"Kedi" Review

OP-ROB RATING: STARTER

For those that speak Turkish, you may be able to guess what Ceyda Torun’s documentary “Kedi” is about simply from the title.  In the native tongue of the bustling city of Istanbul, Turkey, kedi means cat, and “Kedi” is a documentary about their influence on the historic city.  Unlike any major western city, Istanbul is graced by the presence of thousands of street cats.  Several residents throughout the documentary lend a bit of knowledge as to how the cats arrived:  many of which came on ships when the Ottoman Empire was the trading hub of modern civilization.  Now the diverse cat population has cemented itself in the identity of the city.  Throughout the film “Kedi” details several different cat profiles: one is deemed a “hunter cat”, another a “psycho cat”, and so on.  The cats are amusing, yet the real stars of “Kedi” are the humans that interact with them.  The cat-human relationship lends itself to a greater understanding of life, happiness, and the inherent goodness in all of us.

Perhaps most amusing of the cat profiles is Duman. A middle-eastern version of Garfield that lingers outside a fancy delicatessen and eats only the finest smoked meats and cheeses. A chef in the restaurant explains that Duman will never beg at the customer’s outdoor tables, because he is a gentleman. But instead he paws at the window when he is hungry.  With the exception of one cat named Alan Parçasi, who works tirelessly to rid a restaurant of mice, I found myself questioning why all these people provided for their cats.  Why sacrifice for a thankless pet?  “Kedi” provides a complex, and ultimately fulfilling answer to this question as the stories line up.

One of the episodes stars Bengu, a cat that lives to be caressed and smothered with attention yet shows no appreciation and will disappear at a moments notice.  His owner makes a comment about cats that “they're not ungrateful they just know better”, he says, “It is said cats are aware of God’s existence. While dogs think people are God, cats don’t.”  It is a fascinating observation that could only be provided by someone of deep spirituality.  As the cats and their human counterparts are introduced throughout the film, it becomes clear that to have an appreciation of cats, you must share in this calm understanding of God’s existence.  Since most cats act aloof as to the people that feed and house them, it is obvious why many people prefer dogs, which are loyal and usually admire their masters.  To love a cat is to reach something deeper within the human spirit.

The one glaring weakness in “Kedi” is its length.  At 80 minutes the film has an abundance of shots that simply meander around Istanbul following random cats.  These scenes serve as unnecessary fluff, and force what should have been a 40-50 minute short film into a full-length feature.  Granted, the cinematography is crisp and provides a fulsome profile of the city.  The soundtrack is also delightful.  However, towards the end of the film I found myself growing weary of all the cats.  Despite this, the tidbits of insight on the human experience offered in “Kedi” override its overdrawn run time.  While certainly not a must see, “Kedi”, like Duman, offers enough sightly leisure to make the commitment worth it.

"Get Out" Review

OP-ROB RATING: LEGEND

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is a talented black photographer and Brooklyn native who has fallen in love with a white girl named Rose Armitage (Allison Williams).   Having dated for nearly six months, Rose convinces Chris to take a weekend trip to the countryside so he can meet her family.  Chris is concerned that the Armitages are going to be unpleasantly surprised by the fact that he is black, but Rose assures him not to worry.  Upon arriving to the estate Chris is greeted by Rose’s parents Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener), a neurosurgeon and psychiatrist, respectively.  Chris is also introduced to the Armitage’s black house workers, a maid named Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and a handyman named Walter (Marcus Henderson).

Right off the bat things at the Armitage house seem a bit strange, especially with Georgina and Walter, both of whom act unwelcoming towards Chris.  Furthermore, when he sneaks outside in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette, Chris sees Walter sprinting around the yard at full speed.  Rose’s parents seem normal enough at first.  Dean gives off a distinct eastern white liberal vibe as he shows off the cultural artwork in the house and comments on how much he hates the “look” of having black workers.  Missy is somewhat more reserved, but offers to help Chris with his addiction to smoking cigarettes by using hypnosis.  When Chris reenters the house from his smoke break, Missy lures him into her therapy office where she hypnotizes him into “the sunken place”.  The rest of the visit plays out with an ever-growing sense of unrest for Chris.

As a horror movie, “Get Out” is truly first class.  The climax of the film is shocking, and debut director Jordan Peele masterfully executes the detailed build up.  As Chris interacts with the Armitages and their friends he slowly begins to feel more and more uncomfortable.  His genuine love for Rose keeps him from leaving until the family can ensnare him in their sinister operation.  The more comic side of the film is shouldered by Rodney (Lil Rel Howery), a TSA agent and Chris’ best friend.  Chris contacts Rodney several times throughout the film to update him on the increasingly strange visit. The things that Chris observes all provide little clues to his, and the audience’s final revelation.  It is only after the film that you look back and think, “Ah-ha! That’s what that meant…” The all-around dynamism of “Get Out” also shows Peele’s appreciation of the horror genre as a filmmaker.  “Get Out” harkens back to classics such as “Rosemary’s Baby” with its meticulously executed buildup; “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” with its theme of hypnotism and disassociation, and “The Evil Dead” with its gory finish. 

The most impressive aspect of “Get Out” however, is not the overall quality of the filmmaking, but rather the complex racial message that underlies the film.  “Get Out” is a critique of a growing faction of modern progressive whites that want to absorb black culture, but not actually interact with black people in a meaningful way.  In “Get Out”, these white people’s goals are manifested in an evil and incredibly creepy way that I won’t spoil.  But it also happens in everyday life through small, seemingly harmless interactions.  Peele subtly points out some of these racial mannerisms throughout the film.  For example, when Dean first meets Chris he feels the need to confidently confide that he had voted twice for Barack Obama and that he would have voted for him a third time if he were on the ballot, adding, “best President of my lifetime.”  Many of the Armitage’s friends also make comments championing the athletic accomplishments of black athletes including Tiger Woods and Jesse Owens.  The white people in “Get Out” sincerely appreciate black culture as it relates to athletic competition and “being cool”.  But do they see blacks as anything more than just commodities for better performance and social perception? 

Overall, “Get Out” packs the punch of a generational horror film infused with a complex and bravely frank racial message.  Films such as this do not come around often, if ever.  After walking out of the theater, besides feeling giddily shocked by the thrills of the film, I also found myself asking questions about my own relationship with black culture and black people in a way I had never before considered.  In the unraveling of its story, “Get Out” forces viewers to reconsider the details in the scenes and even the meaning of the title of the film.  More importantly, it steers viewers to reevaluate their own personal understanding of race in America.

"Logan" Review

OP-ROB RATING: BENCH

“Logan” is a film directed by James Mangold that features Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) living in the year 2029.  At this point Wolverine has gotten pretty old.  He has a grey beard and works as a limo driver in El Paso, Texas.  Wolverine is laying low because mutants are not allowed in the United States, but they have also stopped being born and are on the edge of extinction.  Aside from driving the limo, Wolverine is caring for Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart).  Sadly, Professor X has some kind of degenerative brain disease that induces seizures.  Because of Professor X’s superpowers, these seizures are extremely dangerous and can kill human beings.  Therefore Wolverine keeps him inside an old water tankard just across the border in Mexico.  Also residing on the hidden property is the sickly, lanky, albino mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant) whose skin sizzles if exposed to direct sunlight.  To make matters worse, the adamantium that was fused to Wolverine’s bone structure during the Weapon X program is slowly poisoning him.  The Wolverine in “Logan” is not the agile, fast-healing dominant force from previous films.  In an opening scene where some Mexican gangsters try to steal the tires off of Wolverine’s limo, he sustains several shotgun blasts that seem to almost kill him.  The almost post-apocalyptic setting of “Logan” is incredibly dismal, yet offers a far sharper and grittier feel than any superhero film of recent memory. 

The main plot gets under way when Wolverine is wrangled into driving a mutant girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) from Texas to North Dakota.  Laura was created in a laboratory along with a bevy of other mutants to be used as weapons by the malicious “Transigen” corporation.  The kids are cloned using DNA from other mutants.  In fact, Laura is technically Wolverine’s daughter.  Like her father, Laura has claws, regenerative healing, and an adamantium infused skeletal structure thanks to Transigen.  However, as the experiment proved too uncontrollable Tansigen decided to terminate the subjects.  A nurse in the facility helps Laura escape and reaches out to Wolverine who reluctantly agrees to help.  Throughout the rest of the film Wolverine, Professor X, and Laura are relentlessly chased by the villainous doctors and henchmen from Transigen. 

As ridiculous as it all sounds, “Logan” has an air of seriousness from start to finish.  The R-rated effects lend to a shockingly gory adventure, especially for a superhero film.  The violence ranges from Wolverine decapitating his enemies to Laura sucking bullets out of her arms as they regenerate. Further adding to the stern tone of the film is the lack of shiny tech that was a staple of past “X-Men” movies.  Long gone is the high-tech “X-Jet” and mutant-tracking “Cerebro”.  In “Logan”, it seems Wolverine and the rest of the mutants are truly on their last leg.  Under Mangold’s direction “Logan” is a unique superhero film that defies the genre conventions in a myriad of different ways.  However, the film is way too complicated for an average viewer to indulge.

For example, how many people know that Wolverine’s given name is James Howlett?  How many people know the intricacies of Wolverine’s origin story?  How many people know about Caliban or “what happened in Westchester”?  As much as “Logan” offers in ingenuity, it squanders by soaking the plot in intricate comic-book history.  Just figuring out the basics of the plot in “Logan” requires what amounts to hours of research on Wikipedia.  Maybe die-hard fans of X-Men comics may love the film but it doesn’t translate to the knowledge of an average viewer.

As a fan of the original series, “Logan” was tough to enjoy despite being a well-made film. When I saw those older movies as a kid I wanted to be Wolverine.  I remember collecting the promotional Slurpee cups at 7-Eleven and even dressing up in the absurd looking X-Men jumpsuit so I could be Wolverine for Halloween.  Part of what made and still makes Wolverine so cool is that he is the focal point of the “X-Men” but is so low-key about it that for the first three films he hid under the team name.  Furthermore, the Wolverine of past films always had this gritty swagger that set him apart from other superheroes like when he was introduced in 2000’s “X-Men” with a cage-fighting scene.  But perhaps the most important aspect of Wolverine’s “coolness” was that he was the reluctant leader.  His deep sense of integrity always led him to do what was right even if he didn’t want to. 

            In “Logan”, all but one of those attributes has vanished.  Wolverine is the lone-star of the film and he is a shade of his former self.  However, Wolverine still has his iron-will.  It is fitting that Johnny Cash’s somber ballad “The Man Comes Around” plays as the end credits of “Logan” roll.  Although many of the themes in the film are less than subtle, such as big corporation abuses and a corollary between Trump’s stances on immigrants flipped toward mutants, there is one that quietly shines out the rest.  In one scene Professor X and Laura sit in a hotel room in Oklahoma City watching the 1953 western, “Shane”.  Professor X explains to Laura some throwaway nostalgia about how he saw the movie in theaters as a child.  However with the classic western, Mangold subtly draws a corollary to Wolverine, as Shane was also a lone-wolf kind of hero.

            Ultimately, “Logan” sets an impressive precedent for superhero films with references to film history and a serious tone.  However, it fails to translate to a wide audience due to an overdose of comic book factoids that dominate the plot.  Wolverine is a gruff, to the point individual; his final film should reflect that attitude.