Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #312: My Days of Glory (2019).

 

Adrien Palatine (Vincent Lacoste) is experiencing a quite unique quarter-life crisis. He's a former child movie star but as he approaches age 30, the role offers have dried up and he's becoming, frankly, a bit of an addict. When he's not drowning his sorrows at the local pub or smoking in the street, he's scrounging around looking for a chance at an on-screen comeback, and also for off-screen love. Prosperity briefly shines on him again when he talks his way into a part in a war movie, but his self-absorbed nature soon jeopardizes both that and his efforts to find and impress his dream girl.

The 2019 French romantic dramedy My Days of Glory is quite reminiscent of (500) Days of Summer, but only in narrative intentions. Where that gem of a sleeper hit explored 21st-century relationships with almost painfully honest accuracy and threw staccato visual and musical surprises into the pot for real vibrancy and fanciness, this (and, with it being French where that was an American film, surely you'd think it would be the more artsy one) deliberately takes the visually conventional route and subsequently feels increasingly bland and boring. I also found its attempts at humour too understated, and while director Antoine de Bary and his co-screenwriter Elias Beldekkar do include a couple of slightly racy scenes, I found them to be placed too late in the story for it to rejuvenate my interest. Lacoste, who I think is almost becoming the French Michael Cera with the kind of roles I've seen him in so far, tries his best to bring nuance and variety to both Adrien and the roles Adrien himself plays, but he carries the entire movie on his shoulders and that's a cross I think most actors would've struggled to bear.

Additionally, the dramatic elements become, I think, too heavy-handed and overall, as both a romance and a coming-of-age flick, I just don't think it has enough zest and imagination narratively, and certainly not aesthetically. My Days of Glory do not, for me, mark de Bary's. 5/10.

My feelings on the Thailand massacre.

On Thursday when I heard news of the childcare centre massacre in Thailand, my heart instantly sank. I had a foreboding, ominous feeling as it was revealed in a breaking news story during the 7pm nightly bulletin I watch. For that reason I deliberately also watched that night's late news just for more details on it. I was sincerely gut-wrenched as those extra details were revealed to me. A massacre in a place for children is usually tragic enough, but here the perpetrator was also the father of one of the children who went there regularly. Then, after the encounter there that lit his fuse and the carnage that ensued, he went home and murdered his own wife and child. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! How damaged must you be to even consider doing something that wicked?

His name was Panya Khamrab, and he was a disgraced former cop. Keyword: "disgraced." Shouldn't that have sounded alarm bells about him, suggesting he needed to be monitored somehow, or better yet, incarcerated? Had he indeed been behind bars, this massacre wouldn't have happened and a class of innocent children and their teachers would still be alive and none of their families would be grieving. My heart goes out to those families, and may the deceased all rest in peace. These massacres are clearly far from just an American problem; recently we saw that in Russia and now, sadly, it's been Thailand's turn. I don't know which country, or community, will be next, but I hope - against hope - none will.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #311: Shorts (2009).

 

In Black Falls Community in Austin, Texas, 11-year-old Toby Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) is the second child to find a rock with magical powers. Over a series of "episodes," he narratives, and participates in, the story of how this magical rock transforms his community and its townsfolk, culminating in urban mayhem as literally everybody tries to get their hands on it so it can improve their lives.

Robert Rodriguez may be most famous for his crime movies like Sin City and the El Mariachi trilogy, and indeed those kind of films were the ones he cut his teeth on, but in between them he's also made numerous family movies, like the Spy Kids trilogy and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. (He has five children so obviously he's made all these ones primarily for them.) Now, I thought the Spy Kids sequels both sucked but overall, while I still think crime capers are his specialty Rodriguez makes family movies that are more unconventional and creative than anybody else's and this is no exception. Shorts is unabashedly wacky, intentionally ridiculous and energetic, without a trace of condescension towards children but also not too wholesome for their parents to stomach. Rodriguez has evident fun visualising this narrative but also elaborates on it just long enough for it to be somewhat coherent, his own editing and photography are both crisp and fluid and the music score is adequately strange but not bombastic.

Rodriguez also coaxes engaging performances from all his young cast and the adults all also enjoy themselves, particularly Leslie Mann as Toby's mum and James Spader as the villainous Mr. Carbon Black. I did think the novelty began to wear off near the end, but Shorts doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a refreshing, funny and bizarre family science fiction flick like only Robert Rodriguez could, or would, deliver. 8/10.