Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Film Review: Sorry. Hated. Her.

This year’s mainstream films seem to be worse than usual – with the exception of the powerful Fruitvale Station (which is unfairly not getting much award buzz) and the charged and brilliantly-acted Philomena (which is getting some.)

Everyone’s talking about Her, about a guy falling in love with a computer operating system. When I saw the poster with dozens and dozens of awards noted already, I figured there must be something to it. 126 excruciatingly long minutes of it. This movie ought to get a special Oscar for the Most Long-Winded Film of the Decade. I nominate Joaquin Phoenix for the least appealing, most awkward, least convincing actor of the year. I suggest that director Spike Jonze fire his editor – who was clearly asleep on the job. And someone ought to check why the writer – oops that’s Spike Jonze as well – repeated himself endlessly.

This was, to be as generous as I possibly can, a script that might have supported a short film for a high school senior film class. This was a short story diluted and expanded into a pale and ponderous saga. This film sucks.

Phoenix is so slug-like that only a digital program could love him. We have him delivered in every single shot – either a close-up of his pouting puss or a longer view of him walking uneasily towards the camera, over and over again. This movie has no redeeming social value. It has no new idea. It has Amy Adams, but so does every other film in the last year or two. It has Scarlett Johansson – or rather it has her voice. I would rather have spent this 126 minutes that are lost forever at the dentist office. At least my dentist is sincere and attractive and the pain only lasts for an hour.

Danforth Art Museum: Winfred Rembert & Jacob Lawrence

I visited the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts for the first time this past weekend. It was “established as a grass roots organization in 1975 by a committed group of citizens,” and it feels just like a peoples’ museum, serving the limping industrial towns of the area.

I saw two powerful exhibitions, visual life narratives, that I recommend very highly. The smaller show features silk-screen print reproductions by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) of his original gouache paintings series from 1941 called The Legend of John Brown. The paintings are too fragile to exhibit anymore and so he was commissioned to revisit them in silk-screen. He calls his style "dynamic cubism” and bases it on the sights and colors of Harlem. The captions accompanying the stream of images tell the life story of the abolitionist John Brown with all its intensity and violence.

The paintings of Winfred Rembert (1945 --) filled the exhibition rooms with decorative and brawny designs painted on carved and tooled leather. Using glaring whites and startling bright colors on this unique “canvas,” Rembert references his tumultuous life from his Southern childhood to prison time spent picking cotton on a chain gang (where he learned to work leather) to his activism in the Civil Rights Movement. To learn more about his life, check out the film All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert, which, I just learned, won a prize in the film festival of my local town. It’s online free here.

Both of these African-American artists use their art and words to tell stories that are important to preserve and compelling to observe. Both build on bold compositions: Lawrence’s work is strong and solid, while Rembert’s patterned work employs fascinating perspectives. The shows are up at the Danforth until February 23. Entrance fees are modest and there are many discounts listed on their website. Parking seems plentiful. There is no reason to miss the chance to see such fantastic work.