Best Movies I Watched in 2023
- Adaptation (2002)
Synopsis: A loose adaptation of The Orchid Thief about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman struggling to write a movie adapting The Orchid Thief.
So. I love this movie. Fiction that is aware of its own existence and feels angst both about its existence and its awareness of its own existence, while also actually telling a story about characters that are engaging in that same angst but about their world not just their story (but also their story), all the while being a story that is about failure that fails to be about failure and is thus about failure—totally my jam.
Also, you can’t watch this and then claim Nicholas Cage isn’t a good actor. Regardless of bad performances he may have given, no one is this good as a fluke. - Anomalisa (2015)
Synopsis: A depressed business consultant is shocked and delighted to finally meet someone who doesn’t sound like Tom Noonan.
I don’t know what to think about this movie just yet.
Obviously, the performances are great, both the grounded realism of Thewlis and Leigh and Noonan’s creepy-ass customer service voice.
Which, to that point, insofar as the movie is trying to make you uncomfortable (and it definitely is) it succeeds masterfully. I had some inkling going in about the “they’re all one voice” thing, so it didn’t take that long to spot that, but it took a solid 10-15 minutes to realize they’re all the same face too. Which in and of itself justifies making this a stop-motion instead of live action film, because everyone (or rather, Everyone Else) having the same face in this is doing something very different than in Being John Malkovich (I assume, I haven’t actually seen that yet). In live action you would immediately notice it, but with the stop motion in can slowly dawn on you without the movie calling attention to it, which better communicates the vaguely horrific ennui they’re going for.
And I do get ennui, and I even get a sort of general antipathy toward the rest of the world except for a tiny handful of people, but I don’t really get seeing the entire rest of the world as a monogeneous mass. And I’m not saying that’s a failure of the movie or that that outlook isn’t a thing, I just have a harder time figuring out this movie than, say, Adaptation, which I understand in my bones.
Like, the most obvious thing to latch onto is the fact that he’s this customer service guru who says things like “remember everyone’s an individual” but he doesn’t see anyone as an individual because he’s a hypocritical, ideologically bankrupt corporate shill. But I don’t really buy that as anything more than just a surface level irony. I mean, how does that explain Bella? Had the job already ruined him that much that early on? And then there’s the magical realism of it all (and the one saving grace that sort of keeps it from feeling like the move is fetishizing physical disfigurement), the fact that he hears Lisa’s voice before he ever sees her or knows anything about her. So it can’t really be as simple as “he sees everyone as a mass, meets someone with a superficial indicator of difference, falls in love, then immediately starts discounting her as soon as he has to deal with the mundanity of her total identity” because it’s not the scar that draws him to her, it’s her voice. Even after the scar is revealed (which is long after he’s already smitten with her) it’s still her voice he’s focused on.
And it’s tempting to say the whole thing is focused on the voice and the face is incidental, because the first time the movie draws attention to the Noonan of it all is when he calls Bella and says he didn’t recognize her voice. Except, when they meet at the restaurant he also doesn’t recognize her face. And in the car at the end we see Real Emily, but we don’t hear her voice. So the face is just as much a part of this as the voice. But then again it’s not like the scar is the only thing that makes Lisa’s face different, because again the scar reveal is fairly late into their relationship. So, the scar isn’t important, is the point.
So then why Lisa? I mean, I’m really hung up on the fact that he hears her voice first. And I probably shouldn’t be? But I am. But it also makes it really difficult to say anything definitive about what the hell is actually going on and what it all means. But what I’m trying to say is yes it’s about a middle-aged man in a soulless career who’s depressed, has a drunken fling that he thinks has cured him of his depression, then realizes it hasn’t. But that can’t be *all* it’s about. And that’s where I’m stuck.
I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d write my way into an answer but I don’t seem to have. I don’t know what to do with that scene in the car, I don’t know what to do with that doll. I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the movie, certainly there were elements that were funny, moving, artistically impressive. But ultimately I just feel kind of disconnected from it at some level, which is dissatisfying even as I’m not sure that that’s necessarily the movie’s fault.
p.s. Dino’s Toys is the perfect name for that store.
p.p.s. The way Lisa sings “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is so real and so incredibly charming that I find myself wondering whether that was a choice or just how it happened (specifically the ways in which she sings it wrong). Which again is maybe speaking to how I was watching kind of intellectually even during the most emotional moments.
p.p.p.s. Oh god and then there’s the fact that he has the thing with his face right before he hears Lisa but then the only other time that happens is in the dream please don’t tell me it was all a dream that’s so boring, my coworker was telling me there was a theory that Lisa is the doll and he’s just fantasizing about the doll and I didn’t want to buy that because god that’s dark and depressing and I feel like it makes all the potentially problematic aspects just so much worse but then there’s the thing with his face, ugh, please don’t tell me it was a dream. Hm. I might hate it now. Wait no but the car scene negates that, surely? Because if we’re seeing Real Emily then that can’t be his POV, which means that scene is real so the rest is also real. Ok, I think I saved it. - Arrival (2016)
Synopsis: A linguist trying to communicate with aliens learns how to think like them and it turns out they think pretty weird.
Having watched this movie when it first came out, I already knew it was a great movie. Having only recently read the story it’s based on, I now know that it’s also a great adaptation. Arguably better than the source material deserves?
What I mean is, a book-accurate film adaptation of “Story of Your Life” would have been pretty boring. “A bunch of people stand around glorified TVs talking to weird aliens for a few months, some of them learn how to see the future but it doesn’t actually matter, the end.” Chiang is only concerned with ideas, and while you can…almost get away with that in literature (we don’t need to go into it here, but reading Chiang’s short story collection was incredibly frustrating and possibly the most disappointing literary experience I’ve ever had), you really can’t in film.
So yes, the movie’s version of the main idea is less scientifically plausible than Chiang’s, more vibe-based (it’s Villeneuve, he’s always vibe-based), and lends itself to a more actiony story, which I could see Chiang purists getting really mad about. But it’s also a good story, a story with a point beyond “gee isn’t this interesting”, a much more human story, a story that actually cares about its characters and the world they live in and isn’t just using them as puppets with which to explore an esoteric concept.
And then there’s the fact that the ability of film to honestly present a flashforward while relying on the audience to misinterpret it as a flashback makes the “non-zero-sum game” reveal work so much better than in the book, which sort of tries to obfuscate what it’s doing by saying things like “I’ll remember a conversation we’ll have” but it’s still using the future tense, so you’re either confused or you’ve figured it out.
Also, the movie’s just cooler? It’s got cool-ass spaceships instead of fancy Zoom calls, and the heptapods don’t have, just, normal doorways that they poke their heads out of to be like “Hey, Justin, get in here bro!” as they do in the book because Chiang doesn’t care about them being different in any way that is not directly related to the idea he’s exploring. Oh, and of course the score. (It’s hilarious (in a sad way, under the circumstances) that Villeneuve was like “sorry Jóhann, I want something different for Blade Runner 2049” and then went with Hans Zimmer.)
That being said, I do have 2 quibbles with the movie. 1: Ian doesn’t do shit. He is an almost entirely pointless character. So much so that they had to give him some narration which should obviously have belonged to Louise just so he’d have something to do. Whereas in the book, Gary is actually a useful part of the story. As much as I don’t particularly like Chiang’s story, I do think the discussion of Fermat’s Theorem of Least Distance and Louise’s subsequent realizations is actually fairly compelling, and having a bit more of that in the movie could have been good (though not all of it because again, this is a visual medium and you can’t just have 90 minutes of people talking about theoretical physics in a tent). Because the movie went for a less-specific explanation for how the change in time perspective works, it sacrificed any reason for a scientist to be there, making Jeremy Renner kind of superfluous (but he sort of always is, isn’t he?)
2: The pacing is a little slow, particularly at the end when the audience figures out what’s happening before Louise does and we start to get a little impatient. The ending is mostly just an editing issue; get us from her leaving the ship to her calling the general like 2 minutes faster, probably by cutting a few flashforward shots and a few shots of Amy Adams looking confused, and I think we’d be fine. As for the beginning, if we could make a few cuts and speed things up in the first 20-30 minutes it might give us some time in the middle to have Jeremy Renner actually matter to the story.
Anyway, I was still pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed rewatching it, it still gave me chills, and it’s still probably my favorite Villeneuve movie. - The Blood of Heroes aka The Salute of the Jugger (1989)
Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the one thing that matters is 5-on-5 extreme rugby.
A fairly formulaic sports movie with just enough worldbuilding and narrative to make it interesting, and a strong cast to keep it grounded. Not gonna blow your mind, but well worth a watch.
One thing to note is that The Blood of Heroes (the American release) is actually 10 minutes shorter than The Salute of the Jugger (the original Australian release), and it accomplishes that by playing the credits over the closing scenes and then just cutting off the last 5 minutes. So if you want to actually know how the movie ends, you’ll need to watch the Australian version (i.e. the 100-minute version, not the 90-minute version). Good luck finding it though. - The Birdcage (1996)
Synopsis: In order to please his son’s potential in-laws, a gay nightclub owner and his drag queen partner have to pretend to be straight for one night.
It’s a shame that Val comes off as such an asshole. Part of it might be Futterman’s performance, but there’s also a pretty clear structural issue. The way the whole thing is set up, we only see Val talking to Armand, Albert, and Agador during the whole build-up, which naturally puts him constantly on the offensive. If we could have just gotten one scene with Val and Barbara it could’ve put him in a position to explain how he doesn’t like forcing his family to pretend they’re something they’re not, and we could have a bit more empathy for him.
That being said you can already feel the 2-hour runtime, so I don’t know where they would’ve had room for this.
Setting aside Futterman, and the characteristically problematic Azaria, all the performances are great—Lane could practically carry the movie, Williams is great as always (I’ve seen some criticism of Williams as a dramatic actor and it’s incorrect, just watch that scene at the bus stop, come on), Hackman and Wiest are hilarious together (I’m not sure if I knew Hackman could be this funny?), and Flockhart, while given very little to do, is delightful. - Dual (2022)
Synopsis: A woman has to fight her clone in a duel to the death, but you knew that just from looking at the poster.
At first I was like “Dammit they made her do an American accent again?” but honestly it ends up fitting the style so well I’m not even mad. Very much my taste in comedy—when the lawyer said, “I suggest taking personal combat training lessons from a personal combat trainer,” I swear I could hear Hugh Laurie saying, “A travelling poetry bag, yes, you can get these at most big High Street travelling poetry bag shops.” (Also shout out to Stephen Fry making Laurie corpse twice in one scene.) It’s that dry British humor meets The Lobster‘s affectless delivery meets Black Mirror and I love it, even if it took me a few minutes to catch on just how intentional it was.
After all the laughs the ending’s a bit brutal but it’s not like we weren’t warned. And there’s no twist, because this is a movie that actually respects its audience and knows we’re just as smart as it is, which is really refreshing. - Empathy Inc. (2018)
Synopsis: A man invests in a tech startup using his inlaws’ money and, frankly, gets what he deserves.
That rare and precious thing: solid performances, solid writing, solid directing and cinematography—just an all-around solid film (and on a pretty small budget, too). Admittedly, partly that comes from not pushing its more familiar elements as far as it could have, not taking any big conceptual or narrative swings. But that ending is just that extra special something that puts it over the top.
You might say they played it safe, made smart investments, and it paid off. - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Synopsis: Three men search for a buried treasure while the American Civil War rages around them.
Honestly, I was expecting to be kinda bored, but it’s actually a pretty fun movie, and surprisingly absurd, from the over-the-top opening credits, to the first scene with Eli Wallach jumping through a window holding a leg of meat, to Clint Eastwood being referred to as “Blondie” despite being about as blond as he is good, to them just happening to run into Bill Carson in the desert, to Lee Van Cleef not finding Bill Carson at the Union prison camp so he decides to just become a sergeant and start a little side gig selling stolen goods, to the Union captain who’s so drunk he has to ADR all his lines, to Eastwood being able to perfectly aim a cannon at a moving target multiple times in quick succession, to that final ridiculously long standoff.
Acting-wise, Van Cleef is good but just doesn’t have as much to do, and Eastwood is fine until he starts talking; Wallach is the only one who really understands what movie he’s in, and he absolutely carries the film.
And of course that unmistakable Morricone score—I was whistling that main theme all day after.
My only quibble is that it could probably have been like an hour shorter by just cutting out some extraneous scenes—Van Cleef beating up Carson’s girlfriend doesn’t need to be in there, I think the desert sequence could be cut down a bit…ok maybe that’s it. It’s not a tight movie to be sure, but thinking about it most of the seemingly superfluous bits really do add to the overall effect. It’s that rare 3-hour-long movie that (apparently) justifies its duration, and doesn’t really drag (except, again, in the desert sequence, which I really do feel is needlessly long). - Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
Synopsis: A young assassin finds herself on the run after she kills the wrong guy. Not in the sense she mistook him for someone else, in the sense that he was someone she shouldn’t have killed because of who he was. Specifically, the son of a powerful mobster. I guess I could’ve just said that. Well, live and learn.
Honestly I think it would’ve been better if they’d doubled down on the floppy arms and made that the whole movie, but still, a fun romp.
I don’t tend to seek out action movies, but I think I’m starting to get a taste for them, especially ones like this: efficient worldbuilding that doesn’t bother explaining itself, a simple plot that’s mostly a sturdy frame to hang the action on, and novel fight choreography (again, floppy arms was my favorite part).
Gillan’s performance in the quiet moments is, I think, slightly hampered by the accent, but she absolutely owns the action scenes. No notes for her costars either, from Heady on down to the goon who realizes he’s about to have his face smashed into a milkshake. And of course I love me some Paul Giamatti. Some Pauly G-money. Some rated PG-Amatti. Some Giamatti hotty ok this is starting to get weird isn’t it.
I will say after all that the ending did fall a little flat for me, but if it’s setting up a sequel then I guess that’s fine. - Harmontown (2014)
Synopsis: A documentary following Dan Harmon as he tours the country with his live podcast.
So, I have no way to objectively review this film. I have no way to separate this viewing from all the other times I’ve watched it, or from the podcast that this film got me into which I have likewise listened to multiple times. Or from the fact that having listened to the whole podcast I know who Harmon becomes and am maybe more willing to forgive who he was.
Is it a good movie? It was good enough the first time I watched it to get me to listen to the podcast (admittedly I was already a Community fan, if I’d known about the podcast I probably would’ve been listening to it already), and I think it does generally capture the feeling that I got, and still get, sometimes, from the podcast when it’s at its best. I first listened to it during the worst time of my life up to that point, and whenever I find myself back there I listen to it again. It’s my comfort food, my security blanket, my break-in-case-of-emergency depression extinguisher. And every time I get to the SXSW episode (recorded for the premiere of the documentary), I know it’s time to watch this movie.
I’ll be honest, I kind of hope I never watch it again.
p.s. I think probably the biggest flaw with the documentary is that it barely scratches the surface of how brutal that tour was for Erin McGathy. The movie paints Harmon as her only antagonist, but she was getting shit from the audience and from Jeff Davis that entire time. I think part of why that aspect is left out is because the movie is called Harmontown, it’s going to be focused on the titular Harmon, but I think it’s also very invested in painting the audience in a positive light and doesn’t want to muddy that image. As for Jeff, the movie is weirdly just not interested in him one way or the other (maybe because he deliberately left himself out of it, maybe because he’s kind of an irredeemable asshole). - Home Alone (1990)
Synopsis: A small child causes traumatic injuries to two not particularly violent criminals. And it’s Christmas time but that barely matters.
Everyone was talking about their Christmas movies they watch every year, and I’m not really into Christmas movies so I didn’t have one, then I realized I hadn’t seen Home Alone in a long time, and it’s basically the only Christmas movie I like, so I figured I’d watch that.
Mostly it’s as I remembered. Kevin’s family sucks, I still want to be 8 years old and alone in a giant house filled with booby traps and junk food, and it’s a Christmas movie that’s actually mostly about torturing burglars for no good reason (he could’ve just had the cops come to his house, right?).
The big difference is that in my memory old man Marley turning out to be a good guy was a reveal at the end. Part of this I can chalk up to being a kid and not understanding that he’s never actually suspicious to anyone but the kids (I mean, he salts the whole street every night? He’s a mensch!). But I also apparently completely forgot about the scene in the church. So not only is it not a reveal, it’s not even at the end.
Anyway, fun movie, probably not gonna watch it every year though. But I also realized I’d never seen Home Alone 2 (though I have, weirdly enough, seen Home Alone 3). So I guess it’s a Home Alone double feature.
p.s. I also completely forgot John Candy was in this movie, he’s great.
p.p.s. I did watch Home Alone 2. I did not like it very much. - James Acaster: Repertoire (2018)
Synopsis: James Acaster (aka Pat Springleaf, aka James Acaster) tells jokes about crime, justice, identity, and fruit.
So I’ve now watched this special (these specials?) 4 times, and it still holds up. The intricacy of the callbacks, the specificity of the act-outs (e.g. one that I noticed this time was during the “kitchen mirror” bit, where he leaves the act-out verbally but physically is still in it, so he’s basically breaking the fourth wall of the reality of the act-out but in like a Fleabag way where the separation between the reality and fourth-wall break is ambiguous), the fact that any one of these on its own would be a pretty great special but he went and made 4 of them in a year—which was fueled by a mental breakdown but still! They’re really funny! He also got a book and a podcast out of it, I wish I could have a breakdown that was that productive.
This was, I think, my first time rewatching this since watching Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, and it really brought home just how different these shows are. Not just because Repertoire has so much more theater to it, but also because the emotional access is so different. In my review of John Mulaney’s Baby J (see below) I compared his carefully curated vulnerability in that special to Acaster’s in CLHM99: “Acaster is explaining why he’s able to be as vulnerable as he’s being; Mulaney is telling us he’s not being nearly as vulnerable as we think.” Where those specials speak very plainly about the issues each comic was dealing with (though, again, with explicit boundaries dictating what’s fair game), Repertoire buries everything in artifice, then spends each hour slowly peeling away that artifice to get to the core vulnerability underneath. It’s an inverse thought process—rather than “ok, here’s the thing I went through, how do I write about that,” it’s “here’s what I’m writing about…why am I doing this?” Thus it feels more like an expedition than a tour, a more intimate, visceral experience. Ironically, the artifice of Repertoire as standup show is in some ways less visible because of this perceived intimacy, despite the show being made entirely of artifice (think Bo Burnham’s Inside, which feels less “stand-upy” than his previous specials, but is also, like, a movie). Probably going to have to watch CLHM99 again now to finish this train of thought.
And then there’s the suggestion of non-linearity we get from that ending, which has always intrigued me but I’d never explored until this time through, and it was entirely by accident. Due to some confusion with Netflix’s autoplay I ended up watching 1 then 3 then 2 then 4 (and honestly that might be the best order to rewatch them in—3 is arguably the weakest part so watching it 2nd means you start strong and end strong). I’ve always been curious what it would be like to watch it in a different order, and ultimately I don’t think you can and still get a coherent experience, mainly because the callbacks are written for an audience who has experienced the show in a specific order—So like, in 4 when he says that all lollypop people (crossing guards, for the Americans) have fake names, that’s not a laugh line on its own, like there’s not really a joke there, it’s only funny because we know about the witness protection program. So you could start there and be confused and then get to part 3 and get the joke, but it wouldn’t have the satisfaction of being an intentional reveal, it would just be “Oh, that’s why people laughed there.” So the invitation, at the end of 4, to see these as a loop doesn’t really pay off, because if they were actually a loop you should be able to start the loop at any point and still get a coherent experience.
And I’m not faulting him for it, A) because I may be taking that invitation way too seriously, and B) because non-linearity is really hard to do in a way that’s still satisfying without sacrificing those well-crafted specific moments of tension and release. I mean, I like what ME REX was trying to do with Megabear, but it really only works in the one order; put it on shuffle and there’re too many transitions that don’t work, there’s no arc to it, it just doesn’t flow. Randomness in art is a hard beast to tame, especially for something as craft-heavy as a stand-up special or an indie rock album. But this is also the first time, to my knowledge, that a standup has tried to do something like this, so who knows what could happen if other comics start to iterate on this idea (incidentally, if you like Repertoire, or even if you don’t, you should listen to The Alice Fraser Trilogy wherever you get your podcasts).
Anyway, these are the kinds of thoughts you have when you’re watching something for the 4th time, the first time through I was just like “man that was really funny and sad and it’s cool there’s 4 of them,” which at some level is still how I feel. - John Mulaney: Baby J (2023)
Synopsis: John Mulaney tells jokes about the one thing this special could possibly be about, I mean what, was he just not going to mention it?
I don’t want to say that this is Mulaney’s best special just because it’s about a dramatic personal event in his life—but also that’s kind of what he’s inviting us to do.
I will say that I don’t remember anything from his last special because it had the misfortune of coming out at the beginning of a year that went on to see the release Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette and Cameron Esposito’s Rape Jokes. Those two specials, aside from being exceptionally funny, are also, by the nature of their subject matter, way more impactful than jokes about shopping for rugs or whatever (wait no that’s from his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episode isn’t it, shit what the hell did he talk about in that special?).
Which, again, he knows, right? He’s the kid whose grandparent died, except you can’t laugh at that kid, so he’s the kid who went to rehab—and got divorced, which he mentions once and then never talks about again, because that’s not what he wants the attention for. “Just remember,” he says after the watch story, “that’s one I’m willing to tell you.”
Compare this to James Acaster’s Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, in which he (seemingly) very openly discusses his mental health issues and relationship issues. “Look,” he says, “anything I talk to you about…I’ve dealt with it…. The fact that I’m telling you lets you know it’s fine now. Because, and don’t take this badly, but you are never gonna be the first people I come to.” On the surface, this is pretty much what Mulaney said; Acaster is drawing that same clear boundary around the special: “This is what I’m allowing you to have access to.” But rather than framing it as “the shit I’m not telling you is so much worse,” he frames it as “you’re hearing about this now because I’m better.” Acaster is explaining why he’s able to be as vulnerable as he’s being; Mulaney is telling us he’s not being nearly as vulnerable as we think.
I’m not saying one is necessarily funnier or more virtuous than the other. I know a special’s funny when it makes me laugh out loud even when I’m watching by myself, and Baby J had me chortling pretty much the whole way through. It’s a funny special, and Mulaney’s absolutely still got it. But part of what “it” is is a very carefully crafted persona that’s more interested in showing how well decorated the outside of the house is than it is in showing you the inside. I’m not sure whether he really wants that to change, but I’d be really curious to see what he’d come up with if it did. - The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)
Synopsis: A dysfunctional family ends up having to stop a robot apocalypse.
Way more visually wild than I was expecting, and generally solid fun (aside from a few lazy jokes and my own personal problems with some of the themes). And some great song choices for the soundtrack. - The Nice Guys (2016)
Synopsis: A washed up P.I. and a washed up…guy who beats people up for money team up to find a missing girl.
Given that I’m predisposed to disliking both Crowe and Gosling (they know what they did), I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed both their performances. And I mean everyone was great, from Angourie Rice to Daisy Tahan to Margaret Qualley to (of course) Keith “Keith David” David to Jack Kilmer to his buddy whose name is Buddy (Garrett Carpenter).
Is this Shane Black’s Snatched (relative to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang being his Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)? Maybe, that’s just a thought that occured to me and I haven’t actually seen Lock, Stock so who knows. But yeah, there are certainly some similarities to Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Both have a Coenesque approach to plotting and violence—though that’s a simplification, the way Black shoots violence is very different from the Coens, and his plots have a more focused POV than theirs.
Was there a point to this?
Anyway, very fun movie, very sad that everyone died, the bad guys got away with it (but, we knew that already), and Healy started drinking again (though it is funny that the movie is just taking “at least you started drinking again” at face value). Would be interested in a sequel, though that seems unlikely at this point, especially since Rice is trapped in the Marvel machine now.
Also, I really wanted March to fall at least one more time in that last sequence, I mean I guess they rule-of-threes’d it but it felt like it needed one more.
Also also, March’s line about “we’re all gonna be driving electric cars” honestly felt cheap and I think this movie’s better than that. Not cheap as in cheap shot, cheap as in the winkiness of it was just…unnecessary. - Night of the Coconut (2022)
Synopsis: Other Chloe and Matt have to work together to take down Other Patrick and Charl, and if none of that means anything to you then maybe skip this one. Or go watch a year’s worth of Patrick Willems videos, your choice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re very good (and he’s actually the reason I watched The Nice Guys). But that’s like, I don’t know, 12+ hours? That’s a big ask. But…what if I told you that you could actually catch up in just under 2 hours? That’s a pretty good deal, right? Well, here’s a video that’s just the important plot from the season leading up to the movie. There’s a little context missing, but it’ll get you caught up.
It did everything it needed to do: it answered all the questions raised by the season, it had a bunch of YouTube cameos, it was really fun, and it was only 90 minutes.
Cinema!
(For real, this is better than at least half the MCU movies I’ve seen, and I haven’t even seen most of the worst ones)
p.s. This has nothing to do with the movie, but I’m pretty proud of the fact that I heard the opening song, which I’d never heard before, and was like, “This was written by Jim Steinman,” and it was indeed written by Jim Steinman. - PlayTime (1967)
Synopsis: An old man and a group of American tourists wander around a modern French city. Hijinks ensue.
In his memoir Born Standing Up, Steve Martin talks about how instead of delivering a punchline that would tell the audience when to laugh, he would just keep building the tension until the audience would find their own place to laugh.
PlayTime feels like it’s operating on a similar principle: the pacing and presentation of the gags is such that none of them feel like a punchline, they just happen until the sheer density of them is almost overwhelming. I chuckled a bit throughout, but I don’t remember really laughing hard until the broken glass door, which is ~1.5 hours in. And it is a funny bit (especially as it develops) but I don’t think it would have hit as hard if it were in the first 30 minutes instead of the last 30 minutes. That’s how long it took for the absurdity of this world to really soak in, for all the tension to build up until it finally spilled over in that gloriously calamitous night club opening. It’s a slow build, but it’s so worth it.
And then on top of it being a comedy there’s a subtle darkness, what with the identical towering skyscrapers, the identical glass-walled apartments (once again reminding me of Zamyatin) in which everyone watches boxing for some reason, the nightmarish complexity of the intercom and the A/C unit, the iconic buildings that we only see in reflections, the flashing brand names everywhere, the American tourist wanting so much to get the perfect picture of the flower seller that she actively disrupts the flower seller’s business, the travel posters with those same identical towering skyscrapers, the roundabout that seems to have developed its own ecosystem—there’s a satirical edge here, is the point, a deep-seated suspicion of modernity and the ways it prevents human connection, a melancholy that’s briefly forgotten in that bacchanalian night but sinks back in when the sun rises. And comedy and melancholy are my favorite combination.
p.s. It is a little frustrating that there is actual dialogue but the movie has almost no interest in the audience actually hearing the dialogue (and then obviously on top of that I don’t speak French). Yet I don’t think it would feel right to watch it with subtitles.
p.p.s. Also, I was trying to find out why so many of the actors have this as their only credit, and I found an enlightening article from a writer who went to interview Tati on set and ended up working on the movie (and, briefly, in it). I’d recommend watching the movie first, lest some of the magic be dispelled too soon. - Sleuth (1972)
Synopsis: A young man, the son of an Italian immigrant, visits the estate of a wealthy English novelist to discuss their mutual interest in the novelist’s wife.
[Major spoilers ahead, this is the kind of movie that’s best viewed knowing as little about it as possible. Just take my word for it that it’s very good. It’s Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, what more could you want?]
Man, it feels like very few movies these days are this confident. The premise, the pacing, the twists, the ending—all of it crafted by people who clearly know what they want the movie to be, none of it pandering or hacky. And those great performances.
Looking at other reviews it seems the main complaints are that it’s too stagey (i.e. too much like the play it’s based on) and the Inspector Doppler twist is too gimmicky. I disagree with both these points.
Firstly, I happen to like stagey movies, because I don’t get to see plays very often, and I think it’s an appropriate style when you want to emphasise the performances, particularly with a small cast, as it has a more intimate, grounded feel.
Secondly, I like the trick with the credits. If the whole effect of the movie was relying on you falling for it then I’d agree it’s gimmicky, especially since did anyone really fall for it? Like, Michael Caine is very recognizable as Doppler—although, side note, my roommate didn’t recognize him and actually thought they’d switched out “Cawthorne” for Caine to do the reveal, which is kind of sad because that’s the worst version of this movie, it’s so much truer to what the movie’s trying to do that they try to get away with it honestly and not with editing or camera tricks or effects.
Also there’s an argument to be made that it’s Olivier’s performance that really gives the game away during the Doppler sequence. Ideally the audience should think it possible that Wyke did actually murder Milo, but Olivier is too convincing as a man being framed for murder. But that’s hardly Olivier’s fault, because the problem is Wyke is (probably) a relatively good mystery writer, and (definitely) not a very good actor. If he actually committed the murder, he’d be better at covering up the evidence, but worse at acting confused when that evidence was discovered. The issue isn’t so much that Olivier’s performance as a man being framed for murder is too convincing, it’s that Wyke’s performance wouldn’t be. Basically what I’m saying is we and Olivier both understand the character too well for the trick to work. But it’s at least an interesting problem.
Anyway, the point being, to those familiar with his work Caine is not that hard to spot underneath the ever-so-slightly cartoonish makeup (and even easier to spot under the ever-so-slightly cartoonish West Country accent—his cadence is actually the biggest giveaway), not to mention I’d already seen the movie, and yet I still enjoyed it. So I don’t think it’s fair to say the twist is gimmicky—while ideally you’d be surprised by it, it serves the story even if you know it’s coming.
The final twists I think work great regardless—once you’ve established that you can’t trust either character, any twist can work, and we know Milo is a better actor than Wyke so even if he’s not convincing when he first says he’s committed a murder we can’t be sure that that’s not just him trying to lure Wyke into a false sense of security. It does seem somewhat outside his character to just murder a woman, but then again, he did think he was dead for a bit, and that’s probably going to change someone, I would think.
And then that ending. Such a 70’s ending: our hero dies laughing and our villain slowly goes insane. Love it.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing how the 2007 Kenneth Branagh remake completely fails to capture the magic of the original. Knowing how these things go, I’m sure it will be unsatisfied with merely presenting the same story for a new audience but will have to include some new additional twist to catch everyone who already knows the story, which twist will be, probably, shit, and ruin the whole thing. But still, Caine taking on Olivier’s role should be fun, and Jude Law’s usually good, I guess.
God that movie’s gonna suck isn’t it. [NB: Yes, it did.] - Visioneers (2008)
Synopsis: George Washington Winsterhammerman needs to figure out how to be happy, or else he might explode.
At base the story is at least 100 years old, but it’s the specificities of the world, the characters, the visual style, and the performances that make the movie compelling. Also, “Shells weren’t in the book!” is going to live in my head forever.
I do find myself wondering if we need to unpack the tendency for these stories to feature a straight white male protagonist. I mean, it makes sense that if your protagonist starts out as a dutiful cog in the machine, they’re probably fairly normative—and maybe that’s saying something important about the vulnerability of normative people to manipulation by the ruling class, but I don’t know that that’s what these stories are usually getting across so much as the potential for “noble heroism” (the heroism of just, like, listening to a pretty woman when she tells you things are fucked up).
It just seems like we might find more interesting things to do with this plot structure if we make some more significant changes beyond just whether the oppressive power structure is the state or a corporation (or I guess, in this case, both?). What if the protagonist is a woman and/or a person of color and/or gay and/or trans (and it matters)? What if the love interest isn’t a revolutionary and our protag gets radicalized some other way? What if there’s no love interest at all? What if we decrease the scale? What if we increase the scale? Just feels like we’re kind of stuck in a rut here. With the story I mean. Not, you know, society. Certainly not that. - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Synopsis: Miles finds out there are even more Spider-Persons, and also he might be in trouble with them.
Narratively, there are some significant structural issues, most apparent in the ending—the tension of Gwen’s arc gets resolved right at the end, but they’d already resolved the tension of Miles’s arc, so he’s started into his next arc when suddenly the credits roll, making the whole thing disjointed and jarring. It’s like when you think there’s another stair and there isn’t, so you try to rest your weight on air and slam down on the landing.
On every other level, this is an amazing work of art. The acting’s great, the soundtrack’s great, and visually it’s just untouchable. Every frame is (pretty much) literally a painting, and to do that with this level of consistency across this many different styles at this scale is mindblowing.
And the incredible artists who made it deserve better working conditions and better compensation.
p.s. I swear to god they better not make this part of the MCU. I’m just going to ignore that scene, especially since it added nothing to the story and wasn’t even funny and was just there to pander.
p.s.s. The Marvel’s Spider-Man product placement was also stupid. Like, if he’d been playing Spider-Man 2 or something I guess that would’ve been fine, but he’s playing a game in which Miles Morales IS A CHARACTER. Even with this movie’s incredibly generous premise that still seems like a stretch.
p.s.s.s. Surely “superhero has to fix problem that superhero caused” is starting to get a little tired, right? Ditto it’s oft-co-morbidity “superhero tries to help but makes things worse” (especially with Spider-Man). I just—at some point you really have to question why it’s good to have heroes if the problems the heroes are solving only exist because of the heroes. Like, are they heroes, or just conflict-generating plot devices?
p.s.s.s.s. I just noticed that I did the p.s.’s wrong but I guess I’m going with it.
p.s.s.s.s.s. I was initially pretty lukewarm about Hobie because it felt like he was too much of a caricature, but then I watched this excellent analysis by the YouTuber schnee and now I’m sold on Hobie is Good, Actually. - This Place Rules (2022)
Synopsis: Andrew Callaghan, alleged rapist, interviews people during the 2020 U.S. Presidential race between Donald Trump, alleged rapist, and Joe Biden, alleged rapist.
So I had no idea who Callaghan was but someone had mentioned this and it sounded interesting so I watched it. This is what I wrote at the time:
“That the film’s message or argument is unclear is actually maybe what makes it work. Rather than getting bogged down in pontifications and armchair analysis, Callaghan mostly just presents incredibly compelling footage of real people during a volatile time. It does occasionally approach the cliff of Daily Show fieldpiece-style mockery, but never quite falls over—Callaghan is just fundamentally interested in people, and happy to let them speak for themselves. This also means that the most uncomfortable moments, such as watching a child spout Q-Anon talking points, aren’t cut with jokes.”
That was on January 5th. Less than a week later multiple women came out accusing him of sexual harassment, and later two women accused him of rape. I haven’t looked into the earlier allegations, but these last two are, in my view and in the view of the journalists who reported them, credible.
The ethics here are, at least for me, complicated. I do think art can be separated from the artist. I also think that’s a decision that everyone gets to make for themselves and I would never try to argue that someone has to do that, with any art or any artist. Whatever the line is for you, I respect that. For me, having already watched and enjoyed the movie, it feels disingenuous to act like I didn’t, and I don’t see how pretending shitty people never make good art is helpful.
But it would also feel weird to keep the movie on the list and not mention these allegations, especially given how recent they are, and that I specifically cited my perception of Callaghan as an empathetic person as something I liked about the movie. So, that’s where I’ve landed. Maybe this will never come up again. Probably it will. I can’t guarantee I’m always going to handle it in this exact way, but this feels like the right way to handle this instance, in this moment.
Honorable Mentions
- Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie (1980)
- Fletch (1985)
- Fletch Lives (1989)
- Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
Certain of Eventual Failure 