Movies
Pretty dumb. Advertises itself as a modern-day-set adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—in reality, it's 97% Tom Sawyer, with the only part from Huckleberry Finn being that bit at the end of the book that hardly anybody likes where Tom impersonates Sid to try to save Jim (Jorge here). The movie somehow simultaneously treats its story less seriously but also less irreverently than Twain's original, and the whole thing has a major case of Early2010sitis, full of low-rent Wes Andersonisms and forced twee. Parts of this were amusing, but on the whole, it's a pretty shoddy effort. Do you want to see Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (and Joe Harper—hey, good to see that dude get a shout-out for once) drinking craft beer? Then by all means, hit this movie up before it leaves Netflix. Grade: C
A pointedly and unbelievably cruel movie, the hicksploitation of something like The Hills Have Eyes or (less this time around than in the original House of 1,000 Corpses) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre blown out to the grand scope of America itself, a pointedly and unbelievably cruel country if there ever was one. It's an interesting and often compelling decision of Zombie's to refuse mythologizing its central Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque clan, who spend the majority of the movie literally torturing the people they encounter. We Americans love the idea of our outlaws, but this movie makes hay out of the way that that that love is a fair-weather facade that drops the moment we're confronted with outlawism's brutal realities. I'm not sure Zombie or this movie really do much to recognize that, for example, the sexual violence perpetrated by its central family is as totemic as the psychotic cop's embodiment of the faux-respectable post-'70s American Establishment, and I'm hesitant to embrace sincerely the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic that I've seen some people use when talking about the purportedly melancholy ending—or maybe the movie does recognize it, and the famous "Free Bird" finale is just a winking, ironic piece of nihilism showing one American demon brutalizing another. My relatively middle-of-the-road rating speaks to the fact that I'm not really that interested in the way the movie lingers lasciviously over this brutality, but the fact that I am thinking about it this much speaks volumes about how rich this movie can be at times. Also, God, please let me become that Groucho Marx enthusiast when I grow up. Grade: B
I liked it—just wanted to make that clear before I get into a list of complaints. I probably made a mistake by putting off seeing Joker for as long as I did, as almost every shot, it seems, I had already seen in some awards-season highlight reel. That said, it probably would have felt familiar anyway, since (as has been widely broadcast) this movie is basically conceived as the intersection of King of Comedy and Taxi Driver within an alternate DC universe. I don't know that Joker does much that those two movies don't already do other than to throw a coat of class warfare over the whole thing, a coat that begins well enough (the defunding of social services as a catalyst for social unrest and individual misery, for example) but kind of feels thin by the end, as the movie, for as much as its "You get what you deserve!" finale gestures toward a leftist rage, takes on a pretty dim view of the proletariat, presenting them as society's mindless id held in sway by a nihilistic icon (another example: the garbage collection strike is multiple times blamed for Gotham's filthy condition rather than whatever poor wages and working conditions these folks are presumably striking about). I did get a chuckle out of the Thomas Wayne / Mike Bloomberg parallels ("anti-rich sentiments!"), though speaking of that, what ultimately happens with the Wayne subplot feels merely like a DC genre obligation, which is disappointing for a movie loudly declaring itself as a work not beholden to the same rules as other superhero movies, and I would have liked to see something more unpredictable play out there; the same goes for the movie's setting in the early 1980s, which feels more like an impulse to appear within the same world as the Scorsese movies it's referencing than an artistically vital choice of its own—it's obviously futile to imagine versions of movies we never got, but I can think of a much more cutting iteration of Joker set in a gentrifying, post-Giuliani (or whatever the DC version of Giuliani is) Gotham, where the class issues are no less urgent but also significantly more papered over by the facade of the ruling class. But anyway, I did begin this review by saying I liked this movie, and I do; for as much as this movie's reach exceeds its grasp regarding all the above issues, it works tremendously as a character study. Joker understands the Joker as a human being more so than any other movie iteration of the character has, and the combination of Joaquin Phoenix's performance and the writing create a richly rendered person whose journey feels true. As much as I don't think the movie quite succeeds in scaling up the Arthur's personal issues to society-wide movements, I think it works great in the opposite direction, showing how broader social movements have personal effects on Arthur himself—it's been done before (again, Taxi Driver, King of Comedy), but Joker does a good job of showing how the Great Society's collapse manifests itself on the psychology of those already living on the margins, and his descent into destructive nihilism is entirely convincing, an effect that I don't think was necessarily a sure thing, even mimicking the movies it does. To end this scattered review on a different note: for as much as this movie's been talked to death in the discourse, I've not seen a ton of discussion about the score by Hildur Guðnadóttir, which is really solid and probably at least as worthy of acclaim as the Phoenix performance most people centered on. I don't know if I'd put it above Little Women's score (probably my pick of the Academy Award nominees), but there's definitely no shame in the Oscars picking this one. Grade: B
Starts really good with some strong "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" vibes before basically settling into a pretty typical grindhouse/exploitation second half. The movie does such a good job of establishing the "normal" family as a thoroughly unlikable locus of white, middle-class, anti-rural entitlement that it's really hard for me to get invested in those same people defeating the mutant hillbillies (who have, moreover, clearly seen the butt-end of the U.S. government a la nuclear testing, eminent domain, etc.). Not really sure how to reconcile those two halves, but maybe that's part of the point, I dunno. Anyway, pieces of this are strong enough that I'm landing positive on the whole. Grade: B
An utterly deranged police procedural turned sci-fi pulp turned ecstatic messianic dystopia. Starts as a relatively straightforward investigation of mass killings whose perpetrators claim to be directed by God, and then becomes something else entirely very quickly, something wild and unclassifiable, with shades of The Last Temptation of Christ and preemptive shades of David Lynch. It does not—I repeat, does not—hang together on a moment by moment basis, with scene transitions often feeling like they leave out narrative in between. And it has a, to be charitable, problematic posture toward its African-American characters. But I also can't think of a movie prior to this one that has a more innovative and cosmic-minded approach to the crime thriller format except maybe Kiss Me Deadly. Whacked-out, messy, weirdly compelling. Grade: A-
I started laughing when Donovan's "Season of the Witch" started playing at one point, because it's such a hilariously on-the-nose choice to have that song play in a movie of the same name at the precise moment when the main character is getting into witchcraft. This became less funny when I found out that the movie's original title was Hungry Wives and was marketed as a softcore film ("Caviar in the kitchen, nothing in the bedroom"), but then again, that's funny in its own way, because this movie barely has any nudity and is mostly concerned with suburban couples at dinner parties arguing about if anyone is going to hurry up and smoke some weed already—very sexy, ya know. So I get that this movie was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place w/r/t the title, but then again, the fact that the movie stuck between the rock and the hard place is a snore to begin with couldn't have helped. Sorry, George A. Romero. You make good movies—just not this one. Grade: C
In a world where Repulsion exists, I guess it's not surprising that this has a reputation as something of an also-ran. But it is really good (though admittedly, not Repulsion good), anchored by a deliriously off-brand John Williams score (Academy Award nominated), some really tremendous editing by Graeme Clifford, as well as a dynamite central performance by Susannah York, without any of which the movie wouldn't have worked at all. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the story—there's a lot regarding coercive men as well as the collateral damage of York's character's self-destructive tendencies, but I'm not particularly interested in the whole "woman has crippling guilt over infidelity" angle, which is what this movie is going for probably 50% of the time. But the whole package is freaky and disorienting enough that I'm willing to put style over substance if I have to. Altman's reputation is kind of staked on his use of shaggy, improv-y ensemble pieces, but between this and 3 Women, I think there's ample evidence that he was at least as good at assembling meticulously planned cinematic work, too. Grade: B+
Television
I was skeptical of Barry at first; "aspiring actor moonlights as a hitman" sounds like an unintentional parody of the typical post-Breaking Bad "Peak TV" series, and the first couple episodes didn't really make me feel more confident, either, as they're basically the most obvious way to play out that premise. But then it gets good. It's not that Barry does something radically different from what its premise promises—this is exactly that story. But the seriousness and dramatic complexity with which the show ultimately bears out the balls set in motion by its first couple episodes lend Barry a terrific weight, and as the show makes abundantly clear by having its last several episodes revolve around a stage performance of Macbeth, what Barry is ultimately going for (and ultimately succeeds at being) is Shakespearean tragedy. The final two episodes are as breathtaking and bleak as Act V of Macbeth, and in fact, I can't really think of a TV show that's been as successful at this format since Breaking Bad itself. Grade: A-
Music
Paul Simon has, alongside Randy Newman, unobtrusively remained one of the more vital Boomer legacy artists still making new material, and 2016's Stranger to Stranger is probably the best of his legacy period. A quiet, quietly powerful rumination on love, class, despair, and hope, Stranger to Stranger finds Simon with some of his cleanest melodies of recent years, as well as some of his sharpest lyrical turns. Early in the record, he sings that "most obits are mixed reviews," and he's sure to get one when the inevitable happens (criticisms of cultural appropriation will no less dog this album than his earlier efforts); but for the positive portions of the eulogies, I hope people remember this record. Grade: A-
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