Note: If you're scrolling, there's a #11 below. I do what I want.
10. Didn't Hate It, but It Left Me Wanting
These are movies where I like the concept or acknowledge the importance of what they have to say or what they’re trying to do. But they just don’t work for me (or at least not as well as I hoped). But, starting with this category, every movie from here on out is one that I enjoyed to some degree, even if it’s flawed or not quite satisfying.
Bros
This movie struck me as more of an essay on rom-coms and gay love stories (and the LGBT community in general) than a movie. I love a lot of what’s being done here, particularly the choice to cast all gay actors (even those playing straight characters in the film). And I *love* that this movie is so emphatic about gay courtship being significantly different than what we’re used to seeing with straight love stories in basically every movie we’ve ever been exposed to. I just wish it felt more like a story and less like the definitive treatise on Gay Relationships. It’s okay that it’s not universal; it shouldn’t have to be. And there’s something to be said for allowing gay stories to exist, even if they’re a bit of a misfire. I just wish this was more emotional and less intellectual. Maybe it can’t help being that, given the foibles and neuroses of our POV character, but I suspect it would be more satisfying if it wore its heart a bit more on its sleeve. It’s just trying so hard to be different from a straight love story that it’s difficult to get invested. (For comparison, this year’s FIRE ISLAND handled this balance more successfully, in my opinion.) In any case, I still look forward to whatever Billy Eichener does next. (Available on Peacock and to rent on other streaming services.)
This movie is a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon, stretched to more than two hours. Nothing wrong with that on paper (except the length), but it just feels kind of empty. The action is entertaining and the cast are clearly having a good time, but it doesn’t feel like anyone involved has any real passion for what they’re doing here. I mean, fine, it’s an action movie, whatever; it doesn’t have to be JEANNE DIELMAN. But there are so many moving parts and none of it seems to have any purpose other than to constantly dangle shiny things in your face to try and hold your attention at all costs. It’s amazing to look at and, as an American, it makes me insanely jealous of other countries’ transit systems, which seem so many light years ahead of our rickety-ass EVERYTHING. But I could not tell you what this movie was about. At all. Fun action, insane cast, LOADS of reveals and reversals, but it’s a whole lot of noise. I didn’t dislike it, but it also left almost no impression on me other than flashy-flashy-bang-bang-punchy-punchy. (Available on Netflix and to rent on other streaming services.)
I was so pumped for this, and maybe the pressure of Cronenberg’s Return to Body Horror set my expectations a tad high. I did mostly enjoy this and it’s wonderfully twisted. But it feels like Cronenberg’s Greatest Hits and reminded me too much of all of his other movies rather than being its own thing. Maybe the thing I actually admire about it and what’s the most shocking about it is how nonchalant all of its horror is. This is a world in which pain has ceased to exist for most people and where surgical procedures – performed on fully conscious patients – have replaced sex as a means of physical gratification. As I said above, I did enjoy this – if “enjoy” is the right word for a classic Cronenberg freak show – but it mainly served to make me want to rewatch his older films. Still, it’s a great showcase for a stellar cast that includes Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart and Don McKellar (aka Darren “deal with that” Nichols). (Available on Hulu and to rent on other streaming services.)
Demigod: The Legend Begins
This was one of the Fantastic Fest movies I was most looking forward to. It delivers on several fronts, especially the beautiful bùdàixì glove puppetry and the costuming. Despite the fact that it’s based on a series I’d never had any exposure to, it’s easy enough to follow the story, through all the power upheavals and reversals. I guess my biggest problem is that, due to the design of the puppets, they can’t show emotions and so those notes have to come through the voice performances and the filmmaking techniques, which the movie sometimes manages and sometimes doesn’t. It’s lovely to look at and I liked the story, but the limitations of the medium made it hard for me to fully fall in love with it. (Not yet released or streaming anywhere, but there are clips and trailers on YouTube, if you’re curious about the style and look of it.)
I spent part of the summer burning through the entire Child’s Play franchise for the first time (I’d seen the first two movies, but never the rest), including the first season of the amazing television show. So I was pumped to get to see this at Fantastic Fest, and I liked it … mostly. This is a documentary made by the daughter of one of the series’s longtime visual effects supervisors, and as such there’s a lot here about the family of the Chucky franchise. But it starts as a movie-by-movie history of the series and then kind of switches over. It’s an odd combination that doesn’t entirely work, and while there is some great talking head stuff from significant people in the franchise history, there are also interviews with people who have nothing to do with any of the films, who are commenting on horror tropes in general, which is an even stranger move to me. There’s a lot to like here, don’t get me wrong, and this is clearly a labor of love for its director and everyone involved. And I understand that part of the nature of documentaries is that you’re creating a narrative based on the footage that you have. I just found some of the choices a bit strange. (Not yet released or streaming.)
I wanted to see this at Fantastic Fest, but it conflicted with something I wanted to see even more, so I had to skip it. Luckily, the Drafthouse in New York had several screenings of it after the fest. This has some of the same problems that I think people have with THE WHALE, except notably a lead performance in a fat suit. Our main character is mercilessly bullied because of her weight, but when her tormentors are in danger she has to choose between letting them suffer and helping them. It’s a nice twist on the “bullied person gets revenge” trope, and I appreciate that it actually presents us with a moral dilemma rather than giving us the satisfaction of seeing this poor girl eviscerate her bullies (what they do to her at the pool is unconscionable, and I felt very little pity for them when we see them in that van and know they’re in for some hell – but this movie isn’t interested in easy answers and lizard brain wish fulfillment). Having said that, this feels a bit underwritten, and while the lead actress is great, it also feels like she’s weirdly underused, despite being on screen for pretty much the entire movie. (Not in theaters or streaming.)
I always feel terrible when I’m not on board with a movie that’s about an important topic. Megan Twohy’s and Jodi Kantor’s article exposing Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault and harrassment of several women in the film industry – and the system that protected him for so long – was a watershed moment for the #metoo movement. This movie has some truly great and powerful moments, but the movie itself is kind of a mess and falls into a number of cliches and cringy moments. For one thing, the tone is off – it’s trying to be a thriller like ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and it is not a thriller. And some of the choices are (to me) just wrong and ill-considered, chief among them the appearance of Not Harvey Weinstein, which actually made me laugh and took me right out of the movie. Also, when they’re about to publish and decide to go over it one more time and everyone suddenly focuses super hard on the computer screen for several seconds – babes, I do proofreading for a living and I like my job, but it is not *that* exciting. You don’t want unintentional comedy in a movie like this. I wish the movie had just been about the real women, particularly the three main women they get information from – Laura Madden, Rowena Chiu and Zelda Perkins – who all have such strong moments that would have been even stronger with more context and room to breathe. I get that the movie is based on Kantor’s and Twohy’s book, but I would have loved a movie centering on the victims’ voices instead of the reporters. On a related note, maybe the most chilling moment in the movie is a scene where you don’t see anything but a hotel corridor and the audio is the real life recording of Weinstein harassing model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez. That’s the real deal, no dramatization, and it feels like the *most* respectful and serious way to treat this subject. Maybe the whole thing should have been a documentary, actually. There’s a part of me that feels like making a dramatic narrative film about this at all is obscene. (Still in some theaters; available to rent – expensively, at the moment – on streaming services.)
Side note: I did love seeing two of my BBC BritLit Adaptation Queens – Samantha Morton (TOM JONES’s Sophia Western) and Jennifer Ehle (PRIDE & PREJUDICE’s Lizzie Bennett) – in two significant but small roles.
This was a lot, and I’m finding that I have a hard time these days watching stories where cancer is an element (I can’t imagine why), but obviously that can’t be blamed on the movie. Christian Bale is the MVP and I love a villain that almost (or even fully) convinces you to be on his side. Director Taika Waititi has saved a lot of the best stuff for himself (he reprises his role here as Korg and serves as our narrator), and he takes the flamboyance of THOR RAGNOROK and cranks it even higher. A bit too high for me, ultimately, but your mileage may vary. One of my favorite moments was a little bittersweet, though, when the children battle a parade of monsters to the strains of GNR’s “November Rain,” a song used in spectacular fashion in the working print of KICK-ASS that played BNAT more than a decade ago, but which didn’t end up being used in the final version (though they came up with a sort of facsimile in the original score). The moment and the use of the song kicks all kinds of ass, because of course it does, but it made me sad that KICK-ASS didn’t get to use it first. (Available on Disney+ and to rent on other streaming services.)
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