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Apr 20, 2022

"Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.
Nobody!"

PINNED: this newsletter started as a way to highlight movies coming to theaters (see: the name). Then, "the bullshit" happened. And I started featuring movies in theaters, VOD or streaming (see: the +). Point is, if there's a movie worth checking out, you'll probably find it here.

Yesterday Netflix announced that for the first time in ten years, they'd lost subscribers (in aggregate). And they expect to lose more next quarter. It's a whole to do in the world of media. Hell, there are more headlines than when comedian Pete Davidson was rumored to be dating some woman named Kirsten, Kathy or Kimantha. Something like that.

But just recently, Netflix released episodes of a Japanese show called Old Enough!, where 2-5 year olds perform errands on their own. It is not a new show. But it is new to American audiences. It is also generating a ton of press. The exact kind you'd expect - some detailing it's adorableness, and plenty more on the state of child rearing in these our United States. And I'm suspicious that these two are some how related.

See, my working theory is that Americans saw the show, then the headlines, became enraged that someone would make them question how they decided to rear their young and in a collective fit of rage, took it out on Netflix and cancelled their subscriptions.

Now, my "theory" could all be a bunch of bullshit and made up nonsense that means nothing to the reality of the situation, but I bet you can't prove me wrong. And that's the point. The "why" often sits in the realm of endless speculation. Yes, there is increased competition, yes the streamer lost subscribers due to the Russia invasion of Ukraine. And maybe Netflix has more specific data on the situation, but if you read the news, Twitter, LinkedIn, they're filled with a lot of what has become known as "hot takes." An opinion mostly for the sake of having an opinion.

I'm sure some of these takes are right, or at least somewhat. But the amount of times I've heard people say over the years - no, literally, like a decade of this - that Netflix was doomed for this reason or that is like, a lot of times. And maybe this time people are right; maybe The Flix is making too many niche shows and their broad-crowd pleasing hits are in short supply. Or maybe they were too dependent on un-owned content. Lots of things!

And this is less of a defense of Netflix, and more a critique of uninformed speculation. Working theories are great. As is trying to suss out what's to come next. But if you're so certain you have the answers, that time / money of yours better be on creating the next better version, or shorting the company. And for your next act you can tell how someone to parent their kid.

Extra Credit Movies:

Polar Bear: Disney seems to release a new movie every year around Earth Day via their Disneynature label where some group of animals is anthropomorphized. It's undeniably cute, if a bit reductive. No reviews, but you already know what to expect. Streaming on Disney + on Friday.

The Duke: an adorable looking British romp based on a true story where a man stole a painting in order to further his cause of increased government spending on supporting the elderly and veterans. Stars Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. Very solid reviews too! In LIMITED theaters on Friday.

THE NORTHMAN

You might think I write these blurbs all willy-nilly or that I pay monkeys in lizard eggs - what, you think they only like bananas? - to mash on a keyboard for a few hours.  Much to the dismay of my haters (note: I don't actually have haters, only unsubscribers), neither of these are true. I do in fact, "do research." I use air quotes not to denigrate myself and my process, but because after reading about the way Robert Eggers, the director of The Northman, does research, mine is most certainly air quote worthy.

Now, being obsessed with obsession is kind of silly. Especially re: a movie. Who really gives a shit if Alexander Skarsgård wore the exact same pair of moccasins during the entire shoot because that's how his character Amleth, would've done it, or if the faint image of a ship in the background was historically accurate, if the movie is boring AF? And plus, they didn't actually decapitate people to shoot this movie (...I think) so it's not totally real anyway!

But the more I read of Eggers, whose first two movies, The Witch and The Lighthouse, became "instant classics," the more his meticulousness came across as caring and less about being perfect. The dude just seems to operate a bit differently. He's not unaware of this fact either, as he self describes in a New Yorker profile, "I look like a poster boy for a Bushwick hipster, but that is where my relatability ends, I fear."

But why I am spending so much time on the director and not the movie itself? In part because the movie is rather somewhat simple to explain - it's a revenge movie. An intense and intensely brutal revenge movie where Alexander Skarsgård plays the viking character Hamlet was based on. His uncle kills his father, abducts his mother (in a fun, and odd, twist, played by Skarsgård's previous Big Little Lies co-star Nicole Kidman) and steals the crown. Stating the movie like that, might, I dunno, oversimplify it. And yet it is simplistic.

So I guess I'm trying to add layers so that when you see the guy from True Blood and Zoolander raged out destroying an entire town, you know that it was done via a tracking shot that was "like choreographing a musical," and took something like 25 all-consuming takes.

I could go on, but if you're interested in (a lot) more, I encourage you to start with that New Yorker article.

Otherwise I'd lastly point you in the direction of the reviews, which confirm that The Northman is, as the director said "the most entertaining Robert Eggers movie I could possibly make." And it might be the only time he gets to make a movie like this, as spending 90 million or so dollars to make the most historically accurate 9th century set viking movie is not, shall we say, common in Hollywood.

So enjoy it. Well, that is if "enjoy" is what you call watching entrails be piled higher than the stack of books Eggers read while making it.

Vibe: revenge. unrelenting. meticulous. violent. revenge

Out   Friday
Watch   Theaters
The Trailer | 2 hrs 17 mins | R | 🍅: 89%

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT

What is a meme?

Silly question of course; it's just some funny internet video or image, right?

Yes, but also no.

The word is actually a relatively recent one, first coming into use in the 70's after author / biologist / professional "thinker" / famed atheist Richard Dawkins defined it as an idea, style, or behavior that evolves as it gets passed from person to person. In other words, it is not the static, but the movement of the thing that defines what a meme "is."

Great. So why should you care about some loquacious hell-bound dude's thoughts on what you and I chuckle at on the internet?

Because when I tell you that "Nicholas Cage is a meme," I want you to fully understand what I meam, er, mean. In that I am not referencing the performances of Cage at his most Cageian that get shared on the internet daily. Like this one, or this one (or this one!). Or the images of him enjoying the smell of his own farts. Or his hair that is a bird that invalidates your arguments. Or a "rib cage." Or or or...

I mean, that the man born Nicholas Kim Coppola, has come to represent something much more than his physical being. It's almost as if there is the person, and then there is the notion that people think of when they think of the person. They are not the same things.

To be honest, this kind of applies to all of us to some extent. Who you are in the minds of those around you can not truly represent who you are in totality. But most of us, none of us really, have movies made that combine the physical and the impressionistic versions of ourselves. Except Nicholas Cage. And it is called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

And while it may have taken us a long time to get here (both in this piece and in the timeline that is the era of Nic Cage), I think it was worth it. Because to explain this movie simply as a (very well reviewed!) comedy where Nicholas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself (Nick Cage) who gets caught between a new friend (Pedro Pascal) - who has paid the actor a million dollars to attend his birthday because he loves Cage's movie so much - and two CIA agents (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz) who recruit Mr. Not the Bees to help with their investigation into the new friend, would not only do the film a disservice, but you as well. Because treating the whole endeavor as a sort of meta (not that one) exercise in identity may not only help with your enjoyment, forcing you to peel back the layers of self-awareness and deconstruction to find the jokes even guffawier, but also help, yourself. In that you will be reminded that you too are more than just the eyeballs reading these words, or the hand grasping your phone. You are an idea, in constant motion. A concept, ever evolving. You are... a meme. And you can be whatever meme you want to be.

And while Nicholas Cage has given us much in this life. That reminder?

Just might be his greatest gift of all.

Vibe: NICHOLAS CAGE

Out Friday
Watch Theaters
The Trailer | 1 hr 46 mins | R | 🍅: 93%

THE BAD GUYS

Thievery is generally looked down upon by "society." But in reality it's kind of a matter of context. If I grab your phone, kick you in the shin and run away? Bad stealing. If I watch a video on Tiktok of someone making eggs that look tastier than I do and copy their method? Good stealing. The Bad Guys involves both kinds.

The "bad stealing" is the occupation of the crew at the center of the movie. That is until they get caught and have to pretend to "go straight" to keep themselves outta tha slammer.

The "good stealing" is in the animation style that was first used to awesome effect in Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - and subsequently in their The Mitchells vs the Machines. Dreamworks has borrowed that 2D / 3D combo style here, much to the benefit of viewers it seems.

And for the sake of staying on trend here, I'll benevolently swipe a few quotes from reviewers to best explain the movie:

"With some gorgeously stylised animation and sharp comedy making up for its somewhat lightweight storytelling, The Bad Guys is... not bad." - Empire

"No singing, no dancing, no moral lessons — it’s just a cartoon, with fast-talking, wise-cracking animals, lots of silly car chases and a host of fart gags." - The Wrap

"It knows precisely what it is — and what it sets out to do, it does well. It’s a heist film with heart and humor, and where’s the crime in that?" - Washington Post

So yeah, it has a really high RT score. But remember, context matters. Always!

Vibe: style over subsistence? wait, that's not it...

Out Friday
Watch Theaters
The Trailer | 1 hr 40 mins | PG | 🍅: 94%

(called out from top, left to right)

It's here! It's finally here! It's...

...the teaser trailer for David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future!!

.......

Hmmm, maybe that's not the trailer the internet kept whining about wasn't out yet.

*searches through the series of tubes that is the internet*

*stands up as if having been hunched over for many hours, un-musses hair, and proudly exclaims*

I got it!

The teaser for Thor: Love and Thunder - featuring Sweet Child O' Mine, The Guardians of the Galaxy and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) wielding Mjölnir! It's the second Thor movie to be directed by the all-knowing and all-funny Taika Waititi.

And it's just as awesome looking as I'd hoped it'd be.

What's In Theaters +

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