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Movies
For what is nominally a comedy, The Longest Yard is impressively mean—the blood and broken necks aren't jokes as much as a really grimy middle finger toward the criminal justice establishment by way of depicting its most viceral excesses. This is textbook "1970s Hollywood filmmaking," vivacious and shaggy and raw, and there's a real "blood on the turf" feel to this movie that I really wasn't expecting. It was a nice surprise. Not nice and not surprising: I didn't like Burt Reynolds here, and his character never worked for me, especially not his longer arc from roughing up his girlfriend in the first scene to becoming a hero of the common man by the film's end. The movie is also more shambling and hang-out-y than I'd like it to be, and the first half of the movie in particular is kind of a drag in stretches. Again, textbook "1970s Hollywood filmmaking," but you know, the bad parts this time. Grade: B-
It lacks the grit or the subversive spirit of the 1974 original while also maintaining one of the original's chief downsides: the casting Burt Reynolds. Mostly gone are the critiques of the criminal justice system, replaced by a kind of egregious "southern gents on the plantation" version of the snobs vs. slobs film that emerges from the bones of the older film, and then you have to deal with the whole litany of unfunny scatological humor, homophobia, transphobia, and light misogyny that's apparently de rigueur of a Sandler vehicle, to say nothing of the completely broken, rambling structure of the movie—somehow even flabbier than that of the original film. Billy Madison being so eccentric and watchable made me think I might have a few secret Sandler affinities rattling around inside of me, but I think by now I can pretty safely call my reaction there a one-time fluke. Grade: C-
I was honestly bored for stretches of this movie, which is not something I thought I'd say about the sequel to The Lego Movie. It has all the ingenious worldbuilding and low-key philosophy with barely half of the sense of humor that made that all fun in the first movie. Like, this movie doesn't even try to be funny for long sequences, which is fine I guess, except "action-adventure" isn't nearly this style's forte compared to "comedy-adventure," so it's all just a little flatter than the original. That's not to say this is bad, necessarily, and there are good parts—the animation is still stellar, the character designs are inventive, and the ultimate message of "The world sucks, but that doesn't mean that happiness has no place" is a good one. It just pales in comparison to the original, which I think we all knew was going to be the case, though I was holding out hope that it would be just a tad better than this. Grade: B-
The movie's subversion of old rom-com tropes is really just a way for the film to back its way into being a rom com itself, which is fine. Parody that doesn't come from a place of love can be overly bitter, and Isn't It Romantic's vibes are winsome and fun, particularly on the strength of Rebel Wilson's sweetly sardonic performance. That's all well and good. But as a subversion of the rom com, I wish this movie were doing more than just lampshading unrealistic tropes, and as a rom com itself, I wish the movie were, you know, more romantic and more comedic. Grade: B-
I wish this were funnier and had more than two jokes (1. "This star is playing himself and referencing his own career!" 2. "Masturbation!"). Because there's something fitting about one of the last true Apatow-stable comedies being the literal apotheosis of the form: a who's who of the previous decade of comedy judged by none other than God Almighty. As the Bible says, "Many will come and say, 'Lord, Lord, have we not improvised in thy name and in thy name crafted dick jokes?' Then the Lord will profess unto them, 'I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.'" Grade: C
Like a lot of 2000s teen comedies (including some of the greats, like Mean Girls), the structure is kind of lumpy, and some of the beats haven't aged super well—that bit where they find the old fat pictures of Mandy Moore and plaster them everywhere? Yikes (though possibly a snide reference to A Walk to Remember?). The movie is also not particularly funny, which places it behind its 2004 sister, Mean Girls (despite the presence of a few delectable quotables: e.g. "I'm saving myself for marriage, and I'll use force if necessary"). But as someone who grew up in the Evangelical Christian world myself, I enjoyed seeing that world skewered. Parts of it felt a little foreign to me, maybe accounting for the differences between Evangelicalism in Baltimore, MD, compared to Memphis, TN—e.g. the significance attached to the religious jewelry, the lack of scriptural proof-texting in their discussions of morality, the lack of modesty culture and shaming in the sex "education" (sex was deadly serious in my church growing up, and there's no way they wouldn't have spent days hammering in how sinful extramarital activity is/how important "biblical" marriage is) etc. And I'm not sure about transplanting the "mean girl/queen bee" archetype into an Evangelical setting; there was plenty of leveraging morality and spiritual practice for gaming social power dynamics where I grew up, but that particular trope feels like an ungainly carryover from teen movie conventions rather than an authentic expression of how church kids leverage morality and theology to their own ends. But there's a lot that's spot-on, too, from the picture of George W. Bush framed at the front of the classroom to the kind of ecstatic response to worship music (hands in the air, e.g.) to the hokey co-opting of secular culture for theological purposes. Jena Malone is a fantastic lead, too, and the moment where she realizes that Jesus isn't listening to her (after she finds out she's pregnant) is probably the realest moment in this movie. Like I said, it's not a very funny movie for a comedy, but it has a beating heart not typical of the teen comedy genre—probably a more appropriate tenor at which to engage religion anyway. Grade: B
Books
Susan Choi's previous novel, My Education (a novel I wasn't a huge fan of), chronicles in uncomfortable personal detail a toxic sexual affair. In some ways, Trust Exercise is entirely different, focusing on teens at a performing arts school rather than a grad student at a university. In another way, though, there are a lot of similarities between the two novels, with Trust Exercise leveraging intense psychological imprints and unflinching descriptions of emotionally and sensorily searing experiences in a way reminiscent of My Education (though, I'd wager, much more interestingly). But just what affair lies at the novel's center is something that's hard to grasp. Each successive section of the novel's three parts calls into question the reliability and the point-of-view of the prior section, pulling further and further out from the novel's original pages toward something that approximates the "truth," though in a novel whose reality folds in on itself accordion-style to such an extent, the idea of "truth" somewhat collapses. To a degree, this is a mystery to be solved (though the parameters of the mystery don't reveal themselves until the second section begins), parsing clues in the later sections to cut through the fictions of the earlier ones, but to another degree, the mystery is an end to itself irrespective of whatever answers you find. Trust Exercise is a novel about the process of fictionalizing—the way that the telling of a story warps reality around the storyteller's psyche. It's all very meta and clever, which I suppose will be a turn-off for some, but I found it thrilling. Grade: A-
Music
The output of Bruce Springsteen in the 21st century has been, to one degree or another, corny. This isn't to say that it hasn't been good, but even his best albums this century—The Rising, Wrecking Ball—have had a loud, modern-rock production and occasionally broad songwriting that, admittedly, warrant an eye roll or two. Western Stars isn't exactly corn-free, but its introspective lyrics and subdued production choices bring it closer to the po-faced rock troubadourism of Springsteen's '80s than anything this side of Y2K has. Songs like "Hello Sunshine" and the title track are somber, ruminative compositions built on subtle instrumental flourishes and a low Springsteen croon—you could fairly complain that his albums over the past twenty years have been short on the personal storytelling that the man built his career upon, but Western Stars leans heavily into that mode, engaging the Boss's depression more directly than ever before. And even the moments that do scan as corny here ("There Goes My Miracle," "Sleepy Joe's Café") are corny in new ways. Springsteen is trying new song structures and modes here, and even if that's not always 100% successful, it's still exciting to see an artist more than 40 years into his career still pushing himself to create a sincere piece of craft. Grade: B+
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