Gang: Update Films: "Three Billboards, etc." and"The Big Sick"—one nominated for Best Picture and one that should have been:

Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri: 

(Major spoiler alert!! Do not read if you have not seen and plan to unless you want to be spoiled.) It is powerful, dark and intriguing; however, there is far too much that is utterly implausible and some events that are downright ridiculous. So as to not give you a laundry list, I’ll mention some of the obvious stuff.

For starters, a young man beaten up and  tossed him out of a window of a two story building…and then kicked him in the face for good measure. All while in from of a new police chief, no less. And that doesn’t get him jailed! But that’s not the crazy part, No. The guy who beat him practically to death is brought into the same hospital room as the man who beat him up! Why is that guy in the hospital all bandaged up (so the beaten man doesn’t know that he is the attacker)? Because the attacker ( now an the ex-sheriff—at least he lost his job!) who wants to be a detective someday is so unobservant that he is unable to hear or see four huge fire bombs going off and flames everywhere while he is trying to read a letter! (This is difficult for him because he cannot read much more than a comic book. Not a good look for a policeman…and it turns out he’s not even the worst of the cops.)

Then there is the mother who tells her daughter she hopes she does get raped on her walk on the night! Naturally, she is raped that very night, figures, huh. In Hollywood, be careful what you wish for. I asked myself after the movie ended—really? Didn’t the mother she feel tortured enough?

I could go on and on, but let’s touch on the important thematic elements. “Hate begets hate”; Oscar Wilde reminds us via a extremely dumb stereotyped 19 year old blonde. Hate is a clear and present danger in this town. It appears to be a cesspool of racism and violence.  This small town American “Show Me State” ubiquitous with racism {think Ferguson}, not to mention homophobia, and backwoods cops that makes me think either the police there are really that terrible or that the police would really be insulted by this film—I am not sure which is true—likely both.)

There is the generational hatred; good-old boy racism and bias and we are hammered with domestic violence. On a positive note, there is one good cop—a black commander who just can’t seem to figure out who threw the bombs at his own police office—or he does know, but is too ‘wise’ to pursue charges. And remember, these are just three really head scratching events. This will likely win Best Picture due to way over-the-top performances by a fine acting ensemble—but isn’t that often the way it goes? High drama gets the nod. {Think Leo De Capra and the Bear film.}The movie has the subtlety of a sawed off shotgun…and that’s also a hint of what’s to come.

 So, what does it all mean for me? It is a film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it has all the right messages in a time in this country when domestic violence is a daily headline, when  ignoring women’s voices as truthtellers, and maybe more importantly, when people refuse to speak up when things are evil. People so afraid to call out injustice that it takes a burned and  raped victim’s mother to splatter it on three billboards. Yes, the letters that the dying sheriff played by Woody Harrelson (my favorite performer in the movie) writes are powerful, but he never has the courage to say those things to the people who matter while he is alive.

So upon reflecting, there are just too many coincidences, unrealistic events including the mysterious ‘reveal’—or not reveal, that makes the characters {and yours truly}drive off into the sunset and say what I felt about this film…”I just don’t know.”

 

The Big Sick: 

I loved this film last summer, and when I wrote the first blog about the films of the year2017,  I overlooked this autobiographic gem. Based on events in the life of star Kumail Nanjiani  and his wife Emily V. Gordon are up for an Oscar for Original Screenplay. Holly Hunter and Ray Romano add so much to the film, but so do the characters that play Kumail family—funny and heartfelt. This is a movie that means even more today as the Muslim ban and prejudice directed at ‘foreigners’ seems to be the target of Trump’s fear filled America.

 

This was a feel good,

feel bad,

feel worse,

feel good… at last movie.

Get Out:---still to come....here at the Metaphor Cafe