Giuliani Time: 2006 documentary directed by Kevin Keating about the career of Rudy Giuliani. The film mostly focuses on pre-9/11 Rudy, which I knew next to nothing about before watching this. It covers his childhood and his family’s supposed Mob connections, his start in government and his switch from Democrat to Republican, and his years as Mayor of New York City. This last part was the most interesting to me; they go into detail about the instituting of CompStat and his fights for and against the police unions during the more controversial police violence cases. It’s an intriguing documentary about the evolution of a major political figure, but it just ended up adding to my cynicism. Like most of these documentaries.
Girlhood: 2003 documentary directed by Liz Garbus. It follows Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen for a three-year period beginning in 1999, when they’re incarcerated at the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore. Megan is in for attacking a fellow foster kid with a box cutter. She’s the more vivacious of the two, and has been in and out of foster homes and facilities most of her life. She willfully breaks the rules with a smile on her face, but I found myself rooting for her even while she’s talking back to facility staff and plotting her escape.
Shanae was sent to Waxter for killing another girl in a knife fight when she was 11, during a period of downward spiral after she was gang-raped by five boys. She says she has little memory of the incident, but her release is contingent upon her owning up to her crime and taking responsibility for it emotionally. She’s quieter than Megan, more reserved, younger and more naïve.
The movie goes into their respective pasts just enough to let you know it’s really fucked up. It’s riveting, but really sad. The ending is bittersweet and hopeful, but it’s a toss up for me about recommending it.
The Fly: 1986 sci fi film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. Veronica is a sharp young reporter for a science journal, and while she’s scouring a terrible cocktail party for a lead on the Next Big Thing, a scientist named Seth Brundle convinces her to come back to his lab to see his top-secret invention. What a line, am I right ladies? And oh wow it’s a teleportation device WHAT COULD GO WRONG? You know the story: Brundle decides to test the device on himself, a fly gets in with him, they combine somehow and he starts to mutate over the next few days. The make-up team did a bang-up job with this one. It’s a really decent horror movie, though not really scary and very very gross, like really very gross.
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure: 1985 adventure comedy directed by Tim Burton and starring Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Daily and Mark Holton. That’s right, I’d never seen this movie until now. Oh sure, I’d catch bits and pieces here and there, and I liked the television series, but somehow never got around to watching the whole thing. Pee-wee’s bike is stolen and he goes on a cross-country tour of strangeness to find it. If you like Pee-wee Herman even a little bit, totally see it. In fact, if you like ‘80s comedies in general I would say it’s worth a shot. I loved it. Obviously.
Stolen: 2006 documentary directed by Rebecca Dreyfus and starring Harold Smith, featuring voice work by Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott. In 1990 a group of thieves entered the woefully unsecured Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and pulled off the largest art heist in modern history. They walked away with 13 priceless pieces, including paintings by Vermeer, Manet, and Rembrandt. Enter Harold Smith, Badass Art Detective. He wears a bowler hat, a prosthetic nose, an eye patch, and is more energetic in his 80s than I am now.
The movie goes back and forth between Smith’s investigation and the history of the collection’s acquisition, which is less interesting. He flies all over to meet crazy informants, whose theories of who the thieves were range from the IRA to Whitey Bolger to a conspiracy between US Congressmen, the IRA and Whitey Bolger. It’s a cute documentary; Smith is by far the most interesting aspect.
The Hurt Locker: 2008 action movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. William James arrives as the new team leader of a three-man Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, and quickly alienates his fellow unit members with his disdain for procedure and severe adrenaline habit. It’s a nail-biter, really intense, and goes above and beyond the typical day-in-the-life-of war movie. I loved it, and I love Bigelow; that lady makes a damn fine action movie. Renner is brilliant. I mean, it’s really really super good. It takes a hell of a war movie to make me cry.
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