Movie Mini-Reviews: BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Sorry to Bother You (2018)

* BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Ron Stallworth is the first African American policeman hired in Colorado Springs. After being disrespected and relegated to the evidence desk, he requests a transfer to go undercover. His first assignment is infiltrating a local rally headed by a civil rights leader Kwame Ture. The only negative he sees is the white police officers hassling and sexually assaulting Ture and the college students who invited him. Then Ron is reassigned to Intelligence where he pretends to be a white man to join the KKK. Co-worker Flip plays Ron in person and Ron plays himself on the phone to cultivate a relationship and investigate if the organization is violent under its new leader with the perfect facade David Duke.

This film has Ron Stallworth stuck in between groups. He's not part of the civil rights movement because they have rejected the idea of trying to improve corrupt organizations of the inside. He's also not part of the white police force who largely treat people of color horribly with the support of everyone in that system. He tries his best to keep things from getting to him, but he feels the tension of being pulled at from both sides. The situation where he pretends to be white to infiltrate the KKK seems humorous and ridiculous. It proves to be quite serious and dangerous, especially when his own boss essentially sabotages him.

BlacKkKlansman is film that portrays real events in the 70's but also informs events happening today. One particularly well done scene compares the civil rights movement with the KKK where they tell personal stories and bond over shared experiences. The difference is that the African American people heard W.E.B. Dubois' horrific account of a lynching while the KKK watched Birth of a Nation and told racist stories about African Americans. The most telling aspect of the link between the 70's and the present is the real footage at the end of the Charlottsville Unite the Right rally with the white supremecists, counter protests, the car attack, and Trump's awful comments about the event. This film is timely, powerful, and critical of the current state of the US.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

* Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Cash Green is struggling to make ends meet as a telemarketer and lives with his girlfriend Detroit in his uncle's garage that's converted into a bedroom. Once a coworker shows him the advantage of sounding white and carefree on the phone, he rakes in the cash and gets to the upper echelons of the company while his coworkers strike for better wages and treatment. Cash has to decide if financial success is worth turning his back on his friends and who he used to be.

Sorry to Bother You is an insane, over the top satirical film that merges critique of capitalism with science fiction elements. Cash is relatable to a lot of people struggling to afford to live and find success. His success stemmed from suppressing who he was and code switching to be acceptable to a largely white customer base. Even though his girlfriend Detroit is critical of him, she does exactly the same thing during her art installation where she affects an English accent to seem more sophisticated to white clients. This shows a problem that the white general public is offput by people of color. They are forced to not only have a cheerful facade like all people who work with the public, but have an added layer of changing their tone and way of speaking on top of that.

While his coworkers rally for higher wages, Cash is led into a luxurious upper floor where he has to sell people or weapons. The people are from an organization called WorryFree which is essentially slavery in a lifetime work contract in exchange for free food, free housing, and being free of debt. Cash enjoys the money, but has some guilt when Detroit breaks up with him and when he has a can thrown at him while crossing the picket line and becomes a meme. Is all this worth it to be rich? Late in the film, a jarringly science fiction aspect is introduced that pushes the film in the absurd, but it's effective. It's offputting and you'll either love it or hate it. Sorry to Bother You is hilarious, weird, and crazy in addition to critiquing the capitalist, exploitative, and racist aspects of our society.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: Jessabelle

* spoilers *

Jessabelle (Jessie) Laurent is happy and about to move in with her fiance until an accident kills him and causes her to miscarry and become wheelchair bound. She can no longer take care of herself due to her temporary disability, so she is forced to head back home to Louisiana to endure the care of her estranged father. After settling in, she finds a series of video tapes left by her mother while pregnant with her, reading her cards and talking about her life. Her mother mentions a dark spirit which is indeed faced with time and time again. Can Jessabelle find out who this spirit is and save herself?

I was drawn to Jessabelle because it seemed like an entertaining supernatural horror movie about a woman getting over the death of her mother and coming to terms with her past. Part of it is like I expected. Obviously not thrilled to be in her gruff father's house again, Jessies makes the best of it by trying to get to know her mother through the videotapes she left. The ghostly attacks start early in addition to her controlling father's violent actions as he pushes her (empty) wheelchair into the lake and destroys her only connection to her mother. Jessie resolves to complete the angry spirit's unfinished business as is typical and employs the help of her attractive yet unavailable childhood friend, Preston. Up until then it's a very straight forward PG-13 supernatural horror story. The only thing that shines here is Sarah Snook as a recovering, shellshocked Jessie. She infuses the role with sympathy and pathos, making her easy to root for and relate to. I really felt that she lost absolutely everything and was working to resolve her past and prepare for a better future. She had previously simply ignored her past, her abusive father, and her grief over her mother's death, which proved to be toxic and caught up with her in the present in the form of this ghost.

One major thing and one minor thing make this film simply awful. The major thing is how racist the finale makes the entire film. There are small things leading up to the finale that broadcast the full scope of the racism. Interesting African American characters are introduced early in the film involved in tradition Haitian practices. I thought she would enlist their help or directly interact with them in some way, but they are barely named or even speak. A mob of angry black people attacks the poor white Preston when they try to investigate. Then the finale: Jessabelle's mother was talking about a completely different biracial child in the videos that her father murdered. The mother went on to cast a spell to allow the evil dead child to take over Jessie (an adopted replacement child to cover up the murder) years later. Everyone involved in any way with African American people are evil, including the spirit of the baby who was murdered not long after its birth. Even the baby's real name Jessabelle brings the biblical Jezebel to mind, famous for lying and vanity. How does this even make sense to apply to someone who died in infancy? Plus the actual African American people barely speak, being relegated to silent, menacing roles or Haitian voodoo practitioners or evil spirits. It was extremely disappointing. The minor annoyance was the completely flat portrayal of Preston's wife, who was a typical shrew: jealous, rude, and much more covered up than Jessie is the entire film. Because she isn't at her best the few minutes she actually has screen time makes it ok for the romance between Jessie and Preston to develop.

Jessabelle is an incredibly racist film that I had hoped would have never been greenlit to be made in 2014. We have gone beyond this socially and cinematically. The extremely simple theme that white is good and black is evil is extremely outdated and has obviously racist implications when applied to the color of the characters' skin. I was shocked and surprised that very few reviews actually labelled it as clearly racist. I really thought horror journalism and the horror genre in general was better than that. The only good aspect in the whole film was Sarah Snook. Amber Stevens West is usually delightful in her roles, but I could barely tell it was her and she never even had the opportunity to speak. Only watch this if you want to be blindingly angry and insulted.

My rating: 1/5 fishmuffins