Stuff I watched in...April, 2024

Baby Reindeer (TV series)

Baby Reindeer was a wonderful and intense surprise. The premise is simple enough: a bartender makes a kind gesture to a lonely woman, opening the door to years of stalking that escalates into physical attacks. But there is so much more to the 7 episode limited series than just that.

For one thing, the creator of the show and its star, Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, actually lived through this. The series is based on his one-man show of the same name which recounted his years being stalked by "Martha" (not her real name) and all the confounding choices Gadd himself made during this time. I say "confounding" because at various points in the storyline, Gadd--playing a version of himself named Donny Dunn--fails to see red flags, set boundaries, explain what is going on to others, and take decisive action prompting the viewer to yell "WHAT!?" at the screen multiple times.

But, ah, there is good reason for Donny's passivity. And I implore anyone interested in seeing the show with a blank slate to stop reading here and just go watch it (it's only about 4 hours in total). Please do look up appropriate trigger warnings because, hoo boy, is there a lot of upsetting material in Baby Reindeer, but this show is 100% worth the watch.

SPOILERS BELOW!

It is revealed partway through the series that years before Donny encountered Martha, he was a struggling comedian who had a run-in with Darrien, a powerful writer with successful TV series under his belt. Under the guise of "mentorship" and "working together", Darrien encourages Donny to do harder and harder drugs with him. While Donny is out of it, Darrien molests him. Donny always feels ashamed after these encounters but keeps going back every time Darrien calls him. It builds up to a horrific encounter where Darrien rapes Donny after having him take a mixture of GHB and LSD. 

Although Donny is able to break away from Darrien, he cannot escape the emotional toll of his experience. He becomes sexually confused, not sure if he prefers men, women, or both. He has meaningless encounters with people of every gender just to feel wanted. He feels intense shame and his self-esteem is in the trash. In other words, he is the ideal person to fall victim to a woman who shows up in his life and becomes obsessed with him. Both because it feels good to Donny to feel wanted, but also because it makes it that much harder to report Martha to the police: Donny reasons that what Martha is doing is not as bad as what Darrien did, and he didn't report Darrien, so what "right" does he have to report Martha?

Baby Reindeer is an astoundingly vulnerable and honest look into the mind and decisions of people who have suffered from abuse. Richard Gadd strikes a beautiful balance at revealing his own missteps while never blaming the victim (in this case, himself). He is also careful to show how Martha is a victim herself: she is mentally unwell, lonely, desperate. But he never excuses her increasingly awful behavior. In an increasingly polarized world, it's tempting to paint situations in black and white, and I believe that Gadd masterfully captures the shades of gray that color his own story. 

Baby Reindeer is an emotionally intense and important story that encourages us to both have empathy for others while also setting boundaries for ourselves. Highly recommended.

Grade: A+

***

Strange Way of Life

This short film (30 minutes) by acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar is so good that the only criticism I can lob at it is that it's too short. Strange Way of Life stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as two men who reunite 25 years after sharing a brief fling in the wild days of their youth. But the reunion isn't entirely happy. Silva (Pascal) is back in town to protect his son, accused of murdering a woman who happens to be Jake's (Hawke) sister-in-law. Also, Jake is the sheriff. 

As with all of Almodovar's films, Strange Way of Life is melodramatic, beautiful, and unabashedly queer. It's just too dang short--I would love for this to be a feature-length film! 

Strange Way of Life is currently streaming on Netflix if you want to give it a watch. 

Grade: B+

***

Ripley (TV series)

Based on the novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, some folks were skeptical of this 8 episode miniseries, which was commissioned by Showtime and then sold to Netflix--which means that it's a higher-quality series than you usually see on Netflix. The skepticism centered mostly on the casting of Andrew Scott (best known as "Hot Priest" from Fleabag) as Tom Ripley. Some felt that Scott was too old to play Tom Ripley, but to my mind there's no "rule" that Tom has to be in his 20s for the plot to work. Johnny Flynn (age 41) plays Dickie Greenleaf, so the two leads are not too mismatched in age anyway.

Filmed in gorgeous black and white, Ripley follows Tom, a scam artist living in New York who is contacted by Herbert Greenleaf (Kenneth Lonergan), a wealthy man who believes that Tom is friends with his son, Dickie. Dickie has been living in Italy for years, doing very little with his life (at least as Herbert sees it) and Herbert wants to pay Tom to go to Italy and convince Dickie to come home to New York. Of course, Tom jumps at the opportunity for a free vacation on Papa Greenleaf's dime. He heads to Italy, knowing nothing of the language and customs, finds Dickie and slowly integrates himself into the lives of Dickie and Dickie's girlfriend, Marge (Elle Fanning). 

If you are familiar with The Talented Mr. Ripley, you know what happens next. For those unfamiliar, I'll just say that Tom very quickly wears out his welcome and doesn't take too kindly to the idea that it's time for him to go back to New York.

I found myself absolutely riveted by the series, especially the second half. I LOVE Anthony Minghella's film The Talented Mr. Ripley, which stars Matt Damon as the titular character. And while I still think the film is superior, I was incredibly impressed with this series and some of the interesting choices it made. Scott plays Tom Ripley as more of a sociopath than Damon did, which leads to some deeply unsettling scenes. Eliot Sumer, the child of Sting and Trudie Styler, plays Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman played Freddie in the film version), a friend of Dickie's who becomes very suspicious of Tom. I loved Sumner in this role--they captured Freddie's suspiciousness and smugness so well. 

If you love mystery and noir, you'll probably enjoy Ripley. The cinematography alone makes the series worth checking out.

Grade: A-

***

We Were the Lucky Ones (TV series)

Based on the novel by Georgia Hunter, We Were the Lucky Ones follows a Polish Jewish family as they become separated during WWII and the events of the Holocaust. The Kurc family is made up of Sol and Nechuma, the parents; Halina, Mila, Jakob, Genek, and Addy (the siblings); and Adam, Selim, Bella, and  Herta (the spouses of the siblings). The series opens in 1938 with the news of Nazism and antisemitism on the rise in Eastern Europe, but no real fear from the well-to-do Kurc family who could never believe that their very happy lives could ever be disrupted.

Over the course of the series, we follow the various Kurc family members to various towns on Poland as well as Siberia, Casablanca, and Brazil as they try to outrun or fight against the Nazis (and the Soviets). We Were the Lucky Ones provides a glimpse into how the modern Jewish diaspora occurred. It also shows the many ways in which Jewish people fought back against Nazism, including passing as gentile, engaging in underground resistance, and even complying as best they could. The horrible truth is that it didn't matter whether they complied with increasingly horrific demands and it didn't matter if they "looked" gentile or learned gentile prayers--fascism only cares about crushing everything in its way. 

While the events of We Were the Lucky Ones aren't news to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about history, the show feels important as we watch our own version(s) of fascism play out in the United States and abroad today. It feels borderline taboo to reflect on antisemitism given the devastating war in Palestine and the brutal and violent actions of the Israeli government. But antisemitism is still alive and well and all ethnic, racial, and religious hatred and dehumanization is ultimately cut from the same cloth. The victims may be different, but the perpetrators all have that same thirst for power, cruelty, and control.

Grade: A-

Challengers

I just got out of Luca Guadagnino's movie Challengers and raced home to start writing this. This is one of the most exciting, enthralling, and engaging films I've seen in a long time. The previews for this movie made it out to be "the Zendaya threesome tennis movie", which was enough to get my attention, but oh my god it's so much more. It's about relationships and power dynamics and competition and ambition.

The movie stars Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist, and Zendaya as Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson, and Tashi Duncan. In 2006, close friends Patrick and Art have just graduated from a tennis academy and won the junior doubles competition at the US Open. At a party, they meet Tashi, an incredibly talented young tennis player whose star is rising. They're both attracted to her and invite her to their hotel room. She stops by and they all make out (yes, everyone has a turn kissing everyone), but before things go further, Tashi gets up tells them that whichever boy wins the match they're playing against each other the next day will get her phone number. They try to get her to reveal which one of them she actually wants to win and she says "I just want to watch some great fucking tennis."

Challengers moves back and forth in time, so you know that Tashi wound up marrying Art and they have a child together...despite having dated Patrick in college (he's the one who got her number). In 2019, Art is a professional tennis player and Tashi, having suffered a knee injury in college and never fully recovered, is his coach. Art is on a losing streak and his confidence is failing. Tashi signs him up for a Challenger event so that he can regain his confidence by beating players way less experienced/talented than he is. However, Patrick, who also had a career as a professional player but is now down on his luck and reduced to sleeping in his car, signs up as a wildcard in the same Challenger...and GUESS WHICH GUYS END UP PLAYING EACH OTHER IN THE FINAL MATCH!?!

As the movie bounces back and forth (much like a tennis ball) between the past and the present, we see the power dynamics shift constantly between the characters. While Tashi is the definition of an Alpha Female, Art and Patrick are never truly hapless victims. They thrive on competition, both on the court and in the bedroom. What amazes me is that despite the lies, mind games, and adultery that occur in Challengers, there always seems to be a feeling of sportsmanship between the characters. While it gets close to cruelty at some points (a conversation between Tashi and Art in bed the night before he plays Patrick in the Challenger is especially difficult to watch) it never really feels like anyone is kicked while they're down. Even Art, who would likely be called a "simp" or a "beta" or a "cuck" by the young folks these days doesn't really seem all that pathetic. Partially because he's a truly talented athlete and partially because Patrick, despite having more "alpha" swagger, is living a much more pathetic life at the time of the Challenger match. And while both men drool and compete over Tashi, they manage to hold their own as best they can. Tashi really is like a goddess in this movie and we're all (Patrick, Art, and the viewers) just living in her world. 

Challengers is about the power of desire. Hot, sweaty, stomach-churning desire. The kind of desire that makes you weep in frustration while never feeling more alive. No director is better at capturing authentic portrayals of desire than Luca Guadagnino. He blew me away with Call Me By Your Name, which was just so honest and sensual and heart-breaking. Challengers comes pretty close to giving me the same feelings I got from CMBYN. This beautiful mix of flirtation, sexuality, intelligence, power dynamics, and humor. And it couldn't have been pulled off with lesser talent. The complexity O'Connor, Faist, and Zendaya have to bring to this film to make it work is extraordinary. The balance they all need to strike to get the tone perfectly right is a tight-rope walk. If Tashi's character were any meaner or any less mean, it would all fall apart. If the two guys were either more aggressive or more pathetic, the movie would feel icky and sad. But they all hit their emotional marks with pinpoint accuracy, making Challengers fun and sexy as hell. This is cinema, baby!

Grade: A+

PS: the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is AWESOME.

Civil War

When I first saw the preview for Alex Garland's Civil War, I was like "haha, no thank you." The idea of sitting through a film about an alternative history of the United States where we end up in a contemporary civil war just seems a little...close to home? 

But as the reviews started coming in, promising that this isn't the movie you think it is, I got curious and went ahead and bought a ticket. I'm glad I did because Civil War is a powerful, gut-wrenching film that gives the viewer (well, this viewer anyway) a serious adrenaline rush that slicker action films juts cannot achieve. Watching this movie literally feels like being in the middle of a war zone. If you're triggered by the sound of gun fire and images of people callously being shot and killed point blank, don't see Civil War. 

The movie takes place in "modern times", but in a version of the United States where Texas and California have banded together to secede from the nation, leading to a civil war. Nick Offerman plays the President of the United States who is currently serving his third term--it isn't outright stated, but heavily suggested that he didn't win a fair election that third time. 

Civil War makes a point to not provide any information about what led to the current state of affairs. There is a brief reference to "the Antifa massacre", which would have happened about 20 years prior to the events of the film. And there is also a Florida alliance of some states in addition to the "Western Forces" of California-Texas. The point of this movie isn't the why of the war, but more of a commentary on the fact that humans will find a reason to kill each other no matter what. I'll return to this point in a moment.

The movie follows a rag-tag group of war photographers. Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) is a celebrated war photojournalist who works with Joel (Wagner Moura), a Reuters journalist. These two are old enough to have the experience and instincts to survive in the middle of a war zone while still being young enough to move quickly when they have to and survive on little sleep and a lot of stress. They plan to drive from New York to DC in the hopes of getting an interview with the President (a highly unlikely prospect). They'll have to take a roundabout way through West Virginia since many of the highways are inaccessible. 

Along for the ride is Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran photojournalist and Lee's mentor, who wants to get close to the action while logically knowing his body is too old for this shit. Additionally, the very young, very inexperienced Jessie (Callie Spaeny), who all but worships Lee and has big dreams of becoming just like her, manages to talk her way into joining the group. Lee is skeptical, but reluctantly agrees to allow her to tag along as far as Charlottesville. 

Danger lurks everywhere on this road trip from hell. There is no rule of law anymore. The group stops to get gas (a scare resource--they pay "300 dollars, Canadian" for it) and the gun-toting gas station owners show Jessie and Lee two looters they have captured and strung up. They've tortured and beaten the men within an inch of their lives but haven't killed them yet. Jessie is horrified into silence. Lee requests to take the men's picture alongside their captor, who agrees. 

This scene gets to the heart of one of the major themes of the film: is it ethical to witness atrocities without intervening? That is the job of the war journalist, is it not? War photographers have to get really close to horrific things all while not taking steps to interfere. That seems deeply unethical, but if they tried to intervene, they would almost certainly be killed (and of course, many war photographers are killed in the course of their work). And if no one photographs war, then people don't see it. In order for care about war, they need to see what is happening--as up close as possible. But in order for people to get up close, they have to have a level of detachment for their own safety and sanity. 

Civil War is about the paper thin line of so-called "right" and so-called "wrong" in a world where those lines have been irrevocably blurred. The movie takes place in a society where people kill because others are killing them. They kill because there is no rule of law. They kill because they have a gun. Back to the point I made earlier about not needing a reason to be at war: there's a scene where the gang comes across a stand-off between two men who are trying to take out someone shooting at them from a distant house. They ask for context: what led to this stand-off? The men say "There's a guy who's shooting at us in that house. We're trying to shoot him. We're stuck." The absurdity of this ouroboros (we're shooting at him because he's shooting at us because we're shooting at him...) is both funny and sad. We're at war because we're at war. 

Garland has said that Civil War is an "apolitical" film, which is both sort of true and sort of not true. The movie isn't about MAGA vs. woke or conservative vs. liberal, but it still shows the human toll that war and violence take. We see that toll in the tired eyes of Lee and Joel--two people who have been at the center of so much pain and suffering and death that they've lost a part of their souls. Which doesn't mean they're bad people, just that they've needed to turn off their empathy to do their jobs...and to survive. War can kill you quickly, but it can kill you slowly too. 

Civil War is an "anti-war" movie, but I feel like it wears that mantle loosely. You can kind of read whatever you want to into the film. War enthusiasts could see it as a movie that argues for the necessity of war in order to gain freedom. Pacifists could see it as a commentary on the total senselessness of war. People can read Lee and Joel as complicit in the atrocities they photograph...or the only people willing to show others the harsh realities of war. What you take away from the film is very much up to you. 

Grade: A-

Stuff I watched in...March, 2024

American Fiction

I wanted to like this satirical comedy, directed by Cord Jefferson, more than I actually did. Based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, the film follows Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a very intellectual writer and professor who comes from an upper-middle class family of equally high achievers. Monk also happens to be Black. So when his agent tells him that publishers keep turning down his latest manuscript because they want a "Black book", Monk says "They have a Black book. I'm Black and it's my book." What these publishers really want (at least in Monk's mind) are tales of racial woe: absent fathers, police brutality, drugs, violence...and Black vernacular. Monk writes books that are updated versions of ancient Greek tales--no mention of race and certainly no "racial politics".

So, as a joke, Monk writes a "Black book" filled with slang, cussing, and lots of drugs and violence. The publishers eat it up. If this premise sounds a bit familiar, it's probably because Spike Lee did it already with Bamboozled. And, I mean, it's also sort of the premise of The Producers, as well. Monk tries to tank his own book by pretending the author (he uses a nom de plume) is a wanted felon. He also insists on renaming the book "Fuck". But everything he does just makes the publishers write bigger and bigger checks! And then the book sells like hotcakes! And then it gets nominated for an award!! And Monk is on the panel to judge the awards!!! 

American Fiction is good, and it has some pretty funny moments, but it wasn't quite as razor sharp as I was hoping it would be. The thought that kept popping into my mind was the term "respectability politics"--basically, the idea that Black folks need to be "respectable"--educated, well-dressed, well-spoken, mannerly--in order to be worthy of equal rights. This is an idea that was and still is accepted and encouraged among some Black people (and, of course, white people). Monk believes in respectability politics, and he believes in colorblindness (that his writing, not his skin color, should matter). And he's not completely wrong. There are lots of Black people who don't fit in with the stereotypes we have historically associated with Black lives. And their stories matter, too. And Monk's skin color shouldn't matter and he shouldn't be expected to write any particular type of book just because he's Black.

But the message feels a bit muddled. Monk fights with his girlfriend when he sees her reading a copy of Fuck (of course, she doesn't know he wrote it since it's written under a pen name) and then realizes he was a total jerk. He talks to the author of a popular book written with heavy AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) that features downtrodden characters and she reveals that she did a lot of research for the book. And points out that a lot of Black people are downtrodden and their stories matter. Basically, Monk realizes that maybe his point of view isn't the end all, be all. 

And I haven't even gotten to the B-plot, which is about Monk's family going through some very difficult times together, in particular with dealing with Monk's aging mother.

Writing this all out, I feel pretty good about giving American Fiction a B+ grade: it's good. Very good, even. But there was something keeping it from being great. Like I said, it wasn't quite as funny or quite as satirical as I was expecting. But it's a solid film with excellent acting. 

Grade: B+

***

Anatomy of a Fall

It's really interesting talking to people who have seen Justine Triet's courtroom drama and asking "so do you think she did it?" Anatomy of a Fall is about a man who falls to his death and the legal battle to decide if his wife, Sandra (Sandra Huller), pushed him. 

The 2.5 hour long film goes into every detail: the height of the window sill out of which he fell (or was pushed), the pattern of the blood spatter, whether the couple's blind son, Daniel (a phenomenal Milo Machado-Graner), heard them arguing before he went on a walk with his dog. At first, the evidence for Sandra's guilt seems to be mainly based around the blood spatter and also the fact that not only did Sandra and Samuel (Samuel Theis) fight, but he recorded a particularly violent fight they had the day before he died. Sandra's lawyer, Vincent (a very 'zaddy' Swann Arlaud), thinks Samuel might have committed suicide and, sure enough, Sandra remembers an incident from a few months earlier that could have been a suicide attempt.

I really enjoyed this movie, but I felt like somewhat of a dum-dum watching it for multiple reasons: first, I don't watch a ton of legal thrillers and shows so I don't think I have a solid grasp on courtroom procedure in the first place. Second, even if I did have a solid grasp on *American* courtroom procedure, this is a French film and boy do they seem to do things differently over there. It felt like there was a shit ton of wild speculation happening in the courtroom. Speculation about Sandra having an affair with a woman on the basis of...Sandra being bisexual. At one point the prosecutor pulls out a bunch of novels Sandra wrote and points to "evidence" of a desire to kill her husband written in her fiction. I don't know remotely enough about French law to know how much as this is how it really goes down in courtrooms there and how much was exaggerated for dramatic (and comedic) effect, but it was definitely entertaining!

I was riveted by this movie, although I'm not sure it would hold up well upon rewatching. It would still be good and feature good acting, but the enjoyment mostly comes from the revelations that unfold during the course of the film. I will say that there is a banger of a scene near the end featuring Milo Machado-Graner, who was probably about 13 or 14 at the time Anatomy of a Fall was filmed. He is a remarkable young actor and does a fantastic job in this film.

Grade: A-

***

Lovely, Dark, and Deep

The premise of this horror film was like catnip to me: a ranger at a national park searches for a missing teenage girl and *sPoOkY sHiT hApPeNs*. I love "lost in the woods" scary stories and conspiracies about the suspiciously high number of people who go missing in national parks.

Sadly, the film didn't live up to my expectations. Georgina Campbell (best known for Barbarian) plays Lennon, a backcountry ranger starting a job at Arvores National Park (a fictional park). Lennon doesn't like other people very much and it seems like a post working in the deep woods is perfect for her. But Lennon also has personal reasons for choosing this line of work: as a young girl, her sister went missing in Arvores and was never found. Lennon plans to systematically search as much of the backcountry as she can.

Her quest is interrupted when a teenage girl is reported as missing. Despite orders to remain at her post, Lennon searches for the girl and finds her. Her supervisors seem peeved that Lennon searched for the girl despite the fact that it all worked out in the end. It turns out that sometimes the woods takes people and don't want to give them back...and anyone who interfers has to pay the penalty. 

The idea that the many people who go missing in national parks has a supernatural explanation is an intriguing one and plays into the natural fears humans have about the deep, dark woods. But Lovely, Dark, and Deep fell really flat for me. It wasn't that scary. The second half feels like an extended dream sequence and I don't like dream sequences in movies in general. Campbell is fine but not nearly as good as she was in Barbarian. Overall, meh. I'll stick with scary (fictional) Reddit stories about national parks.

Grade: B-

***

Blazing Saddles

I had been meaning to see Blazing Saddles (having seen most of Mel Brooks' other movies) and it just so happened that I recently stayed at an AirBnb with a large DVD collection that contained an UNEDITED copy of this comedy classic. A full six minutes longer than the edited version on Netflix! 

I was...less than impressed. Not because of the racial humor because 1) this movie came out in 1974 and 2) it's making fun of the racists. It was just...not that funny?! I know that this is a beloved classic for many people and it does have some good lines ("You know....morons.") and great scenes (Madeline Kahn's song "I'm Tired" as Lili von Shtupp), but overall I found it awkwardly paced and not very memorable. It's no The Producers, that's for sure. Cleavon Little is really good, though! Very charismatic. Gene Wilder, well...it's not his best role. 

Still, a Mel Brooks movie is never unwelcome and I had fun watching it. If anything, watching Blazing Saddles makes me want to rewatch Young Frankenstein and The Producers. So, I'm glad I watched it if only for the cultural references, but I can't say it'll be a regular rewatch for me. 

Grade: B

***

The Lives of Others

I was blown away with this 2006 German drama when I first saw it over a decade ago and upon rewatching it I remain blown away. The film takes place in 1984 in East Germany, a time when the Socialist government heavily surveilled its own people. Ulrich Muhe plays Gerd Wiesler, a Stasi Hauptmann who truly believes in his work and is great at getting so-called enemies of the state to rat out their friends and family. Wiesler isn't a sneering, evil villain--he is a quiet, boring man. But he believes in and is good at his work. 

Hoping for a promotion, Wiesler's superior, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), assigns Wiesler to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch). Turns out that the Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf (Thomas Tieme), is having a less-than-consensual affair with Dreyman's girlfriend, Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) and hopes that if they find dirt on Dreyman, he can get his romantic rival out of the way. 

Wiesler doesn't know about the "affair" between Hempf and Christa-Maria at first (and I say "affair" because it's clear she hates the man, but feels like she can't say no to him) and when he finds out that he is spying on Dreyman not for "pure" reasons but because some fat cat in the government wants to get his rocks off, he starts doubting the entire operation. He starts...caring...about the people he is spying on. He starts interfering with the job and hiding information from his superiors. 

The Lives of Others is a deeply emotional film without being overly sentimental or schmaltzy. It has a few cheesy moments, but generally speaking it is subtle while still packing a powerful wallop. The acting is excellent across the board, but Ulrich Muhe is a standout as the morally conflicted Wiesler who has given his whole life to the State only to realize...the State is corrupt! He's not a naive man, he's just seeing clearly for the first time. I feel like most of us can relate to Wiesler on some level: believing so strongly in some ideal or institution and then seeing the failure of that ideal or institution in practice and not knowing what to think. Despite being a member of the East German Secret Police, Wiesler actually has a moral center. He's able to see the corruption because he himself is not corrupt...even though he works for the people history would (rightly) deem "the bad guys". And so he goes against all he believes and even puts his own job and freedom in jeopardy to help the people he was ordered to spy on. Don't we all dream of doing the right thing even when it costs us everything? But so few of us will. 

Something I've always found amusing about The Lives of Others is that in 2009, The National Review Online named it the "best conservative movie" of the last 25 years. Of course, conservatives were very different in 2009 and actually had some taste. The reason it was considered "conservative" is because the film is, of course, against Socialism. As it should be, given that East Germany was not a fun place to live. The government surveilled the population, punished those who spoke out against the government, and heavily censored media and culture. The film would probably be considered "woke" by The National Review today, but I like to think that The Lives of Others is SO good and SO powerful that neither conservatives nor liberals could deny it. 

If you haven't seen it, give The Lives of Others a watch. It's simply a masterpiece of a film. 

Grade: A+

***

Road House (2024)

Alright, so full disclosure: I haven't seen the 1989 action flick Road House starring Patrick Swayze, may he rest in peace, despite the movie being on basic cable every single day when I was a kid. My friends tell me it's great and I should watch it. Maybe I will.

The same friends had me over to watch Road House, the 2024 remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and boy howdy, let me tell you: it was bad. But kind of a good bad, you know? 

Let me set the scene: it's 9pm, which is way later than when I typically start a movie. But I'm all hepped up on Easter candy because earlier I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with my friends and their two kids who hadn't seen it before. We all ate a ridiculous amount of pizza and candy during Willy Wonka (as one does). They come back from putting their kids to bed and we start the movie. Two minutes in, I'm thinking "this movie will be horrible". There's just something about it. The way the characters talk. The way the movie feels too slick for a film about men beating the shit out of each other. Something's off. 

About 30 minutes in, I figure out what's wrong with it. Road House "feels" like a romantic comedy. It takes place in this small town in the Florida Keys where everyone knows each other. The main character, Dalton (Gyllenhaal), meets a young, quirky girl right when he gets into town who refers to "Fred", a tree that grows in the middle of the highway (and is real, by the way). Everyone makes these soft, corny jokes that barely qualify as "jokes". And when the bad guys show up, they are just...I don't know how to explain it...they're like bad guys in an evangelical Christian movie. They're like what an out of touch, sheltered person would think "bad guys" are like.  

It was like someone at the movie factory accidentally spilled "violent action flick" into the "small town Hallmark romance" mold. It was almost uncanny valley-esque.

I almost gave up on Road House. The movie is over two hours long. It was late. I was tired. But my friends convinced me to hang in there. And boy I'm glad I did because the last 45 minutes of this movie are INSANE. We finally get some real action and some real violence, but it's all so over-the-top that we were practically screaming with laughter. I'm talking speedboats crashing directly into each other at top speed and exploding kind of action. I'm talking Jake Gyllenhaal and UFC star Conor McGregor stabbing each other with random pieces of wood type action. There was a man on fire on a sinking yacht and Gyllenhaal punches him into the ocean! WHAT IS THIS MOVIE!? 

And yes, the hated song "Kokomo" by the Beach Boys is featured on the soundtrack.

Road House is an absolute mess. It's simply a terrible movie by any measurable standard, but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining under the right circumstances. Those circumstances involve substances (in my case, too much Easter candy. But if you imbibe, this is definitely a movie to get drunk or high to), friends, and heckling. God help the poor bastard who watches this movie sober and alone. 

Grade: C+

***

Wonka 

After rewatching one of my all-time faves, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which I have reviewed elsewhere on my blog), I decided to give Paul King's Wonka a shot. I went in with low expectations because 1) the best Wonka is Gene Wilder and that will never change and 2) the movie just looked plain bad in the previews. Well, I'm pleased to say that it was fine. Pleasant. Elicited sensible chuckles from me. 

Both Mel Stuart's 1971 film and Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are based on the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Wonka is meant to be a prequel, so there are nods to the book and previous films, but Wonka is mostly doing its own thing here. Who was Wonka before he was the reclusive mad genius who invites children to his factory and dispatches them one by one? A rather optimistic and altruistic young lad. 

And this is my biggest issue with Wonka: it's not dark enough. Or, more specifically, this version of Willy Wonka, played by Timothee Chalamet, is not dark enough. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a dark book. Roald Dahl is a dark author. Gene Wilder actually looks crazy in the 1971 version and Johnny Depp is just straight-up creepy, so he kind of works in the role too. I love Timothee Chalamet, but he doesn't have that dark sarcasm with a hint of gleeful insanity that the Wonkas who came before him had. 

He's also...not very funny. Chalamet is great in serious roles, but I don't think he's really honed his comedic chops just quite yet. So, Wonka gives us a version of Willy Wonka who is basically just a really sweet guy who is good a making chocolate. I guess you could argue that this movie takes place before Wonka became a weirdo who may or may not murder children for fun, but I think that Wonka must have always had a bit of darkness within him and you only see sweetness and light in the Chalamet interpretation of the character. 

That said, the movie itself has some decent laughs. Wonka shows up in an unidentified generically European country with a few coins in his pocket and a few tricks up his sleeve, ready to make him name as a chocolatier. Unfortunately, he immediately runs afoul of the "Chocolate Cartel": a group of candymakers who have a tight monopoly on the chocolate business and pay off the cops in chocolate to run any competition out of town. Young Willy also ends up becoming an indentured servant to one Mrs. Scrubitt (Olivia Colman, never not a delight), a woman who runs a boarding house and basically scams the naive lad into owing her a great debt. I really didn't think I'd see slavery in a children's movie about a candymakers, but here we are. Maybe that's where Willy got his idea to enslave the Oompa Loompas!

Wonka meets Noodle (Calah Lane), an orphan who was "adopted" (enslaved) by Mrs. Scrubitt and together they come up with a plan to sell enough chocolate to earn the money to free themselves and all the other poor saps whom Mrs. Scrubitt has working in her laundry. 

Paul King is the director of Paddington and Paddington 2, which is apparently the greatest film of all time (according to the movie group I'm a member of on social media). Even though I found Wonka to be just ok, it really does make me want to check out the Paddington movies. So, that's a win. Wonka is a cute movie and should be fun for the whole family. You might even shed a tear or two. But this Wonka is very much a Paul King creation and not a Roald Dahl creation. 

Grade: B

Satanic Threesome!

Movies: Late Night with the Devil, Immaculate, Satan Wants You

Over the past few years, springtime has become horror time. I'm not sure exactly when this trend began, but I do remember that when Get Out was released in March of 2017 it felt like a rare good film to drop in the first quarter of the year, a time when studios tend to dump garbage while saving the blockbusters for summer and the Oscar bait for fall and winter.

Since then, it at least feels like (I don't have the numbers to prove it) we get a couple solid horror movie releases every spring. 2024 is no different and I seized upon the opportunity to have a themed blog post about two very devilish/anti-Christian new releases as well as a 2023 documentary about the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s.

And my post is coming out just in time for Easter!

***

Late Night with the Devil

First up we have a little horror movie that seemed to spring up out of nowhere only to be immediately beset with controversy for the film's use of three interstitial title cards that were made using generative AI. I am perhaps slightly less upset by AI than the average cinephile because I am required to learn about it and face it head on in my job so it's less of a boogeyman to me. Still, there are concerning ethical issues regarding the use of AI in art and film--specifically, that it is a way to hire fewer people and pay them less. So I agree that directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes fucked up in their decision to use GenAI to make these title cards rather than just hire an artist to do it.

However, that didn't stop me from seeing Late Night with the Devil and I'm glad I saw it because it's really great. The movie opens with a voiceover explaining that in the 1970s the host of the late night show Night Owls, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian--more about him later), was competing with other late night shows for views. Specifically, Delroy wanted to steal the number one late night spot from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Delroy was also dealing with personal issues: his wife, Madeleine (Georgina Haig), died of lung cancer despite being a non-smoker. But after some time away from the spotlight Delroy was back hosting Night Owls and was more popular than ever.

Then, on the fateful night of October 31, 1977, things went horribly wrong on Night Owls. And what we the audience are about to see is recovered footage from that show in which Delroy brings on a parapsychologist, Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), and 13 year old Lilly D'Abo (Ingrid Torelli), a girl rescued from a house of Satan worshippers who now claims she can commune with demons. 

What I loved about Late Night with the Devil is that it felt both familiar and new at the same time. All the beats of the film were a little predictable, but in a way that was delightful and pleasurable to watch. For example, Delroy's first guest of the evening is a psychic named Christou (Fayssal Bazzi). The minute he came out, I was like "ah, here is the psychic who is clearly a charlatan...but something ACTUALLY SPOOKY will happen to him". Well...that's exactly what happened. However, my ability to predict (maybe a little of Christou's powers rubbed off on me) didn't annoy me. It felt satisfying. 

Despite its short run time, Late Night with the Devil is a slow burn. It takes a while to get where it's going, but has a lot of creepy moments along the way. I appreciated this. The film was not dull or slow at all...it felt like slowly unwrapping a present you know you're going to like. And the climax is awesome. 

The film is headed by actor David Dastmalchian, a character actor who is in EVERYTHING (some of his more recent films credits include Oppenheimer, the Ant-Man movies, and Weird: The Al Yankovich Story). It's awesome that he finally got a lead role in a movie that feels tailored to his unique blend of charisma and creepiness. He is excellent as Jack Delroy, a man whose ambitions lead him down a dark path.

Late Night with the Devil is a stand out in a year that has already seen some really awesome movies. I had such a great time watching this in the theatre and I'm already psyched to watch it again when it hits Shudder in April. 

Grade: A-

***

Immaculate

Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney as the prettiest nun ever, has received some interesting press recently. Christians and "anti-woke" Twitter warriors are calling it "blasphemous", "feminist", and "evil". Of course, these same words are now being used to promote the film: "see the film Christians are calling 'blasphemous' this Easter!" You gotta love it. 

The fact is, Immaculate is more retro than progressive, at least in the sense that it recalls Italian giallo and gothic horror of the 1970s. "Eurotrash" is a pretty apt description. Basically, the movie is very pretty and has a lot of pretty women being tortured and running around half naked. It's really fun. 

Fun, but deeply unrealistic. Sweeney plays Sister Cecilia, a young nun from the United States who moves to a convent in the Italian countryside after her parish in the states shuts down. This particular convent serves as assisted living/hospice for older nuns who are close to death. Interestingly enough, many young, attractive nuns also live there. 

A few months into her stay, Cecilia begins having strange symptoms and it turns out that she is, well, pregnant. She is also a virgin. The church declares her pregnancy a miracle and Cecilia is now treated as a precious vessel to be revered and protected at all costs. But that protection comes at the price of her freedom. When she asks to go to a real hospital, she is denied that request. When she attempts to trick the Father who oversees the convent into bringing her to a hospital, he brands the soles of her feet to punish her and remind her not to stray. Immaculate has a feminist, pro-choice message and boy is it heavy-handed. Big Handmaid's Tale vibes.

The reveal about exactly how Cecilia got pregnant is...unsatisfying. It involves science but they don't really explain the science, so I was like "and...how...does that work?" But, look, Immaculate is "Rosemary's Baby, But Make it Catholic", not a show on the Discovery Channel, so I guess it doesn't owe us an explanation. People are here for Sweeney's boobies, not a biology lesson! 

The final scene of the movie is the one that the haters are most angry about and you can guess what happens from a mile away, which didn't stop people in my movie theatre from gasping in horror when it happened. I will say this: Sweeney is not the best actor, in my opinion, but she is a great screamer. Her screams are true and real and from the gut. 

Immaculate is a fun, gory, trashy movie that takes a lot of inspiration from better movies. Is it feminist? Sure. Is it pro-choice? ...kinda? Is it accurate in its depictions of the Catholic church? EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL. Even this Methodist-turned-agnostic was like "yeah, they wouldn't let a novice nun handle a religious relic with her bare hands". But we're not here for realism, we're here to see a sexy nun covered in blood run screaming through the catacombs. And Immaculate definitely delivers.

Grade: B

***

Satan Wants You

In 1980 Michelle Smith and psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Pazder co-authored a book titled Michelle Remembers. It chronicles Smith's work with Pazder in uncovering memories she supposedly repressed from when she was 5 years old. Smith claims that she was essentially sold to a group of Satanists and used in Satanic rituals. These rituals included animal sacrifice, the murder of babies, sexual abuse, and violence. Yet, Smith emerged from her ordeal without a scar on her body because she was visited by the Virgin Mary who saved her and healed her wounds.

Smith also didn't have any scars because none of this actually happened. 

However, not only did Smith and Pazder's claim that her story was true, they also claimed that groups of Satanists all over the United States and Canada were currently doing the exact same thing to thousands--nay, millions--of children at this very moment. 

The runaway success of Michelle Remembers kicked off the "Satanic panic" which peaked in the 80s, but still exists to this day (accusations of Hillary Clinton drinking the blood of children sound familiar?). Accusations of ritualistic sexual abuse were flung at daycare providers, some of whom spent years behind bars after unethical psychiatrists coaxed false memories out of children to fit the narrative that grown-ass people created. There's a lot more information here if you want to read about it, but it basically comes down to a bunch of self-righteous nutcases ruining peoples lives because they were hysterical, gullible, and just plain stupid. 

Satan Wants You is a documentary that connects the Satanic panic directly to the publication and success of Michelle Remembers. One thing I never knew was that Smith and Pazder were both married (to other people) when they were engaging in the years-long work of "recovering" memories and they ended up divorcing their spouses and marrying each other. So obviously that boundary between doctor and patient got very blurry. Pazder's daughter and ex-wife and Michelle's sister are interviewed and they reveal how much Pazder wanted to be famous. They speculate that he used Michelle to achieve his goal of fame. In doing so, he not only destroyed his own family, but an untold number of families affected by the hysteria of the panic.

Over 40 years later, Michelle Remembers has essentially been debunked. Smith never admitted to making anything up, but the claims she makes are just too outlandish. Even if she was abused as a child (definitely possible, especially given that her dad was a violent alcoholic), she was almost certainly not the captive of a Satanic cult who rubbed mashed up fetus on her or anything like that. We also know that the psychological practice of helping children "recover" memories is deeply suspect. Adults can lead children to the answer they want to hear and children want to please adults so they agree with the suggestions that adults make. And as for adults with "recovered" memories...some of those were recovered under hypnosis, when the patient is in a deeply suggestible state. And some adults just want attention, validation, and sympathy--and will make up stories to get it. 

Despite the fact that we as a society should "know better" now, we are arguably more gullible than ever. The psychological and social factors that led to thousands of accusations of Satanic ritual abuse are the same factors that lead people to believe, with zero evidence, that the 2020 election was "stolen" or that Pizzagate is real. You don't need evidence when you have faith and prejudice. It's terrifying to think about, but it's also all too human. Our brains are wired to suspect and fear outsiders and to go along with the crowd in order to not have the mob turn on us. It's what was behind witch hunts, McCarthyism, and any kind of rigid groupthink. 

Satan Wants You is a solid documentary that lets the facts (or lack thereof) speak for themselves. I found the interviews with those closest to Smith and Pazder to be the most interesting, but the filmmakers also interview police involved in investigations into Satanic ritual abuse and members of the *real* Church of Satan (way less scary than you'd think). 

Grade: B+

Love Lies Bleeding

In 2019 Rose Glass directed Saint Maud, a film in which a young woman's religious hysteria and self-righteousness end up consuming her. Saint Maud was a film based firmly in reality but with specific scenes and moments where the line between reality and fantasy blurred. 

Glass's sophomore effort, Love Lies Bleeding, is similar. The movie is realistic right down the shitty, constantly overflowing toilets at the grubby gym the main character, Lou, manages. And yet the film has moments of body horror and fantasy that break out of the otherwise gross and dingy realism--just like Lou and her love interest, Jackie, want to break out of the confining, dead end realities they currently inhabit.

Love Lies Bleeding is a lot of things: it's a pulpy, erotic, queer neo-noir. It's a rollercoaster of shock and outrageousness. It's gross. It's sexy. It's funny. It's wild. It's tonally all over the damn place. Glass takes inspiration from David Lynch, the Coen brothers, and Thelma and Louise (one of the characters is even named Louise!). I do wish the film was a tad more centered and less all over the place, but I don't hate that it's messy. It's got heart and it's raw and authentic, even in the moments where it becomes pure fantasy.

Kristin Stewart plays Lou, an openly lesbian gym manager living in nowheresville New Mexico. She doesn't speak to her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), the owner of a gun range who is also involved in gun-smuggling across the border. She begrudgingly watches over her older sister, Beth (Jena Malone), who is regularly beaten by her husband, J.J. (Dave Franco, with just the grossest little rat-tailed mullet I've ever seen), yet refuses to leave her or press charges. 

Lou's life stinks as much as the poopy toilets at the gym...until Jackie (Katy O'Brian) walks into her gym and into her heart (and bed) one day. Jackie is hitchhiking around the southwest with the goal of making it to Las Vegas for a women's body-building competition. She ends up in Lou's little town and the two women have immediate chemistry. They also have chemicals...steroids, specifically. Lou doesn't use them, but she has a ton of them that she illegally acquired at her gym and gives them to Jackie, who quickly becomes addicted to the 'roids. 

I'm going to go into plot spoilers below, so I'll just say that if you want to go into the movie blind be aware that there is a lot of visual imagery that could be uncomfortable: lots of needles (the steroids), violence, and even stuff like vomit and gross bugs pop up quite often in Love Lies Bleeding. Like I said, it's raw. But if you're looking for a trashy, pulpy, queer crime drama that doesn't take itself too seriously, Love Lies Bleeding is your movie.

Spoilers below

***

The action really kicks off after J.J. gives Beth a beating that leaves her hospitalized. Jackie, all hepped up on 'roids sees Lou's anguish at her sister's situation and makes...well, a bad decision. She goes to J.J.'s house and when he comes home, she kills him. She takes his head and smashes it against a table until his jaw falls off and, yes, we see the aftermath. During this scene, Jackie appears to be so tall that she grazes J.J.'s ceiling. I gotta admit, I liked seeing a big, strong, tall woman violently kill an abusive man. 

This first (yes, first) murder sets off a chain reaction of events that lead to more and more violence and roid rage. Lou hatches a plan to dispose of J.J.'s body in a location that will lead the police to many other dead bodies...that her dad is responsible for. However, Lou's dad is a dangerous man and he immediately knows that Lou is involved. Plus, there's a witness: a girl, Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), who has a crush on Lou, sees Lou and Jackie leaving town the night of the murder. And Daisy isn't as dumb as she looks.

The walls begin closing in on Lou and Jackie, even as Jackie insists on getting to Vegas to compete. Lou is basically left to clean up all the messes that Jackie makes along the way...yet remains deeply in love with her. This isn't a couple to emulate.

My only criticism of Love Lies Bleeding is that it kind of goes off the rails in the last 30 minutes or so. A bunch of shit goes down in such quick succession that I felt whiplashed. Also, the characters stopped behaving in ways that would make sense given what we know about them. For example, Lou's dad kidnaps Jackie, but when Lou threatens her dad with blackmail, he just...leaves Jackie tied up in a sports equipment shed on the his tennis court. Like, this man is a killer and he doesn't kill Jackie when it would make complete sense for his character to do so. It's a film where there is a ton of violence, yet the main characters never seem in danger of actually being killed, which just doesn't square with me.

Despite the movie going bananas at the end, I really enjoyed Love Lies Bleeding. It's a really fun, gritty, gross movie that I think I will enjoy watching again.

Grade: B+

The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest is a film that focuses on the daily lives of Hedwig and Rudolf Hoss: an upwardly mobile German couple raising 5 children in the early 1940s. Also, Rudolf was the commandment of the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Hoss's lived literally right next door to the camp. This is a true story. 

The film, based on a novel by Martin Amis and directed by Jonathan Glazer, has been very controversial in film circles for focusing entirely on the Hoss family and their daily activities while ignoring the death camp right next to their house. But this is entirely the point of the film: it can't be ignored unless one systematically compartmentalizes the genocide they are participating in and benefitting from. The sounds of gunshots, guard dogs barking, and people screaming echo in the distance while Hedwig applies her lipstick. The flames of the crematorium can be seen burning at night (unless you don't look out the window, of course). Prisoners from the camp occasionally come to the house to polish Nazi officer's boots or drop off goods--they are ignored. 

The Zone of Interest is less about the "banality" of evil (although much of what we see is quite banal--some have accused the film of being "boring"), and more about how natural and normal genocide and torture become when you yourself are benefitting from it.

This film, in all it's mundanity and quietness, is incredibly confrontational on a psychological level. It's hard for the viewer to distance themselves from Nazis when the Nazi officer's wife is showing her 18 month old baby the flowers in the garden. When we see not just human behavior, but sweet and kind human behavior from people we've been taught for decades to regard as monsters it signals in our minds--"they're just like us". And of course they are, because the Nazis were all too human. We are all too human.

Rudolf Hoss was a high-ranking Nazi official who was known for running Auschwitz "efficiently" (and yes, I cringe to use any word we associate positively with a concentration camp). In the film, we see him in meetings discussing a new crematorium that will reduce hundreds of dead bodies to ashes far more quickly than previous iterations. This man is despicable. But he's not a grinning, leering, mustache-twirling caricature. He's also a soft-spoken father. This is what makes The Zone of Interest so gut-wrenching to watch. We cannot look away from the humanity of evil people and we have to consider where the line of evil lies within ourselves.

In our capitalist society, we do, in fact, benefit from the suffering of others. And most of us know this. We know, somewhere in the back of our minds, that our iPhones were put together by sweatshop workers and that our purchases on Amazon benefit a billionaire. We know that when we drive our cars, take a plane on vacation, or leave a light on at night, we contribute to climate change which will likely harm people in already precarious countries. Does this make us the same as Rudolf Hoss? Of course not. There is a spectrum of damage we cause to the world and to others, and there's a difference between actively participating in the murder of millions versus kind of passively contributing to the world's many ills for our own comfort and convenience. But we must--we must--resist the idea that we are incapable of great harm to others under the right circumstances. The more we ignore and deny that fact, the less prepared we'll be when the big test comes. 

Jonathan Glazer, a director of dreamy and disturbing films, is the perfect director for this movie. He films The Zone of Interest clinically, but also beautifully. The efficiency and organization of the Nazi war crimes is echoed in the dollhouse-like shots of the Hoss home. The belief that there is a "clean" way to commit genocide is mirrored in the constant churn of chores within the Hoss home. Mica Levi's unsettling score makes the film feel like a horror movie (which, of course, it very much is). The contrast between Levi's upsetting score, the sound design (where we hear bullets and screaming coming from over the wall), and the organized, efficient, clean, beautiful house is chilling. Here are people who have a place for everything, including a place for their love and empathy: neatly sectioned off and saved for their children while hundreds suffer and die right next door.

I'll end this review by discussing the one scene of true human decency in the film. Throughout the movie, there are several scenes, shot in night vision, where a young girl leaves apples for the camp workers. This girl was an actual historical person. Her name was Alexandria Bystron-Kolodziejczyk and she was 12 years old at the time. In the film, she discovers a small box with a piece of paper inside. It is a piece of music titled "Sunbeams" and was written by Thomas Wolf, a prisoner in Auschwitz. After leaving the food, she goes home and plays the music on the piano and we hear the lyrics narrated by the actual Wolf, from a recording he made of the piece in 1960:

"Sunbeams, radiant and warm / Human bodies, young and old; / And who are imprisoned here, / Our hearts are yet not cold,” 

I almost don't want to mention this detail, but we do hear some dialogue about camp prisoners fighting over apples and being sentenced to death for it, which means that Alexandria's act of resistance could be seen as futile. However, I want to posit that while it was the Nazi officer's decision to punish the prisoners for fighting over food, the act of hiding food for desperate, starving people was an act of bravery and good within a situation overwhelmed with evil and hatred. An alternative way of reading this is that the Nazis--and, indeed, all evil people and evil ideas in the world both historical and current--could not completely squash good, hope, love, and resistance. We can walk away from The Zone of Interest crushed by depression and hopelessness, but we can also walk away from it thinking about how we can be that very small, bright spot in a world of evil. So shines a good deed in a weary world. The Zone of Interest implores us to never forget that we, too, are capable of great evil, of great harm, of great selfishness...but we're also capable of hiding apples for people. 

Grade: A