Talking Films: January Meet Up
Welcome back to Sydenham Arts Talking Films! We’ve got a bumper playlist to see you through the end of the year and the beginning of 2021! The list includes some Oscar favourites, and a whole mix of sci-fi, art, animation, and drama. We’re not expecting you to get through the whole lot, but we’ll discuss the list at our next meeting in the new year!
Must-see TV
1. Series based on beloved literature
This stunning in every way drama, based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel, stars the extraordinary Anya Taylor-Joy in the career-making role of a rare chess prodigy – a truly genius player, yet a familiarly flawed human being, as well as a female protagonist that is not defined by her romantic partners in any way. It became Netflix’s most- watched limited series ever within the first 28 days since its 23 October worldwide premiere. In the UK, the year ended, and it still hadn’t dropped off the weekly Top 10 of the streamer.
HIS DARK MATERIALS – BBC iPLAYER
Based on Philip Pullman’s acclaimed and much loved, read and reread around the world trilogy of books (“Northern Lights”, “The Subtle Knife”, “The Amber Spyglass”), it quickly became a critical and commercial hit for the BBC and HBO (in the US) that co-produced it. Faithful to the spirit and core values of its source material, with minor, mostly welcomed plot changes, beautiful to look at and with a stellar cast, it was renewed for a third and final season as soon as its second one concluded on 20/12/2020.
THE EXPANSE – AMAZON PRIME VIDEO
Not since Ronald D Moore’s “Battlestar Gallactica” has a sci-fi series caused such high passions within pop culture. Like “Battlestar” it was a gritty, SyFy channel show, adored by critics and fans alike. But unlike Moore’s iconic space saga, it is based on an awards winning series of books written by James S. A. Corey, (which is the joint pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who are also two of the series’ co-creators!) and was cancelled after 3 seasons. After a fervent fan campaign, spearheaded on Twitter by such celebrities as George R. R. Martin, it was saved by Amazon Prime Video, where its newest, 5th season is currently unfolding.
2. A controversial original
A stylish, twisty “whodunnit”, written and created by one of the genre’s TV’s masters, David E Kelly (“Big Little Lies”, “Boston Legal”, “Ally McBeal”, “LA Law”), directed in its entirety by the great Dane, Susanne Bier (“Bird Box”, “The Nigh Manager”, “In a Better World”) and staring the always intrepid Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as we’ve never seen him before, it brought the term Narcissistic Personality Disorder well into the mainstream, but caused quite a controversy with its “love it” or “hate it” finale.
3. The fiction V reality debate
One of the most well respected, award winning, prestigious dramas, became with its latest, 4th season, one of the most talked about ones, for all the wrong reasons. Ignoring its considerable artistic merits, many commentators chose to condemn it for not being historically accurate, even labeling it as “corrosive as fake news“, while the Culture Secretary demanded a fiction warning before each of its episodes and subsequently have been considering extra TV regulations when it comes to creating based on real events dramas. Wouldn’t that be a kind of censorship?
4. The documentaries about art as a way to survive difficult times
GRAYSON’S ART CLUB: THE EXHIBITION- ALL 4
Grayson Perry returns to his Art Club format to present the culmination of a year of lockdown art by people from across the country. The Art Club’s exhibition offers a unique, and surprising emotional insight into the power of art in these strange times, while the wide-ranging work of the exhibition’s participants, guest celebrities, and those completed by Grayson and Philippa Perry is a truly eclectic mix. If you’ve got time, why not have a look at some of the episodes from the original series?!
MUNCH FROM THE MUNCH MUSEUM AND NATIONAL GALLERY OF OSLO- SKY ARTS
Continuing the theme of art as a surviving mechanism in this month’s documentaries, go behind the scenes of the once-in-a-lifetime show from one of the world’s greatest artists, and learn more about the man and the complex, difficult and at times tragic life he lived.
Must-see Feature Films
1. The (Oscar worthy) fiction V reality debate
MANGROVE (1st of the ‘Small Axe’ films)- BBC iPLAYER
Having been given total freedom by the BBC for a series of five films (discover them all on iPlayer!) to air during Black History Month 2020, Steve McQueen chose to begin with this depressing and at the same time gloriously uplifting retelling of the Trial of the Mangrove Nine that culminated in the first judicial acknowledgment of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police. This is an urgent, timely, eye-opening film, illuminating the Caribbean migrant’s experience in London, via its unique visual musicality: the effective tempo of combining bold, public, loud statements with more quiet, intimate moments, when it cuts to a close-up of a gesture, an expression, or a gaze of its humans.
THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7- NETFLIX
Second foray into directing by the Oscar winning, Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) – one of the most politically minded and wonderfully verbose American screenwriters. Given artistic freedoms few are afforded in Hollywood, Sorkin chooses to retell the depressing and at the same time gloriously uplifting story of the Trial of the Chicago 7 that put the American judicial system to the test back in 1968, revealing some of its disturbing, racist, and undemocratic norms. This is another urgent, timely, eye-opening film, illuminating the very slow evolution of USA’s socio-political system, via a Sorkin staple: the musicality/rhythm of its dialogues as it effectively combines the languages of serious activism, humorous revolution, and legal jargon.
David Fincher’s best film in a long while, is a black and white, gorgeous to look at, deeply knowledgeable, cinematic love letter to the habitually underappreciated art of screenwriting. And not just any screenwriting: the Oscar winning one of “Citizen Kane”. AKA the screenplay that took a long, hard, brutally honest, critical look on the 1930s Hollywood, written by the haunted, eccentric, alcohol tainted, genius of Herman J. Mankewicz (played by the superb as ever Garry Oldman), that everyone tends to forget when discussing that behemoth of a cinematic classic and its risen to God-like status director/author, Orson Welles, who unlike Mank, alas, remained Oscar-less.
2. Past and future Oscar darlings
Last year, pre-Pandemic, pre-#BlackLivesMatter and pre-loss of Chadwick Boseman, as he so unexpectedly and tragically prematurely lost his battle with cancer, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences finally did the right thing and awarded Spike Lee his first ever Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay for his excellent joint, “BlacKkKlansman”. This year it may give him more for this long, at times either rambling or magnificently concise, operatic ode to the unsung, black (anti)heroes of the Vietnam war, as 5 survivors return to Vietnam in search of the remains of their squad leader (Boseman in a small but significant role/catalyst) and a hidden gold treasure.
FANTASTIC MR FOX- AMAZON PRIME
Nominated for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, for Alexandre Desplat’s spot on Original Score and Best Animated Feature Film of the Year back in 2010, this stop-motion animation is an unmistakable creation of -the ever Oscar nominated, never Oscar winning- Wes Anderson (“Isle of Dogs”, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”), albeit based on Roald Dahl’s novel and co-written by Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”). It is voiced, among others, by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murrey and Willem Dafoe, and it is an imaginatively choreographed, as wild, “irresponsible”, rebellious, and adventurous as its eponymous hero, feast for the eyes and music for the heart, roller coaster ride of a film.
Damien Chazelle won a Best Director Oscar and burst into the mainstream hive mind with his grand and ambitious musical, “La La Land” in 2016. But this, only his second directorial effort in 2014, “chamber film” is arguably his masterpiece thus far. A masterclass in the art of film editing, for which it won a worthy Oscar (along with one for Best Sound Mixing and another for Best Supporting Actor for the brilliant J.K. Simmons in the role of a life changing, severe mentor/conductor), it plays out as an ingenious, alternative, instrumental musical: hitting all the right notes on the drums to recount the experiences of a promising young musician striving to reach his potential in a cut-throat music school.