The Alienist (seasons 1 and 2)
Based on the novels by Caleb Carr, The Alienist is a moody, Victorian-set thriller series about Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl), an "alienist"--better known today as a psychologist--who gets called in to help with hard-to-crack crime cases. The first season focuses on a series of murders of child sex workers (referred to in the show as "boy prostitutes"). I was surprised that a basic cable show (The Alienist originally aired on TNT) would go this dark, especially since the topic involves the sexual abuse and murder of children.
The second season, subtitled Angel of Darkness, also involves child murder--infanticide, specifically. Suffice it to say that The Alienist is not for the faint of heart.
Although the show contains a lot of my personal catnip (Victorian-era setting, grisly crime, attractive lead actor), I found The Alienist to be just ok. There's something slightly lacking about it, despite strong acting (rounding out the main cast are Luke Evans as journalist John Moore and Dakota Fanning as secretary-turned-lady-detective Sara Howard). I have the books and plan to read them; hopefully I'll find them more satisfying than the show.
Speaking of that "attractive lead actor", watching the show inspired me to watch (or plan to watch soon) some movies starring Daniel Bruhl. I first saw him way back in college in Goodbye, Lenin! (a great movie, by the way) and proceeded to get him and Emile Hirsch mixed up for years. But it turns out that while Hirsch is a piece of shit who almost strangled a woman to death, Bruhl is actually a really cool Renaissance man with good politics. So I will continue to swoon over Bruhl as he deserves to be swooned over.
Grade: B
***
Magnolia
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the best directors working today and his films always, always, always take at least two watches for me to appreciate them. Every first watch of a PTA film I respond to with: "ew, gross." His films are so off-putting and aggressive and intense. And yet, when I watch them a second or third or fourth time...they have a way of growing on me.
This was my first rewatch of PTA's 1999 film Magnolia. I first saw the film probably in the early 2000s when I was 16 or 17. I remember thinking that the movie was too emotional and sad for me. William H. Macy's character--Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, a grown up child genius whose parents stole money he won on a game show--was just too much. Macy is so good at playing those pathetic, tragic characters and 16 year old Jenny couldn't take it.
Now that I am nearly 40, there is enough scar tissue around my sensitive little heart that I can watch Magnolia and appreciate it for the beautiful, sad, funny movie that it is. It is filled to the brim with lonely people who have been abused or have abused others. The themes of the film include how we (society) take advantage of children and specifically how parents--in particular, fathers--harm and let down their kids. As George Carlin said, "Hell is full of dads" and Magnolia certainly drives that point home with three epically terrible dads.
The acting in this film is unreal. There many stars who always turn in a good performance: the aforementioned Macy, as well as the dearly beloved Philip Seymour Hoffman (may he rest in peace), Julianne Moore, Philip Baker Hall, and John C. Reilly. But PTA also manages to coax out one of the best performances of Tom Cruise I've ever seen. I hate Tom Cruise, both as an actor and as a human. He is creepy and gross and an influential member of an abusive cult. Plus, I think he sucks as an actor! But he is good in a couple films, including this one. And that's because he lets his dark side come out. As a proto-Red Pill manosphere influencer named Frank Mackey, he says "Respect the cock. Tame the cunt" and teaches undeserving men to make women their "sperm receptacles". As a 16 year old I hated this. I was sickened by such a character. But now I appreciate the deep damage and trauma fueling Mackey. That scene where he weeps and shudders by his dying father's bedside? Chills. It just took the right director to help Cruise access those wells of hatred and despair that lead to a performance like this. No wonder PTA always works with the greatest actors alive. He is an actor's director.
Magnolia is a great film. It's a lot, don't get me wrong. The movie is 3 hours long and jammed wall-to-wall with uncomfortable emotions. It took me two days to watch it. But it is a masterpiece. Just add it to the list of other masterpieces by Paul Thomas Anderson: Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Master.
Grade: A
Napoleon Dynamite
When Napoleon Dynamite first came out in 2004, I found it to be dumb as hell. I ended up watching it like 3 or 4 times, mostly against my will, because my friends liked it and wanted to watch it. Even though I didn't like it, it still held a strange fascination because of how fucking weird it is.
I decided to revisit it. It's probably been about 15 years since I last watched it. While it's still dumb as hell, the nostalgia has set in and I enjoyed it. What is interesting to me is how simultaneously real and unreal Napoleon Dynamite is. It takes place in Idaho, presumably in "present day" (the early aughts). Uncle Rico has a cell phone, for example. But because this is bumfuck Idaho, it may as well be the early 90s. Everyone dresses like the late-80s/early 90s. But also, what the fuck? Why is someone named "Napoleon Dynamite"? That's not a real name! Why does everyone act so weird? Director Jared Hess took the normal signs and signifiers of dorkiness and lower middle class aesthetics and turned it up to 11.
Hess's total commitment to the world of Napoleon Dynamite is what makes the movie work. Unlike some other cutesy-twee films of the early aughts (*cough*GardenState*cough*), the weirdness of Napoleon Dynamite doesn't feel ironic or overly studied. It doesn't feel like the writer and director sat down and thought "How do we add weird or cute stuff to this movie?". Instead, they built an entire world where pocket tater-tots and having to do a skit if you're running for class president are normal, believable things.
I think Napoleon Dynamite was ahead of its time. People think of it as a quintessential Millennial film, but its anti-humor feels more Gen-Z to me. Or maybe Napoleon Dynamite transcends generational humor and just resides in a weird little universe unto itself. Either way, I'm voting for Pedro.
Grade: B+
***
Big Fish
It must be rewatch month for me because here is another film of the early aughts that I rewatched for the first time in about 20 years. I have a friend with whom I watch a lot of horror movies and he mentioned that this (very much non-horror) film is one of his favorites. I said "let's watch it!"
You know, it's kind of interesting that I mentioned above how Magnolia is about bad dads and Napoleon Dynamite is a movie that commits to a strange world of anti-humor and lived-in dorkiness because Big Fish takes both of those aspects and remixes them. Big Fish is also about (bad) dads. And it also commits to a strange world of impossible things. But all in a very Tim Burton way.
Albert Finney plays Edward Bloom, an older man who is dying. His son, Will Bloom (Billy Crudup), comes to help take care of him along with his pregnant wife, Josephine (Marion Cotillard). About to become a dad himself, Will is determined to learn some true things about his father. You see, Ed Bloom is a fabulist--a man who tells tall tales and nothing but. The movie goes back and forth between present day and the past, with Ewan McGregor, always impossibly handsome and charming, as young Ed Bloom.
Big Fish is not Burton's best work, but it's not his worst either. That unique Burton mix of bizarre and fanciful, dark and soft, sinister and kind suffuses the film. We watch Ed Bloom's younger days play out in a buttery yellow haze--an old man recounting glorious days past. But how much of it is true? How much of it is a total lie? And how much of his stories fall somewhere in between? Despite some very cheesy elements, Big Fish got to me, especially in a scene near the end where the older Bloom asks Will to tell him the story of "how he goes". Finally, the son is engaging his imagination to provide comfort to his dying father. But it's also sad because Will's pain at not being told the full truth about his father (who was living a double life) is real. I do believe that Edward Bloom is a bad father. Or, at least, not the father that Will needed and deserved. Although Ewan McGregor is handsome and charming, Albert Finney plays the more realistic version of this type of man: blustering, pontificating, interrupting, obfuscating. We all know old men like this and they aren't cute.
But by the end of the film, Will comes to at least understand his father and realize that not all of his "big fish" stories were total bullshit. And that he helped many people. To me, it's not so much a film about reconciliation between son and father, but about a son maturing enough to forgive his father for being human. And that's just as, if not more so, beautiful than a story of straightforward forgiveness.
Grade: B
***
The Countess
I'm not going to spend much time reviewing this one. The Countess is a film about Elizabeth Bathory directed by and starring the wonderful Julie Delpy. I watched it because Daniel Bruhl is in it (see The Alienist, above, for why I am working my way through some of Bruhl's films).
It's not very good. The movie suggests that if Countess Bathory could have married for love, maybe she wouldn't have killed all those virgins! The film also hints at the idea that the gruesome tales about the Countess and her love of blood could be slander...while also depicting said gruesome acts.
Elizabeth Bathory is a fascinating historical figure and I'm glad there is a movie about her. But it's not really a movie worthy of her legend. If you're going to do a movie about "The Blood Countess", make it horrifying and disgusting. Just lean into it. Yes, maybe those stories about her torturing virginal women so that she could use their blood to make herself look youthful are all false. But no one wants to hear that story. We want to see the woman who inspired Dracula. We want to see a movie about a goddamn psychopath, not a lovesick and misunderstood woman.
I look forward to the day there is a really, really good horror film about Countess Bathory (and Vlad the Impaler too, for that matter).
Grade: C
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