The first awards show of the year is this weekend! And yes, the Golden Globes are trash, but they are making PR attempts to be slightly less trash, and I will be happy to give them a chance (especially because I’ll be on a flight during the Critic’s Choice this year and I don’t want have to wait until February for my first telecast!) I did manage to catch up with some of the Globes comedies that I missed (aka avoided) earlier in the year, here are my thoughts:
This is a good Sunday afternoon on TNT movie. (It’s on Netflix, but you know what I mean.) A genre of sports biopic I enjoy, but wish could exist outside of awards conversations. (Bring back the mid-budget studio movie!)
Not that Annette Bening and Jodie Foster aren’t good – they’re great! They’re Annette Bening and Jodie Foster! And I really enjoyed their chemistry, and appreciated a film about female friendship that wasn’t about Female Friendship. It’s genuinely bold to make a movie about an unlikeable woman who is still inspirational.
Worth a lazy Sunday watch.
“Raunchy” isn’t my favorite descriptor for a comedy, so even when this started getting good reviews I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna be for me. But, it (mostly) surprised me. Both Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman bring more charm and heart to this than the premise deserves and laughed out loud every time Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur were onscreen. Tropey and predictable, but more fun than I was expecting.
I did not expect to be seeing this when I first saw the picture of Timothée Chalamet looking like Gonzo from The Muppet Christmas Carol, but then I heard it was written and directed by Paul King who made my beloved Paddington 2 and I was in. This doesn’t rise to that level (few films do) and for a musical the songs are pretty forgettable (probably because they had to match the range of a decidedly not-a-singer Chalamet) but overall I enjoyed myself and was charmed by the razzle-dazzle.
Does this movie need to exist? No. But, it was a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon, even if only to think about how miserable Hugh Grant must have been making it.
The trailers for this made me nervous. Yorgos Lanthimos sometimes veers too close to horror for my comfort and I couldn’t tell how much of a Frankenstein story this was. And, it wasn’t scary, but I’m not as rapturous as a lot of film Twitter (or Threads) is about it either.
Lanthimos’s wavelength of self-conscious strangeness is hard for me to click into, and this in many ways feels peak-him. Emma Stone embodies this artificiality wonderfully, but that kind of artifice keeps me personally at an arms length from any emotional core of the story.
I know, I know, this is a “fable.” The artifice is part of the point, but the story being told – essentially what it would be like to discover patriarchy without socialization into it, is super interesting, and I would have liked to have felt closer. (Writing that out I’m realizing, that’s also basically the plot of Barbie, which I found much more fun.)
My main disconnect comes from the fact that the first half of this movie equates the act of sex with liberation in a way I found frankly kind of boring. Once Stone’s Bella discovers philosophy the whole thing got much more interesting. Although, I didn’t like the animal hybrid body horror stuff (personal ick), I did appreciate the steampunk production design.
I’ve read this book, seen the 1985 film and the Broadway revival of the musical. So, I’ve obviously long found this story compelling and worthy of interpretation, but I’m not sure I needed this film version. There’s great performances, especially Danielle Brooks (who I saw on stage in the same role) and Taraji P. Henson (who should be cast in many more musicals). The choreography is really fun, and I like when a film musical leans into its theatricality like this.
But there was a strange glowiness of the tone which, considering the weight of the subject matter, felt oddly trite. Also, and I don’t know if this was a glitch at my particular screening, but the sound mixing was atrocious, the vocals were too quiet compared to the music, especially the percussion, and this score is built to showcase women belting! I felt robbed.
Let me start by saying, I’m glad this movie exists, and I think we should make more true comedies (and I loved the old-school touch of having bloopers in the credits). But, this was pretty not-for-me. Every member of the cast was charming and some moments made me laugh out loud. (Put Marshawn Lynch in more comedies! That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, but I stand by.) But, something about the tone missed me. (See above thoughts on “raunch.”) And the shole fight club angle meant there was more blood and punching than I care to see played for laughs. Wholly aware this is a me issue.
Ayo Edebiri should still be cast in anything she wants to be forever.
I Get a Bit Obsessive 