This is several weeks late, but there’s a reason I decided against watching One Perfect Shot, a six-episode HBO Max series hosted by Ava DuVernay.
The director-friendly doc focuses on ambitious, well-executed shots in six films, shots that the producers believe are worthy of special praise. They’re from Jon Chu‘s Crazy Rich Asians (’18), Michael Mann‘s Heat (’95), Patty Jenkins‘ Wonder Woman (’17), Malcolm Lee‘s Girls Trip (’17), Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet (’19) and Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7 (’20).
The problem, obviously, is that only two of these warrant in-depth study — Heat and Chicago 7.
The other four were chosen for the usual inclusive woke-Hollywood reasons…tributing black artists who are pals with DuVernay, saluting #MeToo progressivism. Girls Trip was mildly enjoyable fun but forget any notions of it containing a perfect shot. Everyone regards Harriet as a negligible thing — second-rate, historically inauthentic, flat-out terrible in some respects. Wonder Woman is a decent enough superhero flick and Jenkins did a fine job for the most part (it’s way better than Wonder Woman 1984), but it’s not my idea of top-tier and certainly isn’t even close to Heat‘s level. And Crazy Rich Asians is appalling…a synthetic wealth-porn romcom.
It’s actually an insult to Mann and Sorkin that their films (especially Mann’s) have been lumped in with the riff-raff.