Seth Harris

Movie Review – Roma

Roma (2018)
Written & Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Cleo is a maid in 1970s Mexico City, working at a home in the Colonia Roma neighborhood for a doctor and his family. The patriarch of the family leaves for a work trip to Quebec which is quickly revealed to be an excuse to leave his family. Cleo works to serve the family while living a private life beyond their gaze. She finds out she is pregnant after a series of dates with her new boyfriend, Fermin. He shows little interest in staying to gather her child and Cleo is left to reveal her condition to her employer. In the background, cultural and political strife in Mexico are unfolding, and from time to time these conflicts cross over into Cleo and her employers’ lives. Otherwise, Roma unfolds as an unassuming slice of life picture.

My Favorite Films I Watched in 2018 – Part 1

As always these are films I *watched* for the first time in 2018, not necessarily that were released this year. Part 1 contains #30 – 16.

30. Lean on Pete (2018, dir. Andrew Haigh)
From my review:
Charley has never really experienced love, except for that one short time with Aunt Margy. She truly loved him, and then they had to go away. So, when Charley meets Pete, a horse considered valueless, he wants to repay that love. Charley begins to see the beauty in Pete, old but still strong, full of opinions and not easily tamed. He wants to rescue Pete in the same way he needs someone to save him. No one’s coming for Pete, so Charley takes it upon himself without ever asking if anyone is coming for Charley. So often the rural corners of our nation are portrayed as the warm, moral centers, the “Heartland.” Director Haigh has no qualms pointing out how stark and lonely the landscape and its people can be, just as devastating as any urban nightmare conjured up.

Movie Review – The Rider

The Rider (2017)
Written & Directed by Chloé Zhao

Brady Blackburn was a rising star on the rodeo circuit until he suffers brain damage after being thrown from a bronco. He’s back home now, a metal plate in his head and bouts of nausea unsure of his future as a rider. In the meantime, his father and sister share a trailer with him struggling against poverty. Brady works through his pride and gets a job working at a local grocery store trying to keep the family afloat. However, always lingering in the back of his mind is this hunger to get back up on a horse again. He tests the waters by helping a couple of people break stallions they’ve recently purchased and feels the pull. Brady even saves up money and gets help from his dad to buy an Arabian named Apollo that he sees as a path to recovery and his future. But something inside Brady keeps telling him this dream may be over.

My Favorite Television I Watched in 2018

Here are the best shows I watched over the course of 2018.

Detroiters Seasons 1 & 2 (Comedy Central)
It’s always my luck to get into a show as soon as the network decides to cancel it. That is also true of the best thing I (re)watched on this list which you’ll see at the end. Detroiters is a show co-created by and starring Sam Richardson (Veep) and Tim Robinson (SNL). The series tells the story of best friends Tim and Sam who are running Tim’s dad’s advertising agency after his father ends up having a nervous breakdown and is committed. So the duo goes about creating advertisements for clients that aren’t something you’d see airing outside a local market. However, the show isn’t even really about the workplace; its strengths are the friendship between its two central characters and the highlighting the city of Detroit. The comedy here is not meant to shock you, but it also isn’t without an edge, it’s a wonderful balance you don’t find too often anymore. You can’t help but genuinely feel good after watching an episode.

My Favorite Documentaries I Watched in 2018

City of Gold (2015) – Directed by Laura Gabbert
I watched this film earlier in the year only to be shocked in July when the news came that food critic Jonathan Gold had died. In this documentary, we get to know the LA Times premiere food writer. There are interviews with the man himself as well as his family, coworkers, and the chefs he has brought into the spotlight. Gold was very well known for helping to promote small immigrant-owned businesses in the Los Angeles area. These entrepreneurs and little old grandmas speak about Gold with tears in their eyes, grateful for how his kind words brought them to a new level of success. While he is gone, his words and influence remain as vibrant as ever.

Movie Review – Cold War

Cold War (2018)
Written Pawel Pawlikowski & Janusz Glowacki (with collaboration from Piotr Borkowski)
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

In 1949, Wiktor Warski and two colleagues traveled across rural Poland recording the folk music of the peasants. Using these recordings, they open a music school where they audition youths to become part of a traveling repertoire that will highlight the vanishing old world culture of the nation. Wiktor is instantly smitten by Zula, a young woman who shows remarkable will. The two quickly get caught up in a love affair. As the students perform they gain acclaim and interest from the Communist Party who pressures them to write a song about Stalin in the style of Polish folk music. This begins a fracturing and leads Wiktor to plan a defection when they travel to perform in the Soviet sector of Berlin. From there Wiktor and Zula start a thirteen-year-long struggle, falling in and out of love, drawn to each other by some invisible force greater than themselves.

Movie Review – The Tale

The Tale (2018)
Written & Directed by Jennifer Fox

Jennifer Fox is a successful documentarian and film professor, in her 40s living in New York City. Life is great for her. Then her mother calls upset because she found one of Jennifer’s short stories she wrote when she was in middle school. She sends the story to her daughter who suddenly begins to recall the summer of her thirteenth year that she spent living with a horseback riding teacher, Mrs. G. A neighbor, Bill, was having an affair with Mrs. G and worked as a running coach to make sure Jennifer and the two other girls attending kept in shape. But Jennifer doesn’t remember what happened completely right and as she speaks with others her memories shift and change. She had thought she was fifteen at the time — the details of Mrs. G and Bill’s relationship blur. Also, most important of all Jennifer remembers having a relationship with Bill as well. The deeper she goes, the more she uncovers and clarifies.

My Favorite Music I Heard in 2018

Here are the songs that spent the most time on repeat for me on Spotify.

Suspirium – Thom Yorke

My Favorite Fiction Books I Read in 2018

As I did with non-fiction, here are the fiction books I read this year that I loved.

The Shadow Year – Jeffrey Ford
From my review:
The aspect of this novel that struck me the hardest was the strength of the narrator’s voice. Ford does an excellent job framing the story through the eyes of an adult man remembering the events. From the first pages, events flow in a dreamlike and hazy fashion. There are not many places where the author lingers in detail. Instead, we get the broad brushstrokes of childhood memory. Even better, the fantastic elements of the story are met with little fanfare by the children. They live at a point in their lives where monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural things are just as real and mysterious to them as the complicated relationships of their parents and the struggles of school.

Movie Review – Sorry To Bother You

Sorry To Bother You (2018)
Written & Directed by Boots Riley

Cassius Green is elated when he gets a job as a telemarketer for RegalView. He has some trouble though while trying to sell leatherbound books of nonsense nobody needs. An older coworker explains that Cassius needs to use his “white voice,” that voice white people think they are supposed to sound like; that voice with an air of relaxation and no worries. Suddenly Cassius becomes a power caller rocketing to a major promotion. Meanwhile, his friends and fellow telemarketers fight to form a union and demand better pay. Cassius begins selling contracts for WorryFree, a program that offers struggling families help with “lifetime labor contracts,” essentially slavery. As Cassius climbs higher and higher, he comes in contact with dangerously influential figures and learns the dark secrets planned for humanity.