GFF Reviews

Author: gffreviews

  • The Garden Left Behind

    Ok, so this is another movie about trans women that obviously has good intentions. All trans characters are played by trans actors. It shows trans activism and resistance to trans oppression.

    That being said, this is another film that shows being trans as the single defining problem of the main character. Tina is a Latina trans woman who doesn’t have legal status in the US. She has a shitty boyfriend and is constantly struggling to make money. Yet the film acts like she has a single issue life. Much like the movie Girl, even other aspects of her life boil down to this one thing which is seen as a giant problem.

    Now obviously it’s right and proper to highlight the struggles of being trans, but not to the point where a single characteristic of a person is portrayed as all-defining, and as a negative burden upon them.

    It’s very after school special, and much of the writing and acting is cringey. Like all movies that portray being trans as a ‘problem play’, this ends with the expected outburst of violence.

    I’m glad to see trans actresses portraying trans stories, but this film just felt like it spoke to a cis audience the whole time. It was a plea to a cis audience for tolerance and therefore was kinda defined by the cis gaze. Mm.

  • Machine

    It’s not often you see a documentary about emergent technology and come away feeling comforted.

    One of my old uni lecturers said, “I’m not really worried about AI. Because all a computer can do is add 2 numbers, subtract 2 numbers, multiply and divide 2 numbers, and decide which one is larger or smaller.” That proves decidedly prescient given the subjects covered in Machine.

    Machine is a sort of setting to rights by robotisicist and AI specialists on the capacity and limitations of AI. The good news about AI is, a lot of it’s shite, so we’re not all gonna be replaced by androids just yet. The bad news is our problem isn’t AI, it’s capitalism, the state, patriarchy and racism. So yeah, there’s that.

    The kind of point of Machine is to say that the future of AI is not a technological problem, it’s a philosophical problem. And the problem with us getting good or bad results from AI, is down to the fact that we don’t really understand ourselves or know what we want. In fact, at basics, the trouble with replicating human thought, is we don’t really understand how humans think. It’s Dostoyevsky’s problem with creating a sane society for an insane species flung into a technological future.

    In short, people say what they want, then don’t want it. Best example is the driverless car trolley problem. People say that a driverless car should swerve to avoid injuring a group of pedestrians, even at the sacrafice of the safety of the driver. When asked if they would drive such a car, they’re like, “Fuck no!” How can a technology be developed to serve such a contradictory customer base?

    An interesting conversation starter. Give it a watch if it pops up on Netflix, which I suspect it will.

  • Song Without A Name

    Song Without A Name is based on real events where poor Native Amerindian women had their newborn children illegally adopted without their knowledge or consent. Even when the struggle to bring those to justice is finally over, the attitude prevails that these kids are probably better off with the rich whites that have adopted them overseas than with their poor indigenous mothers, so no real effort is put into reuniting them.

    For the main character, this just destroys her and her husband. Unable to provide or protect his family, he falls into despair and is led astray by a bad lot. She is left in this permanent state of unresolved mourning.

    A sorrowful tale.

  • The Cleansing Hour

    Thoroughly enjoyable possession romp. Good dose of humour. A hoax exorcist becomes real and goes viral.

  • Frightfest shorts – Cubicle and Live Forever

    Class Frightfest shorts. Live Forever is a wee sing-along about dying in horror films, really fun.

    Cubicle is a little horror short set entirely within a bathroom cubicle. Loved it. Really effective with very little.

  • Death of a Vlogger

    Ok, so Death of a Vlogger is a zero budget, no name, passion project made by a bunch of 20-year old pals in their flat. That being understood, it’s really fucking good.

    It really makes you wonder at what can be accomplished with skill alone. It’s basically shot on a phone, webcam, and fairly standard video camera. There is no CGI. And yet, I let out more shrieks in the cinema than I have in a long time. Because what they do have is a sense of timing, an understanding of their angles, and good use of light. In some ways for a film about the high-tech world, this reminded me of the classic scare techniques of early horror films.

    Death of a Vlogger is a meta found footage mockumentary. And there is no series of words I could write which could make you lose interest more, but seriously, it is actually good. It takes these modern tropes, marries it to a examination of toxic internet cultures, and channels it through low-fi classic horror film shots. The end result is really impressive.

    It was also really fun to see local locations in the movie, like the Flying Duck – I drink there! But in a way, setting it in a modern new-build Glasgow flat, just gave me the pure heebie jeebies about going back to my own Glasgow flat. Thanks guys. I’m gonna have to watch an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philedelphia to wind down, even though it’s 1 in the morning, and I’ve been up since 8am getting a tooth out.

    Definitely worth checking out. If your idea of good creep is things like the slow approach of an ominous figure in It Follows, or the swipe past Pipes in Ghostwatch, this is a film for you.

  • Synchronic

    Synchronic is about a drug which causes you to become unstuck in time. It has a fun X-Files episode vibe. It has that sci-fi mixed with crime procedural, plus a buddy-cop dynamic.

    It stars Jamie Dornan from Fifty Shades of Grey and Andrew Mackie from Avengers, who have great chemistry and make very believable best friends. Their back and forth really brings to life a lot of the humour.

    Just a really fun movie.

  • Measure For Measure

    A modern-day remake of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure set in the rough high flats of Melbourne, Australia. The result is a fun gangsta movie, with honour and reputation at the centre.

    Hugo Weaving makes a wonderful, growling, old-fashioned, dignified gangster.

  • Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

    I knew very little about Oliver Sacks other than he was the doctor Robin Williams’s character in Awakenings is based on. I also knew a couple of his other books, like The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. So this was an enormous pleasure to watch and learn from.

    Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is a biographical documentary, following both his life and work. He’s a man of many contradictions, or perhaps contradictions to expectations. On one hand he’s this fastidious little Jewish doctor from the Golders Green area of London, with a suitable beard, spectacles and clipped accent. On the other hand, he arrives in the States in the 60s looking like a Tom of Finland pin-up, driving to work on his motorbike, chomping his cigar, and stuffing his hulking muscles under a white coat. He becomes a weight-lifting champion to overcome his crippling shyness, yet he is extraordinarily frank about intimate things at times. He’s funny and gentle and has this unique ability to gain insight and understanding with people whose conditions radically impede their ability to communicate, yet he’s unable to form adult romantic relationships, and spends 35 years celibate.

    This is a lovely film that kind of talks about our exploration of what consciousness means, of our indebtness to those with neurological conditions for our understanding of the human condition, of an appeal to the value of all human beings and all ways of seeing and experiencing the world, which are all unique.

  • Sugar Cane Alley

    Sugar Cane Alley is the 1983 adaptation of semi-autobiographical novel by Joseph Zobel. Set in 1930s Martinique, it follows Jose and his grandmother’s attempts to get him an education and out of the sugar cane fields.

    This film has a great sense of place. This film is a whole world, not just a backdrop to Jose’s story.

    Race and class pervade this story. It is one of struggle to take even the first steps. Sugar Cane Alley are essentially the slave quarters from plantation times, and virtually nothing has changed, except the cane cutters are now paid in a pittance that ensures they are chained by debt instead of iron. It is Jose’s grandmother’s dearest wish to see her boy make it beyond the horizons of the sugar cane.

    And yet this is not a lecture, it is a life. Yes the struggles and injustices are ever real, but so is the warmth of community, the high-jinx of youth, and the bonds of family. Jose understands the hardships his grandmother is trying to save him from, but he loves his home.

    I loved watching the world of weans interact with the adults. This is a time where you just slapped a wean whenever they came close enough, coz you knew they’d been up to something even if you didn’t know what it was. And weans were more feart of their parents than lions and tigers.

    A story of love in a hard world. Really lovely film.