"If Beale Street Could Talk" by James Baldwin

Year of Publication:  1974
Length:  230 pages
Genre:  General fiction

New York City:  Clementine "Tish" Rivers is nineteen years old, pregnant and engaged to Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt.  However Fonny is in jail, having been accused of rape.  As Tish and her family fight against a racist system to prove Fonny's innocence, the story of their relationship is told in flashbacks.

This book is powerful, angry, compassionate and beautifully written.  James Baldwin is one of the most important American writers of the 20th Century, and this is an urgent and vital book - that is as relevant today as it was in 1974.  It's frequently dark and gritty read, but there is a hard-won optimism here, and the love story between Fonny and Tish is beautifully detailed, and Baldwin writes beautiful, poetic prose.  It's also a novel about being black in America, and just tying to live life when the whole system is against you. 
It's a great book, that everyone should read.

The Front Runner

Year of Release:  2018
Director:  Jason Reitman
Screenplay:  Matt Bai, Jason Reitman and Jay Carson, based on the book All the Truth is Out:  The Week Politics Went Tabloid by Matt Bai
Starring:  Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J. K. Simmons, Alfred Molina
Running Time:  113 minutes
Genre:  Drama, politics

In 1988, US Senator Gary Hart (Jackman) is running as the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States.  Despite his initial success, Hart's presidential bid is scuppered due to scandal, when allegations surface of an extra-marital affair.

This is an interesting and well-acted enactment of a real-life political scandal.  However, you never really get a sense of who Gary Hart is, he dismisses any scandal or examination of his personal life as being irrelevant, which is really the theme of the film, whether or not someone's personal life should be made public.  Hart comes across as prickly, defensive and not particularly likeable, despite a great performance from Hugh Jackman and, in the age of Donald Trump, Hart's scandals seem almost quaint.  Interestingly the film never really states whether Hart had an affair or not.  The film does a good job of taking you inside a political campaign and political journalism, and manages to be always interesting and entertaining.  It does have some points to make about separating the public from the personal, despite being dated and never really exploring it's central character., 

Hugh Jackman is The Front Runner

An Autumn Afternoon

Year of Release:  1962
Director:  Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay:  Kogo Noda and Yasujiro Ozu
Starring:  Shima Iwashita, Chishu Ryu, Keiji Sada, Mariko Okada, Teruo Yoshida, Noriko Maki
Running Time:  113 minutes
Genre:  Drama

Tokyo, 1962:  Shuhei Hirayama (Ryu) is a widowed businessman in his late 50s with three adult children.  The eldest son, Koishi (Sada), is married and lives away from home, but his 24 year old daughter, Michiko (Iwashita) and youngest son, Kazuo (Shin'ichiro Mikami) still live at home with him.  Under pressure from his friends, Hirayama realises that it is his duty to arrange a marriage for Michiko, even though she is in no hurry to get married at all.

This was Yasujiro Ozu's final film, completed a year before his death on his 60th birthday, and deals with many of his familiar themes:  the ebb and flow of life, accepting change, the tension between youth and age, tradition and modernity, and the changing face of Japanese society, as well as the impermanence of all things.  It's a very quiet, gentle film, composed of long static shots, elegantly composed and usually shot form low angles, with the action seen in medium close-up  or framed in doorways and hallways.  The main plot often plays out almost in the background, with many important events taking place off-screen, being more concerned with the small details of everyday life.  This is a calm, understated film, graceful, slow, gentle and wise.  It's the kind of film that makes the world seem a better and kinder place.

Shima Iwashita and Chishu Ryu in An Autumn Afternoon     

Stan & Ollie

Year of Release:  2018
Director:  Jon S. Baird
Screenplay:  Jeff Pope
Starring:  Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Danny Huston, Nina Arianda, Rufus Jones
Running Time:  97 minutes
Genre:  Comedy, drama, biography

It's 1953, sixteen years after legendary comedy double act Stan Laurel (Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (Reilly) were at the height of their fame.  In the hopes of raising backing for a comeback film that Laurel is writing, based around Robin Hood, the estranged duo reunite for a grueling tour of Britain.  However, the pressures of the tour soon start to put strain on Laurel and Hardy's relationship and Hardy's increasingly fragile health.

This is a touching, gentle film that pays an affectionate tribute to the genius of Laurel and Hardy.  It is also very funny.  Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly (acting under heavy make-up) are pitch perfect as Laurel and Hardy, nailing their physical comedy style, as well as their appearance and mannerisms.  Shirley Henderson is good as Hardy's wife, Lucille, and Nina Arianda is hilarious as Laurel's blunt but loving wife Ida.  It's a film about friendship, comedy and the value of art.  It's great not only for fans of Laurel and Hardy, but  also anyone interested in the world of show business.  A refreshingly sincere and affectionate film, this is a bittersweet tribute to a bygone era. 

Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) are Stan & Ollie

Pom Poko

Year of Release:  1994
Director:  Isao Takahata
Screenplay:  Isao Takahata
Starring:  Konkontei Schinchou, Makoto Nonomura, Yuriko Ishida
Running Time:  114 minutes
Genre: Animation, fantasy, comedy  

In the Tama Hills, in the outskirts of Tokyo, a group of tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) find their homes threatened by human developers.  The lazy and capricious tanuki take a break from their favorite pastimes of partying, eating and fighting to use their considerable shape-shifting powers to fight against the developers.

This is one of the lesser known entries in the back catalogue of Japan's great Studio Ghibli .  The storyline suggests a fairly conventional plot of cute animals fighting to save their homes from greedy developers, but the film is far weirder and darker than that suggests.  Writer and director Iasao Takahata (who also made Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Only Yesterday (1991), My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) and the Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)) specialised in films inspired by and based around Japanese history and folklore and this is the case here.  The film uses a variety of animation styles, from realistic depictions of landscapes and animals, to more traditional cute animation, to images based on traditional Japanese art, one sequence even animates the action as video game graphics.  The film uses a documentary-style voice over and moves from goofy, slapstick comedy (true to the folklore the tanuki have massive testicles which they use in their shape-shifting), to surprisingly dark and violent.  It's funny and entertaining, but it's very inconsistent in tone and certainly too long.  Some of the sequences used when the tanuki terrify people with grotesque monsters and demons are genuinely nightmarish, and they are far from averse to straight up killing people, so it might be worth checking it out yourself before showing it to young children.  The films' tonal inconsistencies and the donwbeat ending really threw me when I first saw it, but I enjoyed it much more on a second viewing        

Tanuki in Pom Poko

The Princess Bride

Year of Release:  1987
Director:  Rob Reiner
Screenplay:  William Goldman, based on the book The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Starring:  Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage, Peter Falk
Running Time:  94 minutes
Genre:  Fantasy, adventure, comedy

In the magical land of Florin, young farmhand Westley (Elwes) must battle villains and magic to rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup (Wright), from the evil Prince Humperdink (Guest).

This is a genuinely magical film, which works as a fairy-tale and as a spoof of fairy tales.  It's funny throughout and full of endlessly quotable dialogue ("Hello.  My name is Inigo Montaya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.").  It features great action, particularly the impressive dueling sequences.  It also has great, funny performances, including cameos from a number of well-known comedians (such as Mel Smith, Peter Cook, Billy Crystal and Carol Kane).  The film also has a fun post-modern element with the story being framed as a fairy-tale that a grandfather (Falk) is reading to his ill grandson (Savage) who would rather be playing videogames.  The movie balances it's various elements perfectly with the comedy working along with the romance and the fantasy adventure, and none of them drowning out the others.   Even for people who don't like fairy-tales, like the grandson, it's almost impossible not to get swept up in this hilarious magical adventure that is just as much fin for adults as it is for children.

Robin Wright and Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Year of Release:  2018
Directors:  Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Screenplay:  Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Starring:  Tim Blake Nelson, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson
Running Time:  133 minutes
Genre:  Western

This is an anthology film consisting of six unconnected short stories set in the Old West:  A singing gunslinger (Nelson) meets his match; A condemned bankrobber (Franco) tries to escape his fate; An elderly impresario (Neeson) and his artist, who has no arms and legs, scratch out an existence travelling from town to town; A prospector (Waits) dreams of riches as he searches for gold; Following the death of her brother, a young woman (Kazan) undertakes an arduous journey in a wagon train; and a group of travelers in a stagecoach encounter a pair of bounty hunters en route to a strange destination.

This film is funny, dark, profound, violent, occasionally lyrical and often beautiful.  As with all anthology films, some segments work better than others, although they are all impressive, well-written and well-performed.  The Coen Brothers are no strangers to the Western genre, and here they make full use of their gift for dialect and witty, absurdist dialogue.  The first story is the most traditionally "Coen-esque" being a violent and funny take on the "singing cowboy" genre.  The second story starts as a simple hold-up tale before becoming something much more poignant.  The third story is a dark tale of cruelty, with a disturbing conclusion.  The fourth story which is almost entirely a single-hander, featuring a great performance by Tom Waits, is dramatic and beautiful.  The fifth story, which features a powerful performance from Zoe Kazan, is possibly the most traditional, until it's heartbreaking conclusion.  The sixth story marks a turn almost into "weird west" territory with a strange and ambiguous tale set in a stagecoach to a surreal town.  This film had a limited theatrical run before being released onto the Netflix streaming service.  Personally I loved it, and hopefully it will to another revival of the Western genre.     

Tim Blake Nelson saddles up for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs