The Everything - April 30, 2023

Polite Society is the natural successor and antidote to Beau is Afraid. No, I will not be explaining myself. Go see for yourself.

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week. (Life is chaos, so no full-length review this week.)

Bringing Up Baby (1938) - It's loud, it's frantic, characters fall down a lot... and I love every second of it. Cary Grant plays a flustered nerd who just wants to secure funding for his museum and get married, but ends up mixed up with O.G. manic pixie dream girl Katherine Hepburn, her pet leopard, and a cast of characters who seem determined to drive him to madness. Howard Hawks directs. It's one of the funniest movies ever made.

The Evil Dead Trilogy (1981-1992) - What a weird, wonderful journey this trilogy goes on. Sam Raimi made a genuine horror classic then remade it as a comedy when he was asked to not make the sequel a sword-and-sandal hybrid... And then used its success to make that bizarre third entry. None of this should have worked! But it absolutely rules! Bruce Campbell is hilarious. The effects are gross and campy in equal measure. The filmmaking is scrappy and endlessly inventive. Just incredible. I'm almost afraid to watch the new one, because there's no way it can match the energy of the originals... But I also can't wait to see what they do differently.

The Rest - April 23, 2023

In The Traitors, host Claudia Winkleman is supposed to be cold and distant... But she just can't help becoming a cheerleader during every challenge. It's very charming.

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week.

Barry, Season 4 premiere (2023) - Like Succession, I don't know that I would have returned if this weren't the last season. And like Succession, I'm glad I did. Barry in prison and Sally in a tailspin is a compelling start. Anthony Carrigan continues to steal the show.

Scream (2022) - After another 10-year hiatus the franchise is getting itself back on track. It's maybe the most predictable entry yet, due largely to an overzealous devotion to self-referentiality. But Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are more than capable of carrying a new trilogy.

BEAU IS AFRAID - A Review

Beau, here shown only a little afraid.

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Ari Aster has made three feature films so far. They're all horror films. And all three have, at their core, been about grief. Hereditary was, as the title suggests, about lineage. Midsommar tackled catharsis, which felt like a natural next step. His latest, Beau is Afraid, takes two steps back in order to focus on guilt, which in our titular character's existence is a stand-in until the loss gets here. Early on Beau's therapist asks him if he has ever wanted his mother, the origin of his crippling anxiety, to die. You can see on his panicked face that simply hearing the question has started a new ulcer in his gut. If she knew he'd even been asked he would probably turn to dust.

Beau (the always-committed-to-the-point-of-concern Joaquin Phoenix) is a shriveled husk of a man who speaks one register above a whispered apology and is overdue for a visit to see his mother (it's been seven months). He lives in an unnamed city that is basically the Fox News description of San Francisco: a lawless hellscape where corpses litter the street, junkies shoot up around every corner and every time you go outside you are chased by the same tattooed maniac. The satire is overt and cartoonish, and it makes you question everything you see Beau go through. How real is any of this? How much trauma has he endured? And when is he going to burst?

The Rest - April 16, 2023

Baseball is a dignified sport.

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week.

Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe (2023) - If you're a fan of the Australian sketch trio, you know what to expect: unrepentant, transcendent absurdism. Its only available Down Under, so fire up the VPN and start Googling Brisbane postal codes if you live anywhere else. It will be worth your time.

A League of Their Own (1992) - "There's no crying in baseball!" Penny Marshall made the greatest sports movie of all time, with one of the greatest ensembles ever assembled, led by Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. And Madonna. And Rosie O'Donnell. And Lori Petty. I don't know why there are so many good baseball movies, but this one is so emotionally and comedically satisfying. I'm sure I'll watch it another time or two before the season is up.

AIR and THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE: A Pair of Underdogs Who Are Too Big to Fail - A Dual Review

"What's the plan?"
"We build a video game around just him. Again."

One of the joys of late-stage capitalism is seeing how far we can stretch nostalgia. Fear gets the best of corporations, and to avoid risk they lean more and more on the familiar. The lack of originality is depressing, but that doesn't mean the results have to be. Last month saw the release of a perfectly fine Dungeons & Dragons movie, after all. And so this past week Hollywood tripled down, and two more loving tributes to massive products of the 80s hit cinemas. Air is about the world's most famous basketball shoe. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is about the world's most famous plumber. Like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, both are fun, approachable underdog stories. But both also have the added challenge of overcoming the fact that they are the most successful products of billion-dollar companies. Do they succeed? Kind of. Let's start with Air.

The Rest - April 9, 2023

Did Werner Herzog really need to make that bet, or was he just curious to see if he could make himself eat a shoe after watching The Gold Rush?

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week.

Beef, Episode 1 (2023) - The Netflix series stars Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as strangers who continually escalate their retaliation on each other following a rude exchange in a parking lot. I don't know how this could possibly go for a whole season, but I look forward to finding out. 

The Gold Rush (1925) - Caught this childhood favorite at a local screening with live organ accompaniment. A lovely way to experience one of Chaplin's best, in which the Little Tramp is hoping to strike it rich in late-1800s Alaska.

RYE LANE - A Review

Rye Lane is a well-balanced rom-com.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Raine Allen-Miller's vibrant feature debut may begin with a fly over of multiple bathroom stalls, but don't be fooled: This movie is not taking the piss. At a tight 82-minutes, it's a walk-and-talk getting-to-know-you rom-com that finds joy in every frame and pathos in every line of dialogue. Once the camera settles over sad-sack accountant Dom (David Johnson), he immediately meets would-be manic pixie dream girl/costumer Yas (Vivian Oparah), and their journey together begins. He's crying, and she's curious. It's no meet-cute, but it is appropriately quirky and vulnerable.

The two are at an art installation put on by a mutual friend, and after some polite small talk end up heading the same way home. He can't seem to shake her and is soon over-sharing about a recent breakup. She sympathizes, having recently experienced her own split, though she's seemingly okay with hers. By the ten-minute mark we know the rest of the film will be these two wandering the streets of South London. And that's exactly what we get: two strangers with instant chemistry bouncing from karaoke bars to backyard barbecues, running into exes, and getting to know each other. Complete with Scrubs-like asides where stories are exaggerated and fantasies can be acted out apart from the more grounded reality of the main plotline. These are some of the funniest moments in the film as well as a smart, quick way to establish intimacy between Yas and Dom.

The Rest - April 2, 2023

How often do you think he got DiCaprio and Damon mixed up on set?

A quick wrap-up of everything else I watched this week.

Can't Hardly Wait (1998) - I was too young for this when it came out and don't fully click with the humor or pathos of this graduation night party comedy, but Seth Green and Lauren Ambrose should have been A-List celebs immediately after this.

The Departed (2006) - I hadn't seen this since college. While I still find the cat-and-mouse story compelling, the editing and tone is so all over the place that I understand the pushback. Far from Scorsese's best, but it sure is swinging for the fences and having looked back at the competition ('06 wasn't the greatest of movie years) I get why the Academy chose to give Marty the Oscar.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES - A Review

This film's Zava.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

I want to be upfront about this: I don't care for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. I didn't grow up with it, but have joined a couple campaigns as an adult and always found it underwhelming. I've had some lovely DMs who try their best to create a rich and engaging experience, and I've always enjoyed creating characters and crafting backstories. But I just can't get past the clunky mechanics and restrictive rulebook. And that is a me problem. I want my imagination unencumbered by a hefty tome of rules, which obviously stunts the game aspect.

So from the moment I first spied the poster at the local AMC right up until I walked into the theater, I was sceptical about Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Sure, writing/directing duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley made one of the greatest comedies of the past decade with Game Night, but they were also behind one of its worst, the 2015 Vacation remake. And working with a beloved property under a huge studio like Paramount can lead to mixed results (see: the last time they made a D&D movie). But fear not, weary filmgoer, for this is a welcome and winsome adaptation that is sure to please even the most pessimistic among us.