I hope you have some way of sharing this with Mr. Jefferson and/or his staff. I just posted this online review and I'd love for him to see it.
When I left the theater in Santa Fe yesterday, this is what I emailed a good friend immediately: “I have just watched the best movie that I've seen in a decade, 'American Fiction'. I certainly hope you can work it in. It is subtle, complex, satirical, revealing, beautifully filmed with superb dialogue. I could throw a few more descriptors in there -- endearing would be one.”
My guess is I watch 60-100 movies a year and no recent ones come even close. I wholeheartedly recommend this masterpiece – fuck yeah!!
This seems on target—like the author of the book, the filmmaker is offering up what the (white) market will respond to, but then mocks that thing and serves them up something for which they never would have bought a ticket. But I think the game is even deeper. Had the family drama that occupies most of the movie been well-written and actually engaging, the movie might have been better, but the bait-and-switch weaker. The mediocrity of the drama makes the indictment of the audience more powerful. The enthusiastic critical reception of the film simultaneously proves that it hit its mark and that its target doesn't understand that it was hit. There's something admirable in that—a work with greater satiric function than satiric content.
I hope you have some way of sharing this with Mr. Jefferson and/or his staff. I just posted this online review and I'd love for him to see it.
When I left the theater in Santa Fe yesterday, this is what I emailed a good friend immediately: “I have just watched the best movie that I've seen in a decade, 'American Fiction'. I certainly hope you can work it in. It is subtle, complex, satirical, revealing, beautifully filmed with superb dialogue. I could throw a few more descriptors in there -- endearing would be one.”
My guess is I watch 60-100 movies a year and no recent ones come even close. I wholeheartedly recommend this masterpiece – fuck yeah!!
This seems on target—like the author of the book, the filmmaker is offering up what the (white) market will respond to, but then mocks that thing and serves them up something for which they never would have bought a ticket. But I think the game is even deeper. Had the family drama that occupies most of the movie been well-written and actually engaging, the movie might have been better, but the bait-and-switch weaker. The mediocrity of the drama makes the indictment of the audience more powerful. The enthusiastic critical reception of the film simultaneously proves that it hit its mark and that its target doesn't understand that it was hit. There's something admirable in that—a work with greater satiric function than satiric content.