Monday, July 10, 2017

Three Thumbs Up: Cary Fukunaga's 40

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This is a bastardization of my "Three Thumbs Up" series, which I created as a way to give a little bit of love to actors that I generally do not like - normally what we would do is scrounge up three times we didn't hate watching them on-screen. But I haven't done one of those in quite some time, and so I want to take a different angle on it today - it's the director Cary Fukunaga's birthday today. We like him just fine. The beloved pigtailitier is turning 40. (Yes this means he and I were born five days apart, hint hint wink wink.) 

But as much of a name as Fukunga has made for himself, he's only directed three feature films. (It was his TV series True Detective established him as a name - sidenote: what do we think about Mahershala Ali doing the third season of that show?) Otherwise, as with the It adaptation he keeps falling off of projects, or directing small things like Jake Gyllenhaal singing. (We're not complaining.) Anyway we like all three of his films very much! But we're going to rank them from bottom to top, because why not.

3. Beasts of No Nation -- I never reviewed this apparently? I have a vague recollection of Netflix dropping it at a busy time - it's like the memory of the guilt I kept feeling having not written about it. But I also have the ghost sensation of that feeling nagging at me because of how good and moving Beasts was - a difficult watch as assured by the subject matter but worth it, with Idris Elba giving an ickily charismatic turn and Abraham Attah a super find.

2. Jane Eyre -- A gorgeous and sad, sadly gorgeous, rendering of Bronte's master-work with two super duper performances anchoring it. It feels underrated and under-remembered here just six years later, but I hope kids in High School are being forced to watch it. (My review here.)

1. Sin Nombre -- A masterpiece, and Cary rightly built an enviable career off of it. It's no surprise he was able to land actors like Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikoska's caliber two years after working with a cast of mostly non-professionals on this. It was my 13th favorite film of 2009 but I would probably place it higher today. (Here's my original review.)

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How would you rank Cary's movies?
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are such a cancer! Nhom