I was kind of forced to have a
relationship with this movie long before I saw it. Without even asking if
I’ve actually seen Nickel Boys, a lot of folks assumed that I not only saw it but loved
it. For the last few months this was one of those movies where people that kind of sort of get my taste would say stuff like "Marcus this looks like one of your movies that you would like!" I guess because the movie has an “artsy” aesthetic and has Black people in that I,
the “artsy” movie-loving Black guy, would automatically like it. To some degree
I get it. Based off of the trailer and out of context clips, this movie
definitely lies somewhere between post-Thin Red Line Terrance Malick and Barry
Jenkins’ Moonlight (two things I am fond of).
Nickel Boys director Ramell Ross
has a relationship with the films of Malick…
l noticed the power of this sort
of like roving and mounting poetry in Tree of Life, probably my all-time
favorite film - Ramell Ross, metrograph.com
| Tree Of Life / Nickel Boys |
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| Tree Of Life / Nickel Boys |
 |
| Tree Of Life / Nickel Boys |
And Barry Jenkins developed a
deep relationship with the film…
Nickel Boys. 1,000 per cent.
Point blank, period. I watched it twice in like three days. Love, love, loved
that movie. RaMell Ross, he is a true visionary and a true artist. That film is
extraordinary - Barry Jenkins, MyTalk1071.com
 |
| Moonlight / Nickel Boys |
Normally, I can’t stand when
adults are intentionally evasive just because. That’s toddler behavior. But in
the case of Nickel Boys, I intentionally avoided it for a long time because of
all the expectations put on me to like it.
This is one of those very specific things that Black film fans have to deal with sometimes. The assumption that you automatically like something prestigious strictly because it stars or is made by a Black person. Then there’s the added awkwardness when you don’t meet the expectations put on you and have the audacity to have criticisms of said prestigious Black films instead of mindless praise. You become the guy that doesn’t like anything and are labeled a killjoy even though you have a 15+ year old blog praising hundreds of movies over the years...
I think Queen & Slim is one
of the worst movies ever made. It exploited Black pain, made Black men look
either dumb and/or devious, and just had too many non-practical moments for
something that tried to be practical. I couldn’t stand Nia Dacosta’s Candyman
remake. It was made for pretentious people that are chronically online that get
their opinions on race from folks like Jemele Hill or Tariq Nasheed. If Sorry
White People never existed my life would not be impacted in any way. Like Queen
& Slim and the Candyman remake, Sorry White People was also made for
pretentious Black folks and White liberals that are chronically online. I enjoy
Get Out very much but can’t stand the dialogue and think-pieces around it. It
should have been allowed to stay the silly dark comedy that it was meant to be
but folks started taking it super serious and turned it in to something it
wasn’t meant to be. I thought Sterling K Brown was excellent in Waves but the
movie itself played in to awful stereotypes about young Black men. I enjoyed
Non-fiction overall but aspects of that movie really felt like it was trying
too hard for white acceptance. Notice how within the first 15-20 minutes of
that movie all the Black characters go out of their way to announce their very
important professions in a way that felt like they were essentially telling the
audience: “hey - Black people can be doctors, professors and lawyers!” I
understand there will always be a sector of non-Black people that will always
have low expectations of us. A movie isn’t going to change that so why even
bother trying to prove something to people that already have their minds made
up about us?
You may not agree with
everything I just said but don’t you find those opinions at least interesting
or potentially engaging? These kinds of thoughts and opinions are far better
than just saying something is “powerful” or “moving”. That gets boring after a
while.
I also tend to have a sometimes
cynical reaction to Black pain and Black trauma on film (not in real life but
on film). Part of that could be attributed to my northeast upbringing.
Generally speaking, I find that post-Gen X Black people that grew up in the
northeast region of America approach issues concerning race & racism on
film much more cynically than Black folks from the south or the Midwest. But
that’s a whole other conversation…
Black Trauma has just become a
genre. I acknowledge my northeast cynicism towards race in modern film but at a
certain point, I just get completely turned off when headlines and/or tweets
about real Black pain are turned in to marketable entities.
With all that being said - I
guess Nickel Boys was fine? It’s a tragic story about abuse, trauma racism and
just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I definitely think you all
should watch it but maybe watch it while being conscious of everything I’m
saying right now. I know I said a lot without saying much about the actual subject but I guess I don't have too much to say about the actual movie. There are certainly lots of isolated/out of context moments
of Malick-esque beauty. But it definitely is part of a bigger problem that’s
happening in film right now.
If you’re familiar with this
blog or my Twitter presence then you know I appreciate a good homage or
cinematic reference. But it’s starting to get a little out of hand. 30+ years
ago we had three or four reference-heavy Pulp Fiction-like movies and now we
get like 40 of them a year. In the last year we got The Substance, Cuckoo (a very loose rework of The Brood), In A Violent Nature, Longlegs (Silence
Of The Lambs), Rebel Ridge (First
Blood & Billy Jack), Nosferatu (beside it being another remake, Eggers references Possession).
A lot of filmmakers seem to be focused more on pulling from the past or shouting out their cinematic heroes and less invested in trying something new. I’m starting to wonder if new releases are nothing more than collages/ mixtapes.
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