2016 Nominee: My Life as a Zucchini and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and a documentary short

5/28/17 My Life as a Zucchini, nominated Best Animated Feature, 2016

Something made me not all that eager about seeing the animated film My Life as a Zucchini; just one of those impressions you get from a trailer. Except, I think I was really wrong on this one. The movie is a Swiss/French production and the original release was in French, but the DVD from the library was in English with Erick Abbate as Zucchini; Nick Offerman as Raymond, a policeman; Ellen Page as Rosy, a social worker; and Amy Sedaris as mean Aunt Ida. The movie is described as an "adult animated comedy-drama", which sounds like something totally different in my head, and I don't completely agree. It is not a kiddie film, not for the youngest children, but I think older kids, 10 and up, could totally relate to this story of belonging, or not belonging, loss, non-traditional family structures. Zucchini (Courgette in French) lives with his mother, who drinks too much and can be abusive since his father left the family. One afternoon, in a particularly drunken rage, his mother comes up into the attic where he is, threatening him, and he slams the door on her, accidentally killing her. Wracked with guilt, Zucchini goes to the police to turn himself in and meets Officer Raymond, who is very kind and gentle with him, and takes him to an orphanage. It's difficult to fit, and Zucchini is teased by some of the kids; he also spends some time with Office Raymond. A young girl, Camille, comes to the orphanage, and she captures Zucchini's attention, and they become friends. Over time, the other kids start to accept Zucchini and he opens up to them as well. All the kids have different stories, parents who have died, abandoned them, been deported, etc. Learning about each other's backgrounds helps to break down the walls and suspicions between the kids. The kids perform a (semi) heroic act to rescue Camille from nasty Aunt Ida. I don't want to spoil the ending, so you'll need to watch the movie yourself. It took a while for the animation style to grow on me, but once it did, and I focused on the kids and their relationships, I really loved this movie.

5/28/17 Nine from Little Rock, Best Documentary Short 1964

Like most of the documentaries I have watched on the lives of African-Americans in America over the past 75 years, I watch and I think, it would be nice if this was just a piece of history. But, that's not how it is. Watching Nine from Little Rock shows us how far we came, but have fallen backwards. The documentary, filmed by Charles Guggenheim, who also did an award winning documentary on Robert F. Kennedy, was made seven years after the students first attended Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. It was narrated by Jeffrey Thomas, one of the nine students, and he talks about that first day, and what he doesn't come out and say, the video shows us: the hate and venom being spewed by some very angry, hateful citizens of Little Rock. The film is only 20 minutes, so there isn't a lot of time to do any in depth analysis or interviews, but we do hear from most of the nine students, most of whom went on to college, and they talk about their aspirations going forward, and some continue working in the civil rights movements. Thomas is very well spoken and has a positive outlook about the struggles of his friends and his country, and a feeling of progress in terms of civil rights. As it stands now, in 2017, it seems like we've fallen back to pre-1957.

5/28/17 Eyes Wide Shut, 1999 #61 BBC

Well, I didn't hate it. Can I stop there? Director Stanley Kubrick has five films on the BBC list of 100 best American films, and Eyes Wide Shut is at #61 (this is also Kubrick's last film), one above The Shining which is at #62, and below Blue Velvet #60, by David Lynch, which I HATED. The short version of the plot is there is a married couple, Alice and Dr. Bill Hartford (played by [at the time] married couple Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise) who seem to be having some issues in their marriage after a strange holiday party. Bill reconnects with a friend from medical school who is now a piano player, who has a gig at a 'secret' party. This intrigues Bill so much that he wheedles the information out of Nick, and rents the required costume and makes his way out to a mansion where he is required to provide a password. Bill gets past the security to find a bizarre sex ritual going on, where he is warned away by one of the women there, but refuses to go until he is threatened by the "Red Cloak". On the home front, his wife is telling him of her sexual fantasies that involve a different man. Bill finds it hard to stay at home with Alice; it's as if he is discovering the city and its underbelly for the first time ever, he spends some time with a nice prostitute; meets an eccentric costume shop owner who pimps out his daughter; and one of his patients has sex with a drugged out prostitute. Many critics have found deep psycho-sexual meaning in the film, and elevate it to the highest level of filmmaking, and say that Nicole Kidman has a most sublime performance. Meh. I will say this: it's a beautiful film to look at it, which is no doubt one of the great thing about Kubrick's films, that, and gorgeous soundtracks.