Twice Tango Tops

 

Once again the BBC series Last Tango in Halifax comes out on top. Also, the Oscar winner for best picture is beaten by an old TV telling of the same story. Half this list were Netflix streamed.

 

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar. Clicking on a movie title will open a new browser tab with the IMDb page for the movie.

 

 

Last Tango in Halifax (Season Two) – 2013 (3.2). The uniqueness of this series understandably dissipates some in the second season, with the continual plot developments not having quite the impact they did in the first year. The central cast is still top-notch and the writing is very good, but somehow there is a slight tinge of letdown. The six episodes went really fast and left the impression that not much story progress had been made, in spite of a lot of characters always on the go, but then a look back on the episode summaries proved that quite a bit of story development had transpired. There is an urge to know more about the past of these characters, which we are slowly being told. Perhaps reflection on the past getting lost in the bustle of the present and the uncertainty of the future is what the writers intend.

 

Half the Sky – 2012 (3.0). NY Times reporter Nicholas Kristof leads a documentary film crew to points in Africa and Asia to cover stories that are part of his book on the oppression of women and young girls. The movie shows the conditions the women face and what some activist women are doing to liberate and empower the oppressed. Female celebs accompany Kristof to lend their fame to publicizing the plights. The stories about sex traffic, prostitution, female genital mutilation and lack of worthy employment and educational access are by nature depressing. Deep seated cultural failings countenance such gender oppression, but the activist women are inspiring and many of the young girls they help are equally impressive.

 

One Big Hapa Family – 2010 (3.0).  Made by a young Canadian film maker who is the son of a Japanese mother and white father, this documentary is about the Japanese immigrants to British Columbia and how attitudes have changed toward racial intermarriage. When his grandparents came over, intermarriage was unheard of, but among the generation of the grandchildren over 90% marry interracially. His movie is well made mixing live action and animation as he interviews his extended family. The largely unknown story is told about how Japanese were treated north of the border, especially during WWII. This version is the 49 minute TV version, but there is also an 85 minute theatrical version.

 

Solomon Northup’s Odyssey – 1984 (3.0). Shown on American Playhouse and directed by Gordon Parks, this version of the “12 Years a Slave” story benefits from a much better script than the 2013 movie in which the story line and characters often were confusing. The Parks version draws characters more clearly, has much more meaningful conversations between Solomon and the other slaves and includes scenes of the ongoing efforts of Solomon’s wife and Henry Northup to find and free him. The presence of violence and sex is not emphasized at the expense of having time and attention diverted from Solomon struggling to keep his own focus on obtaining his freedom while also mutually sharing feelings with slaves who have never been free. Much more clearly in this earlier version, we feel how on obtaining his release Solomon is torn between wanting to forget the 12 year nightmare as he reunites with his family and feeling obliged to do something to help the enslaved people he has left behind.

 

The Trials ofMuhammad Ali – 2013 (2.9). Emphasizing his legal fight for conscientious objection exemption from the military draft, this documentary about Ali covers familiar ground but also manages to find fresh input in the form of interviews with the last surviving member of the group of eleven Louisville businessmen who guided his early professional boxing career, his first wife, his brother and a former Clerk for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States giving insight into how the ultimate unanimous Court decision in favor of Ali was fashioned.

 

Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning – 2014 (2.8). Shown on American Masters on PBS, this documentary about the celebrated photographer was made by her granddaughter and covers her personal life as well as her career. Sterling examples of her photos are included as expected, along with archival footage and interviews with some of her descendants. There is much footage of Dorothea working in her dying months trying to pick photos for a show of her life’s work to be displayed in NYC at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. Missing from the movie is commentary from other photographers and critics explaining the technical aspects of her work and what they contributed to her art.

 

Big Men – 2013 (2.8). The young American woman who spent six years making this cinema verite style documentary shown on PBS P.O.V. scored some good inside access in following a Dallas oilman and a Ghanaian entrepreneur who hook up and convince an American capital firm to contract with the oil ministry of Ghana to develop an offshore oil field for the benefit of the people of Ghana. Many of the Ghanaians were educated in America and speak excellent English, but we also see aspects of the tribal cultural structure of the country. The contract gets embroiled in election politics in Ghana and the film follows this process to conclusion. As a contrast, though sometimes distracting, the film also covers turmoil over oil in Nigeria, where corruption has kept the revenues from getting to the Nigerian people and young protestors engage in sabotage of pipelines.

 

Mortified Nation – 2013 (2.8). A few years back someone got the idea that reading excerpts from personal journals and diaries written in earlier years could help self-discovery, and it could be especially cathartic if done in front of an empathetic audience. The idea was put into practice and captured in this documentary showing live performances and interviews with participants and the people behind the idea.

 

Ai Weiwei: NeverSorry – 2012 (2.8). The film maker followed the Chinese activist artist and his entourage quite closely in making this documentary, but we never got very far into understanding his artistic vision or his vision for a more open Chinese society. Instead we saw a continual Twitter user who uses his iconic status to take shots (literally and figuratively) at the Chinese government and a man who on the personal side does not seem to be very caring toward people as individuals.

 

Radio Unnameable – 2012 (2.8). This straightforward documentary tells the story of a man who has worked for fifty years broadcasting a late night show on FM radio in NYC. Interviews, archival footage and audio clips are the vehicles, set against the changing times.

 

The Scapegoat – 2012 (2.7). This slow starting drama about a rich scoundrel in early 1950s England who runs into his perfect lookalike is based on a Du Maurier story. The scoundrel takes advantage of the lookalike by tricking him into taking his place while the scoundrel disappears. As we finally get the drift of all that the man has walked into, we become interested enough to stay around and see how he handles it and how it ends.

 

12 Years a Slave – 2013 (2.6). The story of Solomon Northup being kidnapped in 1841 and held as a slave in the South is a very dramatic one. Surely his book written in 1853 was intended to aid the abolitionist movement. Judging by the script, the purpose in turning it into a movie 160 years later seems to have been limited to reaffirming the abolitionist message. Maybe there is an ongoing need to remind Americans, especially in the South, of the horrors of slavery, but the drama of the Northup story has so much more to offer than was delivered by this script. Whether in the book or not, this story cries out for so many things that were not included in the movie, like more background on Northrup and his family before the abduction, efforts made by his family and friends to find him, his more intimate communications with other slaves, and his attempts to employ his intelligence in maneuverings with slaveholders and overseers. The emphasis in the movie seems to have been more in getting the look of things right, rather than providing characters and relationships of much dimension.

 

15 to Life: Kenneth’sStory -2013 (2.6). The issue of life sentences for minors convicted of crimes other than murder is a worthwhile subject for a documentary. Unfortunately this movie about a 15 year old boy in Florida who is eleven years into serving four consecutive life sentences for accompanying an armed adult robber does not do the best job presenting the issues. The concentration is on a resentencing hearing mandated by US Supreme Court decision and we do see some of the proceeding as it took place. But we do not know what we did not see of the hearing and do not get much strategy discussion from volunteer counsel for the prisoner. There are some good interviews with the boy himself and some revealing exposure to his born again drug addict mother and a smattering of other input, but some key elements seem omitted, like any word from the public defender on the boy’s trial. Kenneth has been dealt several bad cards, including his no-show father, addicted mother, exploitation by career adult criminal; living in Florida, questionable public defender representation, marginal resentencing counsel, and unusually unsympathetic judge. This film does not do much to help his poor hand.

 

The Revisionaries – 2012 (2.6).  A partisan elected board of Texans periodically reviews and revises standards for textbooks used in that State and since it is so large, the books sold there are very likely to be the ones that the publishers sell throughout the United States. In this documentary we see the dismaying process at play as fundamentalist Christian board members narrow mindedly alter science and social studies books to reflect their personal beliefs rather than to provide the most accurate learning materials. Valiant efforts to prevent the desecration of textbooks is also shown, but the film is sometimes hard to follow and spends too much time on following two particular board members rather than exploring the issues in more depth, such as more extensive interviews with publishers and inclusion of examples of better processes used in other States.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

Half the Sky

The Trials of Muhammad Ali

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Radio Unnameable

Mortified Nation

The Scapegoat

The Revisionaries