Movies in 2026 56

 

Happyend, (Neo Sora, 2024)

One of the (many) cool things that the Criterion Channel does is feature the occasional interesting independent or international film that has just left the theaters (that's a huge gift for folks in Vermont - and so many parts of the country - who never had the chance to see it in the theater in the first place). With that in mind, last night I watched Neo Sora's film Happyend. It tells the story of a number of Japanese high school students - Yuta (Hayato Kurihara), Kou (Yukito Hidaka), Ata-chan (Yuta Hayashi), Ming (Shina Peng), Tomu (Arazi), and Fumi (Kilala Inori) - as they have fun but also face the challenges of living through an increasingly authoritarian school and Japan. Halfway through I had decided to bump one of the films from my Images of Fascism class and replace it with Happend, but by the end I had talked myself out of it. To quote, well, myself, in too many responses to student essays, I just don't think it came together as cleanly as it might have - or maybe just as cleanly as I thought it had the potential to be (the director might well have considered it fully-realized). I guess I felt that the director couldn't decide whether the goal was a commentary on our techno-authoritarian dystopian age or the Breakfast Club. That definitely sounds harsher than it's intended, because I really liked it and I heartily recommend that you watch it (come on, get the Criterion Channel already!). Maybe this is just the teacher in me: we're always more frustrated by A student papers that were a couple more drafts away from brilliance than C students who are giving you all they have.

Why Indeed

 The other night in my Images of Fascism class we watched excerpts from Frank Capra's Prelude to War, the first installment in his Why We Fight US government propaganda series from World War II, and Claude Lanzmann's brilliant documentary about the holocaust, Shoah. They're both essential in different ways, but they also provided the challenge of how much to show so that the students could get the sense of the lesson but also leave enough time to let the students organically sort through the material (such is the life of a teacher). We ended up only watching around eleven minutes of Prelude to War (from around 6:42 to about 18:00, just about when there's around five minutes of marching), and I told the students that they should probably think of that eleven minute stretch as another text for the class.  In that section, Capra, and the US for that matter (it was a government sponsored film produced in the middle of the darkest chapter in American history), defined Fascism and what Fascists do to claim power. The students found it very sobering to watch the US government, in maybe its most assured dedication to the tenets of democracy, essentially defining the actions of our present US government as Fascist. Then we watched around an hour and a half out of Lanzmann's nine and a half hour documentary (that was a real challenge). However, we pulled out some powerful moments, including a Treblinka guard remembering the Jews being told that their skills would be valued at the camp, but first they had to take a quick delousing shower, before being led right into the gas chambers - and a death camp guard boisterously singing the Treblinka song they made all the Jewish workers sing (I swear I can still remember that scene, and I saw it once on public television in the 1980s). After the film, one of my female students, who had clearly been profoundly moved by Shoah, sadly commented, "I just don't know why we have to do all this again." Her statement alone might be the greatest teaching moment of the entire semester. Paraphrasing my daughter-in-law Ali, I guess this is why we have to do the work.

Movies in 2026 55

 

Sex, (Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024)

Today I finished the final film in Dag Johan Haugerud's Oslo trilogy, Sex. I still can't believe that the three films (including Love and Dreams) all came out in 2024. Sex and desire play a big role in all three films, but it is definitely foregrounded in this one. Jan Gunner Roise and Thorbjorn Harr are two chimney sweeps who begin to question/expand their understanding of gender and sexuality, in response to different experiences. Feier (Roise), a heterosexual married man has a sexual experience with a man. After sharing the experience with his wife, in an oddly open and assured fashion, is forced to deal with the meaning of that event and the pain he has caused her. His friend and boss (Harr), only attributed as Avdelingsleder (essentially, department manager), supports his friend, but also is troubled by his own issues, having a series of dreams where David Bowie enters and looks at him as a woman. This causes him to question the nature of masculinity. It's also interesting that he's a Christian, and Feier tells him how brave it is for him to almost "come out" as Christian in a largely secular country. Like the other two films in the trilogy, Sex is thoughtful and thought-provoking.. It's so wonderful to watch intelligent films dealing with complex issues in a calm and inspired fashion. Very highly recommended.

18

 And another week has passed. It's been a good semester so far. Last spring was the most miserable semester of my entire decades-long teaching career, and as I entered this one I had this bad feeling that it might repeat itself - which would be a pretty dreadful way to finish out my career. Maybe the random makeup of my classes has been favorable this semester, or maybe the coming ending is close enough that it's giving me energy and some perspective, and maybe the students actually understand that it's the end and either they have some appreciation for all these years or are just afraid that I could flunk them all and by the time I'd have to answer for my crimes I'd already be overseas (that's not my serious theory). Anyway, it's been a good start to the semester. Of course, I'm teaching a couple classes on Journey to the West, which is a prefect fit for their interests, and two classes on Fascism, which is obviously a perfect if grim fit for this particular moment in time, so that may also play in my favor.

Thanks to Dejon Brissett for loaning me the number of eighteen for today. Brissett, a native of Mississauga, Ontario, graduated from Virginia, before returning north to play for the Toronto Argonauts (essentially, his hometown team). He's a wide receiver, and won two Grey Cups with the Argos (2022 and 2024). Last year was his best year, and he's newly signed with the Calgary Stampeders.

Movies in 2026 54

 

I Am a Fugitives from a Chain Gang, (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

I'm continuing to work through the Mervyn LeRoy collection from the Criterion Channel. I've enjoyed them so far, and they've all been new treats. The other day I actually watched one of his films that I had seen before, and I had been saving it because it's a really good film - and a film that features one of the great endings: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Paul Muni plays James Allen, a man who, through some terrible luck, ends up on a southern chain gang. He eventually escapes, rises to prominence, but he's captured and, willingly, agrees to head back to finish out his sentence. Instead of the ceremonial slap on the wrist, which he was promised, he finds himself facing years more on the chain gang, before once again escaping again. The final image, Muni disappearing back into the darkness because he knows he'll never find peace, is a classic. Muni was, as always, great in the role. It's a great and important film because it shed a national light on the inhumanity of the southern chain gang system, and led to reform. It's sad to think that there was actually a time when we, as a nation, could feel moral outrage at something and push for a better world. Obviously, highly recommended.

Movies in 2026 53

 

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, (Lili Horvat, 2020)

And, once again, the Criterion Channel came through with another director that I didn't know about - but that I clearly needed to know about. Last night I watched the Hungarian director Lili Horvat's Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time. It tells the story of two successful doctors who meet at a conference in New Jersey (or maybe the don't) and agree to meet up on the Pest side of the Liberty Bridge in Budapest a month later (or maybe they don't). Natasa Stork plays Doctor Marta Vizy (or, more appropriately in Hungarian, Stork Natasa and Vizy Marta - I always had to try and keep this in mind back in the days of my GM program because we had partners in Hungary) who had left Hungary twenty years earlier for an impressive career in the US, before meeting (almost certainly) Doctor Janos Drexler (Viktor Bodo) at the conference. In her mind, they agree to meet, romantically, a month later at 5:00 p.m. Not only does Janos not show up, when she tracks him down he claims to not know her. In the meantime, she has quit her job and moved back to Hungary. As she tries to unravel this mystery - and begins to doubt her sanity - we follow their love affair (or maybe not). I liked it quite a bit, and both the leads were very good - and mysterious - in roles that could have turned out to be tropes, but, thankfully, were not. Definitely recommended. It made me want to go back to Budapest.

19

 And we've passed onto the teens, which means that by the end of the week I'll only have eighteen active teaching days left. Thanks to Bo Levi Mitchell for his help in commemorating another passage.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Bo Levi Mitchell play in person a couple times, and will again one more time this year. He grew up in Katy, Texas and played at SMU and Eastern Washington. He's an all-time great in the CFL (and doubtless a future Hall of Famer). He played most of his career with the Calgary Stampeders, winning two Grey Cups along the way and winning two Most Outstanding Player awards. He owns some pretty amazing individual passing records, including some more team-based records such as most consecutive wins by a starting QB (14), fastest QB to 60 wins (72 starts) and 100 wins (144 starts). He's played the last couple years with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and the hope was that he'd help them break their Grey Cup jinx (they have the longest current drought in the CFL), but they lost in heart-breaking fashion in the Eastern Finals to the Alouettes last year. I think he's now top ten in most passing categories.