Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, Fruitvale Station, Love is Strange, L.A. Confidential, WarGames

- Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare [2023] - 83

Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare is nothing if not a showcase of exemplary editing and how the construction of your narrative makes all the difference. While Hell Camp falls a little short of true documentary greatness by withholding certain statistical information and outside opinions/ insights, the story that it tells and the way it’s stitched together is both compelling and interesting. Not my first documentary on the subject of “tough love” this year, Hell Camp does do something that’s pretty unique within the space, and that’s to examine one or more characters who do truly believe in the concepts employed, and their disappointment at the ways those concepts went awry/ became abused and malformed by those in charge. This [obviously] is no excuse for the horrendous way these children are treated, but it does make for an interesting narrative slice that most things of this ilk leave out.

Just shy of greatness due to a few informational shortcomings, Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare is still well worth your time.

- Fruitvale Station [2013] - 88

The inaugural film for writer/ director Ryan Coogler [Black Panther], Fruitvale Station tells the true story of Oscar Grant III and the abuse of power that led to his murder by BART police officers on New Year’s Day 2009. Well shot and acted across the board, Fruitvale Station is both an excellent cinematic telling of an event that rocked our local world, and one that showcases a larger problem within our collective societies. It also serves as a neat time-capsule for both Coogler and Jordan who have created interesting and iconic characters and films within their respective spheres since. As with all biopics, I’m left wondering “but what really happened” in some ways, but I feel that much less here than I usually do, as the humanistic approach to the whole thing is touching, impactful, and personal.

- Love is Strange [2014] - 88

The perfect example of a compelling and lightweight film, 2014’s Love is Strange is a comfortingly soft and intimate look at what it means to be openly in love regardless of the costs and struggle it may bring. Superbly acted by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina, there aren’t many corners this wonderfully moving story leaves shadowed and, those that it does, only allow for thought and introspection. The atmosphere and depth that Ira Sachs plumbs with this approachable but meaningful story is impressive and engaging, where many films of this weight become saccharine and trite. I’m genuinely impressed by the tenderness on display here, and look forward to exploring more of Sachs’ catalogue and career in light of this truly wonderful experience.

- L.A. Confidential [1997] - 74

Nominated for 9 Oscars in 1997 [98?], L.A. Confidential is most interesting in 2024 as a foundational film for many tropes that have been both abandoned and perfected in the years since, but doesn’t quite hold up the way something like Blood Conscious or Fargo does within the space it helped define. It’s a fine enough ride, but it’s a little over-long and features at least one character who’s effectively just a satire of themself and almost entirely uninteresting. L.A. Confidential is a great example of a film who’s characters are all strident archetypes rather than people, and the interesting conundrums they find themselves in when their sharp edges collide, but it’s also one that probably works a little better in its original format and when it was one of the only things that existed within its genre. Despite what is a genuinely excellent conclusion, I don’t know that this is a movie I’d recommend outside of it being interesting within the confines of what’s come after.

- WarGames [1983] - 80

Featuring an excellently natural and engaging baby’s-nearly-first Matthew Broderick, WarGames is kind of the anti L.A. Confidential in the sense that it has a lot of opportunities to engage in trope and cliché, but does a pretty deft job of avoiding it [most of the time]. While there are a couple annoyances that I have with the plot and it’s approach to drama near the end, WarGames is largely entertaining, interesting, and fun. Though it’s maybe a little long in the tooth, there is a snappiness to most of the film’s pacing that only makes it’s length apparent come the climax, and that’s largely due to the somewhat lackluster and irritating way the film’s false ending is handled. Beyond a couple characters that serve pretty transparent purposes [and one that’s become one of my favorite military clichés], most of the film serves as a fun, science fiction Scooby-Doo meets The Hunt For Red October.