Your Weekly Dose (1/25/22)
A slight delay to this week’s post due to some weekend travel. A unifying theme to this week’s prescriptions might be their fresh take on uniquely American classics, the Western and superheroes. As always, thanks for subscribing and sharing.
FILM
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
One of the best contemporary Westerns and a film of profound empathy, imaginative justice, and forgiveness, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) is one of my favorite films of the 21st century. Set on the border of Texas and Mexico, it tells the story of an accidental killing of a Mexican immigrant by a border patrol agent and the rancher who attempts to make sense of the senseless killing of his friend and bring the offender to justice.
Tommy Lee Jones directs (his first time doing so) and stars in the film alongside Melissa Leo, Dwight Yoakam, Barry Pepper, January Jones, and Levon Helm (in a gut-wrenching cameo). Beautiful yet disorienting (through parts of the film, we never know what side of the border we’re truly on) cinematography by Chris Menges captures the harshness and allure of the landscape and the intrinsic absurdity of borders. But what makes this something of an instant classic, to me at least, is the imaginative path of punishment and forgiveness it traces as Pete (Jones) forces Mike (Pepper) to carry the rapidly decaying body of Melquiades back to Mexico for burial. In many other films of the genre, Pete might simply kill Mike, but that wouldn’t bring justice nor would it bring Mike to the full realization of what was lost on account of his tragic mistake. Here, violence does not beget violence, thankfully, and, while we don’t know what becomes of Mike, it is clear at the end of the film that he is a changed man. While that might sound like a spoiler, trust me, it’s not, because this film is about the journey not the destination.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is streaming on Amazon Prime and is available to rent on most platforms.
TV
Peacemaker
By all accounts, DC is losing the film and television battle to Marvel, but it can make up substantial ground as long as it continues to turn out titles like The Suicide Squad and its spinoff, Peacemaker. Of course, their appeal is due, in large part, to James Gunn, who wrote both, along with the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Marvel. Gunn has brought his trademark playfulness and irreverence to the DC universe and cranked it up to eleven.
In Peacemaker, our titular (and absurd) hero is released from prison after the events of The Suicide Squad (you won’t have to have seen that film to enjoy Peacemaker, but you should) to undertake a top secret mission, Project Butterfly. The details of the mission are still unclear to both Peacemaker (John Cena) and the audience well into the third episode, but there’s talk of averting global destruction. Peacemaker’s team includes director of the operation and mission-know-it-all Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji); his handler, Harcourt (Jennifer Holland); tech guru Economos (Steve Agee); and reluctant weapons expert with a big secret Adebayo (Danielle Brooks). Peacemaker also has a super-fan and wanna-be-best-friend in Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), who is eventually allowed to join the team after he sees too much.
The series and character are a send-up of the all American hero, one who doesn’t care how many people he has to kill to bring about peace. Its presence on HBOMax allows for all the language, violence, sex, and nudity that such a take on the genre requires. So be warned and watch with your family accordingly. That said, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, smart, and timely. It also features one of the best title sequences I’ve ever seen (eat your heart out Netflix).
The first four episodes of Peacemaker are currently streaming on HBOMax, and new episodes release on Thursdays.
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
I’m returning to the Wild West for this week’s print prescriptions. Tom Lin’s first novel focuses on Ming Tsu, a Chinese orphan in the 1800s bound for revenge on the men who separated him from his wife (a white woman) and forced him to work on the Pacific Railway, laying track as it expanded eastward. The novel opens as he has just escaped from his work detail and killed a man. We find him walking across the Utah salt flats. Soon, he encounters a traveling magic show comprised of a fireproof woman, a kid ventriloquist, and a mysterious shape-shifting Pacific Islander. The ringmaster of the show hires Ming to provide security for the group as they travel west from Utah to California, which is where he is headed to kill the men who wronged him and reunite with his wife. Think something like Hateful Eight meets Nightmare Alley and you’re close.
Lin’s novel is both hypnotically beautiful and disturbingly violent, much like the environment against which the narrative is set. It mines both the lust for wealth and the susceptibility to the supernatural that have been defining characteristics of American culture more broadly. It is, at the same time, an indictment of the violence that fueled the founding and westward expansion of America, here, particularly, on the backs of Chinese immigrants. I was particularly taken with his marvelous descriptions of the natural forces that shaped this landscape millennia ago and the disastrous effects that humanity has had on it for the sake of progress. This novel is cinematic in both its telling and its vision, and one could easily see a film adaptation of it in the future.
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is available wherever books are sold, but consider purchasing a copy from Walden Books in Oakland, CA.