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Reviews
The Boys (2019)
Some thoughts on the new season
Another season of The Boys, another year where little changes -- and once it does, it's largely contrived. Still, it remains entertaining, and frankly, as hard as its writing is to defend at this point, I'm almost kind of enamored with how dumb it is -- whether we're talking about the cast photos where everyone is flipping the bird to let us know how "edgy" the show is or the current state of its political "commentary".
And I get it. I understand perfectly why the satire at this point is so unsubtle that it occasionally makes Dhar Mann look deep: it's to make it obvious enough to chuds that this isn't "their" show, even to the extent that it "makes fun of both sides" (the show's criticism of performative gestures would often be construed as making fun of the left just as much as the right), that they don't glom onto it the way they did with Homelander and Soldier Boy after Season 3.
Regardless, what you end up with is a pretty dumb season of television but as I said, I was entertained by it, and I'd even go so far as to say that some of the actors are at their absolute best this time around.
Anthony Starr and Karl Urban are sensational, bolstering how perfect the casting is; it's damn near impossible to imagine anyone else in the roles. Less succesful are characters like Hughie (Jack Quaid), seeing as the writers clearly don't know what to do with him anymore; his arc is effectively abandoned halfway through the season and he's put through weird rape scenarios for the remainder of it -- one of which is played for laughs, one of which his beloved Starlight (Erin Moriarty) blames HIM for. (Needless to say, the Starlight-Hughie romance isn't as cute this season.)
But the action is as fun and violent as ever and there is the occasional joke that semi-cleverly lampoons the social media age as it might look in a world where superheroes exist, but it's rare. I've recently learned that Garth Ennis, the author of the original Boys comics, actually loathes superheroes and that there was never a greater point to his writing than "superheroes sure suck".
Therefore, I'd advise you to seek out Invincible (also on Amazon Prime) if you want a deconstruction of the Superman story -- wherein the parallels between a world like Krypton and the paradise envisioned by fascists are emphasized -- that has a little bit more to say, yet also says it more quietly than The Boys does with its Stormfronts and QAnon spoofs. Still, if you want musical numbers and disturbing dick jokes, I guess go with The Boys.
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)
A formulaic romance whose backdrop humors the wrong people
Fly Me to the Moon got a lot of flak pretty early (it was shot down before it even launched, you might say). Its previews and poster designs made critics whip out the "fake movie" label -- the more and more common proclamation that a particular film seems more like an in-universe joke movie from Tropic Thunder or 30 Rock than a real release. (Not that "fake movies" can't become real movies; just look at Machete and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.)
And of course, the trailer immediately made a splash amongst the tinfoil crowd. (Yes, I'm using yet another article as an excuse to make fun of conspiracy theorists; may Sobek forgive me.) Par for the course, they viewed this film -- a fictive comedy by the guy who wrote Green Lantern -- as an admission from Hollywood that the Moon Landings were faked. It's a lot like how The Simpsons was an acknowledgment that mole people exist because there was a joke about them once (which is to say nothing of the "Stonecutters" in Homer the Great). I don't think they've taken the Avengers films as evidence for the existence of purple aliens that collect magical space gems yet, but I'm presuming that's next.
I'm not sure why Fly Me to the Moon is the film that "finally" owns up to it. What about Operation Avalanche, Matt Johnson's mockumentary that constitutes the "making of" doc of the faked moon landing (and has far cleverer jokes)? Is that not also an admission of guilt? Heck, maybe it actually IS a documentary and Johnson used the Vatican's time travel tech (actual conspiracy theory that real adults believe in) to go back to the 60s and make it?
In this particular version, Channing Tatum plays the guy in charge of the Apollo 11 launch and Scarlett Johansson is the marketing expert hired by NASA to help produce a fake moon landing in case the real attempt fails. A good chunk of the movie, for whatever reason, becomes devoted to a formulaic romance between the two.
This distraction would be the main reason Operation Avalanche is a better version of a similar premise (it is superbly shot, gets legitimately tense, and has plenty of "bonuses" for people who know the details of the Moon Landing Hoax Theory). The romance itself, being about as interesting and romantic as flipping through a magazine full of hot people, may be part of the reason people think this seems more like it should be a skit/gag than an actual movie. (Another reason would be the bland camera work and soullessly "nifty" editing.)
I would definitely agree that Fly Me to the Moon feels more like studio art than, well, art. I think the basic idea could work, though -- and, as I've mentioned, it has.
Was there anything I liked? Well, I'm a sucker for all things Jim Rash and Woody Harrelson, and some of the gags are cute. Alas, much like Leave the World Behind, this is the kind of movie where (partly because it bores me) all I can think about is what it means for conspiracy theorists and the validation they find within it -- even though it isn't really the film's fault. "LOL, you think Armstrong really set foot on the moon?! Then why would Hollywood/NASA literally say they staged it, you moron?!"
The interesting thing is, even if they understood that movies like this are making fun of them instead of sending them not-so-hidden affirmations that they're right, they would STILL think it's evidence. I assessed this same mentality in my 5G Zombies review: "Why would people laugh at my inane dot-connections if they weren't true? Why would people try to refute me if I wasn't on to something? Why would everyone dismiss me as a zombie alarmist if not out of fear for the truth; out of fear of losing their complacent illusion? Surely the fact that most data says I'm wrong, apart from this one 'liberated' podcast and/or blog, is proof that the government is controlling all the sources?" Bravissimo, fellas. I tip my aluminum hat to you.
In a Violent Nature (2024)
The negative reviews are wrong: the movie needed to be even slower
In a Violent Nature is a swing and a miss, but it is undoubtedly an ambitious and interesting swing. Here is a film that asks, "What if we saw a slasher movie solely from the villain's point of view?"
Take any classic slasher movie -- with all the clichéd characters and the beats they hit as they embark to a secluded place, fool around all young-like, discover they're not alone, and then get picked off one after the other. Now imagine if the focal character was the killer, and we got to see what he was up to in-between those moments; stalking and lumbering about, occasionally glimpsing the victims from afar until he finally reaches them.
I like this idea and, as silly as this may sound, I was even more on board when I learned that the resulting film would be a sort of slow-cinema arthouse joint with about as much dismal promenading as Sátántangó or Gerry. However, the execution fell rather flat and I cannot shake the feeling that a truly defiant masterpiece exists in the editing room.
I had issues with the acting and the awkward direction of certain kills (although the kills themselves are phenomenally creative), and also found it jarring how the film can't decide how audible the victims' dialogue should be: Sometimes they sound as if they're right next to the camera, even though they're far off in the distance; other times (oft within the exact same sequence) it's more realistic vis-a-vis what the killer should be able to make out.
More than any of this, I honestly wish this film had leaned even further into artsiness -- the "what if Weerasethakul did Jason Vorhees" of it all -- and let us see even less of the victims and went even slower. What I'm saying is: Release the 7-hour cut, you cowards.
La bête (2023)
I know IMDb users rarely take kindly to artistry, but do hear me out
When David Ehrlich reviewed The Beast (org. French title La Bête), he made the case (that the movie makes the case) that every arthouse director should get to make "their own Cloud Atlas" before joining the choir invisible. That is a fair way to view Bertrand Bonello's recent opus -- a languid sci-fi drama that, as far as I'm concerned, solidified the movie year of 2024 as worthy of '23. When seeking out strange and defiant new cinema, this is exactly the kind of mystifying journey on which I yearn to be taken.
In the film, we follow Lea Seydoux through what appears to be different time periods. In several of them, the construction of dolls is involved. In the past and present storylines, she encounters a man played by George MacKay; in the future, she seems to dream of all these moments while submerged in a dark substance. Are they real events on any level? Hey, don't look at me.
It is the sort of film that might easily turn some people off and seem inaccessible as I describe it. (Others have likened its atmosphere and dream logic to the works of Lynch and its unsettling view of love and sexuality to the works of Cronenberg.) But I assure you that the film as such is often quite funny, with MacKay portraying one of the most wince-inducingly accurate parodies of the Incel archetype we've ever seen on film -- his pathetic "I deserve girls" vlog is one of the highlights of the picture, although its similarities with the infamous Elliot Rodger rant will doubtless disturb some viewers.
If that's not doing it for you (understandable), the film also offers beautiful shot compositions, masterly lighting, and wicked satire of modern movie-making itself, chiefly the digitalization of it.
Also, I guess in one of the time periods or "realities" or whatever, Seydoux's character is an actress whose credits seem to include Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers. As it happens, we'll be talking more about Korine later -- along with a markedly less intelligent contemplation on modern/future cinema.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
One of the quintessential films of its generation
I Saw the TV Glow may go down as one of the quintessential films -- if not works of art in general -- of the Millennial generation. Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, whose We're All Going to the World's Fair was similarly resonant, it is a horror film that explores themes of identity, dysphoria, repression, and the relationships we have with screens, especially when the realities within them seem preferable to the one we're stuck in.
All the while, I Saw the TV Glow, like World's Fair, incorporates creepypasta/ARG concepts that the Millennial generation may find familiar. For one, it recalls the Candle Cove story, a yarn involving an unsettling children's program that only a select few people remember, though it only "really" existed for children (adults who walk in the room would only see static on the screen). These are the sort of myths and Internet tall tales many isolated Millennials would bond over, same as the older Millennials would do with those horror TV shows of old -- we united over a fascination with storytelling or maybe a sort of shared nostalgia for a past that only we can see/understand.
In the film, the show at the center is a Nickelodeon Golden Age-era YA program called The Pink Opaque, which united two lonesome people, a quiet seventh-grader named Owen (Ian Foreman as a kid; later Justice Smith as an adult) and a lesbian ninth-grader named Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), in the mid-90s. We see these two meet again several years after the show has gone off the air. Maddy, who was presumed missing until now, explains that there is something supernatural about the show and that it is possible to travel between its reality and the "real" world -- if that's what they're even in. ("Sometimes, The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life.")
In terms of horror filmmaking, this all winds up intriguing and quite eerie at times, with certain images that you won't be forgetting any time soon. This is in part because they're pretty terrifying on their own; it is also because of what they represent.
Additionally, the film comes with a banger soundtrack. Certain contributors to it, as well as other musicians, also cameo in the film itself, including Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail, Phoebe Bridgers, and the band Sloppy Jane that Bridgers was once in. (Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit appears; his music does not.) Also on the cast are Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamberelli -- the two Petes from Nickelodeon's Pete & Pete, another favorite from many Millennials' "third parent", the TV.
Other evocations include such cult classics as 1981's Poltergeist and, to name another piece of art that united many an isolated Millennial, 2001's Donnie Darko -- the eerie tone of which Schoenbrun certainly lives up to. Like all great things, it also recalls Twin Peaks, sometimes nearly rivaling Fielder's recent The Curse in terms of recapturing that Lynchian nightmarish dread. A friend related the film's mood to the despair one feels at the cusp of a panic attack. The movie is certainly about anxiety, and it has rarely been understood as deeply as Schoenbrun does.
But even more important are the LGBTQ and gender identity themes, accentuated by the trans colors in the captions, lighting, and costumes, as well as the choice of motifs (particularly the film's final image, which I won't give away but I can tell you that it perfectly captures the horror of keeping your true self trapped; keeping your true reality sealed away). Even if you don't pick up on these themes, the movie is undoubtedly beautiful to look at.
We've seen movies attempt old-school VHS aesthetics before, but as a VHS aficionado, I can attest that this one succeeds at capturing the murkiness of especially old TV recordings that the VCR can barely register anymore. My only nitpick is that the in-universe show, The Pink Opaque, only occasionally resembles a TV series of the Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark ilk, while the rest of the footage looks like a no-budget backyard production. Then again, I recall some truly cheap-looking shows on the idiot box so I guess I oughtn't to retract any "authenticity" points.
I mentioned Lynchianism before and I'd like to close this review with a bold statement that I nonetheless feel certain of: Schoenbrun has been dubbed a contender for "the next Lynch", but I believe future generations will long to be the next Schoenbrun.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Oddly, I didn't feel all that much
There's been some debate around Pixar's Inside Out, namely on whether it was too complicated or too simplistic. It seemed pretty cerebral for a kiddie film, yet it regarded concepts of self, consciousness, and emotions in a way that's simplified enough that a child can understand it -- and by "it", I mean the movie; not actual human emotions.
Is it bad to tell kids that their entire persona is governed by these magical beings inside their heads and that said beings properly represent the extent of how complex human emotions are -- that free will may be impossible and that all our feelings and desires are simply controlled by brightly colored critters voiced by NBC sitcom actors (whose squabbling is also all that is needed to explain/diagnose your mood swings and outbursts)? Well, I can't say I've met anyone whose kids seemed to turn out bad because of Inside Out.
Still, these movies (yes, there's a sequel now, in case you hadn't guessed by clicking this review) do inevitably raise a lot of questions -- if not on the way they explain the mind, then in how human minds work in this particular universe.
In this one, the sentient emotions inside the brain of young Riley Andersen -- Amy Poehler as Joy, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, Tony Hale as Fear, Liza Lapira as Disgust, and Lewis Black as Anger -- are visited by a slew of new emotions, including Ennui, Envy, and Anxiety, arriving as Riley enters teenhood. Their existence leaves us with much to ponder:
For example, can Anxiety really be considered a distinct emotion? Using the terms supplied by the Inside Out-verse, isn't she just Fear with a dash of Sadness? What of Ennui? Could she be considered an off-shoot of Sadness, same as Nostalgia is a sort of bittersweet Joy? As for Envy, I believe there exists a better version of this script somewhere, where she is revealed to be a sin and not an emotion, ergo the other emotions need to cast her back into Hell.
I do see the potential here. Making an Inside Out 2 with this premise makes sense -- in a way that's more important than whether its universe does: Those who grew up with the original Inside Out are no doubt at a time in their lives when they're going through the same changes and emotions as Riley is in this film. The idea of giving Inside Out a sequel -- and waiting until now to release it -- isn't bad.
But it's not as poignant as Toy Story 3 (and certainly not as poignant as Toy Story 3 would've been if that's where the franchise actually stopped), nor does it ever approach anything that'd be "too mature", lest Disney be unable to widely market the film -- same as Riley and her story aren't "too specific". Emotional teens may be the ones who need this film; I am unsure if they will be the ones who like it. (I suspect kids and Disney Adults will be the biggest fans, especially as I'm sure the latter will somehow see success where I only see potential.)
As for the various jokes involving concepts of self, memory, and personality and how they work in this subconscious control room, they were funnier the first time. I still enjoy the voice work -- especially from Ayo Edebiri and Maya Hawke this time -- and I suppose certain moments are touching, but they're usually rushed past so that we can get to the next item on the checklist. I shall also grant you that it's not a retread of the first film and that some of the new concepts are fairly interesting. To wit: Riley's mind realm now features a belief system, visualized in a way that's not dissimilar from the Jerry and Terry beings in Soul.
In a world where Pixar has gone mask-off, admitting that they care more about "mass appeal" and marketability than letting individual creatives tell their stories (fearing that films like Luca and Turning Red are too alienating if you don't relate to the creators/protagonists, yet also forgetting how universally moving a personal tale can be), where does Inside Out 2 fit in? Is this a big-studio cash grab, a sincere work of art, or a case of the latter being concealed within the former, occasionally peeking forth?
I dunno, but ohhh look at Embarrassment! Isn't he so precious? Don't you want to buy the plushie? Don't you want him on your bed next to all the porgs? Go see this movie, guys! No, you won't get more out of Turning Red! That wasn't a better and more genuine exploration of a young girl's coming-of-age emotionality or anything! In fact, we never made that! Shut up! Buy the toys!
Jim Henson: Idea Man (2024)
Someday we'll find it. The rainbow connection
Jim Henson is the movie-maker that got me into movies. When I saw The Dark Crystal at age five, I was never the same again. This was when I first felt that I simply had to know how movies get made. Later on, I became a fan of Muppets and Fraggles alike (yes, I got to the Skeksis before I got to Kermit, at least in terms of adoration) and by now, I consider Henson one of the most important creatives of the 20th century.
He changed the way I take in art, and did this and insurmountably more to countless others around the world. Even all these years after his death, he touches generations of people through his colorful creations -- so lifelike, nay, alive in spite of so clearly not being "real". In Ron Howard's documentary, Jim Henson: Idea Man, we see most of his life laid out (albeit sometimes in disappointingly brief snippets), from his youth to his early TV gigs (like those 1950s Wilkins Coffee commercials where a Kermit prototype puppet commits murder indiscriminately); from the inception of Sesame Street to the rise of the Muppets and the bona fide celebrity status of Kermit and Miss Piggy; from the creation of The Dark Crystal (which also involved the opening of the Henson Creature Shop) to the disastrous release of the now-beloved Labyrinth.
Meanwhile, we learn of his personal life and the way he inspired, not just us, but those around him. In one notable moment, Frank Oz recalls how Henson pushed for him to co-direct The Dark Crystal, as Henson felt he himself lacked something that he saw in Oz.
The documentary is cleverly presented, making good use of projectors, stop-motion interludes, and some animations Henson himself created before the Muppet years. Unfortunately, it is missing -- or just barely mentions -- a lot of information about Henson's life that would have made this documentary go from good to great. Still, it is a worthy celebration of that Rainbow Connection (sorry) that Henson created between all of us.
The First Omen (2024)
"How do you control people who no longer believe? You create something to fear."
Between The First Omen and the Sydney Sweeney vehicle Immaculate, 2024 is the lucky year for anyone who happens to really dig neo-nunsploitation horror films that partly function as a commentary on anti-choice dystopia and religious oppression.
And despite my adoration of Sweeney's performance (mainly near the film's finale), I hold that The First Omen is the superior movie -- not only because it leans harder into both the nunsploitation campiness and the psychological Rosemary's Baby-esque side, but because it is more consistently unsettling, yet beautifully so. I also think the themes are delivered with more tact and confidence but it's really no surprise that both films are being celebrated as "necessary" post-Roe v. Wade masterworks (though Immaculate deserves extra cred for upsetting more right-wingers and Christians, namely in how it "took" Sweeney from them).
The First Omen, if you hadn't figured, is a prequel to Richard Donner's Omen from 1976. I haven't seen that movie myself and as sacrilege as this may sound, I actively chose to see this movie first to see if it works by itself and makes sense to an outsider. And apart from a vaguely "Member Berry"-ish namedrop at the end, I believe The First Omen stands more than fine on its own.
From the moment it starts, its cinematography, staging, and editing are worthy of the classics -- encapsulating the beauty of '70s cinema in just a few minutes, to paraphrase a commenter -- and this is only the beginning of the film's thoughtful homages. To be clear, these aren't just facile invocations; they all work. There is a scene later that recalls the iconic breakdown sequence from Andrzej Zulawski's Possession (1981), but it's expanded upon in ways I shan't unveil here.
Right after that prologue -- that shot of stain-glass window shattering in slow-motion -- the film takes on an ominous energy that never lets up, even during ostensible moments of levity. There are countless other striking images and inspired bits of cinematography throughout the film, like when the main character awakens from a drunken stupor in a medium closeup shot that shows her hair laid out like a spider's web holding her head in place. Note that the shot immediately preceding it is of a spider. There are, fittingly, omens everywhere.
The acting is also pretty spectacular. Nell Tiger Free, playing an American Catholic woman sent to Rome to be confirmed as a nun, is destined for the Scream Queen Hall of Fame and Ralph Ineson's booming voice adds weight and urgency to his fearful warnings of what the Church is up to.
Mark Korven's music is no less brilliant. It, too, makes us feel as though we are truly watching a movie from the '70s, albeit with more advanced special effects that, without giving too much away, caused the film to nearly get slapped with an NC-17 rating.
What holds the movie back a little bit is that it has a few weak supporting performances and, more importantly, it fails to resist jump scares -- which I concede can work fine and leave an impact, but The First Omen has a few of the fakeout variety. Don't let this stop you, however. This is a superbly crafted, well-acted, well-lit (hallelujah), and thoroughly ghastly tale that works on one level as a statement on choice (as well as the abuses within the Catholic Church) and another as a nasty yet artful horror movie.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
What a lovely day
Early impressions of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga expressed a fear that it would be a studio-slop cash-in on the "original" 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road -- itself a soft reboot of the Mad Max franchise. And although the later trailers and the eventual reviews set our minds straight, God knows how we could have doubted George Miller.
Miller, as many will note, is a singularly varied director. Mad Max: Fury Road is nothing like the Happy Feet movies -- which you may find aren't much like Lorenzo's Oil. His new entry in the Max "saga", a prequel about Imperator Furiosa (played now by Anya Taylor-Joy, who has never been as "ethereal yet majestic" as she is here), also represents the sincere silliness we've been missing in the movies in recent years but is making a comeback.
It is an ingeniously insane roller-coaster of high-octane chases, impossible vehicles getting tossed around, seminal practical effects, pretty good digital ones, wondrously bonkers setpieces, and Chris Hemsworth going freak mode on us in the best performance we've seen from him. Just like last time, the craziness is nonetheless artfully presented, with some of the most precise framing and expressive images of the year.
Admittedly, I was a bit distracted during the film's opening. Sometimes it was too obvious where the VFX began and the real stuff ended (the movie noticeably uses far more digital effects than the prior one), and the costuming and hairstyling didn't give me the impression that this post-apocalyptic Australia (which, as many have already joked, isn't too different from regular Australia) was properly lived-in. Also, as with the previous film in the series, there were some jarringly obvious ADR bits.
Some might take issue with the "unrealistic" audio of certain other moments but this is a feature and not a bug. Miller has gone to the Sergio Leone school of "what isn't on the screen, doesn't exist in the film's universe": There are numerous shots of characters running into the vast desert, only for a pursuing vehicle to jump into frame without having made a sound before we, the audience, saw it. Not very believable, right? That's the movies for ya.
Sadly, it seems the big talking point lately is the film's disappointing opening weekend, which sparked discussions about the current state of movie theaters. It seemed baffling that such a well-reviewed film did not make more money than this -- even with the theater-going prices and COVID in mind (the latter having changed people's consuming habits on one hand, and significantly worsened the etiquette of those who do still go to the cinema on the other). Twitter user @stunninggun added that the reporting itself may be flawed and that "we are missing an entire piece of the puzzle: box office pundits are used to Marvel-era openings and we don't live in that world anymore".
There's another thing to consider: streaming. Many filmgoers have lost faith in it, but even now, many would also rather wait until a certain film is available on a streaming website -- however long it's on there for before it gets deleted with no physical option in sight -- than take the time to drive to a movie theater. (Nowadays, the wait isn't even too long.) We've had some phenomena that prove the power of the theater-going experience (especially when it involves artistry instead of studio sludge), but those of us who quipped "We are so back" may have spoken too soon.
On that note, one of my big annoyances re: this film is its name, which was clearly picked not because it rolls off the tongue, but because of Search Engine Optimization -- making sure it appears in the search results when people try to find Mad Max on Prime or whatever (it's why we have titles like A Star Wars Story, From the Book of Saw, and, best and catchiest of all, The Origin of Batman's Butler). I think this title, for a lot of people, was probably the biggest clue that we were getting sauceless cash-grab slop.
Instead, Miller is cooking with as much fire and gas(oline) as ever. I have faith that this movie, in due time, will be as beloved as Fury Road eventually became. But do yourself a favor -- do movie theaters a favor -- and go see this post-apocalyptic powerhouse in an auditorium.
I agree that streaming is convenient and we can sometimes find great art there, but theaters are the place where cinema truly gets to awe and move us. No matter what Ted Sarandos and his "watched Lawrence of Arabia on his iPhone and liked it fine" son would have you think.
South Park: The End of Obesity (2024)
Big fat thumbs up
I don't have any especially strong feelings either way about the new South Park special, although I believe it's a fairly valid one. This time, the subject is the American healthcare system, insurance companies, and the maddening labyrinth that these entities will put people through.
However, it also concerns body positivity and uses Eric Cartman to represent something I've sometimes noticed within the body-love discourse. A lot of people simply want the thing that THEY are insecure about to get destigmatized so that they can then poke fun at other people's shortcomings from a position of superiority -- of not being "ugly" themselves. They want to be able to dish it out without having to take it.
Something similar happens in "gender wars" discourse: Many incels espouse that they should be worthy of love even if they are short or thin, but will gladly demonize fat women, while a woman who pushes for fat acceptance may readily use the very language she's decrying when it comes to small schlongs and "skinny b-itches". Both sides will tell you it's totally different when the other does it.
But I digress. How is the rest of the episode/special/"Paramount+ event"? Well, it has some laughs and it lets a lot of characters shine. (Randy, as per usual, gets a pretty funny B story where he gets in on the South Park moms' obsession with semaglutide drugs.)
Also, it has appreciably better cereal mascot gags (yes, cereal/sugar companies also become involved in the plot) than anything we got in Unfrosted.
Challengers (2024)
Passion, eroticism, tennis
Luca Guadagnino's mastery of images is something special. His art is sensual and evocative in ways that other picture-makers must envy (few can photograph the human body -- capture passion -- quite like he does, from the intimacy of Call Me By Your Name to the contortionism and dancing in Suspiria) and no less admirable on a technical level:
His latest creation, Challengers, is one of those films where everything is spiffy on paper and then impeccably executed (particularly a tennis match near the end that had my audience staring slackjawed at the screen). We also get three irresistible leading performances, a techno soundtrack by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor that you'll feel in your bones, and most importantly (depending on who you ask), a story that shows us why tennis is far and away the most erotic sport.
We begin at the very end, as tennis legend Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) intently observes a tennis final between Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). Then we go back, as two story strands tell us of the history that these men have with Tashi as well as each other -- one with the characters as teenagers circa 2006; one with them as adults.
We cut back and forth between these two story strands -- where Tashi will be involved with one or both of these men to varying degrees -- as well as the climactic game itself. I will spare you the wanky metaphors about a tennis ball getting struck back and forth through time, but I will commend the effort in making sure we always know where we're at in the characters' timelines, from the visual and auditory background details to the way the characters look. Also, in the vein of last year's Past Lives, it takes the time to include era-accurate UIs for the various apps we see. In one of the 2006 scenes, a character also mentions Facebook, which another character seems to take as gibberish.
If there's one issue with Challengers, it's that the film's nonlinear plotting occasionally seems a bit over-explained, with captions denoting the temporal and geographical settings of the scene when there's already ample work put into the hairstyling, set design, costumes, makeup, and other context clues to tell us when and where we are. My theater-going companion theorized that these captions were a studio decision, although I recall a few of them gelling well enough with the framing that Guadadigno must've had them in mind while shooting.
Beyond this, and a few sound effects that are over-emphasized in the mix (though I understand wanting to flex such delicate and detailed foley work), Challengers is a flawless film. When aficionados fans speak about the eroticism of tennis, it goes deeper than you might think, and using that sport to tell this sort of story is nothing less than brilliant.
And of course, the tennis scenes themselves are smashingly done -- intense, encapsulating, and often intimate whilst being technically impressive, with balls hurtling right at the camera at great speeds in what I must assume are VFX shots (unless Guadadigno can really afford to break that many cameras). Reviewer Houston Coley described his sensation during these shots as being the same as what audiences in 1897 must've felt watching The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat for the first time. A certain other shot has been compared to Bee Movie -- if you know, you know.
The use of rigs and split diopters during these scenes is singularly inspired. To make things better, we also get some truly potent super-slo-mo shots, achieving the energy that Rebel Moon pretends to have. I even admire the environmental details; this film makes the best, moost moody use of stormy weather since the heyday of Béla Tarr.
Last but not least, if you just want to watch a steamy film involving hot people, this one is for you (in particular, Mike Faist made me go "I never knew a mix between John Mulaney and a young Mathew Lillard could be so charming"). It may surprise you that this -- what many have called the sexiest film of the year, if not the decade -- contains no single sex scene.
To some this is refreshing and my companion voiced his preference for cinematic intimacy like this over, say, the highly explicit fornication scenes in Poor Things. I believe it depends on the movie -- I love the "almost sex" scenes (the most we get is foreplay and at least one "just got done" scene) in this movie because of how legitimately sexy they are; I love the actual sex scenes in Poor Things because they (or many of them) are hilarious, and work well for that type of movie. I think films can be sexy while showing the sex too, but the approach of Challengers is pretty perfect. Less is more, sometimes, and it's hard to imagine that this film could possibly be any more sexy.
To conclude, I am once again forced to end the post by stealing a passage from a Letterboxd reviewer. Quoth Bryan Espitia: "Everything is sex, except sex, which is tennis."
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Stinkin' paws up
The well-laid-out and often quite beautiful Planet of the Apes prequel "trilogy" now gets a fourth installment -- namely Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Needless to say, I didn't see the use for it; having now watched it, I feel about the same, even if I appreciate the attempt to mimic the weight and patience of Matt Reeves' films -- as well as their seminal VFX work.
However, there are certain downgrades. Instead of Andy Serkis' iconic mocap performances as Caesar the ape, the new movie treats us to comparatively unmemorable sapient simians. Instead of trusting audiences can pay attention to a film that's largely silent and reliant on sign language (part of why 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes was my favorite of the bunch), the apes in this one talk up a storm. (They don't perform "Dr. Zaius", alas.)
So basically, at this point in the timeline, we are closer to the future that Charlton Heston saw in the original Planet of the Apes -- which, of course, he at first thought was an alien planet in his own time, learning the truth in what might be the most spoiled and unconcealable twist in cinematic history (yes, possibly including Luke's relationship with Darth Vader and the significance of Kane's last words).
As the movie begins, apes have all but seized control of the Earth. Those human colonies we saw in the prior film are wiped out and what few humans remain are feral -- for the most part. One exception is William H. Macy's character, Trevathan, who teaches the vicious ape leader Proximus Caesar of the old world.
Another important player is Mae, a human who befriends our hero, a young ape warrior named Noa. Mae, too, can communicate just fine, which startles a friendly, knowledgeable orangutan in one of the funnier scenes. Noa's loved ones have been taken; Mae, or "Nova" as she is nicknamed, knows where to go.
The movie has appreciably better action sequences than a lot of other blockbusters, managing to make these scenes of CGI animals going at it seem more real, weighty, and tactile than many modern action scenes that feature real humans. (They also mop the floor with recent action sequences that do primarily involve an onslaught of CGI creations -- see last year's astoundingly soulless Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.) And while we're talking of the CGI, the animation of the animals still manages to be quite astonishing to look at, even as we've grown used to seeing computers produce photorealistic apes and monkeys.
It does still look a bit "off" to see these seemingly real animals speak with human mouth movements -- yet, I feel as if their facial expressions and emotive subtleties are even more impressive than in the prior films. Several years ago, in my review of the Jungle Book remake, I wrote that talking animals are never going to look wholly natural. Now, I'd say we're getting there.
In short, it's a fairly enjoyable blockbuster. Even so, I can't imagine we'll remember anything from it quite like we remember those pivotal moments from the older films. Matt Reeves gave us a mute girl bonding with a gorilla over the beauty found in nature, distilled in a single tree blossom. Matt Reeves gave us the paralyzing sequence from the first film in the trilogy where Caesar speaks for the first time. Matt Reeves gave us Kobo. Nothing here is at that level, but I say check it out.
Shôgun (2024)
Fantastic; beautiful
Shogun (which I'm not permitted to spell correctly as the macron O is an "invalid character") is a masterfully written and artistically splendid adaptation of the 1975 James Clavell novel of the same name (which was also adapted for TV in 1980 -- I'm told that if you belong to the same generation as my parents, this was more than likely the first Japanese you ever heard/learned). In this version, we get Cosmo Jarvis as the marooned Englishman John Blackthorne; Anna Sawai as the troubled Lady Mariko, who becomes his translator; and a phenomenal Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toranaga, a mighty daimyo who becomes the target of other regents in Japan in a story that shows the dawn of Tokugawa shogunate.
It's a bit funny that it came out right around when Denis Villeneuve made his comments about how movies are the ideal place for visual storytelling, whereas TV is more about dialogue. Along comes Shogun, which looks appreciably better than many of the motion pictures we've seen from Hollywood in recent years, most notably in terms of lighting -- Matt Zoller Seitz joked that this show reminded us that good lighting is, in fact, allowed on TV.
It's not as "realistic" as, say, the murky battle in the Game of Thrones episode The Long Night, but is this what we want in fantastical art? Recall the conversation Peter Jackson had with a crewmember when shooting the Cirith Ungol sequence in Return of the King: "Where is that light coming from?" "The same place as the music."
It's a show that puts in effort and details in ways that too few shows bother to even try. I even noticed environmental details, like a scene set during a period of thawing, where snow can be seen and heard sliding off the building while the characters are speaking -- this wasn't necessary to include, but it helps the show feel more real and immersive, while also denoting the passage of time during Blackthorne's stint as Toranaga's military trainer.
There also is the purposeful use of swirly bokeh, especially in shots that show Blackthorne's point-of-view, accentuating the dreamlike and confusing quality that Japan has to him, and of course, the costumes and sets are nigh flawless. It is, simply put, a brilliant work, and the fact that so few are talking about it is a damn pity.
Baby Reindeer (2024)
Admirably honest; courageous
Something harrowing is laid bare in Netflix's new Baby Reindeer. Based on an autobiographical one-man show by Scottish comedian Richard Gadd (who also stars), the series dramatizes his experiences with stalking and abuse. It is the sort of story that -- mainly because the gender dynamics aren't what we "expect" -- so rarely gets attention, much less taken seriously.
While I don't intend to hit you with too much info, the dynamic at the center of Baby Reindeer is one I found eerily familiar; based on the type of person that Gadd's stalker apparently was, it got me thinking about how these things seem to typically play out. Particular types of people will prey on other particular types of people. I recognized this stalker; this demeanor.
In Gadd, I see bits of both myself and an old friend who went through something similar around the same time as I did. Neither of us had to endure such insane levels of it, but I can attest that it's easy to, for lack of a better word, allow things like this to get worse. The show explores as much: When you're at a low point, you may accept any sort of attention -- even when the flags are red as can be -- and certain stalkers will be especially drawn to such a person, as they feel they have a chance.
It also showcases perfectly how stalkers of this ilk aren't just malicious, but trapped in some narcissistic state where it's unclear to onlookers if they're delusional or lying on purpose -- and where they see themselves as the protagonist of a romantic film. (Just think of the scene where Martha, the stalker, tries to win Gadd back by singing a love song at one of his stand-up gigs; she isn't being ominous on purpose, but clearly doing what she's certain will save the day.) Even so, this is a story that goes to places that cannot be described as anything other than evil.
I don't mean to "judge" the show based on things like accuracy. This is Gadd's story to tell and on top of being a bravely vulnerable piece of expression, the show as such is also technically well-made and cleverly, purposefully presented. Gadd maintains a certain sense of humor about it all: Poorly spelled emails have rarely looked so humorous yet disturbing at the same time.
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
Play me off, Pazuzu
Late Night with the Devil is a cleverly presented tale with a decently convincing 1970s TV look and a great performance from the ever-charming David Dastmalchian. This much is true. Alas, many critics will be hesitant to praise it.
It's likely you've already heard of this film through its AI controversy, being the first major motion picture - to my knowledge - to use so-called AI art. (It's actually "machine learning", I know, but I think we're past trying to hold on to what Artificial Intelligence "actually" refers to.) It's certainly the first one to garner this much attention for it.
To make matters more disappointing, this "major" example wasn't from a "major" studio (we might expect this sort of get-out-of-hiring-artists cheat from Disney, and we'd be right; remember the intro to Secret Invasion). Instead, it comes from the world of indie horror: a nifty found-footage joint presenting itself as recovered footage from the 1970s talk/variety show Night Owls with Jack Delroy, and the interstitials created for the in-universe show features clearly AI-generated cartoon skeletons, with all the effed up fingers and weird uneven eyes that this entails.
You may wonder why everyone is more upset by this than AI being used more and more in larger Hollywood projects (a question raised by Brendan Hodges and others, once again referring to Secret Invasion plus the various AI-voiced Skywalkers we've seen lately). Why beat up on the little guy?
Well, that's just it. The word "indie" is all but synonymous with the little guy - creators who don't get the same money or attention as the titans of Hollywood. And so, for many people, it is disheartening to see an indie production be part of the problem; to do something that spits in the face of aspiring artists, by (A) relying on prompts over hiring actual persons and (B) using software that's trained on such persons' pre-existing images without their approval. Once again, there is much to appreciate about the production and there is clearly love behind it. So why did this happen?
One defense I've seen is that the artworks in question were made back when AI art was just something people toyed around with, instead of being recognized as a real threat to aspiring creatives like it is today. (The production even predates the SAG-AFTRA strikes.) Thus - I guess - we oughtn't be too harsh on the filmmakers.
However, artist Summer Ray quickly demonstrated why there's no justification for sticking to the AI route; in just a few hours, she whipped up a hand-drawn version of the graphic that looks more era-accurate, more like an actual skeleton, and just all-around better than the AI mess (remember, this was 2022-era software), all while being an ORIGINAL piece that makes no nonconsensual use of prior works/assets. If you can't afford a drawing, you can always just, ya know, not have a drawing in your film. Hell, the version screened at SXSW reportedly didn't have the artwork.
Because of this, many people are straight up suggesting we're morally justified to pirate the film, because the filmmakers' terms are such that theft is permissible. While that may not be entirely fair to all those who did put in work to make this movie, others would deem that we should've been even more vocal - just a few weeks later, we learned of A24's algorithmically generated Civil War posters and that Netflix murder documentary that used AI to, I kid you not, create childhood photos of the subject.
All of this aside, I think Late Night with the Devil is a witty and well-executed picture. It is skillfully both hilarious and unsettling, with entertaining and mostly convincing performances throughout. Do what you will with this information.
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
"Of course you realize this means war"
In a bizarre way, Hundreds of Beavers kind of constitutes closure for me. It's the closest thing we'll get to a proper live-action Looney Tunes film (because, yeah, there was a time when even I looked at cartoons and went "This I gotta see in three dimensions").
When I saw Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action in my youth, I was disappointed and didn't fully understand why until later: The movies are about a group of characters coming together to stop bad guys and helping each other out. That's not the Looney Tunes. The Looney Tunes are supposed to annoy, beat the snot out of, and try to consume each other, oft in hilariously elaborate ways that can only happen in cartoons -- or, as it were, in the RIGHT type of live-action film.
Hundreds of Beaver is more or less that film, but visually, it is closer to a picture by Charlie Chaplin -- the original live-action cartoon -- with a few dashes of old video games and YouTube Poops. Yet, it all flows together perfectly, creating a world wherein there's a method to the madness, consistency to the chaos, and logic to the surrealism. We find ourselves immersed, understanding the rules and geography of this surreal slapstick realm of cartoon physics and AVGN-tier animal suits.
Set in 19th-century North America at the height of winter (that's about as specific as the film gets), the story follows an applejack salesman who is forced to become a fur trapper, fighting against the elements to capture enough animals to win the hand of a local merchant's daughter, using all sorts of intricate traps and schemes to do so. Meanwhile, the local beavers don't take kindly to this bearded menace. He learns that they may have been involved in him losing his applejack business.
It is, for all its influences, one of the most truly unique movies I've seen in a while. It is constantly zany and rife with visual cleverness -- with some gags that become important near the third act (allow me to propose the screenwriting term Chekov's Snot-cicle). The one complaint I can imagine people will have is that it feels just a touch too long.
In my mind, the story is sufficiently interesting -- and the gags and setpieces sufficiently varied -- to justify the runtime. But because of its hectic nature, a given minute of screentime will have so many things going on that it seems like several minutes -- not in the sense that it's tedious but in the sense that it's dense. I imagine it can be exhausting for some but as I've mentioned, the film is varied enough that you should be fine. At times, it gets close to feeling repetitive; at that same time, it does something out-of-pocket and treats us to some new sight. (Besides, the repetition is sometimes part of the humor, evoking the rhythm/structure of those silent 'toons of old.)
What's undeniable is the devotion of these filmmakers -- the "commitment to the bit" as the young uns might put it. Each scene represents just as much effort and silly wit as the last, never once failing to capture the intended vibe and look (sans maybe one shot where the backgrounds, as stupid as this may sound, look too much like a real forest).
The actors are having the time of their lives with this material and the music, cinematography, and directing in general consistently achieve that "old, wordless cartoon" feel. Real ones might know Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews for 2018's Lake Michigan Monster and the 2016 short film L. I. P. S., but if there's any good in the world, these will soon be widely known names.
Regardless of my notes above, I think you'll have a blast with Hundreds of Beavers -- and feel free to partake in the official drinking game posted by the filmmakers.
Civil War (2024)
"But what is it trying to say?" "What do ya wanna hear?"
Whatever is the deal with Alex Garland's Civil War? Does he have nothing to say, or is he saying everything about everyone? Does he need to have a clear stance on the mess that's America, or is it enough that he makes an immersive and disturbing war-zone trip -- an "Apocalypse Now for the girlies" as one critic put it -- as observed by a team of photojournalists?
There are some movies where -- even though many would insist it isn't saying anything -- critics have everything to say about it. Even movies that get decried as taking a radically centrist "everyone is an idiot" stance will sometimes get accused by the same critics of ultimately being aligned with this or that "side" -- depending on how the critics read the characters of the movie, which values they themselves have, and whether or not they liked the flick. (The point of the movie is usually a greater one, often misconstrued as non-commital/nihilistic when really it just refrains from playing favorites in its assessment of how insane everyone has gotten.)
As for Civil War, however, everyone seems to agree that it's kind of lame and that its vagueness doesn't lend itself to interpretability so much as it makes the story less interesting -- because we don't know why anything is happening and what it ultimately was that pushed a divided America into abject chaos.
There are occasional evocations of Jan6, Charlottesville, and the mid-pandemic Antifa manifestations (plus a guy who almost wears the colors of the Palestinian flag) but it mostly leaves us going "Yes, and?".
To paraphrase Jeff Zhang, it's a movie that doesn't much engage with what it itself has to show; while it boasts apoliticism, its motifs are very much political -- and might've been resonantly topical if we better understood where the filmmakers stand. Surely more could've been done with this picture?
I do appreciate films that endeavor to view human beings from an almost alien perspective; to view our fighting in the same way that we watch insects tearing each other's appendages apart, not caring which insect thinks he's fighting for the GOOD ant hill or which values he's protecting. That sort of thing can be fascinating and eerie, and Garland knows how to make eerie movies. But what he gives us here, coupled with his comments about how "The problem isn't the right or the left; it's ideology", makes me think he's kind of a dork.
And if he believes that cameras are neutral -- objective machines that capture reality without bias -- I'd recommend the documentary All Light Everywhere.
Monkey Man (2024)
Let Patel cook
Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man has had quite the journey to reach us and we have none other than Jordan Peele to thank for finally getting it to the big screen. The film has solidified Peele as a savior of the art form -- in case Nope hadn't convinced you of his seminal taste -- and Patel as one of the Millennial greats.
Initially, the plan was for a worldwide Netflix release but as you might've read, they eventually elected not to platform it, supposedly out of fear of alienating their Indian viewers. (Let's just say the film isn't especially favorable towards the Indian government.) But Peele saw that Patel was cooking with fire and so attached himself as a producer via his Monkey's Paw company (how appropriate), and eventually got Monkey Man a theatrical release by making a deal with Universal Studios.
And like I said, it reminds us that Patel is one hell of an actor while also, evidently, being a skillful movie-maker. His directing displays an expert-level command of extras, space, and camera movements, and there is purposeful planning to the way everything is staged and put to music.
It explores Indian culture in both poignant and fascinating ways (few viewers in the rest of the world will have heard of hijra/jogappi or the folk tales being evoked) and the city of Yatana, with its vibrant lights and constant street activity, feels like a character in its own right. I'm a bit less enthusiastic about the story, which I appreciated on a thematic level (the unabashedly brutal anti-fascism) but less so on a personal level (the tale of Patel and his quest to avenge his mother).
These are good characters -- some of them, like Sharlto Copley's frothing underground boxing announcer, are just plain fun -- but they lack the depth that would wholly justify this runtime. I would've loved to learn more about the freedom fighters at the hijra temple (when they're set up in a news broadcast earlier in the picture, it feels like a throwaway line).
Oh and of course, being a debut, the film is often distractingly similar to the works that inspired the debutante in question. The fight scenes are clearly influenced by -- and worthy of -- the John Wick films and, occasionally, Oldboy (there are certain shots of elevators and hallways that seem especially familiar). This needn't be an issue, especially for a first-time effort, and the references, if nothing else, indicate great taste: There are nighttime city drives that recall Fallen Angels, certain elements of the premise and visuals suggest the works of Refn, and a confrontation near the end feels like a mix between Blade Runner 2049 and a Panos Cosmatos film. Need I even mention Bollywood?
Alas, there are also problems with the pacing, most puzzlingly in terms of where Patel chooses to place the flashback of the event that traumatized his character as a child. I get that putting it near the Third-Act Low Point works better for the "reveal" of how he got his scarred palm; it's just weird that the flashback comes later when there are moments earlier of Patel, in fits of PTSD, recalling images from this moment in his life and they're presented as if we should know the event he's thinking back to -- when we haven't been shown that scene yet.
Another moment that sticks out, where I thought to myself "This is ALMOST brilliant", was when the lead character is asked his name and says it's Bobby; the camera pans across a pack of Bobby's Bleach as the other character walks closer, which I thought was a cleverly subtle way of showing the audience where he got the name from. Then we see several more shots of the pack, one of which was subtitled in the screening I went to. We got it, trust me.
What nobody can deny is that if Dev Patel keeps cooking -- and people like Peele keep encouraging it -- wonderful things are ahead.
Smiling Friends: Gwimbly: Definitive Remastered Enhanced Extended Edition DX 4k (Anniversary Director's Cut) (2024)
We live in the best -- smilingest -- timeline
Smiling Friends continues to be what other "adult cartoons" fail and sometimes actively refuse to be.
Where other shows find edginess and intelligence in nihilism and negativity, this one works as an antidote -- partly in how its heroes endeavor to bring joy to an absurdist world (though they oft learn that some of its sadsacks only find joy/purpose in even darker places). Where other adult cartoons look ugly on purpose (supposedly to scare kids away), Smiling Friends is bright, colorful, and appealing to look at -- for all its grotesque and agonized-looking characters.
And of course, it's still a joy to behold for those of us who have followed its creators since Newgrounds, OneyPlays, SleepyCast, or wherever you might've discovered them. It was wild enough to see these people get a show on Adult Swim and eventually have said show on the HBO Max "Adult Swim" banner right alongside Rick and Morty. But to get an ad on the Las Vegas Globe for a "Season 2 premiere" that turned out to be an April Fool's Gag? Truly we live in the most blessed of timelines.
The show continues to combine the strengths of its creators. Zach "Psychicpebbles" Hadel has a knack for creating hideously cute critters in a quick moment and Michael Cusack has a way with big expressions. In this new season, we also get the best emulation of PS1 graphics that has ever been attempted, complete with bit-crushed audio for that particular character. An equal amount of care has been put into the old-timey video game promo.
The animation is better than ever and there's additional humor to be found in it if you know where to look, such as the way some random object will be over-animated and fluid while a little blob fella is zipping across the screen with a two-frame running cycle. The character animation -- the poses, the blink-and-you'll-miss-them tics/gestures, the simple yet expressive faces -- is brimming with detail, and we do get some off-model gags at the right times (once again, usually in a way where you'll barely notice them). Finally, it is still very funny that someone like Zach, to whom goblin mode comes so naturally, plays one of the most normal guys in the show.
Needless to say, I cannot wait to see what's next... in May.
The Truth vs. Alex Jones (2024)
A lie is so rarely just a lie.
The Truth vs. Alex Jones is mainly two things. On one hand, it is a documentary on the lawsuits filed against alt-news provocateur and InfoWars founder Alex Jones following his coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which he called a "false flag operation" that thousands of people were in on, including the grieving parents who he notoriously dubbed "crisis actors", inciting ceaseless harassment. (He has since also been blacklisted from YouTube.) On the other hand, it is an exploration of Jones as a persona and what it is that intrigues even those who revile him.
This is, most would say, one of the absolute worst human beings alive. As we see the Sandy Hook court proceedings and interrogations, where Jones is finally confronted about his lies in a way where he can't get away the same as he would've done if the cameras were at his command, the film inevitably ends up satisfying -- even as the subject matter is harrowing.
And yet, there's something about Jones as a character -- a boisterous loudmouth whose explanations for things will get so outlandish they read like a Reddit theory about The X-Files as orated by a WWE champion -- that intrigues pretty much all of us. One interviewee explains that you may become glued to the show because "You want to see what else he'll say", echoing the scene from Private Parts where both fans and haters of Howard Stern give their answers to why they keep tuning in.
The movie, which is refreshingly concise given the popularity of the "docuseries", underscores just what a cartoon of a man this is; not in an affectionate way, but in a "car crash that you can't look away from" sort of way (only instead of a car crash it's a great ape who figured out microphones and Rolexes but little else). Even in the courtroom, he can't seem to help doing/saying something goofy.
It also explores his beginnings on Austin public radio and we learn some damning, yet unsurprising details from former colleagues of his about how IW does its fact-finding. In 2011, when there were fears that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown had made it to the coast of California, and Jones' research team reported that their instruments showed this wasn't the case, IW producers immediately gave them a call demanding that all those logs/videos be destroyed, as they went against the narrative Jones wanted to tell and thus advertise the hot new IW product, in this case an iodine supplement meant to shield against fallout. Few things could more perfectly capture what this website -- and most alternate news in general -- is ultimately about.
In my review of Mike Cernovich's Hoaxed, I wrote that, yes, it's good to be critical of mainstream news/opinion; it's just that you shouldn't switch off your scrutiny just because the news is now coming from a sphere whose politics you happen to like (especially when they'll very provably base their reporting on what they're trying to sell). Looking at the current state of conspiracy theories -- where you seemingly can't go two minutes without seeing a post about space lasers and Satanic agendas -- I'd say my supplication fell on deaf ears.
It may sound like a slippery-slope fallacy, but I've seen it occur in real-time with a friend, whose thought process basically went "Well this guy validated by opinions about Islam and the anti-gun media, so he MUST be correct about chemtrails". It's often said that Alex Jones only appeals to those who already agree with him -- that he exists, not to change your mind, but to tell you that you're already right and get you to pay him to say it more -- and while it's true that that's how he gets ya, those people go from bad to worse (whichever tier of "bad" they were already on) once Jones starts telling them about some other things the Bad Guys are up to.
As this film shows, Jones is arguably the most important figure in the normalization of conspiracy nonsense we've seen during these past few years. We're reminded that during the 2016 presidential race -- which involved a considerable boost for alternate news -- the Trumpster himself sang Jones' praises. We're shown there was a period where InfoWars garnered more viewers than CNN.
I myself once wrote about how this magnitude of conspiracy-theorist thinking was well underway to becoming more mainstream, due in no small part to the popularity of InfoWars. And like I said, now it's everywhere. Hell, compared to some of the theories I covered in The Big Conspiracy Guide of 2023, Jones is falling behind (which is another prediction I had; that he would soon be deemed "too vanilla" if this keeps spiraling out of control).
In 2021, many of us learned that even he -- the guy with the gay frog water thesis and the spiels about "weather weapons" -- still isn't insane enough for the QAnon theories (which is to say nothing of how normal he looked next to Kanye West in 2022). Regardless, he is become Death, the destroyer of non-flat worlds.
Again, it's very satisfying to see him confronted in a setting where he can't hide or yell loudly enough at reality until reality gives up, but in a lot of ways, this is a horrifying film. Like the recent Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, its presentation is sometimes cheesier than seems appropriate for the topic, but it doesn't take away from the film's importance.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Fans might have fun -- and then forget that they did
Godzilla and King Kong unite once again to fight a common kaiju enemy in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Booms and pows ensue. If that's all you need, close this window.
As I've noted before, I'm detecting a pattern in the way Godzilla sequels (d)evolve. Back in the day, we began with a powerful post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki dirge in the form of 1954's Godzilla -- originally named Gojira in Japan and later needlessly retooled for American viewers -- and before you knew it, the once-terrifying titular beast (who had seemed so large and imposing a few movies ago) was sliding forth on his tail and drop-kicking his "enemy of the week" in flicks that later became Mystery Science Theater subjects.
And now, decades later, we have the Monsterverse, which started out with 9/11-esque images of horror and has now culminated in a kaiju wrestling match where a big ape rides upon a big lizard to go fight another ape on another lizard. To make things funnier, the Japanese seem to have come full circle and returned to making Godzilla films that are deep and resonant -- using the monster as a "ghost of World War II" as Ebert once put it -- in the form of the phenomenal, Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One.
Following the release of that film, it's hard to accept the defense that Godzilla x Kong is "just a monster movie" and that it doesn't make sense to expect more from it than "monsters punching each other". I'm afraid we've all seen the truth; we know we could be getting more.
But never mind what I would like to see from the kaiju genre. How does Godzilla x Kong fare as a monster brawl? Well, now's the time to tell you that my issue isn't that it's inherently wrong to opt for mindless fun over trying to achieve thematic resonance through more grounded action -- it's that the attempt at mindless monster fun isn't that great.
I suppose it delivers what you came for, even as we waste some time on stupid prophecy nonsense and questionable interludes of cuteness (there's a scene where King Kong basically goes to the dentist). As for the battles themselves, they're no doubt well-made but they left me in a state of "so what". That's part of why it's hard for me to not compare it to its direct franchise predecessor:
Yes, sometimes simians clobbering reptiles is enough. But imagine these fight scenes if we also cared and there was emotional gravity to the action -- or even regular gravity. Better yet, what if they leaned further into a Toho sequel homage and didn't seem to genuinely think King Kong floating around with a magical axe in Hollow Earth is epic and cool? As is, I can feel myself starting to forget most of what I saw in here. Was the axe even magical?
Something I did like about the previous film, Godzilla vs. Kong, is Adam Wingard's direction. Even as the human characters in these films still aren't anything to cheer for (although I thought the human drama worked fine in the early bits of the 2014 original, and last year's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters partly warmed me up to the idea of learning more about the homo sapien side of the lore), Wingard at least made the GvK dialogue scenes look great -- atmospheric, prismatic, and bathed in "line of purples" neon. Here, we get similarly colorful sequences, yet they do very little to make the material more interesting.
I understand if I sound too demanding or even "spoiled". It's worth reminding oneself what an amazing age of F/X we live in and how doubly amazing it must be for the OG nerds. Imagine watching 1933's original King Kong or any of the Ray Harryhausen classics as a kid -- not to mention that film from 1962 where a massively re-sized Kong finally did meet Godzilla, both played by actors in shoddy suits. Could you ever have dreamed that we'd one day see movies -- spectacles -- like the ones we have now?
If you were that kid, I guess you shouldn't let me stop you -- even as you might have nitpicks of your own regarding lore or whether the monsters should really move like this (especially considering the sense of scale and weight that Gareth Edwards gave to these things when this particular 'verse was established). I do think you should go see it; I cannot promise you will remember much about it. I think you might have fun; I also think Godzilla himself, being a recent Oscar winner and all, deserves more.
Regardless: Happy 70th, Godzilla. May you either evoke the horrors of man-made annihilation or brofist a photo-realistic Gamera in whatever's next. Either way, we'll be seated.
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (2024)
The bright orange facade breaks
Quiet on Set is a tough watch, but also important -- important because of the dark truths it illuminates; tough because of the truths' unsettling nature and, furthermore, what they reveal about kiddie programs that several generations hold dear. It explores the production of such '90s Nickelodeon classics as All That and naughties ones like Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh, along with the myriad stories of abuse and predation involving former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider, dialogue coach Brian Peck, and others.
It's harshly sobering, to be sure, especially if you are familiar with these faces and/or their younger selves. You may not need this show to tell you that the world of child stardom is an evil one, but the more people realize how the system works, the better.
I do remember the Nickelodeon sitcoms and variety shows, but as they were in English (sometimes without Swedish subtitles), I rarely watched them. Yet I remember being intrigued by things like Kenan & Kel, Cousin Skeeter, Pete & Pete, and, indeed, All That; a few years later, Drake and Josh seemed to be everywhere. These kids defined the brand and, in turn, our childhoods (even if we didn't always tune in, they were somehow always there). This documentary puts things in a dreary new perspective for all of us.
There are some critiques of it that I will concede, however. At times, it seems too cheesy for the subject matter -- like when Drake Bell, finally ready to reveal himself as the John Doe in the 2004 Brian Peck case, walks in at the end of Part 2 like it's an MCU post-credits scene -- and certain arguments, like the Nickelodeon slime (along with various snot jokes) supposedly being references to cum, made me wonder:
Is that on Schneider, or people in the modern day being porn addicts?
The Grinch (2018)
Maybe, perhaps... nah (ARCHIVE REVIEW)
Imagine being worried that the new Grinch film will besmirch the good name of "the original" and meaning the Jim Carrey version. Apparently, the Grinch as interpreted by the Minions makers is at a risk of somehow being less dignified than the one where the Mayor of Whoville sucks on a dog's anus.
Little known fact: the character actually originated in a Dr. Seuss book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was adapted into an animated short film with Boris Karloff. As strange as it may sound, the essence of this Christmas story was not originally ass humor. I don't know how many people know that.
In The Grinch, Benedict Cumberbatch is The Grinch, and The Grinch is a mean one. Why? Because of the noise and holiday cheer emitting from a small Christmas-obsessed town, called Whoville, situated below the hill he lives on with his dog. Both locations -- Whoville and the mountain -- are inside a snowflake, by the way. I'm still waiting to see Grinch and The Whos face their inevitable doom in the sequel, Apocalypse Snowplow.
Worth mentioning, however, is that Grinch is no longer all that mean from the start. Rarely has something been so indicative of our current state as the idea that we needed to tone down the Grinch a little; make him more of a regular, if cranky guy because God forbid we ever relate to a genuinely flawed and cruel character, especially in a child-friendly film.
Let me further illustrate how much hipper and cooler this movie is with the Zillennials than the original cartoon. There is no narration by Karloff; that honor instead goes to Pharrell Williams. The song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is performed by Tyler the Creator instead of Thurl Ravenscroft. I couldn't make this up as a joke. I mean, I could do that; it's just that Hollywood would already have done it non-ironically before I got to the punchline.
Do I need to elaborate on the plot? You all know the stuff where The Grinch eventually dresses up as Santa to take away all the decorations and Christmas gifts from Whoville, i.e stealing Christmas. But there's more. Of course there is. The movie can't very well be just forty minutes, can it? Much like the Carrey iteration, this one elects to more deeply explore Grinch's origins, to see why he's such a grump all the time.
The cast includes Cameron Steely as Cindy Lou Who, Rashida Jones as Cindy's mother, and Keenan Thompson as the "happiest Who" in the village. Angela Lansbury now voices the Mayor of Whoville.
Admittedly the film is more visually inviting than the last time Grinch got a feature-length outing (not to mention Cat in the Hat), but even when the designs are transferred from the land of Dr. Seuss, Illumination Studios manage to make everything tediously generic to look at. Their films are so inoffensive, yet so perfectly manufactured that they will always get their money back through sheer cute factor (plus merchandise, which always goes well with a story that used to be about the vacuousness of materialism), not that they're known to spend that much money or effort to begin with.
Feels Good Man (2020)
It does feel good, man (ARCHIVE REVIEW)
Nothing raises a red flag for me quite like the idea of someone trying to make a film about Internet memes and online culture. It can so easily come off as out-of-touch, or like a weak attempt to be hip with something that frankly isn't worth being hip with in the first place.
But the story of Pepe the Frog, once a simple Matt Furie comic strip figure, is too insanely fascinating not to make for a compelling documentary, and this one goes above and beyond in its research, presentation, and understanding of the Millennial nerd world. Since he was already widespread on various forums and a bit bastardized (by anti-social 4chan incels whom we'll discuss later) before somehow being turned into a quasi-official symbol of the alt-right and Donald Trump, the first US president to rise to power thanks to meme magic, and then seriously classified as "hate" by the ADL (which is to say nothing how he was just recently utilized in the Hong Kong protests), this in-depth love letter is what poor old Pepe deserves.
There is a lot to enjoy about Feels Good Man beyond the Pepe origin story, particularly its use of animation to accentuate the emotions of its subjects, and also its exploration of 2010s meme culture in general -- where a series of memes might just decorate the walls of an honest-to-god art museum and the word "memelord" is a legitimate descriptor. The main attraction, however, is possibly Matt Furie, not only because we learn he's quite the character.
In a sense, Feels Good Man (named after Pepe's catchphrase in the source material) is also about how easy it is for an auteur to lose ownership of their creation in the digital age; how something as simple as a cartoon frog may be repeatedly reappropriated in unthinkable ways. Once something spreads on the Internet just so, it's basically no longer yours. You can't sue every Redditor.
At this point, Pepe is so well-known that most who regard his uneasy face will be able to identify him as that "racist frog" used by alt-righters, edgy NEETs, and Trump zealots on the Internet -- they might also recognize his famous "kek" noise, originally a World of Warcraft meme (it means "LOL" in Orc) but also, aptly enough, the name of an Egyptian frog god that also inspired "Kekistan", which is a whole other story. It may not even be fair to say that Mr. The Frog exists squarely as "a thing the web" anymore. Nevertheless, the best part of this film is how it doesn't just tell us the how, but also the why; what exactly made those millions of nobodies (many of them GamerGate "veterans" or whatever they'd like to be called) who only had Pepe gravitate towards Trump and far-right jacquerie? I'm starting to wonder, is it something with amphibians?
In Sweden, the TV character Skurt has been used for similar "memes" (read: propagandic Facebook image macros) by Swedish nationalists. Even the very idea of an anthropomorphic frog is becoming synonymous with far-right rebellion, it seems. Thank God for Dat Boi, still remembered as an innocent piece of anti-humor.
Of course, his association with the alt-right isn't the only thing we recognize Pepe for, especially if we venture beyond the West. The Hong Kong protestors (see above) justified their usage of him by saying that he looks funny and "is a symbol of youth participation in this movement", as his humorous appearance "captured the hearts" of enough teens and young adults.
This is all fascinating enough without the movie's focus on the predicament of Furie, which may make aspiring creators ponder the risks of releasing their art to the web; you never know when a character you invented might reappear in an anti-Semitic meme on your aunt's Facebook feed or in a petulant drawing of Donald Trump as a modern Adonis. Such is the power of the meme, and also art. What will "kek" mean next?
Yes, a film about the saga of Pepe the Frog is officially one of the most thought-provoking and well-made releases of 2020. This year is the gift that keeps on taking, isn't it?
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Monumental; the apotheosis of picture-making
Dune: Part Two has been universally hailed as a sequel worthy of Terminator: Judgment Day, The Godfather Part II, and The Empire Strikes Back; a bonafide epic yielding additional comparisons to Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia; a picture that solidifies Denis Villeneuve as one of the modern titans of the art form. Even those who weren't so hot on the first film, finding its characters monotonous and its visuals largely dull, seem to have been thoroughly won over.
And although I enjoyed the visuals and thought there was a purpose to their occasional drabness (imposing brutalist structures towering over nature), the new film indeed cranks the art direction up to eleven, exemplifying some of the most potent visuals in sci-fi history. Although I thought the characters worked fine in the original, in the sequel we're treated to powerhouse newcomers and darker depths to the figures we know -- when critics said "I liked Dune: Part One just fine, but I just can't buy Timothée Chalamet as the hero", readers of the Frank Herbert novel snickered (in Part Two, new fans will see why).
If nothing else, they find that the whole thing feels more complete (recall that the first movie bamboozled many who hadn't a clue it was just "Part One"). Frank Herbert's son, Brian, wrote "When the new movie is combined with Dune: Part One it is by far the best film interpretation of Dune that has ever been done".
Other things that are expanded on and/or elevated include the performances of Zendaya (one of the most expressive and loveable actors of her generation, underused in the prior movie) as Chani, the young Fremen warrior who welcomed Paul Atreides into their camps after the fall of his "House", and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul's mother who becomes the "Reverend Mother" of the Fremen, who believe she and Paul are instrumental to a prophecy of a mother and child sent to reclaim Planet Arrakis from oppression -- the Imperial spice-mining colonies that now belong to the vile Harkonnen family. On that note, we also get a better look at the Harkonnen homeworld, whose "black sun" seems to erase all color from it, bar the blackest of black and whitest of white.
This moment is one of many reasons you need to see this in a theater. I cannot stress it enough. These sequences -- from the most thunderous battles and Sandworm rides to the intimate final duel that left my audience at the edge of their seats -- are paralyzing to behold in an auditorium, complete with music and sound design that seem to make the very Earth tremble (then falling dead silent at pivotal moments), all sublimely photographed by "swirly bokeh" extraordinaire Greig Fraser. (It's not often you see a film and just know you're witnessing the creation of "iconic" images.) The action scenes are elevated by impressive choreography and, of course, the performances.
The most intense of the new faces is undoubtedly Austin Butler as Feyd Rautha (that's the Sting character in the 1984 movie, in case you needed the reference), lauded by many as the best villain performance since Anton Chigurh and Ledger's Joker. Additional newcomers include Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Fenring of the "Bene Gesseret" priestesses, and Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV.
Returning actors include Javier Bardem as the Fremen leader Stilgar, whose incorrigible fanaticism gets some big laughs; Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, who is out for Harkonnen blood; Stellan Skarsgård as the revolting Baron Harkonnen; Dave Bautista as The Beast Rabban, who envies the affection the Baron shows toward Feyd; and Charlotte Rampling as the Imperial Reverend Mother, who hatches schemes of her own. Certain characters I've mentioned are given just a few minutes of screen time, yet they all make a considerable impact, from the memorable line reads to the looks that speak even louder, most notably during that final exchange of haunting glances between Paul, Chani, and the Princess.
At the center is Chalamet as Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides -- a performance that will vindicate his stans and make non-believers hopefully realize not only how formidable he can be, but what he was truly going for in Part One. Chalamet is known for his thin frame and his friendly demeanor; yet, we have absolutely no trouble believing that his Paul would be a master of sparring and a conqueror of Sandworms. As I wrote earlier, those who judged the first movie by how well his story works as a garden-variety "Hero's Journey" are bound to have an "oh" moment or two.
If you're still worried that some of these elements seem lifted from other works, recall that Dune is (likely) an older series than whatever you're thinking of. All the same, even the familiar images feel new here -- epic in scale in a way that cinema hasn't been able to achieve until now. This movie is a close-to-perfect marriage of hitherto unthinkable technology and a crystal-clear vision for said tech to realize. In part, the movie plays as if Villeneuve heard the complaints of the previous film and, as if on a dare, went all the way with his movie magic for the sequel, putting the doubters in their place.
Knowing how the books go, I know this franchise is far from done. And despite how long this film was, I never wanted it to end and still crave more, ergo I'm more than stoked to see what Villeneuve does with the rest of Herbert's legendarium and if audiences keep finding resonance in his version of it. The world of Dune is a uniquely well-realized potential future: intimidatingly immense and outlandish on one hand, and dreadfully convincing on the other, showing that Imperialism and colonialism may be alive and well millennia ahead. (Had this film been made with even less studio interference, the parallels between the Fremens' plight and Palestine may have been even more obvious.)
The story of Dune Messiah still needs to be adapted and I'm confident that, once Villeneuve shows it to us, the same media illiterates who started posting Film Twitter Takes about how Poor Things approves of misogyny once that film came out on digital won't be taking Paul's "White Savior" and Jessica's cultural appropriation at face value -- or so we may hope. An interesting theory from Walter Chaw suggests that the reason so many people keep failing to get the point of Dune -- and Paul Atreides specifically -- is that "colonialism is so embedded in our value system as manifest destiny" that it's straight-up impossible for some of us to interpret a figure like this as anything other than a good guy. Lisan al-Gaib, and all that.