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Oppenheimer (2023)
I finally did it. I watched all three hours of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, one half of the biggest movie-going event of 2023, and arguably the most smarty-pants movie to ever gross a billion dollars. It was a critical darling all year long, sailed through its awards season, and racked up seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Nolan, a coronation for one of Hollywood’s biggest artists whose name alone is each new project’s biggest selling point. I’ve had friends falling over themselves with rapturous praise, and I’m sure you have too, dear reader, so the danger becomes raising your expectations to a level that no movie could ever meet. As I watched all 180 lugubrious minutes of this somber contemplation of man’s hubris, I kept thinking, “All right, this is good, but is it all-time-amazing good?” I can’t fully board the Oppenheimer hype train, and while I respect the movie and its exceptional artistry, I also question some of the key creative decision-making that made this movie exactly what it is, bladder-busting length and all.
As per Nolan’s non-linear preferences, we’re bouncing back and forth between different timelines. The main story follows Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) as an upstart theoretical physicist creating his own academic foothold and then being courted to join the Manhattan Project to beat the Nazis in the formation of a nuclear bomb. The other timeline concerns the Senate approval hearing for Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), the former head of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) with a checkered history with Oppenheimer after the war. A third timeline, serving as a connecting point, involves Oppenheimer undergoing a closed-door questioning over the approval of his security clearance, which brings to light his life of choices and conundrums.
If I was going to be my most glib, I would characterize Oppenheimer in summary as, “Man creates bomb. Man is then sad.” There’s much more to it, obviously, and Nolan is at his most giddy when he’s diving into the heavy minutia of how the project came about, the many brilliant minds working in tandem, and sometimes in conflict, to usher in a new era of science and energy. Of course it also has radical implications for the world outside of academic theory. The world will never be the same because of Oppenheimer dramatically upgrading man’s self-destructive power. The accessible cautionary tale reminds me of a Patton Oswalt stand-up line: “We’re science: all about ‘coulda,’ no about ‘shoulda.’” Oh the folly of man and how it endures.
For the first two hours, the focus is the secretive Manhattan Project out in the New Mexico desert and its myriad logistical challenges, all with the urgency of being in a race with the Nazis who already have a head start (their break is Hitler’s antisemitism pushing out brilliant Jewish minds). That urgency to beat Hitler is a key motivator that allows many of the more hand-wringing members to absolve those pesky worries; Oppenheimer says their mission is to create the bomb and not to determine who or when it is used. That’s true, but it’s also convenient moral relativism, essentially saying America needs to do bad things so that the Germans don’t do worse things, a line of adversarial thinking that hasn’t gone away, only the name of the next competitor adjusts. This portion of the movie works because it adopts a similarly streamlined focus of smart people working together against a tight deadline. Looking at it as a problem needing to surmount allows for an engaging ensemble drama complete with satisfying steps toward solutions and breakthroughs. It makes you root for the all-star team and excitedly follow different elements relating to nuclear fusion and fission that you would have had no real bearing before Nolan’s intellectual epic. For those two galloping hours, the movie plays almost like a brainy heist team trying to pull together the ultimate job.
It’s the time afterwards where Oppenheimer expands upon the lasting consequences where the movie finds its real meaning as well as loses me as a viewer. The legacy of the bomb is one that modern audiences are going to be readily familiar with 80 years after the events that precipitated their arrival, and they haven’t exactly been shelved or become the world war deterrent hoped for. As one of Oppenheimer’s physicists says, a big bomb only works until someone creates a bigger bomb, and then the arms race starts all over again fighting for incremental supremacy when it comes to whether one’s military might could destroy the world ten times or twelve times over. When Oppenheimer begins having reservations of what he has brought into this world is when his character starts becoming more dynamic, but it’s also too late. He can’t undo what he’s done, the world isn’t going back to a safer existence before nuclear arms, so his tears and fears come as short shrift. There’s a scene where Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), castigates him and says, “You don’t get to commit the sin and then make all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.” Now this is in reference to a different personal failing of our protagonist, but the message resonates; however, I don’t know if this is Nolan’s grand takeaway. The movie in scope and ambition wants to set up this man as a tragic figure that gave birth to our modern world, but like President Truman says, it’s not about who created the bomb but who uses it. Oppenheimer is treated like a harbinger of regret, but I don’t think the story has enough to merit this examination, which is why Oppenheimer peters out after the bomb’s immediate aftermath.
It reminded me of an Oscar favorite from 2015, Adam McKay’s The Big Short, a true-ish account of real people profiting off the worldwide financial meltdown from 2008. It fools you into taking on the perspective of its main characters who present themselves as underdogs, keepers of a secret knowledge that they are trying to benefit from before an impending deadline. Likewise, the conclusion also makes you question whether you should have been rooting for this scheme all along since it was predicated on the economy crashing; these guys got their money but how many lives were irrevocably ruined to make their big score? With The Big Short, the movie-ness of its telling is part of McKay’s trickery, to ingratiate you in this clandestine financial world and to treat it like a heist or a con, and then to reckon whether you should have ever been rooting for such an adventure. Oppenheimer has a similar effect, lulling you with its admitted entertainment factor and beat-the-deadline structure. Once the mission is over, once the heroes have “won,” now the game doesn’t seem as fun or as justifiable. Except Oppenheimer could have achieved this effect with a judicious resolution rather than an entire third hour of movie shuffled throughout the other two like a mismatched deck of cards.
The last hour of the movie features a security clearance interrogation and a Senate confirmation hearing, neither of which have appealing stakes for an audience. After we watch the creation of a bomb, do we really care whether or not this one testy guy gets approved for a cabinet-level position or whether Oppenheimer might get his security clearance back? I understand that these stakes are meaningful for the characters, both essentially on trial for their lives and connections, but Nolan hasn’t made them as necessary for the audience. They’re really systems for exposition and re-examination, to play around with time like it was having a conversation with itself. It’s a neat effect when juggled smoothly, like when Past Oppenheimer is being interviewed by a steely and suspicious military intelligence office (Casey Affleck) while Future Oppenheimer laments to his project superior (Matt Damon) and then Even More Future Oppenheimer regrets his lack of candor to the review board. The shifty wheels-within-wheels nature of it all can be astounding when it’s all firing in alignment, but it can also feel like Nolan having a one-sided conversation with himself too often. It’s another reminder of the layers of narrative trickery and obfuscation that have become staples of a Christopher Nolan movie (I don’t think he could tell a knock-knock joke without making it at least nonlinear). The opposition to Oppenheimer is summarized by Strauss but I would argue the man didn’t need a public witch hunt to rectify what he’s done.
Lest I sound too harsh on Nolan’s latest, there are some virtuoso sequences that are spellbinding with technical artists working to their highest degree of artistry. The speech Oppenheimer gives to his Los Alamos colleagues is a horrifying lurch into a jingoistic pep rally, like he’s the big game coach trying to rally the team. The way the thundering stomps on the bleachers echo the rhythms of a locomotive in motion, driving forward at an alarming rate of acceleration, and then how Nolan drops the background sound so all we hear is Oppenheimer’s disoriented speech while the boisterous applause is muted, it’s all masterful to play with our sense of dread and remorse. This is who this man has become, and his good intentions of scientific discovery will be rendered into easily transmutable us-versus-them fear mongering politics. The ending imagery of Oppenheimer envisioning the world on fire is the exact right ending and hits with the full disquieting force of those three hours. The meeting with Harry Truman (Gary Oldman) is splendid for how undercutting it plays. Kitty’s interview at the hearing is the kind of counter-punching we’ve been waiting for and is an appreciated payoff for an otherwise underwritten character stuck in the Concerned Wife Back at Home role. The best parts are when Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves (Damon) are working in tandem to put together their team and location, as that’s when the movie feels like a well orchestrated buddy movie I didn’t know I wanted. The sterling cinematography, musical score, editing, all of the technical achievements, many of which won Oscars, are sumptuously glorious and immeasurably add to Nolan’s big screen vision.
I think I may understand why the subject of sex is something Nolan has conspicuously avoided before. Much has been made about the sex scenes and nudity in Oppenheimer, which seem to be the crux of Florence Pugh’s performance as Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer’s communist mistress through the years. The moment of Oppenheimer sitting during his hearing about his sexual tryst with an avowed communist leads to him imagining himself in the nude, exposed and vulnerable to these prying eyes and their judgment. Then Kitty imagines seeing Pugh atop her husband in his hearing seat, staring directly at her, and this sequence communicated both of their internal states well and felt justified. It’s the origin of the famous “I am become death” quote where the movie enters an unexpected level of cringe for a movie this serious. I was not prepared for this, so mild spoilers ahead if you care about such things, curious reader. We’re dropped into a sex scene between Oppenheimer and Jean where she takes a break to peruse his library shelves. She’s impressed that he has a Hindu text and pins it against her naked chest and slides atop Oppenheimer once again, requesting he read it to her rather than summarize it. “I am become death,” he utters, as he reads the Hindu Book of the Dead off Pugh’s breasts while they continue to have sex. Yikes. A big ball of yikes. If this is what’s in store, please go back to a sexless universe of men haunted by their lost women.
It’s easy to be swept away by all the ambition of Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a Great Man of History biopic that I think could have been better by being more judiciously critical of its subject. It’s a thoroughly well-acted movie where part of the fun is seeing known and lesser known name actors populate what would have been, like, Crew Member #8 roles for the sake of being part of this movie (Rami Malek as glorified clipboard-holder). Oppenheimer takes some wild swings, many of them paying off tremendously and also a few that made me scratch my head or reel back. It’s a demonstrably good movie with top-level craft, but I can’t quite shake my misgivings that enough of the movie could have been lost to history as well.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
Drive-Away Dolls is an interesting curiosity, not just for what it is but also for what it is not. It’s the first movie directed solo by Ethan Coen, best known as one half of the prolific filmmaking Coen Brothers, who have ushered in weird and vibrant masterpieces across several genres. After 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, their last collaboration, the brothers decided to set out on their own for an unspecified amount of time. This led Joel Coen to direct 2021’s atmospheric adaptation of Macbeth, and now Ethan has decided that the fictional movie he really wants to make, unshackled by his brother, is a crass lesbian exploitation sex comedy. Well all right then.
Set in 1999 for some reason, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) is an out lesbian who unabashedly seeks out her own pleasures, even if it brings about the end of her personal relationships. Her friend, Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), hasn’t had a lover in over three years and is much more prim and proper. Together, these gal pals decide to drive to Tallahassee, Florida using a drive-away service, where they will be paid to drive one way, transporting a used car. It just so happens that these women have mistakenly been given the wrong car, a vehicle intended for a group of criminals transporting contraband that they don’t want exposed. Jamie is determined to get laid and help Marian get laid all the while goons (Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson) are trailing behind to nab the ladies before they discover the valuable contents inside the trunk of their car.
Drive-Away Dolls is clearly an homage to campy 1970s exploitation B-movies but without much more ambition than making a loosey-goosey vulgar comedy consumed by the primal pursuit of sexual pleasure. I was genuinely surprised just how radiantly horny this movie comes across, with every scene built in some way upon women kissing, women having sex, women talking about having sex, women pleasuring themselves, women talking about pleasuring themselves, and women talking about pleasuring other women. When I mean every scene I mean virtually every scene in this movie, as the thinnest wisp of a road trip plot is barely holding together these scenes. From a representational standpoint, why shouldn’t lesbians have a raunchy sex comedy that is so open about these topics and demonstrates them without shame? Except it feels like the crude subject matter is doing all the heavy lifting to make up for the creative shortcomings elsewhere in the movie, which, sadly there are many. The script is co-written by Coen and his wife of many years, Tricia Cooke, an out lesbian, so it feels like the intent is to normalize sex comedy tropes for queer women, but the whole movie still feels overwhelming in the male gaze in its depictions of feminine sexuality. I’m all for a sex-positive lesbian road trip adventure, but much of the script hinges upon the uptight one learning to love sex, which means much of the story is dependent upon the promiscuous one trying to then bed her longtime friend and get her off. Rather than feel like some inevitability, the natural conclusion of a friendship that always had a little something more under the surface, it feels more like a horny and calculated math equation (“If you have two gay female leads, you can get them both kissing women by having them kiss each other”).
I’m sad to report that Drive-Away Dolls is aggressively unfunny and yet it tries so hard. It’s the kind of manic, desperate energy of an improv performer following an impulse that was a mistake but you are now watching the careening descent into awkward cringe and helpless to stop. The movie is so committed to its hyper-sexual goofball cartoon of a world, but rarely does any of it come across as funny or diverting. When Jamie’s ex-girlfriend Suki (Beanie Feldstein) is trying to remove a dildo drilled onto her wall, she screams in tears, “I’m not keeping it if we both aren’t going to use it.” The visual alone, an ex in tears removing all the sexual accoutrements of her previous relationship, some of which can be widely over-the-top, could be funny itself. However, when her reasoning is that we both can’t use this any longer, then the line serves less as a joke and more a visual cue for the audience to think about both of them taking turns. It doesn’t so much work at being funny first and rather as a horny reminder of women being sexual together. The same with a college soccer team’s sleepover that literally involves a basement make-out party with a timer going off and swapping partners. It’s not ever funny but features plenty of women making out with one another to satisfy some audience urges. I will admit it serves a plot purpose of first aligning Jamie and Marian into awkwardly kissing one another, thus sparking carnal stirrings within them.
My nagging issue with the movie’s emphasis is not a puritanical response to vulgar comedy but that this movie lacks a necessary cleverness. It doesn’t really even work as dumb comedy, although there are moments that come close, like the absurd multiple-corkscrew murder that opens the movie. It’s just kind of exaggerated nonsense without having the finesse to steer this hyper-sexual world of comedy oddballs. The crime elements clash with the low-stakes comedy noodling of our leads bumbling their way through situation after situation that invariably leads to one of them undressing or inserting something somewhere. The brazen empowerment of women seeking out pleasure is a fine starting point for the movie, but the characters are too weakly written as an Odd Couple match that meets in the middle, the uptight one learning to loosen up and the irresponsible one learning to be less selfish. The goons chasing them are a pale imitation of other famous Coen tough guys; they lack funny personality quirks to broaden them out. There’s a conspiracy exposing political hypocrites condemning the “gay agenda,” and I wish more of this was satirized rather than a briefcase full of reportedly famous phalluses. If you got a briefcase full of famous appendages, I was expecting more jokes than blunt objects.
I feel for the actors, so eager to be part of a Coen movie, even if it’s only one of them and even if it’s something much much lesser. Qualley (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) is a typical Coen cartoon of a character, complete with peculiar accent and syntax. She’s going for broke with this performance but the material, time and again, requires so little other than being exaggerated and horny. There is one scene where her physical movements are so broad, so heightened to the point of strain, that I felt an outpouring of pity for her. It feels like a performance of sheer energetic force lacking proper direction. Viswanathan has been so good in other comedies and she’s given so little to do here other than playing the straight women (no pun intended) to Qualley’s twangy cartoon. Her portrayal of sexual coming of age and empowerment was better realized, and funnier, in 2018’s Blockers, a superior sex-positive sex comedy.
As a solo filmmaker, Ethan Coen seems to confirm that his brother is more the visual stylist of the duo. The movie is awash in neon colors and tight closeups of bug eyes and twangy accents, but the most annoying stylistic feature, by far, is the repeated psychedelic transition shots, these trippy interstitials that don’t really jibe with anything on screen. It felt like padding for an already stretched-thin movie that can barely reach 75 minutes before the end credits kick in. That’s why the extended sequences where the intention seems exploitation elements first and comedy second, or third, or not at all, makes the whole enterprise feel like a pervy curiosity that has its empowering yet obvious message of “girls do it too” as cover. Agreed, but maybe do more with the material beyond showcasing it. Ethan Coen is a prolific writer who has written short story collections (I own his 1998 book Gates of Eden), poetry collections, and he even wrote five one-act plays before the pandemic struck in 2020. I’d love to see those plays. This man has true talent but it’s just not obviously present throughout this film.
Drive-Away Dolls is an irreverent sex comedy with good intentions and bad ideas, or good ideas and bad intentions, an exploitation picture meant to serve as empowerment but still presents its world as exploitation first and last. It’s just not a funny movie, and it’s barely enough to cover a full feature. I suppose one could celebrate its mere existence as an affront to those puritanical forces trying to oppress feminine sexuality, but then you could say the same thing about those 1970s women-in-prison exploitation pictures. It’s a strange movie experience, achingly unfunny, overly mannered, and makes you long for the day that the two Coens will reunite and prove that the two men are better as a united creative force; that’s right, two Coens are better than one.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Air (2023)
Who exactly could get that excited about a movie about selling a shoe? Apparently, plenty of critics and audiences judging by the success of Air, the dramatization of the eventual formation and presentation for the first Air Jordan sneaker. It’s Amazon’s first original movie that they’ve given a theatrical release since 2019’s Late Night, and it proved a moderate success for a mid-range adult drama before debuting on its streaming service. I was intrigued by the creative pedigree, as I’ve been an ardent fan of Ben Affleck as a director, and the uniformly strong critical reviews, but I kept thinking, “It’s just a shoe.” It was hard for me to imagine getting that drawn into a drama about a bunch of guys trying to get Michael Jordan’s endorsement. I just couldn’t see the movie in this scenario. Now that I’ve actually watched Air, I can credit it as a well-written and well-acted movie about passionate people putting forward a presentation. That’s the movie, and while entertaining, it’s still hard for me to understand all the fuss.
It’s 1984 and Nike isn’t the market-leading trend-setting company that we think of today. They dominated the running world but few if any saw them as hip. They were struggling behind Adidas and Converse in popularity and cultural cache, and CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) had tasked his basketball head of operations Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) with snagging endorsements from the new NBA rookies. Sonny wants to go all-in on just one athlete, a special case that Sonny thinks can revolutionize the game, and one that could propel Nike to the next level. But first he’ll have to convince Jordan’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), that this smaller company with its smaller reach is going to be the best fit for her son’s potential future earnings.
This is still a movie about a shoe, but it’s really a movie about people who are good at their jobs and trying to change a paradigm of thinking and the Way Things Are Done. I’ve seen it said that Air is “Moneyball for sneakerheads,” and that’s an apt comparison. It’s about a bunch of smart guys fighting for clout, a group of underdogs going up against the entrenched winners, but it’s really about passionate people trying to get others to recognize their passion. So it’s scene after scene of Sonny trying to break through and get others to understand why his way of thinking is going to be the best. It’s also structured entirely around the big presentation with the Jordans, with each stop at a competing shoe company as its own act break. It makes the movie feel very streamlined and focused. It allows moments for minor characters to get their own moment, to make it seem like there’s a larger world behind every scene. It makes the team feel more filled out, and as each person and artist comes together, it’s reminiscent of movies in general, about various talents coming together to put on a big show. With our hindsight already locked in before the opening credits, it’s got to be the journey that matters here, because we know the eventual coupling, so Air has to justify why the before time could be captivating. It’s engaging because it’s a story built upon underdogs and smart people getting to flex their smarts.
Of course, it’s also not too difficult to make someone look smart with the power of hindsight. This was one of the more maddening features of Aaron Sorkin’s frustrating HBO series, The Newsroom. The focus was on a TV show on a cable news network but it existed in our universe, covering the big stories from the recent past. Rather than providing insight into the struggles of journalists trying to break big stories and follow their leads, Sorkin’s show was his turn to rewrite the news, showing how the foolish journalists should have covered these major events. It was his condescending attempt to tell professionals how they should have done their jobs. However, he had the extreme benefit of 18 months or so of hindsight and seeing what was important and what was less so, which just made his critiques all the more condescending (“Why don’t you know all the things that I know from the future, stupid present people?”). I could do this myself, writing a story about a guy in the 1930s talking down to these people hoarding their gold and how they should, instead, invest in a burgeoning computer industry. It’s not hard to look smart when you have history already in your pocket. This is also the case with Sonny in Air, who says over and over how special Michael Jordan is, and we know this too with our personal hindsight, so it makes him look transcendent. However, there could be any number of guys in history that had a similar hunch about Sam Bowie, the player picked one spot ahead of Jordan in the 1984 NBA Draft and whose career was cut short by rampant leg injuries. That could have happened to Jordan too. Sometimes the greatest athletes are the recipients of just horrible luck (look at Bo Jackson, a modern-day Greek God who could have been an all-timer in two sports).
Where Air glides is with its snappy dialogue and attention to its supporting cast, thanks to debut screenwriter Alex Convery. Despite my reservations on the subject matter, this is proof that a good writer can make any story compelling as long as they channel into the right universal elements. A movie about selling a shoe to a future billionaire becomes an underdog story and one about a group of middle-aged guys trying to live out their dreams by picking the right player to become their vicarious capitalistic dream. The side characters played by Chris Messina as a foul-mouthed agent, and Jason Batemen as an exec who mostly just wants to spend more time with his kids following a divorce, and Matthew Maher (Our Flag Means Death) as a lonely shoe designer, are welcomed and I enjoyed spending time with them all before the big decision. It’s pleasurable just to sit and listen to the conversational banter. If you can find a way to make characters debating the particulars of their industry and make it interesting regardless of industry, then that’s the sign of a good writer. There’s plenty of conflict thrumming throughout, like Sonny pushing to spend his entire department’s budget on one player rather than spreading the risk around, and the climax involves whether or not a billion-dollar company is willing to split some of its earnings with the athlete they’re making mega-million from. It was a first-of-its-kind deal that changed the industry, giving athletes more leverage and direct money for the use of their likenesses, and considering how integral Jordan was to the explosion of the NBA’s popularity, it was money well spent.
There’s no distinct directing flair from Affleck, as I think he recognizes the strengths of this script and how best to utilize them, which is to support his actors and give them space. The most noticeable directing feature is the repeated use of period-appropriate songs and archival footage, which might explain the movie’s staggering reported $90 million budget (for a shoe movie?). Affleck keeps things moving at a light-hearted tone but knows when to slow things down too.
Air is an amusing drama with good performances and good writing and direction that understands how best to hone both of those selling points. It’s very streamlined while still feeling developed, and it manages to make a decades-old shoe deal feel interesting in 2023. I enjoyed it but I would have enjoyed this cast in just about anything, and I feel like the screenwriter and Affleck as a director have better stories on their docket waiting. It’s an enjoyable and intelligent drama with crackling good dialogue. It’s a solid movie but I guess I won’t ever understand the adoration it received, and that’s fine. Air proves you can indeed tell a compelling movie about a shoe deal. There you have it. Now back to that chicken/egg dilemma.
Nate’s Grade: B
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House of Gucci (2021)/ The Last Duel (2021)
The octogenarian filmmaker Ridley Scott has been a prolific and influential director for decades, but rarely has his high-powered work ethic been as obvious as within a 30-day window. Scott directed two movies, both aimed at adults and potential awards consideration, and both co-starring Adam Driver in a supporting role, and both as subtle as the outlandish fashions of the 1980s. Scott is not a subtle filmmaker by trade. He favors rousing excess and bold characters making bold decisions. This is not the first time Scott has managed to release two movies in a single calendar year (2017: Alien Covenant and All the Money in the World; 2001: Black Hawk Down and Hannibal) but for both movies to be released within a month, and share thematic similarities, is worth noting. The films also share many of the same artists (editor, composer, director of photography) as House of Gucci was filmed a mere four months after wrapping The Last Duel, which was delayed because of the pandemic. Both movies are based on true stories but go in different directions for artistic impact. House of Gucci veers into tragi-comic camp to its entertainment benefit, and The Last Duel spares subtlety for blunt political points.
The Gucci family has enjoyed nearly a century as fashion royalty. They’re known for their classic look, the care that’s put into their leather, and the long-standing resistance to change. Enter Patrizia (Lady Gaga), an ambitious young woman who doesn’t want to work for her father’s truck-driving company forever. She sets her sights on Maurizio (Driver), the mild-mannered son of Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons) and nephew to Aldo (Al Pacino), the co-heads of the Gucci empire. Their whirlwind romance leads to marriage and Patrizia insisting that her beloved take more control of the family business and make his mark as a Gucci.
The real reason you should go to the theaters for all 150 minutes of gargantuan Gucci drama is because of the monumentally captivating performance by Gaga. I will suffer no fools on this subject: Gaga is flat-out wonderful. As the kids on the social media say, she clearly understood the assignment. Gaga is knowingly broad and hamming it up but she is having the time of her life. I was impressed with her acting in 2018’s A Star is Born and how natural she was onscreen. Now she’s playing a distinctly drawn character and she dissolves into the role, smirking it up and purring with every line. You won’t exactly trust this woman, who is proven to be conniving and ambitious but also effective at manipulating others and earning her position of prominence, but you’ll love watching her onscreen whether alone or dancing circles around her cohorts. Gaga understands completely that this sordid tale plays better intentionally dipping into camp, making bold and outrageous what otherwise could have been underplayed. It’s an outrageous story with outrageous wealth and privilege, and it deserves to be told in an outrageous manner. That doesn’t mean dismiss the drama as minimal, but it recognizes the tone that will best bring out the entertainment value of the soapy plot elements. No one needs this kind of story played miserably strait-laced and absent any light; nobody needs another astoundingly awful The Counselor (sorry, Ridley). Take the sex scene between Gaga and Driver. It is so loud, so obnoxious, so over-the-top, and it stays at that level for a thrust-heavy protracted period, that the movie, and Gaga especially, is inviting you to laugh along. Gaga is the one who fully understands the edict of more-more-more the most and demonstrates it with her charmingly over-the-top performance. She is fully deserving of Academy recognition and to be memorialized as a thousand memes and GIFs.
House of Gucci feels very much like a Ryan Murphy show condensed to a feature-length over-extended special. For those unfamiliar with Murphy’s genre-bending TV work on FX (American Horror Story, American Crime Story) and now Netflix (Ratchet, Hollywood), the provocateur never met a juicy twist or outlandish plot element he didn’t love to use, abuse, and inundate the viewer. He’s like a creative prankster freely celebrating the ridiculousness of the prime-time soaps of old while also providing ironic counterpoints to them. It can be a riveting experience when it all works together and an unmitigated yet often fascinating hot mess when it doesn’t. Subtlety also rarely factors into a Murphy show. He also loves opening up the fabulous lives of the fabulously wealthy, including the heralded Versace family, and the fabulous lives of Hollywood stars in tremendous acrimony, like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, for our envious guilty pleasure consumption. The House of Gucci feels comfortably pitched in that Ryan Murphy sweet spot, especially if you’re a fan of the populist high-gloss escapism of Murphy’s campy forays.
Because of this tragi-comic tone, House of Gucci keeps things rolling with eye-rolling excess and consistent laughter. It’s essentially watching Patrizia climb the ladder of power within the Gucci family, eliminating her enemies and neutralizing her opposition. She’s so strong-willed, ruthless, and successful, that it’s fun to watch this outsider, who was seen as a gold-digging harlot by some within the cloistered family, systematically tear apart the tut-tutting elites. It’s structured in many ways like a gangster movie with its rise-and-fall narrative and, in its final half hour, it becomes a full-fledged crime story, one whose outcome I had no idea about. If you’re unfamiliar with the Gucci family story and scheming, like me, the movie will play even better with its level of surprise and colorful characters. This is Scott’s most light-footed work since 2015’s The Martian.
Another shocking surprise is how enjoyable Jared Leto (The Little Things) is as clownish cousin, Paolo Gucci. The actor is buried under pounds of prosthetic makeup and is performing on the same tonal wavelength as Gaga; these two know best what kind of movie they’re starring in. Leto is so deliciously, amazingly over-the-top that all of his Method affectations are part of the appeal rather than being a distraction. This character is a riotous naïve hack, a Gucci with the worst ideas in fashion but the inability to recognize his creative shortcomings. He would be set up for tragedy in a different kind of movie, like a Falstaff if you want to go all Shakespearean, but in this version of this story, he’s a buffoon with no self-awareness. Every time he appears onscreen, it’s deserving of a live studio audience applauding like a TV sitcom character that has stumbled into a prestige drama by mistake. This performance is so hugely Italian is practically exhaling mozzarella cheese. He could be the missing Mario triplet. Watching Leto and Pacino go back and forth is like watching a competition over who can chew the most scenery with the most overblown Italian accent, and I gave in and loved every second of it.
The overall length of House of Gucci starts to grate and the indulgence of the lavish lifestyles of the famous family gets repetitive. We don’t need five montages of wealth and luxury when one will do. Once Patrizia and Maurizio rise to control Gucci, the movie seems to coast, so much so that the eventual divide between the two seems arbitrary and undeveloped. When the movie transitioned to this point, I was left wondering what had exactly been their relationship breaking point. Maybe that’s the point and the absence is meant to convey how Maurizio has changed, given into the fast cars and fancy suits of a lifestyle he previously seemed indifferent to. The movie feels long and overly extended for a feature. The content could have worked as one of those glossy Ryan Murphy miniseries, but as a movie it could have used some judicious accounting.
House of Gucci is going to be the most entertaining for people seeking a less realistic, brooding, and contemplative drama about power and corruption and more seeking a delightfully baffling and campy mess of a movie. Lady Gaga and Jared Leto are playing their respective roles to the hilt, and it’s a hoot to watch them have as much fun with such broadly comic characters. Perhaps the tragi-comic tone will feel in poor taste for some (designer Tom Ford, a player in the Gucci resurgence in the 1990s, has said so), but I found House of Gucci to be a ridiculous movie that knew where it should go big and where it should go small, and it favored big early and often.
In contrast, The Last Duel is based upon a true story of the last time France used judicial trial by combat. It’s the 1300s, and Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) is a soldier for King Charles VI and looking to repay his mounting debts. He enters a marriage with Marguerite (Jodie Comer) for her dowry and promised land. However, Sir Jean finds his former squire and friend Jacques Le Gris (Driver) the recipient of the land, having been gifted it as thanks from the local lord, the carousing Pierre d’Alencon (Ben Affleck). Sir Jean is outraged by the offense. Then the bombshell hits: Marguerite accuses Le Gris of raping her. Le Gris denies it to his core. Sir Jean challenges his former friend to a trial by combat whereupon only one man will walk away alive.
The Last Duel could have also just as easily been titled, Sucks to Be a Woman: The 14th Century Edition. It’s a blunt assessment of systemic misogyny and the cruelty that was so casual that Church officials were blaming women for tempting men into raping them. This is an upsetting movie by design, and it’s filled with head-shaking arguments like a “real rape” cannot cause a pregnancy (“That’s science,” the court prosecutor says, in a nod to a future Todd Akin), that pregnancy is facilitated if the woman experiences an orgasm, so ipso facto how could the accused rape be in fact a rape if the lady is pregnant because that means she must have enjoyed herself. It hurts me to even type this diseased thinking, and I don’t consider it a spoiler to list some of the absurd arguments that will be unleashed in the name of institutional sexism. You could just as likely come up with your own ridiculous arguments playing a game of sexist Mad Libs and it will likely be featured at some point throughout The Last Duel. This is not a condemnation of the movie but a realization that its main journey is going to be a bleak grind, one that consistently makes you sigh deeply and feel uncomfortable for all the countless millions of women.
I fully believe that there are important lessons to be had in empathy and shattering ignorance when it comes to uncovering history as it is and not history as it is written. For some, the events of The Last Duel will hardly be eye-opening, but that doesn’t mean that it cannot engender greater consideration and thought to not just the historical context of the Medieval period but on the classic tales of chivalry and masculinity that have been passed down verbatim through centuries. The division of character perspectives is almost like uncovering the historical perspective through layers of obfuscation and legend. We see the movie three times, each from the point of view of another. We start with Sir Jean who views his life as abused loyalty, a dutiful soldier who fights for God and country and is constantly attacked by scheming upstarts. This beginning perspective is the most basic one, lacking dimension and keeping to a rigid right/wrong dichotomy. This is the kind of boilerplate that goes into legends. The second perspective, and seemingly longest, presents the villain’s perspective but where he clearly views himself as a dutiful soldier whose loyalty is also abused. He becomes obsessed with Marguerite and dreams of her and is convinced that her evinced kindness is really flirtation. He completely views the rape as a consensual outing. This perspective is more reflective than the first and insightful insofar as it’s meant to convey how men of this society can fool themselves into thinking their abuse is requested and obliged. This perspective is meant to convey the, for lack of a better word, common thinking and confirmation bias of centuries of entrenched systemic misogyny.
Despite its grim subject matter, The Last Duel is assuredly a feminist film and does not condone or dismiss the actions of its sexual predators. In trying to showcase differing perspectives, the movie is not asking us to question whether the rape was real or not, it’s asking us to understand, not excuse, the perspective of the perpetrator to better understand, not excuse, the landscape that produced so many more perpetrators. It’s historical context that some will argue is exploitative. Do we need to have the brutality shoved in our faces to better understand the plight of women? The screenplay is written by Damon and Affleck, their first collaboration since 1997’s Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, and they made the decision to have Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) write the feminine perspective from their story.
The third and final perspective is the one more aligned with the truth, and it’s here that we can begin to compare the points of difference between the prior two male perspectives. Early on, Marguerite’s marriage is de-romanticized. She is expected to bear a son at all costs. As time passes without a child, her husband begins to have his doubts about her worth. He didn’t have this problem with his first wife, he adds, to let her know where the problem is coming from. Yet Marguerite is also a natural problem-solver and manager, and when left alone to tend to her husband’s estate, she enacts policies that are clear improvements. Again, it’s another symbolic example of how many capable and intelligent women were intimidated into being primarily child-bearing mares. When she tells her husband she has been raped, Sir Jean takes it as an offense against him first and foremost. He also undresses and insists that Le Gris will not be the last man to “know [his] wife.” When Sir Jean boldly challenges Le Gris to a trial by combat, he fails to mention to his wife that if he were to lose, and thus found unfavorable in God’s eyes, then she will be burned alive as punishment for a false accusation. She asked for the justice of the courts, but that wasn’t good enough for her husband’s pride (to be fair, the courts were also stacked with bias to the liege lord). If the first perspective is the one most likely to be recorded, and the second most likely to be held by the men of this time, then it’s the final perspective that is reality, and one that has been ignored.
This all leads up to a climactic duel that had me rooting for both men to kill each other, unless that forfeited the life of Marguerite somehow through its arcane rules. I felt genuine tension because I was dreading the bloody outcome. I was suspecting the worst, with Le Gris to persevere and the movie to basically say, “Well, that’s what it was like, folks.” It’s a brutal sequence. The extended confrontation is thrilling exactly because the movie has done its work to establish genuine emotional stakes. I feared for the life of Marguerite, trapped in this ridiculous system of narcissistic men hitting each other for God’s favor rather than trusting the voice of the victim. It’s absurd in the same vein as drowning a woman to prove whether she was a witch is absurd. I won’t spoil the ending results, but I think it pays off the grind of the preceding two hours while staying true to the characters and their perspectives until the bitter end.
The Last Duel is not exactly a subtle film, but when the political message is intended to be blunt and alarming, is it better to use the dross of artistic subterfuge or be blunt? The characters are more archetypes than multidimensional figures, and even the extra time with them produces more of the same but at least offers a reflection of their respective reality distortion fields. The symbols are rather obvious throughout, like Marguerite breeding horses (look, that mare is like you!) and the cultural lessons are not exactly revolutionary. But when people need to be shaken, to dramatically rethink their cozy relationship with historical assumptions, then I say you bring a rhetorical sledgehammer rather than a scalpel. One can almost hear a certain political figure of recent prominence flatly echoing, “But he strongly denies it,” as proof of innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise (“locker room talk” and the like). But this story of toxic masculinity and systemic victimization doesn’t deserve to be told subtle and with brave faces in the wake of quiet indignities. It’s trying to re-contextualize heroes and villains of chivalric legend without losing sight on the human viewpoint. Whether viewers think they need a 150-minute lesson in how awful it was to be a woman is going to be a personal decision, and the reason I think many adults stayed away (sorry Ridley, it’s not we Millennials that this movie was marketed toward). This could have been trimmed down, especially with all the overworked palace intrigue in the middle. It’s an uncomfortable movie by nature, but one with relevant power and empathy and grueling suspense. The Last Duel is an uncompromising movie that asks the audience to think most of the unseen perspective too often overlooked.
House of Gucci is meant for titillation and diversion. The Last Duel is meant for conversations and denied catharsis. Even when the movie ends, you’re left with the underlined impression that this one woman’s plight is the same as so many others who will never know the spotlight. Both movies take clear aim at distinctly different tones and achieve their aims through their devotion and execution. Scott is a brilliantly visual tactician who simultaneously makes the outdoors look their driest and wettest. I cannot say either movie is elevated to another level it would have been unable to achieve thanks to Scott’s able direction, but he feels more committed and invested in both stories, and in particular the performances, than in his most recent output. I’m happy that Hollywood is still making mature moves for grown-ups, even if The Last Duel looks like a costly box-office dud. Both of these Scott ventures are worth watching. It all depends on your desired mood. Do you want to lounge in luxury and laugh it up, or do you want to feel miserable but more educated? Either way, these movies will mostly deliver what they promise for your 150 minutes of attention.
Nate’s Grades:
House of Gucci: B
The Last Duel: B+
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Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) [Review Re-View]
Originally released August 22, 2001:
Kevin Smith returns back to his comedy roots. No more movies with a message (Chasing Amy and Dogma) it’s back to good ole’ snowballing and stink palming. His latest, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, is like a giant thank-you card to all his fans that have made the man who he is today. It ties up the entire View Askew universe so Kevin can drift off into uncharted ventures of film making and not have to keep referencing the same damn characters. Plus there’s plenty of good-natured vulgarity to go around.
The plot of Jay and Silent Bob is nothing too heavy but seems to keep the film on a continuous pace, unlike the sometimes stagnant feel Mallrats had (what, they’re in one location for 90 minutes). It seems that after getting a restraining order at the Quick Stop on them, Jay and Silent Bob learn that Miramax is making a movie from a comic book that is in fact based off of them. Learned of the riches they could make they seek out the comic’s author Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck’s first appearance in the film) and demand a piece of the pie. Holden tells them that he long ago sold his right to his partner Banky Edwards (Jason Lee, in his second appearance in the film) and that there’s nothing they can do to stop the film. Jay suddenly gets the idea that if they stop the movie from ever getting made then they don’t have to worry. So off go our stoner duo on a mission to sabotage and satirize Hollywood.
Along the way are a hitch-hiker (George Carlin) advising the best way to get a ride is to go down in your morals, a confused nun (Carrie Fisher), the cast of Scooby Doo offering a ride (which will be 100x funnier than the feature film coming out next summer), a beautiful band of international diamond thieves (Eliza Dusku, Ali Larter, Jennifer Swalbach-Smith, Shannon Elizabeth), a rescued chimpanzee, a dogged Wildlife agent (Will Ferrell), and a full barrage of hilarity once Hollywood is finally hit.
The best barbs are laid out by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon bickering about the other’s film choices on the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season. This moment is truly inspired and full of great humor from Gus van Sant too busy counting his money to yell action to Damon turning into a vigilante hero. I almost fell on the floor laughing during this sequence.
When Jay and Silent Bob hit Hollywood is when the comedy starts hitting its stride as this Jersey Greek chorus interacts with the Hollywood life and encounters many a celebrity. The jokes are usually right on target except for Chris Rock’s performance of a racism obsessed film director. Rock’s portrayal becomes grating to the moviegoer far before it’s over, though he does get a few choice lines.
Smith as a director has finally elevated his visual art into something that can sustain itself instead of his earlier just-hold-the-camera-and-shoot movies. There are pans, zooms, quick cuts, cranes, action sequences, and even CGI. Smith is evolving as an artist but still staying his “dick and fart joke” self, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is evidence. And that’s fine by me.
Nate’s Grade: B
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
This was the one movie I was dreading more than any others on my 2001 re-watch. I’ve been a Kevin Smith fan since my teenage years and the man’s brilliantly vulgar movies had a formative effect on shaping my love of comedy, cinema, and even language itself. I don’t know if I can say I’ve been a fan of Smith as a filmmaker for some time. He took a more schlocky genre-based turn the last decade to diminished results; I enjoyed the change of pace from 2011’s Red State but found my interest deflating with 2014’s Tusk and 2016’s Yoga Hosiers. It wasn’t until 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot that my worry was unable to be suppressed. Had the filmmaker stopped growing or had I simply outgrown the filmmaker? The old jokes and self-serving references felt too labored, too stagnant, and like an old man repeating the hits for the same group of fans to laugh at the same recognizable and tired punchlines. By nature, comedy has the shortest shelf life of entertainment, and I was dreading that the original Jay and Silent Bob big screen adventure was going to feel so outdated and pitiful, especially since it’s the least substantial of all of Smith’s early films and was intended as a silly crowd-pleasing romp for his fandom. In 2001, I was a big participant of that group. In 2021, I don’t know if I still am.
This 2001 movie was always intended to be rather insular, pitched to the diehards who would understand references to chocolate-covered pretzels and the backseats of Volkswagens, but the star-studded affair was also intended to close the book on the View Askewniverse, the interconnected world comprising the first five films of Smith’s career. Smith had intended to move on and tell new stories unbound by the confines of his continuity and the demands fans would have that the new stuff tonally aligned with the old stuff. This never really happened. Smith tried something different with 2004’s father/daughter dramedy Jersey Girl and upon its theatrical demise retreated back to the safety of his View Askew universe. To be fair, he has branched out with bold experiments in horror, some of them rather successful, but it always feels like Smith is too afraid to move too far ahead of the fandom he credits so much for his success. Hey, people go to concerts and they want to hear the hits. I understand the appeal. I chuckled at points of familiarity in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and also Strike Back upon re-watch, but when you’re talking storytelling and comedy, stagnation isn’t growth. It’s a self-imposed ceiling.
It was very early that my sinking feeling for Strike Back became my default setting. The characters of Jay and Silent Bob are not built to carry an entire movie, especially when one of them is mostly mute. It becomes the Jay (Jason Mewes) show and he overstays his welcome. There are definite limitations to these two stoners being the primary characters, and that’s why Jay seems to vary from scene-to-scene for the sake of comedy. In some scenes he’ll be clever, in others powerfully stupid, and in others so specific, like when he’s referencing Prince Valiant or rhapsodizing a Planet of the Apes apocalyptic fantasy that is too involved to come from the mind of this dumb stoner. This is the same guy who didn’t know you had to pay to ride a bus. The character unpredictability would be more acceptable if those leaps lead to worthwhile comedy bits that couldn’t otherwise be bridged by the operating persona of the long-haired foul-mouthed horndog. Therein lies the issue. The humor of Strike Back is too scattershot and too obvious to really land consistently. The fourth-wall breaks are painful and plentiful. The constant exclamation of “bong” is never funny. The random inclusion of the Mystery Machine, with a Velma openly lusting after women, is lazy. The fact that people are fighting with bong lightsabers and dildos is lazy. The joke that everyone on the Internet complaining about pop culture is just a teen dweeb is lazy and almost Aaron Sorkin-esque in its snide broad-brush painting of technology and youth. As I said in my review of Reboot: “Smith has never been one to hinge on set pieces and more on character interactions, usually profane conversations with the occasional slapstick element. This is one reason why the original Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back suffers in comparison to his more character-driven comedies.” This movie is wall-to-wall wacky slapstick and road trip pieces that fail to transcend their cultural references.
And the comedy aspect that has aged the worse, by far, is the rampant gay jokes. At the time of its theatrical release, G.L.A.A.D. was openly decrying the film for its copious jokes at the expense of being mistaken as gay. I’m all but certain that 2001 me would have voiced the opinion that this was absurd, that of course Smith isn’t a homophobe, and he’s merely satirizing homophobia. The problem is that being gay is such a repeated joke of derision and hysteria. Wildlife Marshal Willenholly (Will Ferrell, one of the better reasons to still watch) admits he’s only a man on the outside, and I guess that’s a joke? Gay jokes are definitely one of the kinds of comedy that has aged the worst in the ensuing twenty years. Think back to 2005’s extended riff-fest between Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd in The 40-Year-Old Virgin where they try to top one another how they know the other is really gay. That would never happen in a studio comedy today. Times change and so do the mores of comedy. Things we thought were funny decades ago we might not feel the same way. That’s the nature of comedy. The overall comedy of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back feels tacky and dated, so the onslaught of gay panic and derision only makes the rest of the comedy feel just as sad and pitiful.
There are two hooks to this movie, the relationship that forms between Jay and Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), one of the members of a girl gang of jewel thieves, and the havoc and industry satire of the guys running through the Miramax studio lot. Heather Graham reportedly turned down the role of Justice because she could not understand what woman would fall in love with Jay, and she’s completely right. The girl gang seems included because it felt like the hot thing to do at the time after Charlie’s Angels, to include some sexy ladies in cat suits, give them slow-motion scenes where they wink at the camera about how sexy they must look in magazine cover poses, and seem to be in on the joke while just objectifying these one-note characters with air quotes. Just because Smith later has the girl gang underline their cliché nature doesn’t make them any less of a cliché, and their entire inclusion feels like fulfilling a personal demand for Smith rather than satirizing the shallow depiction of “strong action heroine” in Hollywood blockbusters. The other hook is the actual industry satire, strictly under the guidance of lampooning Miramax and their hits and indie darling culture, all of which has the pall of Harvey Weinstein cast over it. The industry jokes aren’t exactly very cutting. It’s difficult to even label this as satire. It’s more a madcap chase that resembles a crude version of Pee Wee Herman’s studio escapades. It too feels predicated on fulfilling personal demands for Smith, like literally fighting Luke Skywalker in a lightsaber duel. I’ll agree with my 2001 self that the comedy is on stronger footing during this final act, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for the rest of the movie. Strike Back doesn’t strike hard enough.
There is one reason to watch this movie and it has always been the unique fascination of Jason Mewes as a performer. He was not even an actor when Smith put him in his indie breakout film, 1994’s Clerks. He has such an unpolished appeal and there were several line readings where he took a bizarre, immediately intriguing angle, something that made the line funny because of his delivery and conviction. Mewes is a genuinely underrated comic actor. He was also battling heroin withdrawal throughout the production and turned to getting drunk as a backup coping mechanism. As soon as filming was done, he began using drugs again and eventually Smith would drive his buddy to rehab and offer a place in his home if it meant he had someone to make sure he stayed sober. The friendship between Mewes and Smith, and the hell they’ve gone through together from his addiction, is truly heartwarming and would genuinely make an interesting movie all its own.
I come back to my review for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot because I wrestled with these same feelings back then, and re-watching Strike Back only provided disappointing confirmation. As I said in 2019, “The highly verbose filmmaker has been a favorite of mine since I discovered a VHS copy of Clerks in the late 90s. I will always have a special place reserved for the man and see any of his movies, even if I’m discovering that maybe some of the appeal is starting to fade… As a storyteller, I’ll always be front and center for this gregarious and generous man. As a filmmaker, I’ll always be thankful for his impact he had on my fledgling ideas of indie cinema and comedy, even if that means an inevitable parting of ways as he charts a well-trod familiar path.” Going back to the crude comedies of Kevin Smith feels like meeting old friends and realizing how little you might have in common now, and that’s okay. They still were important, they won’t be forgotten, but some things just aren’t built to last, especially comedy. I guess don’t be sad because it’s over but smile because it happened, including the many, many dick and fart jokes.
Re-View Grade: C
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No Sudden Move (2021)
A star-studded collaboration between director Steven Soderbergh (Logan Lucky) and screenwriter Ed Solomon (Bill and Ted Face the Music), No Sudden Move is a class in how to effectively use tension and confusion to a movie’s benefit. Don Cheadle and Benicio del Toro play a pair of low-level criminals struggling to make ends meet. They accept a quick job “babysitting” a family while the husband (David Harbour) retrieves a very valuable document that certain higher-ups are after. Very early on, you feel like something is wrong and something will quickly go wrong, and this feeling persists throughout the film’s two hours. Our two protagonists sense they’re being set up, take action, and from there the movie becomes them trying to cash out with this valuable document while constantly looking over their shoulders. There are many different parties that are willing to do whatever it takes to obtain this document. In all honesty, the screenplay by Solomon is a little too over-plotted. There are several betrayals and schemers and acrimonious relationships built upon past betrayals and mistakes that it can all be a little hard to follow at times. The dread I felt was palpable. You don’t expect these guys to get away with this, not against the forces they’re going against, and so it becomes a nerve-wracking game of assessing every moment and whether this is when disaster will strike. Soderbergh’s dashes of style don’t always jibe with the 1954 Detroit setting, like his penchant for fish-eyed lenses communicating the distortion of this murky world of shadow brokers. It feels like Soderbergh has to resort to some new gimmick to get himself excited about movie projects (at least is wasn’t filmed on an iPhone). The acting is strong throughout, though Cheadle can be hard to hear at times from his guttural, frog-in-throat speaking voice. The movie kept me guessing, with some surprise cameos, and it left me dreading what would happen next. A modest success for glamorous discomfort.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Ford vs. Ferrari (2019)
I don’t care one lick about cars and I was greatly entertained by Ford vs. Ferrari, a thrilling look back where the gear-heads at Ford wanted to build a new model of racing car that could challenge the seemingly unbeatable Italians at the Le Mans raceway. The smartest move the movie makes is placing this as a character-driven story with a group of big personalities solving a puzzle and trying to prove the arrogant suits wrong. It has such winning elements that it’s got crowd-pleaser DNA all over it, even if you’ll likely predict every step of the story. Even if you know nothing about the history of racing and motor vehicles, you can suspect that designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale) will, through grit and confidence and outside-the-box thinking, overcome their obstacles to win the 1966 Le Mans race. The movie even realizes this, and that’s why the climax of the movie isn’t whether or not Ford will triumph but on a very personal dilemma and choice. It’s less about the mechanics of cars and more about simply solving problems with innovative solutions, and there’s a great satisfaction in watching characters we care about get closer to solving a puzzle that has outwitted the masses. As the characters get excited, we get excited because the personal is what is felt most. Miles is an arrogant, disgraced driver that Ford doesn’t want being the face of anything for the company. Shelby is trying to transition from being in a car to the head of a company, and he’s the heat shield for his team, taking the corporate ire and laying more and more on the line for their experiments. Damon is great, and sounds uncannily like Tommy Lee Jones, but this is chiefly Bale’s movie and he is fantastic. He once again just disappears into a character, this time the lanky, cocky, hard-driving family man, and the scenes with Miles’ wife and son actually provide important dimension to all the participants. They aren’t simply there to express concern or admiration. The screenplay by the Butterworth brothers (Edge of Tomorrow) and Jason Keller (Machine Gun Preacher) have opened up these characters, their fear, anxieties, hopes, and dreams in a way that feels genuine and considerate. They hook us in with the characters early, so that the rest of the film serves as a series of payoffs for our investment. The racing sequences are thrilling as director James Mangold (Logan) has his camera career around the cars, placing the audience in the middle of the RPMs and feeling that immersive sense of speed. I never knew that the Le Mans race is 24 hours long, and the scene of these 1960s cars, with 1960s windshield wiper technology, driving in the rain and dark at 200 miles-per-hour is starkly terrifying. I still don’t care much about cars or their history, but you present me engaging characters and Oscar-caliber performances to boot, and I’ll watch those people anywhere. Ford vs. Ferrari is a bit long (150 minutes) but a well-crafted, potent crowd-pleaser with exhilarating racing and strong characters worthy of cheering.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is strictly made for writer/director Kevin Smith’s fanbase, so does trying to play outside this cultivated audience even matter? Honestly, there’s no way this is going to be anyone’s first Smith movie, so it’s already running on an assumed sense of familiarity with the characters and stories of old, which is often a perquisite to enjoying many of the jokes (more on this later). It’s been 25 years since Clerks originally debuted and showcased Smith’s ribald and shrewd sense of dialogue-driven, pop-culture-drenched humor. He’s created his own little sphere with a fervent fanbase, so does he need to strive for a larger audience with any forthcoming movies or does he simply exclusively serve the existing crowd?
Jay (Jason Mewes) and his hetero life-mate Silent Bob (Smith) are out for vengeance once again. Hollywood is rebooting the old Bluntman and Chronic superhero movie from 2001, this time in a dark and edgy direction, and since Jay and Silent Bob are the inspirations for those characters, even their likenesses and names now belong to the studio. The stoner duo, older and not so much wiser, chart a cross-country trip to California to attend ChronicCon and thwart the filming of the new movie, directed by none other than Kevin Smith (himself). Along the way, Jay and Bob discover that Jay’s old flame, Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), had a daughter, Millennium “Milly” Falcon (Harley Quinn Smith) and Jay is the father. Milly forces Jay and Bob to escort her and her group of friends to ChronicCon and Jay struggles with holding back his real connection to her.
One of my major complaints with 2016’s Yoga Hosers (still the worst film of his career) was that it felt like it was made for his daughter, her friends, and there was no point of access for anyone else. It felt like a higher-budget home movie that just happened to get a theatrical release. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot feels somewhat similar, reaching back to the 2001 comedy that itself was reaching back on a half-decade of inter-connected Smithian characters. There is a certain degree of frantic self-cannibalism here but if the fans are happy then does Smith need to branch out? This is a question that every fan will have to answer personally. At this point, do they want new stories in the same style of the old or do they just want new moments with the aging characters of old to provide an ever-extending coda to their fictional lives?
I certainly enjoyed myself but I could not escape the fact at how eager and stale much of the comedy felt. Smith has never been one to hinge on set pieces and more on character interactions, usually profane conversations with the occasional slapstick element. This is one reason why the original Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back suffers in comparison to his more character-driven comedies. Alas, the intended comedy set pieces in Reboot come across very flat. A lustful fantasy sequence never seems to take off into outrageousness. A drug trip sequence begins in a promising and specific angle and then stalls. The final act has a surprise villain that comes from nowhere, feels incredibly dated, and delivers few jokes beyond a badly over-the-top accent and its sheer bizarre randomness. There’s a scene where the characters stumble across a KKK rally. The escape is too juvenile and arbitrary. A courtroom scene has promise when Justin Long appears as a litigation attorney for both sides but the joke doesn’t go further, capping out merely at the revelation of the idea. This is indicative of much of Reboot where the jokes appear but are routinely easy to digest and surface-level, seldom deepening or expanding. There’s a character played by Fred Armison who makes a second appearance, leading you to believe he will become a running gag that will get even more desperate and unhinged with each new appearance as he seeks vengeance. He’s never seen again after that second time. There are other moments that feel like setups for larger comedic payoffs but they never arrive. The actual clip of the Bluntman and Chronic film, modeled after Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman, is almost absent any jokes or satire. There are fourth-wall breaks that are too obvious to be funny as they rest on recognition alone. There’s a running joke where Silent Bob furiously taps away at a smart phone to then turn around and showcase a single emoji. It’s cute the first time, but then this happens like six more times. Strangely it feels like Smith’s sense of humor has been turned off for painfully long durations on this trip down memory lane. The structure is so heavily reminiscent of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back that there are moments that repeat step-for-step joke patterns but without new context, meaning the joke is practically the repetition itself.
The problem with comedy is that familiarity can breed boredom, and during the funny stretches, I found myself growing restless with Reboot as we transitioned from stop to stop among the familiar faces. I enjoyed seeing the different characters again but many of them had no reason to be involved except in a general “we’re bringing the band back together” camaraderie. It’s nice to see Jason Lee again but if he doesn’t have any strong jokes, why use him in this way? Let me dig further with Lee to illustrate the problem at heart with Reboot. Jay and Silent Bob visit Brodie (Lee) at his comic book shop, which happens to be at the mall now. He complains that nobody comes to the mall any longer and he has to worry about the “mallrats,” and then he clarifies, he’s talking about actual rodents invading the space, and he throws a shoe off screen. I challenge anyone to find that joke amusing beyond a so-bad-it’s-fun dad joke reclamation. I kept waiting for Smith to rip open some satirical jabs on pop culture since 2006’s Clerks II. In the ensuing years, Star Wars and Marvel have taken over and geek culture and comic books rule the roost. Surely a man who made his name on these topics would have something to say about this moment of over saturation, let alone Hollywood’s narrow insistence on cash-grab remakes. I kept waiting for the Smith of old to have some biting remarks or trenchant commentary. Milly’s diverse group of friends (including a Muslim woman named “Jihad”) is referred to like it’s a satirical swipe at reboots, but there isn’t a joke there unless the joke is, “Ha ha, everyone has to be woke these days,” which is clunky and doesn’t feel like Smith’s point of view. There are several moments where I felt like the humor was trying too hard or not hard enough. As a result, I chuckled with a sense of familiarity but the new material failed to gain much traction.
I do want to single out one new addition that I found to be hysterical, and that is Chris Hemsworth as a hologram version of himself at a convention. The Thor actor has opened up an exciting career path in comedy as highlighted by 2017’s Ragnarok, but just watching his natural self-effacing charm as he riffs about the dos and don’ts of acceptable behavior with his hologram is yet another reminder that this man is so skilled at hitting all the jokes given to him.
Where the movie succeeds best is as an unexpected and heartfelt father/daughter vehicle, with Jay getting a long-delayed chance to mature. It’s weird to say that a movie with Jay and Silent Bob in starring roles would succeed on its dramatic elements, but that’s because it feels like this is the territory that Smith genuinely has the most interest in exploring. The concept of Jay circling fatherhood and its responsibilities is a momentous turn for a character that has previously been regarded as a cartoon. His growing relationship with Milly is the source of the movie’s best scenes and the two actors have an enjoyable and combative chemistry, surely aided by the fact that Mewes has known Harley Quinn Smith her entire existence. This change agent leads to some unexpected bursts of paternal guidance from Jay, which presents an amusing contrast. There’s a clever through line of the difference between a reboot and a remake, and Smith takes this concept and brilliantly repackages it into a poignant metaphor about parenthood in a concluding monologue. Smith’s position as a father has softened him up a bit but it’s also informed his worldview and he’s become very unabashedly sentimental, and when he puts in the right amount of attention, it works. There’s an end credit clip with the late Stan Lee where Smith is playing a potential Reboot scene with Stan the Man, and it’s so sweet to watch the genuine affection both men have for one another. I’m raising the entire grade for this movie simply for a wonderful extended return of Ben Affleck’s Holden McNeil character, the creator of Bluntman and Chronic. We get a new ending for 1997’s Chasing Amy that touches upon all the major characters and allows them to be wise and compassionate. It’s a well-written epilogue that allows the characters to open up on weightier topics beyond the standard “dick and fart” jokes that are expected from a Smith comedy vehicle. It’s during this sequence where the movie is allowed to settle and say something, and it hits big time.
The highly verbose filmmaker has been a favorite of mine since I discovered a VHS copy of Clerks in the late 90s. I will always have a special place reserved for the man and see any of his movies, even if I’m discovering that maybe some of the appeal is starting to fade. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get a Kevin Smith movie that is intended for wide appeal again. Up next is Clerks 3, which the released plot synopsis reveals is essentially the characters of Clerks making Clerks in the convenience store, which just sounds overpoweringly meta-textual. He’s working within the confines of a narrow band and he seems content with that reality. I had the great fortune to attend the traveling road show for this film and saw Smith and Mewes in person where they introduced Reboot and answered several questions afterwards. Even though it was after midnight (on a school night!) I was happy I stayed because it was easy to once again get caught up in just how effortlessly Smith can be as a storyteller, as he spins his engaging personal yarns that you don’t want to end. As a storyteller, I’ll always be front and center for this gregarious and generous man. As a filmmaker, I’ll always be thankful for his impact he had on my fledgling ideas of indie cinema and comedy, even if that means an inevitable parting of ways as he charts a well-trod familiar path. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is made strictly for the fans, and if you count yourself among that throng, you’ll likely find enough to justify a viewing, though it may also be one of diminished returns.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Downsizing (2017)
Alexander Payne is not exactly the first name you would think of when it comes to science fiction. The man has a history of road trip comedies, average Midwestern men, mid-life crises, and the colorful miscreants of society. The fact that the director of Sideways and The Descendants is tackling The Incredible Shrinking Man is a bold move. Payne is outside his comfort zone with Downsizing, and it shows at points. While never quite satisfying the possibilities of its premise, Downsizing is still worth watching for its memorable moments and for the sheer brilliance of one outstanding performance.
In the not-too-distant future, science has developed the technology to shrink human beings to five inches tall, approximately 1/100th of their size. A middle-income couple can live like the top one percent because their money goes further. Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) is a schlubby, regular guy suffering from the ennui of a job he hates and a life that feels unfulfilled. He and his wife, Audrey (Kristen Wiig), decide to undergo the downsizing procedure, which is irreversible. Paul’s wife backs out at the last minute but he doesn’t find out until after he’s gone small. Now with a McMansion all to himself, Paul has to readjust to what he thought his new life would be like. He moves into a condo and shirks the offers to join the parties of his hedonist neighbor, Dusan (Christoph Waltz). Paul finally decides to live life and embraces new experiences, the biggest befriending Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), a one-legged Vietnamese cleaning lady who was downsized against her will for being an overseas political activist. Paul feels drawn to this woman and she opens his eyes to the larger world around him.
The strangest part of Payne’s movie is that the main thrust of the story could have been told without all of the science fiction dross. This is very much a romantic comedy/drama that follows the formula of a man jilted at the altar who has to get his life back together, finds someone new who changes his perspective on life, and then they get together by the end. You could have plucked this story and set it in an ordinary world and it still would have worked, which begs the question whether the world of Downsizing is properly applied. The consumer commentary seems muddled, with the rationale for downsizing being helping the planet, reducing the population so to speak, but really it’s an escape into a fantasy of wealth. People are downsizing so they can live in luxury and leisure. This should set up Payne for his incisive brand of satire as he skewers the selfish and self-righteous foibles of mankind, except that doesn’t really happen. Sure, eventually in the second half the movie opens up its tiny world a little wider, revealing the not-so-hidden subculture of immigrant labor toiling away to keep everything stable and pretty. It’s obvious social commentary and rarely does it go a step further than just recognition. And so the film becomes another in a long line of movies about a man who must be shaken from his malaise and enjoy the possibilities of life he never knew existed. Downsizing eventually ignores its sci-fi conceit to tell a relatively ordinary tale of self-actualization.
Payne’s premise would have best been explored through the more open parameters of a television series. Downsizing is an interesting concept that leads to other natural questions over how this tiny world operates and also how it interacts with the larger community. There’s a small scene where a drunk overhears Paul’s plan to shrink and argues that little people shouldn’t be granted the same voting rights as “normal-sized” citizens. The normies contribute more to society and should be given more credit, he argues, before being shooed away. This political division could have made for an interesting topic of reflection itself, but like many of Payne’s pit stops, it comes and goes after whetting your appetite for further examination. What about a story where downsizing is a punishment to do away with the “undesirables” of a nation? A TV series would have allowed more room to explore, with finer nuance, the details and possibilities of this fanciful world. Payne allows his movie to breathe, taking extended jaunts on different ideas but rarely enough to satisfy your sense of curiosity. The last act takes place at the original downsized colony in Norway, though at their diminutive size I wonder if it took them months to travel in Dusan’s yacht. It’s meant to think about what will come after humankind has passed the point of no return when it comes to climate change. Paul has to rethink what he wants his legacy to be and what meaning his life will have, which then pushes him into a rather simplistic choice of go with the girl or the cause. Given the rest of the movie’s focus, you shouldn’t be surprised what decision he ultimately makes.
However, the real reason you should legitimately see Downsizing is for the astounding, star-making, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-her performance by Hong Chau (Inherent Vice, Big Little Lies). I cannot recall another movie where a character comes in at the halfway mark and just takes over completely, single-handedly lifting the movie up. Every moment she is onscreen is made better. You’ve never seen a character in a mainstream movie quite like Ngoc Lan Tran. She’s a political dissident, amputee, and lower-class cleaning woman who teaches Paul about the class divides. Tran is tragic, comic, caustic, lovable, and Chau is an acting revelation. I’ve read several reviews that found her to be a cringe-worthy, borderline racist depiction of an Asian woman meant to be laughed at, and I strongly disagree. At no point was I laughing at Tran because of her status, her ethnicity, or her broken English cadences. I was laughing because she was a force of nature that blew away the pretensions of others, that cut to the chase, and spoke her mind in a carefree and honest manner. Her matter-of-fact affectations are so perfectly delivered in accordance with the character’s personality. There are moments where her character is being set up for one thing and Tran goes entirely in another direction, and whereas you might have laughed at the start she surprisingly earns other emotions. Take for instance a scene where Dusan tries to ditch her by making an excuse about a sudden travel commitment. Tran takes this moment and turns it into a genuinely poignant monologue about the unexpected nature of fate. By the end she’s crying out of sheer elation, and those tears are not meant for ridicule. Downsizing realizes what an asset it has and makes her the deserved focal point of the second half. You’ll fall in love with her too. Chau doesn’t just deserve an Oscar nomination; she deserves to win everything.
Downsizing is an episodic high-concept comedy where the shrinking is irrelevant to the main storyline that evolves over two plus hours. This is an adult movie that explores some mature topics with surprising time and scrutiny, and then it can also be a simplistic rom-com that misses the mark on larger, Swiftian social satire. It’s another story in a long line of disaffected, middle-aged men finding their groove again, except then it becomes the story of a Vietnamese activist and her unique persona. Hong Chau is the reason you should see Downsizing above all. She doesn’t so much steal her scenes as just take full ownership over the back half of the movie. Her performance is so uniformly excellent that you wish the rest of Payne’s uneven movie could meet her commitment. There are a lot of ideas here that seem to get brushed aside for the conventional formula of a romantic union, even if the pairing is rather unconventional. Downsizing is an entertaining movie that doesn’t quite amount to more than the sum of its little parts.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Suburbicon (2017)
Suburbicon began as a script written by Joel and Ethan Coen back in the 1980s. They shelved it and went on to other stories and justifiable acclaim. George Clooney came across the old screenplay and rewrote it with his longtime partner Grant Heslov (Monuments Men). Clooney’s version of suburban strife is a wash and also easily the worst effort of Clooney’s Oscar-nominated directing career. I wish Suburbicon would make up its mind on which of the three different movies it wants to tell. This is possible proof that Coen brother stories should best be left chiefly to the Coens.
Set amidst the 1950s, an African-American family moves in to an all-white suburban neighborhood and instantly changes the climate. The Mayers have upset the other middle-class white neighbors who want them gone, and they don’t mind subjecting this black family to all forms of harassment to get the job done. Meanwhile, Gardener (Matt Damon) and his wife (Julianne Moore), her twin sister (also Moore), and his son, are threatened by loan shark goons. The family is never the same but there’s more than meets the eye to this domestic tragedy, and the costly cover-up ensnares everyone in danger.
This is a movie that feels badly stitched together with competing ideas and storylines. Two of these competing movies are so haphazard and lazily explored that it feels like Clooney and company tacked them on for some sort of extra failed social commentary about The Way We Live Now. The shame of it is that either of these vestigial storylines could have existed as their own compelling movie. The integration of the suburbs with a black family brings about an intense reaction. Fellow suburbanites harass the family at all hours of the day, destroy personal property, and do everything to let them know they are unwelcome in this “good-natured” community. The reactions are so virulent and disgusting, and all for a family just existing on the block, shopping at the same grocery store, thinking they too were eligible for the American Dream. There’s a movie there in its own right because, as evidenced in Suburbicon, it’s just background for a larger indictment on suburban values hypocrisy that never generally materializes. At no point does Clooney give the racist response any depth, nuance, or even a deserving spotlight. The only thing we learn is that it’s wrong, which should already be obvious. The entire storyline feels so unfairly attached to another unrelated movie. This family’s story is worth telling right rather than just having something else to cut back to.
Then there’s the larger satire on suburbia itself and its reported family values philosophy. Just because bad people exist and bad things happen in a “nice” community does not mean your satirical work is done. You’re just supplying air quotes to your location. This is the most facile form of irony, lazily slapping together something vulgar against an idyllic setting of morality. That’s why I had no interest in The Little Hours, a comedy that looked to be built around one sole joke, unexpectedly offensive nuns (“Oh ho, that pious person used profanity, and that will never not be funny”). Suburbicon is a story that could have existed in any setting, which further devalues any attempt at legitimate social satire. This isn’t about The Way We Live Now or Even Then.
If you look closely you can see the bones of a Coen brothers’ story here, the only movie of the three that could have worked for Suburbicon. An insurance fraud scam that involves murder and complications is a juicy start for a thriller with some dark comedy edges. This aspect of the movie is the most compelling because it’s obvious that the most attention has been paid to it. Also, there are reversals and unexpected turns that keep the story twisting and turning while accessible. However, the impact of the story is limited by the fact that none of the characters are generally likeable or that interesting. You won’t really feel anxiety over whether or not these people get away with their scheme, which deflates the film’s acceleration of tension despite the best efforts of Alexadre Desplat to replicate an ominous Carter Burwell, a.k.a. “Coen brother,” score. If you don’t care about the characters then they better get into some crazy escalating collateral damage. For a while, it feels like Clooney and Suburbicon understand this principle and begin to ratchet up a body count, though oddly it’s far too fast. Oscar Isaac (The Force Awakens) turns up as a nosy insurance investigation and is taken care of only in his second appearance. The film doesn’t take the time to force the characters to luxuriate in the unease. It just goes straight for the sudden violence, and after awhile it becomes pat and expected.
This is Clooney’s weakest directorial effort yet. He’s clearly working from the visual framework of the Coen brothers’ classics, using the cookie-cutter production design of colorful suburbia for intended kitschy menace. Even some of the camera angles feel like something lifted from the Coen brothers. Alas, Clooney is not the Coens. He is a director capable of great things depending upon the subject matter, but this movie is a misfire from the start. Clooney cannot decide what the tone is supposed to be, so different actors seem to be operating in their own separate, competing movies. Damon (The Martian) is at either turn hapless or malevolent. I never knew what his read on his character was supposed to be. Moore (Kingsmen: The Golden Circle) is so over-the-top as a distressed housewife that you think she might start bouncing off the walls. It’s only Isaac that feels like he finds the sweet spot of what Clooney must have been going for, and thus it’s even more disappointing about his character’s limited screen time.
Messy, tone deaf, and lacking greater commentary, Suburbicon is a fatally flawed, overbearing dark comedy that has things on its mind and no clear idea about how best to articulate them. It feels like dissonant movies badly stitched together. The overall execution is lazy and relies upon the simplest form of irony to substitute as subversive suburban satire. The tone veers too wildly and the actors are desperate for some better sense of grounding. The characters are pretty flat and poorly developed. It’s an altogether mess that has a few inspired moments and a whole lot more uninspired. The victimized black family deserves to have their own movie and not be the backdrop of somebody else’s broad comedy. The racism is far too real to mesh with the comic goofiness of the rest of the criminal shenanigans. Clooney needed to settle on the movie he wanted to tell. I doubt the final version of Suburbicon that I saw is close to the Coen’s original screenplay. There may have been a good reason that they originally shelved it. Clooney shows that replicating the Coen look and style can be a fool’s errand even by an otherwise talented director. This is the worst Coen brother movie and it’s not even theirs.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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