human nature

Fabulous (& free!) Louis La Roche remix of MJ's "Human Nature."

here comes that feeling again

French DJ Mosey brings fresh life to Dynamic Superiors' 70s soul-funk tune "Here Comes That Feeling Again."

star roving

As the world turns, Slowdive's "Star Roving" dream rock adds a little comfort.

paris 05:59: théo & hugo

Numbers run Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's film Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo, whether they are detailing statistics, time, phone digits, or pill counts. A winsome boy meets boy in empty streets wee hours of the morning drama, the film takes its sweet time in the opening: a gay club orgy--male bodies bathed in blue and red light--set to grindy electropop. In fact, the first stitches of dialogue occur well into 15 minutes of the movie. It's a daring opening, but also slightly bland and vapid-feeling, perhaps making the rest of the late late night (belonging, as one character says, to "women and fags") slightly more resonant, though there's a flatness to the discussions and chemistry between the two leads (Geoffrey Couët and François Nambot) dressed in their simple costuming--jean jacket, jeans, a Puma zip-up. Even a bombshell revelation feels muted in the sterile quietness of an emergency room. 

The lights in the city of lights is less romantic sweep, more dingy and intimate: smeary blurs of headlights, bike lights and the glow of vending machines and lit-up street ads. There are few run-ins with different people: a Syrian owner of a foodshop, a chambermaid on the first AM metro. They deliver brief, sad life sketches with smiles on their faces, to which our couple absorbs quietly without judgement. There's something lacking over-all in retrospect but it does leave you with a buzzy, hopeful conclusion. **1/2

-Jeffery Berg

automaton

It's been a while since we've heard much from Jamiroquai but the atmospheric, nu-disco single "Automaton" provides a welcome return.

mix 55

New mix from Borneland.

hidden figures

Director Theodore Melfi (who did 2014's St. Vincent) has a gristly, old-school Brooklyn accent and a penchant for optimism. "I hope this movie shows the world that we are only gonna make it and achieve greatness together," he says, "Nothing divided stands, that’s common sense. I’m hoping that this movie is that."

I slipped into a packed Manhattan theater to see Figures on the weekend of a sickening executive order banning immigrants. Melfi's portrayal, co-scripted by Allison Schroeder, from a book by Margot Lee Shetterly, has that swept-up, feel-good aura--a Hollywood-ish glean over tough issues which is resonating in receipts in a time of division and squalls of bad news (especially for progressives). The story follows three black women who worked in Langley, Virginia for NASA, particularly focusing upon their roles in assisting the 1962 launch of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth.

With a wizardly command of numbers, Katherine Gobel (played with immense spirit and heart by Taraji P. Henson) is given the job of "the computer," a clerical, but vital, position of doing and reviewing calculations, in an all-white male Space Task Group. Even though the missions of NASA are rigorous and forward-looking, the conditions within are mired in racism and segregation. The film portrays Gobel and her colleague friends, Dorothy Vaughn (the always reliable, wholly natural Octavia Spencer) and engineer Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe, who between this and Moonlight, has etched out two great supporting turns in 2016) as quick-minded geniuses with their own inner stresses who always display utmost excellence and are constantly thwarted with adversity. There is some unfortunate white-washing in the flick, mostly through fictional situations involving Kevin Costner (who acts with unpredictable, tremendous ease), but the cast is just so electric, the script snappy, and the struggles so specifically drawn that it's a difficult film not to feel something from. The aesthetics are well-helmed: the precise costuming from Renee Ehrlich Kalfus, the shiny finned cars and Pharrell's excellent track "Runnin'," which booms over Gobel's wrenching, high heel hustles to the far-away non-white women's restroom, adds to the rich, sometimes stultifying atmosphere. It helps too that we feel the film primarily through the point of view of its trio rather than white characters which also makes the ending so undeniably moving; these women, which history books have ignored, are finally given due through the uniting power of a crowdpleaser. ***

-Jeffery Berg