QUASI AT THE QUACKADERO: In the Mouth of Mallardness

It's March, time for Post-Credit Coda's annual tradition of highlighting female directorial voices. The endless sea of dude directors can be disheartening, but diversity means seeking out the voices that you want to hear more of in the world. It's also a surefire way to keep one's perspective from stagnation.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Sally Cruikshank
Writer: Sally Cruikshank
Cast: Sally Cruikshank, Kim Deitch
Runtime: 10 mins.
1975

First take ten minutes to watch this film on youtube.

Animation is one of the most painstakingly difficult artistic mediums to produce. It takes either tremendous resources or tremendous dedication, usually both. There have been more than a few studios and creatives whose career was demolished by an expensive animated flop. Plenty more animation projects have been artistically compromised by the encroaching necessity of cutting corners. The result is a lot of safe, unobjectionable animation. A handful of children's films a year with cookie cutter messaging that fit squarely in the dominant tastes of the time. This makes animation the site of enormous untapped potential.

In 1973, a young animator named Sally Cruikshank graduated from Smith and moved on to the San Francisco Art Institute. While working at a commercial-film company called Snazelle films, its president essentially gave her free rein to work on whatever project she wanted while churning out a commercial here or there. The project she chose spanned two years and gobbled up $6,000 of independently financed money. Cruikshank herself produced every illustration and her then boyfriend Kim Deitch provided the color. They would also voice the two main characters. The result was Quasi at the Quackadero, a ten minute psychedelic comedy about some talking ducks and their day visit to a surreal carnival. To call the film a labor of love would be an understatement.

A WRINKLE IN TIME: You Get a Star, You Get a Star, Everybody Gets a Star

It's March, time for Post-Credit Coda's annual tradition of highlighting female directorial voices. The endless sea of dude directors can be disheartening, but diversity means seeking out the voices that you want to hear more of in the world. It's also a surefire way to keep one's perspective from stagnation.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Ava DuVernay
Writers: Jennifer Lee, Jeff Stockwell
Cast: Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña
Runtime: 109 mins.
2018

The primary reason A Wrinkle in Time is such a colossal disappointment is that the script makes the least interesting choices at every turn. Agency is stripped from characters and purpose is siphoned out of the universe until all that remains is a vague progression of spectacle loosely bound together by trite, non-specific plot proclamations. Any potentially interesting ideas present in the film are more alluded to and forgotten than actually used to good effect. The narrative offers us intriguing elements, then breezes right on past them. It's an exercise in intellectual and imaginative futility.

It's such a shame because the auspicious elements are there, just for a second, peeking their heads out long enough to indicate what could have been. The film anchors us in the perspective of Meg Murry (Storm Reid), a talented child who has fallen into a social and academic funk ever since her scientist father Mr. Murry (Chris Pine) disappeared five years ago. Little does she know that she is about to go on an interplanetary journey of self-discovery, as her genius younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) has made friendly contact with three space witches: beings of pure energy who wish to fight the forces of evil by helping Meg and Charles Wallace find their missing father, who has been held hostage in the far reaches of space.

THE BAD BATCH: It'll Cost You an Arm and a Leg

It's March, time for Post-Credit Coda's annual tradition of highlighting female directorial voices. The endless sea of dude directors can be disheartening, but diversity means seeking out the voices that you want to hear more of in the world. It's also a surefire way to keep one's perspective from stagnation.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writer: Ana Lily Amirpour
Cast: Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Jayda Fink, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Yolonda Ross
Runtime: 118 mins.
2017

The Bad Batch is the second film by Ana Lily Amirpour, who now bears the distinction of being the first repeat director in this series. Two years ago I reviewed her debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which I absolutely adored. Now that her follow-up is out, we can begin speculating about Amirpour's signature voice. And oh boy, does she have a signature voice.

The heroes of Amirpour's films are compromised women. They are furious avengers, power and fury viciously channeled through femininity and flung back at a world that refuses to accept them as they are. They are like femme fatales, if noir were told from their perspective rather than the detective's. They exist in Bad worlds, blasted worlds, but their steely resolve makes them the baddest of the bad. They move through their environment like wraiths, wreathed in silence. Their world is gorgeously framed, a twisted reflection of their tortured inner life. They rarely speak, instead opting to let violence do the talking. Above all else, they are achingly gorgeous, and blisteringly cool. Every aspect of the film bends around their attitude. The camera slinks through its environment, as if coiled to pounce. The shots stretch on into existential oblivion. These are the hallmarks of an Amirpour film.

Oscars Results 2018

Here I am, late to the party. In truth, I had forgotten all about the Oscars until the night they were happening. As such, this post represents both my predictions and my commentary of the results, and you'll have to do your best to trust that I did not fudge the numbers!

My prediction success rate was 63% (15/24), not too bad. In some ways it was a baffling year to predict. Very few of this year's candidates lit my world on fire, but there are certainly gems amongst them.

Below are the results, and some discussion about each category.