Stress Positions

Terry is a bit of a mess, but he now needs to keep it together to care for his 19-year-old nephew Bahlul, who has a broken leg. Surely he can do so for a little while, right?

Well, first step is to get rid of all the sex-party stuff from the house—his ex-husband’s aging townhouse, by the way; the only thing Terry can afford to live in, because Terry hasn’t worked in years. And did I mention that Bahlul’s mom/Terry’s sister is disgusted by Terry’s gayness? Covid is striking, too, and none of this is stopping Terry’s friends from wanting to meet the “little brown-boy” male model that is Bahlul.

Welcome to Stress Positions! It is wit, heart, and cringe that’s hard to summarize, but fun to watch!

We follow Terry as he spins around his house trying to maintain a calm and care for Bahlul. It is comically stressful and charming. Disinfectant sprays will choke people, kitchen messes will break people, and banter will bite people.

Balancing out the high nervous energy is calm, patient narration from Bahlul and Terry’s friend Karla. Everyone is trying to live together, it seems, while also carving out a space all their own.

The moviemakers hint strongly that fiction can be freeing; that you can think of yourself the way you want to. For Terry, this might be the root of his unhappiness, but for Bahlul, it might be the path to a healthier life. Who knows? Let’s get some food delivered, drink too much, and talk about it.

Can’t clink pots; dirty hands.

As We Speak

This one flick at Sundance

(I killed to get in),

As We Speak it was called,

about rap as a sin.

About rap as a tool

to impeach and imprison;

and not as reflection,

creation, or vision.

It showed us the law,

prosecutors precise,

who twist up a lyric

just thinkin’ they nice.

That man who was shot?

At that store down the block?

Well Kemba once said:

All my competition’s dead…

So isn’t it clear?

He looks like he did it…

But that’s not PC so

let’s look at his lyrics.

Follow pattern, you see,

which is way way way old,

contra human responses

like blues jazz and soul.

So with Kemba we travel

to the poetry cradles:

libraries, floors,

of course diner tables;

to those jesters performing,

to those jokers locked up,

asking what happened?

and who gave a fuck?

And we see it’s just people,

calmness and eyes.

Jokes, explanations,

just done to survive.

So long story short,

this doc is a fluid:

factfiction blurring like

ain’t nothin’ to it.

One moment we’re student,

one moment on trial.

One moment we crumble,

another we smile.

So rap is on trial.

As we speak

yes right now.

Speech is on trial.

As We Speak

shows us how.

In a Violent Nature

Nature seems to go like this: You eat until you’re eaten. And In a Violent Nature seems to have been written with this in mind.

It follows Thing, who has been awakened, and who will not eat or sleep until it kills those who’ve disturbed it. Like those people staying in that cabin . . .

And so we trail a few steps behind Thing as it walks ever so patiently, step by step through the crunchy leaves, to do what it does. Its prey are so close—we can hear them talking, just out of our sightline. Moviemaking techniques like these make this a hair-raising, heart-pounding watch.

And yet, walking with Thing for minutes on end (even if weirdly therapeutic forest-bathing), we begin to consider: Why? And why do we care?

We learn very little about Thing; even less about its prey. So what if nature is violent, do we need a reminder of that? Another horror movie full of slaughter, just because somebody’s feelings were hurt?

If you like to see gore, this movie has it, and I suppose is creative in that way. But otherwise?

Guess who?