Present Tensed

Movies: American Revolution 2, “White Light, Black Rain”, JLA — New Frontier

Films I’ve seen recently –

Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion 2 – After see­ing the Chicago 10 last week, watch­ing Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion 2 feels like read­ing a set of foot­notes.   Rather than really try­ing to con­vey the over­all story of the 1968 Demo­c­ra­tic Con­ven­tion (& the siege of Chicago), Amer­i­can rev­o­lu­tion 2 com­piles a much more gran­u­lar set of footage from on the street inter­views and orga­ni­za­tional meet­ings.  There’s also more of a focus on the racial dynamic in the city (and the role of the Black Pan­thers), and the class dynam­ics in the move­ment.  It’s prob­a­bly bet­ter as a com­pan­ion to Chicago 10 than on it’s own.

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruc­tion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — A well made doc­u­men­tary about the atomic bomb­ings and their after­math. The direc­tors had a par­tic­u­larly well-balanced mix of archival footage, mod­ern day inter­views, and art­work on the topic.  That said, I feel com­pelled to rec­om­mend two great films on the topic: The Atomic Cafe, and Grave of the Fireflies.

Jus­tice League — The New Fron­tier — While Mar­vel is try­ing to make the aes­thetic of their new ani­mated films very futuristic/modern, DC seems to be tak­ing the oppo­site tact and going for a “time­less” retro chic.   New Fron­tier has an ele­gant look that car­ries the story for­ward in spite of a dif­fi­cult to buy vil­lain.   Bonus points for a more extended look at the Hal Jor­dan / Green Lantern origin.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 45%