and walks out, I felt that moment because I’ve lived it so many times. Burnham’s film was therapy for me. Allowing me to process a lot of these emotions as I followed Kayla on her journey.

The best scenes in the movie are the interactions Kayla has with her dad, played by Josh Hamilton. When Kayla explains to her dad he’s being silent wrong, or when she catches him staring at her and her friends at the mall, or the loving conversation by the fire, those moments all reminded me of moments I had with my parents. They’re raw, real, hard to watch but necessary too.

In an interview with Alicia Malone on the FilmStruck podcast, Bo Burnham said he auditioned many kids for the lead role and he saw something in Elsie Fisher that he didn’t see in the other kids. The other actresses were confident kids pretending to be shy. Fisher is the real deal. She brings so much authenticity to her performance. And I love that she’s the character’s age, she has the body type and skin type of pretty much any young girl that age. If you gave her dark eyes, dark hair and an olive skin tone, she’d look exactly like I did in junior high. I could relate to Eighth Grade in a way I couldn’t with Lady Bird. Burnham’s feature debut is a winner and I can’t wait to see more from him.

As a DVD Director, I earn rewards from DVD Netflix. You can rent Eighth Grade is available to rent on DVD.com 

London Fields

LondonFieldsPoster

Nicola Six, S-I-X

Nicola Six (Amber Heard) always knew exactly when she was going to die: on the day of her thirtieth birthday. The man who was going to kill her would be waiting for her in a parked car. But she didn’t know how or why she would meet her untimely demise. And she definitely didn’t know who. Then one day she enters an underground club and meets three men, one of whom would be her killer.

First there was Keith Talent (Jim Sturgess), a champion darts player with a penchant for gambling. He’s a shady character, always looking for some new delight to tickle his fancy. Keith is constantly plagued with outstanding debts, including a big one to rival darts player and flamboyant gangster Chick Purchase (Johnny Depp). Then there’s Guy Clinch (Theo James), a straight-laced business man in a loveless marriage that produced a psychotic child. Guy sees an escape with the beautiful and seemingly vulnerable Nicola. Finally there’s Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton), the narrator of the story. He’s an author struggling with writer’s block. In Nicola he finds his next novel. As he follows her while she tries to make sense of her premonition, he works her story into his. Truth blends with fiction and we don’t know if some of what we’re seeing is scenes in Nicola’s life or figments of Samson’s imagination.

And what about Nicola? We learn bits here and there about her life story. Ever since she was a young child she had premonitions. She predicted her parents’ death in a plane crash and countless other tragic events. Knowing her life would be cut short, Nicola lived for the moment. Using her looks and sex appeal, she would draw men into her snare. When she meets Samson Young she finds a kindred spirit, another soul on the brink of death. Will Samson help Nicola discover herself or will he just be another participant in her demise?

London Fields was directed by Michael Cullen and ever since it’s attempted release three years ago it’s been plagued with problems. An international premiere was intended for the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival but when director Cullen filed suit against the producers for making significant edits to the final film, TIFF pulled it at the last minute. And to add to the drama, the producers sued star Amber Heard for refusing to attend the planned TIFF premiere. Furthermore, Heard accused then husband Johnny Depp, who appears in an uncredited role in the film, of spousal abuse. The producers settled the lawsuit against Heard earlier this year clearing the path for what in turn would be the release of Cullen’s final edit of the film. However, the director will be going to court with the producers in early 2019. London Fields was released in the UK earlier this month and had a limited release in the U.S. on October 26th.

The film’s story, based on the high praised novel by Martin Amis, is an interesting concept but poorly executed. I loved the idea of a meta story, something happening in real life that is in turn being adapted into a novel. But London Fields turned out to be a convoluted mess. The reviews leading up to U.S. release were not promising. I didn’t have high expectations but was hoping for at least an enjoyable mystery with a sexy femme fatale. Unfortunately the film overall was kind of a slog to get through. I was particularly interested in Amber Heard’s Nicola Six and was hoping for at least an interesting and complex female protagonist. In one of the scenes with Billy Bob Thornton’s Samson and Heard’s Nicola, he discusses writing her character in his book and is worried that he will be accused of creating a one-dimensional object of male fantasy. And that’s pretty much what Nicola is in this movie. We learn about her past, we see how she interacts with the three men, we see her struggle with being understood yet we don’t really learn much about her. Heard delivers a decent performance as Nicola Six. She’s sexy as all get out but can’t surpass a highly flawed storyline. If there is a stand-out performance in this film it’s Heard’s boob glue/tape that holds her wardrobe in place, defying all laws of gravity.

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I don’t know if it was the theater or the film itself but the audio quality of London Fields was very poor. It was somewhat muted and I could barely understand half of what Jim Sturgess was saying. Guy’s psychotic child was played a short adult which I thought was an odd choice. Cara Delevingne has a small role as Keith’s long-suffering wife and mother to his child. It was a role beneath her capabilities in my opinion. I also wished the film explored the apocalyptic state of London towards the end of the story. We see fires and explosions all over the city, symbolic of Nicola and Samson’s impending demise. But they’re never explained. A lost opportunity to add some richness to the story.

If London Fields has anything going for it it’s Amber Heard’s sexy performance but that’s about it.

 

Thank you to Satiated Productions for the opportunity to see London Fields.

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