Created Races

What I Watched This Week #175 (May 5-11) BlacKkKlansman dir. Spike Lee/2018/2h16m BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee's biopic of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), who in 1972 became the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Not long after he becomes an undercover officer and is able to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan over the phone, his membership being expedited by the Grand Wizard himself, David Duke (Topher Grace). This is a stylish, impactful film that sees Lee utilising all of his trademark cinematic flourishes to great use. The montage of real world footage at the end, something he's done several times, was especially powerful as it featured footage from the white supremacist rally in Virginia in 2017 along with a speech by Agent Orange. At the same time this is also a very entertaining film with some great 70's fashion and hairstyles as well as a brilliant score by jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard. Washington is a charismatic lead whose personality shines through in every scene, something I didn't get from him in the only other performance I've seen of his in Christopher Nolan's Tenet. Adam Driver is also very good as Stallworth's Jewish partner Flip Zimmerman, who was the in-person half of their Klan infiltrating duo for obvious reasons. One of Lee's best films, and it has me hyped for his remake of the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low, Highest 2 Lowest (starring John David's father, Denzel), out later this year. 9/10 Lime's Film of the Week! Longlegs dir. Osgood Perkins/2024/1h41m This 90's set occult horror thriller stars Maika Monroe as FBI agent Lee Harker who is investigating a series of murder/suicides all involving the father killing his entire family before himself. They are all linked by coded letters left by the mysterious Longlegs (Nicolas Cage). Like a lot of horror films dealing with the occult I find that the setup is always better than the conclusion, the recent Heretic comes to mind, and that's the case here. There's a whole thing here with creepy dolls that didn't really work for me, and the puzzle with the letters just feels like a stretch. The film would have benefitted from being much more ambiguous in the final act. That said, I still really liked the majority of this, with Monroe's performance really carrying the whole thing. Cage is creepy in the little screen time he has, but like the aliens from Aliens, the more you see of him the less scary he becomes. I actually started to notice a slight resemblance to Jackie Stallone, Sly's mother, in his bloated, pale face. But his first few appearances are really effective and had me checking over my shoulder. 7/10 Jazz on a Summer's Day dir. Bert Stern/1959/1h22m The only movie by photographer Bert Stern, this concert film documents the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. There are some incredible performances here, my favourites being Thelonious Monk, Big Maybelle, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson and Louis Armstrong who always steals the show, but what I really liked about this film is the relaxed atmosphere and how the experience of the festival and the people in attendance are just as important to Stern. He often pans away from the stage to capture a random person, and he doesn't just look for people dancing and getting into the music, he just focuses on what interests him like a woman struggling with an ice cream sandwich. I also like how the film progresses through the day chronologically, starting off in the morning with footage of boats taking part in a regatta adjacent to the festival and ending after the sun has set. It really feels like we've spent the day here. Good music, good vibes, good time. 9/10 Film Adventurer Karel Zeman dir. Tomas Hodan/2015/52m (edited from 1h38m) This documentary explores the career of Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman whose innovative use of special effects bought to life some incredible films like Invention for Destruction and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen. Aside from the usual documentary talking heads of people inspired by Zeman like Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton and clips from his films, the best thing about this documentary is watching students in a Czech film school trying to recreate scenes from his films using his techniques. Seeing a new generation get inspired by Zeman and marvelling at the genius of his way of creating new worlds was something I wish there was more of. And there may be more of that as I was watching a heavily edited version on Disney+ which is pretty annoying. I don't know what was edited out, or why, but I feel a little short changed. Despite that, I still enjoyed stepping back into the magical worlds of Karel Zeman, and highly recommend the two films I mentioned above, particularly Invention for Destruction which is also known as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne. 7/10 Yakuza Graveyard dir. Kinji Fukasaku/1976/1h37m Tetsuya Watari stars as renegade cop Kuroiwa in this Japanese crime thriller from a director best known in the west for the incredibly influential film Battle Royale. The plot sees Kuroiwa playing two warring crime families, the Nishidas and the Yamashiros, against each other. When he learns that his superiors are involved he takes matters into his own hands. This is a bleak and gritty film shot using handheld cameras that really adds to the chaotic tone and it matches Kuroiwa's character perfectly. This is a lot like Dirty Harry but with a lead character that's much more intertwined with the world he's trying to bring down. This is represented by his intense relationship with Keiko (Meiko Kaji), the widow of a gangster that he killed. Watari and Kaji are both great in the lead roles, their scenes together conveying a sense of doomed hopelessness. Despite some exciting action scenes this is a film that remains downbeat to the end, but after spending time with Kuroiwa you know that he's only going out one way. 8.5/10 Two short films by Georges Méliès: The Pillar of Fire 1899/1m The Infernal Cakewalk 1903/6m These two films from Georges Méliès see him take on what seems to be his favourite role, a playful, impish devil. The first film sees him as a green skinned demon who conjures an angel. Using her wings she conjures a clous of holy smoke that defeats him, before she herself disappears into thin air. The second, more elaborate, film is set in hell where a big dance party is in full swing, with Méliès as the devil bursting out of a cake to bust some moves of his own. Wanting to know what the title meant I looked it up, and a cakewalk was a dance competition plantation owners would make their sl*ves participate in, with the winner receiving a cake as a prize. This is also where the term "to take the cake" comes from. Racial undertones aside I liked it more than the first film as his use of editing trickery is much more refined, even just a few years later. I'll give them a combined 7/10

The Outrun (2024) dir Nora Fingscheidt Saoirse Ronan plays Rona, a young alcoholic who returns to he native Orkney (a group of islands off the north of Scotland) after living most of her life in London. It's a bit of an unusual film. It does not exactly have the usual narrative plot. A lot of the time it feels more like you are following Rona about and I think she is in every scene. It's also very nonlinear, moving back and forwards from the present, in Orkney, her childhood there too, and then at least two different periods in time in London. Rather like Kate Winslet in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you can tell which part of the time-line you are watching from the colour of Ronan's hair. But at first it does take a little getting used to. There is a story though. So we see her before she became addicted to drink, then the effects on her relationships as she becomes an addict through to her attempts to get help and then deciding she has to leave London and go back home, where there's less nightlife, but still obviously there is drink available. And there's tensions with her parents, who are separated, with her father also battling his own problems. There is a lot narration from Rona as we hear her thoughts on various bits of Orkney folk-lore, history, natural history and weather, some of which overlap. In particular there is the myth of the Selkie – people who drowned and turned into seals. It's good, and Ronan is great in the lead role with pretty decent support too. There are plenty of easy-on-the eye scenes of the Orkney landscape, sea, sky and the seals. But I did find it a little too long at nearly 2 hours. I have nothing against a film being that long or longer, if that is what is needed to complete a good story, but this felt like it didn't need to be that long. 7 / 10