Movies
It's not the references that make this one of Spielberg's worst. Let's not be sanctimonious, cinephiles; our medium is the most unashamedly referential media out there—we love it when Scorsese references Ozu or Cabin in the Woods does a Where's Waldo of the horror movie bestiary or Kubrick recreates 18th-century paintings, and while I realize that all those movies have significantly more substance than Ready Player One, I see an awful lot of people gushing about how fun it is to spot the allusion in those, too. No, it isn't the references, but the listless, perfunctory way the references are deployed, banking far too much on crowded, freeze-frame-encouraging moments wherein the movie rather artlessly crams four dozen characters on the screen at once, because "LOOK AT ALL THE REFERENCES, REMEMBER BATTLETOADS AND HALO AND AKIRA AND SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND FIREFLY AND CHAPPIE [serious, wtf about that one]??" I would have loved a movie that took to heart the idea of making the spectrum of late-20th-century pop culture the sandbox for an anarchic, playful action film (and honestly, isn't The LEGO Movie already kind of this?). Unfortunately, Ready Player One doesn't really play with or even address its myriad allusions, instead going for what essentially amounts to glimpses at a locked, stocked display case in the form of a contemporary action blockbuster. A much, much better version of this movie can be seen in one of the film's two bright spots (the other being the zero-grav club scene): the Second Challenge sequence, in which the reality of the movie comes crashing into the world of a particularly iconic '80s film—it's funny, it's creative, it's a spectacularly clever riff on a certain intellectual property that actually engages with that movie's iconography. Alas, the rest of the film is just a traditional action flick with familiar scenery. Also not insignificant to my non-enjoyment of the film is the terrible screenplay and inch-deep characterizations, but I think that probably goes without saying for an adaptation of the original Ernest Cline novel. Not gonna lie, though, I do kind of miss the Zork part from the book. Grade: C
For a movie that marketed and plotted itself around the importance of a lack of sound, there certainly is a lot of noise in this movie—mostly through a frequently overbearing and thoroughly generic musical score. The movie has some good scares, and it ratchets up tension well enough. But I can imagine a much better version (or at least a version with more integrity) that let itself actually be quiet. Grade: B-
I'll give Starry Eyes credit for some truly gross body horror in the late stages, and the concept of the movie—an aspiring actress's humanity is stolen by a sexually exploitative movie producer—feels especially vital in the context of #MeToo. However, that doesn't mean that the movie is good. In fact, it's not good at all. The characters are flat and uninteresting, and the pacing (going for a Ti West-style slow burn) is uneven and ham-fisted. Plus, that #MeToo connection becomes more of a liability as the movie goes on and turns the victim of this sexual exploitation into a literal villain. It's not quite as simple as all that (she's always very clearly a victim), but it's enough to make me uneasy and disappointed. Grade: C
Gritty urban realism of this particularly brutal strain and conventional Cinderella-story narrative beats make for strange bedfellows. Even stranger is the way the movie pointedly undercuts Terrence Howard's aspirational character by having him, alongside that starry-eyed musicianship, commit acts of stunning and horrific cruelty—such as when he throws a woman and her baby out of his house onto the street or when he forces a woman to prostitute herself in exchange from a microphone he needs to record his music. These acts go basically uncommented on by the movie, though it's clear from the stomach-churning intensity of these women's reactions that we're meant to feel viscerally their pain at his hands. There's a possibly brilliant commentary on the inextricability of an artist's sins with his art (take that, "separate the art from the artist" people), and I appreciate the movie's dedication to not gloss over this character's deep, deep flaws. But on the other hand, you're also just kind of stuck with a by-the-numbers Cinderella story (complete with happy-ish ending) that's just populated by uncommented-upon cruelty, and you have to wonder how much that cruelty is just set dressing. (I talk about this movie in more detail on Episode 190 of Cinematary podcast, which you can listen to here.) Grade: B-
There are a few moments in Spike Lee's blistering satire of American media racism in which the concept feels a little unsteady, but Lee's conviction in his vision is so strong that it doesn't really matter if all the metaphors don't line up in neat little rows. This is furious filmmaking filled to the brim with ideas, capped by the best classic-cinema montage this side of Cinema Paradiso. Grade: A-
Music
How have I been sleeping on Julien Baker? We're both from the Memphis suburbs; we're both Christians with little interest in Christian music; she started a punk band in high school, which is basically the premise of my novel. We should be friends, Julien and I. Or if not that, I should have been enjoying her (great!) music earlier than just a few weeks ago. Turn Out the Lights is a sadcore indie rock album with a focus on lyrics—lyrics that (with confessional lines like "When I turn out the lights, there's no one left between myself and me") form the album's connection to Baker's early emo-punk days—and if you're tuned in to this kind of singer-songwriter indie at all, I can't imagine not being moved just a bit. It moves me, that's for sure. Grade: A-
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