Adult Time at the Movies (no, not that kind)
If you ever complain about how they don't make movies for ah-dults anymore, this is your weekend.
“Can I keep you?”
Remember when I mentioned there’d be some updates this week? Whelp, this is it. What is it? This! *looks around and waves hands in big circular motion* The newsletter! Doesn’t it look different?? …um, kinda? Ok, that’s fair, it is pretty much the same thing. But behind the 0’s and 1’s I switched over to a new publishing platform. It’s called Substack. It’s honestly a move I should’ve made (literally) years ago, but I did it now, so woo-hoo! The major differences for you at the moment is what I’ve already mentioned, the look. Which if anything seems off, please let me know.
Now if you’re curious why I switched to Substack over what I was using before (Mailchimp / Squarespace), it’s mostly because of the community there, er, here. Substack is a startup focused on writers in a way that no one else really is. They do a bunch of stuff like writer features & interviews, community building as well as present a lot of growth opportunities via personal and broader recommendations. One of the bigger parts is making it easy for people to make money with their newsletters too. It’s a sort of collaborative when you make money, they make money situation. I’m not sure I’ll utilize that part, but it’s nice to have the option. I might talk about it more in the coming weeks, depending on, or this might be it. Hit me up with any questions. But otherwise, enjoy some movies.
Oh, and not that you were sitting in rapt anticipation, but due to a bit of a transition snafu, this is coming at you today vs yesterday (first time in nearly 5 years I haven’t sent on a Wednesday). But trust that in the future you’ll get this lovely gift basket of words (gift basket of words??) on Wednesdays.
Extra Credit Movies:
Run Sweetheart Run - a young woman goes on a business meeting / date? which results in her being chased across the city by a crazed blood hungry dude. The (limited) reviews are positive for the most part, saying it’s a bit on the nose, but the genre twinge helps make the adventure interesting. Streaming on Amazon Prime this Friday.
Prey for the Devil - while this is a wide release, I just felt like featuring it would be pointless, especially without reviews. It’s another version of the devil chasing someone, with jump scares in abundance I’m sure. As mentioned, no reviews yet, but not having high hopes over here. Playing in Theaters this Friday.
Call Jane - starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver (who both get praise by critics), it’s a solid looking biopic of the women who started the phone network that allowed women to get abortions before it was nationalized legally (only to have that rule overturned ←bullshit). Obviously incredibly timely. The reviews are fairly solid, saying it’s a measured well and acted, if a bit simplified. Playing in Limited Theaters this Friday.
The Good Nurse - the retelling of a nurse (Eddie Redmayne) who murdered hundreds - if not more - and the nurse who helped stop him (Jessica Chastain). The reviews, as they have for many of her movies recently, talk about the very good acting from Chastain (as they do for Redmayne) and that the movie overall does a good job of not overdramatizing the story. Streaming on Netflix NOW.
Do you feel that? That gnawing feeling deep inside in your stomach? This pang that just won’t go away? It could be that you’re hungry, or it could mean that you dearly miss the humor volcano that is the combo of Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele. (For the purposes of this overview can we just go with the latter pls?) Hell, I miss them and I’ve never even watched a full episode, I’ve just seen scattered clips on YouTube in the ensuing years after they stopped making their show. But don’t worry y’all, they’re back. And this time, they’re (stop-motion) animated.
See, Jordan Peele, who has quickly become a prolific and preeminent name in horror, teamed up with Henry Selick, the director of beloved classics Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas, to write and produce Wendell & Wild, but also decided to bring in his buddy ol’ pal to help voice two demon brothers trying to trick an orphan into bringing them into the land of the living (orphans, yeah thaaaat’s who you should pick on). You could say it’s about a girl who is battling her demons, literally. But that’d be kinda basic wouldn’t it? 💁♂️
Now Coraline came out in 2009 and that was Selick’s last movie, so it’s fair to wonder if the dude’s slippin’ at all. And while reviews mention a sort of everything happening everywhere all at once1 vibe, the mayhem apparently just provides great fodder for more madcap craziness. And more to the point, it sounds like it satisfies the base level requirement in that it is genuinely entertaining.
Plus, the addition of Peele to the writing process looks to have shifted who and what Selick centered his story on slightly. In interviews he’s mentioned how Peele said it would’ve been cool when he was younger to see someone who looked like him in this kind of movie. Which I imagine is partly why our hero Kat, whose outward attitude could be summarized as “zero fucks to give,” is Black (as well as some other Peele influences, i.e. the music). But don’t fret, this is still a Selick movie, with all the macabre attitude and zany stylings you’d expect. And wouldn’t you know it, just in time for Halloween. 🎃💀
Out: Friday
Where: Netflix
1 hr 45 mins | PG-13 | 🍅: 86%
Are you a big fan of certainty and absolutely hate having to consider multiple thoughts at once? Does ambiguity squeeg(sp?) you out more than thinking about a bucket full of maggots? Cool. This movie isn’t for you.2
I’m not trying to insult you, it’s just that this is a two and half hour movie where the ending is unlikely to be presented with a pretty little bow on top. But not sure you should expect anything less when you’re talking about a movie that’s centered on a “genius” composer / conductor like Lydia Tár (not a real person) whose own partner describes all her relationships as transactional (including theirs) and who apparently deals with her daughter’s child aged bully via threats.
But that’s only part of the troubles. Because while Tár starts with the character at the height of her prominence, unfortunately for her, she looks to be on the descent from her personal mountain, shoved off the cliff by her own actions.
Reviews are incredibly positive with Cate Blanchett getting a ton of praise for nailing a compelling yet difficult and enigmatic character. One of the biggest notes has also been on how director Todd Field is able to hold a sort of nonjudgemental gaze on his protagonist without letting the film slip into a bland diatribe on power corrupting (even if that may a part of it all). So yeah, it looks like there’s a lot going on, but in that good way.
And if you do miss out on Tár, you’re sure to miss out on a movie that’ll be up for “all of the the awards.” Which, honestly, who gives a shit. Awards denote preferences, and if yours don’t align, I wouldn’t feel bad. But the provocation that the movie looks to present does seem interesting.
“to search the movie for a consistent argument is to miss the point and fall into a category error, misconstruing the extraordinary coup that Field and Blanchett have pulled off.”
- from the NYT Review of Tár
Note: currently in select theaters in NY / LA
Out: Friday
Where: Theaters
2 hrs 28 mins | R | 🍅: 94%
You can almost predict the responses once people get the top-line of Till - “Oof, that’s a hard one.” | “I don’t watch movies and TV to become sad about life.” | “Looks good, but not sure I wanna put myself through that.” Honestly, it’s understandable. There’s already a lot of negativity in the world, so to think you’re setting yourself up for two more hours of it? Tough.
But you could’ve imagined far greater reactions when Mamie Till (played here by Danielle Deadwyler) decided to have an open casket at the funeral for / magazine pictures taken of her brutally murdered son. And yet Till did it anyway, changing the course of the civil rights movement.
And what if, for a moment, we looked at the same story, but from a different angle. Instead of merely focusing on the events of the tragedy, you focused on the people. Because that’s what reviews say Till does, acts as a sort of lens shift on what has become a literal and metaphorical page in history books. But for Mamie and her family, it was obviously far (far) more personal. While movies can’t recreate the reality of a situation, they can help remind us of the humanity behind it. Because humans often learn and change via feelings and stories, less by reciting events and facts. So yes, if you watch Till, you’ll experience the death of Emmett Till (but not directly as director Chinonye Chukwu chose not to show the act itself), and the aftermath, but you’ll also get to see Jalyn Hall embody him as the young boy he was. And you’ll see Deadwyler give a performance as Mamie Till that critics say is pretty incredible and illuminates how hard it must’ve been, and one that centers the movie.
So if nothing else, if this movie helps people remember Mamie and Emmett as real people rather than merely “historical characters,” that might be a good place to start.
Note: currently in select theaters in NY / LA
Out: Friday
Where: Theaters
2 hrs 10 mins | PG-13 | 🍅: 98%
With a title like Armageddon Time you’d be forgiven for thinking this might be the next Marvel movie. Sorry to disappoint (bring relief?), but it is not. In fact, in cinematic terms it might be considered the polar opposite - it’s a familial drama set in 80’s Queens New York from director James Gray.
While Gray has done scope”y” stuff with his last two movies - the Brad Pitt starring Ad Astra (which he kinda disavowed due to losing final cut) and the Amazon set The Lost City of Z - his first four movies were all located in a borough of NYC. But many of those were crime dramas, whereas here the director gets a bit reflective, doing a semi-autobiographical story. He pulled in big names in Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong (Succession) to play his parents, as well as Anthony Hopkins as his grandfather. The film is centered on Paul, Gray’s stand-in, who happens to be Jewish and also just a kid tryin’ to get through it all. He’s buddies with another boy, Johnny, who happens to be Black. They attend public school together and seem unaware that anything about their relationship and the differences between them might be odd to others. But when Paul starts getting in trouble, his parents send him to a private school which sets off complications in Paul and Johnny’s relationship.
Reviews say what the movie has going for it, besides some very solid acting, is an almost an unsympathetic nostalgia, one that makes you feel like you’re actually there with the family. Critics also mention that while the story occurs un-rushed, it builds to highlight how unfair the world can be; how even if it’s hard for one, it can be even harder for another. And how circumstances often make the differences in peoples’ lives.
Worth nothing there is some discussion around whether this is a “white guilt movie,” but it seems fair to say Green Book this is not.
Out: Friday
Where: Limited Theaters
1 hr 54 mins | R | 🍅: 85%
We’ve got ourselves a trailer for the third Ant-Man and the Wasp movie, subtitled Quantumania. Sadly no appearances by any of the Animaniacs as of yet, but there is one by Kang (played by Jonathan Majors) the next big bad in the MCU.
Tom Hanks puttin’ in that work. This time it’s in A Man Called Otto - about a cranky guy who I’m sure over the course of the movie, becomes less cranky.
But next comes a man never to be outworked, Gerard Butler, starring in what has become his own sub-genre - the regular guy in irregular situations that saves the day. This time it’s as a pilot. They got real cheeky with this one and decided to title it Plane (that poor SEO person).
And what’s this, another Marvel trailer? Sure it’s a “TV movie” Holiday Special, but The Guardians of the Galaxy rule, so they get a feature.
And lastly here’s an angry looking Hugh Jackman who must be thinking about Ryan Reynolds. That or it could be the situation with his son that’s causing him strife. Ya know, cuz the it’s the full trailer for the movie, The Son.
🥯
Though maybe it should be.