LIES at the Almeida: Like ‘The Big Short’ But I’m Christian Baleby Randi / August 23, 2018
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about ‘It Happened in Key West’, which played at London’s Charing Cross Theatre this summer.
See how nice I’m trying to be nowadays with my wording? I could have said, like all the other critics, “this is not good”, but no, it’s actually “full of potential”. It’s because I’ve been watching ‘The Good Place’ so much, like over and over (BSE). Whoever said television can’t make you a better person was full of shirt. I want to talk about ‘It Happened in Key West’, even though the London production is now closed, because it has the ability to be a much better show if the creators put more work into it. I really believe that there is nothing but potential for this truly original romantic comedy musical (something that the boards really need right now) to be a success, but that’s if the creators treat the Charing Cross run as a test, learn what worked and what didn’t, and make the necessary improvements without being precious about protecting the work they’ve made thus far. The show needs new songs and a good dramaturg to nail the right tone instead of leaving it the wavering muddle it is at this stage. As it is, it’s not a bad show; it was quite entertaining. But it could actually be good.
See how nice I’m trying to be nowadays with my wording? I could have said, like all the other critics, “this is not good”, but no, it’s actually “full of potential”. It’s because I’ve been watching ‘The Good Place’ so much, like over and over (BSE). Whoever said television can’t make you a better person was full of shirt. I want to talk about ‘It Happened in Key West’, even though the London production is now closed, because it has the ability to be a much better show if the creators put more work into it. I really believe that there is nothing but potential for this truly original romantic comedy musical (something that the boards really need right now) to be a success, but that’s if the creators treat the Charing Cross run as a test, learn what worked and what didn’t, and make the necessary improvements without being precious about protecting the work they’ve made thus far. The show needs new songs and a good dramaturg to nail the right tone instead of leaving it the wavering muddle it is at this stage. As it is, it’s not a bad show; it was quite entertaining. But it could actually be good.
‘Key West’ tells the true story – I shirt you not, it is – of Carl Tanzler, or Count Carl von Cosel as he presented himself, a German radiologist/inventor/scientist with nine degrees (he tells you that a lot) who moves to Key West in the 1920s and falls in obsessive ‘love’ with a young Cuban woman named Elena. The young woman (who was married but her husband left her) comes to him with a bad cough, and unforch it’s tuberculosis in its late stages. At this time, TB was a death sentence (just ask Nikki K high-kicking it down at the Moulin Rouge), but Carl instantly became obsessed with Elena’s youthful beauty (he was hella old btw) and tried whatever he could to save her. Elena’s death did not kill Carl’s obsession, and so – gird your loins – he stole her corpse from her tomb and lived with it and cared for it as if it were his wife for SEVEN YEARS.
Can you imagine the smell.
Carl used lots of perfumes, waxes, varnishes, and other tricks to try to keep the corpse from, well, you know, and I guess some of it worked because SEVEN YEARS but man alive! (or not!) In the show, Carl tied the body to his tandem bicycle and would ride around town with it, pretending it was his new girlfriend. And I guess the townspeople just didn’t look too closely? It’s a weird forking story. I remember listening to a This American Life podcast about this story years ago so I knew what was coming, but hilariously, Husbo did not know the background. At the end of the show, the projection screen displays the photos of the real Carl and Elena. Seeing the old-timey photos of people who weren’t the actors, Husbo said “that makes me nervous that this wasn’t entirely fiction” and so I had to explain to him that no, we actually just saw a weird af musical about actual real-life necrophilia being presented as a love story.
And that’s the main problem with this show, that they sometimes remember to treat this as the bizarrely wacky madness that it is, but mostly they overly romanticize Carl’s actions and treat it as a love story that ‘sadly’ can’t last forever, forgetting I guess that it’s about criminal, horrifying, revolting necrophilia and tomb raiding and lots of other real weird stuff. The biggest issue is that it doesn’t know what tone it wants to strike or how to strike it. Sometimes it’s overwhelmingly maudlin, sometimes it’s bizarre and eerie, and sometimes it’s funny. This issue is not a surprise to me at all, since creator Jill Santoriello had the same problem with her Broadway musical “A Tale of Two Cities”. Granted, I got the first rush ticket for the first preview of that show (10 years ago!) and I sat front row center right behind the conductor, who I chatted with for a little, so I had a grand old time. But even in my giddy cloud I could tell that the lyrics I was hearing in the songs just didn’t make sense. I remember one actress with a big booming impressive voice singing about how she wanted to exact revenge for the death of her family…but the lyrics she was singing were angry in the wrong way, saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’, and so the message didn’t come across properly in the least. The whole show was like that, and that’s why it failed. Here too, the entire tone is unsettled and unclear, and that can kill a show.
I hate to say it because I think it is baller that Santoriello is one of only two women in history to write an entire show – book, music, and lyrics – on their own, but the creative process requires other minds to bounce ideas off of, because then the best ideas are used. In ‘Key West’, she had some book help from Jason Huza and Jeremiah James, but neither of them, from my research, has ever been involved in musical theatre before, so that’s not the best kind of collaborator for something like this show, which requires defined intentions and meticulous efforts in order to work at all, even more than other shows since the right tone is so important here.
And they really didn’t get the tone right. Like I said, sometimes the jokes landed, but often times they merely resulted in a ‘oh, that’s weird. Huh.’ The main proposal was that Carl and The Spirit of Elena actually loved each other, so when he was caught after their long ‘marriage’, it was sad because he couldn’t keep her. In the show, a judge dismisses some charge or other against him because ‘it was clear he really loved her’, and someone in the audience actually woo-hooed. You don’t woo-hoo at some creep getting away with long-term necrophilia!! WHAT ARE PEOPLE TODAY. With all the ghost-wedding (such ‘A Blessing on Your Head, Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov’ vibes in that scene) stuff, the endless reprises of the main “Undying Love” theme, and the sympathy shown towards Carl at the end, it’s clear that the creators wanted this to be a straightforward romance story, and it just can’t be.
The deviations from reality to add something to the story were entirely unnecessary, and caused more harm than good. I mean, did you hear what it’s about? You don’t need to add drama to this. For example, Elena’s sisters were portrayed as one-dimensional villainous evil step-sisters, blocking Carl from treating Elena even though it may have been helping, and instead letting a different ‘doctor’ experiment on her with harmful bleeding techniques in exchange for bribe money. Can these two characters really be that evil that they’d risk their sister’s life for money? They were extremely annoying and unsympathetic, yet it didn’t make me feel any more sympathy for Elena, which I feel was the intention. In fact, the family’s horribleness almost made it seem like Carl should take care of the corpse, which is not the message you want to send.
The cast was overall good, with American Wade McCollum as a strong Carl (and with his beard, eerily looking like the real one) and Alyssa Martyn as the lovely Elena. Both were good singers and seemed to be really committing to this material, so I wish it better served them. My favorite was Johan Munir as Mario, Elena’s brother in law who was sympathetic to Carl. He seemed to be the only family member with any kind of common sense so that might be why I liked him. And although the score had a couple catchy tunes, and some hilarious and clever lyrics, they need more of them.
With more work, I think it would succeed best with a purely comical take, because when it’s funny, it’s really funny, and with more precise direction a lot of the lines that were clearly intended to be funny would actually…be funny. A comical route would be especially apt because the story is absolutely bonkers, and trying to sentimentalize it too fervently renders it toothless and, more importantly, makes me uncomfortable. This is not a story to portray as a sweet love story; it’s not one, and trying to make it one is disturbing. And that’s one of the biggest missteps of the show as it is now. Instead of clearly showing that Carl is off his rocker and – lest we forget – guilty of a pretty significant crime, the entire ending paints him with an overly sympathetic brush, with all characters – including the judge, I mean come on – wishing that they could give the rotting corpse back to him so he could go on with his happy love story. Playing it this way, the show has trouble staying together or feeling at cohesive, kind of like Elena’s body after seven years, I imagine.
Can you imagine the smell.
Carl used lots of perfumes, waxes, varnishes, and other tricks to try to keep the corpse from, well, you know, and I guess some of it worked because SEVEN YEARS but man alive! (or not!) In the show, Carl tied the body to his tandem bicycle and would ride around town with it, pretending it was his new girlfriend. And I guess the townspeople just didn’t look too closely? It’s a weird forking story. I remember listening to a This American Life podcast about this story years ago so I knew what was coming, but hilariously, Husbo did not know the background. At the end of the show, the projection screen displays the photos of the real Carl and Elena. Seeing the old-timey photos of people who weren’t the actors, Husbo said “that makes me nervous that this wasn’t entirely fiction” and so I had to explain to him that no, we actually just saw a weird af musical about actual real-life necrophilia being presented as a love story.
And that’s the main problem with this show, that they sometimes remember to treat this as the bizarrely wacky madness that it is, but mostly they overly romanticize Carl’s actions and treat it as a love story that ‘sadly’ can’t last forever, forgetting I guess that it’s about criminal, horrifying, revolting necrophilia and tomb raiding and lots of other real weird stuff. The biggest issue is that it doesn’t know what tone it wants to strike or how to strike it. Sometimes it’s overwhelmingly maudlin, sometimes it’s bizarre and eerie, and sometimes it’s funny. This issue is not a surprise to me at all, since creator Jill Santoriello had the same problem with her Broadway musical “A Tale of Two Cities”. Granted, I got the first rush ticket for the first preview of that show (10 years ago!) and I sat front row center right behind the conductor, who I chatted with for a little, so I had a grand old time. But even in my giddy cloud I could tell that the lyrics I was hearing in the songs just didn’t make sense. I remember one actress with a big booming impressive voice singing about how she wanted to exact revenge for the death of her family…but the lyrics she was singing were angry in the wrong way, saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’, and so the message didn’t come across properly in the least. The whole show was like that, and that’s why it failed. Here too, the entire tone is unsettled and unclear, and that can kill a show.
I hate to say it because I think it is baller that Santoriello is one of only two women in history to write an entire show – book, music, and lyrics – on their own, but the creative process requires other minds to bounce ideas off of, because then the best ideas are used. In ‘Key West’, she had some book help from Jason Huza and Jeremiah James, but neither of them, from my research, has ever been involved in musical theatre before, so that’s not the best kind of collaborator for something like this show, which requires defined intentions and meticulous efforts in order to work at all, even more than other shows since the right tone is so important here.
And they really didn’t get the tone right. Like I said, sometimes the jokes landed, but often times they merely resulted in a ‘oh, that’s weird. Huh.’ The main proposal was that Carl and The Spirit of Elena actually loved each other, so when he was caught after their long ‘marriage’, it was sad because he couldn’t keep her. In the show, a judge dismisses some charge or other against him because ‘it was clear he really loved her’, and someone in the audience actually woo-hooed. You don’t woo-hoo at some creep getting away with long-term necrophilia!! WHAT ARE PEOPLE TODAY. With all the ghost-wedding (such ‘A Blessing on Your Head, Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov’ vibes in that scene) stuff, the endless reprises of the main “Undying Love” theme, and the sympathy shown towards Carl at the end, it’s clear that the creators wanted this to be a straightforward romance story, and it just can’t be.
The deviations from reality to add something to the story were entirely unnecessary, and caused more harm than good. I mean, did you hear what it’s about? You don’t need to add drama to this. For example, Elena’s sisters were portrayed as one-dimensional villainous evil step-sisters, blocking Carl from treating Elena even though it may have been helping, and instead letting a different ‘doctor’ experiment on her with harmful bleeding techniques in exchange for bribe money. Can these two characters really be that evil that they’d risk their sister’s life for money? They were extremely annoying and unsympathetic, yet it didn’t make me feel any more sympathy for Elena, which I feel was the intention. In fact, the family’s horribleness almost made it seem like Carl should take care of the corpse, which is not the message you want to send.
The cast was overall good, with American Wade McCollum as a strong Carl (and with his beard, eerily looking like the real one) and Alyssa Martyn as the lovely Elena. Both were good singers and seemed to be really committing to this material, so I wish it better served them. My favorite was Johan Munir as Mario, Elena’s brother in law who was sympathetic to Carl. He seemed to be the only family member with any kind of common sense so that might be why I liked him. And although the score had a couple catchy tunes, and some hilarious and clever lyrics, they need more of them.
With more work, I think it would succeed best with a purely comical take, because when it’s funny, it’s really funny, and with more precise direction a lot of the lines that were clearly intended to be funny would actually…be funny. A comical route would be especially apt because the story is absolutely bonkers, and trying to sentimentalize it too fervently renders it toothless and, more importantly, makes me uncomfortable. This is not a story to portray as a sweet love story; it’s not one, and trying to make it one is disturbing. And that’s one of the biggest missteps of the show as it is now. Instead of clearly showing that Carl is off his rocker and – lest we forget – guilty of a pretty significant crime, the entire ending paints him with an overly sympathetic brush, with all characters – including the judge, I mean come on – wishing that they could give the rotting corpse back to him so he could go on with his happy love story. Playing it this way, the show has trouble staying together or feeling at cohesive, kind of like Elena’s body after seven years, I imagine.
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What It’s Like Seeing The Normal Heart During Another Pandemic
TL;DR it’s soul-crushingly ironic.
A few weekends ago, we had the complicated privilege of seeing Larry Kramer’s seminal work, The Normal Heart, now playing at The National Theatre. Kramer wrote the play, which premiered in 1985, during and about the rise of the AIDS epidemic in New York City in the early ’80s.
Whenever people talk about The Normal Heart, they use the phrase ‘searing indictment’. I mean not without good reason – it works, and it sounds good. It’s a ‘searing indictment’ of state and federal governments, of all aspects of the health system that failed to do literally anything to help the sick or help curb the spread. And, of the hindsight granted to us in viewing a community that was stuck between a rock and a hard place — not wanting to ruffle too many feathers in their attempt to get people to care, but doomed to fail unless they did so.
What this production ended up being, however, was an indictment of our present theatre-going community, and, of course, the entities tasked with ensuring our welfare. I am not comparing the situations or the people involved, but it was beyond ironic to see a play about a world-changing pandemic during a world-changing pandemic, and upsettingly so. You don’t want the lessons of Kramer and of AIDS and of incredible words like The Normal Heart to simultaneously be relevant and ignored, yet here we are.
In the play, Ned Weeks (Ben Daniels) is painted as the odd man out for being so quick to anger, so full of rage that he easily unleashes, while his peers try to remain calm and reserved and polite, as though that ever accomplishes anything. Early in the show, Ned says some whoa there things about Jews in the Holocaust and in America during the war who didn’t fight against what was happening. He rails against Jews for not fighting for what was right, as though they could have done anything. For the rest of the show, Ned lives firsthand through a refutation of this speech, as he and his community become the new embodiment of the powerless, with no one listening to them and no one willing to help except one lone doctor, Emma Brookner (Liz Carr).
There’s a lot I can say about this always moving, emotional show. I could talk about Ben Daniels’ lead performance, and how capably he carried this heavy, heavy show. I could talk about the quality of the supporting cast. I could wonder why it seemed like the famous Act II monologue of Dr Emma Brookner, always hailed as the most impressive featured role, seemed truncated even though it wasn’t. I could talk about the fine directorial choices like the gradual accumulation of physical junk on the floor, or in contrast how for some reason the play overall felt more overtly didactic than any production I’ve seen before, like it was solely a sequence of monologues.
However, none of these critical aspects of the play itself feel remotely important when considering the overall experience of this play, happening now, in this climate. I think of this experience and I am filled with incomprehensible fury. This audience at the National at a performance on a Saturday night represented the worst showing for maskwearing I’ve seen anywhere since the pandemic began. And I’ve been to America. Twice. I never knew what irony was until I was watching this play about how people weren’t taking a pandemic seriously while surrounded by people not taking a pandemic seriously. Ned yells at his friends when they refuse to entertain the idea of even suggesting to gay men to stop having promiscuous sex for now; they say this is a matter of personal freedom and identity. Guys, that’s just toooo on the nose, isn’t it? Ned says that their personal freedom is endangering HIS life. And a man across the aisle clapped and hooted while coughing openly. I wholeheartedly recognize and approve of Ned’s fury at his fellow man in failing to join him in his, because that’s how it feels being one of the few taking this pandemic seriously. Watching in real time as his righteous indignation, so beautifully and honestly written by Kramer, performed by Daniels, directed by Cooke, fell on such conspicuously deaf ears, it felt like the unavoidable condemnation was on our society now, not then.
Of course the situations are different, and the ignorance is based on different kinds of hate. Yet the emotions are the same — the frustration, the feeling of being abandoned, the feeling that your fellow man doesn’t care, the knowledge that he doesn’t. Because in case you didn’t know, we are indeed still in a pandemic that our government is refusing to take seriously. People in the healthcare community are on the news begging the government to do something, and the government responds with promises to the business communities that they won’t implement another lockdown, as though people in business can’t die of Covid. All the theatres I’ve returned to up to this point have politely and carelessly suggested that audience members wear masks, but without an actual rule that patrons must wear masks, it seems like roughly 80% do not. And for some reason, theatres state their belief that unless the government has a mask mandate, they do not have the legal authority to make or enforce one, which is a bunch of hot hot garbage.
Without an actual mandate from the theatre, and without staff enforcing the wearing of masks, theatre audiences are widely unmasked. I assumed that the kind of people choosing to see The Normal Heart, people voluntarily seeing a heart breaker about this sort of systemic and personal failure to curb a pandemic and help victims, would be the kind of people still wearing masks and giving a shit. I was very wrong!
I honestly still cannot wrap my head around the extraordinary irony of listening to Ned scream at his friends and community members about how they don’t care and aren’t doing enough, while we were sitting next to people who don’t care and aren’t doing enough, and who have the gall to cheer (and then ignore) the lessons being taught onstage. It’s seriously distressing to hear these lines about how other people are pretending nothing’s wrong and they don’t care if others die so long as they can go on acting in their own self interest, when that’s exactly what’s happening. It took all my strength not to turn to all the maskless people and be like, ‘aren’t you guys hearing this?’ Dr. Brookner’s big moment has her screaming at a medical committee that decides not to fund her research into AIDS; she yells at them to just do something, anything, or they would all be dead before they could. And the audience APPLAUDED. The people around us coughing and not covering their mouths and wearing their masks around their necks APPLAUDED. No, it’s not the same, what people could be doing to help now versus what they could do then. Because what we could do now is unbelievably simple and we have the scientific community’s data and backing instead of deadly stymieing. Just wear a mask. And you’re still refusing. You’re clapping at someone in play being angry at others for not doing anything, and yet you are refusing to do the easiest fucking thing of putting a fucking piece of cloth over your nose.
I do believe that individuals in our theatre community have a lot to answer for; two years in, we have the knowledge and ability to be responsible members of society on our own volition, without being ordered to give a shit by controlling entities or governments. But, as we’ve seen, humans won’t do the right thing en masse unless ordered to. So I blame the National Theatre, having the balls to put this show on and ignore its lessons by not enforcing mask wearing or having literally any awareness of it being a pandemic. (I also continue to blame the NT for its long-standing problem of having no ushers around in case of trouble. A few times up in the circle in the past years, I’ve searched desperately for a staff member to help with issues (including one audience member who was ill), and couldn’t find anyone in the whole upper level lobby or anything. They never have anyone anywhere once the show starts. Ridic.) And above all, it is the systemic fault of the Society of London Theatres and UK Theatre membership organizations for not issuing ANY regulations for their theatres. (Obsessed with their bullshit CYAs, like how SOLT’s website has a section for ‘well-being’ to help members and stuff deal with the pandemic. You know what would help everyone’s well-being? A mask mandate.) Literally while writing this, I got an email from Telecharge reminding me how all Broadway theatres are requiring proof of vaccination and enforcing mask wearing. Londoners, you officially lose your right to make fun of Americans. If Broadway can do this, London can do this. FUCKING DO IT.
All (Most) of the Important Movies to Know Before the Academy Awards
It’s time for our favorite annual tradition! The Oscars are Sunday, and so it’s time (really waited till the last minute this year) to talk about the films you should know if you are going to watch/talk to people/go out into the world. Below I have commented in my trademark rambling nonsense fashion on all the important movies of the 2019 season, plus some that are definitely not important but I had already written their little blurbs before I decided not to do Every Movie I Saw This Year like I’ve done in the past and I decided to keep them in for fun.
I think this year was EXCEPTIONALLY strong for movies (not for literally anything else in the world, but for movies). There are several films that in other years would have been the clear – and only possible – winner. Yet in this packed season, there are so many great films that many worthy ones have been left out of awards contention altogether. And the ones considered frontrunners in certain categories don’t even include my favorites. What a year! Hooray for movies! Let’s get into it; lord knows it’ll take you long enough to read.
1917
Before seeing this movie, I was told that it was mighty stressful, which of course it is, it’s a war epic, but like, extra so. I wanted to take an Ativan but only had one left and I need it for my next flight but omg I really should have used it for this; it’s the most stressful movie ever. I don’t think I was breathing and I was digging my nails into my palms the whole time (and I don’t really have nails!). But, it’s an incredible film. Who knew there were still interesting and new war stories to tell? I was like UGH ANOTHER BRITISH WAR MOVIE (they’re all British even the ones that aren’t) but 1917 might actually be the greatest one, so unbelievably gripping and emotional and personal. It’s hard to make a war movie feel personal.
1917 came about because Kate Winslet’s ex husband (also incredible stage director, like legit responsible for some of my absolute favorite theatrical works in history like the Alan Cumming-Natasha Richardson (RIP) version of Cabaret, the Bernadette Gypsy, the West End debut of Assassins ffs!, The Ferryman, what was I talking about? Oh right he was also married to Kate Winslet for 8ish years and wrote and directed 1917 (I’m talking about Sam Mendes btw)) had a grandfather who was in the war and never spoke about his experiences until way late in his life for obvious reasons and one of the stories he told young Sammy was about sending messages across enemy lines and so Sammy wrote a movie about that tale and did an amazing job. I really don’t like war movies, like I will never rewatch them and isn’t rewatching the hallmark of enjoying something? But hell if this isn’t superb. It tells of two young British soldiers who are ordered by the hot priest and the still-hot Colin Firth (I had no idea anyone famous was in it and then there are like TOO MANY famous people it was kind of ridiculous and honestly felt weird they all had 2 lines max) to take a message to fellow troops miles away, requiring them to cross no man’s land and former enemy territory and basically miraculously survive just walking out in the open in order to stop an attack that Colonel Bandersnatch is itching to launch against the Germans, who Bandersnatch thinks have retreated but IT’S A TRICK. The two soldiers tasked with this…um…task need to get this message to the other troops not only to save thousands of lives but also because one of their older brothers is in that regiment, the one who is Jon Snow’s brother from the bad wedding, you know, and in the show where his lady boss blows up. Richard Madden. Save him! He has such bad luck!
The bad luck runs in the family, apparently, and the two boys go through all manner of hell in their attempt to deliver their message. They cross no man’s land and get cut on barbed wire and slide down into horse corpses (it is HARD to say horse corpses a few times in a row, like the WW1 version of ‘wasp nostrils’ (you know what I’m talking about if you watched the BSE (Best Show Ever))) and almost get done in by gigantic ROUS’s in German underground barracks and get stabbed by Germans and find babies that they want to help and it’s all just VERY SAD and we should do whatever we can do avoid wars, guys, why is anyone still supporting a war? Looks bloody terrible. The most miraculous thing about this movie, besides how Richard Madden with literally 30 seconds of screentime broke my g-d heart into a million pieces and I can’t stop thinking about it (the only famous actor that needed to be in it, really; they could have saved so much money I bet by not paying for Firth and Bandergiggles and forking Mark Strong and hot priest (but keep him around) (also I bet you didn’t catch stage stars Jamie Parker (original Harry Potter onstage) and Michael Jibson (original King George in Hambabies on the West End))), was that it was filmed so expertly that it looked like one uninterrupted shot, making us feel like we were on that harrowing journey with the boys, which I don’t appreciate because that’s why I couldn’t breathe and was so forking scared but man that is some directorial genius. Bravo.
AD ASTRA
Okay, so you’re a rocket scientist…
Okay, so you have a car…
Okay, so you’re Brad Pitt…
That don’t impress me much.
ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE
I’m always down for a new Netflix romcom, an Ali Wong comedy special, and a bit of Keanu Reeves. Put all three of those together and you’ve surely got a slam dunk, right? But Always Be My Maybe was just okay for me, dog. It told the story of Ali Wong and Randall Park as teenagers who are best friends, and then a couple for a minute, and then they grow up and Ali becomes a world-famous chef and Randall becomes a struggling musician and then they reconnect and you want them to be happy together but they aren’t and it’s a little off, but then they are and it’s okay? Their grown-up dynamic is very Luke and Lorelai after they’re a couple, completely devoid of the magic and romance and just, well, meh.
Ali and Randall are super likable and it’s wonderful to have them play romantic leads, but there wasn’t enough rom in this com for me. It seemed like maybe it was for the best if they didn’t end up together, so forcing them together didn’t have the necessary emotional weight that a romantic pairing should. It was more like ‘yeah they are good friends with a history, this is nice, I GUESS.” Keanu Reeves taking the piss out of his own public persona was by far the highlight, and Randall’s weird af girlfriend was definitely the lowlight. Why would he put up with her? So annoying. A lot was annoying.. And although the emotional threads tied up neatly at the end, killing off a parent in the first five minutes to create those threads lost me a little right away. What do they think they are, a Disney movie?
THE BANKER
They did this movie dirty. I was lucky to get a screener of this way back before the controversy that pushed its release back several months and removed it from the festival circuit, and it was a great film with great performances. It’s too bad no one else will see it.
The Banker tells the true story of Bernard Garrett, a black man in the 1950s who is like hey I want to be a banker, but he lives in America so the public is like hey you shut up. But Garrett has DREAMS and he’s played by a very serious and stern Anthony Mackie and Anthony Mackie doesn’t let anyone crush his dreams (even when he had a dream that Matt Damon should be president and Matt was like, I just wanna love Emily Blunt who is a dancer? and Mackie is like no let’s wear these magical hats that take us through doors (but not like The Good Place) and I’ll convince you, it’s president time, and Matt’s like no I don’t wanna listen to you or have my life all mapped out and Mackie is like BUT LOOK I’M HOLDING THE MAP and Matty’s like NO and Mackie’s like YES and then they like compromise but the universe is magical or something I don’t really get that movie but I do like how a door from a pizza place connects to the Statue of Liberty, that depressed French bitch) or, it seems, have any fun. So Garrett goes to California and meets Samuel L. Jackson and Sammy is like WOO LET’S HAVE A PARTY and Garrett is like ‘no I want to be a banker – well first I want to be a landlord, then a banker later – and I guess I need your help’ and Sammy is like WE CAN WORK AND PLAY LET’S MAKE SOME MONEY BABY and Garrett is like “hmm maybe”.
So then Chief O’Brien takes a break from not paying attention to his children (he has two does he know) to sell Garrett his first building so he can own real estate but then O’Brien dies and they never signed a contract and that’s a real setback and not just because I guess his death means that that teenage Ferengi is now chief of engineering? I can’t believe how much Star Trek husbo has made me watch? Anyway Sammy and Garrett are UNDETERRED and they form a partnership to become big boss landlords and then the first black bankers but obvs they can’t just go like START so they hire Willing White Man Nicholas “I was once a young Kelsey Grammer” Hoult to be their faux frontman and start doing banking, I guess, you could just go start a bank back then, banks didn’t already run the world? And Nicholas “Jennifer Lawrence used to be my girlfriend” Hoult does a good job of being the face of the company while Garrett and SLJ pretend to be his chauffeurs but are really running things but all the white clients would never work with them if they knew, so it’s like a great big secret operation to keep up and it’s rather entertaining. But then Nicholas doesn’t marry JLaw (she married some total rando with a food name) and instead marries this awful blonde woman who tells him he should fork over his partners because he’s white so he’s more important and he DOES (this part is sexist and I don’t think this film passes the Bechdel test) and everything goes to shit and of course the black guys suffer for it but I think it all like sort of works out? It was pretty good.
Unfortunately, it came to light that the son of Garrett Sr. – portrayed for a few minutes in the movie as a mostly-silent teen – has a history of sexual assault accusations, so Apple had really no choice but to pull it. This figure isn’t really important to the movie at all – it’s about his father – but he was a co-producer. Why they couldn’t just remove him from the project and make sure he doesn’t benefit from it I don’t know. Maybe he held the life rights and couldn’t be removed? Maybe there’s more to it? Amar Ramasar gets to play Bernardo on Broadway but everyone’s hard work on this movie gets canned? Sucks all around.
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
This dramatic continuation of the resurgence of Mr. Rogers love, after his lovely documentary last year, was so much better than it is getting credit for. Tom Hanks is wonderful as expected, with so much heart and lovableness, and Matthew Rhys continues to impressively hide his Welsh accent and capture the nuance of his characters. The story, of how Mr. Rogers helped a struggling journalist who had Anger Issues and Father Issues and Lots of Other Issues by being his loving, caring self is exactly what we need right now, a story that ultimately reminds you that some people are decent and we all should try to be so decent.
The movie begins with Mr. Coach Tom Hanks Rogers Steve doing an episode of his show, telling the viewers about a friend of his who is suffering. He shows a picture of this friend and it’s Matthew! But they haven’t met yet! Flershberkkkk and Matthew, a deep-digging investigative journalist, is assigned a profile on Mr. Rogers by his boss who is none other than Chicago Hope’s Christine Lahti, responsible for one of the top five greatest awards show moments in history (when she won but was in the bathroom omg do you remember? I do it was THE BEST). Matthew is like whatttt ughhh but I’m a serious journalistttt and he’s a kids show hoooost and Christine is like “they told me I won when I flushed the toilet and I thought it was a joke!” and so Matthew has to go meet Mr. Rogers and they form a bond and Fred helps him through all his issues and he’s just the nicest man ever and it makes you want to be a nice man too and ugh it’s just SO FORKING GOOD. I love this movie so much, one of my faves of the year. We really take Tom Hanks for granted because he’s so good always in anything and he is again here but we shouldn’t take him for granted we should praise jebus for him amen. The whole cast is good, including Chris Cooper as Matthew’s estranged, dying father (so good and so sad that ending ERMA ERMA ERMA) and also Tammy Blanchard is in it for two seconds just to remind you how good she is and that she should get the lead role in the Little Shop remake not ScarJo I mean hello Tammy is a musical theatre amazer (yes Scarlett has a Tony (so few people know this lol) but for a PLAY can she sing? I mean if she can sing I guess she’d be good but Tammy is so excellent and just played the role off-Bway ugh anyway go watch this movie). It’s a really lovely film that we all probably need right now.
BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE
Zach Galifianakis’s (omg I just googled and I spelt his name right on the first try I’m a wizard Harry) amazing celebrity interviews are a thing of beauty, awkward and uncomfortable and hilarious beauty. So it makes sense that someone somewhere was like ‘let’s cash cow this up with a Netflix movie’, but a funny thing repeated for a few hours longer than usual isn’t the best idea. The interviews, as always, are hilarious, but then they had to make a story around it. And that story is bad. They created a behind-the-scenes tale of Zach and his crew on his public access interview show, and their work in putting on the fake cable show and getting to each interview is not interesting. The new interviews, with an amazing array of stars, were hilarious as always, but the BTS stuff stringing them together were lackluster and, all too often, zero fun. They should have just released a new crop of interviews and called it a day.
BOOKSMART
My best friend Beanie Feldstein got to star in one of the best movies ever and it is WHAT SHE DESERVES. A much-needed high school comedy from the girls’ perspective, Booksmart is the vulgar-but-intelligent story of a believably realistic (well except for baby Carrie Fisher who has some sort of magic and is amazing) senior class the night before they graduate. I should have known that it would be a perfect movie when Katie Silberman, the genius behind the best modern romcom, Set It Up, was on the writing team, and with Beanie involved, and directed by Olivia Wilde (pre-Richard Jewell fiasco), and with a host of Broadway and Broadway-adjacent names attached. But it was so much better than I hoped. SO MUCH FUN.
The movie tells of overachiever Beanie Feldstein (I don’t look up names that I forget, you know this by now) – class president, going to Yale (ugh they don’t deserve you), never had a day of fun because she was prepping for her future – going to parties for the first time, with her bff Kaitlyn Dever, who is excellent. They party hop trying to find the boy Beanie has a crush on, and all the unique characters that get a chance to shine during this parade of hilarity (the aforementioned baby Carrie Fisher who pops up everywhere is pitch perfect (and looks so much like her grandmother who I loved so so much ugh I think of her family all the time it’s not weird), as is the hilarious Jared whose ridiculousness masks his insecurity) make this a truly great ensemble comedy. I felt especially seen with the character of young Evan Hansen (true story), the theatre kid throwing shade at Dever’s singing during the amazing Alanis karaoke scene with his cutting “she’s not using breath support, do you hear” line. I cannot. And continuing in the model set by Easy A with the lead teenage girl’s parents being off-the-charts hysterical, Will Forte and Lisa Kudrow are amazing in the literally one minute they get.
Aside from all the hilarity, this movie has real moments of depth and thoughtfulness. Like Beanie, I assumed that her classmates who partied all through high school could never have gotten into the same school she did or even better ones, and I felt for her when she realized she wasted so much time when she could have been enjoying herself. And a good teenage comedy doesn’t exist without the requisite look at assumptions and stereotypes about certain people, along with a good self-sacrificing event to try to make amends, like Beanbean gets. Throw in a ridiculous pizza delivery guy plus an unexpected callback, some Jason Sudeikis, some great Jessica Williams (YQY), the most theatre-kid party imaginable, amazing Jewish representation and jokes, and some actually incredible camerawork (that pool shot had no business being so good), and you have a movie that makes my ‘will rewatch a million times’ list.
BOMBSHELL
Nothing makes me angrier (well, at least on the topic of biopics) than when sucky real people get amazing gorgeous actors to play them. Ugh Megyn Kelly yes was a victim and yes went through some horrible experiences but that doesn’t make her a good person who is worthy of having Charlize play her. What’s next, Michelle Williams signing up to play f-ing Meghan McCain? PASS.
DOLEMITE IS MY NAME
THIS MOVIE IS SO MUCH FUN! Eddie Murphy gives A PERFORMANCE as the real life comedian/actor/producer Rudy Ray Moore, as he creates his famous role of Dolemite and starts his career in successful blaxploitation films. Rudy was a struggling musician, couldn’t catch a break, down on his luck. When he talks to some local homeless people, he picks up their unique melodic storytelling style and tries it out on the standup stage. (I hope he gave them some of his earnings for giving him his successful character idea?) And it works. The catchy performance style is distinctive, exciting, fun, and people LOVE it. Not really white people – as husbo and I proved by whispering (it’s okay we watched at home) ‘I don’t get it…this is not funny’ and then realizing ‘oh it’s NOT FOR US’ – but black communities embraced Rudy and made him a star. (Every time I asked a question husbo would say ‘IT’S NOT FOR US!’) To capitalize on his burgeoning fame and success, Rudy sinks all his earnings into the making of a movie about the character, called Dolemite, and that’s what the movie focuses on.
Once we get into the making of the movie-within-a-movie, the movie-without-the-movie really picks up steam and is incredibly enjoyable. Oh my goodness I just realized it’s the blaxploitation version of The Disaster Artist!!! That amazing (it was amazing) movie about the making of The Room told the fictionalized behind-the-scenes buildup to that creation, just like this! And just like The Room, the whole situation with Dolemite is a GD MESS and you can’t help but make Chrissy-Tiegen-cringing face as you watch Rudy make questionable decisions and take egregious financial risks. But even while you worry about how it’ll pan out for him, the process is so entertaining and the movie they’re making is SO ridiculously hilarious that it’s all a ton of fun. Eddie Murphy is so charismatic and funny, and the whole cast is a treat: we’ve got Keegan Michael Key (love), Tituss Burgess (LOVESS), Bob Odenkirk, forking Wesley Snipes in disguise, Craig Robinson (JUDY), Chris Rock, Snoop, my dude Ron Cephas Jones, and an INCREDIBLE Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Tony nom for Ghost the Musical! And from Philly! And went to Temple! WE LIKE HER). The whole movie-making experience is silly, outlandish, outrageous fun. I didn’t know the true story so I didn’t know if this particular movie was going to be his successful start, which added some dramaz to my experience. But even if you know that Dolemite becomes huge and Rudy becomes a millionaire, it’s still so much fun to watch. Highly recommended for a silly fun time.
THE FAREWELL
A few years ago, I heard the most incredible story on This American Life, the classic podcast that I assumed everyone listened to. (Turns out, not everyone does, and even more shocking to me, not everyone listens to podcasts! I listen to so many! There are billions of them! and they just keep on coming!) A woman told the story of her grandmother in China, who was diagnosed with cancer, and the family decided not to tell her. If she only had a few months to live, it would be better for her quality of life not to worry about it, they decided, just to enjoy the time she had left and not be burdened or fearful. It was a very difficult decision, and a very thorny ethical conundrum (CHIDI!), one that not all the family members agreed with, but they signed on to it. The woman, Lulu Wang, traveled to China for a big family get-together to say goodbye…and then her grandmother kept on keeping on…for the few months she was allotted, and then for a few more months…and then for a year…and then for another year…and then a few more years. It’s scientifically and medically astounding, to consider how the knowing about a disease may be what gives it the power to affect you.
When they announced that Lulu Wang was writing and directing a movie about this experience, I was like ‘Oh right that podcast story remember it was amazing!’ to everyone I talked to and literally no one listened to it, wtf guys, catch up on your podcasts! I mean it’s Ira Glass, come through! Awkwafina stars in the Lulu role and is very good, but the star of the movie for me is Nai Nai, the grandmother, played by Zhao Shuzhen in her adorable Tai Chi-doing glory. She was so cute I love her. My other favorite part is that Nai Nai’s sister is played by Lulu’s actual great-aunt, just playing herself in a popular movie, still lying to her sister, nbd (I believe they have now told her? And shown her the movie? I hope she’s okay). It’s a lovely little film, intimate and moving without being anything grandiose. I think it must have been nice to be surprised by this nice film and its wonderful story, but if you know all the details like I did, it was simply fine, not great. So I guess I just ruined it for you.
FORD VS. FERRARI
“Ohhh, I don’t driiive. I keep taking the test over and over but I’m all, this is hard!”
HARRIET
I haven’t gotten to see this yet BUT years ago I made Cynthia Erivo vegan cookies and now she is vegan, so I’m pretty sure I’m responsible. Also she is the queen of the world.
HUSTLERS
THIS WAS SEXUAL AND VIOLENT. I did not know Constance Wu had this in her and I’m not sure I liked it; I was very uncomfortable seeing this in theatres but watching it at home alone would make me feel like a perv. ANYWAY Hustlers is about strippers who decide to drug and rob their customers but it’s okay because they are largely white men who work at banks??? I’m iffy on the morals because all I do is know white men who work at banks! But I guess they don’t frequent strip clubs or treat women as commodities so we are all good?? eeeeek Chrissy-Tiegen-cringing face!!!!
Hustlers is about strippers struggling after the recession and deciding to go get it, gurl, but in a non-legal way via illicit (and dangerous) drogas used on unknowing men and just hoping for the best re: them not dying or catching onto their credit cards being hella charged. But really it’s about appreciating Jennifer Lopez (but I guess in a way that doesn’t include an Oscar nomination which like sure I don’t want anyone to get an Oscar nod just for an amazing pole dance but a) she was also incredible in her book scenes (I guess I call everything that isn’t sung a book scene now? #theatrecritic) and so powerful and badass and wow and b) if anyone ever WOULD or SHOULD get an Oscar nod for a pole dance it’s her for this!). JLo is amazing. I’m not sure how I feel about the suuuuper boooooring flashback framing device with a sad Julia Stiles interviewing Constance in the present day (and mostly I feel bad for Julia who was DEFFO like ‘how come they don’t want me to strip I used to be the romantic lead and now I’m covered up in a boring suit what happened to my career!’) but overall it was an enjoyable movie.
THE IRISHMAN
Dearest Martha,
We’ve begun watching The Irishman, and I fear that its runtime will not permit me the freedom to return home to you before your time on this spinning ball is through. I will pray for you if you do the same for me.
Love,
Your husband George Washington
Dearest Martha,
I initially felt bad that I didn’t see this film in theatres, but it’s a full three hours without an intermission, and while I’m okay with three-hour+ plays, those usually have at least TWO intervals. Luckily, it’s on Netflix, and I get to pee whenever I want, just like our ancestors would have wanted. I’m confused because they have cast a man who is famously Italian to play the title character, an Irish. I’m also confused as to why they have cast such famously old men to play men who are generally in their 40s for most of the story. I am impressed by the performance of our dear friend Little Joey Fishes, but his CGI’ed de-aging is concerning; it seems to have shrunk him like that poor man did to his children so long ago.
Martha, Bobby Cannavale kills a chicken in this film, and there’s a good deal of butchery shown. I have seen lots of terrible things on the battlefields but they at least had purpose; this is just indulgent buffoonery. Our friend Al Pacino had no one telling him to reign it in while playing Jimmy Hoffa at full tilt; I imagine this Hoffa at any point will be busting out a ‘HEYOOO!’ but that doesn’t seem period-appropriate.
I will write soon,
General Washington
Dearest Martha,
I just checked how much time was left because I assumed it was almost finished, and I could eat for the first time in days. Alas, there are 2 hours and 11 minutes left.
Best regards,
Your husband the first president
Dearest darlingest Martha,
I don’t think this movie is bad; in fact, I believe it is solidly good, but it is not great. I believe I am right in calling this movie the not-funny version of ‘Green Book’. I don’t understand what Anna Paquin is doing in it with only three lines, but I do think her character is extremely important, to show who pays attention to her and how she reacts. It’s probably really deeply considered but alas, I am too distracted by thinking about how winning an Oscar so young never turns out well. I think it’s interesting what they are saying about Hoffa but more interesting what they are saying about fragile masculinity and the toxicity of masculine culture, but I don’t know if that was intentional. Also, I realize now that I knew the whole “house-painter” euphemism because of the Friends episode when Monica’s boyfriend Pete, the future director of the Marvel universe, decides to become an Ultimate Fighting Champion and he says his trainer Yoshi used to be an assassin and Yoshi interrupts “HOUSE PAINTER!” so that’s fun.
Warmly,
Your second-term first president
Dearest Martha,
I’m STILL not done watching this movie.
I don’t understand?
Is the war still on?
Best,
Georgie
ISN’T IT ROMANTIC
As a lover of romcoms, I honestly fully enjoyed this romcom that sort of spoofed and sort of paid homage to all the romcoms and their tropes that came before. I loved being rewarded for knowing all the tiniest references to past films. I loved Liam Hemsworth as a hot idiot. Who doesn’t love a hot idiot? I loved Betty Gilpin (from Glow) dressed superdown as a mousy nerd and then getting to be a hot bitch in the fantasy section. I even sort-of liked Buster? Boomer? The ass from Pitch Perfect, although I’m not entirely convinced of his leading man status. But I just didn’t buy Rebel Wilson. I think I don’t find her charming enough to sell me on her romcom leading lady status. You need a romcom to feel aspirational and I do not aspire to playing the same character in every single movie and having the same schtick no matter the situation. I almost wanted Boomer to stay with Priyanka Chopra, even though she married a Jonas and played a yoga ambassador (honestly sounds awesome (the yoga ambassador part not the marrying a Jonas)). Rebel just didn’t do it for me here; it’s like she keeps playing Fat Amy but in different settings.
JOKER
I did NOT want to see this movie. I didn’t want to give money to Todd Phillips, annoying anti-PC culture crusader (weird flex, Todd (ugh such a perfect name for a white whiny man, TODD) (like Todd in Sweet Valley High! Ugh he was such a diddadoof)), and I didn’t want to support another ‘oh boo hoo this poor white man is so saaad and the world isn’t faaaaair to him and he only acts out because people were mean to himmm and he was just trying to be nice and ladies didn’t appreciate him even though they say they want a nice guy and everything goes wrong for him but he didn’t deserve it he deserves betterrr and that’s why he MURDERED.’ But then I saw it, and it wasn’t like that. It was prettayyy amazing.
Maybe it’s amazing due to Joaquin’s performance (which is great but NB, there’s a reason every theatre production has an expert serving as combat consultant if there is ANYTHING physical going on, and it is not as cool as people think that Joaquin went off-plan in certain scenes, like when he dislocated his knee and ‘improved’ fight scenes like with the bankers, it’s actually dangerous and risky for the entire production BUT I DIGRESS), but even though I was like ‘okay we REALLY don’t need another Joker story’, this is a great one. Despite all the things I said above kind of being true, you do feel for him, because when you get virtually anyone’s back story and can understand the hardships they’ve faced and all the injustice they’ve suffered, it helps to see why they sometimes turn into monsters. (Excuse me, just like my boy Jason Mendoza told the judge last year, so.) Not to understand in an empathetic way, by any means, but just to see how it could have happened. That’s where the controversy with this film exists, between the people who see it as apologizing for how he/similar monsters turn out, vs. people who see it as simply sharing what happened and why and not justifying it at all. I happen to think it’s the latter, not justifying his transformation and actions in the least but describing how a lifetime of injustices become too much to bear.
And it’s sad. Jesus, it’s so forking sad, how society lets him down, and how cruel other people are, and how easy it is for people who society stomps down and tramples on to turn to violence (and so easy to acquire a gun). I don’t think the movie condones this at all, it elucidates it. And that’s what makes it terrifying: it’s so easy to see why and how he turned violent and so easy to see how people in real life, full of the same injustices but moreso, can do the same. The most frightening part of the film is how it reflects our society. (And of course how my man Marc Maron’s scene was cut so much, I lurv.)
It really is a fantastic film, possibly flawless, which I forking hate to admit. Okay no there is one flaw: the “Send in the Clowns” bit, HA HA. There’s no way ON EARTH these corporate wanker bros know not only the Sondheim classic “Send in the Clowns”, but know MULTIPLE VERSES. I am LITERALLY A THEATRE CRITIC and a Sondheim-phile and all I do is have showtunes in my head all day ALL DAY and even I don’t know more than the opening few lines of “Send in the Clowns”. This was a serious scene (literally a multi-homicide) and I was too busy laughing in my head at the idea of these absolute lads being secret musical theatre aficionados to the point of knowing all the words. AMAZING THE BEST PART.
Fun fact, Bradley Cooper is nominated for this movie – he’s a lead producer. He also won two Grammys this year. COME THROUGH, BRADLEY.
JOJO RABBIT
A movie I mistakenly referred to for months as Jojo Bunny, Jojo Rabbit tells the story of a Hitler Youth whose imaginary friend is the big man himself and, against the odds of that synopsis, I could not love this movie more. Taika Waititi, that mad genius, adapted this film from a book which means that the most competitive Oscars category and the one most deserving of a tie is Adapted Screenplay (see Little Women below). Taika did the impossible, making a story about lil baby Nazis and Hitler so hilarious, which seems like a terrible thing to say, but he nails the precise tone necessary for satire this deep to be obviously on the right side of history. He’s not saying Nazis are funny or good, guys. I feel like people who don’t get this don’t get satire? Sad! (See what I did just there I quoted a Nazi!)
Little Jojo Bunny is Jojo Betzler, a very enthusiastic Hitler Youth who is gearing up for his first day of summer camp Nazi training (opposite of my summer camp!) by talking to his imaginary friend, Hitler. Taika plays him and honestly it’s the best portrayal of Adolfonso in the history of cinema. It’s maybe the best first 10 minutes of a movie ever, at least that I’m remembering right now. It’s the kind of funny where you literally cannot stop laughing but you also feel REALLY BAD for laughing and so you are worried about whether you really should be laughing so hard but you cannot stop so it’s just a real wild ride. The kids at this training are babies, Jojo is like 9? Maybe 10? I can’t gauge children, but his best friend Yorkie looks to be like 9. I don’t know the point is they are young to be training for murder. They get indoctrinated with all sorts of (hilarious) lies about Jews (very ‘we learned this from Borat not realizing that Sacha Baron Cohen also does satire’) and all seems hunky-dory, but then baby Jojo Bunny learns that his mom is one of those social justice warriors who is like not all for the Nazis, and Jojo is like what! Huh! Nazis are the best! And he learns things and it’s amazing and we liked it and we loved it.
What makes the movie so exceptional, in addition to everything Taika did to make it so, are the child actors, just when you lost all hope that there were good ones left in the world. Roman Griffin Davis gave maybe my favorite performance by a boy all year (along with Little Timmy Cham Cham in LW but his was supporting) and deserves credit for carrying this film. His comic timing, his little face and how it reacts to things (and as we know, acting is reacting…and reacting is preacting…and preacting, well that’s just being), it’s really impressive. Equally impressive, possibly more laugh-out-loud funny, is his best friend Yorkie, who is used just the perfect amount at perfect times. Yorkie is played by Archie Yates, who is so unbelievably hilarious for a lil child that the Sussexes named their baby after him. I’m remembering him in his uniform and just cracking up.
The boys and Taika were superb so it’s bullshirt that Scarlett Johannson is the only one to be nominated for this movie, since she is the weakest part. Not that she isn’t good (I’ve come around to her performance) but just that everyone else is SO AMAZING. From Taika’s ludicrous Hitler to Thomasin McKenzie’s little Jewess to Sam Rockwell’s Nazi Youth leader (he is such an incredible actor that he manages to have such an Arc with so little screentime) (also he always plays characters that are such good friends with little boys! (“all your friends little boys?” – James Franco as Tommy Wiseau)), everyone in the cast is amazing, but especially our two little bunnies. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up, fine holiday fun.
JUDY
Chicago has been on TV in the UK a lot this season, and I’m in awe of the masterpiece more than ever. Rob Marshall’s idea for shooting Chicago’s musical numbers as figments of Roxie’s imagination paid off brilliantly, and even though Cathy Jones got all the glory, Renee was magnificent in this as well. I mean her ‘are you kidding’ delivery in Richard Gere’s triumphant “Both Reached for the Gun” was everything. All the boring bits of the show that are obvious onstage were made fun and interesting onscreen. Anyway I’m talking about Chicago because I never saw Judy but I’m sure Renee is just as wonderful. I’ll quote Liza and say I have no plans to see it but “I hope she had a good time making it.”
THE KING
Timmy has had quite a year, with this turn in an amalgamation of Shakespeare’s Henry plays plus his best performance to date in Little Women. The King is a forgettable period film that no one asked for, the equivalent of last year’s Mary Queen of Scots movie with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie (I know, that sounds fake to me too). I didn’t really want to watch this but it’s on Netflix (hence the ‘watch’ and not ‘see’; you go to see, you stay home and watch, these are my rules) and seemed Important so alas I did, and it was a much more enjoyable experience than I expected. I don’t know if I’d say it’s a good movie but it’s fine, it’s inoffensive and fine, it’s just unnecessary when you already have lipless Kenny Branagh doing Henry V on film.
So the first The King of the movie is Henry IV but he’s dying so his prodigal son Hal is told to go see him and make amends and say goodbye and Hal is like Anatole and saying ‘I just wanna spend my money on women and wine’ but he finally goes to see his father and the father dies and Hal becomes King Henry V who you might know is the one that gives the ‘once more unto the breach’ speech but that’s not in this movie because it doesn’t actually use Shakespeare’s words, just his version of events, and the language here is more regular casual talk and they say fucking a lot which seemed INCREDIBLY anachronistic and was enough to make me feel like I was watching the remnants of a script that someone wanted to do in the style of Baz’s Romeo + Juliet and someone smart was like ‘no’ but they didn’t get all the traces of that first guy out of the script. Hal goes to war because the French were being little French jackwagons and because he has bad people in his ear, as all kings do, and the long af war scenes were long af and hard to watch. They were well done but I kept asking myself/the creators ‘who are you doing all of this for.’
This movie is fine. The most memorable part is Timmy’s bowl cut, which is also the worst part/thing I’ve ever seen. Shockingly, the best part is Joel Edgerton, as a non-unattractive Falstaff, the first time that’s ever been done. It’s easy to make Falstaff the best part of the Henry stories but he was extra good because he was the only aspect that wasn’t kind of boring. Oh also not boring but completely unexpected and funny was Robert Pattinson as France’s dauphin, doing a hilarious French accent that was ridiculous but also…kind of accurate?! So that’s something. Vegan warning, there are lot, like a lot a lot, of dead horses in this film. Living in this time period must have sucked. God they were so muddy.
THE LAUNDROMAT
GUYS. I don’t know how to even begin with this one but I’m gonna do it by stating, as fact, as objective g-d fact, that this is one of the worst if not the actual worst movie ever made. And it has MERYL STREEP! Who is responsible for this disaster? How did it get approved? Just because of the names attached? It is offensively terrible. I can’t believe this got made and good scripts are blacklisted because of bullshirt politics. This is A MESS. HOW? WHY? HOW? WHO??
This godforsaken abomination begins like a Puss-in-Boots Shrek intro, so one minute in we were like ‘what IS this?’ Meryl is married to vegan activist James Cromwell (the only actor who comes off well in this because he dies right away) and they are on a boat and the boat capsizes and lots of people drown including James, which is super sad. Meryl can’t get the insurance money because the boat company has insurance through a shady company that is actually a shell for fraudulent activity and they are in the Caymans or whatever and so Meryl has to figure out what’s going on with all these corrupt companies and find answers. OR THAT’S YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO BE ABOUT.
Instead, Meryl is a bumbling fool who brings her family to her new condo but didn’t actually close on it?? so the realtor shows up and is like this isn’t your home wtf?? She’s VERY stupid and it makes me sad that people exist who can’t do anything but also I didn’t sign up to see a movie about someone so dumb. She I think finds out the answers about the insurance pretty quickly, but whether she gets any justice I can’t say because it stops being about her. No, instead of following with that fairly interesting, fairly important story of corruption, we get completely unnecessary and overly long segments of entirely different characters only slightly related to the corruption, whose stories are again, unnecessary and the fact that they were included is a slap in the face to people who can follow plot lines and who can reason with their brains. The whole rich Nigerian family in LA, with the affair drama? Why why why is this in the movie? They had literally the longest section of this atrocity, and it’s UNRELATED to the fraud at the core. Just because these rich people own companies implicated doesn’t mean they are committing any fraud, and it’s nonsense to have this slice-of-life story interjected just to, just to what? JUST TO WHAT?! I’M SO ANGRY.
If you don’t think the Nigerian family randomness is enough, there’s a whole thing on another rich person who is also not involved in Meryl’s injustice, but she is involved in Falun Gong organ harvesting in China?! Which they show. WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS THIS MOVIE. It’s infuriating to watch. It’s a story about corruption and fraud and it’s frustratingly unsatisfying to have it told by bumbling fools (on and off screen). They are clearly trying to copy the style of The Big Short but it fails so, so spectacularly. Nothing in the history of the universe has been less thought out than this screenplay.
And then they solve everything by having it break on the news!! We just see a news story without having the movie action track ANY of what was happening! It’s the stupidest movie-making I’ve ever seen. Meryl did absolutely nothing – I thought this was about her discovering the truth and it’s not, it literally gets solved on the news.
David Schwimmer has a small role in this, which is fun for you if you live in the USA and miss having Friends on Netflix (a real shame). Also Meryl’s second role as a Latina woman was suuuuuper gratuitous aaaand racist. It was honestly her only good performance in the film so that’s a shame because it is yikes. Her speech at the end, transforming into herself, was some real self-satisfied bullshit. To say that speech’s message was unearned in this film would be the biggest understatement in the history of words.
Is POSH an acronym? If not, WTF, why would they say that? If yes cool. This movie was painful. I wish I had a video of it so I could destroy it dramatically. And husbo could film me destroying it and that video would be a million times better than anything in this.
LITTLE WOMEN
I didn’t realize how much I cared about this source material until the opening credits to this movie began and I started tearing up and did not stop until after this entire movie was over. Greta Gerwig is a master filmmaker. I didn’t know we needed a new Little Women, I didn’t know it could be done in a way that makes the story so poignant and intense. And I did not expect to be so astonished by this masterpiece. It is a perfect film, with unbelievably great performances and every single shot is meticulously made and gorgeous. It’s super strange (misogynistic) that it isn’t considered one of the 2-3 best movies of the year when it’s one of the best movies ever made.
Little Women is the story of the four March sisters who live with their do-gooder mother (Laura Dern, in really her better performance of the year) while their father is at army, mother. You have the eldest, Meg (Emma Watson, fine but doesn’t seem the oldest she small), the headstrong intelligent Jo (Saoirse Ronan), the sweet Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and the usually bratty Amy (Florence Pugh). People usually identify with Jo when they read the book because she’s the Carrie of the bunch, and Saoirse as expected is such a perfect Jo, capturing her liveliness and joy as well as her anger and resentment. Following Jo’s story feels so real and even though I will never understand her refusal of Laurie (especially here), she shows so much emotional depth and gives such a genuine performance that her actions (almost) make sense. But the real shock of this movie is how it redefines Amy. I’m still in awe of how they took a mostly hated character, the spoiled little monster who ‘steals Laurie’, and made her grow into the sensible one, the one who realizes what the world asks, or demands, of her and knows how to deal with that. Florence Pugh was astounding, and as much as it icks me out that she’s dating an old man, she is a brilliant actress.
Alongside these two absolutely stellar performances is one that has stayed with me more than any other performance this year, in anything: Little Timmy Cham Cham as Laurie. Why is this skinny boy who refuses to go out into the sun so good?! I mean I guess he’s hot, “I guess, in a sick Victorian boy kind of way…ooh, yeah, I want to feed him soup.” I cannot believe this performance of his isn’t being acclaimed as the end all be all of amazing acting. I’m not a Timmy devotee or anything but try to watch the scene of Timmy on the hill and tell him it’s not the most incredible thing all year. TIMMY ON THE HILL, MAN.
I’m so grateful to Greta and her genius for creating this film. It makes the world better that it exists. Her idea to weave together timelines and tell the main action in flashback was unexpected and now seems like the only right way to tell the story. The structure is so well done and makes the story so much more emotional. That’s the key to this adaptation, along with the gorgeous set design and amazing performances and the score and the overall miraculous everything about it.
LONG SHOT
Charlize Theron doing funny (her drug scene OH MY GOD) is a remarkable thing and even though I don’t understand why romcoms keep pushing Seth Rogen on us as a romantic lead, this movie is ENJOYABLE.
MARRIAGE STORY
Marriage Story succeeds as the most frustrating legal drama I have ever seen. This movie is about a couple who lives in NYC and is getting a divorce. The woman, Scarlett Johannson, doesn’t think and when she is in LA for pilot season she gets a lawyer and then serves her husband the divorce papers when he comes to visit her and their son in LA, so now this NYC-based man (Adam Driver) has to get a lawyer IN CALIFORNIA and conduct all proceedings IN CALIFORNIA and has to establish ties to CALIFORNIA in order to show that he’s committed to being near his son but also if she shows too strong ties to California they’ll be considered for sure a California based family so he really has no good move here but has to do it otherwise his IDIOT WIFE is going to get full custody even though he is the one who sleeps in his bed when the kid has bad dreams and so Adam tries to get a lawyer during his short trips to LA but his IDIOT WIFE didn’t bother to tell him all the lawyers she met with before hiring Laura Dern so he wastes so much time making meetings with lawyers who cannot meet with him because if they even just CONSULTED with ScarJo they are legally barred from meeting him which HE DOES NOT KNOW BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE A LAWYER and it’s all THE WORST TAKEDOWN of our family law system and I’m VERY VERY ANGRY about it. It’s a divorce story and no one is right or wrong it all just ABSOLUTELY SUCKS. And yes the performances are very good but can you guys stop trying to impress us with super long monologues that aren’t onstage? First Jane the Virgin had that truly awkward long monologue just to impress people with her ability to remember words (which isn’t impressive onscreen – if you mess up you get to go again and again ffs) and now ScarJo has an awkward long monologue and you’re just like a) no one speaks like this b) it brings everything to a screeching halt and c) you just included this to act like a light-up sign saying “Be Impressed!” and I guess it worked on idiots who nominate people for things but it didn’t work on me, ya jackwagons.
This movie is not pleasant to watch at all, I mean obviously because it’s about a couple getting divorced and there’s a child and that’s sad but also because Adam Driver’s character is bringing a play to Broadway during this whole thing and I just wanted to see more of that. Luckily, we do see the best one of several Sondheim performances in movies this year (see e.g. Joker) when Adam sings ‘Being Alive’ while at a bar with his theatre company, which is THE MOST theatre kid thing to do ever, to just be sitting talking in a bar and hear the piano start ‘Being Alive’ and jump out and start singing because you are feeling so gd emotional and it’s going to be a little embarrassing but that’s how theatre kids do. The acting, espesh from Adam, is incredible in this movie, but I’m a little peeved that it’s Laura who is a shoo-in for the win on Sunday. I love her SO much but her character was one-note, a caricature of an LA-corporate woman in skinny jeans and high heels. CONFUSED.
MIDSOMMAR
No forking way.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD
I was so against seeing this movie because Quentin is so annoying AND I did not want to support any more glamorization or romanticizing of the Manson bullshit (can the world just forget him? let him and his memory die). But I watched it on a plane so I didn’t contribute money. But why didn’t someone tell me sooner that there was a dog that saves the day and was named Randy? Yesss that’s my everything! Best ending ever! I’m still iffy about the intentions of this movie since it’s still kind of glorifying (or at least keeping in the public conversation) the wicked delinquents involved with this inexplicable cult, but the movie was overall good. It dips in the middle but man that ending is fun.
So OUATIH (horrible acronym) tells the story of Leonardo DiCaprio’s cowboy actor who was on a TV show and can’t catch a break into movies or being taken seriously, maybe because he relies on his house boy Brad Pitt to do everything for him including drive him around and like, feed him, apparently. Brad is a stunt man who also can’t catch a break even though he can beat up Bruce Lee (weird scene). Then Leo does get a break which is nice, and he does some good acting alongside a little girl who also does some good acting, and Brad continues to not because people don’t like him because he may have killed his wife??!! Which is not exactly the character development you expected or enjoy because now you’re like are we supposed to keep rooting for him? And then the problematic men theme continues when Leo gets a new neighbor in the Hollywood Hills: child rapist Roman Polanski, who is married to Sharon Tate. So it’s all about how all these people’s lives could have been tied together, and if Brad and Leo had helped stop the murders, then Sharon’s husband could have given them the career boosts necessary for making them stars, or at least gainfully employed. The movie spins an intricate web of alternate universe stories, and it’s good, but it just makes you sad after (well after the incredibly fun ending, when you remember that didn’t happen and you just get sad and angry and disgusted with humanity). Also, it’s very Quentin Tarantino to have a movie ostensibly about Sharon Tate, at least inasmuch as it’s about rewriting her fate, and only have her be in it for two minutes or so. Oh Quentin you misogynistic rascal!
PARASITE
Listen, I don’t want to say too much about this superb film because if you haven’t seen it yet, you should, and it would be a crime to have anything about it spoiled. I had no idea what it was about, and everyone who saw it before me warned me “don’t read anything about it! don’t read a synopsis don’t find out anything at all just watch it!” and so I did and since I didn’t read anything about it and had only the title to go on, I assumed it was about an alien species that finds a human host on earth and takes over humanity, I shit you not. I’ll tell you this much, that’s not what it’s about.
Parasite, the genius creation from Bong Joon-Ho, says what Joker wanted to say about society and class but in a much more nuanced way and without making us sympathize with a bad white man. The snowball effect of a seemingly benign action building up to the horror show it becomes seems unavoidable instead of fantastical, due to the directing, the acting, the writing, literally everything about this movie. It’s a masterpiece that manages to be a family drama, a thriller, and a bit of class warfare. And it’s a Korean film, with subtitles. That so many Americans watched and loved it gives me some hope for the Idiocracy of our future.
ROCKETMAN
They should have waited another year to release this after the (slightly unwarranted) hullabaloo of Bohemian Rhapsody because they were never going to award musical biopics in consecutive years. As such, I will review this movie in two years, when it should have been released.
SHAZAAM
Nothing messes with your mind more than the whole internet fight about how there was indeed a Shaquille O’Neal movie called Kazaam! but no Sinbad movie called Shazaam like finally releasing a movie called Shazaam but without Sinbad! Yeah Zachary Levi is a million times better and I forking adore my cartwheeling baby George Novak but still, it’s messing with my mind. Anyway I adore Zach Levi, not only because (fun fact) his name combines the names of two of my favorite people (not so fun fact, he isn’t Jewish, which I’ve believed for many years, dagnabbit) but also because he is a wonderful musical comedy actor and I cannot wait until he does another musical like really he better but I guess I’ll be patient (until the droplets rain down like candy on Shaquille O’Neal in the movie Kazaam!) That’s all.
SOMEONE GREAT
I was completely on board with this movie – Gina Rodriguez at the height of “Jane the Virgin” goodness (and pre-cancellation (hers not the shows)), Brittany Snow, an incredible soundtrack (my first intro to the genius of Lizzo! I think actually partly responsible for her surge?). But the movie was my version of Jason Mendoza going to a Skrillex concert in The Bad Place and waiting all night for the bass to drop…and it never does. I kept waiting for a semblance of plot to kick in…and it never did.
THE TWO POPES
LOS DOS POPOS! This movie about two men I could not care less about was quite pleasant! I might not care about el popos but I do care very much about Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, so bully for me. Man alive, popes speak A LOT of languages. I’m very jealous.
Los dos Popos is about the goings on of the Catholic church and how many people didn’t want to be the face of child rapists. When JP2 died, the Catholic church had to make a new pope, and then less than a decade later that pope decided he didn’t wanna anymore so they had to make a new one. We see both conclaves, both for Ratzinger and for Francis, and both are much less eventful than the 1623 conclave when six cardinals died from heat and malaria. THAT’S RIGHT. “I read some books, man.”
I might not care too much about the church and why these men in their fancy dress and even fancier shoes have so much power, but it was very nice to see the friendship between the two men. Pryce’s Francis gets painted with a lovely progressive brush that makes him seem like forking Bernie Sanders instead of a guy still part of the corrupt coverup of a huge evil scandal. Ratzinger comes off a little batty, like a stanch republican senator, so the growth of his ability to Make a New Friend was quite touching. All in all, it’s a nice movie that’s worth watching to hear Pryce’s accent and to see how Anthony Hopkins eats pizza.
Nothing better describes this movie than this still I just took during my favorite movie Set It Up:
UNCUT GEMS
When I said above that 1917 was stressful, it was before I watched Uncut Gems. This movie is more stressful than that emotionally scorching war movie. It may be more stressful than war. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say but all I know is that I have never had such high levels of residual agita as I have still now, days and days and days after watching Uncut Gems. Did I like it? Who can say? Was it a Good Movie? I do not know how to answer that. I was riveted, yes, and I was impressed with how much I FORKING WANTED TO PUNCH ADAM SANDLER AND NOT IN A DRUNK-LOVE KIND OF WAY, but I think this is the wrong question. The appropriate question to ask after watching this stress-test-gone-insane of a movie is, was it effective? Did they achieve what they aimed to? And if the Safdies set out to put me on blood pressure meds despite no previous markers of any such issues, then the answer is yes.
Uncut Gems opens in a way that lets you know right away that this will not be fun to watch: the first image is of a bloody leg, the injury of a miner in the Ethiopian gem mines. It’s gross. We are going to Ethiopia soon and as much as I would like to find gems that are like the subject of this film so that I too can harness their magical powers and win the basketball world cup, I will stay away from the mines since I get hurt so easily. Next, we’re out of Africa and in New York’s immediately terrifying jewelry district, where Adam Sandler’s Howard is dodging heavies left and right and letting Kevin Garnett (as himself, if he’s a real asshole (why did he sign up to this portrayal, I want to punch him really bad too)) do stupid things and say stupid things. Soon Howie is (*vegan warning*) elbows-deep in a delivery of giant fish, which, gross, but he’s digging around for something and there it is, the 6-inch or so chunk of opal from the beginning. Because Howie is a buffoon and a shlamiel, he shows Kevin Garnett the opal chunk, despite it not being for sale because it’s intended for auction, and Kevin is like ‘but I want it, how dare you show me something I can’t have, I’m a basketball star and a millionaire I get to have whatever I want’ so he just like, TAKES IT and Howie is like ‘oh okayyy bring it back tomorrowwww’ without having Kevin like SIGN ANYTHING to mark that he needs to return it I was SCREAMING so loud ‘DRAW UP A FORKING AGREEMENT SO HE DOESN’T FORK YOU OVER’ and of course he forks him over but honestly Howie forks everything up for himself anyway and why didn’t anyone punch Lakeith Stanfield omg I did not know I could so viscerally hate him in something when I love him in everything else OH MY GOD I AM SO STRESSED OUT REMEMBERING WHAT HAPPENED.
So Howie’s also a gambling addict, betting big money on sportsball cups when he owes big money to what seems like a neverending parade of ‘80s-movies heavies, and he DOES NOT SEEM TO CARE. At all. Not even when he ends up naked in a trunk and his CRIMINALLY UNDERUSED estranged wife Idina Menzel finds him does he realize he needs to change his ways and get his shit together, his shit is a mess. But nope he keeps on keeping on never making a single gottamn good decision and altogether stressing my shit out like never before. Obviously things go wrong, and not just for his inexplicably committed young girlfriend who gets his name tattooed on her ass like a MORON.
If Adam Sandler set out to make you forget how charismatic and funny he can be, he did an incredible job. He was so annoying, so unbelievably frustrating in his inability to do ANYTHING RIGHT, that I think he gave a strong performance. And I guess the Safdies made a strong movie? I guess they did a good job, I don’t know, I honestly need to go sit in a dark room just to calm down from writing this.
YESTERDAY
I was so angry at this movie’s release, so so angry, because I have thought about this premise my entire life but never realized I could do anything with it. I’ve always fantasized about “oh my god what if everyone suddenly forgot that x musical exists and I could pretend I just up and wrote it, that would be so cool, I would be amazing” or “what if suddenly x album didn’t exist in the world and I could come out with it” or with movies or books but mostly with musicals. But then I would think to myself, no, that would be wrong, I wouldn’t want to take the credit of someone else’s achievement, I am not a white man. I always felt guilty for daydreaming about Sondheim still being Sondheim but just one of his shows being ‘mine’. I would never do that to Stevie! And so I let these thoughts be tiny little reveries and never thought of making such an assumedly commonplace idea the focus of an actual movie or book or something. But these guys did!
Yesterday tells of a middling musician who wakes up and the world suddenly doesn’t know about the Beatles. If something like this actually happened, it would feel so much like gaslighting and I would be terrified. Like my first thought wouldn’t really be ‘let me pretend I wrote this,’ it would surely be ‘am I going crazy, am I loooosing my mind?’ Happily becoming the world’s most famous rock star would be on the backburner of my to-do list after ‘go see a psychiatrist’ ‘I hate the psychiatrist’ ‘well go see one anyway’ ‘I don’t like the psychiatrist!’ ‘you need to go see one’ ‘see a psychiatrist!’ ‘I’m not going!’ But amazingly enough, our hero (is he) starts playing Beatles songs in his local clubs and then immediately makes an album that becomes huge and then immediately becomes the biggest musician on the entire planet, SURE JAN. I don’t know what’s more unbelievable: that people today would respond SO overwhelmingly to the Beatles songs when they were of a different age and genre than most of today’s popular music, or that Lily James would be pining for this guy for years when like, she’s really pretty. (OH I know the answer: the most unbelievable thing was Lily’s acting in All About Eve. (Stick to films girlfriend.)
Honestly, it sounds like I hated it but it was one of the most enjoyable movies to watch on an airplane. It was predictable and easy and pleasant. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t cry like a bebbe when 1) Rumpelstiltskin showed up as the special surprise guest who is still alive in this version of the universe (fork that was sad and nice) and 2) when the poor sad Englishman from The Ferryman and the blonde lady turned out not to baddies wanting to out our hero (lol hero), they just wanted to talk about how they were the only people who remembered and thank him for bringing the music they loved back into their lives. HE BROUGHT MUSIC BACK INTO THE HOUSE. That was a really nice thought. So two very enthusiastic thumbs-up if you are on a long-haul flight.
ALRIGHT THAT’S IT YOU MADE IT TO THE END! Agree/disagree? What movies did I miss? Let me know your thoughts (the relevant ones).
