#121in2021

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Dear Evan Hansen

You may have seen some ~online discourse~ about the film Dear Evan Hansen, an adaptation of the 2016 Broadway musical, and you might have wondered what all the hubbub is about. I mean, it’s a feel good story about a senior in high school, Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), who has some pretty severe anxiety and depression. While trying to fulfill an assignment from his therapist to write a letter to himself, his letter gets picked up by another student, Connor (Colton Ryan) - and later that day, Connor kills himself. Connor’s grieving parents and sister Zoe (Amy Adams, Danny Pino, and Kaitlyn Dever) are desperate to learn more from the boy they think was Connor’s best friend - after all, Connor’s suicide note was a letter addressed to “Dear Evan Hansen.” And, as you can imagine, Evan tells them about the unfortunate mistake and sits with them in their grief as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives. 

Just kidding! He lies to them, repeatedly, elaborately, expansively for months, constructing an entire false friendship with Connor that never happened, and ingratiating himself into the wealthy nuclear family he never had, in large part because he wants to get into Zoe’s pants! THIS IS THE PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY. Oh, and it’s a musical so there is a lot of singing and crying and singing WHILE crying and sometimes crying and not singing at all. But the #inspiration, you guys. 

Things I liked:

Pretty much everything but the story and Ben Platt’s performance. The supporting cast is stacked, and all of them do a great job at elevating material scraped directly out of a diaper worn by someone who just chewed their way through a copy of the DSM-5. 

A couple of the songs are damn catchy - “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” are standouts for a reason - and here’s the thing, Platt sings them well. But as you’ll discover, there’s a lot more to a movie musical than just singing your part. 

Stephen Chbosky, the man behind every deep thought I and a lot of people in my generation had in 2006 after he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is a pretty good director. I particularly enjoyed the fanvid-type cuts in “Waving Through a Window” in conjunction with the lyrics, and his use of interstitial shots to flashbacks (and sometimes flashforwards!) is a neat little bit of shorthand that I thought was used sparingly enough to be effective. 

Amy Fucking Adams. She’s holding on so hard, so desperately to the idea of who her son could have been, rather than the reality of who he was, and she is full of such deep pain that is masked by an almost endless supply of patience with Evan and relentless positivity. All this made me want was Enchanted 2 even worse than I already did. 

Super into everything Zoe wears - the costuming department did a great job, and now all I want to do is live in mom jeans and baggy sweaters.

Did I Cry? I teared up a couple of times because I’m not a completely heartless bastard and when Amy Adams offered Evan Connor’s college money, my heart broke for the lie Evan had thrust upon her, and Julianne Moore’s song got me good, because she’s just a single mom to Evan who is doing her goddamn best. 

Things I hated more than the time I dropped a frozen gallon container of fruit cocktail on my pinkie toe in my parents’ garage and it turned black and I thought it was gonna fall off:

Ben Platt is 28 years old. He originated the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway, so in many respects it makes sense that he plays the role in the movie, except for the one kinda sorta important thing where he looks like a wizened old crone standing amongst a sea of children doing his best twitching, cringing Hunchback of Notre Dame impression. If you want someone to convincingly play 20 years their junior, hire Paul Rudd. Otherwise, please don’t ask me to believe that this supposed 18-year-old has crow’s feet. 

And that twitching nervous energy is a huge part of the black hole at the center of this film - he’s playing to the cheap seats and walking through the halls of his high school like a wet chihuahua. It’s an excruciating acting choice to watch - he doesn’t just have anxiety, he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown seemingly every second of every day. Like honestly, where is only-mentioned-never-seen Dr. Sherman, because this young man’s meds are NOT WORKING DR. SHERMAN. 

There’s such a lack of self-awareness on behalf of the writing, directing, and performance by Platt. There’s one song, “Sincerely, Me,” that offers the only glimpse of commentary about what Evan is doing, by pointing out the malicious ridiculousness of him writing a series of fake emails as proof of his and Connor’s friendship. 

Also what high schoolers email this much?? I know this was written in probably 2014 or so, but has a bitch never heard of a text? Even a DM? This whole plot is constructed around the premise that high schoolers are just constantly, constantly emailing each other. 

Everything - and I mean EV-ER-Y-THING - about Evan’s relationship with Zoe is so creepy and disturbing that with a soundtrack change, this could easily be a horror movie. He attempts to get her to like him by describing to her all the things her brother noticed about her - oh wait, I’m sorry, all the things HE noticed about her while he was skulking in the shadows following her around for years, watching every move she made, and it ends with him singing repeatedly “I LOVE YOU” because following a girl around and never having a conversation with her or knowing her at all is love, right? This was clearly written by the same people who chose “Every Breath You Take” as their wedding song because Sting is hot and they never actually listened to the damn words. 

And it gets about 10 billion times worse when Zoe goes to Evan’s house alone, takes him up to his room, and sings “I don’t need reasons to want you” and that was the moment I was that person I hate in a movie theater and I pulled out my phone to Google who wrote the music and lyrics to the musical (we were in the back row of the theater no one was behind me THIS WAS AN OUTRAGE EMERGENCY) and of motherfucking course it was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 2 men who heard about meeting an actual human woman from a friend one time but otherwise are unfamiliar with the concept. 

Lastly, enormous serial killer vibes from Evan sending unlabeled flash drives anonymously through the mail with no note in an attempt to right his wrongs. That’s not catharsis, that’s how the next installment in the Saw franchise starts, with Evan in a Billy the clown doll mask showing up on the screen and asking if you want to play a fucking game. 

Also, I know it’s not possible for the narrative to justify this in a way that could be satisfying based on Evan’s actions, but what is with this thing where single working-class mom Julianne Moore is turning down rich people’s money for Evan to go to college? Like, obviously we can’t have that happen in the movie but in real life, fuck your pride! Take those rich people’s money!

I also know how movies work but nothing annoys me more than a giant group of high schoolers all getting beeps and boops to indicate text notifications all at the same time because I don’t know a single person under the age of 55 who keeps their ringer on. That shit is on vibrate AT MOST, and I feel like that’s a millennial thing. 

The emotional climax of the film is obviously Evan’s WAY TOO LATE confession, but the idea that it’s prompted by Connor’s family suddenly getting a lot of internet hate is, frankly, laughable. If Sandy Hook taught me one thing, it is that no tragedy is immune from trolls who live only to cause other people devastating emotional pain on the internet. That shit starts day 1. Apparently no one involved in this production has ever been on Twitter?

Also it feels like there should have been a dog somewhere in this movie and there was no dog, so points off for that too. 

Perhaps Dear Evan Hansen isn’t nearly as deep as it aspires to be. Perhaps it’s a morality play, a simplistic message of “Don’t lie, kids, lying is bad!” Major studio movies wrap themselves up with a nice bow at the end so everyone can feel good about themselves and leave with a happy ending, but the moronic cruelty on display here makes that feat feel impossible. We’re left with Evan in an orchard, reading Connor’s favorite books and staring into the big blue sky with all the self-actualization he’s earned now as a lil treat. And if Evan Hansen looked like an actual 18-year-old, it would be a lot easier to extend more empathy to him and his not-fully-developed prefrontal cortex, but it’s a little harder with this fully-grown, weathered man who was old enough to remember seeing Liar Liar in theaters. 

Dear Evan Hansen, 

Get some actual help and a haircut and maybe you can grow up enough to have an actual healthy interaction with any other living person, ever.

Sincerely, 

Me

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Eternals

It feels like it’s been an eternity (lol) since the first announcement of Eternals over 2 years ago. My main source of excitement was always going to be Kumail Nanjiani as a superhero, followed closely by Brian Tyree Henry (is he my favorite working actor right now? I think he might be). Other than a stacked cast, I had no idea what Eternals was, and I kind of still don’t.

Pros:

Gorgeous visual effects and design. I love the gold ink style of the Eternals and the iridescent, shifting paper strip muscles of the Deviants.This visual world feels distinctive and unique within the MCU, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by much else besides Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok.

I also am so happy that the fights between our protagonists and antagonists aren’t the usual Marvel fare - twinsies but one is evil OR swarm of mindless alien/supernatural/robot hordes that all look the exact same. This is a refreshing change of pace, wherein each fight is visually distinctive and interesting and I can actually keep track of who is fighting whom. Novel!

This is the most philosophically interesting entry in the MCU by far. Are the Eternals good guys? Bad guys? Apex predators? I’m not sure! That’s pretty interesting for a billion dollar tentpole movie!

Solid performances all around, and each character gets room to have an arc or at least an interesting interpersonal dynamic or two. However, there are 10 Eternals to develop and get us invested in, and that’s a tall order, even for the movie’s bloated 2 hr 36 min runtime.

Vistas. Chloe Zhao knows how to shoot a fucking vista. Vistas are the star of the show here. 

There is a Very Good Dog who appears briefly and is unharmed!

Features maybe my favorite exit out of any conflict in the MCU, which essentially amounts to “I’m just gonna fuck off into the sun forever.”

Two very big deal end credits scenes that I promptly had to Google to decipher the meaning of, because if you’re not Googling at the end of the movie, do you even have a franchise, bro? Related note - there are two new characters that show up and both are played by famous people. I *freaked out* about one of them, and it definitely was not the one played by an international pop superstar. 

Cons:

There’s a weird, very tame sex scene on a beach - why? Who wanted this? 

I hated the ending which wasn’t an ending, but rather a cliffhanger. 

It’s just trying to do A Lot, to middling results. I was interested the whole time, but I just can’t imagine ever putting this movie on voluntarily on a Saturday afternoon for a rewatch or catching it on TV and keeping it on in the background while I make scones (in my fantasies, I’m a together adult-type person who makes scones on the weekends). This is Thor: The Dark World territory in that I will watch it as part of a marathon but will likely only within that very specific context.

Watch it, and watch it in theaters because I think the grand scope of Chloe Zhao’s direction will be best felt on the largest screen possible, but temper expectations. I’m still thinking about this movie days later, so if anything, it’s maybe the most interesting in the MCU - take that how you will.

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi has a lot of heavy lifting to do - not only is it the first MCU film to center around an Asian-American superhero (Simu Liu in the titular role), but also the first new face and origin story in the Marvel universe post-Endgame. This is a whole new world and therefore should feel big, exciting, and different from everything that came before, right? Well...

Marvel’s biggest strength is its biggest weakness here - the interconnectedness of all the movies (and their reliance on stories that are all variations of the hero myth) mean we retread a lot of the same territory over and over again. It’s a reliable dopamine hit, and I’m not immune to it - I think most of the average moviegoing public gets that same dopamine hit, and that’s why these movies basically print money. However, Shang-Chi is at its best when it’s not trying to be like anything else in the MCU.

Things I loved:

The fight scenes, particularly the first three big set pieces - outside Ta Lo, on the bus, and on the scaffolding of the building. The choreography is inventive, exciting, and really showcases what makes Shaun aka Shang-Chi a dynamic and interesting character - he’s lightning fast, balletic, and hardwired to protect and defend rather than attack. I also appreciated the lack of quippiness during the fights - it actually made the stakes feel higher to not have people exchanging jokes all the time!

Simu Liu is a strong lead, and I liked watching him - he and Awkwafina have good chemistry, and physically, he’s an absolute dynamo, moving through every fight scene with incredible power and grace. As a solo act, he’s good, but I’m hoping that when he’s interacting with the rest of the Avengers that could be elevated to great.

[Mild spoiler alert!!!] No forced romantic subplot made me the happiest camper. Shaun and Katy (Awkwafina) have excellent bro vibes and I was so happy, even with the inclusion of a sassy grandmother’s “When are you going to marry her?” line, that they remained platonic bros at the end of the film. 

Speaking of, Awkwafina is playing the same kind of character she plays in everything (except the FANTASTIC film The Farewell, which if you haven’t seen you should go out and watch right now), but she also gets to have an actual character arc! Plus, this movie passes the Bechdel test AND the Mako Mori test, and you know that’s that good shit.

I would die for Morris, the Very Good Fuzzy Boy from Ta Lo, and it’s important that you know that no harm comes to Morris throughout the course of the film.

The production design of all the different worlds we visit - Ta Lo, Xialing’s (Meng’er Zhang) graffiti’d underground club, Xu Wenwu’s (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung) compound - they couldn’t be more dissimilar, and each has its own fully-realized aesthetic and fantastic set and character design. The creatures in Ta Lo in particular are GORGEOUS, and I *think* all of them come directly from actual Chinese mythology, like the nine-tailed foxes. 

The few familiar faces that we do see from the MCU were particular highlights for me, but I know some people’s mileage may vary there.

Michelle Yeoh. Enough said. 

Things I wish were different:

The script is a little generic, in large part because Shaun doesn’t have the mile-a-minute quips of Spider-Man or an ensemble of different personalities to play off of, like the Guardians of the Galaxy. As a result, the story and dialogue are not really where the movie shines the brightest.

My biggest beef with the movie is that the primary conflict just...didn’t really wow me. I am so here for big daddy drama, and once we got to the climax of the film, I found myself a bit...checked out? I wanted to care so much more than I did, and I think the wishy-washy way the film treats Xu Wenwu is a big part of what didn’t hit for me. I always want more nuance in these types of movies, and I think there’s room for an antagonist that contains multitudes (the few MCU antagonists that do this well are based in the same kind of family drama Shang-Chi is grappling with, namely Loki and Killmonger), but this one just didn’t hit me the way I wanted him to. Leung’s performance is OUTSTANDING, but again, I think the issue is with the script and the story here.

Striking visuals, but that final fight with the big third-act bad was another thing that felt super generic with stakes I just couldn’t find myself caring about. Really the last 30 minutes of the film were only ok for me (as is often the case with MCU final acts). 

Everyone’s going to compare this story to Black Panther, which feels reductive and an eensy bit racist, but the comparison is an easy one to make - a son grappling with his father’s legacy, the primary conflict being amongst the family, and a glimpse of a magical civilization that is inaccessible to outsiders, not to mention the groundbreaking nature of the identity of the primary hero. I know there are a bunch of cultural touchpoints in Shang-Chi that will feel personal and revelatory to Chinese and Chinese-American viewers, and I can’t wait to read more about the depth and care that was put into this movie to make it resonate with that demographic deeply. As an entry in the MCU, this is solidly upper middle of the ranks for me, and what I’m most looking forward to is how these characters and this mythology gets folded into the mix with the rest of the Avengers. Don’t forget to stay for the TWO post credit scenes and come back here and tell me how you feel about that last one, as I’m still conflicted. 

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Shiva Baby

Have you ever seen an indie comedy filmed like a horror movie? Do yourself a favor and watch Shiva Baby, and you will. I’ve been looking forward to this movie since the trailer first came out after Sundance, and luckily Wes requested that I review it. I had to wait a bit until it came to a streaming service I already had, but luckily this gem is now on HBO Max. At a brisk 77 minutes, this is everything Wife and I can agree on for a movie - it’s under 90 minutes for her, it’s a requested review for me, and it’s a smart indie bisexual comedy darling for us both. The story is a simple one on the surface - Danielle (Rachel Sennott) is graduating college, looking for what to do with her life, and letting her parents (Fred Melamed and Polly Draper) pay for everything while she figures it out. Well, they pay for almost everything...some bills are being footed by her sugar daddy, Max (Danny Deferrari). Everything in Danielle’s life is sucky but manageable until she shows up with her parents at a shiva for a family friend and runs into her ex-girlfriend Maya (Molly Gordon)...and then Max shows up too. With his wife (Dianna Agron). And new baby. That Danielle didn’t even know existed. 

Some thoughts:

Polly Draper as Danielle’s mom is incredible. Of course there’s all the Jewish mother stereotypes in the mix here, but Draper imbues the role with so much depth, it’s clear that all of her concern and nagging and fussing and networking on Danielle’s behalf is because of the tremendous amount of love she carries in her heart for her daughter. 

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been watching Broad City a lot recently, but this whole shiva scenario, and every flavor of family member or friend we meet, feels spot on. 

Love the claustrophobic tight framing on Danielle’s face as we do the first walkthrough of this house. Emma Seligman adapted this from her short film of the same name (also starring Rachel Sennott) and it’s clear she has thought long and carefully about how to build the tension at every turn. There are people pressing against Danielle with every step she takes as she’s making her way through these crowded rooms with trays of food, and it all highlights the anxiety and stress of this day more and more with each passing moment.  

The level of anxiety is so high, the film is practically a farce with us knowing things other characters don’t, mistaken identities, miscommunications. There are moments that are almost “Scott’s Tots” level of uncomfortable to watch as we await the inevitable train wreck. This feels like the tension of the first scene of Inglorious Basterds drawn out into nearly 80 minutes. Every move Danielle makes feels like it could be her undoing at any moment. 

The film only works because Sennott is perfect as Danielle - she’s spiky, she’s sullen, she’s terrified, she’s desperate, and she’s trying to keep it all together and get through this terrible day as more and more obstacles arise in her way.

One thing that adds to the horror movie vibes is the great score, with the sparse strings and the minor chords, plus the shrieking of the baby in the background. It’s like if you were watching an X-Files episode at an Olive Garden and next to you was a 9-month-old having the most public breakdown of its life. That’s a fucking mood.

I also loved the script - it’s relentless, nearly every second filled with dialogue. When there are finally moments of silence and respite from the chaos, they’re so much more potent and significant. And the jokes are so, so dark and razor sharp, but the comedy is all perfectly executed. It’s a strong effort from a first time writer-director, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing more from Seligman in the future. 

Dianna Agron is also shockingly good in this. People really thrive once they escape the hellscape of Glee, I guess.

Don’t love Maya’s slut-shaming but I do love the chemistry between Maya and Danielle and you know I love rooting for fucked-up queer ladies. 

Did I Cry? No, but there were moments I had to look away just due to the unbearable cringe. 

If you love the British Office or Veep or you generally like your comedy to be as black as your soul, this is 100% the movie for you. It’s smart, funny, tense, and features excellent performances. I think it will easily end up in my top 10 for the year and has fueled a wicked bagel craving ever since I watched it.

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Old (2021)

Oh you guys. You guyyyyyys. Buckle the fuck up, I am so pumped to tell you about this absolutely GONZO mummified deuce of a movie. Spoilers will be had in this one, because you need to know everything. 

Old is the latest from M. Night Shyamalan and like....I think we all know M. Night’s track record. For every Sixth Sense, we also get a Happening or a Village. In some ways, he’s the most exciting director working today because every new film is a 50/50 coin toss, and mama loves living on the edge. The gist of this latest roll of the dice is that a group of different families who have all come to stay at a remote luxury beach resort get invited to go to a secluded private beach for the day, and after they arrive they discover they can’t leave. That’s not great, but the bigger problem is that they seem to be aging rapidly - like 2 years older every hour or so. That’s a solid “how are we gonna get outta this one” bottle episode premise, and in the hands of a better writer, it could be a fun sci-fi romp. M. is NOT that writer. 

Some thoughts:

I should have known it would all go wrong from the terrible foreshadowing starting at the very beginning scene. The mom of our main family, Prisca (Vicky Krieps) says “You have such a beautiful voice, I can’t wait to hear it when you’re older.” The dad, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) says, “Don’t rush this moment, enjoy the present while you can.” BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS WON’T BE ABLE TO LATER, DO YOU GET IT? dO yOU GEt iT? Wife leaned over and said “look at all the ferns - the oldest plants!” That last one was probably her projecting, but the point stands: there is nothing subtle about Old. 

There’s a lot of just like, shouting out loud the things that are currently happening onscreen. “She’s having a seizure!” “People who go back the way we came black out!” “The rust has entered your bloodstream; it acts like poison!” That’s how you tell stories, right? Just having characters point out events that are occurring right in front of their stupid fucking faces with no other commentary or reflection? 

An additional element that feels woefully ignorant at best and malicious at worst is the inclusion of a black male character (Aaron Pierre) who 1) is a rapper 2) is named Mid-Sized Sedan [I’ll give you a moment to deal with that detail emotionally] 3) says the single line of dialogue “Damn.” at least 4 times and 4) suffers the bloodiest, most violent onscreen death at the hands of a racist white man who is revealed to have paranoid schizophrenia. There are other gruesome deaths onscreen, to be sure, but the worst are body horror nightmares that could never occur in the real world - a woman whose bones are breaking and setting in the wrong position nearly instantaneously until she resembles a horrifying spider creature, and the aforementioned rust-in-the-bloodstream trick that leads to a Jeff-Goldblum-in-The Fly-bubbling-skin infection kinda deal. But Mid-Sized Sedan just gets stabbed in the chest repeatedly, brutally, a bunch of times by a white guy who pleads fear for his life even though MSS posed no danger to him, and it all happens onscreen when so many other characters are offered the mercy of offscreen deaths. I’m not sure if M. is trying to throw some real-world horror in and he’s just shit at it, or if it really didn’t occur to him how malicious this inclusion feels in a fantasy narrative, and I don’t really care. If you have a black character in your story and they die, you better think really long and hard about how it happens and what it means and it’s clear no one did that here.

Nothing to do with the film itself, but it did tickle me that someone brought a tiny infant to my pretty packed screening. The baby was very chill, thank goodness, and as far as I know did not age up to a kindergartner during the course of the film.

There is a Very Good Dog, a Yorkie, present for the first part of the film, but unfortunately the dog dies. It occurs offscreen, and given the premise of what’s going on on this beach, it’s not a shock when it happens BUT STILL. 

The old age makeup, at least on Prisca is pretty great. Good job makeup department!

At one point, Guy gets attacked by another beachgoer, and his eyesight is failing so he has a hard time fighting back. But you are surrounded by sand, my dude, and you can still see blurry shapes. You’re not gonna throw some sand in the eyes until you’ve been stabbed like 10 times? Not gonna try to push him down, or sweep the fucking leg, or do anything but just keep raising your arms and getting stabbed while yelling “I’ll protect you!” I’ve seen stale tuna sandwiches with better defense mechanisms than you. 

Like most fantastical premises, there are only a certain number of ways this narrative can end that really make any sense. It reminds me quite a bit of 2019’s Brightburn which was like “what if Superman but evil?” Either everyone is gonna die, or someone is going to improbably survive and you better have a real neat explanation for how that’s possible. Oh M. Night, when will you realize that your explanations are never as clever as you think they are? There’s no “twist” here really, simply a reveal, and it’s the equivalent of eating one of those sugar-free, gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free snack cakes I broke down and ate out of desperation when I was on Weight Watchers. That shit is “food” in the same way that the climax is a “logical explanation for all this.” Big Pharma is luring sick people to the resort through targeted ads, then arranging these excursions to the wacky time beach in order to test how medicine they secretly slipped into the guests’ drinks works over decades of life. These sneaky medical breakthroughs are saving hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, we’re told, and the scientists offer a moment of silence for each fallen group of unwitting human lab rats after they inevitably die. Because if there’s one thing the world needs right now, it’s more distrust of pharmaceutical companies and the ethics of modern science! I can’t think of one possible reason we’d want to portray molecular biologists, immunologists, and virologists in a positive light right now, can you? When will those assholes get off their high horses and stop being universally trusted and beloved by everyone, am I right?? 

My saddest takeaway, tbh, is that this is a stacked international cast, with at least half the roles going to POC - this is the future liberals want, etc etc - and the result is THIS.

Did I Cry? Of course not.

Not all is terrible! It’s a beautiful movie to look at, because M. Night’s direction is never the problem, but combined with the script, the acting, and the absurd narrative leaps needed to make this story make even a little bit of sense, the whole thing turns into a mess. Unfortunately, getting Old with M. Night is less “leisurely retirement at a plush resort in Florida” and more “rancid can of Ensure and a poop-choked pair of Depends.”

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Face/Off

OK, so this might be cheating a tiny bit because technically I have seen this movie many times and no one EXPLICITLY requested it. But Wife believed that, and I quote, “the people would really want to hear” my thoughts about this one. So here we are, watching John Woo’s masterpiece, Face/Off for the first time in probably 10 years or so, and man oh man is there a lot that I forgot about this movie. For the uninitiated, this is the classic tale of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swapping faces - it’s kind of like The Parent Trap if one of the Lindsay Lohan twins was a professional...bad person? (It’s unclear what Castor Troy actually does besides fuck shit up) and the other twin was a high-ranking FBI agent. Oh and the first twin killed the son of the second twin. Ok, so it’s not really like The Parent Trap. Full disclosure: I apologize for nothing. I unabashedly love this movie for every single ridiculous moment of its 2 hr 19 min running time. And I saw this in THEATERS. I was TEN YEARS OLD. And before you start judging my parents too harshly, this movie inspired a very healthy fear of both drugs and plastic surgery into me, so really it was more effective than most D.A.R.E. programs according to the data, so I say once again - thanks John Woo!

Some thoughts:

TWO HOURS and NINETEEN MINUTES. It’s frankly ridiculous, and if it were any other director I would say learn to edit, man, but John Woo really knows how to make a slow motion shot work. 

Castor (Nic Cage)  is so much more disgusting now that I’m grown. Like, when I was a kid he was just a cartoonish villain, but now his rampant misogyny and sexual predator antics at every turn is WAY more creepy and disturbing than his tendency to just shoot people.

More people should follow John Woo’s lead - this motherfucker loves sparks in his action scenes, and they’re so much more visually interesting than just plain explosions. Broke: you shoot a car’s gas tank and it explodes. Woke: You shoot the engine of a passenger jet and a shower of sparks goes everywhere.

This is Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage’s finest performance, tbh. He gets to go full unhinged crazy pants for half the movie, and then turn on a dime and play the determined no-nonsense FBI man. I genuinely love Nic Cage with my entire heart, because he - has - the - range.

One underrated thing about this movie is its score. The funky bass line when Castor first arrives, the overwrought strings during every chase scene, the triumphant orchestral swell when Sean stages the prison coup - it’s so cheesy and SO good. 

Reason #57 this whole face switching plan is insane - they did no psychological exam or evaluation to determine whether Sean (John Travolta) would lose his damn mind by going through the intense trauma of wearing his son’s murderer’s face. You’re telling me he didn’t have to fill out a single form before they cut his literal face off? If I know anything about the government, I know there would be so much paperwork involved before anyone’s face was going anywhere. 

Why are we not talking about the massive problem it is that there exists a prison where “the Geneva convention doesn’t exist” and that Amnesty International has never heard of? Like, Castor is a bad guy, sure, but we’re supposed to just be fine with this? This is the precursor to the raft prison they built in Captain America: Civil War that is meant to house literal superheroes and is completely off the grid. That’s not okay! The copaganda runs so deep, it genuinely boggles my mind that I grew up watching movies like this and only now that I’ve unlearned so many things can I even recognize how absolutely fucked up it all is. 

John Travolta doesn’t get enough credit for this movie either - all the attention goes to Nic Cage and his bonkers facial expressions, but Travolta is having the time of his goddamn life doing his little dances, singing his little songs. We all know he loves musicals, and I love that he gets to showcase that here but through villainy.

Sean’s entire escape plan hinged on Dubov (Chris Bauer) getting his brain fried first, but he had no way of knowing that would be the exact moment Dubov would be in the clinic getting fried. 

Also one of my favorite things is that during the escape when one of the guards is burned by acid he screams the same scream that was used in the credits for Aah! Real Monsters.

Oh and we have to talk about the fact that Sean escapes the prison by just - jumping in the fucking ocean? How did he not die? How did he get to land? And the helicopter just STOPPED LOOKING for him? Didja spend all your money on magnetized boots so the “helicopter that searches for escaped prisoners” fund ran dry in your terrifying war crime prison budget?

In retrospect, I should have realized that I was into women based on how very hard I crushed on Gina Gershon in this movie. Velvet top with satin pants and the Jennifer Aniston haircut? SO INTO IT.

Taylor Swift is re-recording all her old masters now, right? I’m just saying, I really think she would be smart to collaborate with John Woo on a new video for “Sparks Fly,” because, and I can’t stress this enough, NOBODY loves sparks more than John Woo. Nobody.

What even is this building Dietrich (Nick Cassavetes) lives in? It’s like an airplane hanger but there are stairs and black lacquer furniture, but there’s like a basement lobby thing that’s all marble and tile and a circle of mirrors and giant plants? Who designed this? Is it a hotel? I have so many questions.

I know that the benchmark for future technology is the flying car, but I ask you, how is it possible that we don’t live in a world where people can swap faces like this yet? Or DO WE and it is all just black ops operations like this. Oh lord, I’m probably gonna start getting batshit crazy QAnon type conspiracy Facebook ads now that I’ve typed that sentence on the internet.

Also pretty fucked up that Castor - as Sean - sleeps with Eve (Joan Allen) and both she and the real Sean are just kind of like “yeah I know, rape by deception really sucks, guess we’ll just have to deal with it.” Like how much therapy does this whole family need now??

What kind of church is this where doves are just flapping around INSIDE the entrance by the remembrance candles? And there’s just so many of them. Like at least 30 doves. Doesn’t that feel like too many doves? You know what, nevermind, I shouldn’t have doubted John Woo’s vision - keep the sparks and doves coming, buddy, I’m here for it.

There’s no way you drive a boat THROUGH ANOTHER FUCKING BOAT and emerge completely unharmed. 

Ohh teen daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) doesn’t have her nose ring anymore! That’s how you know she’s no longer broken.

And Sean just brings a new 5-year-old son to live with them and everything is totally fine, as if no time has passed. That’s how you heal collective trauma, right? By simply replacing your murdered son with a different 5-year-old boy? Ah, the 90s.

Everything about this movie is exactly what I want movies to be like. You’ve got great villains who are really in it for the DRAMA of it all, you’ve got stalwart and true (read: repressed) heroes who are willing to do what it takes to get the job done, and you’ve got more sparks and doves than you know what to do with. 

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Porky’s

Do you ever look at a pug and think “I can’t believe you’re descended from wolves”? That’s kind of how I feel going into a completely cold viewing of Porky’s (requested by Chad, of course). I’ve seen many a teen sex comedy in my day, but this is the granddaddy of them all and I’ve never seen it. This is the wolf that walked so American Pie the pug could run. I’m not expecting anything resembling likeable characters or good writing here, but I am curious about why this movie was the one to really break out and make a name for itself. There’s not much plot to be had - a group of horny dudes at a Florida high school in the 1950s are sex-crazed monsters who set up elaborate pranks on each other, objectify women, terrorize sex workers, and learn an after-school special lesson about racism, maybe? There’s also a side plot about Kim Cattrall howling like a dog during sex. So far, I’m not seeing where the enduring legacy is coming from. As a sex comedy, it’s terribly unfunny AND deeply unsexy, but like a weird Trojan horse plot twist, this is the best ACAB propaganda advocating for abolition of the police (and with its weird racist undertones, probably abolition of ICE as well!) that I’ve ever seen. Truffles in shit, I guess?

Some thoughts:

I see that we’re using the Grease method of casting 35-year-olds to play teenagers. Maybe everyone born in the mid-30s actually did look twice their age when they were in high school. They went through the war, that shit prematurely ages a person. 

WOW there are way more racial slurs being thrown around than I expected. I mean, I expected some, sure, but wow, this is a lot. Exotic ones, too, not just your typical anti-black nonsense. 

We do see some peen and a lot of male butts, so there’s at least some equal opportunity exploitation here. 

Interesting that there’s a subplot about Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) and his just-out-of-prison father being abusive as if we’re attempting to humanize and soften the most virulent racist - we’re talking real in-your-face bigotry - in the film. Are they actually trying to make Schwartz (Scott Colomby) feel sympathy for his abuser because Tim’s dad beat him up after Tim assaulted Schwartz and lost? And the resolution is for Tim to stand up to his dad and say “If being a man means being what you are, I’d rather be queer.” Has...has anyone written about the homoerotic relationship between Tim and Schwartz? The way they protect each other and have that nice little moment after Tim’s dad is arrested? There’s an enemies-to-lovers slow burn fanfic OR a dissertation in here about compulsory heterosexuality in teen sex comedies - I’d read either one.. 

The actual Porky’s club is a nightmare - there’s Confederate flags everywhere, and one of the patrons tries to assault one of the dancers. Also Mr. Porky refers to his dancers as piglets, so good job! I hate Porky’s the most out of everything I hate in this movie!  

Nice to see that the cops are good ol boys blatantly racketeering and extorting money from folks who are, admittedly, assholes but still. They don’t even pretend not to be dirty cops. These are the villains of the movie. 

I also feel like it’s significant that Schwartz is the only character who seems even remotely decent. It’s as if his status as the Other means he’s de-sexed and not allowed to participate in the creepy behavior of the rest of the guys, but by extension that actually means he’s the only one I’d be willing to spend more than 30 seconds with.  

It feels as if this script was just a collection of pranks the writers came up with and the flimsiest wet tissue paper plot to connect them all together. Rather than the precursor to American Pie, this lives comfortably in that space that all those terrible spoof movies of the early 2000s did - Date Move, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, etc. If your plot is just a series of 2-to-4-word “joke” pitches on post it notes (locker room peephole! Gym teacher grabs dick! Woman howls during sex! Naked running!)...you know what, I was gonna say something insulting, but this movie made truckloads of money for the creators, so what the fuck do I know? Keep doing your thing I guess even if it’s more depressing than - and contains the same amount of artistic integrity as - a crusty pan of congealed eggs at the breakfast buffet in a strip club just like Porky’s. 

The infamous shower scene is horrifying for all of the sexual harassment, but turns out there’s also a bunch of virulent fatphobia and the sexual assault of one of the peeping toms as well. Just when you think this movie can’t fit any more horrors in it, it really steps up to the plate. Also, for any of you aspiring screenwriters out there, I’mma need you to jot this down - girls’ reaction to being watched in the shower is not to find it hilarious and want to further engage with the peeping tom.

I’m no structural engineer, but I just don’t think a couple of piece of shit fishing boats and a 20 horsepower 1951 Chevy pickup can pull out the foundation of an entire building. Like, fuck Porky’s - I have no problem with this plan to basically demolish the building, but I find it hard to believe that this infrastructure is so shoddy that you can just take it out no sweat. The WPA probably built that bridge! That’s some solid American craftsmanship!

In the big climax, the villains of the piece (the bad cops) are outsmarted by the good cops - you know, the ones who are also engaging in  intimidation, threats with a deadly weapon, and extortion. But see, they ARE pretending they aren’t dirty, and that’s what makes them the good guys! Literally, the showdown ends up being “you’re corrupt, but we’re more corrupt, and if you try to prove it you’ll have to expose how corrupt you are so MIC DROP BITCHES” and then the good cops break some headlights and that’s the end of the movie. So the moral of the story is that we live in a terrifying police state and cops can do whatever they want, and you just better hope that the cops are on YOUR side. Am I saying that this movie influenced NWA when they wrote and released “Fuck tha Police” in 1988? No. But I’m not NOT saying it. 

Did I Cry? Only on the inside.

You already know if you’re going to like this movie before you watch it. What you might not know is that this is the highest-grossing movie from Canada for over 20 years. Everything about my experience of watching this movie was perplexing, and the way that fact makes me feel pretty much encapsulates the rest of my feelings on the matter. 

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A Quiet Place Part II

It’s finally happening. Summer movie season is here. I know, I know, the big lizard and monkey punchfest was technically the start of summer movie season, but it’s officially Memorial Day weekend, and the first truly anticipated (for me, anyway) releases of 2020 are finally hitting the megaplex. I LOVED A Quiet Place, both for its originality and its excellent performances, so I was eagerly anticipating Part II. However, I think we all know it’s hard for lightning to strike like that twice, and a sequel this anticipated has to be a least a little disappointing, right? Well...

Honestly, it’s a solid, solid effort. The gimmicks are much the same as in the first film, and we retread a lot of similar territory in one of the movie’s two main plots, centering around Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Marcus (Noah Jupe), and the just-born baby from the first film. BUT, the other plot, centering around Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and begrudging travel companion Emmett (Cillian Murphy) allows us to venture outside of the insular environment of the first film and discover more of this strange new world, and that is by far the stronger half. 

Some thoughts:

Love this first scene of the flashback to Day 1 when the aliens arrived. Kudos to John Krasinski as a director and of course the entire sound design team for making sure that we as an audience are attuned to every little sound the characters are making as they go through their last day of normal life. Flashbacks like this are usually a respite from the tension rather than a source of creeping dread, knowing that there’s a boogeyman waiting to jump out but not knowing when, and it’s an incredibly effective device here. The downside is, it just makes me miss John Krasinski from the rest of the film’s action. 

Two Very Good Dogs right off the bat (a German Shepherd and a red hound of some kind). I bet dogs don’t fare well against the aliens, although we see no dog violence or harm onscreen. A world without dogs is maybe the worst thing I can think of :(

Ok, second worst thing - being barefoot all the time. But then Cillian Murphy shows up and has some very sensible shoes, so that makes me think this family is barefoot for no fucking reason, and that just seems wildly irresponsible! This is why people invented shoes! You might be at risk from these aliens, but I’ll tell you what is silent and WILL kill you - sepsis from your nasty ass foot infection.

I know there’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that comes with the logistics of making a film but like...this baby was born approximately yesterday. There is no way it would A) have its eyes open or B) be smiling and cooing or C) not look like a fugly old man. 

Cillian Murphy? More like Killin-it Murphy. That man can do more with those startling blue eyes in that razor-sharp face that most people can convey with their whole body. He’s a real standout here, and his chemistry with Millicent Simmonds is fantastic. Their journey is compelling because it moves us forward into the unknown, and the obstacles they face are new ones. 

Did I Cry? I teared up every time Regan invoked the spirit of her dad, and at the line “I’m nothing like him. You are.” they started to fall for real. There’s never a moment that equals the gut punch climax of the first movie, but the affection for these characters is still very real. 

Even though we’ve seen a lot of these tricks before, the gimmick still works. Make a noise and you die? There’s no better way to ramp up the tension, and by having the characters split up, Krasinski tries to keep the stakes as high as possible among all of the characters in multiple different ways, which is pretty effective. The monsters are fast, they’re scary, and the characters are good people who love each other, and you want them to survive. That’s a pretty good recipe for a thriller. 

Much like the first time around, the ending is so abrupt as to feel a little sudden or underbaked. Your mileage may vary, but I wasn’t wild about it this time around. Not a BAD ending, but not a great one either. 

Overall, a solid follow-up and a great expansion of a story that has so much potential for world-building. The performances are all good, but Simmonds and Murphy are the real reason to buy a ticket to this one. Seeing it on the big screen was absolutely the way to go, and this was exactly the kind of experience I was hoping for now that I’m back at the movies. 

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