Can we talk about an acquired distaste? Contemporary technology allows independent filmmakers with a name the tenacity to self-distribute their work to their most enthusiastic fans, and animator Bill Plympton would likely make a fine illustration. If you care for his work. If you get his work, which I don’t. His latest hand-drawn noir fable-or-something-or-other, “Idiots & Angels,” left me as slack-jawed as anything else of his I’ve seen. I just don’t engage: his pencil-rough sketch style moves in front of me, characteristic enough, and… his unpleasant caricatures of an unpleasant world leave me looking at the dance of light on the ceiling above me. I salute Plympton’s enterprise, even with this leaden, word-free gangster nightmare. The stop-motion artists’ credit at the end is sweet-hearted. Among this week’s releases, his stump-headed everyman figure joins “Black Swan”‘s Nina Sayers in imagining himself or herself growing bristle on the shoulders toward full-flown wings. Darren Aronofsky’s grue grows into something more troubling than whimsy. The deeply aggravating music selections include Tom Waits and whistling. Homely whistling. Abrasive whistling. 78m. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart of Darkness: A Review of The Batman The three-hour film noir unfolds briskly, an intensive study in the pervasive interplay of power, money and corruption in what seems like perpetual rainy night.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
Can we talk about an acquired distaste? Contemporary technology allows independent filmmakers with a name the tenacity to self-distribute their work to their most enthusiastic fans, and animator Bill Plympton would likely make a fine illustration. If you care for his work. If you get his work, which I don’t. His latest hand-drawn noir fable-or-something-or-other, “Idiots & Angels,” left me as slack-jawed as anything else of his I’ve seen. I just don’t engage: his pencil-rough sketch style moves in front of me, characteristic enough, and… his unpleasant caricatures of an unpleasant world leave me looking at the dance of light on the ceiling above me. I salute Plympton’s enterprise, even with this leaden, word-free gangster nightmare. The stop-motion artists’ credit at the end is sweet-hearted. Among this week’s releases, his stump-headed everyman figure joins “Black Swan”‘s Nina Sayers in imagining himself or herself growing bristle on the shoulders toward full-flown wings. Darren Aronofsky’s grue grows into something more troubling than whimsy. The deeply aggravating music selections include Tom Waits and whistling. Homely whistling. Abrasive whistling. 78m. (Ray Pride)
