Seth Harris

Short Film Showcase #2

Gregory Go Boom (2013)
Written & Directed by Janicza Bravo

This is another short film from director Janicza Bravo who brought us “Eat” from the first showcase. This short film won the award for the best short film at Sundance the year it was released but also drew the ire of some attendees who were uncomfortable with the picture. This is expected because Bravo intentionally makes awkward, painful dark comedies.

Movie Review – Woman at War

Woman at War (2018)
Written by Benedikt Erlingsson and Ólafur Egilsson
Directed by Benedikt Erlingsson

One of the biggest challenges of modernity is figuring out how to live a life while still fighting against an increasingly insidious and destructive system that is breaking down our environment. It’s becoming impossible to deny that the planet is under extreme duress and that environmental collapse is imminent in the next few decades if drastic changes aren’t implemented soon. How do we function in our jobs, with our families, and as part of communities while this grim specter of species doom hangs over our heads? Halla is a woman who has taken the defense of the environment to an extreme but now faces a choice that challenges who she has become.

Book Update – July-August 2019

Fiction

Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories by Brian Evenson

I have yet to read any of Brian Evenson’s novels, but I have enjoyed his short stories so far. His first collection, A Collapse of Horses was tremendous, but this volume is even better. He’s very confident in the work and can present multiple perspectives without ever being reductive about mental illness. There are quite a number of characters who could be considered mentally ill, but they never get presented as tropes. In “Room Tone” a young filmmaker is obsessed with getting the ambient noise of a filming space. However, the house he shot his movie in has a new owner that wants to be left alone. The director just can’t move past this and goes to extreme lengths to get his recording. In “Born Stillborn” a patient believes his psychiatrist is visiting him at night as he tries to go to sleep, asking the real questions. His daytime sessions are full of false questions with secret messages the doctor is sending. “Leaking Out” is a wonderfully simple horror tale about a drifter seeking refuge in an old house. The premise is classic, but the monster living in this place is nebulous and terrifying. “The Tower” is a dark fantasy apocalypse about what might be a vampire who comes to a scattered settlement of survivors. This story was one of my favorites and created such a fleshed-out world in so few strokes that it made me want to explore this world even more. “Lather of Flies is a mind-being horror story about a reclusive director’s lost film which goes to some fantastic places. This is one of the most substantial short story collections I’ve read this year, which says a lot because I’ve consumed some great ones.

Best of the 2010s: My Favorite Films of 2015

Mustang (Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven)
From my review:
Filled with humor and joy, Mustang is a timeless story. It transcends any particular religious or geographic specifics and conveys an experience that is felt by women across the globe at varying levels of intensity. Societies seem to have a preoccupation with controlling the will of their female citizens, based on a fear of loss of control. Director Erguven states firmly that this type of energy is impossible to contain, and through Lale, she tells a story that gives hope to those who may feel like they have no more freedom.

Movie Review – The Old Man and The Gun

The Old Man and The Gun (2018)
Written & Directed by David Lowrey

When I discovered the films of Robert Altman while in college, I found myself wanting to consume them all for the mood they created. The atmosphere of these pictures is leisurely with plots that never get overly complicated. What takes up the runtime are the characters, fully textured and realized as humans that don’t fall into the hero/villain tropes. This was a common theme in much of American cinema in the 1970s, slow-paced character-focused stories. David Lowrey and his crew manage to recapture that feeling so perfectly that this is a nostalgic film that could easily be mistaken as a picture from the late 1970s/early 80s.

TV Review – Best of All in the Family Part 3

Archie and the Editorial (Original airdate: September 16th, 1972)
Written by Don Nicholl and George Bloom
Directed by Norman Campbell

Gun violence and mass shootings are a fairly regular part of the cable news cycle at this point. Just this week three men who planned shootings in three separate states were caught by the authorities before they were able to act. It’s only a matter of time before we see another report about people out enjoying their lives, going to school, or shopping being gunned down by someone wielding highly powerful weapons. At the time this episode of All in the Family aired the nation. New York City, in particular, was experiencing an increase in violent crime that continued until the 1990s.

Movie Review – Sword of Trust

Sword of Trust (2019)
Written by Mike O’Brien & Lynn Shelton
Directed by Lynn Shelton

There’s a penchant these days for comedy films to rely on improvisation as a crutch, a means to extend the runtime by allowing actors to riff. The idea is that in editing the best takes will be cobbled together and thus there’s the comedy. This ignores the fact that actual good comedic movies are a synthesis of strong writing and actors who can interpret the material, adding their own personality to the picture. The most recent Ghostbusters film is an excellent example of this where the scripted bits are weak and the improv moments are most obviously filler. There are constant cuts to Kate MacKinnon hamming it up, seemingly unconnected to the events in the story. Improv does have a place in cinema, but it should be used sparingly and alongside a strong script, not as a way to stretch a weak story out.

Movie Review – Parasite

Parasite (2019)
Written by Bong Joon-ho & Jin Won Han
Directed by Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho is a filmmaker genuinely interested in issues of class and social structures. You can see that in his previous work, especially Snowpierce, Okja, and The Host, but there are elements of this in all his work. Parasite is the synthesis of all these ideas, a perfect summation of his thoughts on the class divide and human nature. This is a film made by a creator who is at the height of their confidence. Bong Joon-ho is clear-headed with a thorough understanding of the story they want to tell and the psychologies of the characters populating that narrative. It may sound grandiose to say this, but this is an example of about as close as we can get to having a perfect movie.

Movie Review – Birds of Passage

Birds of Passage (2018)
Written by Maria Camila Arias & Jacques Toulemonde Vidal, Cristina Gallego, and Ciro Guerra
Directed by Cristina Gallego & Ciro Guerra

Colombia is a Central American country that has sadly come to be associated with the cocaine industry of the 1980s. Lost in the greed and violence that came out of the black market drug trade were diverse and vibrant cultures. Birds of Passage follows a family of Wayuu, an indigenous people, who get caught up in the first sprouts of that brutal blight that came to Colombia because of wealthier countries’ desire for drugs. While this story takes place on the dusty plains and humid jungles, the core of the tale is something that is timeless and has been popping up in literature for centuries. Birds of Passage is in many ways Shakespearean, a tragedy fueled by greed with no foresight.

Movie Review – Beast

Beast (2017)
Written & Directed by Michael Pearce

Everything Beast is predicated on could become cliche so quickly in the hands of a lazy filmmaker. A serial killer is targeting teenage girls on the island of Jersey, England. The movie could be an investigative procedural, but it isn’t. There’s a dark romance between protagonist Moll and local poacher Pascal that could be something Twilight adjacent, but the director refuses to go there, though he will hint at it. What Beast ultimately reveals itself as is a dark psychological profile about a young woman coming into her own, shaking off the repressive elements of her middle-class upbringing and her label as a “damaged woman.”