There are ominous echoes of the past in this fall’s crop of “Halloween movies,” which is what we call them – even though most of the season’s signal scarers will be unleashed well in advance of October 31.
Spring is the cyclical season of renewal, but I tend to associate revival with the fall. This has stemmed from a life spent thinking that every football autumn will be the one for the Detroit Lions to end the curse of Bobby Layne and begin an unprecedented march to the Super Bowl.
Its temperatures are hotter, the landscape is more desolate, and the source of discontent is different – but the west Texas of the crime thriller Hell or High Water is a place to which Metro Flint can find kinship.
Even with all the reboots, retreads, prequels and sequels at hand, not all the tentpole-franchise news is gloomy this month.
If it’s April in the Flint Institute of Arts movie season, it’s generally time for patrons to see the best in world-class short films. And indeed, between April 21 and 23, the museum will present the official programs of Academy Award nominees in the live-action and animated fields.
Even if La La Land cleaned up at the Academy Awards – and at press time, with the big night just ahead, it seemed like an all but sure thing – the #OscarsSoWhite complaints have deservedly abated this year. One of the major reasons is Moonlight, an indie drama about a young black man’s maturity and identity that earned eight Oscar nominations while both embracing and transcending race.
If you’ve seen the drama Manchester by the Sea, you will understand why Michelle Williams is such a strong contender for her first Academy Award. A certain scene on a town street where Williams’ character encounters her ex-husband (played by Casey Affleck) is a brief but brilliant depiction of two heartbroken people, lost souls whose lives will never be the same apart as they were together. Williams really isn’t in the film all that much, but that key moment lingers.
If you’ve ever watched film footage of a Beatles concert – and, once the Fab Four began to hurtle toward legend, there weren’t really all that many – you’ll notice that what you see and hear are out of sync. There are four young men mouthing words and playing on stage, but why is it that all you hear are the screams of young women?
I’ve have spent most of my life writing about movies – and much of that time, lately, writing books about musical movies – so you’ll have to forgive my excitement for La La Land.
Remember when you were a kid … and September came? Part of you rued the end of your summer freedom, but the rest of you was excited to be returning to school to reunite with old friends and discover new teachers. Well, I still get that same sense at this time of year.
