My reaction to the death of Halyna Hutchins.

 

I think everybody knows the story now. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, above, died last Friday after actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot her with a prop gun he was told was not loaded. When the story broke, I was online and it immediately shocked me and I knew it would make the primetime news even here in Australia (which it did).

As the hours passed I couldn't help but question whether this tragedy would've been considered as newsworthy had a less well-known actor than Baldwin been the one who pulled the trigger. He is also serving as a producer on the film, entitled Rust, and therefore has more responsibilities on-set than were he just one of the stars, but although he still has indeed technically killed Hutchins, and injured the director Joel Souza, I think the primary culprit here is Dave Halls, the assistant director who gave him the gun and assured him it was empty without checking it (yet Baldwin maybe should've checked it himself before firing it).

Amidst all these initial thoughts, however, and still now, I feel horrible for Hutchins and her young family and her friends; my heart goes out to them all. But I'm frustrated with how the media is treating this incident. They are, from what I have noticed, focusing almost exclusively on her death and how that was caused rather than on her work. I think it's despicable that most media outlets are doing that, particularly when women cinematographers (and women filmmakers in general) have to fight their way to success and job stability in what is an overwhelmingly male profession. Hutchins achieved that, but the media seems intent on ensuring she will be remembered exclusively as the woman who Alec Baldwin accidentally shot on a movie set. They've also used this tragedy to renew interest in the accidental shooting that killed Brandon Lee while filming The Crow in 1993, which I suspect has only fueled conspiracy theories and affected his family.

But anyway, I won't go on any more as I feel I've made every point I wanted to here perfectly clearly and if I ramble on more I may just inadvertently use the same reporting tactics I've criticised here. RIP, Ms. Hutchins.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #265: Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (2020).

 

Cherry (voiced in the Japanese-language version by Ichikawa Somegoro VIII) is a shy teenage boy with social and communication difficulties who expresses his feelings through haikus instead of verbally, and always wears headphones to block loud noise out. Meanwhile, Smile (Hana Sugisaki) is a teenage girl who externally projects confidence and vivaciousness as a social media influencer, but wears a mask because internally she's deeply insecure about her very large and braced front teeth. One day during summer they have a fateful chance meeting and quickly become more than friends, but then Cherry's father Koichi (Hiroshi Yamiya) informs him they will be moving town in a month.

This anime romance from co-writer and director Kyohei Ishiguro is frequently so fluorescently colourful it could give even Baz Luhrmann an epileptic seizure, but that's a very clever artistic choice and indeed it's the point because it helps the viewer see the world as both the protagonists do. Smile is, as I said, an influencer, an occupation and lifestyle which can frankly be very superficial, and Cherry is quite evidently autistic, which often means being hypersensitive to visual brightness or having enhanced visual perception. That is also why they together make a realistic couple because it's a case of opposite attracting, and it makes their separate arcs more relatably modern. They are also affectingly voiced, and the animation shows a perfectionistic approach throughout.

The pacing is occasionally meandering, but overall Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (and how fun and cute is that title?) struck me as a really sweet, intelligent and balanced anime love story from Ishiguro and studio Signal.MD. 8/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #264: Whisper of the Heart (1995).

 

14-year-old Shizuku Tsukishima (voiced by Yoko Honna in the Japanese-language version) attends Mukaihara Junior High School in Tokyo. She lives with her parents and older sister and her best friend at school is Yuko (Maiko Kayama), but her real love is books. She's a bookworm's bookworm, and one day she visits her local library and is stunned to find all the books missing. Upon browsing the checkout cards, she discovers somebody named Seiji Amasawa (Issei Takahashi) has borrowed them all. Shizuku now tries to track Seiji down, and learns he's actually boy in her grade and Mukaihara. Once they then meet, she discovers he's a budding luthier who has a crush on her and therefore has begun borrowing books en masse, obviously knowing how much she loves them, to make her notice him. In return as they get to know each other, Shizuku starts writing more and singing, and then their relationship deepens and their previously unknown connections are revealed.

Whisper of the Heart was former animator Yoshifumi Kondo's sole directorial effort before his sudden death at age 47 in 1998, and Studio Ghibli's first theatrical film directed by neither Hayao Miyazaki (who nonetheless wrote the screenplay) nor Isao Takahata, but I'm afraid for me, it could've been considerably better. Visually it's as gorgeous as anything else Ghibli have made, and the voice cast all give adequate and natural performances, with dialogue that feels realistic for each character. However, the narrative was, for me, increasingly plodding and predictable to the point where I was ultimately almost entirely disengaged. It simply felt to me to be much too formulaic a YA romance, even for 1995 which was long before that genre exploded in popularity at least here in the West.

It's a nice story, sure, but one that I found to be told in a very stale manner despite the aesthetic flair on display, and it also ignored what I considered numerous chances for comic relief. Overall, Whisper of the Heart obviously did not win my heart. 6/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #263: Microbe and Gasoline (2015).

 

Daniel (Ange Darnent) lives with his mother Marie-Therese (Audrey Tautou) his distant father and two brothers in Versailles. He's lonely and bored, but is a budding painter. One day there arrives at his school a new boy, Theo (Theophile Baquet), who is basically his alter ego: loud and grungy. But they click immediately, and are soon hanging out together outside school. Sharing similar home lives and having found common interests like vehicles and design, they decide to build a makeshift car and take it on the road. They now become "Microbe" and "Gasoline" as they traverse their DIY automobile across the French countryside. En route, their relationship also changes and deepens.

This is a family-friendly departure for writer-director Michel Gondry after mostly adult-oriented features and a heap of music videos, and good on him for trying to inject some variety into his filmography, but frankly I expected less convention from the maker of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind. Primarily, I think this one would've been fresher and more profound had the dynamic been a girl and a boy  - with a completely platonic relationship, that is - instead of two boys. I think that would've allowed the film to combat childhood and gender stereotypes and to convey a message to children that boys and girls can find an emotional connection with each other Instead, as it is, for me the main duo felt quite hackneyed, even though Darnent and Bacquet both show promise on screen. Tautou, however, is wasted in a role that offers her no challenges whatsoever.

Gondry wisely depicts the young protagonists as obscene and uncouth (especially Theo), but that touch cannot mask the otherwise deeply cliched narrative and themes, and visually there's nothing distinctive or subversive either. I expected a far stranger family movie from Michel. 6/10.

My response to ableist remarks from somebody who shouldn't even have thought them.

 

This is Nicole Rogerson, the co-founder and director of the not-for-profit organisation Autism Awareness Australia. Outside of that, she and her husband Ian, a broadcaster who's appeared in a YouTube video (on AAA's channel, in fact) with fathers of autistic children, have become spokespeople for autism causes. That's nice. But this week, regarding a new study of early intervention therapy for autistic children, she was quoted as saying: 

"What this research has shown is what a limited amount of work very early that could be done could have a radical change for these children and their ultimate outcome. This research shows us we have to look at early childhood completely differently. We can't wait until children are three or four years old to see where they are developmentally. If we see some warning signs at that 12-month age it is absolutely imperative we get started. And this research shows the great outcomes for these kids. If we've helped their communication, if we helped those social skills, if we've made it more likely that they're going to go on to have an independent life and be successful in school, then it's incumbent on us, we have to do it."

As I read those words, I felt the breath sucked right out of my throat, and I truly saw red. I still cannot believe somebody in her position would advocate intervening in ASD kids' developments in order to make them appear more neurotypical. They certainly need help with social skills, but I believe that in no way means they need to be changed. She should absolutely know better, also, to even think, much less say these kids cannot become successful or independent adults with early intervention therapy growing up. There are literally thousands of adults on the spectrum whose tales disprove those fucking ignorant, patronising and condescending suggestions. And as the mother of an autistic son, how would she feel were he forced to undergo an intervention, at any age, to "fix" him? I hope she loves him unconditionally; after all, any parent should love their children unconditionally.  As for Nicole herself, after those deeply offensive claims, obviously I don't even like, let alone love, her.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/wa-study-hows-early-intervention-reduces-autism-diagnosis/100476422?fbclid=IwAR3vsEL-Eh0SBXpC6ppamSNCY14ZvGWa6so3_lEpOcxwpnvOlXK0mnOU6xk

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #262: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012).

 

It's 1995. Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) is a travelling motorcycle stuntman who, after reconnecting with his ex-flame Romina (Eva Mendes), learns she now has a baby son whom he accidentally fathered a year earlier. Romina and the boy, Jason, are now living with her new boyfriend Kofi (Mahershala Ali, before he won Oscars for Moonlight and Green Book), who openly dislikes Luke immediately. Shocked but committed, Luke now impulsively turns to robbing banks to support Romina and Jason. This new crime career naturally makes his path cross with that of upstart cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), himself a new husband and father, leading to a very fateful encounter. Then, in 2010, Jason (Dane DeHaan) is a disaffected teen who hangs out with A. J. (Emory Cohen), a drug-addicted and rebellious teen who, initially unbeknownst to Jason, is Luke's son; Jason, meanwhile, doesn't initially know A.J.'s father is Avery. As these two gradually uncover their fathers' histories and connection, parallels are inevitably drawn and it's up to them to end and escape the violent cycle.

The Place Beyond the Pines, for about the first half of its duration, had me engaged but somewhat puzzled about the point of it. But once it introduced Jason and A.J.'s storyline, its narrative intentions indeed became crystal clear to me. This is not simply a basic crime drama, as the synopsis of it on the streaming service I watched it from suggested (hence, maybe, why I initially felt confused and misled); it is also a meditation on internal and external connections between families as well as history's repetitiveness. Director Derek Cianfrance, with his co-writers Ben Cocco and Darius Marder, explores the layers of these three interconnected narratives with consistent logic and assurance until they unravel together like a roll of wrapping paper. He also gets solid performances from all his male cast, particularly Gosling (who I hadn't initially thought suited to action roles) and Cohen, although Mendes is relegated to a pretty one-dimensional love interest role. Sean Bobbitt's beautifully paced cinematography enhances the atmosphere further, and Jim Helton and Ron Patane's editing and Mike Patton's score are also fitting and evocative. Overall, once I could mentally navigate what it was trying to do narratively, I found The Place Beyond the Pines a stunning and hauntingly unique crime/family drama. 9/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #261: Strange Magic (2015).

 

Two lands, one with fairies and light and the other with bog creatures and darkness, divide a fantastical realm. In the former, fairy Marianne (voiced by Evan Rachel Wood) is heir to the Fairy Kingdom and engaged to dashing warrior Roland (Sam Palladio), until she sees him kissing another fairy on their wedding day. Marianne then vows never to fall in love again. Meanwhile in the dark forest, the Bog King (Alan Cumming) makes the same vow, against his doting mother Griselda's (Maya Rudolph) protests. Shortly later, Marianne's sister Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull) is in a panic about who Marianne will be attending the Spring Ball with and who she herself might meet there. Dawn and her elf best friend Sunny (Elijah Kelley), who has the hots for Dawn, then have a very close shave with a giant lizard from which Marianne saves them, and then at the Ball Roland tricks Marianne into returning to the dark forest where she now meets the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristen Chenoweth), whose trick of her own is to arrange a fateful meeting between Marianne and the Bog King. All of this, by the way, is told as a jukebox musical.

This first non-Star Wars animated feature from Lucasfilm, with seven-time Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom making his directorial debut, is underrated. It's currently at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes but while it's far from perfect, I certainly don't think it warrants that low a rating. George Lucas developed the story for Strange Magic, with inspiration from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to make a more feminine family movie for his three daughters and while some of the dialogue (David Berenbaum, Irene Mecchi and Rydstrom wrote the final screenplay, for the record) is dreadfully bland and Rydstrom's directorial inexperience shows at times, I nonetheless thought this had a genuine charmand self-awareness to it throughout. The animation, which is of course the intended focal point, is utterly ravishing both in design and detail, and some (albeit not all) of the jokes amused me. The soundtrack is also entertaining, with selections as diverse as the Doors' People Are Strange to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. The vocal cast were all wisely chosen and give engaging, enthusiastic performances also. Strange Magic is no Epic, and it mightn't even be FernGully (I don't know; I haven't seen that since I was a child), but I think you should still ignore the critical drubbing it received. 7/10.