Professional Amateur

Every act of a child's life is an act of bravery. Their first steps, their first kiss, their first appearance at a cool kid’s party. It's all new, and it's all harrowing.  As we grow into adulthood, it's easy to forget the bravery of youth. Bo Burnham remembers.

In his debut feature, Burnham highlights and champions the bravery that undergirds every waking moment of a teen’s life with a film that's as sweet as it is cringy, heartwarming as it is sad, and funny as it is sobering. It's a film that aims not just to chronicle the life of a youth of today, but to understand it.

The Post brought me to the verge of tears.  A movie about a newspaper deciding whether or not to print the Pentagon Papers made me well up with tears. It was a strange moment. It may not happen to you when you see this movie (and you most definitely should) and I'm pretty sure it didn't happen to any of the people who watched it in the theater with me, but it very well could. And that's incredible.

To call it a “movie about a newspaper” is beyond an understatement, though, because The Post is essential cinema. Its arrival is almost too timely; a movie about the power and value of the free press released during a time when that very same power and value is mocked daily by the sitting U.S. President -- tune in to the Fake News Awards on January 17th -- couldn’t be more on the nose. And yet, its laser accuracy is what makes this movie capital-I important. A story about a supremely qualified woman having to fight not to be questioned, talked over, and belittled is important right now. A story about risking your livelihood, your reputation, and your freedom to expose the truth is important right now. A story about exemplifying what it truly means to serve the people is important right now. And who better to tell it than Spielberg the quintessential American director.

What Spielberg does in this movie is nothing short of masterful. I’m gonna be honest, I sometimes forget how great Steven Spielberg is. It's not because he hasn't released anything great recently (this decade alone he has Tintin, Lincoln, and Bridge of Spies). And it's not that he's been inconsistent. In fact, he’s been so consistent that I took him for granted, until I sat down to watch this thing and it floored me. Only Spielberg could make a period drama about the Washington Post feel like a heist movie. Every scene ripples with energy and momentum. It's rhythmic and graceful, and then it's tense and gripping. It’s a movie where a ringing telephone silences a room like a gunshot could only ever dream of. A movie where a push-in on and actor's face makes a line hold thrice the weight. A movie where the White House is shot like an evil lair and Richard Nixon its scheming villain. There's even a scene that's a teaser for a movie that came out 40 years ago and it works as well as Nick Fury showing up at the end of The Avengers.

The Post is such an embarrassment of riches that I haven't even mentioned the performances yet. And there are a lot of them. Be aware that every white person is in this movie. If you can name a living, breathing Caucasian actor, they are in this movie, and if they aren't, they must have died and you haven't heard yet.

Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian is yet another confirmation that he’s a straight-up, no-qualifiers great actor. Bradley Whitford, Tracy Letts, and Michael Stuhlbarg have now each had a memorable performance in at least two of this year's Best Picture hopefuls. And then you get to Streep and Hanks.

Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee embodies the entire spectrum between pleasant and prickly, but never loses the audience’s favor because he is driven by a righteous purpose one can't help but admire. Opposite him, Meryl Streep, whose Kay Graham has the film’s only true arc, carries the weight of an entire industry on her shoulders. She's introduced to us as timid and apprehensive, surrounded by men who “know what's best for her”, but before our eyes, she ascends to her rightful place as a courageous leader, a respected decision maker, and a confident woman. A scene where her character walks through a crowd of women who gaze upon her with wonder may as well be a live shot of the audience in the theater.

Superheroes never die. At least not for long. Whether in the comics or in the movies, they leave this world just long enough for us to contemplate what the world (our world and the fictional world they inhabit) would be like without them. To examine the haunting ramifications of a Gotham without Batman, or a New York without Spider-man. And then they're back! They return, miraculously, (gloriously!) to assuage our fears and let us know that there are constants in the world: the sun always rises, there's always money in the banana stand, and our heroes will always be there to save the day.

LOGAN is famously Hugh Jackman's final go around in his massively popular portrayal of the X-Men’s most troubled hero Wolverine. Having starred as Wolverine for nearly 20 years, Jackman has become, for many, the face of the character. When you think of Wolverine, you probably imagine him in his classic yellow and blue costume, but underneath that pointy-eared mask, I’ll bet Jackman's face is the one you see.

In his final turn (spoiler alert), Jackman's Wolverine dies. It's a rather grisly death -- perhaps befitting of the famously grisly violence the character is known for -- but also a noble one. Logan dies selflessly, in an effort to protect someone he’s grown to love, in spite of himself. He dies as the person he, and the people around him always wanted him to be: a man unafraid to love, unafraid to sacrifice. He dies a hero.

Though his death is powerful in its own right, it's even more powerful in what it represents. Logan's death is not only the end of Wolverine, but the end of the X-Men (at least in this continuity). He’s the last of Charles Xavier's students, nearly as old as the man himself. His death is also a symbolic gesture. Logan dies to make way for the future, to allow the new mutants to escape to a safe haven, where perhaps they'll grow up to be better than those that came before. This goes for both the in-story universe and our own reality. With Fox set to move forward with a New Mutants movie, his death is also a real-life passing of the torch to new actors who will inhabit the X-Men universe.

Killing Logan (and Professor X) is a rather bold move for Fox. Sure, they’ll probably recast Wolverine down the road, but for now it has a sense of finality that you don't often get in these movies. The studios are often quite hesitant to kill-off their heroes. Batman's death in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was a fake-out. Superman died in BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, but the ending heavily implied that he will return (because of course he will). The Marvel Cinematic Universe has yet to even fake the death of one of their heroes. Even the one beloved character they did kill-off (Clark Gregg's ubiquitous Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.) was brought back on TV. But what is it that the studios are afraid of? Losing out on high-profile actors? Limiting story potential by weakening their stable of characters? Perhaps they’re just continuing the comic industry's practice of keeping characters around in perpetuity. Or maybe they're babying us as viewers, because they don't think we can handle the loss. But we can.

That's one of the other constants in life that I forgot to mention above: everyone dies. Everyone in the world experiences loss at some point, and we find a way to soldier on. We can find a way to do that with our heroes, too, because one of the things we learn when we lose someone is that death is not the end. People die but they leave behind memories, lessons they’ve taught, stories they’ve told, mountains they’ve climbed. People live on through their legacy. In Logan, even before his actual death, when he was presumed dead by most of the world, Logan had a legacy. The comic books told one story, while people like the Reavers and Xander Rice told another. His death created a new legacy. Laura, whom he dies to save, will remember him as few others did, and she will tell his story, and continue his legacy for years to come.

There's a scene at the very end of LOGAN that sticks with me. Logan has died, and a funeral has been given for him. The young mutants who survived the final showdown walk away from his grave, but Laura turns back to make an adjustment. She reaches down to tip over the cross that marks Logan's final resting place so that it's no longer a cross, but an X. Some people online found the moment cheesy, but for me, it was the perfect touch to end the movie. It wasn't just a moment of fan service, it was Laura saying that a mutant lived and died here. It was an acknowledgement that despite his flaws, he died a hero.

Watch an episode of ATLANTA and you’ll get the feeling that something’s slightly off-kilter. At times, it’s like waking up one morning and finding the grass to be a different shade of green than it was the day before, though no one seems to notice.

But you do.

In ATLANTA, Donald Glover seems to notice, and he wants you to notice too. Which is why his world is populated with strange characters like the mysterious, Nutella-sandwich-making bus passenger who drops knowledge and disappears into the woods without further explanation. Or the groupie cop whose claim to fame is arresting Gucci Mane. They’re something we’ve seen before, but not quite like this. And while humorous, they each speak to a particular social phenomena present in modern life (i.e., fake wokeness and social media posturing).

Donald Glover’s ATLANTA is not the Atlanta you or I might know, or the one Lil Jon and Big Boi call home, but it’s something close to it. This Atlanta is full of quiet moments of existential contemplation over glowing boxes of lemon pepper chicken wings which make for a show unlike any other on TV. Glover described the show in an interview as “Twin Peaks for rappers” and you’d be hard-pressed to find a tagline more fitting. Much like Twin Peaks, ATLANTA is a show where you think you know what’s going on, until you realize you don’t, and that it’s better that way.

The story of Glover’s “Earn”, Brian Tyree Henry’s “Paper Boi,” and Lakeith Stanfield’s “Darius” is one you may believe you’re familiar with, but oh, how wrong you are. Where most shows would be about the trio’s rise to stardom, ATLANTA seems to be less about climbing up out of rock bottom, and more about simply finding a more comfortable place to sit while you’re down there. It’s about learning to give enough of a shit to scrape by.

Take, for example, Earn’s unusual relationship with the mother of his child, (Zazie Beetz’ “Van”) who isn’t currently dating him, but allows him to live in her apartment. Where most men in his situation would be making efforts to win her back, Earn’s just figuring out how to do enough to secure a spot in her bed each night – and doing a poor job of it. He’s exactly the type of corny, good-for-nothing dude that he jokes on Van for dating.

Even Paper Boi isn’t your standard TV dream chaser. Paper Boi will tell you he is a drug-dealer first and foremost. Rap isn’t a career to him, it’s a side hustle; it’s supplemental income. “Ain’t no money anywhere near rap” he says matter-of-factly in the pilot episode. It’s something, he, Darius, and Earn all know to be true, but why not give it a shot anyway.

The show is something new, strange, and specific, but also familiar, and that’s where it works. We’ve all met the neighborhood dude who got bagged for public intoxication for drinking a measly two beers (“they was the big ones, though”). We all know the eccentric homeless man with an oddly legitimate side hustle. And we’ve all got that legendary hometown grub eatery that we’ve been praying to get plugged in at. We recognize these types of people, places, and scenarios from our own lives, but Glover shows us what they’re like in Atlanta. His Atlanta. An Atlanta we’ve never seen before and can’t wait to see more of. Where else on TV will you get to see a rifle-toting Quavo starring as the local coke plug (the same type of plug he’d likely run off on in his music)?

To say I decided to finally check BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR off my list for any other reason than the one you’d expect from a 22 year-old male watching a movie about French lesbian lovers would be a lie. So I won’t. But though that reason was certainly the one that piqued my interest, it was not the one that grabbed my attention. What pulled me close and held me there was the patience of the storytelling, the intimacy of the cinematography, the delicacy of the character construction, the authenticity of the romance, and the intricacies of the performances.

Abdellatif Kechiche’s film, the story of a 15 year-old girl discovering love--discovering herself-- is engaging because it doesn’t cut corners. Adele’s (the aforementioned 15 year-old girl) journey from her first decision to act on her feelings for boys, the development of her curiosity in girls, and the exploration of both, is slow, measured, and feels real. Adele Exochapolous’ performance as Adele truly captures the nervous energy and intoxication of teenage romance in a way I’ve never quite seen before. Her tremendous capacity for non-verbal expression carries her character throughout the film. Something as simple as a shift in her gaze communicates so much of what’s going on behind her eyes. Even in silence, she is anxious, eager to please, uncomfortable, excited, fascinated, and most of all: in love. 

And that love develops carefully. Her ultimate love interest (Lea Seydoux as Emma) shows up only twice in the first forty minutes or so. Her first appearance is extremely brief, but effectively plants the seed of Adele’s attraction, and that seed is given ample time to grow. Many directors would have the two young lovers wrestling each other’s clothes off before the first hour is complete, with Emma whisking Adele away into a crowd-pleasing lesbian pleasure-dome, but Kechiche allows the two to become truly attached at an authentically human pace. Because though you can see the adoration and desire in Adele’s eyes from early on, the film is careful to remember that this is her first sensual experience with a woman--aside from a bewildering kiss or two. By the time they take to the bedroom, you believe that Adele is truly ready, that the older, more experienced Emma didn’t take advantage of Adele’s youth, eagerness, and naivete, 

The oft-discussed sex scenes in (again, the film’s selling point,as far as I’m concerned, though I suspect others would agree) are sweaty, breathy, and unhurried. Simultaneously, aggressive and tender. These scenes weren’t shot as male-gaze-wish-fulfillment, but shot with respect for the give and take of carnality. The two leads tugged at, squeezed, and caressed each other. They gasped in anticipation, and collapsed flat on the mattress in ecstasy. While not at all short, neither were they gratuitous. Though I’ve never witnessed an actual bout of lesbian sex, I was able to recognize a sincerity in the lovemaking: the exploration of a partner’s body, and the desire to satisfy.

When I think of the way the visual composition of the film, intimacy is the word that comes to mind. Most of the shots were filmed high and tight, showing shoulders and above, and not much background. A film shot mostly in closeups runs the risk of overusing the technique, but this film finds real use for it. The camerawork communicates something about passionate love: the desire--the need--to be close to one another. During a scene where Adele and Emma share a park bench, you aren’t watching it as a fly on the wall, an outsider looking in, but through the eyes of the two lovers. The personal nature of the cinematography reveals the subtleties of the performances: Emma’s delight and amusement as seen through her smirks, the uneasiness,embarrassment, and bashfulness on Adele’s face as her gaze false away. Seeing the characters from just a foot away shows the audience how they bond together, and allows us to bond with them, as individuals, and as a couple.