Willow | Black Adam | Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Top Gun: Maverick | The Banshees of Inisherin | Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio | RRR | Elvis | Fire of Love | All Quiet on the Western Front | Shortcomings | Fancy Dance
Willow, 01 January 2023, streamed via Disney+
Despite my avowed love of fantasy, I actually have not watched a ton of legacy movies? So when it turned out the Willow from the 80s was being turned into a TV series on Disney+, watching the film was, in my mind, technically homework. Which is fine! There's too much to watch otherwise without having some sort of mechanism to sorting. (More than one of my favorite critics/podcasters has noted that we're at the point where, like, mega-entertainment corporations tell us what to watch and we just, like, watch them. Obvs I have mixed feelings, but here I am, regardless.)
Anyway, here we are, starting off with a Chosen One narrative, completely with a frickin' Moses-in-a-river-basket subplot. And who finds the Chosen Baby? Willow Ulfgood, aspiring wizard and Good Dad. (Warwick Davis has got a Bon Jovi thing goin' on in this film, and I kind of dig it, actually.)
Anyway, after the village is attacked by monsters seeking the Chosen Baby, Willow gets tapped to take the baby back to the Daikini. He's a bit more reluctant, but still gives some decent Frodo energy off here. (Given that our introduction to the Daikini was a bunch of pregnant women in a dungeon, I cannot blame Willow for being hesitant.)
Willow and his buddy Meegosh get left holding the baby (literally), then fall into the company of Madmartigan AKA dude in a cage AKA the Han Solo of this movie. Like FOOLS, they give the baby away to Madmartigan because they think Daikini folk can better care for Daikini babies and then the Chosen Baby promptly gets stolen, like WTF, Madmartigan. The brownies that stole the baby reveal her name is Elora Danan, so good outcome, I guess. Cherlindrea, the brownie leader, tells Willow Elora chose him to be her guardian, like, okay, I guess babies can make those choices here? (Willow sends Meegosh home. Why? *shrug*)
They catch up with Madmartigan at an inn, but that is ALSO where Sorsha, warrior daughter of the requisite Evil Queen catches up with them. There's a whole chariot race thing that happens and they escape. Then there's a whole thing with finding the transformed Fin Raziel, but they get captured by Sorsha at that point, ALAS. (There's a fun runner where Willow keeps trying to transform Raziel to human, but just keeps changing her to different animals instead.)
The brownies help Our Heroes escape. Madmartigan and Sorsha are super, super into each other, SURPRISING NOBODY. The way Kilmer whole-body gestures when he proclaims, "Tonight! Let me worship you in my arms!" It is just. *chef's kiss* Also, while Madmartigan shows off some crazily good sword skills, we also get a most delightful pratfall in the midst of battle.
Seriously, how did either of these make it in, they are too precious for this world?
Actually, the entire escape sequence is pretty incredible.
There's another big battle. Sorsha switches sides (she declares herself with a dramatic kiss) and Airk's army joins the causes, but the Evil Queen's forces steal Elora. Also, uh, she turns Madmartigan and Airk's army into pigs, eep.
In the aftermath of the battle, Willow manages to transform Raziel into her human form, and she changes the rest of the army back to their bodies. But the Evil Queen has the baby! Time to storm the castle! During the big battle, there's some truly horrifying imagery of the Evil Queen binding the baby and doing some sort of ritual. The allies you expect wouldn't survive the battle don't survive the battle, because this is a Hero's Journey, my dudes, that's the way things work.
But it's okay, the Chosen Baby survives! Good wins over evil! Willow goes back home to his family! Everything turns out okay!
Except now there's a TV show, so probably some stuff didn't go so well? I guess I'll find out soon.
Black Adam, 14 January 2023, streamed via HBO Max
I didn't see this in the theatres mostly because its prime cinema time fell during, like, ice storms in my area, so. I have absolutely no comics knowledge of this character, but it stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, America's sweetheart! PLUS Aldis Hodge AND Sarah Shahi? Goddamn, maybe I should have braved the ice storm. (It is kind of weird to have feelings about this film after it's been, as with so many other things, disappeared from the DCEU, like WTF is going on there, geez.) Let's be clear: This is a superhero movie that stars almost entirely BIPOC folks, PLUS one that embraces "burn it all down" as an ethos for communities in the face of oppression. It is a narrative mess, but one that is entirely within my wheelhouse.
Even with the lightning bolt, I…uh, I did not expect this to be a Shazam spin-off? I mean, I'm pretty sure I knew it at one point and then forgot it totally. And if you want to say Shazam was a goofy kids' movie and Black Adam is supposed to be much darker, I may have to remind you of the scene in Shazam of demons eating a boardroom of assholes.
ANYWAY. This is a review of Black Adam, not the tonal inconsistencies of the DCEU! So maybe we don't talk about the "Paint It Black" scene? Which is supposed to evoke the whimsy of a Quicksilver or Flash scene, but instead is, like, I don't know?
ANYWAY. AGAIN. The eponymous Adam is a Shazam-empowered hero whose Kryptonite is a metal thing called Eternium. Five thousand years ago, he led a rebellion that ended in his magical imprisonment--and while he defeated a tyrant king, the kingdom of Kahndaq remained perpetually colonized and exploited. In the here and now, Hot Archaeologist Single Mom Adrianna Tomaz (I'm pretty sure that's her name in the script) and her goofy brother Karim dig up the Sabbaq crown, an Eternium relic, and accidentally wake legendary Teth Adam up in the process. The aforementioned "Paint It Black" scene happens.
As this exists in a world where empowered beings are all over the dang place, a new power emerging draws the attention of Amanda Waller and the Justice Society? Working together? I have a lot of funding questions, guys. The Justice Society, in this iteration, is Hawkman, Cyclone, Atom Smasher, and Doctor Fate. They are charming! How are they answering to Waller? (There's some absolute bullshit later when Hawkman tells folks in Kahndaq the Justice Society of America is there to support global stability by, y'know, protecting dudes who just opened up with machine guns in a crowded marketplace.)
In between all the superpowered shenanigans, Hot Archaeologist Single Mom's kid, Amon, gets Teth Adam up to speed on the core issue in the movie:
"My point is, Kahndaq still isn't free. We could really use a superhero right about now."
"I'm no hero."
"What? Superman, Batman, Aquaman...you're way more stacked than any of them. And they're not coming to Kahndaq to save us."
Yeah, my dudes, there are a lot more problems in the world than yet another bank robbery in Keystone City or whatever. Our Heroes argue that Teth Adam should be helping free the city from Intergang, but, like, the film established Intergang is the latest in a long line of corrupt forms of governance? Which is the problem with action movies that purport to be addressing systemic problems: It isn't so much one specific group of baddies but, instead, like, racism and capitalism that are to blame? So getting rid of a gang of dudes (or spoiler alert for later, a single mob of zombies) isn't actually the victory it's supposed to feel like.
Meanwhile, Amon knows what movie he's in and exactly how to maximize its potential. His attempts to get Adam on board with Superhero Branding grow only more hilarious when you realize that Adam, being a 5000-plus-year-old superhero who can move at the speed of lightning decides to stoically refute all of this kid's banter instead of the easiest option, GTFO.
"And you definitely need a catchphrase. Something blackout badass to say right before you absolutely cook some dude."
"I don't waste words on the dead."
"Well, yeah, kind of like that, but more catchy."
Also, the Shazam Council of Wizards are a buncha dopes. They chose wrongly with Teth Adam? Maybe you shouldn't go around granting GOD-LIKE POWERS to CHILDREN, you arrogant jagoffs. (Yes, yes, I know the "twist," but it was the choice of a child that led us to this, right? I don't want to talk about how that scene made me tear up, for the record.)
There's something pretty grim and funny about how Adam's argument with Hawkman is essentially, "Don't murder people," "But NOT murdering people takes so much TIME." Like, the film wants us to both ENJOY Adam's havoc, but also feel horrified by it. It occasionally works, but it's not actually an easy balance to find.
Anyway, this film gave me Sarah Shahi fighting zombies, so I'd say mission accomplished.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, 20 January 2023, streamed via Netflix
On one hand, I get why this has a colon'ed subtitle. On the other hand…sure, okay? But also, I don't know, we all loved Knives Out? We all enjoy these wacky, actors-we-love-doing-one-off mysteries? We all want to see Dave Bautista in a Speedo? (I'm pretty sure Dave Bautista in a Speedo is this movie's version of Chris Evans in a sweater. Right?)
What I'm saying is, we as a movie-watching public, didn't really know anything going into this film, but that's kind of the point. I will avoid going into details in this review, to that end! But our cast of characters:
Kathryn Hahn is Claire Debella, a governor campaigning on climate-change! Leslie Odom Jr is Lionel Toussaint, a scientist! Kate Hudson is Birdie Jay, a celebrity who calls it like she sees it (groan) and Jessica Henwick is Peg, her long-suffering, fire-putting-out assistant! Dave Bautista is Duke Cody, another celebrity who calls it like he sees it (groan) and also he has a girlfriend named Whiskey, played by Madelyn Cline!
They all get sent A LITERAL MYSTERY BOX that's opened via stereogram and presents them with multiple puzzles that lead to an invitation for a murder mystery weekend. (It should really be clear that, rather than the invitees, it's a random party guest and Duke's mother that solve the puzzles.)
Oh, Janelle Monae plays Cassandra "Andi" Brand, who forgoes the conference call where everybody walks through the LITERAL MYSTERY BOX and smashes the dang thing open with a hammer, which is a hilarious Gordian Knot reference, honestly. Anyway, Andi is an ousted tech genius, and Janelle Monae's work in this movie is FANTASTIC, dang.
And, of course, Our Hero, Benoit Blanc as played by Daniel Craig. Blanc is feeling some ennui, and the LITERAL MYSTERY BOX arrives just in time. Except, it turns out, he wasn't supposed to get the LITERAL MYSTERY BOX. Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNNNNN.
Oh, the LITERAL MYSTERY BOX was sent by Miles Bron, a "tech genius" OBVIOUSLY supposed to remind us of Elon Musk, one of whose "genius" ideas was a napkin with the words "child = NFT" scribbled upon it. (Do you think Ed Norton ever gets tired of playing white supremacists and dudes we are otherwise supposed to hate?)
Also,I have long-running thing where I believe Kate Hudson has no soul. Like, I think if you look her in the eyes, the abyss stares back at you. Which, y'know, makes her perfect for these roles! This is of a piece, though: This group of asshole friends term themselves "disruptors," which means they alllllll merit a punch in the face, good LORD, Rian Johnson, well done.
It turns out Miles is planning to roll out a volatile and untested solid hydrogen fuel and his whole "You're my best friends and we're all in this together" schtick is his attempt to get everybody on board. Anyway, hilariously, Blanc straight-up solves Miles's big ol' murder mystery five minutes before it starts because he's pretty sure somebody is gonna kill Miles.
ANYWAY, there's a scene right in the middle that's so manic and intense--with a protective barrier from a painting thudding down every minute like a guillotine--that I snapped and went onto Wikipedia to spoil myself because I COULD NOT TAKE the extremely well-executed suspense. Which meant I knew exactly what would be happening the rest of the film and could enjoy it in the reverse-craftmanship way, which is a PERFECTLY FINE way to enjoy something, spoilerphobes, it's just totally different than being along for twists.
I regret nothing, but it's possible I've just come to terms with my choice.
"It's a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought with speaking the truth, don't you think?"
Top Gun: Maverick, 20 January 2023, streamed via Paramount+
I am exactly the generation of folks who did not quite get the geopolitics of the original Top Gun, but still find That Volleyball Scene and "Danger Zone" to take up large chunks of their adolescent memories. Seriously, the first few chords of the Top Gun theme are the closest I ever feel to American patriotism. (Note: I am not an American.)
this scene on repeat. On VHS. Frequently. For an entire summer.
What I'm sayin is, this film could have just been B-roll fight jet film with the old soundtrack playing over it and I would have been like, "Check, yup, mission accomplished, movie producers." (To be fair, that is literally the opening scene of the movie.) I am also a Tom Cruise fan. It's not so much I'm a gigantic fan of his acting, so much as almost every movie he makes is one that I conceptually dig? I don't know. Tom Cruise and I have the same taste in movies, is what it is.
"I don't like that look, man."
"It's the only one I've got."
I'm FASCINATED by the primary external driving conflict of the film: We don't need pilots because drones exist. Like, wow. Goddamn. Way to make us root for fighter pilots when, in fact, we should probably be questioning the persistence of the military-industrial complex! But after disobeying a direct order in order to hit Mach 10 as a test pilot (doing it, but crashing spectacularly), Maverick gets called in to train a new set of pilots for a mission that's, heh, impossible.
The mission of the film is, let's be clear, the Battle of Yavin? To be flown by, lordy, youngsters by the callsigns of: Rooster, Phoenix, Coyote, Hangman, Payback, Fanboy, Bob, Harvard, Yale, Omaha, Fritz, and Halo. Miles Teller plays Rooster, who is the late Goose's son and he is, predictably, kinda salty about being taught by Maverick. (There's a bit about how Maverick pulled his papers when he went to naval academy, which also sort of indicates he had a pre-existing relationship to Maverick.)
Is there any scene more sublime than the montage where Maverick kicks' all the kids' assess in a dogfighting exercise set to "Won't Get Fooled Again"? Nobody bothered to tell the youths about the Mach 10 thing, eh? And these whippersnappers never bothered to Google their new instructor?
There's also a whole lot of bullshit with Hangman repeatedly bullying his peers and generally being a shitty team player, when the higher-ups repeatedly insist the major portion of Maverick's job is to teach these idiots to fly as a team. And nobody calls him on it, for some reason? It doesn't matter if he's their best flyer? Except I think we're supposed to believe Jon Hamm doesn't care if any of them survive, so I guess?
Jennifer Connelly plays Penny, a totally different love interest to replace Kelly McGillis's Charlie, which, okay, sure. One could make the argument that Maverick, with his stated arrested development, would probably fail to sustain a relationship with Charlie. But that doesn't change what's undoubtedly some shitty Hollywood sexism happening. Hilariously, though, Penny did actually get mentioned in the original movie, so their relationship is a legit canonical one! Geez!
Bringing Val Kilmer in to reprise his role as the elevated and surprisingly wise Iceman was an oof. (Also, kind of strange, given I also did a Willow watch this month.) Kilmer and Cruise did some heavy lifting in their one face-to-face scene, which is striking given that Kilmer's health doesn't allow him to speak aloud. But also, uh, did they really have to go so far as to kill off Iceman? Plot-wise, they could have still kicked Maverick out because Iceman's health prevents him from being involved in naval politicking? Geez.
But let's not play, the most important scene is the beach football one. I know it, you know it. Jon Hamm, oddly not allowed to smile ever in this movie, also knows it.
Anyway, y'all have read the ongoing theory that most of the film is Maverick's death dream, right? It's impossible to not think about it once you know.
The Banshees of Inisherin, streamed via HBO Max
Colin Farrell sure is having a renaissance, isn't he? I mean, he's been steadily doing work all these years, but I think he's finally getting buzz for being an actor rather than being a hot guy who has that sex tape, y'know? Anyway, I am doing my Oscars-movie-watching now, so I suppose this is the year's requisite Sad Irish Guy entry.
Anyway, the inciting incident is this: Colin Farrell plays Padraic, a cheery dude ina small Irish town. One day, he goes to fetch his best buddy Colm (Brendan Gleeson) for their afternoon visit to the pub. Colm roundly ignores him. It turns out Colm has decided he is no longer friends with Padraic and nobody knows why. Everybody asks Padraic, "Are you rowin'?" and it's got the feel of a stage farce in a very Sad Irish Guy day.
As someone who has decisively opted to cut people out of their life in the past, I wasn't inclined to be too shirty about Colm's about-face. The "I just don't like ya no more" scene, however, is fairly heartbreaking. Colm, it turns out, has no chill, because if you're gonna ghost someone just because, you do it gaslighty, obvs. (These are not ethical tactics, but they are historically effective ones.) There's no AITA debate here: Colm is the clear asshole.
Kerry Condon plays Siobhan, Padraic's feisty sister. Barry Keoghan plays Dominic, a goofy local youth. There's plenty of other folks who are Local Personalities, also in the vein of stage farce, the whole cadence of this thing tweaks my Theatre Kid nose in the best way. And nobody secretly thinks he's a honeybee, so I'm inclined to be forgiving about this interpersonal silliness.
Siobhan and Dominic end up being quite a bit more interesting than the central pairing, it turns out--she wants to leave the island but can't quite manage it. He is sweet but dim, and also abused and everybody knows him as such. (At one point, Dominic asks Siobhan if she'd ever think about, oh, I don't know, falling in love with him? Maybe when he's a bit older? It's intensely sweet and sad.) An interesting bit is that Siobhan is the only person in the film who wears bright colors: Her final scene is a bright yellow coat that becomes more striking when you think about it in context.
There's a timelessness to the film--another hallmark of the Sad Irish Guy genre, so I guess I'd better make that a tag--even if it's not difficult to place, chronology-wise. As with Belfast, Banshees is placed during The Troubles. (Testament to the Sad Irish Guy genre: Melancholy farces are almost always commentary on The Troubles.) But there are wagons, not cars, and radios instead of TVs, and the boats have sails, not engines. And people just want to have good lives, except for Colm, the one dude who just wants to be interesting.
Jenny the tiny donkey is the REAL hero of this film.
Would you believe it, though, after Colm makes his whole stand about "talk to me again and I'll cut off my fingers," he comes upon poor Padraic, beaten up by a local policeman for calling out said cop for being an abusive father. And Colm very quietly picks Padraic up, sets him into his wagon and gets him riding home, and I just started crying, like, oof. (Colm later has drinks with the abusive asshole cop because apparently being a dude apathetically excited about helping out at mainlander executions is fine, but not being kinda good and dull like Padraic, I guess? My dude.)
Anyway, I can't be the only the person who shrieked out, "Why wouldn't you start with your pinky!?"
Guillermo del Toro's Pinnochio, 21 January 2023, streamed via Netflix
Funny, this coming out when Zemeckis did one recently, too. The twin films phenomenon strikes again! Normally I'd be watching this in a fairy tales cluster, but this is OSCAR WATCHING SEASON, baby, I don't have time for five other creepy wooden boy movies. So here's just this one, awkwardly titled so we know the auteur responsible.
There is a specific brilliant logic to 1) establishing Geppetto had a son named Carlo prior to the whole magic doll thing, and 2) having Carlo killed during an accidental bombing during the Spanish Civil War. OOF. Early on, someone describes Geppetto as "a model Italian citizen," and I'm like, oh damn, fascism is coming for you, my good sir. (Also, Carlo died while looking at a large crucifix? Yikes, GDT. YIKES.)
Meanwhile, our narrator (as voiced by Ewan McGregor) is Sebastian J Cricket, an aspiring writer. His memoirs are titled, "Stridulations of My Youth," like, OH MY GOD.
We are, I think, supposed to find a bit of horror in Geppetto's grief. "I will make Carlo again," he wails as he chops down the tree where our Cricket narrator has been hanging out. In exchange for watching over the enlivened Pinocchio, the Cricket expects the blue fairy (not that she's called that, but that's who it is) to get him a publication deal, which is HILARIOUS.
Everyone is appropriately horrified by Pinocchio, but it's pretty funny that they're more upset that Pinocchio is bratty and Geppetto has been making fake children instead of finishing the crucifix. The Podesta (yo, fascists) is concerned the wooden boy will disturb the order. So, like, no concern about the whole "demon-animated wood" thing?
I'd forgotten the whole thing about Pinocchio is he's an asshole kid. It made him kind of painful to watch, to be honest. I mean, not so frustrating that I sided with the kid who tried to convince Pinocchio to immolate himself, but still. Then again, it's established in a creepily mythic way that Pinocchio is UNDYING. When Pinocchio gets hit by a car, he gets shunted to the afterlife, and another spirit explains to him that he will continually get resurrected. (Which, let's note, makes the earlier comparison of him to the crucifix much more…something.)
I probably could essay more about the whole lampooning of fascism and actual frickin' Mussolini, but I don't know, man. I did not find myself all that invested. More interesting is probably Pinocchio trying to work with Spezzaturra to do some creative workers' resistance during the show? And then the later thread with Pinocchio's former bully kid, the "fascist kids have daddy issues, too" situation, got pretty dang real. But by that point there were, like, two more legs to the narrative journey, and I was kind of done. Even with the whole whale thing!
Anyway, it's fine. The movie's good! It just isn't really my bag? Ah, well. "What happens, happens. And then we are gone."
RRR, 21 January 2023, streamed via Netflix
THREE HOURS. THIS FILM IS THREE HOURS. It is, thankfully, a big ol' action epic, so my brain did not fully rebel. (Do ANY films need to be three hours, though? Let's be real.) "RRR" translates to "Rise Roar Revolt," or at least that's what the internet tells me. Specifically, it's a mythologization of two actual revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Koraram Bheem, and their resistance to the British occupation of India. In reality, the two men never met. What this movie asks us is, well, what if they had? Also, what if they were super-human in the way that Steve Rogers is? I mean, check this trailer, my guys.
The inciting incident: In 1920, British governor Scott and his wife, Catherine, stop by a village in India. Malli, a young Gond girl, does some artwork and the British couple decide to just, like, keep her. One of the British servants tosses a coin in the direction of the family like, oh, they've bought the girl.The mother tries to get her kid back--there's a bit where the British talk about how the cost of the bullet isn't worth "brown rubbish"--and they bludgeon her instead.
That's how the movie starts. And then we move to one of our protags, Raju--except he's working for the British. He's following orders by fighting off protestors. Like, a whole mob. On his own. He's a badass. And yet, SHOCKINGLY, only white dudes get commendations from the higher-ups. GO FIGURE.
Then we meet Bheem, the village's "protector," who has been tasked with rescuing Malli from the British. H'es got some flair. We meet as he pours blood on himself for a wolf hunt and he ends up wrestling a tiger. (The movie starts with a very specific disclaimer about all the computer-generated animals they use, because no actual animals were harmed, OKAY.)
The British are understandably nervous about this. Catherine Scott promises that whoever catches this unknown protector will be promoted to special officer. Raju, recognition-hungry that he is, is STOKED. He goes undercover with the revolutionaries. During a freak train accident, however, Raju and Bheem work together to save a boy from the wreckage.
Cue epic friendship montage which is also these two dudes unknowingly hunting each other. There is one, frankly, stunning image of the two of them separated by a roll of barbed wire. I legit took a photo with my phone so you could see it overlaid with the lyrics from the song playing over the montage.
Shivers, right?
There's also a whole thing where Bheem has a crush on a Nice White Lady. Her name is Jennifer. There's supposed to be some comedy about them not speaking the same language, but I listened to the English dub, so it was a little less hilarious? Of course, then he also finds out Jenny is actually living with poor, kidnapped Malli.
Also, Jenny invites Bheem--who as far as she knows, is just a random mechanic who helped her at the market--to a party, because she's an idiot with no understanding of her geopolitical situation? I guess? Then again, that means MAKEOVER. Also: DANCE-OFF, this is what we're here for, right?
It is around the first attempt to rescue Malli that we find out Raju isn't actually pro-British! He went deep cover into the Imperial forces so he could steal guns for his own people! TWIST! But in order to maintain his cover, he had to turn on Bheem. HEARTBREAK. The first rescue effort includes releasing a gigantic truckload of angry animals, I should mention.
There's a fantastic flashback scene of Raju's past, where he has to keep laying covering fire for villagers escaping the British while his brother, mother, and father all die. "Just imagine if everyone of us here had a weapon, we could drive these people out of this country for good." OOF. So we get a real good sense of how he could even begin to turn on his buddy Bheem to get access to weapons shipments. But now, he starts to wonder if this is the way.
Seeing Bheem start a riot simply by singing while being flogged, Raju comes to a realization. "Bheem is not just an ember, he is fire itself." Raju manages to arrange things so that Bheem and Malli can escape, but Bheem doesn't know it. They get away, but Raju gets caught in their stead and imprisoned.
Months later, Raju is scheduled for execution. Bheem is on the run with Malli; he runs into Raju's fiancee Seetha and that's when he finds out, oh! His good buddy isn't the kind of traitor he thought after all! TIME TO MOUNT A RESCUE.
There's also a bit where troubling caste politics also become quite obvious--there's always been an emphasis on Bheem as a "tribal" as compared to Raju's relative sophistication. I'm not conversant in those issues, but certainly they're worth highlighting--Bheem makes a big deal about how he was all bumpkiny and didn't understand Raju's higher concerns or whatever. It's an interesting contrast, given that Raju earlier recognized how his "for the greater good" mindset was disconnected from the heart of the people but, y'know. None of these things happen in a vacuum.
Anyway, Our Heroes escape by beating up an entire British garrison on their own, because YEAH THEY DO.
HELL. YEAH. THEY DO. What a MOVIE this is.
Elvis, 22 January 2023, streamed via HBO Max
Okay, so, like, can I ask? Is Elvis, like, a relevant cultural touchpoint anymore? Like, sure, dude had some PIPES, and there's a ton of interesting stuff in his biography, but what about this story says anything new or different? Well, okay, I guess having the story framed by using Presley's manager Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) as the narrator is maybe new. And Baz Luhrmann certainly seems like the right director for the spectacle. BUT STILL.
But all right, I will admit, the contrast between the montage of his childhood and the Hayride scene make for a pretty dang good time. It's just pure, unadulterated Luhrmann exploitation of sensuality, y'know? Because wow, here's a compact few minutes highlighting, first of all, the people who inspired Elvis's music, second of all, how frickin' racist America is, and third of all, how Baz Luhrmann does NOT want you to relax for the entirety of the two and a half hours of this movie.
The Hayride scene is a neat bit of ladies having feelings DOWN THERE and not knowing what to do about it, because every story of male musicians is about women not understanding their bodies.
Seriously, after these two scenes, there's some Doja Cat (what?) and more references to racism and the blues, and I legit had no idea where we were supposed to be in time because it was just, like six minutes of Austin Butler dressed up all fancy, walking past windows and looking swank. What is this movie? Where am I? How does time work? Colonel Parker, at some point in time, NOT THAT I KNOW WHEN, excises Elvis from other influences in order to maximize profit. There are a lot of zooms and close-ups!
Austin Butler is getting Best Actor buzz, and I think he deserves it for seeming like an actual human being compared to what everybody else in this movie is doing. (Even Tom Hanks! What are you doing, Tom Hanks? Caroline Siede has a really interesting take that Tom Hanks lays out false bait to give Butler space to do character acting. I like the idea! That does not make Hanks' performance better!)
I appreciate the continued thread that yeah, Elvis's music is fully sprung from the Black experience of America. And I actually kind of liked how they would throw in modern music to highlight some serious "look how sad celebrity life is" scenes. I also looooove the Beale Street scenes. (I never visited Graceland when I lived out in the South, but I did hang out in Memphis a few times.)
Seriously, the scenes with Elvis and BB King (Kelvin Harrison Jr) could have been the whole movie and I could have been happy. There's also some interesting stuff to be mined in his relationship with Priscilla, but then again, this film had the blessings of his estate and, OOF, Lisa Marie just passed, so. I will just say I like the way Olivia DeJonge played her, and the two of them have some nice married people chemistry.
About at the halfway point, Elvis whispered, "I'm tired of being Elvis Presley," and I was like, Holy crap, how is this only halfway done. But once we get to the end, and the true tragedy of Elvis's life is being revealed, at one point he mumbles, "I'm all out of dreams," and I swear to god, y'all, I started crying.
Fire of Love, 22 January 2023, streamed via Disney+
Volcano documentary time! Though imagine my chagrin to discover that, much like Grizzly Man, this is a movie about some folks who ended up dying at the altar of the thing by which they were most fascinated.
(Humble brag time: I watched Grizzly Man at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival a few years ago. Do you know who else was at that showing? Werner Herzog. YOU READ THAT RIGHT.)
Yeah, Katia and Maurice Krafft, some charming French volcanologists who died in the course of their work. What we get to see in this documentary, however, is a TON of footage they filmed themselves in their work. They are also, the film makes sure we know, kind of adorable.
So, the narrator informs us in the introduction, "It's 1991, June 2nd. Tomorrow will be their last day." And instead of diving right into their work, we get the history of their relationship, like, oh, this is going to be sad to watch, isn't it?
"For Katia and Maurice, the unknown is not something to be feared…it is something to go toward."
In addition to archival footage and interviews, the documentary also includes actors reading from Katia's and Maurice's journals. Given their profession, it isn't surprising that these two thinkers foreshadowed aplenty.
"I want to get close right into the belly of a volcano. It will kill me one day, but that doesn't bother me at all," Maurice wrote. And later, from Katia: "Because there is the pleasure of approaching the beast, not knowing if it will catch you." At one point, they're alone on a volcanic island, and they have to take turns sleeping--if a volcanic bomb comes at them, the person on watch has to move the other. They note they can see it coming--the red of the lava bomb is visible at night. Later, though, after a friend of theirs is killed at Mt St Helens, they devote their time to explosive volcanoes that are more difficult to predict: gray volcanoes.
As one would expect from a film made largely by people who weren't afraid of standing next to active volcanoes at extremely dangerous times, the visuals in this film are stunning. Put that next to the meditation required of us, given what happened to the Kraffts? And their own documented ambition to put together materials and an early-warning system precise enough to goad governments to do necessary evacuations in the future?
"I follow him because if he's going to die, I'd rather be with him. So I follow. Occasionally, I'm in front."
Oof, I say. Ooooooof.
All Quiet on the Western Front, 23 January 2023, streamed via Netflix
I read Erich Maria Remarque's novel almost twenty years ago, and this is the quotation I plucked from it for archiving:
Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.
As you might expect, I was reluctant to watch this movie. Not, of course, because I thought it would be poorly done--the rave reviews and Oscar predictions assured me of quality. Just, y'know. There was no way this wasn't gonna be bleak. (I don't actually remember all that much of the novel itself, tbh. Not really the point, though.) This was made in Germany, though, which sort of makes me wonder about how Germany, as a society, grapples with the legacy of WWI given, y'know, how much WWII has been their necessary national reckoning.
The film opens in the midst of a battle. We go from that to a pile of bodies. We go from the pile of bodies to the uniforms reclaimed from the fallen, one of which will end up being worn by our protagonist, Paul Baumer. Paul is 17 years old and very eager to join the war effort!
Very deliberately, a recruiter in this scene calls these boys "the greatest generation."
On the government side of things, we've got Daniel Bruhl playing Erzberger, who would very much like for an armistice to happen. (Is this weird coming from Baron Zemo? Maybe. Let the mustache blind us to the past, amirite?) The political subplot highlights a bit of absurdity: Erzberger manages an armistice, but the final battle in the film commences fifteen frickin' minutes before the armistice takes effect because some dude high up in the ranks wants to go out on a high note.
The whole point of the story is to depict both the tedium and the horror of warfare at the time. We have long stretches where the soldiers are just, like, shooting the shit and trying not to think too hard about things. There are gorgeous shots of landscape, and focus on minutiae. (There's one little bit where Kat, one of the boys' friends, slowly pokes a beetle as it crawls nearby, until it ambles into an empty matchbox.) And then, of course, battles and the aftermath of battles. They're harrowing and abrupt, as they're meant to be. (At one point, they're sent to search out missing reinforcements and find a warehouse filled with 60 bodies--the newcomers took their gas masks off too soon.)
Overall, it's a beautifully crafted film--Vanity Fair has a great article about the cinematography. It knows what it wants to do and does it well. (As this New York Times piece notes, the film markedly does not do what the novel was doing, which is worth noting.) Whether or not you want to spend time in that world, well. It's here waiting for you when you make up your mind.
Shortcomings, 24 January 2023, streamed via the Sundance Film Festival online
This is one of the fun benefits of the pandemic shutdown, I've found--the ability to attend Sundance, technically! I think the first year I did a little "explorer" pass, where I could just dive into the experimental short film stuff, last year I watched The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love (this was one of the "rewatch a classic" screenings), The Worst Person in the World (soon thereafter nominated for an Oscar), and 892, later retitled to "Breaking." Single-movie passes are about the cost of a fancy movie ticket, but it's fun to see these films that may or may not get wide release. SO ANYWAY. This year, one of the films I opted to see was Shortcomings, which is Randall Park's directorial debut.
Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Shortcomings is also adapted by the original author, Adrian Tomine. Our protagonist is Ben (played by Justin Min of The Umbrella Academy), a film guy who manages a movie theatre. Tellingly, we start the movie by him being fully contemptuous of a Crazy Rich Asians-type movie at an Asian American film festival, and not bothering to disguise his contempt when talking about it with his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki), who happens to be one of the film festival organizers. Either the legions of fans of the movie are total idiots, or they're just pretending to like it because of politics.
Yeah, Ben is That Guy. To off-set his That Guy-ness is his buddy Alice (Sherry Cola), a lesbian who has told her family Ben is her boyfriend, who is also a youth pastor, because it's easier than coming out.
In a very silly scene, Alice tells Ben to pretend he's Korean because her family is (like many Asian folks, tbh) still leery about the Japanese because of, y'know, most of the twentieth century. And I was like...uh, Justin H Min is Korean, isn't he? Then Ben says, "You know, most people think I'm Korean," like, ha ha, you hang those lanterns, Randall Park. (Hilariously, Jacob Batalon plays one of the workers at the movie theatre and gets ragged on because all his favorite movies are Marvel ones.)
There's a nice moment when, in a bookstore, Ben is telling someone why he dropped out of academia. "Had this epiphany that academia is the enemy of heart. I need to stop studying and start creating." He pulls a copy of Bong Joon Ho's Parasite: A Graphic Novel in Storyboards from the shelf and stares at it. "And?" his companion asks. "Should have kept studying," he says, and sets the book back. It's a nice bit of work on Min's part, and a good directorial/setting choice.
The other thing about Ben is that, awkward, he's into white girls. He has a fight with Miko about it before she leaves for a three-month internship in New York. He then dates two white girls! And actually makes mention of being into white girls with the second one! Ben, WTF?! You don't have to say all the awful things out loud!
Anyway, this is a sweet and funny movie about an asshole figuring out that hey! He's an asshole! It's a tribute to the writing, to the directing, to Justin H Min and Sherry Cola that, like, I kind of like him a lot anyway? In a post-screening Q&A, Justin H Min declared, "I am Ben, before therapy," so that's kind of lovely bit.
Also, Sonoya Mizuno shows up in the third act and she's wonderful, dang.
Fancy Dance, 28 January 2023, streamed via the Sundance Film Festival online
It doesn't get covered in the press a lot, but there is an ongoing epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women. Like, thousands of women in 2016, for example. That crisis is what animates and drives this movie, which director Erica Tremblay filmed on Cherokee Nation land. (She co-wrote the screenplay with Miciana Alise.) The dialogue also incorporates a fair amount of Cayuga, which is subtitled in English.
There's a particular "living on the margins" type of tension Tremblay illustrates in the first scene, where we see Jax (Lily Gladstone) teaching her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) how to forage sustainably. Immediately thereafter, Jax distracts a fisherman by stripping down to her sports bra a bit downstream, while Roki steals the dude's stuff while he's ogling. Yup, they steal his car. This is what you get for silent lechery from afar, sir! Later, while Jax is selling the boost to a pawn shop owner, Roki shoplifts (lol) and stares at a poster for her mother, Tawi, who's been missing for a few weeks.
Deroy-Olson and Gladstone looking adorable during an interview.
Thing is, Tawi's an exotic dancer and also, it's powwow season--folks are all inclined to think Tawi's just, y'know, run off. (A nice little bit: Jax's girlfriend works at the same strip club as Tawi did. Huzzah for queer representation!) Jax seems to doubt that a lot--she's organizing searches, hanging up missing posters--but that prevailing denial is also a way to keep Roki from fully panicking. She's busy saving up money for entrance fees, so she and her mom can compete at an upcoming powwow.
The intersections between law enforcement are, obviously, also a thing. Tawi and Jax's half-brother, JJ, is tribal PD. Their father, Frank (who is white, as is his second wife), is local police. Jax is an ex-con, which pulls Child Protective Services in as they question her ability to act as Roki's guardian. And then, of course, there's FBI who are supposedly investigating Tawi's disappearance, but who make it pretty clear they are not actually doing that at all.
The whole thing is a pretty heartbreaking illustration of an endless feedback cycle: If everybody's going to treat Jax like a criminal, why shouldn't she be one? If nobody's going to take her seriously as a so-called law-abiding citizen, how does she benefit from acting like one? And poor, poor Roki, being treated by establishment authority as an object--a reason to punish Jax--rather than someone who, at thirteen years, does actually have an understanding of what she wants and who she is, despite everybody telling her she's wrong. (But yeah, there was a point in the film when I was like, omfg, Jax, stop with the auntie-niece car thefts, geez.)
There's a wonderful interlude in the narrative when Roki gets her first period. Jax walks her through ritual, takes her to a diner to get a tableful of carbs, and then they head to the store to stare at the array of feminine hygiene products. It's really sweet, and also sad--if only Tawi could be there, too.
And that's twelve movies for January1 Now it's serious Oscar-watching time, y'all. Am I ready for this? Doesn't matter! HERE WE GO.
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