As I mentioned last week, the studios got in on the game this week with both the Golden Globes (which still suck I know, but too many people went back to paying attention to them and I don’t like feeling left out) and the Critics Choice nominations are now out. I’ve also started working through the Indie Spirit list, so we’ve got a bit of a mixed-budget post this week, which is fun.
Is this essentially a 2 hour long myth making exercise about a way for already rich people to sell shoes (and further invent/further the commodification of self that we all grapple with under post-Reagan late-capitalism)? Yes.
But, which I was watching it, mostly what I thought was, “this is so fun.” I love a talky movie that isn’t boring. I love Matt Damon (I know…I know OK, but like I can’t help it), especially when he’s paired up with Ben Affleck. My brain was very much formed taste wise in the 1997-2003 period, what can I say?
The soundtrack is great. The cast, especially Viola Davis is better than the story deserves. Don’t think about it too hard or you’ll get bummed out.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
I was so nervous when I saw they were adapting this, because the book is (to my 10 year old mind anyway) pretty much perfect, but, thankfully, I needn’t have worried. This is achingly sweet without ever becoming saccharine. It takes the reality of being a 6th grade girl in all its awkward glory, seriously without ever talking down to its characters. Abby Ryder Fortson is a revelation in the titular role, and Benny Safdie* and Rachel McAdams are wonderful as her parents. Particularly McAdams, my memory of the mother’s story in the book is fuzzy, but I really appreciated the space it was given here. Also loved to see Kathy Bates in her Molly-Brown-comfort glory
This was made by Kelly Fremon Craig, who also wrote and directed Edge of Seventeen, which along with Eighth Grade and Lady Bird now compromise one of my favorite category of film – coming of age movies for girls that seem based in a recognizable reality. Highly recommend this addition to group.
*Every Benny Safdie acting performance I’ve seen has been so lovely and grounded and squaring it with his own films as a director is very hard for me.
Greta Gerwig is a genius, and every detail of this world is perfectly crafted and observed.
Are the politics perfect? No, but the actual point is that holding ourselves and each other to impossible standards is a prison, and a denial of our own humanity. And yes, it’s that deep.
Bubble gum perfection that moved me to tears both times I saw it in theaters. Iconic in all the good ways.
A very big part of the experience of watching this movie is just looking at Cillian Murphy‘s face, and I can think a lot of worse ways to spend 3 hours. Talky, but thrilling. Quiet, then so loud in scenes its oppressive,. This is a great biopic. It jumps timelines easily, and doesn’t shy away from the inherent darkness of the history it is grappling with.
The supporting actors are all fantastic. I’m overjoyed to see Josh Hartnett and David Krumholtz onscreen again! Robert Downey Jr. is so good, and the scenes with him and Alden Ehrenreich are pitch perfect. But this is Murphy’s movie and he’s wonderful and heartbreaking in it.
I didn’t quite get the way Florence Pugh‘s character was handled, but Emily Blunt was brittle and fantastic.
Excellent score by Ludwig Göransson, too.
Even after waiting a bit to let my thoughts settle, it’s hard to know what to highlight about this 3.5 hours long epic, that while plenty violent manages to be more powerful in its stretches of silence. Particularly when the camera settles on Lily Gladstone‘s face.
I had read the book pretty soon before seeing this so I wasn’t expecting to be shocked by the plot, but I thought it was interesting that Martin Scorsese chose to let the audience know from the beginning which characters were responsible for the murders. It becomes less a true crime narrative and more a portrait of greed and evil and the lies people tell themselves to justify inexcusable actions. There are many scenes that made my skin crawl at the casual cruelty Leonardo DiCaprio‘s and Robert De Niro‘s characters were able to commit while telling the Osage members of their own family that they loved them. In the case of Leo’s Ernest, I think he might even believe it, because by the end (or maybe even at the beginning) he’s a husk of pathetic wishy-washyness rather than a mastermind. Because I think that’s ultimately part of Scorsese’s point, conspiracies and criminality do not require geniuses at the helm, they require opportunity, in this case afforded by the racism and violence at the heart of this country. It’s sickening.
But, it’s perfectly captured and I’m so grateful for Gladstone’s presence here as an anchor of quiet humanity.
*Some spoilers ahead*
Also, the ending, where the epilogue is given in the form of a radio play where white people shape the narrative, culminating in the moment of Marty himself stepping forward and implicating himself and this project in that history is an astoundingly powerful use of metanarrative and framing that I will remember for a long time.
As we were walking out of this biopic, my husband described it as “almost like reading a Wikipedia article” and I can’t think of a more apt description. It’s not a bad movie by any stretch, and if watching it helps introduce people to the truly inspiring example of Bayard Rustin (a civil rights organizer and peace activist left out of a lot of official narratives because he was gay and a former communist) then I think that’s great. But it feels a little preachy at times – some dialogue feels plucked from speeches and letters rather than how humans, even preachers, actually talk to each other.
All that being said – Colman Domingo is wonderful in the titular role, and I won’t be mad if he gets some awards attention for this performance. He strikes a wonderful balance between charisma and fragility.
Also – Wire Watch! Michael Potts aka Brother Muzone – shows up in a bow tie to bluster a bit (though he doesn’t shoot any one this time.)
Hmmm, where to start with Priscilla…? In many ways, it’s beautiful. The hair and makeup and costume design are all perfect. The dreamy, laconic vibe fits the statis its protagonist found herself trapped in basically from the moment Elvis decided to keep her. (The word “keep” chosen very specifically, it should make your skin crawl – she was a child!) But, I didn’t come away from it feeling as rapturous as I expected to. The power dynamic of the central relationship almost necessitated the centrality of Elvis to the narrative, but I was still kind of bummed that the most memorable part of this is Jacob Elordi‘s performance. (He’s great! But this is supposed to be her story!)
As someone on a quest to watch every documentary TV series about a cult (just finished “Love Has Won” if anyone wants to talk about the Robin Williams of it all) I felt prepped for this movie by “Shiny Happy People,” the recent Amazon Prime expose on the Duggars and their brand of Christian Fundamentalism (the IBLP).
A coming of age tale about a sheltered fundie girl (Eliza Scanlen) and the charming, older youth pastor (Lewis Pullman) who seduces her, there isn’t a ton of new narrative ground covered here. (Turns out it doesn’t really matter what the cultural idiom is, creepy older men are going to convince 17 year olds that they are “meant for each other.”) But the central performances from the always arresting Scanlen (who I hope will get to play an adult soon) and Pullman (so different from his character in last year’s Top Gun: Maverick, that I didn’t even recognize him until looking at IMDB after I finished the movie) are really great.
I know that if I had seen this as a teenager it would have had the same dark allure as something like White Oleander, which I watched countless times on HBO, but as an adult it just made me sad. I’m glad stories like this are being told, but the fact that it’s nothing new is a bummer.
A biopic of a famous artist more interested in the effects of fame than the art, Bradley Cooper makes a lot of Choices in this, they don’t all work for me, but overall I really liked it. His performance as Leonard Bernstein is layered, if a bit sweaty, but more impressively, Carey Mulligan slips into the “long suffering wife” role and infuses it with real life and pathos.
I’m most interested in this on a formal level, because I have a theory. Each section of this long-spanning story takes on the filmic language of the era being represented from the Black & White, quick-talking 40s meet-cute, complete with dream ballet (my favorite section), then a 60s Albee homage depiction of a claustrophobic marriage complete with biting insults, then a 70s gritty cocaine moment about “freedom” and it’s drawbacks, ending with a James L. Brooks women’s picture melodrama (where Mulligan really shines). The magic trick is that it all still feels like one movie.
Like I said, it’s not perfect and some supporting characters (particularly Gideon Glick‘s Tommy) could have been better fleshed out, but worth a watch for sure.
I feel like I’m about to get my film fan card revoked, but I think that I don’t really get Todd Haynes. There’s a lot to like here in his latest melodrama. (Sign me up for the Charles Melton fan club, though it is category error to call this a supporting performance.)n And a ton of really intriguing things to think about – the ethics of making art out of other peoples’ lives, the potential for narcissism in performance – but much like a lot of Haynes’s other films I’ve seen (I’m far from a completist) this left me ultimately cold.
There’s a great story at the heart of this (not the tabloid one, the story of the process of depiction of the tabloid one) but the filmmaking choices (that horror movie piano score!) all worked to distance me from that story in a way that I found, frankly, annoying. Fully admit that this is probably a me issue.
I Get a Bit Obsessive 