The Crip Camp provided teens with disabilities a chance to join the “Woodstock generation” in an inspired summer camp environment that eliminated the barriers that had limited their lives: protective parents, separate schools, social ostracization. After meeting each other, they formed life-long bonds around courageous and witty activism. We watch the community go from the isolation of the 50s, through the struggle for the 504 legislation, and on to the famous 1990 crawl up the steps of the Capitol to win the ADA. This exhilarating film is the first documentary from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. Enthusiastically recommended.
Circus of Books is a genuinely interesting film that engages us in its unique story, while leaving too many contradictions unexplored. In 1982, a religious woman and her genius husband, Karen and Barry Mason, “accidentally” become the owners of a West Hollywood gay porn store that served as the gay male hub from the flowering of the liberation movement through the AIDS pandemic. They closed it and retired after 35 years.
Directed by the couple’s daughter, Rachel Mason, the film fails to challenge Karen on her pretense to holiness as she not only sells but also produces this porn (with a surprisingly charming Jeff Stryker, no less); on her claim never to look at the wall of dildos that are their bestsellers; and on her alliance with Larry Flynt, portrayed here as a pure freedom fighter. Karen frames the whole of her career as a small business venture, in a way that privileges the structure over the content. We’d like to know how Barry’s genius (he invented dialysis equipment to help his dad) evaporated into an ever-smiling sidekick to Karen’s big personality. And what about the secrets and lies underpinning their ostensibly standard nuclear family. How the hell did they keep their ownership of this well-known store from their children? When one son, who appears to be rather numb, comes out, Karen freaks out in a spasm of hypocrisy. In the end, she redeems herself by becoming a major player in PFLAG – the parental support and education group.
I certainly recommend this film for it describes, as they say, ordinary people doing something that, in their own terms, is quite extraordinary. But I moderate my praise with a sense that the narrative skips too lightly over deep and convoluted realities.
Harry Belafonte chose to produce this captivating, potent film (1970) of Bernard Malamud’s story The Angel Levine as his come-back after a decade-long absence from movies. He stars alongside the excellent Zero Mostel (as the elderly impoverished Morris Mishkin) and the magnificent Yiddish stage actress Ida Kamińska (as Mishkin’s dying wife.) Belafonte plays the Jewish Angel Levine, or rather an apprentice angel who, in order to earn his wings, needs to convince the exhausted tailor Mishkin to believe in him. The two men grapple with issues of race, love, ethics, and friendship as the Angel tries to overcome Mishkin’s skepticism.
Take one of the greatest writers in English (Jane Austen); select her feistiest and most complex heroine (Emma); emphasize the comedy and the emotional transformation; film in really ornate grandiose estates; add in a scintillating cast that includes Bill Nighy and Miranda Hart and voila! – you’ve got a captivating film.
Just Mercy: Bring a hanky for this gripping torn-from-the-headlines story about a young Black lawyer (Jordan) leaving Harvard to fight wrongful convictions in Alabama. He meets a prisoner who has been framed (Foxx) for the murder of a young white woman and is now sitting on death row. The Black community understands, as one character says, that in the eyes of the criminal “justice” system, they are “Guilty from the moment you born.”
How can the Academy include a lightweight “Marriage Story,” and snub “Just Mercy” for Best Picture? Foul!
This South Korean film won the Golden Globe’s Best Film in a “foreign” language. The director Bong Joon Ho gave such a cool 1 minute acceptance speech that I’ve linked to the clip below. Parasite is all about class war and the unbridgeable divide between employer and employee. It highlights how poor people end up screwing each other over crumbs, while the rich are blind to their lives, even when their workers are quite literally up to their ears in sewage. The one burst of violence didn’t put me off. The painful upstairs / way, way downstairs visuals are muscular.
Greta Gerwig's enthralling Little Women is a creative retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s book, incorporating a ton of flashbacks and hugs. I welcomed the emphasis on Jo March as a writer trying to sell her work: her doubts, her process, her setbacks, the moment she holds her first book in her hands. Other than Laura Dern as the mother, the acting is strong. Gerwig has given the sisters a decidedly 20th C consciousness about the role of women, but when Jo sells her hair for money for the family, their shock is every dyke’s delight. Highly recommended, but bring tissues.
I needed that. Lightweight, witty, ornate – and everyone seems poised to live happily ever after. There’s romance, intrigue, royals, and delicious snark between Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) and Isobel Merton (Penelope Wilton). Lucy’s entry (Tuppence Middleton) – with kisses for Tom (Allen Leech) – hints of a welcome sequel on the horizon.
Now here’s a documentary to see, indeed. Molly Ivins started her life of raising hell by resisting her rich authoritarian father. ‘I remember my dad and his friends sitting around fixing the price of oil.’ Later she said, “My teenage rebellion lasted 35 years.” Six feet tall and a devoted intellectual, her young years reading in her bedroom well prepared her to be a rebellious journalist who splintered glass ceilings and spoke truth to power. Her hilarious wit – unfortunately fueled by heavy drinking – and the confidence privileged kids inherit, combined to make her a sterling, popular syndicated journalist and author.
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