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Terrance Malick's gorgeous and painful epic opens with several sequences from Triumph of the Will. It's an uncomfortable opening because it's obviously a nod to Leni Riefenstahl's mastery of cinematic technique and dazzling technical innovations, and at the same time a hint about what's to come thematically.

I won't go into the plot at all here, or the characters. But I'm pretty sure Malick chose this material at this time for a reason. There is a scene in the film where an artist working in a church discusses how Christians look at art featuring scenes from Christ's life. They imagine themselves living at that time and being on the right side of history. Of course we all do that when we think of the past. Were I alive then I would have made the ethical choice despite the consequences, right?

The film shows us one man's decision to do the right thing during a terrible epoch despite enormous costs for himself and his family. There are terrible things happening right now, awful things bubbling up in the zeitgest. What decisions will we all have to make? Malick wants you to think about it. Along the way, every frame is a carefully thought-out work of art. Seriously, the guy has chops. Stunning Sven Nykvist level cinematography.




Zhang Yimou and Gong Li--one of the greatest director lead/actor teams ever, perhaps the greatest since Bergman/Ullmann? Great to see her back in a role reminiscent of her powerhouse turn in The Story of Qui Ju. This time she doesn't need the makeup.

Yimou obviously has tremendous weight to get away with making films which criticize or expose realities of the Chinese Communist system that others would never be allowed to film or release. Has the typical tear-jerking ending.




I thought the novel was horrifying and too real when it came out during the W. reign in the USA. Now under Trump it's much more horrifying. Good to see Baltimore stalwarts Simon and Burns back together again and making TV for HBO. I had some problems with the pacing, but after the finale it all made sense: slow, steady simmering build, then crashing awful finish. You can watch the series as similar events unfurl in the new concurrently. What fun!

Netflix

The Corner is grittier and more painful even than Simon and Burns' latest project The Wire, which says a lot if you're familiar with that TV novel. This mini series will break your heart. A formerly middle-class family of dealers and junkies struggle through a year in Baltimore as they try to stabilize themselves in a marginal society. Scoring a blast occupies most of their time. The show doesn't deal in types, however. These are real people with dreams and hopes whose addiction destroys them slowly, and it's painful to watch.

I knew people in "the game" about 17 years ago, and wonder how they're doing today. When Fran gets clean and has to ride the bus to Hunt Valley for work every day I had to laugh; I thought of T and Chief and H-Man and Hawk and all those cats who used to work with me at Hunt Valley Mall and did the same--that's 2.5 hours on the bus every day. They were struggling to keep steady employment, to keep off the streets, but one by one they went from dealing to using to stealing in order to keep using. All of them but T fell to long prison terms last I'd heard. All of them were smart people in a terrible environment with few options, and I learned a lot about dignity from knowing those East Baltimore guys and gals. Last I saw T he was manning the register at the Timonium McDonald's, and he still had that big grin on his face. Some make it, many don't. The Corner strikes an occasional hopeful note but exposes the War on Drugs for the sham it is.