Mississippi Burning review

 Number 470 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1988 crime-thriller 'Mississippi Burning.'

Mississippi Burning is based on the true story of three civil rights activists going missing in a small Mississippi town. When FBI agents Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) and Alan Ward (Wilhelm Dafoe) start investigating, they are met with hostility from the town's racist locals. Soon they suspect the three activists were killed by the KKK. Frances Mcdormand, Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker, R. Lee Erney and Stephen Tobolowsky co-star.

I recently wrote a listicle about films too traumatic to watch again. If I were to write another list, surely Mississippi Burning would be at the top of the list. This is a film that does not shy away from the United States' racist past. Rather, it tackles it head-on. And there's no other way you can depict such horrible subject matter.

Mississippi Burning is a harrowing and brutal portrayal of the ugly discrimination that the black community was forced to endure. Yes, it does show it through the perspective of white men, and it would be have been more interesting if the black men were put more front-and-centre, but it was still a powerful watch all the same.

The relationship between Anderson and Ward underpinned the film. Anderson, the older and more maverick of the two, has to follow the orders of the younger, but more senior in rank, Ward, who is a stickler for the rules. Despite their differences, they learn to work together.  Dafoe and Hackman had great chemistry, which shone through.

As Dafoe is a character actor, he usually plays larger-than-life oddballs, usually leading, to over-the-top, exaggerated performances *cough cough* the the Boondock Saints, but he was incredibly measured and controlled in this.

Hackman was also great. Anderson has a romantic subplot with the wife of one of the Mississippi police officers played by Frances Mcdormand. she showed why she is one of the few actors to have won three Best Acting Oscars. Their relationship was wonderfully understated. Originally, the pair were supposed to have a sex-scene, but this was dropped in favour of the two characters standing in the shadows. And that's all we needed to see. Props to the lighting department.

And all the supporting cast were good too: Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker, and, especially, Stephen Tobolowsky were chilling ass the abhorrent KKK members.

Sure there might be some who criticise Mississippi Burning for distorting history, but the key message is clear enough: the black community was subject to terrible, racist abuse. And that's a true we should never forget.

Green Book review

 I'm taking a slight deviation from the top 1000 films of all time to review the 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner: 'Green Book.'

Based on a true story, Green Book follows the relationship between acclaimed, African-American pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his Italian-American chauffeur Tony "Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortenson) as they tour around the deep South in 1960's America.

Representation and diversity are massive buzz words in today's culture. As this film is all about race relations, naturally it has received some criticism about its depiction of race. However, I think it was a great representation of race on-screen.  Rather than forcing a black character into a white role, director Peter Farrelly depicted a true story. These types of films are always so much better as they bleed authenticity. And Green Book felt scarily realistic.

Sure you could dismiss a lot of the film as exaggeration or hyperbole, but the reality was that many African-Americans faced the same Jim Crow discrimination as Dr Don Shirley did. He is not allowed to try on a suit at a tailor shop and when he goes for a drink in a bar, he is beaten by three white racists. But he is also subjected to far more insidious cases of racism. He is not allowed to eat in "white" restaurants or use "white" toilets. Despite being a brilliant musician, he is very much a performing seal brought out to be gawped and pointed at by the white people and then sent back to his cage. They're happy to have him perform, but are abhorred by the thought of eating with him.

Mahershala Ali was absolutely brilliant as Dr Shirley. He perfectly portrayed the conflicted nature of the character: a character who is caught between two worlds without fitting into either. He is too black to be white and too white to be black. Ali conveyed the true loneliness of the character - loneliness that is hiding behind a veneer of pride and standoffishness. Mahershala won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and deservingly so. He really is one of the most versatile actors of this generation: he can play prim and proper like in Green Book, he does suave and mysterious in House of Cards and a dark rough- around-the-edges policeman in True Detective.

But he can't take all the credit. Viggo Mortenson was also fantastic. He didn't just play Tony Lip, he embodied the character. Sure, you could say that he was a cliche who played up to every single Italian-American stereotype, but that is very much the point of the character and the point of the film. It's not just about overcoming your own prejudices and biases, but proving that you are much more than the sum of your parts. Tony Lip could have just been another hot-headed, vest-wearing Italian-American, but Mortenson turned him into a courageous man, determined to stand up for what was right - despite harbouring some initial prejudices himself.

And the film works so well because of the chemistry between Ali and Mortenson. The two of them were great together. They were like a comedy duo with Dr Shirley playing the straight man to Tony Lip's less than sophisticated ways. This clashing of cultures was hilarious to watch.

Farelly directed a brilliant film that wonderfully balanced humour and emotion while also treating listener's ears to a great soundtrack full of Motown classics, Chopin and even a composition by Dr Shirley himself. I've ran out of superlatives to describe this film. Just go watch it now. 

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War Review

 Number 185 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean war film, Tae Guk Gi: the Brotherhood of War.

Set during the Korean War, Tae Guk Gi focusses on brothers Lee Jin-Tae (Jan Dong-Gun) and Lee Jin-Soek (Won Bin.) The naive and innocent Jin-Doek is drafted into the army. To protect his younger brother, Jin-Tae also enrols. But the war soon changes both brothers beyond comprehension.

Since I started this challenge, I've watched a lot of war films and I've found the best films are the ones that refuse to shy away from the true horrors of war. Tae Guk Gi did exactly that. This was a relentless, non-stop, two and a half hour lesson in the brutality of man. As this is a South Korean film, you might expect them to be portrayed as the heroes and the North Koreans as the villains. But war is rarely that simple. We see both sides commit atrocities.

Jin-Tae discovers that if he earns the Tae Guk Cordon of the Order of Military Merit - the highest military model possible, he would have the power to send his brother home. He volunteers for progressively riskier missions and slowly transforms into a cold-blooded killer.

Upon running into a childhood friend who has been drafted for the North, Jin-Tae is prepared to slaughter him until his younger brother intervenes. Later on, Jin-Tae arranges for the POWs to fight for his own amusement. The North is just as bad. They massacre whole villages and booby-trap the dead bodies. War is never as simple as "he is good and he is bad." There is always a lot of morally grey. This is demonstrated in the supporting cast from the man whose whole family was massacred by the communists and now wants to kill them all to the young Song-Yong, who like Jin-Soek, doesn't want to kill anybody.

Granted the whole brothers/friends gong to war as comrades and slowly becoming enemies is not the most original of ideas, but Tae Guk Gi did it well. In the initial fifteen minutes, we have a clear idea of who the brothers are - Jin-Doek is young and naive with aspirations of college. Jin-Tae is street-smart and confident - he shines shoes to earn enough money to send his younger brother to college. But the brothers are very loyal to each other which is what makes their gradual separation even the more painful.

When Jin-Tae and Jin-Soek return to their home town, Jin-Tae's fiance, Young-Shin, is accused of being a communist and is taken to be shot. Despite the brother's best efforts to save her, she is still executed and the brothers are arrested for trying to save her with Jin-Soek supposedly dying when his prison is burnt down. He survives and later finds out that Jin-Tae has defected to the North Koreans and is now one of their elite commanders. Jin-Soek goes to rescue him, but it appears that Jin-Tae is too far gone. When a battle breaks out and it looks like all hope is lost, Jin-Tae recognises his brother and sacrifices himself so he can escape. And this was a nice way to round out their story arcs. They began as brothers, turned to enemies and finished as brothers again.

If I were to criticise the film for anything, I think it would be for its choppy editing. Some of the battle scenes went on for too long and some of the peace scenes were cut too short. At times it did make for a confusing watch. And I also wonder whether the film over did the action scenes. Yes, I know, war is confusing and chaotic, but the frenetic camerawork and constant explosions did become a little tiresome after a while.

Overall this was a great film and will join the likes of Saving Private Ryan, The Deer Hunter and Full Metal Jacket as one of the best war films of all time.

Fargo film Review

 Number 175 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Coen brothers' 1996 black comedy crime film Fargo.

Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hires two hitmen Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife to extort a ransom from her wealthy father. When the kidnapping goes awry and three innocents end up dead, police woman Marge Gunderson (Frances Mcdormand) investigates.

This is the second Coen Brothers' film I've seen after The Big Lebowski, and I've also watched Noah Hawley's TV series, Fargo, which was inspired by this very film. Out of the three, I definitely found the movie Fargo, the easiest to follow. It was the simplest with no enigmatic cowboys or UFO encounters.

But then again, it really was nothing special either. And that's down to how unmemorable the characters are. Upon writing this review for the first time, I couldn't remember any of the character's names apart from Marge Gunderson. When it came to the supposed protagonist, Jerry Lundegaard, (I'll come to this later,) his journey was murky.

I can't remember it being explained why he exactly wanted his wife kidnapped and ransomed apart from some vague explanation about how he desperately needed the cash. This kept his motivations opaque and I thought it was strange that we were focussing so much on a character who wasn't even the protagonist. Apparently, the real star was Marge Gunderson who doesn't appear until 33 minutes into the film.

Frances Mcdormand won her first acting Oscar for this film, but I'm not sure why. I haven't seen enough of Mcdormand's work to rate her acting ability, but Fargo didn't do her any favours. She doesn't appear until a third into the film, and when she does, she drinks coffee, eats breakfast and says "yeah," in her "Minnesota Nice." She only stumbles upon Showalter and Grimsrud's cabin by sheer dumb luck. Also I'm no gun expert, but I am sceptical that Gunderson's little Smith & Wesson would have the range to take out the fleeing Grimsrud. But I do think that Mcdormand was short-changed. She wasn't given enough to do to make her performance Oscar-worthy.

I'm not ragging on the film completely. I think Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare were great. Their scenes together provided a lot of the film's humour. Despite having only twenty lines of dialogue, Stormare had a brilliant presence, being a true menace in every scene. And Steve Buscemi is great in every film he's in.

All in all, Fargo was an entertaining crime thriller, but nothing special. Certainly not Oscar-material. And I know the "Minnesota Nice" accents were exaggerated, but it remains one of the weirdest accents in the US.