Review of reviews: Film & Music^ ARTS^25
“It’s difficult to know
where Chance goes
from here,” said Micah
Peters in TheRinger
.com. Three years after
releasing Coloring
Book, the record that
won him a Grammy,
the young Chicago MC has returned with
another collection of upbeat gospel-rap,
and “it is just OK.” Chance married his
childhood sweetheart earlier this year, and
he’s made The Big Day a 22-track celebra-
tion of their happy family life. But the album
“feels like a retread of Coloring Book.” Sure,
“Chance is doing all the quirky, joyous,
off-kilter stuff he’s always done. It’s just that
it’s the same thing he’s always done.” And
while Coloring Book made Chance’s form of
Christian piety “seem as sublime as an acid
trip,” his professions of faith here sound
dogmatic, said Sheldon Pearce in Pitchfork
.com. “The album can become a slog,
almost oppressively upbeat, but The Big
Day isn’t without its wonders. Chance is still
one of the most talented rappers working,
and there are signs of that latent brilliance
across about a dozen songs.”Meet “the next potential
superstar in the roots-
based country move-
ment,” said Jim Shahen
in NoDepression.com.
Two years ago, Tyler
Childers earned rave
reviews for his debut
album, Purgatory. With its “stark, unflinch-
ing” lyrical narratives, that 10-track collec-
tion of traditional country, bluegrass, and
folk was not the sort of music you hear on
country radio. The 28-year-old Kentuckian
“continues to live up to the hype” with his
second album, which is also his second that
was co-produced by Americana superstar
Sturgill Simpson. For “a nice snapshot” of
Childers’ sound, listen to the “primal back-
woods stomper” that is the single “House
Fire” or to “Creeker,” a classic country bal-
lad. “Childers’ passion guides this record
in ways that hit the heart, the gut, and
even the funny bone,” said Ed Whitelock in
PopMatters.com. Instead of wallowing in
lamentations, this is true feel-good country
music, the kind that seems “custom-made
for a back-porch party or driving to a hidden
swimming hole with friends.”“As pop success stories
go, this is a refreshing
one,” said Will Hermes
in Rolling Stone. Claire
Cottrill was a college
freshman when she
released “Pretty Girl,” a
lo-fi bit of bedroom pop
that racked up 37 million YouTube views.
Now the 20-year-old has completed a debut
album that’s “no less convincing and even
more compelling.” It recalls “the sweet
’90s moment when the line dividing DIY
indie rock and mainstream pop was wildly
blurred.” Singing in a “half-whispered”
soprano, Clairo “balances pop earnestness
with a matter-of-factness that feels of the
moment,” especially when she’s singing
about loving another girl. Clairo’s silky voice
is “the lifeblood of this album,” said Lizzie
Manno in PasteMagazine.com. “If there’s
one thing that impedes her graceful, cushi-
ony coo, it’s occasional overproduction.”
Well, that, and some clichéd lyrics. Clairo
hits her stride, though, on “Softly,” “Sofia,”
and especially “Bags,” the lead single. “It’s
hard to think of a more satisfyingly crisp
vocal track from the past year.”Chance the Rapper
The Big Day
++++Tyler Childers
Country Squire
++++Clairo
Immunity
++++“This might sound like a
joke,” said Amy Zimmerman
in TheDailyBeast.com. Casey
Affleck, the Oscar-winning
actor who ducked 2018’s cer-
emony because of his history
of alleged sexual harassment, is
now starring in a movie, which
he wrote and directed himself,
about a world in which nearly
all women have been killed
by a gender-specific plague. In a way, “Affleck
has done something clever here,” because all men
in this dystopia are justifiably feared as potential
rapists—well, all except Affleck’s character, the lov-
ing father of a girl he’s disguised as his son. Though
newcomer Anna Pniowsky is great in the daughterrole, “in Affleck’s hands, this
already questionable material
is just too uncomfortable.”
At least Light of My Life has
“more to offer than half-formed
gender analysis,” said Eric Kohn
in IndieWire.com. Its gloomy
cinematography “casts an
atmospheric spell” as father and
daughter dodge danger in misty
forests, and “the movie really
comes alive” in its final action-filled moments.
“Anyone baying for Affleck’s artistic failure is basi-
cally out of luck,” said Tim Robey in The Daily
Telegraph (U.K.). “The real-world Affleck may not
be out of the woods, but his nervous state of exile
here is a temporarily apt hiding place.”This contemporary riff on a
Mark Twain adventure “could
have easily been a recipe for
excessive, grating twee,” said
Ryan Oliver in ThePlaylist
.net. A 22-year-old with
Down syndrome who dreams
of joining a wrestling school
escapes the home he’s been
consigned to and falls in with
a scruffy crab trapper who’s
also on the run. Zack Gottsagen, an actor with
Down syndrome, co-stars alongside Shia LaBeouf,
and as the pair travels by road and raft down the
North Carolina coast, LaBeouf brandishes “that
rogue charm that makes him both off-puttingand alluring.” The number of
name actors who signed on for
this little project is “a small
miracle,” said Peter Debruge
in Variety. Our hero’s escape
is assisted by a wily old Bruce
Dern while Dakota Johnson
assumes the role of the caregiver
sent to track him down. Some
of the narrative wheels “turn
creakily” as the “dirt-flecked
fairy tale” nears its end, said Randall Colburn in
ConsequenceOfSound.net. Still, it’s a pleasure to
see a road movie that “retains a giddy sense of pos-
sibility and innocence—the kind that almost feels
out of fashion in today’s contentious age.”Light of
My LifeA father and daughter
navigate a world
without women.++++
Directed by Casey Affleck
(R)The Peanut
Butter Falcon
An outlaw fisherman
befriends a runaway.++++
Directed by Tyler Nilson
and Michael Schwartz
(R)Pniowsky and Affleck: Man’s last hope?Gottsagen and LaBeouf’s Huck Finn actSa
ban
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