March 2023 brought us some interesting fair at the theatres, from the sixth film in a long-running horror franchise to a dramatic reckoning of sexual abuse amongst those we trust. The Oscars closed out its season and so I closed out my Oscar catch-up. And a bear did cocaine. Much to discuss! This month at the movies…
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
We’re there folks. It took over fifteen years, over twenty movies and television shows, but we finally made it to the point where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is completely untenable, where a movie is complete, ugly nonsense if you haven’t watched absolutely everything else leading up to it. Even if I had watched every movie, show, spin-off, and YouTube video that falls within their canon I can’t imagine it would have helped with the enjoyment of this film. This is the epitome of laziness within modern blockbuster filmmaking.
The ugliest, most uninspiring character and production design you could have? Check. A script that falls apart from scene to scene? Check. Plot armor so thick it’s surprising the characters can even breathe with it on? Check. Humor that makes flowers wither? Of course, the Marvel special. I never considered myself a Marvel hater before, a detractor at most, but now? Hate. Hate hate hate.
Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Being Ignorant)
The Award Winning film that helped bring Michael Keaton back into the public consciousness and had people saying “one shot? Wow! Totally cool! We’re going to beat this horse to death incredibly quickly!”, Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Being Ignorant) was a film I fell for completely when I initially watched it upon its release. It just felt so alive and lived in, and full of ideas and passion. Nearly ten years later though the lived-in nature of the film feels less, and the passion seems more overwrought than earned.
The film is constantly and forcefully trying to convince you of its brilliance without ever simply being. Director Alejandro Inarritu is too preoccupied with extravagance and overwhelming the audience with each scene that quiet moments mostly fail to exist and those that do just can’t handle the pressure put on them. The film reminds me of that Seinfeld episode with the salty peanuts. There are many ways you can say what’s being said, and doing the loudest and most abrasive version doesn’t mean you’re doing the best version. Sometimes films need to breathe, and Birdman fails to do so.
Cocaine Bear
The film that got made simply based on its title, Cocaine Bear just reaches the mark of what you’re wanting out of a film like this. A silly, off-the-walls gory comedy about a bear that tries cocaine and mauls people. It’s a fun premise that doesn’t reach its full potential during one fantastic scene involving an ambulance and the ill-prepared first responders. Unfortunately, the film falls well short of the energy of this scene for the majority of its run time and eschews the wilder ideas for rather generic and half-hearted side plots instead.
The film feels too afraid to really go nuts with the concept it’s been given. While there is plenty of death at the claws of our titular bear, by the second half of the film the threat of the bear has been sidelined for a drug-running plot with weakly developed characters and motivations that simply don’t make sense. It’s the rare case of a film adding too much of a human element and having it derail the story. By bloating the cast out in the second half (and frankly becoming too worried about killing off characters) they also aren’t given any depth, and this in turn hurts the comedy, as some of the overarching callbacks end up falling incredibly flat by the time the credits roll. Did we really need a side plot about how one of the cops has a new dog? Is having a dog supposed to be the joke? It ends up being more confusing than anything else.
Would the film have been better had it simply been scene after scene of bear attacks? Who’s to say? Me. I’m to say. And the answer is yes.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ang Lee’s masterpiece and one of the greatest films to ever come from the wuxia genre, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a beautiful tragic fantasy. Renowned for its amazing fight choreography (which is possibly the best that there has ever been), the element that stood out to me was the tension of love that ran throughout the film. Every character is motivated deeply by love and desire, whether it be unrequited, forbidden, or the lack of. The tension that desire brings adds stakes to every scene, as we can feel that every character needs this, and needs what they are striving for. Nothing here is frivolous, everything is important, everything has stakes, from a fight scene involving ferocious blades to the simple act of holding someone’s hand.
Add to this the picturesque beauty of every shot (China quickly moved up my travel list after seeing this film) and this story moves from a fantasy film to a high fable, a story you would tell to your children when their eyes grow weary. A film that deserves its place amongst the high art of our time, it transforms into a fairytale before our very eyes. Wonderful.
Green Room
The subject of last month’s issue of The Favourites Green Room is one of my favourite films ever. A cruel love letter to the punk scene as well as a terrific and shocking horror film. The film slowly ramps up the tension as we see our protagonists The Ain’t Rights become trapped within the green room of a neo-nazi bar after witnessing a horrible crime. The film then proceeds in bursts of energy punctuated with blood and gore.
What makes this film so wonderful is the unforgiving tension. Even in scenes meant to ease the audience you are on the edge of your seat, your senses heightened, the fear palpable. This is an all-too-real situation, a horror found on the outskirts of the everyday. And while many of us are unlikely to find ourselves in this situation, it isn’t a fantasy, it isn’t some masked killer slashing up babysitters or a secretive cult working in the shadows. This is a story of our neighbors, our leaders, turning against us and turning the world against us as well.
A Home at the End of the World
A Home at the End of the World is, most likely, either a film you have never heard of or haven’t thought about in years. For me, it belongs to the pantheon of films vaguely recalled, art and indie films released in the mid-2000s that I only remember because they were on the edge of my becoming more interested in film. These films, most now fairly forgotten in the public conscience, hold somewhat of a special place for me in that they evoke a sense of wonder, reminding me of a time when I wanted to explore more of what the world had to offer but lacked both the emotional and practical capabilities to do so. So whenever I get the chance to see these films I always hope that my long-standing curiosity is rewarded.
With A Home at the End of the World the curiosity was satiated but also lulled into a deep slumber. The film, a tepid drama focusing on a threesome in the early 80s, never achieves the lofty images I had conjured up during my youth. Knowing nothing of the film I was still disappointed in the end result, as the limp and uninspired story that may have been somewhat shocking for the time now just feels casual and unnecessarily melodramatic. There are no hooks here, no wild swings to the fences, but also no internalization for our characters. For a film about exploring sexuality and the vague notions of what a relationship can be defined as it never really takes a stance and instead is just murky and noncommittal. The film lacks backbone, heart, and some other rather important body parts as well.
That all being said, it does feature Colin Farrel in an incredibly bad wig, so it’s not all bad.
The House of the Devil
A 70s horror throwback, Ti West’s The House of the Devil feels like a time vortex opened up between your couch and the television screen. A gritty, low-budget affair that one would’ve found late at night on an adult channel you likely weren’t supposed to be watching, the film is a perfect recreation of grindhouse fair. While impressive this also is the film’s downfall, as it is far more interested in apeing the styles of others than it is in forging its own path.
The simple story of a babysitter staying the night at a mysterious and creepy house, the film is so beholden to its inspirations that it borders on cliche. You’ve seen this film before. The jump scares are already preloaded into your skin. There is nothing unpredictable or unprecedented here. And while the craft is undeniable, it was made so beautifully at the cost of originality.
The Last Days of Disco
A love letter to wasted youth, The Last Days of Disco is Whit Stillman’s third film in what he calls his “yuppies in doomed love” trilogy. Following a group of disco-loving friends in 1980s New York, the film meanders dreamily through work stresses, love lives, and disco dances. A hang-out film, less concerned with plot than capturing a time and place, a moment in your early twenties when you want everything and nothing all at once. Money, success, love, and a night out on the town are always just out of reach, but until you can grab ahold there’s always a good disco to go to.
While the film mostly lives on good vibes, heady conversations, and the sexual tension between the entire cast (including early performances from Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny) it does lose momentum when it actually tries to develop a plot. There are thin strands of story, from a book deal landing our lead a promotion to another character being an informant for the IRS, but the film seems bored by these developments and thus so is the audience. The film is able to still be great, as the hangout vibes are immaculate, and the final scene that plays over the credits is one of true joy, but it gets lost a little along the way.
Mona Lisa
Continuing my Bob Hoskins kick I’ve been on following The Long Good Friday earlier this year, I followed it with Mona Lisa, a film that contrasts wonderfully with the former film. In Good Friday Hoskins plays a gang boss, brutal and respected and powerful. In Mona Lisa we find him playing George, a recently released two-bit criminal with no prospects. After appealing to a crime boss (a wonderfully deceitful MIchail Caine) George finds himself the driver and bodyguard to high-end call girl Simone (Cathy Tyson). The two initially dislike one another, with George’s brash lower-class demeanor humiliating Simone constantly, as well as George’s deep distaste for the work Simone does. But the charms of a beautiful woman are far too much for George to resist, and he quickly finds himself falling in love (and in trouble).
Hoskins is the standout performance of the film, portraying a man who has never had anything in life and is desperate to hold onto any respect he can get. Tyson also astounds as the femme fatale, a woman willing to use anything at her disposal to get what she needs to survive in a world where she knows she could be discarded at any moment. The play between the two varies from aggressive distrust to playful banter to film-noir-esque sexual tension. It’s not until the final ten minutes that you’re ever sure who or what to trust, and the slow tearing apart of George is incredibly tense to watch. A fantastic British neo-noir.
Scream 6
I love Scream (Craven, 1996). I love Scream 2 (Craven, 1997). Scream 3? You know it. So on, and so forth, all the way through. It’s hard to separate a proper critique of this series from my personal bias toward it. This was my franchise, the horror series that kept me up when I caught glimpses of it a little too young. Scream and Final Destination (Wong, 2000) are why I’m the horror fan I am today.
So when the fifth film in the franchise, the first to not be directed by horror master Wes Craven, came out last year, I was completely on board. Add on the fact it’s being made by Radio Silence, a directing/producing team that made one of the best horror comedies of the last decade (2019’s Ready or Not) and I knew I’d be seeing something refreshing for a decades-old story. And I was right! Scream (2022) felt right at home with the Craven films while providing an edge of modernity.
How does that factor into Scream 6? It helped affirm my belief that you can’t make a bad Scream, just a different one. Many fans bemoaned the fact that our final girl Sidney Prescott was not going to be in the film, and that the film features Ghostface using a shotgun in a scene. But these elements help the film distance itself just enough from the rest of the franchise and show that a Scream film is about more than a single character or the basic traits of the killer. At the same time, the film doesn’t abandon its forebearers, as many horror sequels tend to, and instead relies on what’s come before to map out what will come again. By expanding the sandbox in which the franchise can exist Scream 6 breathed some fresh air into the series (and added some fresh blood as well).
The Thin Red Line
Terrence Malick’s return to filmmaking after a nearly twenty-year absence, The Thin Red Line tells the story of the Pacific Front during World War Two. A three-hour mediation on the meaning of war, brotherhood, and legacy, the film fails to capture much of what makes Malick an interesting director. In his previous works Badlands and Days of Thunder, Malick explored the dissolution of the American myth and how American masculinity only leads to destruction. While these themes are present within The Thin Red Line they are lost in a sea of carnage and spectacle.
While the film is not as poorly mismanaged as other “war is hell” affairs, there is a distinct loss of style with this picture. The war scenes are almost anonymous, standard, without the flair that Malick usually brings to his projects. And while there are many times throughout the three-hour runtime that do highlight his ideals of kindness and the corruption that comes with brash masculinity, they are only footnotes on an otherwise decent if not outstanding war film.
The Thing
The film that will be discussed in this month’s issue of The Favourites, John Carpenter’s The Thing is an incredible piece of filmmaking. Entire essays can and have been written about the intense grotesqueries on display throughout the film, and even forty years later the thrill of seeing these monsters hasn’t left. The real power of the film lies within a simple story, executed perfectly. A murder mystery so tightly created that debate still rages to this day as to the meaning behind the final frame.
When everyone’s a suspect, even the dead, trust is the last thing on anyone’s mind. The perfect allegory for numerous witchhunts throughout the years (from the red scare to the current trend to “out” transgender folks) the paranoia on display seeps through the film like a cancer. With every cut the audience expects another horror, another reveal. Every character that’s out of frame becomes a suspect, every suspicion reaching a fever pitch. And in the end, there is no satisfaction, there is no redemption, for the hunt itself was futile. The only way to have won was to never have been there in the first place. We are all doomed if we continue to search for terrors in the everyday.
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Controversial statement: this Shakespeare guy is pretty good. Out of the nearly countless adaptations of Macbeth alone, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth stands tall above others. While it is unsurprising that the performances are wonderful, with the likes of Denzel Washington, Brendan Gleeson, and Francis McDormand turning the bard’s words into magic, there are two elements that truly make this adaptation shine. The first is a performance, that of Kathryn Hunter, who plays the three witches as a contorting, almost cryptid creature. The inspired performance disturbs while being hypnotizing, an intoxicating interpretation of the text, and one that plays directly into the other aspect of this film that works wonderfully: the otherworldliness.
This film is shot in stark black and white, the sets septic and ghostly, all the castles already haunted by lives long lost. The eerieness of the production design allows the film to exist outside of time and space, to be a ghost story as much as a tale of betrayal. The ground is forever shrouded in mist, the sky an ever-present grey, the world all shadows and fog. By placing the film in a purgatory it allows the film to become darkly magical, the premonitions feel more real and unjust, the betrayals and deaths all the more inevitable. This story is not of this world, and there is a sense that this is a hell, where the characters live out the same story in endless repetition. A beautiful, darkly dreamt world.
Women Talking
Many films struggle under the weight of “importance”, Being “important” can be a dangerous thing for art, as that label immediately brings in preassumptions from audiences and critics alike. It’s always important for art to have a stance but in certain cases, the message can overtake the production, and that’s how we can get films that are smug or pretentious or preachy. That may be the worry for many going to see Women Talking, and for the first half I was worried it would indeed fall victim to its own weight. But this first half of character work helps lay out the groundwork for an ultimately beautiful conclusion.
The subject matter, the intensity of the sexual assaults that occurred and the ultimate decision the women in the film have to make (stay and accept the brutality or venture off into a world unknown) all suppress the ultimate message that the film ends on. A message of generosity, of the precariousness of love, and of fighting even when you can’t any longer. When almost all the world seems to be against you, can there still be light? Are we allowed to look out amongst the stars and still dream of a love that would never hurt us? What happened today will not happen tomorrow. That is what the film is about. Hope, strong and true.