The Best Classic Films I Watched in 2022

I am disqualifying films from the 1940s (more Top Ten lists are incoming) and films I expect to write about for future Great Directors posts next year.  My picks are unranked, and listed below by release date.  

The Wayward Cloud (2005) - Tsai Ming Liang's films mostly take place in the same Taiwanese milieu, employ the same close circle of actors, and explore many of the same themes.  So I was utterly flabbergasted to discover that Tsai had made a musical, complete with elaborate dance numbers and pornographic interludes.  I'm not sure that it's a good film, but many of the individual sequences are priceless, and it is without a doubt the best cinematic surprise I had all year. 

Pusher II (2004) - I decided to catch up on the early Nicolas Winding Refn films this year, including his beloved "Pusher" trilogy, set in the Copenhagen criminal underworld.  The second installment, starring Mads Mikkelsen as a hapless hoodlum with a soft side, is easily the highlight.  Refn's style here is bleak and brutal, reflecting the chaos of his hero's life.  This is also one of the best Mikkelsen performances I've seen to date, where he really gets to dig into the life of a complicated character.

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) - Filmed between 1999 and 2001, Wang Bing's nearly ten hour documentary about the shuttering of Shenyang's industrial Tiexi district is a massive work by any measure.  The film is split into three parts, one following the last few workers in the state-run factories, one following some of their families being relocated, and one following railway workers.  The filmmaking is immersive and moving, capturing images of a closing chapter of Chinese history.  

  

Microcosmos (1996) - This is the second of three documentaries on this year's list.  I've watched plenty of nature documentaries, but none of them present a picture of the insect world quite like this one.  The filmmakers here don't just show us insects and other invertebrates up close, but frame them as movie stars, all bursting with personality.  With the help of a great score by Bruno Coulais, we meet bees and snails and spiders and ants and millipedes, not quite on their own terms, but awfully close.  

Psycho II (1983) - How is it possible that the forgotten sequel to "Psycho," made 22 years later,  is actually a good movie?  Anchored by a strong performance by Anthony Perkins, as a more sympathetic Norman Bates, "Psycho II" is both a tribute to Hitchcock films and a conscious reframing of the Norman Bates story.  There's a twist to the story, of course, but it's a twist that is wholly original and fits the new narrative.  Best of all, this is a sequel that actually makes me like the original  a little more.

Juvenile Court (1973) - I limited myself to picking one of Frederick Wiseman documentaries, because I had too many good options.  "Juvenile Court" is one of Wiseman's most dramatic films, because of the subject matter.  Watching real kids going through the system, and having their fates decided by well-meaning adults, who are beholden to a bureaucratic system, is fascinating.  Especially when the most important decisions often happen outside the formal court proceedings.  

The Cannibals (I Canibali) (1970) - Liliana Cavani's wonderfully strange counterculture film is a loose retelling of "Antigone," starring Britt Eklund and Pierre Clementi.  It was a direct commentary on the sociopolitical climate of the time, with the "cannibals" representing social undesirables.  I love Cavani's imagery - the corpses littering the streets, the naked couple, and the iconography of the police state.  "The Cannibals" also features one of the maddest theme songs of all time - written by Ennio Morricone.  

The Mystery of Picasso (1956) - Henri-Georges Clouzot filmed Pablo Picasso creating twenty drawings and paintings, livestream style, in 1956.  Several novel filmmaking techniques had to be employed to capture Picasso's process in real time.  I loved seeing his tendency to go over his  pictures again and again, changing and editing the images extensively.  As an art nerd who had no idea this movie existed before this year, I'm honestly still stunned that this documentary is real.   

The Sign of the Cross (1932) - A star studded Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic, showing the oppression of the Christians in Rome under the rule of Emperor Nero.  It's more famous now for its censorship troubles and multiple versions, but is still very enjoyable today as a sword-and-sandals spectacle.  I especially enjoy Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert playing the evil Nero and decadent Poppaea, though Frederic March does a good job as the pompous commander, who becomes a convert.  

Master of the House (1925) - Finally, this is one of the best silent films I've seen in years, and I guess it's no surprise that it was made by Carl Theodor Dreyer, director of my favorite silent, "The Passion of Joan of Arc."  It's a domestic drama about a bad husband, who is a terror to his household until his old nanny, the irascible Mads, decides to intervene.  It's not the best Dreyer film, but it's the funniest, and one his few films that has a happy ending.    

---

"The Rings of Power" Returns to Middle Earth

There's so much going on behind the scenes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" that I'm tempted to write a whole separate post just breaking down all the different sources of drama.  However, that would be doing the show a disservice, which deserves to to be evaluated on its own merits.  "The Rings of Power" is an ongoing series that acts as a prequel to Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy.  For those familiar with Tolkien lore, it condenses multiple events from the Second Age of Middle Earth, using the last days of Numenor and the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron as focal points.  

We have several interweaving stories.  The most prominent one involves Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), an elven warrior who is zealously devoted to finding and defeating the evil Sauron.  After becoming lost at sea, she travels with the Aragon-like Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), to the isolated human kingdom of Numenor.  Meanwhile, Elrond (Robert Aramayo), at the behest of the High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), tries to convince his friend Durin (Owain Arthur), a dwarven prince, to help the elves beat back a mysterious blight. A young hobbit-like harfoot, Nori (Markella Kavenagh) discovers and befriends a gigantic, voiceless, Stranger (Daniel Weyman), who fell from the night sky, just before the harfoot migration is set to begin.  Finally, in the Southlands, there's forbidden love brewing between an elven soldier, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), and a human healer, Browyn (Nazanin Boniadi), as they come under attack by invading orcs, lead by the mysterious Adar (Joseph Mawle).  

Then we have familiar names like Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and Elendil (Lloyd Owen), heroes who were namechecked heavily in the films, along with more obscure characters like the great smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) and Numenor's Queen Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson).  Whatever you want to say about "The Rings of Power," it was put together by creators who clearly knew and loved Tokien's work.  Many major characters were created specifically for the show, like all the harfoots, but they exist in what is recognizably Middle Earth.  The storytelling is designed to be epic and scope and the production is very ambitious.  Multiple seasons have been planned, and the press has been hyping up the show's unusually large budget.  The money definitely shows up onscreen, as "The Rings of Power" is one of the most gorgeous series ever made, with visuals that absolutely rival anything from the Peter Jackson trilogy.

And speaking of Peter Jackson, he wasn't involved in "The Rings of Power," but the series takes all of its visual cues from his movies.  In some cases, it feels like it's evoking specific scenes and settings, especially when it comes to the communities built by the elves.  There are some updates to the aesthetics, notably casting non-Caucasian actors in roles across all the different races of Middle Earth, and increasing the number of female characters - Durin gets a strong-willed wife named Disa (Sophia Nomvete) - but it's nothing that ever feels incongruous with Tolkien's stories.  All the actors are very good, and I appreciate that the show's creators favored relative unknowns to make sure the audience stays firmly immersed in the fantasy.   

However, despite all the good intentions and all the resources at its disposal, "The Rings of Power" is merely promising at this stage, rather than great.  Two of the four storylines work well, and have compelling, interesting characters.  The other two - really anything that has to do with the bland human beings - frequently struggle.  It's obvious that the writers didn't have much to work with, trying their best to expand on fairly scant information from the "Lord of the Rings" appendices.  While they don't lean on the prequel aspect as much as "The Hobbit," far too much of this year feels like it's setting up the pieces for future events.  They also tend to fall back on very old storytelling tropes and stale formulas.

I think that one of the major issues is that "Rings of Power" is trying to do too much too fast.  The more successful parts of the show are the smaller stories, focusing on specific relationships and showing how people of different cultures interact on a more intimate level.  It's at its worst any time it tries to do anything too epic, with characters we barely know.  I had high hopes for Arondir and Bronwyn's romance, for instance, but the two scarcely have any time together before they're obliged to start fighting orcs and giving inspirational speeches.  I'm especially worried about Galadriel - I like Morfydd Clark, but the future Lady of Lothlorien clearly needs to get a few things out of her system.

Fortunately, the show has a lot of good talent on its side, and at least another season or two to course correct.  I'm glad the wait is over and this series exists in the form that it does.  Its brand of fantasy may no longer be en vogue, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have an audience, or a story worth telling.

—

State of the Superhero, Anticipating 2023

Oh boy, I've been putting this off for too long.  I'll limit myself to talking about what Disney, Warners, and Sony have been up to.  There have been a few odd independent superhero films in circulation, like "Secret Headquarters" and "Samaritan," which both ended up on streaming, but nothing big enough to make much of an impact.

First up, the MCU is gearing up for Phase Five.  Many updates to many shows and films were presented at the latest D23 event, but honestly nothing that was released to the public much grabbed my attention.  I like that Marvel has used their success as an opportunity to delve into some of their more obscure characters, and create different kinds of shows, like the delightfully low-stakes, irreverent "She-Hulk" and the spooky one-off "Werewolf By Night."  However, an awful lot of them like "Moon Knight" and "Ms. Marvel" have been oddly formulaic.  It also feels like we're overdue for an "Avengers" scale project that will allow all of these characters to interact and introduce some significant threats to the world again.  

2023's film slate looks decent, with the new "Ant-Man" film giving new Big Bad, Kang, more screentime, "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3" capping off James Gunn's trilogy, and "The Marvels" having Carol Danvers share top billing with Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan.  I'm actually looking forward to "The Marvels" the most since learning what the plot is.  2022, however, had several films that didn't meet expectations.  There weren't any outright bombs, and I suspect I like "Love and Thunder" more than most, but I'm tempering expectations. Likewise, while I'll probably watch most of the 2023 Disney+ MCU series, the only one I'm actually looking forward to is the second season of "Loki."  The "Echo," "Ironheart," "Secret Invasion," and the Agatha Harkness series have yet to really grab my attention.  The new "Daredevil" show premiering in 2024 also worries me, because everything so far points to a toned down, more family friendly show.  This isn't necessarily bad, but the existing fanbase will make any discourse unbearable.

Over at Warners, which is now Warner Bros. Discovery, things have been pretty chaotic since the Zaslav regime came in and started canceling projects left and right.  James Gunn may now be in charge, but there's a lot in the pipeline from the previous team. Films that were already delayed have been delayed again.  2022's "The Batman," did okay at the box office, but "Black Adam" was a dud.  The less said about the "Super Pets" movie, the better.  Right now, the 2023 slate includes "Shazam!" and "Aquaman" sequels, "Blue Beetle," and the endlessly beleaguered "The Flash."  I expect more delays, so we'll probably see something bumped back to 2024 with non-DCEU film "Joker: Folie a Deux."  "Shazam!" is the one I'm most looking forward to, because the first film was genuinely a good time.  Also, I gotta see "The Flash" because at this point the potential trainwreck is too big to ignore. 

The brightest spot in the DCEU at the moment is arguably their "Peacemaker" HBO Max spinoff, which was a hit earlier in the year.  However, at the moment it's the only DCEU series, despite a lot of other DC shows in circulation.  With the Arrowverse more or less canceled, most of the remaining DC television projects are unconnected with each other, like "Pennyworth," "Doom Patrol," "The Sandman," the upcoming "Gotham Knights," and the Penguin series.  This means a much more diverse set of shows that serve different audiences, though I regret that most of them, like the very YA "Gotham Knights," hold little interest for me.   

Finally, Sony is still hanging in there.  After the awful "Morbius" film, Sony is still trying to find a "Spider-man" spinoff that will hit the level of success that "Venom" has.  "Kraven the Hunter," directed by J.C. Chandor, will be their next attempt in October, with "Madame Web" due sometime in 2024.  "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse" remains not only my most anticipated Sony film, but most anticipated superhero film.  There's no word yet as to whether Tom Holland will be back as Spidey, and that's just fine with me.  He deserves a nice, long break.  

---

"Catherine, Called Birdy" and "Rosaline"

I never read the Karen Cushman children's novel, "Catherine, Called Birdy," which was published right around the time I moved on to books for grown-ups.  Lena Dunham recently adapted it into a film, starring Bella Ramsay as Birdy.  It's one of the better YA films I've seen in a while, and perfect viewing for girls of a certain age.  Birdy is a stubborn, mischievous fourteen-year-old girl in the year 1290.  She clashes constantly with her father, Lord Rollo (Andrew Scott), who is set on turning Birdy into a lady and marrying her off to somebody rich.  Birdy would rather be getting into trouble with her goat herder pal Perkin (Michael Woolfit) and best friend Aelis (Isis Hainsworth), writing to her brother, Edward the Monk (Archie Renaux), or exasperating her nursemaid, Morwenna (Lesley Sharp).   Her loving mother (Billie Piper) is perpetually pregnant and worried. 

"Birdy" presents a remarkably frank look at how love and marriage among the well-born worked in the 13th century.  Birdy is beset by suitors of all shapes, sizes, and ages.  The most persistent is an aging noble she calls "Shaggy Beard" (Paul Kaye).   A lot of good comedy is wrung from the absurdity of the potential matches, and Birdy's glee at rejecting and thwarting them at every turn.  Other aspects of Birdy's difficult transition to womanhood are also addressed, such as periods, haphazard information about sex, and her own nascent romantic and sexual feelings.  There's a little bawdiness to some of Birdy's antics - not much beyond ogling some monks, but enough to help Birdy feel more like a real fourteen year-old girl, living in a world that doesn't match the idealized, romanticized depictions we usually get in films.  On the other hand, this is still a movie aimed at a younger audience, and obliged to give the audience a certain degree of uplift.  Some fans of the book may not be pleased at the film's rewritten, happier ending.     

I haven't seen much from Lena Dunham since "Girls," but her writing and directing chops are pretty solid here.  I like her use of online text to convey a lot of information about new characters, her directness about intimate matters, and her willingness to let her characters be complicated.  Bella Ramsay is perfect as Birdy, completely self-assured and funny and genuine in every scene.  She has no trouble at all carrying the film, and holding her own against more seasoned scene partners.  "Birdy" never feels obnoxiously modern, the way some similar girl power narratives have, but it does feel very timely and very much the kind of film that probably wouldn't have gotten made before now, due to the subject matter.  So I feel lucky we got this combination of talent to tackle this story in 2022.

Now on to the superficially similar, but very different "Rosaline."  Shakespeare fans will remember the never-seen character of Rosaline was the girl that Romeo was in love with before he met Juliet.  The new Karen Maine directed film, "Rosaline," retells the famous love story from her point of view.  Kaitlyn Dever plays Rosaline Capulet, who is jilted by Romeo (Kyle Allen), in favor of her cousin Juliet (Isabela Merced).  She spends most of the movie trying to sabotage the relationship and win back Romeo's affections, while spurning the advances of the hunky soldier, Dario (Sean Teale), that her father (Bradley Whitford) wants her to marry.  

"Rosaline" is a farcical romantic comedy, which is so broad and so formulaic that I had to wonder if it might have once been a shelved Anne Hathaway or Amanda Seyfried vehicle from fifteen years ago.  Paris (Spencer Stevenson) is rejiggered to be Rosaline's fabulous gay best friend.  Her nurse (Minnie Driver) bemoans the fact that her training as an actual nurse is being wasted.  Modern language and frequent anachronisms are used by everyone, with Romeo being the only character who keeps the iambic pentameter, because his only real defining trait is that he's prone to flowery speeches.  Characterization is paper thin all around, and the tone is kept very, very silly.  Think less "Shakespeare in Love," and more "The Princess Diaries."

There's nothing wrong with this, but I had hoped that the material would have yielded better things.  No attempts are made to engage with the Shakespeare except at the most surface level.  Anything resembling tension or tragedy is quashed quickly.  The humor is so unoriginal, and the romance is so rote, I constantly felt like I'd seen the movie before.  Kaitlyn Dever is the only one keeping things afloat, by sheer force of her charisma, with the occasional assist by Sean Teale.  I don't think the movie is really at fault here, because it's exactly what it's advertised to be - a fluffy, feel-good rom-com where everyone gets a chance to dress up in fun costumes.  I just wish it weren't quite so bland and disposable.

       

---

"Mr. Harrigan's Phone" and "Hellraiser"

Despite being based on a Stephen King story, and the fact that I've chosen to pair its review with one for the new "Hellraiser" film, "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" is not a horror movie.  It's a ghost story and coming of age story, written and directed by John Lee Hancock.  Not having kept up with Stephen King's output in recent years, I don't know if he's taken aim at the digital world before, but it's definitely a major theme here.  The first half of "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" chronicles the relationship between a rich old man, Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), and the youngster, Craig (Jaeden Martell), who has been hired to come read to him in his home, three times a week.  I don't consider it too much of a spoiler to reveal that the second half is about what happens to Craig after Mr. Harrigan passes away.

There's a deliberately measured pace to "Mr. Harrigan," and a carefulness with the way that it sets up the location, characters, and themes that I greatly appreciate.  You might not like the story being told, but it's told well.  The supernatural element is undeniable, but this rarely feels like a genre film, with little as far as thrills and chills.  Rather, this almost feels like a memoir, something very personal, with prose-like first person narration throughout.  Events unfold in an incidental manner, spanning months and years.  There are deaths and unexplained phenomena, but there are no major twists or reveals.  You can work out every beat of the story from watching the trailer.  The filmmakers are far less interested in the "be careful what you wish for" framework than the friendship between Craig and Mr. Harrigan, and the relationships both of them develop with technology.  This is where the film is the most interesting, and purposeful.  Martell and Sutherland are well matched, with Sutherland giving us glimpses at a man of many contradictions and mysteries.

A supernatural film feels like the wrong shape for this story.  It might be better suited to an episode of an anthology, or a totally different genre.  When the ghosts and the deaths inevitably show up, they feel half-hearted and underserved.  I doubt you could have gotten the movie made with these actors and this budget if this wasn't based on a Stephen King story, and there wasn't the promise of the macabre, but the filmmakers aren't fooling anybody.  I genuinely enjoyed the first half of "Mr. Harrigan's Phone," but the rest was essentially an extended denouement.  Still, as long as you understand what you're getting yourself into, this one is worth seeing, especially for Stephen King fans.   

Now, the "Hellraiser" reboot is definitely a horror film.  As someone who found the original "Hellraiser" films intriguing, but never all that compelling, I was curious as to how director David Bruckner was going to update the material.  Well, we've got a puzzle box and portals to Hell.  Pinhead has been replaced by an androgynous Hell Priest (Jamie Clayton), and all the black leather BDSM gear has been retired, but the Cenobites are out in force and look as gruesome as ever.  The sexual deviancy and sadomasochism that distinguished the first film have been mostly removed, though there's still plenty of torture and mutilation afoot - some of it much more graphic than I was expecting.  

The "Hellraiser" mythology has always been mystifying to me, so I was immediately inclined to be on this film's side because it is easily the most comprehensible "Hellraiser" film I've seen to date.  The puzzle box that summons the Cenobites from Hell, falls into the hands of a troubled drug addict named Riley (Odessa A'zion), who finds it when she and her boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) loot an abandoned storage warehouse.  Their friends and loved ones fall victim to the Cenobites as Riley figures out each new configuration of the puzzle box requires a new sacrifice, and once all six sides are solved, she'll be granted a wish from "God" - the Leviathan of the labyrinth of Hell.  The box previously belonged to an evil  businessman named Voight (Goran Visnijc), who is still around and trying to ensure the box is solved, for his own ends.      

 

I'm impressed that the filmmakers here kept so much of the original imagery from those first "Hellraiser" films - even the glimpses of Hell look pretty close to the originals.  And while the sex has been toned down, the violence and torture sure haven't been.  The Cenobites are still the pain-worshiping sadists we know and love, wielding chains and needles and demonic bon mots as well as they ever have.  The humans are terrible, but the humans are always terrible in these movies, and I suspect we'd all be complaining if they weren't terrible.  I still don't think this is the horror franchise for me, but fans should be satisfied with the new movie.  It certainly feels like "Hellraiser," and is very accessible for any newcomers who might be curious about this universe. 

---

A Short Ramble About Twitter

I have a self-imposed policy about not writing about major events until after they've largely concluded and I've had some distance from them to be able to reflect properly.  However, I was sorely tempted to write about Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter a few months ago, when the drama was really blowing up.

Twitter and I have not had the best relationship.  I've tried and mostly failed at using it in any meaningful way.  I wound up following a handful of TV and movie critics, and a few interesting celebrities, who could be counted on to quickly clue me in on whatever was happening in the entertainment world, but I largely ignored the platform for long stretches at a time.  It was a great place for fanart, updates on hobby drama, and occasionally more serious discourse, but I also got inundated with a lot of anxiety-inducing fear mongering and hand wringing, which I would have been better off avoiding.  I absolutely understand why so many people love Twitter, and depend on Twitter to keep them informed.  I, however, never really got the hang of it.

The most time I've spent on Twitter has been in these last few weeks, watching the fallout from Elon Musk's takeover and subsequent attempts to remake the platform in his own warped image.  It's not so much that he made detrimental changes left and right.  It's that he did it so publicly, often announcing major changes on Twitter itself.  The majority of the Twitter workforce has been fired or quit.  Most of the major advertisers are gone or on their way out, leading to a steep drop in revenue.  Several notorious characters have had banned accounts reinstated, and various safeguards against misinformation and hate speech were removed.  And if that weren't enough, Musk decided to muck around with the Twitter verification system, resulting in users briefly being able to buy verifications and impersonate whoever they wanted.  Kudos to the guy who used an impersonated account to crater Eli Lilly's stock price with a tweet about free insulin.

As grumbling users have migrated to other platforms like Instagram and Mastodon (a wildly user-unfriendly site), we all seem to have reached a begrudging consensus that Twitter was, despite all of its problems, not that bad.  There were always issues with content moderation and bad actors and bots, but Twitter at least made some efforts to keep the public commons civil.  The site is littered with ads everywhere, but its basic function of facilitating communication among large numbers of people, quickly and securely, has endured.  I used to roll my eyes whenever the newscasters would reference tweets, but now it's the status quo.  Every major public figure either tweets, or is conspicuously absent.  Twitter has been central to social movements and revolutions, and has built up an enviable reputation over the last fifteen years.  And watching it all fall victim to another unstable billionaire's nasty ego trip has been disheartening to say the least.

Of course, social media is responsible for exacerbating all kinds of social ills, Twitter included.  You really have to actively curate what you're exposed to on these platforms to get anything useful out of them, and in many contexts they do more harm than good.  As I've been continually reminded, Twitter isn't remotely representative of reality, and has far more clout than it should.  If there is no singular social media platform that ends up replacing Twitter, it won't really be a bad thing.  There are better alternatives for everything that Twitter does, though generally with smaller user bases.  As someone who has failed to use Twitter for much communication, I value it the most highly for its entertainment value.  Elon Musk, if nothing else, has certainly delivered on the entertainment value over these past few months.  Honestly, this fiasco may be the most important message ever conveyed via Twitter - the billionaire class is made up of wildly over-privileged narcissists and lunatics. 

Oh well.  Twitter wasn't built in a day and it'll be around for a long time to come, the same as Facebook and all the other sites that have seen their popularity wane and their relevance fade.  I expect that Musk will get bored once he's not getting so much attention anymore and jump ship eventually.  It's only exciting to watch now, because he's nosediving the company's fortunes so quickly.  But will Twitter be able to regroup after that?  I don't know, but it feels like its chapter of internet history is quickly drawing to a close.

---

Resurrecting "Interview With the Vampire"

I went through an Anne Rice phase in high school, as I'm sure many '90s teenagers did.  The Neil Jordan adaptation of "Interview With the Vampire" was fun, but felt rather compromised in spite of the big name actors.  I wasn't expecting much when I heard that AMC and Rolin Jones were adapting the book again for a television series, this time with the participation of Rice and her family.  I underestimated what a television production would be capable of, and was delighted to find that in a season full of splashy fantasy series, the new "Interview With the Vampire" outshines most of them, and is one of the best shows of the year.

This adaptation immediately distinguishes itself in several ways.  First, and most importantly, it departs from the text of the novel significantly, treating the titular vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) as a very unreliable narrator.  The original novel exists in universe, written in the '70s by Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), who is now summoned to Dubai in the present day for a second attempt at getting a truthful account of Louis's life story.  Daniel is now elderly and suffering from Parkinson's, but also a much tougher, more combative interviewer.  He questions Louis's recollections at every turn, picking apart his motives and his framing of events.  

And it's almost immediately apparent why.  The first season is seven episodes that cover roughly three decades, starting in 1910.  Instead of the white plantation owner from the novel, Louis is Black creole, and now the owner of a New Orleans brothel in the notorious Storyville red light district.  His relationship with the vampire who turns him, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), is explicitly homosexual and romantic, instead of vaguely homoerotic. Their adopted daughter, Claudia (Bailey Bass), is also black.  This immediately adds much more social and historical material to chew on, and the show's writers jump in with relish.  Now Louis's story is not only about the struggle to reconcile himself with his existence as a vampire, but also as a black man in a world that barely tolerates him.  The early episodes track his eroding humanity not only through his development as a vampire, but the gradual destruction of his ties with his family, and the thwarting of his business ambitions by racist local authorities.  

This version of Louis is far more interesting and sympathetic, benefiting greatly from Jacob Anderson's nuanced, passionate performance.  However, he's frequently overshadowed by Sam Reid and Bailey Bass just due to the nature of their characters.  Reid gets the showiest part as Lestat, the charismatic French vampire whose love for Louis becomes selfish and controlling.  To be blunt, he blows Tom Cruise's Lestat out of the water, terrifying one moment and completely delightful the next.  The accent alone is a vast improvement.  Claudia has been aged up to fourteen and is a far more difficult, provocative presence, with destructive adolescent growing pains.  Though physically weaker, she's soon on the same level as her guardians, intellectually and emotionally.  Bass is especially good when Claudia verbally spars with Lestat, who she contemptuously refers to as "Uncle Les."      

The first season covers the first half of the book, and takes place almost entirely in New Orleans.  I don't know what AMC spent on the series, but it looks absolutely stunning.  The production values are to die for, and includes copious amounts of sex and violence.  What really won me over, however, was the writing.  The show is not afraid of being a romance when it needs to be, or a horror story, or a piece of historical fiction.  It's not afraid of being complicated, with monstrous protagonists who are terribly sympathetic and anything but easy to parse.  And I've rarely heard such literate, sharp-witted, delightfully self-indulgent dialogue in any sort of recent American media.   Lestat will incorporate French phrases without bothering to translate for the English speaking audience.  Daniel Molloy is such an uncompromising asshole, he might be my favorite character in the show.      

In short, the creators of the series did such a good job that I'm not only looking forward to the next season of "Interview With the Vampire," but the other planned spinoff series that are in the works, starting with the "Mayfair Witches" series coming in 2023.  This is one of the best updates of a genre franchise that I've ever seen, and I can't wait to see how other parts of this story will be adapted.

---

"Three Thousand Years" is a Rarity

George Miller's long-awaited follow-up to "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Three Thousand Years of Longing," is the kind of movie that nobody makes anymore.  Well, it's a movie that nobody makes with this kind of budget and gives a wide release to, anyway.  It's a romance for one thing, starring two very good, mature actors, Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.  It's also an orientalist fantasy patterned off the tropes of "One Thousand and One Nights," and those have been tricky to navigate in a modern context.  There's a self-awareness to the film's writing that makes the tales of exotic Djinn and sultans palatable, but some lingering concerns remain.  Still, I couldn't resist the spectacle that Miller and his team managed to orchestrate, or the breathlessly earnest tale of love and romance that accompanies it.   

Swinton stars as a British "narratologist," Alithea, a scholar of stories.  She comes to Istanbul for a conference, and acquires a bottle that happens to contain a Djinn, played by Elba.  Most of the film is simply the two of them sitting in Alithea's hotel room, discussing the Djinn's requisite offer of three wishes to Alithea, who doesn't want them.  The Djinn's freedom, however, requires the fulfillment of these wishes, which leads to him recounting his history as a Djinn in an attempt to persuade her, starting three thousand years ago when he was in love with the Queen of Sheba (Aamito Lagun).  His history also involves stories about Suleiman the Magnificent (Lachy Hulme), his sons, a slave girl named Gulten (Ece Yuksel), and a passionate scholar named Zefir (Burcu Golgedar).  The Djinn himself is sometimes an active participant, and sometimes only a passive observer.

These stories are familiar, about wishes and consequences, and the folly of human nature.  What's interesting is the framing of them, from the point of view of the wish-granting Djinn.  He is an immortal creature depicted as otherworldly and inhuman, but has very human appetites and weaknesses, especially when it comes to love.  Elba and Swinton have no trouble selling their unlikely characters, and are on roughly equal footing throughout the film.  I would have been happy with the film if it simply stayed with the two of them in the hotel room, "Leo Grande" style, debating the intricacies of making wishes and getting involved with the wrong people.  However, George Miller chooses to depict the stories with all the colorful fairy tale flourishes that he can fit onscreen.  As Elba narrates, Miller brings us into sumptuously constructed Middle Eastern fantasy worlds, full of exotic images of bygone kingdoms and empires.  The characters include shapeshifters, storytellers, giants, geniuses, and magicians.  It's not as bombastic as something like this summer's "Elvis," but I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.    

Fantasy media has gotten rather less fantastical over the last few years, with many of the big franchises being  very concerned with their own internal logic and echoing real world issues.  I appreciate that "Three Thousand Years" is not remotely interested in this.  It never explains why things happen, or how, but stays focused on telling entertaining stories and presenting interesting characters.  Because it's George Miller at the helm, these stories have some adult material, some dark humor, and quite a lot of violence.  There are some nods to the plight of women in these bygone and not-so-bygone patriarchal Middle-Eastern societies, particularly in the story of Zefir, the unhappy youngest wife of a rich Turkish merchant.  However, the movie isn't interested in really questioning these inequities in any depth.  Likewise, the Djinn never remarks on the fairness of being trapped in his bottle for thousands of years, or the logic of having to grant wishes in order to earn his freedom.  It's only at the end, when Alithea takes over the narrative, and we're only able to perceive the Djinn from her point of view, that the film seems to be prodding the viewer to be more critical of how the story is being constructed and presented.  

If you want to dig more into the themes, I'm sure that there are plenty of other little metatextual goodies in the film that I didn't spot.  However, what I ended up loving it for are its visual ambitions and cinematic adventurousness.  This is clearly a passion project for George Miller, full of wild concepts like King Solomon (Nicolas Mouawad) wooing Sheba with magical musical instruments that play themselves, or one of Suleiman's sons having a penchant for giantess concubines.  When the Djinn is first released, Alithea's first look at him is of his giant toes, intruding into her bathroom.  Miller does so many wonderful things with scale, and color, and motion in this film.  I'm so glad he got to make it, even though it was probably always doomed to be a bust at the box office.  There's a reason they don't make them like this anymore, and that's a terrible shame.  

---

Notes on "Documentary Now!"

 I've known about the IFC series, "Documentary Now!" for a while now, but I was apprehensive about starting it.  "Documentary Now!" parodies various documentaries, both good and bad, and there were a lot of the show's targets that I had zero familiarity with.  However, as time went on, and the kudos piled up, it got more and more tempting.  Finally this year, after learning the fourth season featured episodes that would spoof Werner Herzog and Agnes Varda films, I gave in.  I just limited myself to watching the episodes based on documentaries I'd already seen, and had no trouble at all.  

I'd argue that this is the best way to tackle the show.  While many of the individual installments are absolutely watchable without any outside knowledge, it's much easier to appreciate the work that goes into these spoofs if you have some familiarity with the originals.  For instance, in the third season the show did a parody of "Original Cast Album: Company," a 1970 documentary where D.A. Pennebaker filmed the recording session for the cast album of the Stephen Sondheim musical.  The episode is called "Original Cast Album: Co-Op."  In addition to reproducing filming and technical details to make the whole episode look like it had been made in the '70s., writing multiple original songs in the style of a Sondheim musical, and getting Broadway veterans Renée Elise Goldsberry, Alex Brightman, Richard Kind, and Paula Pell to come sing them, "Co-op" takes the time to specifically riff on incidents from the "Company" recording, such as Sondheim delivering notes on pronunciation, and later a cast member storming out.  Best of all, it's funny.  Richard Kind wheezing his way to the finish, and everyone learning the show has closed after only one night had me in stitches.  

"Documentary Now!" is largely the work of "Saturday Night Live" veterans.  Seth Meyers and John Mulaney have writing credits on most of the episodes I saw, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen are recurring performers, and Alex Buono and Rhys Thomas are directors or co-directors of every episode.  The series often feels like an outlet for these funny people to tackle more ambitious, more highbrow material than mainstream audiences would accept in their other work.  And clearly, they have no shortage of willing collaborators.  Helen Mirren serves as the "Documentary Now!" host, introducing every episode with poised perfection.  Cate Blanchett plays the Marina Abramovic stand-in for "Waiting for an Artist," which both sends up performance art and displays a healthy appreciation for it.  A bevy of New Hollywood talent, including Peter Bogdanovich, Faye Dunaway, and Peter Fonda pop up in "Mr. Runner Up," the memoir of a serial awards chaser.  And the amount of passion and care that's put into the show is frankly thrilling to see.  No detail, from title fonts and production logos, to film grain and lighting setups, are too small to factor into a spoof. 

The quality of the various episodes is as different as the documentaries they send up, including concert films, profiles of interesting figures, and investigative narratives.  A mediocre documentary, like "Dear Mr. Watterson," can inspire a fantastic spoof like "Searching for Mr. Larson," which tears into the narcissistic director's self-aggrandizement.  On the other hand, arguably the greatest movie "making-of" documentary of all time, Werner Herzog's "Burden of Dreams," begets the rather unfocused "Soldier of Illusion," that feels lost in the mountains along with its stars, Alexander Sarsgaard and August Diehl.  At least Diehl makes for a magnificent Klaus Kinski figure.  The show is at its best when it manages to hone in on particular, idiosyncratic details, like the father/son dynamic in "Juan Likes Rice and Chicken," a South American take on "Jiro Dreams of Sushi."   I've long been a fan of Agnes Varda, and it was so heartwarming to find "Trouver Frisson," a loose parody of her autobiographical documentaries like "The Beaches of Agnes" and "Faces Places."  Not only does it nail her particular first person narrative and editing style, but her gentle, fanciful sense of humor.  

The series is incredibly niche, but so good at being what it is, I don't see how its intended audience of cinephiles could resist.  At least two episodes have even found their way into Criterion Collection disc extras for the films that they are parodying.  Frankly, I now have a list of documentary films I want to watch, just so I can go back and check out the "Documentary Now!" episodes that they inspired. 

---

The Gen Z Horror of "Fall" and "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies"

Gen Z is now firmly in their 20s, and Hollywood has started tackling the particular foibles of their generation in recent horror films - really the only genre in American film that attempts to stay current with social change with any success.  "Fall" is a survival film, directed by Scott Mann  and co-written by Mann and Jonathan Frank, that often feels like it succeeds in spite of its pointedly Gen Z heroines.  "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies," directed by Halina Reijn and written by Sarah DeLappe, is a more interesting slasher film that comments on and criticizes some common Gen Z hallmarks.

"Fall" is about two young women, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Garner), who are thrill-seekers.  On the anniversary of the death of Becky's husband Dan (Mason Gooding) in a climbing accident, Hunter convinces Becky to join her on a stunt, climbing a freestanding, two thousand foot TV tower in the middle of the desert.  When the stunt goes wrong, and the women are stranded on the tallest part of the tower without a safe way to get down, they have to figure out a way to call for help.  They have very few supplies, and have to contend with injuries, vultures, bad weather, and no reception.  

I feel like I'm picking on "Fall," because it's clearly a small budget affair made by people who are all a little wet behind the ears, and its creators should be praised for putting together a clever scenario with some good moments of suspense.  The heroines are clearly smart and resourceful, trying multiple methods to attract attention and signal for rescue.  However, the characters are otherwise pretty awful.  Becky's entire personality comes down to still grieving her husband every spare moment she has, while Hunter is one of those social media creatures who comes up with the idea to scale the tower so she can film herself while doing it.  This provides a handy explanation for why the two women are doing something so incredibly stupid, but it doesn't mean they don't still come across as incredibly stupid.

I tried very hard to root for the protagonists, but honestly the film lost me around the third act, when the filmmakers try to pull off a big twist and somewhat bungle the execution.  Otherwise, they do a very good job of making the peril feel real, and progression of events feel mostly plausible.  Technology is used in a smart way, and this is one of those films that wouldn't work as well in the pre cell-phone age due to the way the ending plays out.  However, Becky and Hunter fit the image of the attention-seeking, social media obsessed airhead way too well for it not to have been a deliberate choice, and it's awfully grating.  "Fall" is a pretty good watch in spite of this, as a no-frills, high tension thrill ride. 

Now "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies" leans into the faults of its twenty-something characters, a friend group of mostly rich, privileged young people, who are having a hurricane party at the home of one of their absent parents.  Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) brings Bee (Maria Bakalova), her new girlfriend, to meet her bestie David (Pete Davidson), his actress girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), other friends Jordan (Myha'la Herrold) and Alice (Rachel Sennott), and Alice's much older new boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace).  Immediately tensions are apparent when Sophie shows up, because nobody knew she was coming, and they didn't part on the best terms with her.  The party soon devolves into heavy drinking and drug use, and then someone comes up with the bright idea to play "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies," a murder game similar to "Mafia" or "Werewolf."  

The filmmakers present a very unflattering look at these characters, who are all terrible people, and display toxic behavior with each other.  As the evening progresses and the hurricane hits, all kinds of dark secrets come spilling out about cheating, addiction, mental health problems, and general bad behavior.  Everyone is a likely suspect, and the actors playing them represent a nice collection of young talent.  Rachel Sennott stands out in particular, playing a podcaster and influencer without much self-awareness, and very little filter.  The more fun characters unfortunately get killed off quickly.  However, my only real complaint about the film is that it never struck me as very scary or very thrilling.  It works fine as a black comedy, especially as the characters start turning on each other, but I never found much of a sense of urgency except right when the first murder happens.

I suspect that like "Fall," it came down to not having anybody to root for.  "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies" looks great, with the fantastic central visual metaphor of a McMansion being systematically destroyed by both the partygoers and the hurricane.  The use of glow-stick lighting, cell-phone lighting, and panic room lighting are all a delight.  However, the script is a little too good at demolishing all the players.  Or maybe the problem is with me, a rapidly aging Xennial, who is finding herself on the wrong side of a generational divide.  And who probably has to work  on that.   

---

The Prophetic "Pantheon"

The AMC series "Pantheon" is a rare U.S. produced animated drama.  It reminds me of the late '90s and early 2000s science fiction anime that used to be popular in nerdy circles, before the YA action franchises took over.  There are direct references to "Ghost in the Shell" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion," but the obvious precursor to "Pantheon" is "Serial Experiments Lain," which is as much of an existential horror series as it is a terribly prescient story about the early internet age.  

"Pantheon" is based on the short stories of Ken Liu, and revolves around the concept of Uploaded Intelligence, or U.I., where human minds are scanned and uploaded into computers to live out a purely digital existence.  A teenager named Maddie Kim (Katie Chang) receives strange messages from someone online - maybe her father David (Daniel Dae Kim), who died four years ago.  Her mother Ellen (Rosemarie DeWitt) is obviously keeping secrets.  Meanwhile, a disaffected young hacker named Caspian (Paul Dano) discovers that his parents (Taylor Schilling, Aaron Eckhart) aren't what they seem, and have ties to Logarhythms, the company founded by deceased tech genius Stephen Holstrom (William Hurt).  Then there's Chandra (Raza Jaffrey), a brilliant engineer who we see being kidnapped in the first episode, and then having his mind forcefully and horrifically uploaded to the cloud in the second.  

While not as cerebral or as scientifically rigorous as some of its progenitors, "Pantheon" succeeds at being a techno-thriller that is both intelligent about the ideas it explores, and also genuinely thrilling to watch from episode to episode.  With a little shadowy espionage, a little body horror, and a stellar voice cast, "Pantheon" is genuine hard science fiction aimed at discerning adults.  The mysteries unfold at a satisfying pace, and come together in a gratifying way.  The animated medium allows it to be more ambitious than anything comparable in live action.  I want to tread lightly because of the spoilers, but how the U.I. appear and interact with each other, their virtual environments, and how everyone uses technology is all very thoughtful and well considered.  There's a lot of nerdy content here, from Maddie having emoji-only chat sessions, to Caspian running through logic problems at the dinner table.  At the same time, the writers are careful to keep relationships and emotions at the forefront.  A lovely, self-aware  tidbit of information from an early episode reveals that U.I. are less productive in the absence of emotion, because emotion is a prime driver of problem solving.      

One area where there's room for improvement is the show's animation.  "Pantheon" is a rare animated series where the episodes are forty-plus minutes, and even for an eight episode season, the budget couldn't have been insubstantial.  However, I wish the designs weren't so bland and familiar - the whole main cast could blend in with the background extras from "Invincible" or "The Boys: Diabolical."  We get some interesting depictions of digital spaces, but so much more could have been done here.  While I appreciate that "Pantheon" is very accessible and the writing and characterizations are especially strong, I wish it would take more chances when it comes to the visual storytelling.  A big reason why anime like "Lain" and "Ghost in the Shell" are so iconic is they pioneered so much of the visual language of how we depict the internet and virtual worlds.  Pantheon is clearly very fluent in this language, but also feels a little compromised in how literal and dialogue-heavy it is, always careful not to step too far into abstraction and ambiguity.  

And while "Pantheon" flirts with darker horror and paranoid conspiracy elements in the early episodes, eventually this gives way to a much more straightforward narrative about the morality and philosophy of creating a new technology.  I love the way that the show keeps escalating from episode to episode, never letting the status quo remain unchanged for too long.  It really commits to exploring multiple facets of the U.I. from several different points of view.  The societal implications are wonderfully grim, though never nihilistic.  I want to stress that this is a series for adults, despite the relatively low incidences of onscreen violence.  There are deaths and disturbing subject matter galore, about on par with something like "Black Mirror." In the end, though, "Pantheon" is more optimistic, and more about the better side of humanity than I was expecting.

Best of all, a second season has already been greenlit.  I can't wait to see more.

---

My 2022 Holiday Wishlist

2022 has been a hopeful year in some ways and an ominous year in others.  Theaters are still limping along, the streaming wars continue, and the further consolidation of the entertainment industry continues to make everyone nervous.  As a consumer, I still feel like we're in an okay place, but that could change quickly.

So, this year for the holidays I want… 

A record breaking year at the box office.  We know that the demand for the theatrical experience is still there, and we saw some promising success stories last year.  Hopefully the studios won't be so quick to make so many of their less promising films streaming exclusives the way we saw this year.  2022 ran short on theatrical films in certain months, but the same shouldn't be true in 2023.  Lots of old favorites and big names are back, and I'm personally looking forward to the Christopher Nolan/Greta Gerwig showdown the most.

The resurrection of the DCEU.  I'm incredibly curious about all of those DC films that have been delayed and delayed, and the subject of so much behind-the-scenes drama and speculation over the past year.  With the MCU on autopilot, and Sony's superheroes showing few signs of life, this is Warners' opportunity to really take center stage with four DCEU films currently on the schedule.  At the very least, the suspense over the fate of Ezra Miller as the Flash has to be resolved one way or another.  This mess has been dragged out for way too long.  And speaking of Warners…

For Warner Bros. Discovery to successfully reorient.  I hope the current leadership got the slash and burn impulses out of their systems, because they can't afford to keep alienating the creative community.   The quick reinstatement of the diversity workshops after the DGA made their displeasure known, is a sign that Zaslav and company can be reasoned with, so I'm trying to stay optimistic.  They have a lot coming up in 2023, including their merger of the HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services.

A good Oscar season.  I know that the Oscar race has been losing ground with mainstream viewers for years now, but I still enjoy the fuss every year, and I'm hoping some of the bumpy broadcast issues can be worked out.  The Golden Globes are back, at least for this year, and the Oscar ceremony is in the hands of producers who know how to put on a good show.  I don't have any specific suggestions for the ceremony, except that I think we're all past the point of pretending that the Oscars aren't anything more than a marketing event - so they should embrace that and really put on a show.  

 

The MCU's Phase Five to improve on Phase Four.  It's not that I didn't enjoy most of the movies and shows that came out of Phase Four, but all of the Marvel content on Disney+ came out depressingly similar in tone and structure, with few exceptions.  The "Star Wars" content has the same problem, but the MCU really feels like it's at a turning point with better opportunities to regroup.  I hope that eventually Disney+ will be able to rely less on existing IP, but it's going to take a while to get there.

For streamers to proceed with caution regarding ad tiers.  We've got a lot of these coming in 2023, in the wake of Netflix's recent launch.  I'm not happy about this development at all, but if ad tiers are the only way to keep the streamers in business, it's hard to argue against them.  However, this is likely going to be a very slippery slope, leading straight back to the promotion-riddled hellscape where cable television ended up.  Remember when cable channels didn't have commercials?  At least there are some minor benefits that come with them - more transparency about audience habits, and hopefully more varied and better ads.  

For Peacock to find somebody to bundle with, because there's no way I'm paying for them as a standalone service.  

For a smooth transition for the new Doctor Who.  I'm always behind, but I'm still watching!

And finally, for all the media coming next year to exceed my expectations, and the creators behind them to have every opportunity to do good work.

Happy holidays!

---

My Favorite John Waters Film

At some point during the last year, I wrote my one hundredth "Great Directors" post, and there are so many directors I'm aghast that I haven't profiled yet.  Chief among these is Baltimore's own John Waters, the beloved purveyor of filth and trash.  His transgressive cult films of the '70s attacked good taste and were designed to shock.  However, he slowly transitioned to more mainstream comedies over time, often spoofing the media of the '50s and '60s.  Waters films are characterized by their celebration of the seedier, uglier, side of life.  He embraces the outcasts, the perverts, the vulgarians, and the unfortunates, casting his films with a regular band of inelegant, but ferociously talented actors, dubbed the Dreamlanders.

His most iconic star was the great drag queen Divine, who played monsters and maniacs in Waters' earliest films, and then troubled women and lovable maternal figures.  I find most of John Waters' films fascinating, but there's only one that I truly adore, and that's because of Divine's performance as the tragically neglected suburban housewife, Francine Fishpaw, in "Polyester."  Francine is meant to be a spoof on the heroines of women's melodramas of the '50s.  In modern times, she'd be the protagonist of a Lifetime Original Movie.  Francine is a good Christian woman who is plagued by a horrible family - an abusive pornography-peddling husband, a thieving harpy mother, and two degenerate children.  She also deals with drug abuse, abortion, alcoholism, infidelity, murder, mayhem, and a wide variety of other social ills.  Her only friend is her former housecleaner Cuddles, now a fabulously rich socialite.     

I frequently forget that Divine is a drag queen when watching "Polyester," and that the movie is meant to be a satire.  Sure, it's funny when she's cavorting around with ex '50s hunk Tab Hunter in typical movie romance scenarios.  The awfulness of her relatives is wildly over the top.  However, Divine plays it straight as Francine, full of familiar feminine vulnerabilities and insecurities.  This is one of her first films where she isn't made up to be garish and off-putting, and easily passes as a biological female.  There's something wonderfully empowering about seeing an obese woman, so often a figure of ridicule, as a heroine.  Cuddles, played by the snaggletoothed, graying Edith Massey, is someone you'd never see cast in any other movie, except as a grotesque.  Here, she's the most positive, adorable creature onscreen.

"Polyester" in many ways follows the usual Waters formula of charting his heroine's fall from grace, following Francine as she becomes a victim of a parade of salacious and sinister vices, each more gasp-worthy than the last.  However, there's a much more cohesive story this time out, with an unambiguously happy, crowd-pleasing conclusion.  Francine doesn't get her man in the end, but she does get revenge and she does figure out who really loves her, which is plenty.  I think of "Polyester" as the last hurrah for the Dreamlanders, as John Waters' subsequent films would put them in smaller and smaller supporting roles as he moved toward the mainstream, and started working with more well-known actors.  

"Polyester" was Waters' first film with a substantial budget, thanks to the newly formed New Line Cinema, and he used it as an opportunity to really skewer suburbia in a way he hadn't been able to before.  He toned down his usual incendiary style and content to achieve an R-rating, and "Polyester" remains one of his most accessible films.  However, as with all of his projects, he set and shot it in Baltimore, and took pains to feature the local community.  HIs filmmaking was noticeably improving with each picture, as he took on more and more ambitious scenarios.  I think he plateaued around "Hairspray," but to his credit, John Waters never sold out and he never betrayed his origins as a schlockmeister.  

I have to mention the Odorama, the William Castle-esque gimmick that invites the audience to scratch-and-sniff

their way through the film with special cards. I have not had the pleasure of attending a screening with the full Odorama experience, and have no real wish to. The gimmick sounds fun, but I find it unnecessary. I love "Polyester" as an audio-visual experience, and don't need to involve any other senses.


What I've Seen - John Waters


Mondo Trasho (1969)
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
Female Trouble (1974)
Desperate Living (1977)
Polyester (1981)
Hairspray (1988)
Cry-Baby (1990)
Serial Mom (1994)
Pecker (1998)

---

My Top Ten Episodes of "Better Call Saul"

Spoilers for the whole series ahead.  This was a hard one to get down to ten entries, because there were so many good options, as the long list of honorable mentions makes clear.  The episodes below are unranked, and ordered by airdate.

"Mijo" - This is the second episode of the series, where Jimmy manages to talk Tuco out of killing the skater guys, representing his first brush with the cartel and demonstrating his wiliness in a bad situation.  The negotiation sequence is one of the most intense and hilarious of the entire series.  I'm thrilled that they brought Raymond Cruz back, and some of the other "Breaking Bad" alumni.  This also has the first encounter with Nacho, and Michael Mando is already firing on all cylinders. 

 

"Pimento" - The episode where the tensions between Chuck and Jimmy boil over, as HHM is brought on to the Sandpiper case.  Jimmy learns what Chuck actually thinks of him, and his legal career, with all the consequences that this entails.  It's incredibly poignant in retrospect, knowing that Chuck was right, but also more responsible for the creation of Saul Goodman than anyone.  This is also the episode where Mike takes on a bodyguard job and gets to show off being a competent badass.    

 

"Nailed" - I couldn't choose between the last two episodes of the second season, so I included both.  "Nailed" has one of the next examples of the Chuck and Jimmy dynamic, where even when it seems like Jimmy has pulled off a brilliant maneuver, Chuck is so relentlessly arrogant, stubborn, and intelligent that he simply refuses to concede.  The shock of him unraveling Jimmy's plan so quickly, and the cliffhanger at the print shop make this one of the most exciting hours of "Better Call Saul." 

"Klick" - And here's the follow-up, where the whole episode is spent getting us to let our guard down, and believe that Chuck has finally turned a corner after his health scare.  Instead, we get that great final shot, promising that the war between the McGill brothers will not only continue, but is bound to escalate to new heights.  The visual of Chuck's house plastered in space blankets is one of my favorites.  Also, special kudos to Ernesto, a character we sadly didn't get to see much more of.  

"Chicanery" - The theatricality of the bar association hearing being prepared for Chuck's arrival is so good at setting up the fireworks to come, and I love that ominous shot of the "EXIT" sign that comes back in the finale.  Jimmy pulls off one of his best misdirections with Huell's help, setting up a chance for Michael McKean to give what's probably his best performance as Chuck McGill.  His rant in the final scene is so heartbreaking because the consequences are so immediately apparent.  

"Winner" - The fourth season suffered for the lack of Chuck and some format changes, but the finale managed to leave me and Kim Wexler speechless.  The transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman started long before this, but the reinstatement hearing makes it clear that Saul has been pretending to be Jimmy for longer than we may have realized.  It's fitting that we get Chuck back briefly in the cold open for some karaoke.  Oh, and the whole Mike and Werner plot finally resolves.  

"Wexler v. Goodman" - I did not expect Kim to be okay with what Saul pulled, but as the heartbreaking opening scene flashback makes it clear, we don't really know a lot about Kim Wexler up until this season.  While watching Saul go after Kevin Wachtell and Mesa Verde is a lot of fun, it's also nerve wracking in light of the impact on Kim's career.  Rhea Seehorn gets a juicy final scene to excoriate Saul, and then to pull the rug out from under him. Also, the ongoing Howard harassment campaign gets funnier.     

"Bad Choice Road" - This one narrowly edged out the episode immediately before iit, "Bagman," where Mike and Saul have to make a trek through the desert.  "Bad Choice Road," however, is more interesting because it's all about the resulting consequences.  Tony Dalton's Lalo takes his place as "Better Call Saul's" most dangerous villain, ending the episode with a visit to Saul and Kim's apartment that is one of the best things the show has ever done.  And Kim's not only in the game now, but a very good player.

"Carrot and Stick" - I'm sorry that I haven't given more time to Nacho and Mike, but their parts of the story honestly paled in comparison with Saul and Kim's.  Even here, the excellent suspense and action sequences with Nacho facing off against the Salamanca cousins end up not being as entertaining as Kim threatening the Kettlemans, now running a memorable kitschy tax scam.  I really wanted more out of Nacho's storyline, and his exit in the next episode feels more like a wasted opportunity than anything.   

"Plan and Execution" - The climax of the Howard Hamlin harassment campaign is initially a lot of fun to see come to fruition, without all the complicated emotions involved in the similar one Saul waged against Chuck.  However, the consequences catch up to Saul and Kim even faster, with the return of Lalo.  Saul realizing the whole situation is out of his control, and the fact that the show's two major storylines haven't converged at all this season until now, ratchets up the tension to new heights.

"Saul Gone" - Finally, we see the end of Saul Goodman as Jimmy finally decides to do the right thing and it costs him everything.  I love the cinematography, the callbacks, the flashback to Saul's conversations with all the other "Better Call Saul" and "Breaking Bad" tragic figures, and finally that final meeting with Kim.  I have my quibbles with some choices - it really feels like Howard and Nacho should get some acknowledgement - but this is as good a finale as I've ever seen a show get.

Honorable Mentions: "RICO," "Switch," "Rebecca," "Fifi," "Fall," "Lantern," "Wiedersehen," "Bagman," "Something Unforgivable," "Rock and Hard Place," and "Nippy."

---