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Ari's Art Review 6

Anuja, Nyad, Maiden, Odysseus, Nicholas Winton, Star Trek, Wind Rises, Time Machine, Silent Running, and more.

Anuja: Written and directed by Colorado professor Adam Graves, Anuja is the story of two orphaned sisters in Delhi struggling to escape their dependency on a garment factory. It is an absolutely beautiful short film, especially in its writing and acting. The older girl wants her sister, a math whiz, to take a test to gain entry into a local school. The younger girl sees the value of this but does not want to leave her sister behind. What will she choose? This film was nominated for an Oscar but, unfortunately, lost to I'm Not a Robot. I enjoyed the other film, which runs a lot like an episode of the Twilight Zone, but I didn't think it comes close to Anuja in poignancy and emotional power.

Nyad: It would be nuts to swim from Cuba to Florida. That's what Diana Nyad finally did in 2013, after several failed attempts and after completing several other impressive ocean swims. (There was some controversy about whether the swim met "official" standards.) And that is the topic of the 2023 film Nyad. The film is about a great endurance athlete performing an amazing feat, obviously. But the film also is about aging well. Nyad completed the swim in her 60s. And the main actors of the film, Annette Bening as Nyad and Jodie Foster as Nyad's friend and trainer, now in their 60s, are in absolute peak physical shape for the film. Another highlight of the film is Rhys Ifans, who plays the boat captain facing his own age-related challenges.

Maiden Tracy Edwards wanted to sail around the world in the Whitbread race. But no man would take her as part of the regular crew. So she decided to put together an all-women crew. That's the subject of the 2018 documentary Maiden. The race is grueling for anyone. Edwards chose to do it with a crew of limited experience in the face of an outwardly hostile media. These women found they had something to prove. Did they accomplish their goals? Go watch! One of my favorite documentaries.

The Return: What if the story of Odysseus was roughly true but told without the supernatural trappings? That describes the film The Return, in which Ralph Fiennes finds his muse. I've been enmeshed in Homer recently, and I very much enjoyed this down-to-earth version of the story.

One Life: If you let the daily headlines really penetrate, often you would experience horror. Horrific things happen all the time and often no one does much about them. A recent example: "Dozens reported killed in east Congo as government, Rwanda-backed rebels trade blame." But Englishman Nicholas Winton saw the rise of Nazism in Europe, and he decided that, even if he could not do very much about it, he would do whatever he could to save lives. So he helped organize an effort to ship hundreds of Jewish children from Czechoslovakia to temporary foster homes in England. The film, starring Anthony Hopkins, tells the story slowly and poignantly. See also the 60 Minutes story. A quote from Winton: "I work on the motto that if something's not impossible, there must be a way of doing it." Bravo.

The Trek Trilogy: I don't know whether the main Star Trek film trilogy is better than Star Wars, but I certainly enjoy the films more. Recently my family rewatched those films, Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and Voyage Home, three of my absolute favorites. I appreciate the focus on reflective, ideas-based, literary writing and the space for the actors to develop their characters in concert. The interplay between William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy is alternately heartening and hilarious. If it often feels like Star Wars was written for twelve-year-olds, Trek mostly aims to entertainment adults, although my nine-year-old also seemed to quite enjoy the films. Live long, and prosper.

The Wind Rises: If you never thought animation can become serious art, watch The Wind Rises, the tragic and inspiring and whimsical 2013 Japanese film by Hayao Miyazaki. It's about a Japanese aeronautical engineer who loses love and finds it again and who strives to build the crafts of his dreams even as the Japanese war machine threatens to turn his work to destruction. Maybe the best animated film, ever; certainly on the list.

Time Machine: When I was a child, I hated The Time Machine. The dystopian vision bothered me, as did the death of the protagonists's friend at the hands of cannibals. As an adult, I more-enjoyed the lively writing, the story told largely from the setting of a dining room, and the ideas with which the story grapples. The notion of class warfare at the heart of the story is, of course, complete balderdash. Yet this book properly sits on the shelf of classics.

Superman: The two Richard Donner Superman films remain classics of the genre, and Christopher Reeve is perfect. However, to me, turning Lex Luthor and co. into semi-comedic side-kicks diminishes the tension. And the time-travel device still bugs me, as it undermines the stakes of the story. Yet there is so much to love about these movies, starting with the wrenching choice of Superman's father on Krypton to send his son alone through the galaxy.

Juror #2: This film, written by Jonathan Abrams, directed by Clint Eastwood, and starring Nicholas Hoult, involves a moral conundrum. Would you do the right thing even at great personal cost? To me the story felt contrived, but it gets into the emotional power of personal bias.

Ordinary Angels: At first I thought I would not much like the film because it seemed to excuse an alcoholic woman pushing herself into a family situation that is none of her business. But the film doesn't excuse that. The film is based on the true story of Sharon Stevens's efforts to raise funds for a girl needing a liver transplant. In this time of political turmoil, I found some respite in this story of people coming together to make life better for someone.

Silent Running: This 1972 film holds up pretty well in terms of its sci-fi CGI. But jeez it is dark. The idea is that the people of Earth have totally destroyed their forests and wild spaces, and the only remaining forests lives in domes on space ships. But then the company that owns the ships decides to recall them and destroy the forests. What's a conservationist to do? There is, of course, nothing about this that is remotely plausible. Still, I appreciated various aspects of the film.

Three with Neeson: I admit I'm a sucker for Liam Neeson action films. Taken remains the best. In Absolution, Neeson plays an aging gangster with brain degeneration who finally grows a conscience and tries to help a girl forced into sex slavery. Grim. Some interesting dream sequences. Ron Perlman joins! In In the Land of Saints and Sinners, Neeson plays an aging hitman who, in helping a little girl, ends up in the sights of a terrorist Irish gang. In The Marksman, Neeson plays an aging rancher on the Arizona boarder who ends up caring for a child on the run from a murderous cartel. This film portrays breaking the law, whether by buying guns illegally or transporting an "illegal" immigrant, as potentially moral.

Kaufman: Andy Kaufman was a comedic genius. Here is his first and later appearance on Carson (Elvis!) and his first appearance on SNL. Thank you very much.

Tidbits:

Sparks have out a couple new songs, Do Things My Own Way and Drowned in a Sea of Tears. Good stuff.

Superbob tells the charming story of a socially awkward superhero trying to break free from his bureaucratic prison to find love. It has some delightfully funny scenes.

Astrid, the French cop show, remains one of my favorites of the genre as I finished its fourth season.

I enjoyed the third season of Reacher, although the first seasons remains the best.

Free State of Jones tells an important and difficult chapter of American history in the aftermath of the Civil War.

I again loved watching the film Passengers, a beautiful (and sometimes terrifying) love story in space.

A couple of okay-not-great sci-fi films are Upside Down and James Versus His Future Self.

Heath Ledger creates one of the great all-time villains as the Joker in Dark Knight.

The 1981 version of Clash of the Titans holds up surprisingly well despite its sketchy CGI; it reminds me that I hate the caprice of the Greek gods.

I saw the Swedish prog-metal band Opeth in concert and, surprisingly, really loved their show despite the "death growls." The singer has an excellent "normal" voice, and the band's music has the complexity I tend to like.

Arthur the King is equal parts about a dog and an endurance race. A sick dog follows around a team of racers. Here's my question: If they loved the dog so much, why did they finish the race before getting the dog medical treatment?

Conan offers some surprising meditations on the pitfalls of hedonism and the allure of cults.

The Sandlot has a lot of elements that would not fly in a children's movie today, including children chewing tobacco and a boy forcibly kissing a girl. There's a nice lesson in the end about not making assumptions about people and learning from our elders.

Unstoppable is a recent film, and Rudy is an older one, about a young man driven to athletic achievement. You Gotta Believe is another sports story, this one involving a father's illness and mild religious themes.

The Substance is very strange and gross. But it does offer some interesting reflections on images of beauty and the dangers of dependency on social approval.

I don't know how much of The Apprentice is true, but I think it captures Trump's machiavellian spirit pretty well.

Gladiator remains wildly implausible. I mostly enjoyed the first film and mostly did not enjoy the second.

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