It’s only been a few days but it’s become abundantly clear that our disorienting four-year weird period is definitely over and we’re back in the shit. I don’t know how I’ll remember 2024 in the years to come, but right now it’s the little things I treasure. Thinking back to John and I laughing at the title card reveal at the end of the trailer for AfrAId. An undeserved accusing look from Nancy during Dune: Part 2 because I definitely was not asleep. Being called a fucking asshole by an old man for sneaking back into Cinerama to look for something my dad dropped after a screening of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Overdosing on the Babes-inspired Sour Patch Kids popcorn at Nosferatu with Colin. These are the experiences that make life worth living.
All I know is that no one can take those memories away from me. And if you’re feeling down, at times like these, I am reminded of the immortal words of Stacker Pentecost:
Today. Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today there is not a man nor woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!
In conclusion, I guess I have to pick an audience to represent? Because John said he fights for the freaks and perverts and then Colin wrote he’s here for the thoughtful misfits. Does that leave for me the normies? The good-time Charlies? The kind of person M. Emmet Walsh would call a “typical bastard”? Maybe, except those nut jobs loved Deadpool 3 and that shit gives me a migraine just thinkin’ about it.
Still on the ol’ watchlist
A Different Man
Didi
Flow
Hard Truths
I’m Still Here
My Old Ass
Nickel Boys
Trap
Honorable Mentions
Civil War
Evil Does Not Exist
The Fall Guy
Hit Man
Thelma
I was definitely interested in a “The West Wing but the Catholic Church” story except, I think like Colin, I wasn’t super confident I’d be able to root for a happy outcome for an organization that I am, shall we say, less than a fan of. Thankfully Conclave, like The West Wing, presents such an idealized (and centrist) version of reality I was able to just imagine it was some made-up church and focus on the politicking. And there’s plenty of that! I thought I knew how Conclave would end and I was kind of right but also still very surprised with where things wrapped up. And it’s fun to see these veteran actors flex their almighty chops. I was also a fan of Edward Berger’s last movie, the All Quiet on the Western Front remake, so I’m happy his transition into English language cinema turned out so well. He could have turned down the music a little though.
This fall, I went on a trip to New Orleans with my brother Alex. I set up the trip and did research in advance, made reservations, and planned our daily schedules. Also I got tired faster, had a harder time indulging in food and drink, and struggled when things didn’t go my way. Alex, on the other hand, was much more adventurous and eager to meet people and explore aimlessly, something that terrifies me. So I kind of relate to the dynamic between David and Benji in A Real Pain, the combo of a neurotic loner and his life-of-the-party relative. Obviously our circumstances were really different though and mostly Alex and I just wanted to make sure we were both having a good time instead of how the cousins in A Real Pain were tiptoeing around some deep, underlying trauma. But yeah, I get it. This is a nice little cinematic vacation for us all to enjoy, told with a herculean amount of restraint by Jesse Eisenberg. Perhaps it should have been called “A Real Treat”? No, they sad.
Everyone deserves the chance to fly.
You don’t go see a movie like The Brutalist for any other reason than you want to see an epic in the tradition of Citizen Kane and There Will Be Blood unfold in roughly the same direction as those stories. And yet, I did feel a little let down by the second half being all “Get it? He was raped by the American dream!” Upon reflection, a three-and-a-half hour movie called The Brutalist being not-so-subtle isn’t really a surprise, and the epilogue actually does leave a lot to chew on (including the classic is this all a fantasy?). But before all that, I found the first half of this movie absolutely spellbinding. Oh my god that VistaVision! That score! Adrien Brody hanging dong before we even see opening credits! And then they made that beautiful freakin’ library! I would have happily sat through a four hour, six hour, 12 hour movie if it was just Adrien Brody and Alessandro Nivola renovating homes! Maybe Nina’s right and more movies need to have no conflict?
So the story goes that George Miller worked on Mad Max: Fury Road for such a long time that they came up with lengthy backstories for all the main characters. Co-lead Imperator Furiosa’s was so detailed that he planned on filming both a Furiosa movie and Fury Road at the same time, but ultimately Miller settled for only making perhaps the greatest action movie of all time. And then nine years later, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga had the dubious honor of trying to live up to that legacy and simultaneously justify its existence to a beleaguered global audience that mostly just said “nah, we’re good.” Well, they were wrong and here are some reasons why: the opening scenes with Charlee Fraser as Furiosa’s mom chasing her captors absolutely rule. The whole Bullet Farm sequence is peak Mad Max chaos. Chris Hemsworth’s performance as Dementus, especially at the end of the movie, is more interesting than any other villain the series has ever had. And most importantly: you won’t believe the sheer amount of attention male nipples are given in this movie. Like so much. Still not convinced? I’ve got two names for you: Rictus Erectus and his brother Scrotus.
The Substance is gross as hell but I can dig it, bodies are yucky. Its probably gonna be a long time before I watch it again though, and respect to those that saw this in theaters. Seeing it safely on the couch surrounded by friends was definitely the best approach for me. The Substance is not subtle but also subtlety’s been dead for a while and why even bother when you’re going all Cronenberg anyway? There’s a simple morality here about how shitty society it to women with an undercurrent about appreciating what you still have instead of longing for what you’ve lost that resonates with John’s “there’s always somebody older” worldview which I’ve tried to take to heart. That’s part of why my motto for this year has been “use it or lose it” and why I tried sleeping on the floor for a week until I realized my cat had lost all respect for me. Anyway, Hollywood is fucked up, impossible beauty standards are fucked up, and The Substance is really fucked up (in a good way). I stan Monstro Elisasue!
I kept seeing online people talk about how Anora has some great goons in it so I turned it on fully thinking people were using the modern definition of that word. But no, they meant henchmen! Cronies! Lackeys, flunkeys, toadies, underlings! Anora is the story of three hapless stooges (leader Toros, his brother Garnick, and heavy Igor) who get hit back hard by the whirlwind “romance” between their ward, Russian oligarch junior Vanya, and a stripper named Ani. Sean Baker loves nuance and does a great job finding plenty of it in these three objectively bad guys doing an objectively bad thing but also kind of trying their best to be good people? And that’s nothing compared to Ani, who, despite the movie being named after her, reveals only some layers of her thick protective shell thanks to a deep performance from Mikey Madison. I never really thought about how sex workers really only cater to rich people before Anora and the symbolic link between Ani and the goons all as people who have sold their bodies to the uncaring ultra-wealthy is definitely something I’ll be keeping in mind for a while. But mostly Anora is really fun, a great comedy for our trying times.
I keep saying it again and again, Denis Villeneuve is so good he makes it look too easy, and that’s a problem. Dune is supposed to be unfilmable: many have tried and everyone has failed. Against the backdrop of that legacy, and a global pandemic, and a complete shift in the business of movies, and a massive industry-wide strike, Villeneuve did it. The second half of the Dune novel is so weird and so deliberately off-putting and yet Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts found a way to tell this story that has enraptured a new generation of sci-fi fans while honoring the source text. It is undeniably a different experience than the one in book, but isn’t that what you want an adaptation to accomplish? To find a way to pour that essence into the strengths of another medium? I loved Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya’s performances. I loved Hans Zimmer’s score. I loved Harkonnens floating around. I loved this movie! Which again, is a problem, because I was told to beware charismatic leaders and now I would follow Denis Villeneuve anywhere.
Going into this week, I thought there was a slim chance we’d all have a consensus number one and this would be it. Instead, Challengers ranked highly for each of us but never claimed a top spot, a fitting fate for a movie that was mysteriously and completely shut out by the Oscars. This is such a fun, bombastic, decadent movie. I actually got really, really excited about a love triangle! And, as a profoundly casual tennis fan (mostly of the Virtua or Mario variety) I really enjoyed how thrilling and dynamic the sports scenes were. We’ve come a long way from The Prince of Tennis. Basically this is a movie that succeeds at executing everything it’s trying to do. Which made it my favorite movie of the year until…
Somehow there was a movie with an even better soundtrack than Challengers. As someone who loves shoegaze and LGBT lighting and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when I heard A24 was making a movie about all those things I was immediately intrigued but scared away because it kinda seemed like everyone thought it was too disturbing. Also I am famously anti-nostalgia and I figured that was the main appeal of a movie that actually went to the trouble of reuniting Pete & Pete. But it was on John and Colin’s lists so I decided to man up and take it on.
It turns out I had nothing to be afraid of! I Saw the TV Glow is just about the crushing existential dread that permeates my (/all of our?) entire waking existence! That’s nothing compared to the revolting horrors I saw in other movies this year like MaXXXine, Love Lies Bleeding, and The Substance! A blunt metaphor in a year where that was in vogue, I Saw the TV Glow shows just how miserable an unfulfilled life spent in the closet is. I get deeply how bad it feels to know that time is slipping away and you’re not sure you’re on the right path in life (although thankfully not anywhere near to the agonizing extent poor Isabel feels that), so Jane Schoenbrun is preaching to the choir here. Remember, we’re all trapped in decaying meat prisons that will eventually break down so badly that we’re gone forever. Might as well try to be our true selves in the little time we’ve got, right? If Schoenbrun has encouraged even one trans kid to be themself, they will have accomplished more good than most artists can ever aspire to.
Speaking of artists, on top of all the other things going on this week, David Lynch died. I adore David Lynch the person and David Lynch the actor but have never been as into David Lynch the director as pretty much every other cinephile is. I am more of a The Elephant Man and The Straight Story guy than the Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive type (go normies). But I’ve never seen more than clips of Twin Peaks and it’s been calling out to me for a long time now. So maybe it’s not a surprise that, of all the media I Saw the TV Glow made think of, Twin Peaks came through the loudest. So I’m throwing out my plans to get way into Grey’s Anatomy and making a 35-year-old network drama my top priority. Movies really can change the world!