Dirty Movies

Movies: Pleasure

Oh, pornography. We love to hate it. We hate to love it. We love to judge it (while secretly watching it).

Maybe the weirdest thing about porn is how the hatred and fear of it brings natural enemies, like feminists and conservatives, together to become strange bedfellows.

I'm not going to get into a huge history lesson here, but back in the 1980s, there was a thing known as the feminist sex wars (which would be a great title for a porn, incidentally) where a bunch of feminists believed that pornography (and BDSM, and sometimes even consensual heterosexual sex) was inherently violent against women and degrading to women. Some of these feminists even teamed up with folks who worked for Mr. Ronald Reagan himself to fight against pornography and attempt to regulate it or even ban it. The 1980s were dumb, y'all. I should know because I was born in the 80s. 

Personally, I identify as a "pro-sex feminist", which means I believe that consenting adults should be able to have whatever kind of sex they want as long as it does not harm others. I also think adults have the right to NOT have sex--at all, or certain kinds of sex. Not everybody likes sex or wants it and that's ok too. 

So, I am pro-pornography (IF you want to watch it). I am in favor of people paying for porn. I am in favor of more women, BIPOC, and queer people making porn. I am in favor of there being more options for different tastes. This means that while there are certain types of porn I find ridiculous, gross, and even offensive, I still believe in the right for it to be ethically made and I still believe in the right for people to watch it. 

The tricky thing is, just like many industries, the porn industry has bad people and good people. The movie Pleasure, which is about a newcomer's journey through the LA porn scene, is about how there are good and bad people in porn and how there are good and bad business practices in porn. 

I will say that overall the film is a bit anti-porn, which makes sense given that the director apparently used to be an anti-porn activist and I guess now has sort of come around to the "let's push out bad porn with good porn" side of the table. But the movie shows more of the negatives aspects of the industry--everything from on-set rape (we'll get to that in a minute) to creepy old men controlling everything to in-fighting among adult starlets. 

Pleasure follows Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel, one of the few actors in the movie who is not actually in porn), a 19 year old from Sweden who comes to LA to be the next biggest porn star. The film starts with her first-ever shoot, which involves Bella acting with an average looking guy in his 40s. If y'all want to see actual penis in a "mainstream" movie, Pleasure has you covered! Though there isn't any penetration shown in the movie, there are dicks, tits, bush, and butts aplenty! 

Bella makes friends with her housemates, who are also up-and-comers, especially Joy (Revika Anne Reustle), who helps her learn the ropes. Both Joy and Bella dream of being "Spiegler Girls"--starlets who work with real life agent Mark Spiegler (playing himself in the movie). Spiegler girls are enormously popular, but basically have to work their literal assess off and can't really have limits. 

There are two scenes in the movie that really capture the dichotomy of porn. In the first scene, Bella does a BDSM scene with a female director (Aiden Starr) and tatted up actor (Small Hands, who is by all accounts a super nice guy IRL and super cute, too) where they ask about her limits, offer her breaks and water, make sure she is comfortable, etc. The shoot is portrayed as very positive and Bella has real orgasms during it.

This is followed up by one of the worst scenes of sexual assault I've ever seen in a movie. Bella asks her agent to get her more "rough" shoots, and she ends up doing a scene with a male director and two actors who don't go over limits, don't pay attention to her bodily clues, and pressure her into continuing the shoot when she is clearly terrified and wants to stop. They even tell her "if you leave now, you won't be paid. You'll have done all this for free." This is rape! Even if she consented on paper, this is fucking assault. It's *incredibly* difficult to watch and I would only recommend this movie with massive trigger warnings. 

Bella fires her agent and decides to work independently. In her quest to become the next biggest thing in porn, she agrees to do a double-anal interracial scene for free. (I really hope my mom isn't reading this!!). She specifically requests Bear (Chris Cock), an actor she met early on, to be one of her scene partners since she trusts him. Sure enough, he helps her breathe and get through what I can only assume was a pretty painful scene. Earlier in the film, Bear tells Bella that interracial is the most taboo thing in porn. Bella says "that sounds kind of...racist" and Bear replies "that's because it is racist". I kind of wish there had been more exploration of why interracial sex is still considered such a taboo in porn because I find that to be very interesting especially since there is a high demand for it in the United States...especially the Southern United States. Pleasure doesn't really editorialize on these things (both the rape and relationship between racism and interracial porn)--it just show things, or brings things up, and then moves on. 

The gambit pays off and Mark Spiegler agrees to let Bella become one of his girls. The only problem is that being in the in-crowd sucks. Bella leaves her old friends behind and has to hang out with people she doesn't like. Worse, she begins acting aggressively during some of her shoots, mimicking the behavior she's been on the receiving end of. She has a realization at the end of the film and gets out of a limo taking her to a party, and that's where the movie ends. 

So, what to make of this film? First of all, I liked it. I thought it was shot beautifully and the acting was very natural, very slice of life. I liked that Ninja Thyberg cast real porn actors, directors, and agents in the film. I also like that the film didn't lionize the porn industry because, let's be real, at the end of the day it's an industry dedicated to making money and there are going to be more than a few shitty people in it who exploit others, especially young women, for personal and financial gain. I'm a pro-sex feminist but people who refuse to hear any criticism of porn are naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst. I'm pretty sure most people *in* the industry have complaints about it. 

I also think the film could have been a touch more even-handed and nuanced. Maybe there's no room for nuance in an industry that brought us such films as "MILF Squirters Vol. 7", or maybe by portraying the porn industry "warts and all", Thyberg felt that she *was* being even-handed. 

I'm giving this movie a high grade because it's a very good movie and I enjoyed the hell out of it (I didn't "enjoy" the rape scene, but I appreciated how raw it got...it didn't try to pretend that rape on set is no big deal). But I'm also going to leave you all with a YouTube playlist of a series called "Ask a Pornstar", where pornstars are asked a variety of questions from "do you believe in aliens" to "how to give a good blowjob" to "did you go to college" and I really recommend watching some of the videos--especially the ones that aren't about sex. I watched a ton of these during the early stages of the pandemic and I have to say--it really humanized a lot of these actors for me. They're just people, like you and me. Most of them are incredibly smart and funny and are probably people I'd like to be friends with. Let's demystify an industry that many of us, er, use on a regular basis and let's have a little more respect for the people in it. 

Grade: A-

Don't Go in the Basement

Movies: Barbarian

Hi folks! I'm going to provide a shorter, spoiler-free review of Barbarian first, and then we'll go into full spoilers below.

Spoiler-free review:

Once in a while, a horror movie just fires on all cylinders. Written and directed by Zach Clegg, Barbarian is such a horror movie. From the blood-red poster, which gives vintage giallo vibes, to the terrifying trailer, to the film itself: a masterpiece of misdirection and subverted expectations with a premise that is truly horrifying on multiple levels.

Just go see this movie. Go in knowing as little as possible, and strap in for the ride of your life.

The parts of the film I can safely go into are the same parts the trailer focuses on. A young woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell), shows up at an AirBnb in a rough neighborhood of Detroit, only to find that someone else is already using it. That someone is Keith (Bill Skarsgard). It seems that the property was double-booked through no fault of Keith's or Tess's. Keith, a bit reluctantly, invites Tess to stay. He even washes the bedsheets that he already slept on and gives her the bedroom while he takes the couch.

Tess is cautious and wary (she takes a picture of Keith's driver's license and diligently locks the bedroom and bathroom doors behind her), but when she realizes that all the hotels are booked up due to a big conference, she agrees to stay.

If you saw the trailer, you know that there's something in the basement. But Barbarian holds its cards close to its chest for a while, allowing unsettling noises and the general air of suspicion Tess has about the whole AirBnb situation slowly build tension before letting all hell break loose. The scene where Tess finally goes into the basement is almost nauseatingly tense. While certain horror movie tropes (demon possession, vampires, etc) don't scare me, fucking pitch-black, claustrophobic-ass basements sure as hell do! I was going "No...NO! NO WAY WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??" the whole time.

And that's where I gotta end my review! Either go see the movie or read the spoiler review to find out what lurks in that basement. Just know that Barbarian is a wild fucking ride.

Grade: A

***

SPOILERS BELOW! 

***

***

So one thing both the trailer and the beginning of the film do is misdirect the audience into thinking that Keith has something to do with whatever is in the basement. Bill Skarsgard just looks creepy. However, other than hearing a few weird noises, Tess's first night in the AirBnb is relatively normal. In fact, she and Keith have a great conversation over some wine (that he waits until she is present to open, as to not freak her out...this guy knows his shit) and even begin to flirt a little.

It's not until the next day, when Keith is off doing whatever he is in town for, that Tess goes into the basement in search of extra toilet paper and discovers a hidden door that leads to a creepy, dark hallway and a room with: 1) a camera on a tripod, 2) a bed with a stained mattress, and 3) a bucket. Oh, and a bloody handprint on the wall. Now, I'm no fancy big-city lawyer, but if I saw that I'd assume something unsavory happened in that basement. Thoroughly freaked out, Tess tries to go back upstairs, but the door to the basement has shut behind her and locked her in.

Luckily, Keith arrives back to the AirBnb soon and is able to get Tess out. When she tells him what she saw and that they have to leave immediately, he insists on seeing it for himself. Tess begs him not to, but agrees to stay upstairs while he checks it out. Well, he stops responding to her voice and Tess goes after him. Even though it's clear that Tess has a little crush on Keith, I thought "ain't no dick in the world worth going into that basement for."

This time, when Tess goes into the basement, she discovers another set of stairs beyond the room with the bed that leads to a series of tunnels. Tess sobs and cries for Keith, who finally bursts into the frame, looking like a ghost and yelling about someone else being down there, someone who bit him. This "someone" shows up and beats Keith's head against the wall into a pulp. RIP Keith! We only get a glimpse of this monster before the scene ends, but it appears to be a very tall, naked woman with straggly hair, pale skin, and missing teeth. 

CUT TO...something entirely unrelated! AJ Gilbride (Justin Long) is cruising along the California highway in a red convertible when he receives a call. AJ is an actor who just started working on a new sitcom. The lead actress accuses him of raping her and refuses to work on the show unless he drops out. We know that AJ is actually a Nice Guy when he refers to the woman he assaulted as a "fucking bitch". 

So, out of work, AJ looks to sell some of his properties to pay his legal bills. That includes...the very house in Detroit with the terrifying basement! So, AJ heads back to Detroit to prepare to sell the house. He is surprised to see that there are multiple suitcases still in the house and calls his property manager to see if anyone is staying there. She says that no one has been there since the last people left a couple weeks ago.

AJ is further confused when he sees a chair propping open the basement door and when he goes down to take a look, he also discovers the hidden door (he apparently bought the house and never knew there was a secret basement down there). But he is delighted to discover the secret basement because he realizes he can tell prospective buyers about the additional space. He whips out his measuring tape and gets to calculating square footage. These scenes with AJ are hilarious and whiplash-inducing. From here on out, Barbarian is more of a horror-comedy, although, trust, there is still PLENTY of horror.

AJ ends up also being chased by something and falls into a pit, where he finds Tess, who frantically tells him to stop screaming because "if you get upset, *she* gets upset". And then a gnarly hands enters the pit holding a baby bottle, which Tess drinks from. "Don't you see?" she says "She just wants you to be her baby." When AJ refuses the bottle, the woman grabs him out of the pit and forcibly tries to get him to breast feed. I guess AJ doesn't like it when *he's* the victim of assault, huh?!

At some point, there is a flashback to the 1980s. A man leaves the house (the original owner, we assume) and drives to the store for supplies: plastic sheets, diapers, and other baby stuff. He tells the shop clerk it will be a "home birth". And then he puts on a uniform and stops by a woman's house, telling her he's there to check that the water is running since there have been some outages nearby. While alone in the woman's bathroom, he unlocks the bathroom window.

We can gather from this flashback that this man kidnapped and raped women, forcing them to give birth. We surmise that the naked woman with the baby bottle is his daughter, although clearly something is not right with her. Later, when AJ escapes, he finds this man--decrepit and wasting away in a bed with an old-fashioned TV nearby and dozens of video tapes labeled things like "red head from gas station". Thank goodness we don't see what's on these tapes, but we can infer. 

AJ and Tess escape, only to be followed by the woman. They end up at the top of a water tower and realize they can't get away. Ever the selfish asshole, AJ tells the woman, who is climbing up the tower, "come and get your baby" and pushes Tess off the tower, and the woman dives after her. Assuming they are both dead, AJ climbs back down...only to realize Tess is not dead and he begins apologizing profusely. Before he can stammer out an excuse for his cowardice, the woman awakens, grabs AJ's head, and pushes his eyeballs in before giving him the old Oberyn Martell head-crunch. However, when she tries to get Tess to go back, Tess takes a gun that AJ had on him, but dropped like a butter-fingered idiot, and shoots the woman. Cut to credits. 

So, couple things. First of all, man, Detroit sucks. This poor town could not get shit on harder, could it? Second of all, wow. This movie is a fucking roller coaster. The movie starts out making us think Keith is the creeper. Then, it turns out it's actually some monster in the basement. Then it's actually the *daughter* of the real monster. Plus, the whole AJ plot line comes out of nowhere but gets seamlessly woven back in. And the movie becomes a comedy (albeit a dark one). 

A poster in a Facebook film group I'm in pointed out that Tess starts out mistrusting Keith, but learns to trust him only for him to die. Then, she starts out by trusting AJ and trying to save him and not just herself, only to find out that he's NOT trustworthy just in time for him to try to kill her. Also, Keith LOOKS creepy, but is actually a good guy, whereas AJ looks and acts like a "nice guy", but he's really a cowardly rapist asshole (and there is a scene I didn't mention where he admits to forcing the woman when she said "no", so we can 100% not care that he dies). 

Despite the "can we trust men?" text/subtext, I don't really think Barbarian is trying to be that deep. I think it just wants to be a really scary, unpredictable movie. I don't get the sense that the director wanted to make some greater statement about gender or motherhood or poverty in Detroit. I think he just wanted to freak us all the fuck out. Mission accomplished.

Barbarian was a ton of fun and it's everything I hope for in a scary movie: good writing, good cinematography, good acting, and genuinely scary. There are some jump scares for sure, but the director knows how to build dread. Jump scares are easy. Dread is an art. 

Grade: A

Stuff I watched in...August, 2022

Crimes of the Future

I was sooooo hyped for the latest David Cronenberg movie, which looked like it would be a return to form for him. Cronenberg is well known for his films which delve into body horror and the trailer for Crimes of the Future looked exactly like the weird, sick shit I'm into. 

The story is takes place in a future in which humans no longer feel pain and some people start mysteriously growing new organs. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is a performance artist whose body is especially unusual, as he grows new organs at a very rapid rate. He and his partner, Caprice (Lea Seydoux), remove these organs as part of their live art. 

Sounds really cool, right? Or, at least, really fucked up? Well, sadly, Crimes of the Future is more boring than anything else. I'm still going to give it a fairly decent rating because the *ideas* behind the movie are really interesting and the special effects and body horror elements are visually interesting, but underneath the grotesque images was a whole lotta nothing. Saul captures the interest of both the government, who require all new organs to be registered, and anti-government activists who are hoping to usher in a new wave of human evolution. Saul himself is a bit of a passive pawn caught between these two groups.

Overall, I'd only recommend Crimes of the Future to fans of Cronenberg (who are likely to see it anyway). Most other viewers will find the movie gross and/or boring.

Grade: B

***

Resurrection

*Spoiler warning for this review*

Resurrection is a difficult, enthralling roller coaster ride of a thriller. Starring Rebecca Hall, who is an incredible actress, Resurrection tells the bizarre and upsetting story of a woman whose abuser shows up years later to torment her some more.

Hall plays Margaret, a business woman and single mother who just radiates strength and steely reserve. She is the woman younger women go to for advice. She looks fierce in a perfectly tailored business suit. She looks like she does not suffer fools gladly. Everything seems to be going well for Margaret, who is about to send her daughter off to college in just a few weeks, when a man from her past shows up and destroys the safe world Margaret has created for herself.

This man, David (Tim Roth, terrifying in that soft spoken way), groomed Margaret when she was 18 and he was in his 30s. He seduced her and her parents with his charm, asked Margaret to move in with him, and then slowly began to ask more and more of Margaret--"kindnesses", he would call them. They included things like going barefoot all the time and holding stress positions for hours. When Margaret got pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy, David saw that he was no longer the center of Margaret's world. 

When Margaret went to the store and left Baby Benjamin with David, she returned to find the baby gone...except for two small fingers on the kitchen table. This is where it gets really bizarre: David told Margaret that he "ate the baby up" and now Ben was in his stomach. Crazed with grief, Margaret believed him and stayed under David's power to be close to Ben. But eventually, she was able to leave David.

Now, 20 years later, David is back and telling Margaret the same bizarre thing he told her years ago: that Ben is safely in his belly and aching for his mother. David also implicitly threatens Margaret's daughter and within one meeting, Margaret is back to doing the "kindnesses" David requires of her. 

Although the whole "I ate the baby and now he's living in my stomach" thing is incredibly weird, it shows how abusers can manipulate their victims into disbelieving basic reality. It is shocking to see Margaret switch from a boss bitch to a woman holding stress positions in a park at 2 in the morning with just a few words from a man who looks harmless enough. Resurrection is a film about the power of grief and gaslighting. I'd be interested to hear what survivors of intimate partner violence have to sa about this movie because I could see it being offensive to some, but very accurate to others.

I have to give Resurrection a high rating because of Rebecca Hall's stellar performance and just how much I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie. It will grip you.

Grade: A-

***

Prey

I haven't seen any of the other Predator movies, but the premise of this film was very intriguing. It takes place in the Comanche Nation in 1719. The Predator is an extraterrestrial being that has advanced technology and weaponry and he comes to earth to hunt both the Comanche and the French fur trappers in the area. 

A young Comanche woman, Naru (Amber Midthunder), has to prove herself as a hunter to the men of her village who don't take her seriously. She can tell there is a strange threat on the periphery of her village, but no one believes her until it's too late. Over the course of the film, she learns enough about the Predator to outsmart him at his own game, proving that she really is a great hunter. 

Prey was...just ok. Other than the really unique setting (a futuristic villain, but set 300 years in the past), this is a pretty cliched action-horror movie with cheesy lines, common tropes ("You can't do X because you're a girl!"), and not a lot of character development. It was entertaining, but I think the rave reviews are less about the movie itself and more about the fact that the film cast Indigenous actors playing Indigenous characters (which is awesome!). 

Grade: B-

***

The Sandman

I haven't read The Sandman comics, so I watched the Netflix series with a totally blank slate. I really enjoyed it! There is A LOT going on, but I never felt out of my depth. The first season is sort of roughly divided into two plot lines: Morpheus, aka "Dream" (Tom Sturridge, looking pouty and gothic), being held captive and losing some stuff he needs and then being set free and finding said stuff, and Morpheus hunting down a rogue nightmare, The Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook, playing a really excellent villain). 

I'm not going to go too much into the plot since it's too complex to explain, and you should really just watch it. I'm not usually into fantasy, but The Sandman had enough horror elements to keep me intrigued. There were also stand alone plot lines, such as a man named John Dee (David Thewlis) causing mayhem in a diner and Dream meeting a man granted the gift (or curse?) of immortality in the same pub every 100 years to catch up, that I just loved. These little tangents, side-plots, and stand alone episodes are what I enjoyed most about the show. 

I'm glad I gave The Sandman a chance (my partner, who is a huge fan of the comics, encouraged me). The cinematography was lovely, the characters--even the ones who pop up for a single episode--are interesting and feel fully fleshed out, and the show was overall entertaining and enchanting. Highly recommended!

Grade: A-

Gen Z Frenzy

Movie: Bodies Bodies Bodies

Mild spoilers, but nothing big spoiled in this review

Directed by Halina Reijin, written by Sarah DeLappe, and based on the story by Kristen Roupenian (the woman who wrote the infamous "Cat Person" short story, and also wrote a delightfully fucked up short story collection You Know You Want This), Bodies Bodies Bodies is one of the best movies I've seen so far in 2022. It's hilarious, it's tense, it pokes fun of Gen Z but not in a cringey way. It also pokes fun at rich people (always a cool thing to do) and the human condition in general.

A group of friends in their early 20s gather at what can only be described as a "mansion" for a hurricane party. The mansion belongs to David's (Pete Davidson) father. In addition to David, there is David's girlfriend, Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), Jordan (Myha'la Herrold), Alice (Rachel Sennott), and 40-something Greg (Lee Pace), a guy Alice met on Tinder a few weeks ago. Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) also shows up with her girlfriend of 6 weeks, Bee (Maria Bakalova). Very quickly, we learn that Sophie is the "prodigal friend"--she went to rehab and dropped off the face of the earth. She did not tell anyone she planned to come to this party and certainly didn't tell anyone she was bringing a girlfriend.

Part of the fun of this film is figuring out the friend dynamics at play here. In addition to the drama around Sophie, David and Emma have serious drama since a friend who is not present, Max, confessed his love for Emma in front of David. David also doesn't like Greg and feels threatened by Greg's "coolness" (how cool is a guy in his 40s hanging out with a bunch of barely legal adults anyway?) and looks. Right from the get-go the audience is aware of seething resentments, ever-shifting rivalries, and snark dressed up as humor. 

After doing a million shots and recording some TikTok dances (Gen Z!), the group decides to play Bodies Bodies Bodies, more commonly known as Mafia or Werewolf. They draw slips of paper and the one who gets the paper with a marking on it is the killer. They turn off the lights and the killer touches people on the back to "kill" them, and every time someone finds a body, the group gathers together and tries to decide who the killer is. Within one round of the game, people are crying and accusing others of "gaslighting" them (Gen Z!).

I won't spoil who it is, but you can probably guess that during the course of events, someone actually dies. Unfortunately, the power has gone out, including the WiFi, so they can't call 911. The one car available to the group has a dead battery and, besides, they're in the middle of a damn hurricane. So they gather back inside, terrified that the killer might still be among them...and predictably descend into paranoia and accusations.

Bodies Bodies Bodies combines the classic "locked room mystery" genre with the age-old trope of "people in a desperate situation turn on each other instantly" and adds the more modern phenomenon of using the language of mental health and abuse to accuse others and to excuse one's own bad behavior. This is made obvious in the trailer for the movie with scenes of the friends accusing each other of "being toxic", "triggering me", "gaslighting me", etc. I saw this movie with a friend of mine (also a Millennial) who teaches college students and confirms that there is a bit of a trend of younger people using mental health as an excuse to refuse to hear constructive feedback.

I just want to pause for a moment and say that this is not just a Gen Z thing and, as we know, the idea of generations being solid, distinct groups of people who behave in distinct and similar ways is not accurate. The trend of using the language of mental illness and abuse as a way of avoiding owning one's own bullshit is really just the most recent trend in human beings being assholes. Humans have always been assholes just trying to weasel their way out of consequences and avoid anything that might deflate their egos the tiniest bit. 

So, Bodies Bodies Bodies is making a little bit of fun at Gen Z's expense, but really it's mostly making fun of selfish, self-centered people who have never had to face significant consequences for their actions, mostly because they're all very rich. The other thing I like about this movie is that they immediately call each other out when they do this. So Emma accuses David of "gaslighting" her and David responds by telling her that the term "gaslighting" is so overused as to be meaningless. Later, when someone calls someone else a "psychopath" and another person says "that's so ableist", the first person sharply retorts "fuck off and die", earning a belly laugh from me. The absurdity of (highly questionable) accusations of ableism in a life or death situation or using a term like "triggering" when one literally has a weapon in one's face is part of the humor of Bodies Bodies Bodies. 

And even though the first half of the movie is much funnier than the second half, the humor remains throughout the film and even in its darkest moments. Likewise, the film manages to be incredibly tense and high stakes, especially for a comedy. 

Bodies Bodies Bodies will be especially fun for people who don't mind "unlikeable" characters and very dark humor. This is a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't want you to either. Perhaps it's the Millennial in me who enjoys finding the humor in nihilism--I mean, people are so absurd, you just gotta laugh sometimes, right?

Filled with really good acting, tons of laughs, and nail-biting tension, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a must-see. 

Grade: A-

Ranking All the A24 Films I've Seen

In anticipation of seeing Bodies Bodies Bodies tonight (review to come soon), I decided to rank all the A24 films I've seen! Instead of ranking them from best to worst, I'm ranking them by tier and there are five tiers: Best of the Best, Very Good/Enjoyable, Not Bad Not Great, Meh, and Worst of the Worst. Since I've seen 44 films and I don't want this blog post to be forever long, I'll just give a 2-3 sentence impression of my thoughts about each movie.

What are your favorites and least favorites from A24?

***

Best of the Best

Green Room--Tight, thrilling movie where a punk band faces off against Neo-Nazis after witnessing a murder. I could watch this one over and over.

The Lobster--If Wes Anderson directed a horror movie. People are not allowed to be single/unpartnered and will be changed into an animal if they fail to find a mate.

Lady Bird--Coming of age film set in 2002-2003, which means that I am basically the same age as Christine "Lady Bird" MacPherson. Very relatable, funny, and bittersweet.

First Reformed--An alcoholic pastor discovers a new fire in his belly after a troubling interaction with an environmental activist. Hauntingly beautiful.

Hereditary--Painfully intense horror movie with a shocking twist. This is the movie that made people start to pay attention to A24.

Midsommar--My favorite A24 film, hands down. Impeccable film--beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, surprisingly funny, with a "good for her/uh-oh for her" ending. 

The Lighthouse--Two lighthouse keepers descend into insanity. The definition of folie a deux. 

***

Very Good/Enjoyable

Tusk--A man gets surgically altered into a walrus. Yeah, you read that right.

Room--No, not The Room! A woman is kidnapped and kept for years in her captor's soundproof shed. Can she escape for her young son's sake?

The VVitch--Set in 1630s New England, a Puritan family has a witch hunt of their own. Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Moonlight--Gorgeously shot coming of age film that follows a Black boy through three stages of his life. Heart-wrenching, beautiful.

The Disaster Artist--The story about the making of the film The Room (no, not Room!). What happens where a man with a mysterious past, zero taste, and seemingly endless funds decides to make his dream project come to life?

The Florida Project--Warts and all portrayal of the lives of children living in a motel in Florida. At times funny, at times cringey, it has been criticized for being "poverty porn", even though it evokes much empathy in viewers (or should).

The Blackcoat's Daughter--A young woman at a boarding school falls under the spell of something sinister. This is a deeply depressing movie.

Gloria Bell--One of those instances where a director remakes his own film, but in another language. Gloria Bell is a vibrant woman in her 50s who falls for a seemingly nice man. 

In Fabric--A dress magically fits everyone who wears it. But unlike the sisterhood of the traveling pants, this dress kills people. A funny, incredibly strange horror films by one of my favorite directors.

Uncut Gems--More like Uncut Anxiety. A jeweler with a gambling addiction attempts to pay his debts before they catch up to him.

Saint Maud--A young woman's religious fervor is her undoing. The final image will haunt you forever.

Zola--Based on a Twitter thread. A young woman travels with a new friend on a "hoe trip". Things don't go as planned.

The Green Knight--A medieval knight seeks a shortcut to honor and glory, but will he lose his head in the process?

X--An adult film crew attempt to secretly film a porno at the rural bed and breakfast they're staying at. Will the old farmer who owns the place and his wife fuck them up before they can get to the fucking?

Everything Everywhere All at Once--A woman mourns for all the lives she could have had, but realizes that she's right where she needs to be.

Men--Men...they're all the same, am I right ladies? 

***

Not Great, Not Bad

While We're Young--Gen Xers and Millennials fight. The Boomers win.

Slow West--It takes place in the American West, but I don't remember much else.

20th Century Women--Three generations of feminists and one teenage boy. Hijinks ensue.

It Comes at Night--You think it's going to be a zombie movie, but the real monster are the friends we made along the way.

Under the Silver Lake--A young man searches for a neighbor who goes missing and meets many, many strange people in this wacky neo-noir.

False Positive--Pregnancy brain makes you crazy...or maybe they really *are* out to get you?!

Lamb--A couple decides to raise an unusual lamb as their own child. But what happens when the lamb's parents want her back?

***

Meh

The Bling Ring--Rich chicks steal shit from other rich chicks.

Enemy--The ending of this one is just fuckin' weird.

Under the Skin--A beautiful alien seduces men. Like the alien, the movie is beautiful, cold, and empty.

Locke--A man has a conversation as he drives. That's it, that's the movie.

Obvious Child--A woman has a one-night stand that ends in abortion...and maybe love?

Ex Machina--A man is hired to have conversations with a sexy lady robot. Will he forget that she's not human?

Climax--Dancers dance, the punch gets spiked, people go crazy. Very frenetic film--don't watch if you get nauseous easily.

The Hole in the Ground--A young boy discovers an enormous hole in his backyard and comes back...different...after exploring it.

A Ghost Story--Casey Affleck is dead and he walks around with a sheet over his head the whole movie. I'm not even kidding. Also a woman eats a whole pie in one take.

High Life--Pretentious, boring. Criminals in space being used for tests. There's a room in the spaceship called the "Fuck Box". 

The Last Black Man in San Francisco--Didn't hate this one, just felt "meh" about it. A man tries to reclaim the house he grew up in.

***

The Worst of the Worst

Life After Beth--I don't remember anything about this movie except Aubrey Plaza is undead and it was boring.

Swiss Army Man--Daniel Radcliffe plays a farting corpse, which seems like something I'd be into, but this movie made me actively angry. Manic Pixie Dream Corpse.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer--More like the killing of two hours of my life I can't get back. INSANELY pretentious and awful. 

The Souvenir--There is a man in this movie who is the WORST and the only good part of the movie is when he dies.

***

That's all I got for you! There are still a ton more A24 movies I need to see. Feel free to recommend some to me!

Moments in Time

A few weeks ago, I watched a mini-series called The Good Lord Bird, which stars Ethan Hawke as abolitionist John Brown. Even though Hawke looks like a batshit insane old man in that show, it sparked an interest/horniness in me re: Ethan Hawke. I've seen a lot of his movies over the years, but never really appreciated him. Also, he was (is?) kind of a dick--he cheated on Uma Thurman and then apparently gossiped negatively about her afterward in some very public ways. So, I pretty much ignored his existence...until now. 

I decided to watch some of Hawke's other movies, and I found myself revisiting Richard Linklater's transcendent "Before Trilogy". These three films: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight follow the relationship between Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) over the course of 18 years. To say that the films are, collectively, one of the greatest love stories ever committed to film, is not quite right. There is something bigger, grander, and more existential than a "love story" here. These films are about the passage of time and about the struggle to not regret choices made and not made. But...it's a pretty great love story too.

The film is Before Sunrise, the time is the mid-1990s, the place is Vienna. Jesse and Celine, both in their early 20s, meet on a train traveling through Europe. They strike up a conversation and when Jesse reaches his stop in Vienna, he invites Celine (who is headed for Paris) to get off the train with him and spend the night walking around the city. Jesse has a plane to catch to take him back to America in the morning and since he doesn't have the money for a hotel room, his plan was to just wander around all night. Celine agrees and they spend all night talking and drinking and falling in love.

The chemistry between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Everything about it is so natural and unforced. They keep looking at each other when the other isn't looking. It's obvious that Jesse is smitten with Celine from the first moment he sees her, but Celine is more skeptical and cautious about Jesse (a dynamic that continues into the second and third films). Hawke plays Jesse as, like, 10-20% a creep. He sometimes tries to steer the conversation towards sex, he looks at Celine like he wants to eat her--that kind of thing. But because he's charming and, frankly, hot, it doesn't come off as too creepy. But it's just enough to help us understand why Celine would be a little skeptical. 

Director Linklater co-wrote Before Sunrise with a female screenwriter, Kim Krizan, in a conscious attempt to make sure the film felt equal between the sexes and it really is a very egalitarian film. Both Jesse and Celine have flaws and quirks. They come together in a beautiful way where neither one pushes the other too quickly. Linklater continued this approach with Before Sunset and Before Midnight, which are both co-written by Delpy and Hawke. Heck, the movies even incorporate some details about Hawke and Delpy's real lives, such as their star signs. This teamwork really gives each film a sense of intimacy and realism you don't often see in romance movies. 

After a night of possible lovemaking in a park (the movie is ambiguous about whether or not they have sex), Jesse and Celine part ways at the train station and promise to meet again at that very platform in 6 months...

...cut to 9 years later. The film is Before Sunset, the time period is early 2000s (post 9/11), the place is Paris. Jesse is married with a son and is a successful author. He is on tour for his bestselling novel This Time, which is inspired by his night with Celine. During his final book signing in Paris, literally an hour before he has to leave for the airport, he spots Celine watching him. She sought him out, knowing he would be in town. She, too, is in a relationship.

Since Jesse has an hour or so to kill before heading to the airport, the two walk to a cafe and talk about their lives. The film, which is 80 minutes long, takes place in real time. The more they talk, the more they open up to each other about how much they regret not meeting again at that train platform in Vienna six months after the night they met. Turns out, Celine's grandmother died and the funeral was on the very day they were supposed to meet. At first Jesse says it's not big deal because he didn't show up either...but soon confesses that he did indeed fly from America to Vienna to meet Celine...only for her to not show up. And since they didn't exchange phone numbers or even last names, there was no way to get in touch.

These confessions culminate in a scene in car where both Jesse and Celine reveal that they are not happy in their relationships. It's both cheesy how much they romanticize the other, but also gut-wrenching. The "Before" trilogy does an amazing job of capturing the ridiculous ideas we humans have about relationships (e.g. that soulmates exist, that in a happy relationship nothing will ever go wrong, etc), but also showing how those "ridiculous" ideas can tear us apart and cause genuine pain.

Before Sunset has an ending to make your knees weak: Celine and Jesse go up to Celine's apartment and she makes tea for him and he puts on a Nina Simone record. As she dances to the music, Celine says "Maybe you are gonna miss that plane" and Jesse says "I know"...

...cut to 9 years later. The film is Before Midnight, the time period is 2013, the place is southern Greece. Celine and Jesse have been together for years and have twin daughters. It's their last day of vacation in Greece before they travel back to Paris. Jesse puts Hank, his 13 year old son from his previous marriage, on a plane back to Chicago, where Hank lives with his mother. It's clear Jesse hates that he can't be closer to his son, especially since it will only be a few more years before Hank is grown up and at college. 

Jesse and Celine are living the life of a married couple--squabbling, reminding each other about small chores and daily life maintenance. Even on vacation, they find it hard to relax--Celine especially since she's considering a career change and feels that Jesse is subtly pressuring her to move the family to Chicago. After a meal with their friends, Celine and Jesse walk to a hotel--they've been gifted a room for the night away from the group they are vacationing with and, crucially, their kids. 

As things start to get sexy, Hank calls Celine (whom he opens up to more than his own father) just to let her know he's landed in Chicago, which leads to an argument between Jesse and Celine. The argument snowballs into a list of resentments the couple doesn't hesitate to air to one another. But unlike many movies in which couples argue, there is still a sense of love and respect between the two lovers. Again, it's obvious that Jesse is 100% crazy about Celine and always has been, where Celine seems resentful and angry at Jesse. However, her resentments are legitimate and understandable--especially to anyone who is a mother. It would be easy to see Celine as the "bad guy", but having watched these movies, we know that Jesse is no walk in the park either (even though they did, in fact, walk--and fuck--in a park). 

By the end of the film, the two make up tentatively. One wonders whether they'll "make it" or if they will be split up by the next time we check in on them (which, sadly, might not happen...especially since 2022 is 9 years since the last film. I feel like that window of opportunity is closed). I like to believe that they'll make it work, but that's the romantic in me. I have to wonder if the combination of their passionate first meeting and the agony of their years apart followed by their *extremely* passionate reuniting (they mention in Before Midnight that after Jesse missed the plane in Before Sunset, the two had sex for a week straight and never left the apartment) created enough momentum to push them together for a lifetime. Or, alternatively, if the passion and longing of the first 9 years only served to make the second 9 years pale in comparison. I guess it all depends on your perspective.

A review of the trilogy I watched said that Before Sunrise is about "what could be", Before Sunset is about "what should be/should have been" and Before Midnight is about "what actually is". At the climax of their fight in Before Midnight, Celine tells Jesse she doesn't love him anymore. But later, Jesse tells her "if you want true love, this is it. It's not perfect, but it's real." The mature among us know that love isn't just a feeling--it's an action. But the romantic among us know that the feeling of love is, well, kind of important. You can be completely devoted to someone, but if you feel nothing--or worse, feel contempt--for them, your relationship is dead in the water. Actions be damned. 

Taken together, the Before trilogy is a beautiful meditation on time--how it's both short and long--and on how we change and don't change throughout our lives. It's also about relationships and both the power that love has, but also the power that love doesn't have. The films offer no easy answers about love or how to avoid having regrets...and I think that's what makes the trilogy so good. Time, change, and love are concepts that don't have easy answers. The Before trilogy is honest enough to face that fact, but gentle enough to show that maybe it doesn't matter if we ever figure out the answers. Maybe just embracing the moment and embracing love is enough. Perhaps, in the end, it doesn't matter if Jesse and Celine stay together or break up: the fact that they loved and were loved is all that matters.

Before Sunrise: A+

Before Sunset: A

Before Midnight: A

Stuff I watched in...July, 2022, pt. 2

Thor: Love and Thunder

I'm not a huge superhero movie person, and honestly, keeping up with Marvel is exhausting. I would have never seen Thor: Love and Thunder, if it wasn't for my friend who asked me and a bunch of other friends to see this movie with her for her birthday.

And you know what? It's wasn't bad.

The movie of course has a HUGE assist in director Taika Waititi, who is known for his excellent sense of humor and generous, optimistic outlook on life in his movies and TV shows. That humor and optimistic attitude are present in T:L&T which makes the film pretty enjoyable. It also has a good villain. Gorr, played by Christian Bale, loses his daughter after wandering in a desert, praying for rain. After his daughter dies, Gorr comes across an oasis where he meets his god, Rapu, who it turns out is a dismissive asshole and laughs at Gorr for thinking there will be an eternal reward for his loyalty. Driven into a rage, Gorr becomes the owner of the Necrosword--a sword that is capable of killing gods. Gorr then declares that he will kill all gods.

Dude, Gorr is rad as fuck! Of course, he must be stopped. Ugh. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) gathers a small team of superhumans and regular humans: King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi), and Thor's own ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman)--to go on a quest to seek the help of Zeus (Russell Crowe) and the other gods of Omnipotence City. But when Zeus and the others basically tell Thor to bugger off. Thor's group steals Zeus' lightning bolt and decide to stop Gorr themselves. 

While they survive? Or will Gorr make it to Eternity will he will be granted one wish (and will presumably wish that all gods die)?

Are you following? Because I sure as fuck wasn't! Look, there's a lot going on here and having not seen any other Thor movies and barely any Marvel movies, I was basically shrugging my shoulders the whole time going "why not?". Luckily, the movie explains everything that's going on. Like, a character will say, "I'm sure Gorr won't make it to Eternity" and another character will say, "what's Eternity?" and then someone will explain what it is and why it will be bad if Gorr makes it there. So even the dum-dums like me can follow along. 

Thor: Love and Thunder is very enjoyable even if you're not a Marvel fan. Chris Hemmy is hot, the movie is funny and pretty gay. There's a lot to love here. 

Grade: B

***

Elvis

Baz Luhrmann's frenetic biopic of Elvis Presley is another movie I wouldn't have watched if it weren't for someone else--in this case, my dad. He and I went to see Elvis and it turned out not to be as bad as I was expecting. Though I love Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, Baz's later movies started to go down in quality. His adaptation of The Great Gatsby is forgettable, at least to me (and miscast, in my opinion). His style of filmmaking often overshadows the substance of the film.

Sure enough, Elvis is...a lot. Baz uses so many quick cuts, it's enough to give someone a seizure. It's a lot of razzle dazzle, but not a lot of depth. Austin Butler is excellent as Presley and Tom Hanks is just...weird as Presley's leech of a manager, Col. Tom Parker. Despite being buried under about one hundred pounds of makeup, you just can't not see Hanks. At times, Elvis felt more like a parody of a musical biopic than a musical biopic itself, and Hanks as the mysteriously accented, villainous Parker didn't help matters.

Additionally, Elvis indulges in hero-worship. Whenever Presley makes a bad choice, it's someone else's fault (usually Parker's). His descent into drug use is Parker's doing, the fact that he was wooing Priscilla Beaulieu when she was 14 years old is not commented on, poor and unsatisfying career choices are, again, the product of Parker's manipulations. While some of this is understandable, it can't possibly be fully honest. The film suggests that Elvis was a victim, pushed to and fro by the poor choices and forceful decisions of those around him. And I just can't believe that's the whole story.

Overall, Elvis is not the worst movie ever. Again, Butler is excellent. The music is obviously great. But it's not one I'm going to be rewatching anytime soon.

Grade: B-

***

The Black Phone

I was going to skip this horror film, based on a short story by Joe Hill, because it involves a lot of child actors and I'm not crazy about movies and shows with a lot of kids. However, I kept hearing good things about the movie so I went ahead and saw it and was pleasantly surprised. 

The Black Phone takes place in Denver in 1978. The film does not romanticize the late 70s at all. Kids walk to school by themselves. Refreshing, right? No helicopter parents in sight. Well...the kids also regularly beat the absolute shit out of each other. Bullies gang up on weak kids and beat them bloody. And it's not just kids beating up other kids. The main characters, Finney and Gwen Blake (Mason Thomas and Madeline McGraw, both very good child actors), suffer from the mood swings of their alcoholic single father, Terrence (Jeremy Davies). In one scene, Terrence beats Gwen with a belt as she screams and cries with such raw agony that it's enough the make yours guts get all twisted up. This is not a movie for people who can't stand to see children hurt or in danger.

If the stress of living in a world where bullies rule the playground wasn't enough, boys from the neighborhood regularly go missing. Someone known as "The Grabber" is snatching them, and authorities seem to be incompetent and unable to find clues beyond the remnants of black balloons left in locations where the boys were last seen.

Well, Finney is unlucky enough to be approached by The Grabber (Ethan Hawke, his face hidden behind a series of scary masks) and is snatched in broad daylight. He awakens to find himself in a soundproof basement with a disconnected black phone on the wall. As he waits and contemplates what his fate might be, he begins to receive calls from the ghosts of previous victims of The Grabber who give him clues as to how to escape and not fall prey to The Grabber's sick games. Will Finney be able to escape--or fight back--before The Grabber puts him in the ground with the rest of the lost boys?

There's a lot of implausible stuff in this movie, and I don't just mean ghosts calling on a disconnected phone. The Grabber's plans are somewhat messed up when his brother unexpectedly shows up to stay with him. But even with his brother living in the house, The Grabber still tries to play a game where he leaves the basement door unlocked and waits at the top of the stairs with a belt, prepared to beat the "naughty boy" when he comes up the stairs. Although Finney avoids this trap with the help of the ghosts, how would it be possible to beat a screaming child without your brother hearing? The supernatural stuff I can accept, because it's a partially supernatural horror story, but this plot hole with the brother is waaaay too big to be ignored.

But the acting in The Black Phone is so good and the suspense so...well, suspenseful...that I'm willing to overlook some silly shit. The Black Phone is nothing more than an entertaining horror movie (assuming you're entertained by children in danger, like me!), but that's all it needs to be. 

Grade: B+

***

In the Heart of the Sea

Based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the sinking of the whaling ship Essex in 1820. The tragedy of the Essex inspired Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick. In Nantucket in the first half of the 19th century, whaling was big business. Whale oil was used for lighting and men could make their fortunes by hunting the gentle giants. Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) is given a position as First Mate on Essex and is mad about it, as he was promised by the owners of the whaling company that he would be given the position of Captain. But that honor goes to George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), the son of a prominent family in Nantucket. 

The two men clash immediately, especially when Pollard commands that the Essex sail right into a storm, rather than around it, mostly to make a point to Chase and also to "toughen up" the men. His decision nearly sinks the ship. After months at sea and only a few whale kills, the men stop at a port in Ecuador and hear some stories about "Offshore Grounds" 2,000 miles into the Pacific Ocean where whales are bountiful. But they're warned that an enormous white whale is responsible for killing whalers. This whale is described as "vengeful", suggesting that it is more than an animal--it is a monster. 

The men sail 2,000 miles west of Ecudaor and, sure enough, discover plentiful whales in the unhunted grounds. And then they meet the big guy. The huge white whale destroys their ship, forcing them to use small life boats to sail to safety. The men are at sea for three months and end up resorting to cannibalism before they are rescued. 

I watched In the Heart of the Sea on my not very big (and old af) TV. This is the kind of movie that you need to see on a big screen. It's a fine movie, but nothing I'm going to be thinking about or rewatching it. I'd rather watch a whale documentary. 

Grade: B-

***

The Good Lord Bird

This miniseries based on the book by James McBride stars Ethan Hawke as John Brown, a fiery abolitionist and evangelical Christian whose religious convictions encouraged him to kill slave owners and also lead the raid of Harpers Ferry. Hey, I shit on Christians a lot, but sometimes they get it right!

McBride's book is based in factual events, but he created a fictional character--Henry "Onion" Shackleford (played by Joshua Caleb Johnson)--to serve as a witness to the nearly unbelievable events that led to the slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, which in turn led to the beginning of the American Civil War. Onion is the son of a slave whom Brown frees and brings along with him and his loose "army" of abolitionists on their adventures. 

The Good Lord Bird is an interesting show because it's both really funny and deadly serious. Hawke gives the performance of his career as the wild-eyed, bushy-bearded John Brown who endlessly quotes the Bible and, when called insane, spits back that it is the United States that is, in fact, insane. It's easy to say that Brown was on the right side of history, looking back, however we are still fighting for Brown's ideals to this day and most of us will never fight 1/100th as much as Brown did. 

If you've read the history books, you will know that Brown's raid failed. His men overtook the armory at Harpers Ferry, but since they only had a couple dozen men, they were easily overtaken by the United States marines. Brown was arrested, tried for treason, and hanged on December 2nd, 1859. The Good Lord Bird imagines a scene between Brown and Onion in Brown's jail cell the night before his execution which had me tearing up. 

Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more movies or shows about John Brown, a rare freedom fighter who didn't hesitate to put his life on the line for the freedom of others. Was John Brown insane? He must have been to some extent--how can someone show so little fear in the face of certain death? But as he points out in the series, in a country that sells human children for profit, perhaps he is "the sanest man you've ever met". I highly recommend this show, especially if you want a little fire put in your belly and a reminder that our bravery and our choices can long outlive us.

Grade: A