Beatriz at Dinner - Miguel Arteta (2017)

"Beatriz at Dinner" is easily the most important film to come out since Jordan Peele's "Get Out" from earlier this year.

It tells the story about one rare evening where a member of the working class is put in a position where she has to socialize with the bourgeoisie.

Beatriz, played with beautiful subtlety by Salma Hayek, is a masseuse who finds herself stranded at a wealthy clients' house. 

The mistress of the house, Cathy, invites her to stay for a dinner party starting very soon and involving some very "important" people. 

It's important throughout the film to remember that at the start, Cathy really is a likable person.

The most crucial of the guests Beatriz will be spending the evening with is Doug Strutt, a pig of a real estate mogul, played masterfully by John Lithgow. The strength of Lithgow's performance lies in his refusal to simply paint this man as a villain. He never lets us forget the wickedness in his heart for a second, nevertheless showing us glimpses of humanity in his eyes. 

He even betrays a slight, peculiar fondness for bizarre but intriguing woman, Beatriz.

The bulk of the film shows Beatriz arguing with these characters, especially Strutt, about all manner of moral issues while handling condescension and racial slurs through the night.

Narcissism is the best word to sum up the nature of these ladies and gentlemen.

One telling sequence involves lighting up "wish lanterns" and letting them go over the canyon. One of them jokes that they'll be put in jail if he set fire to the area. Another says their lawyer friend will just get them off. That's goes right to the center of who these people are. Whether or not a fire is set and people are endangered is really of no consequence. It's only about the possible penalties for them.

Courage is really Beatriz' most prominent character quality. You can tell she would be more comfortable letting some of these heinous comments and attitudes slide, but she won't. She is meek by nature, but willing to be bold when she needs to be.

I kept waiting for that moment when these characters would realize how appalling they were behaving and that Beatriz was right more often than not through the evening.

If the ending feels unsatisfying, it's meant to be. The film refuses to tie everything with a trite, happy ending, instead of leaving us with a solid, bleak picture of the shameful way things really are right now in this country.

Loving - Jeff Nichols (2016)

"Loving" is the story of Ruth and George Edgerton, two lovers whose marriage flourishes in the face of a society of hate.

This film is a gem from last year that was unjustly overlooked.

It follows the story of an interracial couple, Richard and Mildred Loving and their battle from their first arrest in Caroline County, Virginia right up the historic Supreme Court ruling that banned laws persecuting interracial couples.

Right from the start, we look through a window right into to intimacy and warmth of Mildred and Richard's relationship.
It's a very muted opening scene.

We see the two of them their faces and bodies just so close to each other. There are only a few sentences of dialogue, but director Jeff Nichols shows us their love rather than ruining the beautiful moment with words.

The film takes us through the lives of the Lovings as they fall in love and establishing a family while facing seemingly rock-hard, enduring persecution. 

Their fight starts when the couple is arrested for the crime of entering into an "unnatural" marriage.  It follows the Lovings as the couple turn their romance turns into a solid, devoting family.



But their love comes with a price.  The Lovings are arrested by Caroline County officials and ordered to split up or leave the state.

They choose to move to D.C. and start their lives there.  But more trouble comes when they visit Virginia so she could have her baby there.  They are arrested again and when they get back to D.C., their fight begins in earnest.

The ACLU hears of their case and of course, they take an interest.

Of course, the ending is a part of our history.  The Supreme Court made a significant decision during the battle happening across the country for civil liberties.

Often, people look back on the 50's with such nostalgia.  That era is remembered by many as a wholesome time, just like on "Leave it to Beaver," "Father Knows Best," etc.
But "Loving" reminds us that the times were oppressive for so many Americans. 

I found myself thanking God that kind of institutionalized racism is a thing of the past.
Then I remembered that Jeff Sessions is our Attorney General.

"Loving" is one of those films that tries to be two things at once.  And it accomplishes it beautifully. The film is a wonderful, touching romance and an invigorating political at the same time.

You probably missed it the first time around, so seek it out now.  This film will be watched and discussed for years and ignoring it would be a desperate injustice.

Get Out by Jordan Peele - 2017

Comic Jordan Peele seems to have been hiding his talent for writing and directing with intensity and true horror while retaining a good deal of his smart-ass humor.

Aside from working solely as a work of entertainment, "Get Out" is arguably one of the most political horror films since George Romero's original "Dead" trilogy.

The first scene opens very like many others. In your slasher film, you'll find the first victim about to walk down a dank alley or open the door to a dilapidated, 'haunted' house' or down a dark hallway of an abandoned insane asylum all the teenage kids have decided to spend the night in.

Only this first victim is a black guy walking down a seemingly safe, residential, suburban street.  And before the audience can yell, "Hey don't go down there!" it's too late.

"Get Out" is the story of Chris, the black boyfriend and Rose, the white girlfriend who is taking her man to go meet her parents. Chris is nervous about how her family is going to react to him as their daughter's beau, considering he's black.

At first, Rose's family seems harmless enough, if condescending. Rose's dad even takes Chris aside to tell him how much he wanted to vote for Obama for a third term.  

Then small things pop up that just don't seem right and start to unsettle Chris.

When he's finally put in 'the sunken place,' he knows that something is rotten in Denmark and things go south from there. 

That's all I'm going to say about the plot.  I don't want to spoil anyone.  But the story is only part of the reason this film is so exceptional.

The film is really about the separation of races, not just geographically, but in points of view and how different races see America.

This is important at a time when our government is actively doing everything they can to separate us even further. This is a time when the HUD Secretary has said that the slaves who came to America in the bottom of slave ships were excited about opportunities in the new world, just like all immigrants.

But the film speaks to more than the politics of the day. Peele's running theme is that things between the races haven't been acceptable for a long damn time. It's not okay that people only claim they're not racist because they feel like they'll be shamed if their real beliefs surface. That's simply not good enough.

The truth is that white America has the notion that we fixed what was broken back during the civil rights era. And that just isn't so. Laws were changed and rights were grudgingly handed out, but that didn't really change the hearts of white America.

Now, I'm half German, a quarter Swedish and a quarter Norwegian, so I could not be any whiter. 

And I've been the only white face plenty of times at clubs, shows, movies and even a Black Literature class in college. And my family has lived in a neighborhood where we were the only white folk for a mile radius. So you'd think I'd be able to relate to what it feels like to be a minority, right? I mean, these experiences should tell me vividly how black people feel in a white environment, yes?  

Wrong. 

White America, I'm talking to you now. We have no idea what it's like to really be a minority, especially a historically despised people like the Black Community.

There is no way we can fathom how that feels. We have no idea what it would be like to walk a mile in their shoes and nothing can change that. We'll never see the world through the eyes of a black man.

I've believed this for a long time, but after seeing "Get Out," I don't just believe it. I see it as an absolute, irrefutable truth. I'm adding it to the filter that is my worldview.

It's amazing how much Peele accomplishes with this film. He's telling us that rights and laws are fantastic, but until perception is changed, across the board, we're not assimilated yet.

And as a bonus, his warning comes in the form of one of the best crafted horror films in years. Peele is an artist who works on many levels and I am actually holding my breath to see what he does next.