More Than One Lesson

When your job as a writer is to look at film objectively, it’s important to not get hung up on nostalgia. Thankfully, I do pretty well with that. I might have thought a movie was wonderful as a 9-year old but if it doesn’t work for me now I can’t trick myself into still loving it and I know that I shouldn’t try. If I’m watching a film I loved as a kid now for the 37^th time it’s because it still works for me and it works for me in an entirely different way than when I first saw it. I feel that it’s important to be clear about this so you understand where I’m coming from when I say that 1984’s Ghostbusters – a movie I loved almost as much as life itself after I got it on VHS for my 6^th birthday in 1988 – is my favorite movie of all-time. I hope that you’re ready to believe me.

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I moved to the city from the suburbs over three years ago and in that time I’ve not only become accustomed to the cacophony of voices and viewpoints that imminently result from so many cultures, religions, and philosophies living likely in too condensed of a geography, but I’ve also become fond of it; so fond of it, in fact, that at this point in my life the prospect of returning to the homogeneity of the admittedly quieter and more spacious suburbs fills me with a sense of existential dread and horror.

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At the start of David Leitch’s new Cold War action-packed spy thriller we are told that in November of 1989 the Berlin Wall came down but that, “This is not that story.” Instead, Atomic Blonde deals with MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) and her efforts that same month to recover a microfilm which contains the identities of every active field agent in the Eastern Bloc. Lorraine is a stone cold killer paired with another MI6 agent in Berlin, David Percival (James McAvoy) to find the list and to kill a double agent known only as Satchel.

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There’s a lot to love in Dustin Guy Defa’s 2017 drama, Person to Person. Immediately apparent becomes the film’s love for its space, its atmosphere, its characters. Like the very best of New York based filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Spike Lee, Defa sets a sophisticated-yet-somewhat-grimy filmic tone of concrete urbanism; a vibrant cinematic space cramped full of bustle and kinetic movement, all captured within considered framing and a vintage celluloid aesthetic, one keenly intent on reflective observation.

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More than 70 years after its conclusion, films set during World War II are still produced by the handful year after year. Some are good, some are not, but it’s not often even amongst the good ones that a World War II movie truly sets itself apart from a filmmaking perspective. Christopher Nolan however has been setting himself apart as a filmmaker for the better part of two decades. With Dunkirk he has made his first war movie and it is an astonishing feat. Even more than that, it may be his best film yet.

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Upon being asked after the release of the Dark Knight if he had a third installment planned, Christopher Nolan replied with asking ironically how many good third movies there were. Of course, Nolan eventually did complete his trilogy, whether it being against his better judgment or not depending on who one talks to. Throughout movie history, the essential functions of the third film in a series have either been as a fitting and satisfactory end to a particular storyline (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), a disappointing but nevertheless conclusive entry (Godfather III), or a debacle so big as to necessitate a reset to the franchise (Superman III/Spiderman 3, etc., etc.). In anticipation of another highly-anticipated third film, War for the Planet of the Apes, this weekly series will cover famous third films, infamous third films and otherwise, exploring how trilogy-enders or other types of third films have functioned in relation to its series.

Rare is it for a film trilogy in the modern Hollywood tradition to satisfy its loyal audience and yet go beyond the expected. We’ve seen several high profile third films of recent (Spiderman 3 and The Dark Knight Rises come immediately to mind) not do this. They either leaned too greatly into what made their predecessors great, to the point of feeling like a retread, or they strayed far from the formula but with sloppy execution. Even the more successful ones, like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, had their detractors, the common criticism often being that the narrative took too long, got too indulgent and exhausting in its attempt to be serious fare.

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Among the Living from directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julie Maury starts as what appears to be a coming-of-age nightmare, but takes a sharp left turn right around the last third. If you’ve read nearly anything by Stephen King, the premise of the film will feel familiar. Three boys from differing home lives decide to skip the last half of their last day of school to explore, rebel, and possibly get into a bit of mischief. They accomplish all three, unfortunately for them.

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Upon being asked after the release of the Dark Knight if he had a third installment planned, Christopher Nolan replied with asking ironically how many good third movies there were. Of course, Nolan eventually did complete his trilogy, whether it being against his better judgment or not depending on who one talks to. Throughout movie history, the essential functions of the third film in a series have either been as a fitting and satisfactory end to a particular storyline (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), a disappointing but nevertheless conclusive entry (Godfather III), or a debacle so big as to necessitate a reset to the franchise (Superman III/Spiderman 3, etc., etc.). In anticipation of another highly-anticipated third film, War for the Planet of the Apes, this weekly series will cover famous third films, infamous third films and otherwise, exploring how trilogy-enders or other types of third films have functioned in relation to its series.

If I have learned anything from this trilogy series, it is in how miraculously inevitable one or two sequels can feel to the overall story arc even if they were at one point never supposed to be made . Filmmaking is one of the more expensive (in money, time, and manpower) of the arts, requiring significant financial backing and public approval to get any one particular iteration of a character, let alone several.

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When it comes to sexuality in the movies, many conservative Christians tend to err on the side of extreme caution. Some might use a service like VidAngel to filter out sexual content, while others prefer to skip a given film/show entirely. Rather than making case-by-case judgment calls based on the extent or context of specific scenes, they simply cut the Gordian knot: If it has something sexual in it, it can’t be good, end of story.

As a rule of thumb, this certainly has merit. Few films were ever improved by adding a sexual scene. Pick one at random, and you can safely bet it will be heavy on indulgence, light on edification. Hollywood’s track record in this department does not impress, to say the least.

But already, I know there are some people who would be uncomfortable with my wording just there. “Few? What do you mean? Why not just say ‘no’?” If I say Hollywood gets sex wrong more often than not, some may ask, “What would it mean to get it right?”

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Upon being asked after the release of the Dark Knight if he had a third installment planned, Christopher Nolan replied with asking ironically how many good third movies there were. Of course, Nolan eventually did complete his trilogy, whether it being against his better judgment or not depending on who one talks to. Throughout movie history, the essential functions of the third film in a series have either been as a fitting and satisfactory end to a particular storyline (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King), a disappointing but nevertheless conclusive entry (Godfather III), or a debacle so big as to necessitate a reset to the franchise (Superman III/Spiderman 3, etc., etc.). In anticipation of another highly-anticipated third film, War for the Planet of the Apes, this weekly series will cover famous third films, infamous third films and otherwise, exploring how trilogy-enders or other types of third films have functioned in relation to its series.

Popularly referred to as the least financially successful movie series of all time, Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy has had a strange and intriguing history. Starting in 1995 on a modest budget (though, honestly, all three have had modest budgets), Linklater—along with stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, all co-writers for the three movies—told a simple but charming story of Jesse and Celine, who meet in Europe and spend the evening together along ancient streets and with idiosyncratic characters. Before Sunrise didn’t make much money, but the film resonated enough with the three main collaborators to result in a sequel nine years later, Before Sunset, no one saw coming. Just as watchable and unpredictable as the first one, plus some added poignancy by way of nostalgia, Sunset made similar amounts of money, but with a heap of critical acclaim. It was a touching end to the story of Jesse and Celine.

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