Because Everybody Else Has One

Keeping with the format I adopted last time, my review of the Birth of a Nation comes from Channel 24 and, exclusive to this blog, are another two films that released on Friday that deserve at least a mention.  (Sorry this is a bit extremely late... holiday laziness...) What it's about The (mostly) true story of Nat Turner, the slave/ preacher who used his influence to incite a bloody uprising against slave owners in the American South. What we thought Despite intentionally “stealing back” its name from the groundbreaking but morally despicable 1915 D.W. Griffiths film, the Birth of a Nation mostly exists in the long shadow of 12 Years a Slave, the multiple-award-winning modern masterpiece that set a new bar for films about slavery. Sadly for it and its now infamous writer/ director/ star, Nate Parker, it doesn't come anywhere close to matching that film's emotional power, its complex intelligence or its quietly brilliant filmmaking. This isn't ...

As you'll see, this is one of the more complicated high scores I've ever given. This review is also at Channel 24 What it's about After his brother dies, a broken, bitter man named Lee Chandler has to go back to his old hometown to look after his teenage nephew. What we thought Manchester By the Sea, for this reviewer at least, is a classic case of a film that is immensely admirable and yet all but impossible to even remotely like, let alone love. It's a film that has been nominated for countless awards and absolutely deservedly so as it is an exquisitely put together and flawlessly acted near-masterpiece – and I detested very nearly every moment of it. This isn't so much like films that are impossible to enjoy because of their subject matter but are richly rewarding viewing experiences anyway (see Schindler's List, 12 Years a Slave) but more like something like Raging Bull – Martin Scorsese's 1980 tour de force that may be a true ...

Middle School is most definitely not the movie that most people have been looking forward to this week. As such, here are a few thoughts on two of the week's truly noteworthy films. As you may have guessed, my Middle School review can be also be found at Channel 24  but my thoughts on the other two films, no matter how short, are exclusive to Because Everybody Else Has One. Man, I really should have come up with a shorter name for this blog, though... Hacksaw Ridge is a potent reminder of both Mel Gibson's very real skill as a director of visceral, affecting, engrossing cinema (albeit cinema with all the subtlety of a very, very large sledgehammer) but it's also a reminder that it's not always easy to separate the artist from the art. However much this may be Gibson's "repentance" movie where he makes up for his past sins by shining a spotlight on a genuine hero whose story absolutely deserves to be widely known, I couldn't help but be distr...