Seth Harris

Movie Review – April and the Extraordinary World

April and the Extraordinary World (2013)
Written by Franck Ekinci & Benjamin Legrand
Directed by Christian Desmares & Franck Ekinci

April Franklin is a woman living in a world where history took a markedly different turn than our own. During the reign of Napoleon III, a scientist is charged with creating animal-soldier hybrids. He creates two hyperintelligent beings that escape and soon after the world’s greatest scientists and engineers begin disappearing. This impediment to progress leads to a mid-20th century where energy is still based primarily in coal and steam power. April’s parents and grandfather vanished years ago during a government crackdown, and she has been fending for herself alongside her genetically altered cat friend Darwin. The two uncover a plot to destroy humanity and the secret solution for the ultimate formula, a serum that would make all life impervious to harm.

Movie Review – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2013)
Written & Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour

In the decaying Iranian spot of Bad City, The Girl wanders through the night, a vampire clad in hijab and chador, feasting on the not so innocent denizens. Arash is a young man struggling to make ends meet, taking care of his heroin-addicted father who owes money to local drug dealer Saeed. Arash and The Girl’s paths meander around each other for a while before their fateful meeting. A connection is felt between them, and she withdraws, scared to feel connected to a human. No matter how far she runs, invisible forces are intent on bringing them together, weaving a story of comedy and tragedy.

Movie Review – The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant (2013)
Written & Directed by Clio Barnard

In a rundown northern England city, young teenagers Arbor and Swifty consistently find ways to get trouble whether it’s getting into fights at school or cursing out a parent. They cross a new line when they start stealing copper wire from local utilities and sell it to scrap dealer Kitten. Swifty finds himself drawn to the horses and Kitten owns and the scrap dealer can see the young man’s skill with the animals. Arbor feels the distance growing between him and Swifty, with the latter moving towards a better future than the deeply emotionally trouble Arbor seems capable of having.

Movie Review – The Great Beauty

The Great Beauty (2013)
Written by Paolo Sorrentino & Umberto Contarello
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

Jep Gambardella has just turned sixty-five and has spent decades in Rome as a journalist, mingling with an aging crowd of partygoers, washed-up celebrities, and wannabe artists. He’s suddenly forced to face reality when he learns that his first love, a slightly older woman he met as a teenager has died. Jep begins to reevaluate his idea of beauty and becomes lost in nostalgia for a time that may have never been at all. Along the way, he encounters the wealthy, and the holy all seem unable to answer his question or give him meaningful guidance.

Movie Review – Fruitvale Station

Fruitvale Station (2013)
Written & Directed by Ryan Coogler

On New Year’s Day 2009, Oscar Grant was on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train with his girlfriend and their friends returning home to Oakland after an evening of celebration. A prisoner who served time with Grant recognized him on the train, and a fight broke out. The train was stopped and Grant and several other men, but not the prison acquaintance, was pulled off. A tense argument ensued with the transit police which escalated to Grant being pinned to the floor, a knee driven into the back of his neck. As he was pinned an officer pulled his firearm and shot Grant in the back. The wounded man would be taken to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead later that morning. The officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, sentenced to two years, but was released after less than a year served.

Movie Review – Wadjda

Wadjda (2012)
Written & Directed by Haifaa al-Mansour

Wadjda is a ten-year-old girl living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and wants nothing more than to own her bicycle. She sets her eyes on a brand new one delivered to a neighborhood store, but both the cost and her culture get in the girl’s way of getting the bike. Wadjda starts making and selling mixtapes and bracelets to the other students at her school and even gets paid to help an older student sneak off with her boyfriend. At home, there is tension between her parents as Wadjda’s mother cannot have more children, so her mother-in-law has been searching for a second wife for Wadjda’s father. Add to this her mother’s dependency on a male driver to ferry her to and from a teaching position on the edge of the city, and it becomes pronounced how life for women in this culture is strewn with difficulties and oppression. Wadjda believes that if she can win a Koran recitation competition, she’ll have the money she needs to buy her dream bike.

Comic Book Review – The New Teen Titans Volume 9

The New Teen Titans Volume 9
Reprints The New Teen Titans (2nd series) #1-9
Written by Marv Wolfman
Art by George Perez, Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez, Romeo Tanghal, and Dan Jurgens

After a prolonged absence, Raven returns, but this time possessed by her dark father, Trigon. Before the Titans can truly react, Trigon has transformed New York City into a hellish kingdom for himself. To stop the mad demonic being and bring Raven back into her right mind it will take the return of Kid Flash and Lilith. Even with the defeat of Trigon the Titans still face peril when Lilith is revealed to have origins that tie her to the Titans of Myth. The team is led on an adventure into the vast, mythic realms where they will find a new member for the team and bring an era of this comic series to a close.

Movie Review – Force Majeure

Force Majeure (2014)
Written & Directed by Ruben Östlund

Tomas, his wife Ebba, and their two children are on a skiing vacation at a luxury resort in the French Alps. While eating lunch on the deck of a restaurant, they witness a controlled avalanche that suddenly becomes much scarier and looks to threaten their safety. Tomas runs leaving his family behind, but the incident turns out not to be dangerous. The rest of their trip is plagued by the fact that the patriarch abandoned his family in the face of potential death. This is exacerbated when Tomas’ old buddy Mats shows up with his much younger girlfriend, Fanni. Mats tries to defend his pal, but that creates friction in his and Fanni’s relationship. The two men suddenly find themselves questioning their masculinity and place as the “heads of their families.”

April 2019 Digest

Features
Blurry Visions: My Thoughts on the Leaked Avengers Endgame Footage
Best of the 2010s: My Favorite Films of 2011

TV Review – The OA Season 2

The OA Season 2 (Netflix)
Written by Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij, Damien Ober, Nicki Paluga, Dominic Orlando, Henry Bean, and Claire Kiechel
Directed by Zal Batmanglij, Andrew Haigh, and Anna Rose Holmer

Private Karim Washington is visited at his houseboat by a distraught Vietnamese grandmother. She hands him a photo of her granddaughter Michelle and explains that she is missing. Washington begins searching San Francisco and following leads about a mysterious game that teens are playing and which Michelle was involved with. The threads of this investigation lead our detective to Nina Azarova, a wealthy Russian expatriate with ties to a secretive tech developer. Meanwhile, Prarie, the young woman with a fantastic story from season one finds herself transported to this new dimension and placed in the body of Nina, herself having lived out an entirely different set of circumstances. Prairie is immediately confronted with familiar faces who also found their way across the multiverse to this reality. More is revealed about the nature of Prarie’s powers and the structure of these webs of reality leading her towards another brush with death and a whole new world opening up.