Also, since I know my mom reads this blog, Happy Mother's Day! Love you, Mom! Please don't hate me for not liking The Greatest Showman!
Movies
Look, I know there's a stuffy theater critic character in this movie whose whole purpose is to point out that it doesn't matter if a critic hates a show if the audience likes it, and I know I'm walking right into that very, very obvious trap the movie has set for me, but boyohboy, I did not like The Greatest Showman. I'll grant that Hugh Jackman is well-cast in the lead (if the intersection between The Greatest Showman and The Prestige tells us anything, it's that Jackman definitely needs to 1) be cast more as a huckster magician, and 2) be in more musicals—his enthusiasm is contagious). I liked the "The Other Side" song and the shot glass choreography. And some of the costumes are fun in a "what if Moulin Rouge but colorful community theater" kind of way. But man, that's freaking it for positives. The sets—both the physical ones and the obvious, ugly CG—look atrocious. The screenplay is a total disaster, lacking any sort of dramatic tension either within its thinly constructed scenes or between them (it wouldn't be a stretch to simply edit this movie into a series of aesthetically connected music videos), and its one-dimensional characters simply act without real exposition as to why they would, flipping from one personality to another with only the barest explanation on the rare instances when a character "develops." And the music—oh Lord, the music. On the one hand, you've got the choreography, which is at times admirably maximalist but whose maximalism is shredded to bits by overzealous modern editing that, I suspect, is covering for a ton of on-set blunders (I'll eat my hat if "we'll fix it in post" wasn't uttered at least twice during the filming of this movie). On the other hand are the songs themselves, boring pieces of the blandest of pop trends rendered actively irritating by heinous overproduction. So you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place there. I could go on sputtering with critical vexation for paragraphs more, but I'll just leave you with this: the movie has a point when it says that it doesn't matter if one person dislikes a show if it makes others happy. So that's why I'm asking you to join me in hating The Greatest Showman—all of you, come with me, and we can rule the galaxy, away from empty, craftless piffle like this. It doesn't matter if one person hates The Greatest Showman, sure, but what if many people hate it? *twists mustache, cackles* Grade: D+
One of the formative experiences of my adolescence is moving to Tennessee and joining the local middle school football team, whose members took it upon themselves to look at my scrawny, lonely, slightly irritating, new-kid self and psychologically and physically harass me for the duration of the season. The experience was agonizing, of course, but for all that agony, my overwhelming feeling at the time was this relentless urge to toughen up—they picked on me because I wasn't good enough, big enough, stoic enough, sexual enough, man enough, so the obvious solution was to be better, bigger, more stoic, more sexual, manlier—to never cry or express a sincere emotion outside of raw aggression and stiff-lipped, distant camaraderie. I tried; it was the most miserable year of my life. If there's one thing The Work—a documentary chronicling a four-day group-therapy retreat for men in Folsom Prison—shows as these men tremble and rage and scream in pure anguish as they heave a lifetime of repressed feelings onto the prison floor, it's that traditional masculinity is a torturous cage. Traditional masculinity literally kills. I'm not a resident of Folsom (in case you were in any doubt) or even one of the individuals from the outside world who volunteered to come on this retreat, too, but the feeling of solidarity I felt with these men was intense. The film isn't perfect. I question some of the editing, and it feels a little off to have the movie culminate in the emotional breakthrough of a white guy from the outside. But then again, here I am blathering on, so. Grade: A-
Seeing the room where Led Zeppelin recorded their version of "When the Levee Breaks" is interesting; so is seeing The Edge make the pedal effect for the "Elevation" riff and Jack White doing his "the 1940s aren't over until I say they're over" bit. Hearing these guys just geek out about guitars and how they became guitar players to begin with is legitimately engaging. But I dunno; I guess I could just do without all the gobsmacked hero worship and overt rockism, too—especially when it's coming from white dudes who only mention black artists like twice. And unfortunately, that part is about half the movie. Grade: C+
It's a little bit prestige-y for my tastes, but there's no denying the power of Daniel Day-Lewis's performance as a man with cerebral palsy nor the admirably even-keeled, unsentimental way that the movie approaches its subject. There's probably a better movie to made with these component parts—ideally one that doesn't involve such biopic cliches as the "I'm old and successful now, but first I gotta remember my past" framing—but the one we got has good stuff to offer. Grade: B
As far as these "kids sure are murderous these days, huh?" movies go, River's Edge at least has the decency to incorporate an inter-generational critique into its youth-in-revolt despair. As uncomfortable as I am with the way the camera lingers over the (obligatory) nude female corpse here, there are some smart things being said about the way that misogyny is a cultural virus transmitted from one generation to the next and how the generational cycle of violence makes this only more acute. Also, props to Keanu Reeves for crafting his Bill & Ted performance far enough in advance to give it a test run in this movie. Grade: B
Television
People seem to be sleeping on this show, but don't, people! Superstore is the best workplace sitcom since Parks & Recreation, and it's majorly come into its own in its third season. Virtually everything works here: the ongoing plots, the individual episode structure, the cast—I'm not a huge fan of the Jonah/Amy will-they-won't-they thing, but even that came together rather nicely in the final few episodes of the season, a mini-arc that ranks among the show's best. It's the little things that make the series work, though: boob cheese, secret tunnels, the constant Target idolization, those wordless shots of anonymous customers doing strange things in the store. There's nothing groundbreaking here except the idea that the 22-episode network sitcom is still a format with some juice. But that's an idea I like quite a bit. Grade: A-
As always, The Last Man on Earth is wildly inconsistent, and Season 4 is the worst case of that yet, with large stretches of the season stretching onward without form or a clear forward momentum. And yet, as always, there are nuggets of gold that keep me coming back: Fred Armisen's cannibal subplot, the lovingly cutthroat relationship between Tandy and his brother, everything Kristen Schaal. The Last Man on Earth continues to be completely its own thing, this bizarre mix of sitcom, melodrama, domestic farce, and sci-fi apocalypse, and with this show's unsurprising (yet, with the season/series finale's cliffhanger, unfortunate) cancellation, it looks like I'm going to have to get used to not having that weekly bit of weird in my life. Grade: B-
Books
There is a ton to like about I'll Give You the Sun. In particular, its bifurcated narrative—split between two twins, one twin (Noah, a teen artistic prodigy struggling with his sexuality) narrating one sequence of events while the second (Jude, still artistic but struggling to find her identity in relation to her brother and parents) narrates a series of events two years later—allows for Nelson to juggle points of view and style engagingly; both narrators' voices are distinctive and vibrant, framing the story in their own artistic terms (Noah, for example, frequently interjects a description of the painting he would make of a given moment, while Jude oftentimes uses the language of sculpture), and it works really well. Unfortunately, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that this structural gambit has a huge liability as well. The truth is that there's just not a lot of interesting stuff going on in the Jude-narrated "two years later" sequence, whereas almost everything interesting for both characters happens in the Noah-narrated sections, leaving the Jude sections dealing with an entirely tedious (and somewhat icky) plot that involves Jude's infatuation with the most stereotypical "bad boy" you can imagine (British, biker, smokes, wears leather, tortured past—you name it) and Noah's section with all the interesting character work. Add to that the pileup of coincidences and easy resolutions at the story's end, and I was left with a sour taste after the magic of the novel's first half. But oh well. That first half was legitimately great. Grade: B-
Music
After going down the road of overproduction and blatant pop aspiration (to great effect in Born in the USA and Tunnel of Love, to significantly lesser effect in Human Touch and Lucky Town), Bruce swung back as far in the opposite direction as he could. The result is The Ghost of Tom Joad, a collection so underproduced and quiet (seriously, be prepared to turn the volume way up if you want to have a hope of hearing some of Springsteen's mumbles) that it's a liability in the same way that the contemporary, mainstream production of the previous two albums were. The Boss is definitely going for a Nebraska thing here, but unlike Nebraska, Tom Joad's songs are lost in the minimalism rather than chiseled cleanly by it, just as gated reverb and the like swallowed Human Touch's nuances. Thankfully, Tom Joad's lyrics are excellent (unlike Human Touch—sorry, but it's true); in fact, there's a decent argument to be made (one that I won't make but that I'll be sympathetic to) that Tom Joad is Springsteen's best-written album. Springsteen has always been a storyteller, but his focus here on people so distinctly unlike him—Latin-American immigrants get a big spotlight here—produces some of his most affecting and wonderful(ly heartbreaking) stories. As a result, it's an album that hugely rewards close listening and study, more so than most Springsteen records. I'm just skeptical that that close listening needs to be as close as it is. Grade: B
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