Still "Dancing with the Birds"

Hello AGAIN!

I am taking this day off as a mental health day and am doing my best to write AS MANY OF THE THINGS as I possibly can and oh man I'm loving it.  I have missed having the time, energy, and cognitive ability to write these last few months as deep parenting-induced sleep deprivation set in, but thanks to Husband, sleep training, a Child who is responsive to sleep training, and my ability to set my own schedule, I actually have all three of those crucial ingredients at the same time!

This is not the first, nor do I suspect will it be the last, rewatching post.  But the workhorse movies that can be watched over and over deserve to be celebrated for the immense amount of emotional labor they do (this also goes to the TV shows that tolerate being heavily rewatched).

Lately our first Child has gotten back into watching "Dancing with the Birds" (2019), and I am here to declare emphatically that this movie is a precious gem and I insist that everyone watches it.

I know I'm going to risk repeating myself, but seriously: this movie is gentle, beautiful, sweet, child-friendly, AND educational.  What more can we ask for in these trying times?

Lately, I've been particularly appreciating: 

• The subtleties of the masterful music choices to accompany each bird.  The lilting guitar as the flame bowerbird begins his courtship dance and the castanets as his dance gains confidence?  The crescendo of horns while the lance-tailed manakin does his perch bounces?  The swing in the music as the superb bird of paradise prances in his semicircle around his would-be mate?  Every second is perfection!

• The cute disgruntled noises made by the jilted Guianan cock-of-the-rock who over and over again is not chosen.

• The confident, matter-of-fact, and inquisitive female birds, and especially the building enthusiasm of the female lance-tailed manakin as she dances in response to the male.

• The ability of the final scene of the Carola's parotia dancing to T. Rex's "Cosmic Dancer" to still destroy me.  Every damn time!  It is so good!!

What an amazing feat to make a film that is so infinitely charming, and whose details continue to enfold the more you watch it.  This is such a jewel of a movie.  It still gets an enthusiastic 5.

{Heart}

Bananas for "Barbie"

Hey Barbies!

Let's talk about the most talked-about movie in the recent history of movies: "Barbie" (2023).

First and foremost: Seeing this movie was a goddamn delight.  I went with a family member on a Wednesday night at one of my favorite local movie theaters, and despite being well into the movie's run, the theater was still pretty packed with an enthusiastic and responsive audience.  It was peak movie-going, and I drank in every drop.  It was so much fun and an immense morale boost hopefully signaling the gradual yet progressing end to my hiatus from movie theaters.  This is the fourth movie I've seen since my first child was born, and regaining this part of myself is an exhilarating gift.

So now let's dive in!  

Spoilers ahoy, so DO NOT read further until you've seen it!

DON'T DO IT.

...Okay so:

"Barbie" is a spectacle in the absolute ultimate, best sense of the term.  It's funny, it's brightly colored, it's dynamic, it's inventive, it's exquisitely playful.  It feels, I imagine, like a trip on a pleasant hallucinogen.  There are times where it loses its coherence a bit and it's not clear exactly what's happening or where we're going, but it's so interesting and fun that it doesn't really matter.  There are songs!  There is dancing!  Like sprinkles on an already overloaded sundae, there are little cameos from accessories or side characters in the Barbie universe that inject little jolts of nostalgic childhood recognition (I remember those rollerblades!).  It induces a bubbly, delirious joy.  This is a rollercoaster where it's enjoyable to just strap in and lose yourself--let the ride do its thing.

The film's incisive social commentary is arguably at its most satisfying in the form of its asides, clever song lyrics, excellent casting decisions, and funny jabs at the bullshit of sexism.  That little speech in the all-women Supreme Court about how reason and emotion actually enhance each other rather than undermine each other?  I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.  

All that to say: I was enthralled before the opening credits concluded.

I mean that opening sequence sending up "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968)??  It is at once so deliciously silly, instantly eliciting giggles, but also a deeply satisfying reappropriation of Stanley Kubrick and a flick on the ear of the invisible chorus of self-satisfied men who worship his work without taking stock of its frank misogyny*, and also so god damned meatily thought-provoking even without its cinematic allusions: Imagine the paradigm shift for little girls in the transition from baby dolls, where the child imagines herself as a caregiver, to the Barbie doll, where the child imagines herself as the woman, the object at the center of her imagination!  AMAZING.

Admittedly, I found that there are some crucial turning points where the theme of women's empowerment is more explicit that I found to be less successful than the movie as a whole.  For example, the premise that the Barbies are liberated from their Ken-y brainwashing simply by learning of the dissonance of women's roles under patriarchy didn't quite cut it.  Are we saying that naming the dissonant and impossible-to-satisfy expectations of women solves the problem of internalized sexism?  Is that the message?  That it's just... sufficient to speak aloud the completely contradictory and often asinine rules society imposes on women to then be liberated from those rules?  This criticism of patriarchy is only the most superficial of starting points, and it is nowhere near harsh enough.  It's not enough to point out that patriarchy is hollow, self-contradicting, and pathetic.  It is definitely those things, but it is also merciless and deadly.  Patriarchy must therefore not only be mocked, but smashed.  I hate to feel like a punch was being pulled at this moment, but that's how that moment landed for me.

Which is not to say you should change anything about the Ken battle-and-dance-off sequence.  Don't you dare touch that.  It's the absurd delight high point of the movie.

I am literally giggling just looking at this image.  Perfection!!

Another moment that bumped me is Rhea Perlman's line, "A mother stands still so her daughter can see how far she's come."

I can see how this would be meaningful for a lot of people with a lot of different mother/daughter relationships and I don't want to take that away from anyone, but I don't buy that statement and I don't like it.  It still pits women against each other--in this case, mothers and their daughters--when really, don't we yearn to walk alongside our mothers?  Women don't need to measure themselves against the distance they cover that their mothers could not, because that still puts women in a position of competition with and comparison against other women.  Can't we all just lovingly and supportively accompany each other as far as we each can go, together?

While some of the moments of gravitas in which characters comment on the travails of womanhood, relationships between women, and mortality as a woman in modern society have their weaknesses, the final moment when Barbie decides to become a real human woman, after that breathless and gorgeous montage of women across all stages of life and in all states of emotional exultation, that "Yes", is absolutely beautiful.

In summary, it's perhaps fitting that my reaction to "Barbie" is a bit of a contradiction: I thoroughly enjoyed it as a movie-goer.  It is the perfect movie to be seen in theaters for a fun night out.  I love that it's resonating so much with people who feel celebrated and seen by it (and that it isn't with others and that it's prompted some viewers to finally take out the trash in their lives).  It is wonderfully thoughtful, well-executed, creative, and packed with content that deserves to be reflected on and processed.  It's impressive and so pleasurable how unabashedly and boldly it accomplishes all of these things.  It's an amusement park of a movie, but it's also mobilizing brain food.  And it also has its moments where reasonable and loving allies might diverge, where there might be more to accomplish.

I gave the movie a 5.  If you haven't already, go see it!

{Heart}

* = Look.  We all know I love "The Shining" (1980) (and a good allusion to "The Shining"), but the dude was an asshole.

Mastering The "Art and Craft" of Being Creepy for No Clear Reason

Hey everyone,

After writing my previous post about "The Jewel Thief" (2023), I realized I've actually watched several movies in the con artist documentary subgenre recently.  For example: "Art and Craft" (2014).

Contrary to "The Jewel Thief", which was interesting enough but ultimately limited by its somewhat formulaic structure, "Art and Craft" is in many ways a departure from the typical tropes of con artistry.  The story it tells is bizarre in ways that make it stand out as unique and memorable in a niche of films that, like any niche, can get a bit same-y.

The most dramatic and perplexing deviation from the usual patterns of this subgenre is that Mark Landis, the art forger who is the central figure of the film, doesn't con people for money.  It's clear he gets something out of fooling possibly dozens of arts institutions into displaying his falsified pieces because they believe the works are authentic, but it's not clear what that something is, exactly?  There is a skin-crawly aspect to contemplating what drives Landis that makes this movie both incredibly fascinating and unsettling.  I don't really want to be in this person's brain, yet "Art and Craft" beckons us to curiously wander around inside, seeking what makes Landis tick.

Furthermore, because Landis isn't technically breaking any laws--he only donates his forged art, never sells it--he is not being actively pursued by law enforcement.  Instead, seemingly the only or at least the primary person investigating, tracking, and trying to catch Landis is Matthew Leininger, who first detected Landis's duplicity while Leininger was working at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.  A clear parallel emerges between Landis's obsessive forgery and Leininger's obsessive quest to stop Landis, with both men's fixations driven by idiosyncratic motivations not even they may fully understand.

"Art and Craft" delves into Landis's life, including his family history and his current odd, isolated existence living in the apartment he shared with his mother until her death.  He also demonstrates several of his forging techniques with the blithe ease of a person showing off a collection of tchotchkes they take only a passing interest in.  Yet that blasé demeanor clearly belies an intensity of interest--both in creating extremely convincing forgeries and, likely, in being documented for his titular crafting of art--and is either a put-on or the byproduct, perhaps, of Landis's extensive psychiatric history.  

In fact, we not only learn about Landis's extensive history of psychiatric treatment and institutionalization in his early life, but also accompany him during several appointments with mental health providers and social workers, adding yet another layer of divergence from the usual path these films take.  Instead of the documentary casting Landis as some kind of psychopathic genius badass, as is so unfortunately common with these movies, "Art and Craft" reveals a surprising duality in Landis: he is at once extraordinarily talented at both fabricating artworks and, bafflingly, at fooling people into accepting them as real, but also is so inscrutable and seemingly fragile that it bends credulity that he has been as "successful" as he has.

But maybe the latter is also part of the con?  It's honestly impossible to know.

The final major difference between this film and others like it is the climactic confrontation: Instead of a flurry of police stings, confiscation of incriminating evidence, and court charges, "Art and Craft" reaches its climax at an exhibition of Landis's art that Leininger helped orchestrate.  Watching Landis circulate amongst the show's patrons and interact with Leininger is truly one of the most bizarre and awkward moments I've seen in a documentary in recent memory.  In the literal sense of the word, it is incredible.

So, if you're in the mood for an outside-the-box documentary about a wily con artist that will definitely keep you interested and ill-at-ease, please enjoy(?) "Art and Craft".

I gave it a 4, not because it's at all unsuccessful, but because it's the kind of movie I simultaneously respect and don't want to watch again.

{Heart}

Moderately Taken by "The Jewel Thief"

Hi friends,

I watched the documentary "The Jewel Thief" (2023) over the weekend and want to tell you a little bit (and ACTUALLY a little bit!) about it.

The movie details the criminal career of Gerald Blanchard, a prolific thief whose targets included banks, retail stores, and on at least one occasion a crown jewel from a European nation--lending this film its title.

As my life-long true crime fixation has transitioned away from the admittedly more gruesome, murder-y variety into generally less bloody corporate scandals and nonviolent con artistry, I've ended up watching several films like "The Jewel Thief".  I've found that these kinds of movies successfully scratch that morbid itch of mine with the added bonuses of: no one dies (typically... or at least *fewer* people tend to die?) and the very existence of the movies usually indicates that some kind of justice has occurred (even if it's the somewhat less satisfying version of justice in which the bad actors escaped meaningful consequences like jail time, but at least now we know they're terrible because we watched a movie documenting their terribleness...?).

I gave this movie a perhaps somewhat generous 4.  That's because, in the context of several other similar films, "The Jewel Thief" is perfectly competent, interesting, and engaging from beginning to end.  It further benefits from the unusual asset of a central figure who fastidiously documented all of his criminal undertakings on video, from the more banal petty thefts of his teenaged years to the more ambitious multiple bank heists of his adulthood.  We therefore remarkably get to see Blanchard's criminal life unfold through first-hand video footage over the course of the movie.

It gets a 4 yet not a 5 because, if you've seen movies like this before, there's ultimately nothing earth shattering about "The Jewel Thief".  Spoiler alerts (but again, not really if you've seen anything like this before): the guy was always into crime, the scale of his crimes escalated over time, there's cat-and-mouse stuff with law enforcement officials, there's the family member who's willing to plead ignorance about the criminal nature of their loved one's behavior despite their ignorance at best bending credulity, there are people questionably willing to praise the anti-hero's aptitude for crime as a twisted form of "genius", and even after that "genius" inevitably gets caught, he just can't help himself but continue with some version of criminality.  If you're into this stuff at all, you get the drill.  It's predictable yet interesting, low stakes enough to not be all that stressful or upsetting but high stakes enough to hold your interest.  

"The Jewel Thief" is a great true crime doc for a Friday night, should that strike your fancy.  You can watch it on Hulu!

{Heart}