Butcher: "This is the liver. The kidneys. The heart. This is a wound.The stomach will bleed and bleed. This is a kill! This is a kill! The main artery. This is a kill.
(Butcher gives blade to Amsterdam.)
Butcher: "You try. Go ahead. The lung, good. Don't foul the blade on the rib. Very good, main artery. Bleed him slow, let him think about it for a while. Slow Death. Good."
Althea: "I heard you slept with every single girl in every one of your clubs as sort of a prerequisite. I was wondering if that was true."
Larry: "Well, it isn't entirely untrue if that's what you mean."
Althea: "I'm curious why you haven't taken a stab at me?"
(after)
Althea: "You are not the only one in this club that has slept with every girl in this club."
Sometimes, a film comes around, reaching for epic status. A great many of these are enthusiastic, but embarrassingly bad. Some actually do reach epic status.
Dee Rees' "Mudbound" is an ambitious film. It wants to be everything: a war story, a drama, but most of all, an acceleration of hatred between man against man, family against family, white against humanity.
When Ronsel Jackson (Jackson Mitchell) a black servicemen, comes home a hero from World War II, his family is ecstatic. His dad, Hap (Rob Morgan), is overjoyed when Ronsel tells him he intends to stay with his family, in Mississippi and work on the family's farm.
Of course, this is problematic to say the least. The Jackson family are tenants of the McAllen's, led by an inhuman patriarch, Pappy (Jonathan Banks). He doesn't miss an opportunity to make it clear to Ronsel that he doesn't care what respect or rights he had during the war. Ronsel is back here in Mississippi.
In fact, the whole McAllan family together represents a familiar "racism with a smile." They demand absolute servitude from the Jacksons, even as the head of their family, Hap is incapacitated by a broken leg, and expected to be working.
Meanwhile, Ronsel starts a strange kind of friendship with Jamie, (Garrett Hedlund), one the McAllan boys coming back from the war as well. They bond over their partying, fighting, close calls, womanizing, the toll killing people can take on one's soul, and their shared shell-shock.
At one point, there's a rare scenario when the McAllans are in a position to humble themselves and ask a desperate service from the mother of the Jackson family, Florence (Mary J. Blige). The McAllan children have gotten sick and they can't reach a doctor. Laura, (Carey Mulligan) understands Florence knows how to care for them. Knowing that her family won't get any kind of thanks, that the McAllan family will continue to demand servitude, Florence agrees to help. Yes, the McAllans are monsters, but you can't take that out innocent children. Of course, when the danger is passed, things continue as they were.
Ronsel and Jamie continue their friendship, getting closer as they spend more time with each other. But there's a dark shadow lurking over them: Pappy McAllan. The man's cold, deliberate malice is deadly. More-so than Jonathan had ever dreamed.
When the story reaches its boiling point, every single character is hurt. And what's truly sad is that these tragedies have no moral. They're empty and meaningless. None of it was necessary. In the end, there's just loss and grief.
But this film is bigger than the violence. With the backdrop of Belgium and other WWII stages, "Mudbound" covers decades in these families' lives. It covers a love triangle, the increasing boldness of the Ku Klux Klan, the sparks of the Civil Rights movement, a story of vengeance, of fathers and sons and it nails each of these smaller story contained within.
The film reaches for epic status and touches it.
And Jonathan Banks deserves recognition for his work as he brings white hatred and quiet savagery to the screen personified on his very face. I'm still frightened by the thought of him.
I know it's late in the year for telling you what the top ten films of 2017 are, but it takes time for so much wisdom to paint itself across these pages.
I do have a tentative list. My delay in posting my top 10 films of 2017 exists because there are a number of films I've not had the chance to watch yet. As soon as I see them, I'll give you my finalized list.
If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll remember I've been calling Jordan Peele's satire "Get Out" the best film of the year and that hasn't changed.
"Just because you are a character, doesn't mean you have character." - the unsurpassed Winston Wolf played by Harvey Keitel in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."
(Cutting a hanging pig.)
Althea: "I heard you slept with every single girl in every one of your clubs as sort of a prerequisite. I was wondering if that was true."
When watching any film, there are moments when, if the tone is just perfect, a song can be just as effective as any element of the picture.
Sometimes, a film comes around, reaching for epic status. A great many of these are enthusiastic, but embarrassingly bad. Some actually do reach epic status.
Of course, this is problematic to say the least. The Jackson family are tenants of the McAllen's, led by an inhuman patriarch, Pappy (Jonathan Banks). He doesn't miss an opportunity to make it clear to Ronsel that he doesn't care what respect or rights he had during the war. Ronsel is back here in Mississippi.
The film reaches for epic status and touches it.
If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll remember I've been calling Jordan Peele's satire "Get Out" the best film of the year and that hasn't changed.
"Just because you are a character, doesn't mean you have character." - the unsurpassed Winston Wolf played by Harvey Keitel in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."