My Own Private Idaho (1991) Top 100

I remember being struck by the opening of My Own Private Idaho the first time I saw it. River Phoenix walked into the frame and I thought it was the most beautiful face I had ever seen. It wasn't the first thing that would knock me on my ass in this film. My Own Private Idaho was my first exposure to queer cinema, not gay cinema, but queer cinema, cinema that subverted cultural norms in uncomfortable ways but in that created affirming spaces for those of us on the margins. It was an awakening for me, not just in terms of art but in terms of what being queer meant and would mean for me.

Idaho is a remarkable juggling act, balancing a number of moods, themes, ideas, visuals, styles. It gets to some harrowingly dark places, some perversely kinky sexual explorations, and some truly joyous moments of glee. But at its heart is the story of a young, impoverished, queer man whose quest for love and community goes unanswered. While there is so much to love about this film, it is Phoenix in the most heart breaking performance I have ever seen who reaches into my gut every time I watch it. I remember not being to stop the tears during the camp fire scene. Phoenix's expression of "I really want to kiss you, man" before curling up into a ball was one of the most revealing and relatable deliveries I've seen in any film ever. Reeves is all rejection, denial, and tourism and was something I was overly familiar with as I had encountered men like him time after time, something I didn't know how to articulate but something frustrating my lived experience. Phoenix's quiet resistance to it made me think it could be possible to be who I wanted to be.

I think this is where Idaho gets to me the more I watch it, in the way it withstands the thundering hegemony. It isn't a triumph over it but a survival of it, and in that it speaks to the queer experience so powerfully. Yes sometimes I want the triumphant fantasy but perhaps more honestly I need the quiet survival of living in heteronormativity. And this is where some of the Shakespeare comes into it. Van Sant's merging of this narrative with his modernization of the Henriad plays is brilliant. We often see Prince Hal as the hero of his story but here we see a different side of that persona, one that is exploitative and disappointing. I mean in how we build our passion for that rich straight man who naturally lets us down by holding up his own privilege at our expense.

I wasn't familiar with Henry IV when I first saw this film so the story of young Scott Favor's turning his back on his rebellious years and embracing his privileged life was new to me. But there was something about the awkward anachronistic language, especially delivered in Reeves' clumsy affect, that grabbed me. Idaho was both fantastic allegory and documentary style realism. As I said, a big part of the film's revolutionary (and very queer) approach was to mix styles, the Shakespeare modernization, interview style recounting of real street hustlers' stories, emotive low budget indie film, all thrown together into one unique experience, an experience which subverts both. And the stories gel so well together as they take each other apart. As I mentioned, we see the Prince Hal character differently, but we also see the sad gay boy differently. Through all of this we are given something original.

"It's a fucked up face." And yet we see how beautiful that face is. Each time I watch My Own Private Idaho I see more in it than the last time. I imagine it will always offer me that.

My Own Private Idaho
Starring: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Richert, Chiara Caselli, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriski, James Russo, Jim Cavielzel
Writer/Director: Gus Van Sant

Clemency (2019)

Yes Alfre Woodard is one of those actors who is good in everything she does. But there are roles where she truly shines, and this is one of them. She has the kind of rich character which lets her truly shine. She is both restrained and powerful, interior and exterior here. She is a master and in Clemency she shows us how it is done.

Clemency is a character study basically. At its centre is a complicated woman with intersecting commitments and relationships. She is human and strong and vulnerable. She is in the middle of some very difficult moments and has to integrate all of that into her life. She is the kind of character that is just fascinating to watch especially in the hands of such an actor.

Director Chukwu brings a quiet sensibility to her story. She doesn't grandstand, she just lets her strong cast, with Woodard at the centre do what they need to do. And we get glimpses into the characters and their humanity which makes the film truly reach us. There is a lot of heavy stuff going on here and her approach to just let us sit with it is a powerful one.

Clemency
Starring: Alfre Woodard, Wendell Pierce, Aldis Hodge, Richard Schiff, Michael O'Neill
Writer/Director: Chinonye Chukwu

Oscar Nominated Shorts (2020)

Short films often impress me with just how much they can accomplish in so little time. They commonly present a richness that is missing from our current streaming video entertainment which has no limits by making us experience a story in one moment instead of drawing it out for so long. I was able to enjoy most of the Oscar nominated short films this year and here are my thoughts.

Live Action
Brotherhood
This Tunisian/Canadian film about a son reunited with his family is beautiful and tragic as it explores the way political divisions are dividing families in our current age. It captures what is often so powerful about short films, it tells its story succinctly yet powerfully, capturing a moment in time. The final shot features some of the best acting I've seen all year. 

Nefta Football Club
Another Tunisian (and French) film, this story has a humorous side as it follows two soccer loving boys who find a donkey (who has been trained to cross the border when listening to Adele's music) loaded with drugs and attempt to take him home. The humour belies the intersection of danger and innocence explored here, giving the film a seriousness despite the oddball nature of the plot.

The Neighbor's Window
This American film follows a couple who become obsessed with a young sexy couple they can see in a near by apartment window which brings them to face their own relationship and the trajectory of their lives. I found the film quite astute in the way it gets at our insecurities and how easy it can be to lose who we are in our race to keep up with life.

Saria
This story following two orphans touches on many themes including family, immigration, sexism, and abuse, all in its short run time. Its ending is gut wrenching, especially in light of it being based on a true story.

Une Soeur (A Sister)
This French film adds a different sort of element to the mix as we follow a woman on a date who calls
her "sister" but it turns out she calls emergency. She can't outright communicate so the operator has to talk in code. It gets more and more frightening as it moves along and grips us for the entire film.Reminiscent of one of last year's nominations, Mother, in numerous ways, Sister is tense and relevant.

Animated
Dcera (Daughter)
The animation style in Dcera is gorgeous, textured, and jumps off the screen as it tells the story of a woman reconnecting to her dying father. The film, in capturing it's complex story, also innovates its animation style, by involving a very lived in stop motion technique that makes the film feel like nothing else you've ever seen. Dcera is probably the most technically impressive achievement of the nominated films.

Hair Love
My personal favourite, this lovely, stylized tale of a daughter and father learning to take care of her hair is just gorgeous and inspiring. I love that it doesn't give into cliches and instead gives us something that is both powerful and inspiring. It is just beautiful to watch.

Kit Bull
I love hand drawn animation and there so little of it out there that I am glad the obligatory slot for Disney went to this charming little story about a stray kitten befriending a pit bull. It is probably the weakest story in the group, predictable and sentimental, but its lovely all the same.

Memorable 
The animation in this French film is made to have a paper mache feel. It tells the story of a man losing his faculties and despite the richness of colour and visuals throughout chronicles a loss, told with a great deal of sadness and love.

Sister
This is the second short film with this name nominated this year, but it couldn't be more different from the first. The stop motion in this American Chinese short animated film is woolly, and grey-scale giving a nostalgic feel to this remembrance film. It's story is charming and then turns into something else.

Documentary
In the Absence
Like many of the documentary shorts chosen this year, In the Absence is startlingly upsetting. Chronicling the sinking of a ferry where hundreds of people lost their lives, it forces us to look at this tragedy and feel the staggering loss in a way that reading the news headlines does not. Perhaps the perfect encapsulation of what a documentary can do.

Life Over Takes Me
This Swedish film starts with a strikingly beautiful shot and it pulls you into its heart breaking story. It is an exploration of despair like nothing I've ever seen.  

Walk Run Cha-Cha
It's impossible not to love this little film that follows a couple training for a ballroom dance competition who reunite after 40 years after being separated during the Vietnam War. Director Laura Nix films this couple with a quiet reverence which is just so delightful, and she captures the magic of their dancing and it is glorious.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)

When I was a nerdy queer comic book loving kid I had two favourite superheroes; Wonder Woman and Black Canary. I always knew eventually there would be a glorious live action Wonder Woman movie for me to stan but I never suspected I'd get to see Black Canary kick butt on the big screen. As Birds of Prey started, it dawned on my that another of my childhood dreams was coming true.

The movie starts with Harley Quinn telling us a story, and it's clear from the beginning the film unfolds with that in mind. This is Quinn's yarn she is weaving, with all the twisted, technicolour, hyperstylized deliciousness that comes with that. There is a bit of unreliable narrator shtick going on here. I read this film as being Harley's version of events, the way she understands them. It's jagged, its romanticized, its rainbow high. Just like something we would expect from her.

Birds of Prey is also unabashedly feminine. We are used to seeing femininity portrayed as weakness but here it is shown as strength. It is roller-derby both girly and kick ass. Even the male main villain is effeminate (another trait often used to reduce a character in audience's eyes) yet truly threatening. The film inverts our assumptions about femininity by using it as a point of strength for both good and evil. It's feminine in subtle and overt ways, flaunting its gender yet also approaching telling a "superhero" story in a different way.

It's gonzo approach, from the glorious costumes to the circus esthetic art direction gives the film a unique and fantabulous visual energy which evoked for me Batman Returns but brighter. A similar madness and fantastic feel, just off from reality but just intense enough to feel it in the gut. Harley is the star and this is her movie therefore this approach is ideal but screenwriter Hodson and director Yan manage to bring in the other characters as well. I appreciated the film's take on Cassandra Cain (despite being quite a departure from the comics version) and Renee Montoya (the good cop who can't break through the glass ceiling and corruption of the force).

My main disappointment is Huntress. I love, love, LOVE Mary Elizabeth Winstead and I was sad to see her have so little screen time. Her story (which should be fascinating) gets rushed and she never gets a scene where she gets to explore the effect of her backstory on her character. If there is a Birds of Prey sequel I hope Huntress gets a better treatment.

But then there is Black Canary. Again the film departs from the traditional version of the character, I don't mean her race, that's irrelevant to who Dinah Lance is, I mean her story. She is closest to a comics run from about 10 years ago that radically redeveloped the character. But despite that she still is the Black Canary. Smollett-Bell brings all the power, rage, confidence, and heroism of this character to brilliant life. After Harley she is the most centred character in the film and she rocks it. She has the most fascinating arc, expresses the most complexity in her emotions, and brings to life what I never thought I'd be able to see. By the time she uses her canary cry near the end of the film I was in fanboy heaven.

Director Yan has made something truly different in the genre by bringing together a number of qualities that action movies, and specifically "comic book movies" (whatever that means) don't explore. It has fun easter eggs and a style and grace that makes it fresh. Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, with a few flaws here and there, is a glorious thing of beauty and I can't wait to see it again.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Starring: Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Ella Jay Basco, Ewan McGregor, Chris Messina, Ali Wong
Director: Cathy Yan
Writer: Christina Hodson

Les Misérables (2019)

This is not the film you might think it is. It is neither adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel nor of the musical based on it. It is its own story, perhaps touching on some similar themes, set in modern day, in a suburb of Paris, where the famous novel is also set. Perhaps the brilliance is the way it ties into the novel's legendary status in French culture, the way that story feeds into French identity of their revolution, to the marginalized immigrant communities of France today.  By making French people see these outsiders as parallel to the French revolutionaries they pride themselves on, they are forced to confront an inconvenient truth about their culture today.

The story takes place over one day, the first day at work for a copy recently transferred into this struggling urban community. From his point of view we are introduced into a number of complex relationships between the officers who patrol the streets and the myriad of people living there. A tension arises after an incident which leads everyone to scramble to figure out how to maintain their position and their safety.

The strength of the film is how it creates credible and lived experiences for each of its characters. They are mostly flawed but no one is painted as a villain, even when they do something terrible. It also doesn't mean their actions are glossed over. Les Misérables is remarkable in how it shows us humanity in a spectrum of people and views, some far more sympathetic than others, but never losing sight of their personhood. Near the end, the day is ending and we feel a bit of peace is settling in. We see everyone regroup and breathe a bit, seeing them for their weaknesses instead of the strength they were pushing on each other through the day. It was a powerful series of scenes.

But then the film doesn't let us off the hook. It gives us one more act, one that is upsetting and confounding in that there is no good way out of it. What we thought might be a relatively happy ending is taken from us. But in that we also see the real power of this story. Because our abilities to place blame without empathy has been taken from us and we are left to watch as the city burns itself out.

Les Misérables
Starring:  Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djibril Zonga, Issa Perica, Al-Hassan Ly, Steve Tientcheu, Almamy Kanoute
Director: Ladj Ly
Writers: Giordano Gederlini, Alexis Manenti, Ladj Ly

Honeyland (2019)

I can't help but feel often western audiences enjoy films like Honeyland for the voyeuristic pleasure. We get a look into lives that are so different from our own, so different we can't understand them. So we watch, transfixed, making our own assumptions about what we are seeing.

There is an interesting dichotomy in the use of the "fly on the wall" technique. On the one hand it is necessary to a degree. We have to just sit back and watch without injecting our own narrative into the lives of a woman like Muratova. But we also, in that sitting back, still manage to put our own assumptions into the narrative. Without context or comment, we are free to insert our own, often misguided assumptions. It's a catch 22.

I understand Honeyland came about accidentally. The film makers were looking to make a documentary about the region and came across Muratova and realized they wanted to film her and her life. They kept back and just observed. Certainly by viewing we still effect what we are viewing, but their approach attempts to minimize this so that they, and therefore we, can just pay witness to a life that is so removed from ours. There were times I was incredibly moved by what I was seeing, and finding connections with the humanity on display. But then I needed to ask myself if I was reading into something that I wasn't understanding. Still I was able to stand witness to something and maybe that is what will trigger something for me.

And maybe that witness is rich enough as it is. Maybe Muratova's experience of the making of Honeyland isn't connected to my experience of watching it, anymore than my witnessing something on the streets of my city lets me understand the people I see. This essential problem in this style of film making fascinates me and I'm not sure what the answer is or the solution. But Honeyland made me reflect on it.

Honeyland
Starring: Hatidže Muratova
Directors: Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov

Color Out Of Space (2020)

Sometimes the scariest movies aren't about monsters, ghosts, or aliens, they are about the way we loose our grips on reality and the way we treat each other in light of that. H. P Lovecraft understood this and explored the loss of sanity as a source of pure horror. Lovecraft's work has rarely been interpreted effectively to the screen, but director Stanley seems to be on to something here with his weird and wonderful adaptation of one of Lovecraft's most loved stories. I have issues with Lovecraft on some other issues, but Stanley appears to have found the magic in bringing what is good about his work to the screen.

Generally true to the narrative and spirit of the story it is based on, Color Out Of Space, is structured in a fairly standard manner for a horror film (intro, build up, horrific happenings, unsettling resolution) but pushes those expectations with gonzo flares which are perfectly suited to the Lovecraft esthetic. While I am often not a fan of Nicholas Cage's wacko style, here I felt it was exactly the right tone to strike, and one that strikes a serious chord of terror as his behavior becomes more maddening. Because for me what is scary about these stories is the exploration of our capacities for cruelty and irrationality.

Color Out of Space begins it descent into madness quickly and once it does it isn't long before it gets both disturbing and grotesque. It is not for the weak at heart. It doesn't pull punches and some of what we see is absolutely terrifying. The film does use humour, quite liberally, but not in a dismissive way as tension relief, but to explore the very absurd nature of its story. At the same time the film finds its own incredible beauty. It is technicolor gorgeous while also being disgustingly horrific. Again Stanley strikes the right chord here and makes a gonzo horror gem.

Color Out Of Space is the first time I've felt the visceral Lovecraftian horror brought to the big screen with all the appropriate absurdity and loose grip on reality that it needs. I understand Stanley is interested in starting a trilogy, adapting other Lovecraft stories, with this film and in my opinion that would be a welcome step.

Color Out Of Space
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeline Arthur, Brendan Meyer, Julian Hillard, Tommy Chong, Elliot Knight
Director: Richard Stanley
Writers: Scarlett Amaris, Richard Stanley