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