"Bad Sisters" and "Black Bird"

I'm writing a very unusual review for "Bad Sisters," because it's a show where I didn't finish watching all the episodes of the first season.  I watched four, and then skipped ahead to watch the ending.  Part of this was because I ran out of time, having only a limited window of access to Apple TV+.  Part of this was because I was so worked up by those first four episodes, I couldn't take the suspense.  I was starting to feel a serious need to track down Claes Bang and murder him myself.  The fact that his character was already dead made no difference.

"Bad Sisters" is about the five Garvey sisters, who all live near each other in Dublin.  The second oldest, Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), is a reticent woman who was married to a man named Jean Paul (Bang), the bane of her life and everyone around him.  He was emotionally abusive, manipulative, self-righteous, vindictive, petty, small-minded, and had a talent for screwing people over.  From oldest to youngest, Grace's sisters are Eva (Sharon Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), and Becka (Eve Hewson).  All of them have a reason to hate Jean Paul enough to kill him, and thus all of them are suspects.  The police are not investigating what they believe to be an accident, but insurance agents Tom (Brian Gleeson) and Matt (Daryl McCormack), trying to avoid a payout, are keen on changing the record.  

Most of the series is structured as a series of flashbacks to how Jean Paul ran afoul of each of the sisters, and a few other characters, showing us the reasons why everyone would have wanted him dead.  

I figured out the answer to the big mystery pretty early on, but the series isn't really about this.  Rather, it's an opportunity for some great thrills and dark comedy.  All the actresses in the cast are great, and the chemistry among them is a lot of fun as they plot against their brother-in-law.  However, Claes Bang is so insufferable as Jean Paul, aka JP, aka The Prick, I got really emotionally invested in his downfall to an extent that's probably not healthy.    A big part of the show is red herrings and near misses, and I was getting more and more worked up as Jean Paul kept surviving each flashback.  There was no way I was going to stand six more episodes of him not being dead, so I skipped ahead to the payoff.  "Bad Sisters" is a very enjoyable series, but I don't regret doing this.

I did, however, finish the six episode miniseries "Black Bird."  Developed and largely written by frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator Denis Lehane, "Black Bird" follows a young convict named Jimmy Keene (Taron Edgerton), who is offered a deal to commute his ten year prison sentence if he'll help get information out of a fellow prisoner, Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser), who is believed to be a serial murderer and rapist.  Keene's father is played by Ray Liotta in one of his final screen roles.   The bulk of the series is spent with Keene and Hall in a prison built for mentally disturbed offenders.  

Edgerton does a good job as Keene, but the reason to watch "Black Bird" is Paul Walter Hauser's performance.  Larry Hall is no Hannibal Lecter, but he's plenty formidable on his own terms.  His behavior can be unsophisticated and childish, but he's extremely careful and understands that his silence is his greatest asset.  Hauser manages to give him a fascinating mix of repulsive and sympathetic traits, and keep us guessing for a very long time as to whether Larry Hall is actually a monster or not.  It takes Keene multiple episodes to get past Hall's defenses and work out what makes him tick, but it never feels like the show is stalling for time.  As you might expect, the show's content gets very dark, and potentially upsetting, roughly on par with David Fincher's "Manhunter" series.                

"Black Bird" strikes me as one of the better recent pieces of serial killer fiction.  It's a strong character study of Larry Hall, and it presents a far bleaker and more realistic picture of the limits of the criminal justice system than most.  Hall's biggest advantage is knowing how to work the system, and Keene is put in far more danger by the negligence of his handlers than anything that Hall does.  It was also a good choice to have Keene's father as his biggest motivator for getting out of prison, instead of a typical love interest.  The focus on all masculine relationships is unusual, but important for this story, which turns out to be less about catching a killer, and more about the importance of empathy - even for the worst of us.  

---

"For All Mankind," Year Three

"For All Mankind" is in the running for the most frustrating series that I am currently watching.  It's an exceptionally engaging science fiction story about an alternate history of the American space program.  At the same time, it's a godawful melodrama that really needs to jettison a few characters who have outstayed their welcome.  Every time the show does something spectacular, it's undercut by the outlandish behavior of the characters and shameless manipulations of the writing.  It's still a fun watch, but I'm disheartened by how the show has gone from prestige television to almost a guilty pleasure over the last two seasons.

Unlike season two, there's a much stronger driver of the plot this year: the race to become the first humans to land on Mars.  The Americans and the Russians both have teams, with a private company, Helios, run by Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) as a surprise third.  The best part of the season is the first three episodes, where the politics of who gets to lead these missions, and the interesting character dynamics in play are all explored.  For a brief stretch, it feels like Ed Baldwin was being set up as a villain, which would have been so much more interesting than how events actually play out.  I didn't even mind that Karen had been upgraded from the owner of a bar to the owner of a space hotel, in order to keep her in the story.  Kelly and Danny both end up on the crews of different teams, while Danny's brother Jimmy (David Chandler) gets into trouble back on Earth.  As hinted at previously, Ellen is now the first female American president, and Margo remains the head of NASA.  Aleida is now a full-fledged rocket engineer. 

Despite my grumbling over how unrealistic the show is when it comes to its characters, "For All Mankind" is still a hard science-fiction series about scientists and engineers working out the nuts and bolts of space travel.  The science is fairly well-researched, and occasionally the basis for some good episodes, like the premiere where the space hotel's artificial gravity gets out of hand.  The alternate history elements are also pretty solid, if very surface level.  Ellen is facing opposition because the new technologies created by NASA are putting people out of work.  The fight for LGBT rights in the US plays out differently.   The Soviets are still a major rival in this timeline, and Helios is just as much of a headache in its own way, with Dev doing his best impression of a Silicon Valley tech guru.  When it wants to, the show can still do a very good impression of the kind of rousing, romantic Space-Age chronicle that it was in the first season.    

Except, of course, the characters keep making incredibly poor choices to pile on the drama.  There are very few new additions to the cast this time out, so we can focus on characters we already know, who already have years of shared history to draw from.  I like how Margo's relationship with Soviet engineer Sergei Nikulov (Piotr Adamczyk) plays out, and I like Karen as a businesswoman.  On the other hand, Danny not only hasn't gotten over the events of the previous season, but it turns him into a walking disaster in space.  Kelly, Aleida, and Dani are all smart, capable women of color who are positioned to take over parts of the narrative from characters like Ed and Margo, except that the writers never pull the trigger and actually let that happen.  There's a development in the last third of the season involving Kelly that is absolutely ridiculous on its face.  

I continue to like the idea of what "For All Mankind" is more than the actual series.  Despite my still enjoying Joel Kinnaman and Wrenn Schmidt's performances, I'm getting tired of the original cast still being at the center of the show.  I'm ready for new characters and new relationships as we press on inexorably toward the present day.  If we have to have the melodrama, I wish the writers would put more effort toward it, instead of just borrowing random plot points from "Mad Men" and "The Americans."  This season is better than the last, but feels less convincing and more contrived than ever.  I imagine that's only going to grow more apparent as we enter the 21st century.   

---

My Most Anticipated Films of 2023, Part 2

This is the second part of my "Most Anticipated Films" feature, focusing on the smaller indie, foreign, and art house films.  More mainstream studio pictures were covered in the previous post. 

We are going to do things a little differently this year, since what I'm anticipating in these categories boils down to what various notable directors have been up to lately, and titles are frequently subject to change.  So I'm listing these picks by director, alphabetically.

Víctor Erice - The beloved Spanish film director of "The Spirit of the Beehive" and "The Quince Tree Sun" hasn't made a film since 1992.  Erice has released a few shorts over the years, but 2023 may finally see the release of "To Close One’s Eyes," his fourth feature.  The plot concerns a new investigation into the disappearance of an actor during a film shoot in the 1990s.

Marielle Heller - I wonder if "Nightbitch" will get to keep its current title.  Based on the novel by Rachel Yoder, the film will star Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mom who starts to think she's turning into a dog.  Themes of alienation and parental resentment will be explored, along with a lot of raw meat.  The studio formerly known as Fox Searchlight is handling production, and  Hulu's handling the distribution.  

Yorgos Lanthimos - Lanthimos has two upcoming projects with Emma Stone in the works.  The one we're more likely to see this year is "Poor Things," which is some kind of "Frankenstein" resurrection story, with Willem Dafoe as the mad scientist and Stone as the monster - whose brain has been swapped out with that of her unborn child.  The cast list is wild and the movie is probably going to be wilder.  

Pablo Larrain - "El Conde" imagines that the Chilean dictator August Pinochet was a vampire, in a Spanish language dark comedy that should be released on Netflix sometime this year.  Larrain's recent work includes the Princess Diana film, "Spencer," and the Stephen King miniseries "Lisey's Story."  "El Conde," however, will be his most out and out genre project by far.

Richard Linklater - Glenn Powell is definitely having a moment, and his most interesting upcoming project is co-writing and starring in Richard Linklater's "Hitman."  This is the movie about an investigator who goes undercover as a hitman in order to catch his prospective clients.   It only started production in October, so I don't know if we'll see it by the end of 2023. 

Steve McQueen - After creating some excellent television over the past few years, the most ambitious film project McQueen has tackled yet will be a WWII drama about Londoners during the Blitz.  The ensemble cast will include Saoirse Ronan, Harris Dickinson, Erin Kellyman, and Stephen Graham.  Apple TV has the distribution rights, so don't expect a home media release in a hurry.    

William Oldroyd - "Eileen" is one of the most buzzed about films out of Sundance.  It's some kind of twisted relationship drama starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway.  I don't want to know more because this is the kind of film where knowing too much is detrimental.  However, this combination of actors and this director have definitely piqued my interest.

Christian Petzold - It's been announced that German director Christian Petzold's next film, "Afire" will be a gay romance.  However, his usual leading lady Paula Beer will still be in the cast.  This is supposed to be the second in a trilogy of films with fairy tale themes, after 2020's lovely "Undine."  Where that film's major motif was water, "Afire" will involve forests on fire.

Cristi Puiu - We've seen a lot of pandemic movies over the last few years, but I'm curious about this one, from Romanian New Wave director Cristi Puiu.  MMXX (or 2020 for those of you who don't do Roman numerals) is a dramedy about the early pandemic era.  Puiu, who is known for making lengthy films, seems well suited to a story about the uncertainties and absurdities of the lockdown.

---

My Most Anticipated Films of 2023 Part 1

It's that time again!  Now that the movie year is coming into sharper focus, I can look ahead at what films I'm anticipating for the rest of 2023.  I wait until March because release dates are fickle things  You may notice the absence of "Spider-verse" and "Killers of the Flower Moon," which were both on last year's list.

As always, I'm splitting this feature into two posts, one for the mainstream studios film with bigger budgets, that everybody hears about, and one for the foreign, indie and art house fare that may break through to the mainstream eventually, but only the cinephiles anticipate this far in advance.  Netflix and Apple releases are categorized with the studio films.  

Here we go:

Renfield - I'm fully expecting this to be a bad movie, but the people involved are way too much fun.  Nicolas Cage is playing Dracula.  Nicholas Hoult is making a play for comedic leading man status, and I'm rooting for him.  Director Chris McKay doesn't have the best track record, but I loved "The Lego Batman" movie, and I'm fully onboard for some goofy supernatural antics.  Sure, this probably isn't going to be as good as any version of "What We Do in the Shadows," but I'm confident it'll be good for a few easy laughs.  And sometimes that's all I really need. 

Wes Anderson Double Feature - Thanks to scheduling weirdness, we're looking at the likely possibility of a year with two new Wes Anderson films.  "Asteroid City" will not be Anderson's first science fiction film, but a rom-com set in a desert town that becomes a magnet for stargazers during an important celestial event.  The cast list is massive, of course.  Late in the year, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," an anthology film based on a Roald Dahl short story collection, is due on Netflix.  The cast is also massive, but more British.  Unlike "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," "Henry Sugar" will be in live action.  And I can't wait.

Barbenheimer - The second it was announced that Christopher Nolan's "Oppenhiemer" and Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" were going to release on the same day, the internet went wild.  And when we started getting the set pictures for "Barbie" and the cast announcements for "Oppenheimer," things got more wild.  These films couldn't be more different, and yet both are making a case for their potential greatness in the best possible ways.  "Barbie" has the best teaser trailer I've seen in years.  Frankly, I'm tempted to take July 21st off of work and enjoy a double feature with my fellow film nerds.  

Nimona - Blue Sky Studios was a casualty of Disney's acquisition by Fox, and their mostly finished animated film, based on the ND Stevenson "Nimona" comic, was shelved.  Fortunately, Netflix and Annapurna stepped to acquire and complete it, albeit with a new team of directors.  Because of the LGBT themes and older audience, "Nimona" was not a good fit with Disney, but Netflix has become a dependable purveyor of solid young adult media over the past few years.  It's always encouraging when one of these lost productions finds a home, and there have been more and more lately. 

Maestro - Bradley Cooper's sophomore film as a director will be a biography of the beloved conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (who was Lydia Tár's mentor, by the way).  Cooper will star as Berstein in a prosthetic nose, with Carey Mulligan playing his wife.  This could be a disaster, as the weakest parts of "A Star is Born" involved Cooper putting too much emphasis on his own performance in that film.  Cooper's a good actor in the right role, but I don't know if he'll be up to the challenge here.  In any case, he's got an awful lot of talented people around him, and I can't wait to see the results. 

Chalamet for the Holidays - I wouldn't call myself a Timothee Chalamet fan, but he's been very good at picking projects lately.  I'm looking forward to "Dune Part 2," where he'll face off against Austin Butler as Harkonnen baddie Feyd Rautha, and Zendaya hopefully gets more screen time..  However, I'm even more curious about the latest Paul King movie, a Willy Wonka musical that will serve as a prequel to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."  Paul King is the director behind the recent "Paddington" movies, and turned down a couple of other projects for this one, so I've got my fingers crossed.  

The Killer - Finally, it's been far too long since the last David Fincher film, and the last Michael Fassbender film for that matter (the Taika Waititi soccer pic has been delayed to September).  Netflix has been bullish about this one, releasing a teaser with behind-the-scenes footage in 2022.  This is more familiar territory for Fincher, and I have every reason to expect that "The Killer" will be a less moribund picture than "Mank" turned out to be.  Details are scarce, but we know that Tilda Swinton is part of the cast and the source material is a French graphic novel.

---

"Wednesday" Branches Out

It's helpful to think of "Wednesday" as a slightly alternate universe spinoff of the original "The Addams Family" show and films.  Here we have a Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) who is high school aged, and has perhaps become a bit too isolated and cynical.  Her loving parents (Luis Guzman, Catherine Zeta Jones) decide to send her to a special boarding school for supernatural outcasts, Nevermore, run by the watchful Principle Weems (Gwendoline Christie).  Edgar Allen Poe is an alumni, naturally.

A big selling point of "Wednesday" is that it's a return to familiar territory for Tim Burton.  He directed the first four episodes, and brought several of his usual collaborators to the project, including Danny Elfman and Colleen Atwood.  There's definitely a recognizable Burton aesthetic to the show's visuals, matching the macabre nature of the heroine.  At the same time, "Wednesday" fits comfortably into the Netflix YA catalog, with nearly all the action revolving around Wednesday and a troupe of new schoolmates - her gossipy roommate Enid (Emma Myers), queen bee Bianca (Joy Sunday), nerdy beekeeper Eugene (Moosa Mostafa), and two potential love interests - mysterious artist Xavier (Percy Hynes White) and the sheriff's son Tyler (Hunter Doohan) who is notably not a Nevermore kid, but a "normie." The rest of the Addamses only make guest appearances here and there, except for Thing, who hangs around to lend a hand.

To the credit of showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, "Wednesday" keeps a lot of the subversive verve that always made "The Addams Family" so appealing.  Even in a school full of outcasts, Wednesday is an antisocial loner.  She spends as much time making enemies, and fending off potential besties and romantic partners, as she does working to solve the mystery of the killer monster in the nearby woods.  Her acid tongue and contrarian attitude are wielded expertly by Jenna Ortega, who conveys vast amounts of teenage disdain with only her eyes.  However, Wednesday eventually does come to respect and value those around her, and she does soften up a bit in the end.  Longtime Addams fans may not approve of so much budding empathy, but this strikes me as a perfectly reasonable character arc for Wednesday.  She'll always be a poisonous psychopath at heart, but that doesn't mean she can't have friends.  This may be the best version of the character, a very fallible Wednesday with far more emotional complexity than any of the others.

I was initially a little worried about the show being set at Nevermore, because there has been a surplus of these Hogwarts-esque magical institutions of learning lately.  One of the first things that Enid does is point out the major student cliques - werewolves, vampires, gorgons, and sirens.  However, Wednesday has little interest in school matters and is initially only interested in her classmates when she can manipulate them to her advantage.  The writers are also very self-aware and aren't afraid to poke a little fun at the cliches.  This results in a string of episodes where Wednesday is reluctantly dragged into familiar high school plots like a school dance and a field day competition with unexpected results.  It helps that the young actors are a good collection of talent, and some of their characters are genuinely memorable.  Enid, Wednesday's polar opposite, is easily my favorite.  Her relentless positivity and enthusiasm is genuinely  infectious.   

As for the rest of the Addamses, the showrunners wisely didn't try to compete with the more familiar screen versions.  Luis Guzman's Gomez doesn't resemble the Raul Julia or John Astin Gomezes, beyond being wildly amorous with Morticia (to Wednesday's constant mortification).  I like Fred Armisen's take on Uncle Fester, who gets exactly as much screen time as he should.  There are plenty of other nods and cameos, and it's clear that everyone involved with "Wednesday" is an Addams fan, but I also like that there's a willingness to let the show go somewhere new and different.  Sure, I would have liked a little more guts and glory, personally, but I'm not the target audience here.  

 

"Wednesday" may not appeal to the Addams die-hards, but it's one of the better YA fantasy series I've seen lately, and there's plenty of potential for more.  I don't doubt we'll see a proper reboot of the franchise at some point, but for now "Wednesday" is carrying on the family legacy just fine.   

---

"Inside Man" and "The Devil's Hour"

Might as well group these two together, as they're both crime-related mystery miniseries starring actors who were formerly "Doctor Who."

"Inside Man" is the latest Steven Moffat joint for the BBC, a twisty, four episode miniseries that tells two stories that are connected.  In one, a convicted murderer on Death Row, Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci), is interviewed by a reporter, Beth (Lydia West), as he solves mysteries people bring him.  In the second story, a vicar, Harry Watling (David Tennant) has a terrible misunderstanding with his son Ben (Louis Oliver), and Ben's math tutor Janice (Dolly Wells) that results in Harry and his wife Mary (Lyndsey Marshal) keeping Janice prisoner in their basement.   

The series is a pointedly contrived mind-bender, full of too-clever little puzzles and conceits that really only work in a television show.  I could easily see a CBS procedural built around Jefferson Grieff, solving weekly mysteries from behind bars, and exchanging quippy dialogue with his black best friend, fellow murderer and human tape recorder Keith (Atkins Estimond).  Grieff is another Moffatt mastermind, always manipulating everyone around him, and always pithily pontificating on the nature of morality and human nature.  Staley Tucci happily chews the scenery and is terribly charming.  The warden, played by Dylan Baker, is accommodating as only a warden on a television show could be.  It's all terribly entertaining and not remotely plausible.

I was less willing to tolerate the absurd construction of Harry and Janice's part of the show.  The whole point of the story is to show how even the best people can be driven to do terrible things under the right circumstances.  So, the plot is built on a series of increasingly implausible events and extreme conditions that just get exasperating by the end.  All of the characters talk too much, try to be too smart, and inevitably all end up doing the wrong thing.  The last episode also shamelessly ramps up the suspense and tension to hysterical heights so we can have a big climax.  And the worst part is, Moffat efficiently sets up a cliffhanger to lead into a sequel at the end of the series.  It's such an obvious storytelling trick, and I kind of hate that I'm almost certainly going to watch the next one because of it.  Moffat is terribly good at what he does, but is so smarmy about it that it's annoying.

I much prefer "The Devil's Hour," which is a more grounded, six episode Amazon Prime series.  It operates in something much closer to the real world, despite there being supernatural forces at work throughout.  Initially I had difficulty following the action, because the story has an achronological narrative, similar to the film "Arrival."  It's only in the sixth episode that you get a full explanation for how all the pieces fit and what's been going on.  The action revolves around four characters.  First, there's Lucy (Jessica Raine), a social worker who is troubled by visions of alternate versions of past and future events.  She's also the mother of Isaac (Benjamin Chivers), a young boy who seems to have no emotions.  Lucy eventually crosses paths with DI Ravi Dillon (Nikesh Patel), who is on the trail of a shadowy figure named Gideon (Peter Capaldi). 

I enjoyed the experience of gradually working out how all the different storylines and events fit together, and the source of all the strange phenomena and symbols that kept appearing.  It makes such a difference when everything is actually building toward a well thought-out, coherent ending that gives you solid answers.  However, it requires a lot of patience.  This is not a typical mystery show or supernatural thriller, and we spend a lot of time in the early episodes simply following Lucy and Isaac as they struggle through ordinary daily life.  Phil Dunster shows up here as Lucy's terrible ex, who is also in the running for being one of the most reprehensible screen dads in a while.  I appreciate that the series is deliberately paced and willing to take its time, but I nearly gave up after the third episode because the various red herrings and misdirections were so confounding.  It was incredibly frustrating that I not only couldn't see the shape of the plot, I wasn't even sure what genre we were in.

Fortunately, it all works out in the end.  Capaldi is the standout here, though he doesn't have much screen time until late in the series.  The final episode is one of the most satisfying hours of television I've seen in a long time, since it's just payoff after payoff with a genuinely gutsy ending.  Nobody's going to be making any network procedurals out of this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get some kind of American adaptation somewhere down the line.     

---

Hollywood as "Babylon"

David Milch has explained in interviews that when he was writing "Deadwood," he found it necessary to upgrade the profanity to modern language, because using the historically accurate terms sounded far too tame for his purposes.  Likewise, I suspect that Damien Chazelle found it necessary to upgrade the bawdy behavior of his 1920s Hollywood hedonists to match modern standards.  In both cases, I think the creators went overboard.  I had a hard time watching "Deadwood" with a straight face and quit after five episodes.  And after a sick elephant loosed a stream of diarrhea on hapless workers and the camera lens in the first five minutes of "Babylon," followed shortly by other "Jackass" style antics at a drug-fueled bacchanalia, I was sorely tempted to call it quits.

I'm glad I didn't, because the rest of "Babylon" is a pretty good tale of fame and flameout in the early days of the movie business.  There are more episodes of wild behavior peppered throughout the film, to help Chazelle demonstrate that early Hollywood was a free-for-all of fast-living creative chaos before the town was cleaned up in the 30s.  However, most of the film is a pretty standard showbiz story about a rising star named Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), and a young film assistant, Manny (Diego Calva), who falls in love with her.  Other characters include a silent screen hero, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a talented black trumpet player, Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a gossip-mongering reporter, Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), and a Chinese cabaret singer, Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li).  Most of these characters are loosely based on real figures from the silent and early sound eras.  A ton of other familiar faces show up for smaller parts and cameos, including Lukas Haas, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, and Tobey Maguire in a role that is way too fun to spoil.

There is some excellent filmmaking in "Babylon," especially when it comes to depicting the art of filmmaking.  Manny and Nellie's first day on a film set is an incredibly designed and choreographed sequence where we watch multiple silent film productions being shot at the same time, including a historical epic with hordes of out-of-control extras engaging in combat.  Later, this is contrasted with the laborious process of shooting for sound, where being confined to a single, overheated, tightly controlled soundstage sucks all the joy and creativity out of the shoot.  And slowly but surely, "Babylon" transforms from a raucous comedy into a sentimental, nostalgic tearjerker about lost loves and the magic of silver screen immortality. Though Chazelle portrays Hollywood as a dream-crushing snake pit, like so many other directors he can't stop being in love with the town and its output.  And though he tries to show us old Hollywood through a more updated lens with modern actors, he's still obsessed with recreating the bygone movie glamor from nearly a century ago.  

I think I'd be more forgiving toward the film, elephant bowel movements and all, if Chazelle had exercised some self-restraint in other areas, and hadn't let "Babylon" balloon to a punishing three hours in length.  I really can't blame him for taking the opportunity to make the film without compromise - it's clearly a dream project, with Paramount footing the sizeable budget - but packing so many characters, so many tonal shifts, and so much incident into the movie really weighs it down.  "Babylon" occasionally feels like a miniseries haphazardly re-edited and chopped down to feature length, and some episodes like the gangster subplot easily could have been left out.  The indulgent finale montage would have been fine as a standalone piece, but comes across as grating at the end of such a plus-sized feature.  The fact that everyone from Sam Mendes to Kevin Smith has constructed similar paeans to the moviegoing experience this season doesn't help.

"Babylon" is good - great, even - in smaller chunks and individual scenes.  Brad Pitt gives one of his best performances in a decade.  Jean Smart has a killer final monologue.  Jovan Adepo and Margot Robbie continue to shine, and newcomer Diego Calva shouldn't want for work after this.  The production design, the music, the cinematography - everything about the film is impeccable in conception and execution.  However, it is also oddly self-sabotaging.   Like David Fincher's "Mank," the only people who would truly appreciate all the homages and appeals to remember Hollywood's past are the same people Chazelle threatens to alienate with his populist anachronisms and venal humor.   I admire the daring and the ambition and the enormous amount of work and research that went into "Babylon," but it's also very clear why audiences are giving it the cold shoulder.

---

"Glass Onion" and "Matilda"

Netflix had its ups and downs in 2022, but over the holidays it also had two of the most entertaining films I saw all year.

"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" carries over the sleuth character, Benoit Blanc, from Rian Johnson's previous whodunnit, and thankfully nobody else.  The tone of this outing is different, leaning more heavily on the comedy, and taking aim at new wealth instead of old wealth.  And instead of a house full of secrets, this time the setting is a Greek island and the luxury compound of tech mogul Miles Bron (Edward Norton).  He's invited several old friends to his island for the weekend to play a mystery murder game, including a governor (Kathryn Hahn), a scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a fashion designer (Kate Hudson), a social media influencer (Dave Bautista), a woman he had a falling out with (Janelle Monáe), and Benoit Blanc.

This mystery isn't as rigorously constructed as the first, but it makes up for it with sly humor and some fortuitous timing.  Though the script was written over a year ago, and the story takes place during the early days of the COVID pandemic, it's impossible to look at Miles Bron and not see him as a stand-in for Elon Musk - a narcissistic slimeball with an obscene amount of money and no taste to speak of.  Likewise, it's pretty easy to draw lines between some of the other characters and various real-life ne'er-do-wells.  And it is so, so satisfying to watch them get some of the comeuppance that they'd never get in real life.  While the mystery is pretty much dispensed with by the end of the second act, the finale is this wonderfully satisfying revenge set piece that had me cackling with glee as it played out.  

Similar to the first "Knives Out," Rian Johnson manages to throw shade and snark at the elites while avoiding a political bent.  He's also much sillier this time out, which I appreciate.  There are a couple of outright cartoonish running gags, a ton of celebrity name-dropping, and some liberties taken with the sound design.  However, Johnson's gotten so confident in his filmmaking that it's genuinely fun to follow his narrative hairpin turns, and to pick out all the little clues and references stuffed into the background (The "Magnolia" nod is priceless).  The misdirection is genuinely clever and well-considered.  The actors are also excellent - Janelle Monáe is the clear standout of this group, though Kate Hudson as the dim bulb fashionista gets some of the best lines.  This may not be Rian Johnson's best film, but it's the one I've enjoyed the most consistently to date.

Onward to "Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical," a ridiculously overlong title for the new film adaptation of the "Matilda" stage musical.  It's the first major project from Netflix's deal for new Roald Dahl media, and it's a keeper.  As a fan of the book, who was rather ambivalent on the 1996 film version, and completely missed the wave of hype around the stage musical, I'm very happy with the new film.  The songs by Tim Minchin are infectious.  Dennis Kelly's additions to the story are great.  Best of all is the cast, featuring Alisha Weir as our young heroine, and a nearly unrecognizable Emma Thompson as her great enemy, the Trunchbull.  

"Matilda" has always been one of my favorite underdog stories, about the triumph of smarts and friendship over bullying and oppression.  Little Matilda is born to terrible, greedy parents (Stephen Graham, Angela Riseborough), who neglect her and despair of her book-loving ways.  When they're finally forced to send her to school, Matilda's kind teacher, Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch), quickly realizes that Matilda is a genius.  Unfortunately, the school is run by the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull, who hates children and comes up with outrageous punishments for the smallest infractions.  Freeing the school from her horrible reign becomes Matilda's top priority.  Most of the additions to the story are to help flesh out Miss Honey, who becomes our secondary heroine.

Directed by Matthew Warchus, who put together a similar crowd-pleaser in "Pride" a few years ago, "Matilda" has more restraint and subtlety than I expected from a children's film.  It holds back the spectacle except for a few really big showstoppers like the "Revolting Children" number.  Visually, there's plenty of color and whimsy, but it's never garish the way that the Danny DeVito film version occasionally was.  Part of the difference is that the new "Matilda" is a very British affair, and less beholden to Hollywood's ideas about what children's entertainment is supposed to look like.  As a result, the emotional moments and the sentimental interludes have more space to work their magic.    

Also, take note that Warchus and Kelly came over from the original stage version of "Matilda," with Minchin pitching in a new song for the ending, which suggests that more theater people really should be involved in the screen adaptations.  And there wasn't a single performer who couldn't handle the singing, or felt like they were only cast because they were a name.   This includes Emma Thompson, who I didn't realize was the Trunchbull until the credits.  "Matilda" is one of my favorite films of 2022, and my biggest complaint about it is that it's a Netflix exclusive in the US, and I never got the chance to see it on the big screen.

---

"Bones and All" and "Bardo"

Neither Luca Guadagnino nor Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's latest films have gotten much attention this season, despite both films being pretty strong.


I like "Bones and All" a bit more, a story about two vagrant teenagers in the early 1980s who bum around the U.S. and fall in love. Both of them are "eaters," or cannibals, a metaphor for a slew of personal troubles that brand them as outsiders. Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is abandoned by her father Frank (André Holland) in Maryland after she loses control and mutilates a girl's finger at a sleepover. She decides to track down her mother Janelle (Chloë Sevigny), who abandoned her at birth. Maren meets a sinister eater named Sully (Mark Rylance), who starts stalking her. Then she meets and starts traveling with Lee (Timothée Chalamet), a troubled eater from Kentucky.


The extended road trip through the unglamorous parts of America reminds me of "American Honey" and "Nomadland," full of people and places on the fringes. Maren and Lee are constantly committing petty crimes to get by, constantly dodging the specters of violence, and each trying to outrun their pasts in their own way. Because it's Guadagnino, the young stars still look gorgeous in their perpetual dishevelment. They meet other eaters played by Michael Stuhlbarg and David Gordon Green, who seem to enjoy looking sketchy and unwashed. "Bones and All" is a very violent film, with people constantly being attacked and consumed. Horror movie fans should have no complaints about the quantity of blood. However, it is also a very tender film that is unabashedly romantic.


The depiction of cannibalism here fascinates me. There's a long tradition of Italian cannibal films, with cannibalism often standing in for fascism or exploitation or some other social malaise. In "Bones and All," Maren and Lee's cannibalism is an inherited trait, a legacy of violence and destruction that makes their existence difficult. The worldbuilding is all done through Maren's interactions with other eaters, who are very few and tend to either become self-destructive, or the very worst kind of predators. When Maren comes across a man who is an eater by choice, who doesn't have the same urges that she does, she's repulsed. With the unusual treatment of this material, and the very high caliber of actors - Sevigny in her single scene is amazing - it's inevitable that this will become a cult classic. And for the right audience, this one is a heartbreaker too.


"Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths" is a much harder, weirder nut to crack. Fifteen years ago, I used to think that Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu was the boring one, next to Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron. He's definitely proved me wrong. "Bardo" is about a Mexican journalist and filmmaker named Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) who has lived in Los Angeles for twenty years. He's about to receive a prestigious award and is having very mixed feelings about it, especially involving his complicated relationship to Mexico.


Maybe Gama or Iñárritu have been watching too many Frederico Fellini movies. The film starts with the image of a man's shadow leaping and flying through the empty desert. Then there's a scene of Silverio at the birth of his son Mateo, who refuses life, and decides to go back into his mother, Lucía (Griselda Siciliani). We learn later on that Mateo died, a few hours after birth. Silverio meets with an ambassador at a famous historical site, and imagines the bygone battle raging around them during their talk. He is invited to appear on a talk show, where he is unable to speak, and is subsequently humiliated. But it turns out that this didn't happen, because Gama ditched the appearance at the last minute. Gama's dreams, memories, and fantasies are getting mixed up with his actual life.


"Bardo" is one of those massively ambitious, semi autobiographical narratives that seems to want to put the director's entire psyche onscreen for our perusal. This results in some fabulous, surreal fantasy sequences that are a lot of fun, like a city bus suddenly becoming flooded, or Gama reconciling with his deceased father in a restroom, or an encounter with the conquistador Hernán Cortés. There are some beautifully orchestrated long takes, crammed full of carefully choreographed actors, often playing with multiple layers of reality. "Bardo" recalls "Birdman" more than anything, but with a far more personal story, taking its themes and many characters directly from Iñárritu's own life.


It's an impressive cinematic undertaking, but I've seen this story before, told far better by more innovative and daring filmmakers. I admire Iñárritu's ambitions, and he's very self-aware about what he's doing - there's an entire character devoted to vicious self-critique - but pointing out his own flaws doesn't mean they're not still there. I value Iñárritu's POV, especially his relationship with Mexico and his guilt over leaving it, but the film is so exhausting that it's not very accessible, and I doubt I'll return to it any time soon.


---

Oscar Aftermath 2023

"Everything Everywhere All at Once" won seven Oscars last night, which is almost certainly more than it deserved, but I couldn't help feeling very positive about the wins anyway.  Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, The Daniels, and the force of nature that is Jamie Lee Curtis have been very fun all season, and it turns out their momentum couldn't be stopped.  The film swept most of the guild awards, so very little was a surprise, but this was a pretty tight race up until a few weeks ago, so there was still some suspense.  Personally, I was rooting for "The Banshees of Inisherin" for Best Picture and for Steven Spielberg to pick up another directing Oscar for "The Fabelmans."  Both films, and three other Best Picture nominees, ultimately came away with nothing.  

Moving on to the Oscar ceremony itself, I've come to the inevitable conclusion that as fun as it is to watch live, the middle hour is a serious drag that probably nothing will be able to fix.  It was great to see the Best Song performances, and I especially appreciated the shot of adrenaline that was "Naatu Naatu," but the nominees in this category have been a very mixed bag for as long as I can remember.  I was thrilled to see David Byrne join Stephanie Hsu onstage to perform "This is a Life," right up until they actually started singing and I remembered that I didn't actually like the song.  Lady Gaga's minimalist, apparently last minute performance was a nice change though.  And no matter how you may feel about the merits of keeping those more obscure categories like Live Action Short, they can be counted on to deliver some truly spontaneous moments, like the whole audience being spurred to sing "Happy Birthday" to an actor with Down Syndrome.    

Jimmy Kimmel is an entertainer I have a lot of respect for, but as an Oscar host he leaves a lot to be desired.  The opening monologue was fine, the zings calibrated to hit a few sore spots without ever getting too mean.  The bits, however, were rough.  Bringing out Jenny the donkey (or her imposter) to say hello was cute, but asking Malala Yousafzai stupid questions was a waste of everyone's time.  The presenters all looked gorgeous, but I was painfully aware of the lack of seasoned comedians involved in the evening.  Elizabeth Banks gamely showing up with the Cocaine Bear was one of the only ones who really committed to a bit, and it's hard to tell if Hugh Grant is actually acting or just doesn't care to restrain himself anymore.  We did not have another Will Smith moment, as Halle Berry filled in as the presenter for Best Actress.       

As to how the races shook out this year, I can't complain too much. "All Quiet on the Western Front" winning four awards, including Best Score and Best Production Design struck me as unfortunate, but after the big sweep at the BAFTAs I'm just glad it didn't win anything more important.  Justin Hurwitz was robbed, clearly.  The only win that really irked me was Best Animated Short going to "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," a treacly Hallmark card of a short that beat out some much better contenders.  On the other hand, Sarah Polley picking up an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay was one of the few nice surprises of the evening.  Her speech was a good reminder that "Women Talking" deserved so much more this year.  

I rarely talk about the commercials or advertising that come with the Oscar broadcast, but the negative impact this year couldn't be ignored.  Carving out time for the "Little Mermaid" trailer was a notable low.  It wouldn't be a big deal if multiple studios were able to do this, but after "Mermaid."  and last year's "Lightyear" presentation - and all the ads for Disney+ and Hulu shows during the breaks - the exclusivity of the Oscars to ABC feels dreadfully gauche.  Sure, the only reason the Oscars exist is to promote movies, but this feels like a direct contravention of the usual level-playing-field spirit of the night.  Shouldn't the broadcast be rotated, like they do with the Emmys? 

All in all, this felt like one of the better Oscars of recent years.  The winners put on a great show, there was a lot of big star power in the room, minimal politics, a few big blockbusters participating, and some smart decisions on the production side.  Little changes like using montages instead of the traditional clips for the acting performances, and the streamlined opening sequence made a difference.  However, I want to point out that while the antics with the Cocaine Bear were fun, it was obviously a guy in a suit.  In 1998, they actually put a live bear onstage with a very nervous Mike Myers.  

Now that was television.  

---

Rank 'Em: 2023 Best Picture Nominees

It's been a good year for movies, and this is a strange, but ultimately decent Best Picture lineup. I definitely think there are some significant omissions, but I understand why all the nominated pictures are here. From best to least best, here are the Best Picture nominees of 2022, ranked.

1. The Banshees of Inisherin - It's Martin McDonagh reunited with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, and writing about violence and cycles of revenge again. Best of all, the movie is Irish from top to bottom, a culture that McDonagh knows inside out, and that he never feels entirely successful working outside of. Barry Keoghan, Kerry Condon, and Gleeson are highlights, but it's Farrell who I appreciated the most here as the jilted party.

2. Everything Everywhere All at Once - I knew once the Daniels came to the height of their creative powers and got the right project, the sky would be the limit. I have a few minor quibbles about the film related to pacing, mostly, but I absolutely adore how this film was able to surprise me over and over again. And if nothing else, seeing Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in leading roles like this was something I'd been waiting decades for.

3. The Fabelmans - So many filmmakers made movies about making movies and the theatrical experience this year, but only Spielberg really seemed to wrestle with the responsibility that this conferred on the artist. And for a longtime Spielberg fan, it was monumental to finally see the psychological underpinnings of so many of his stories laid out through the dramatization of his family's turbulent, eventful history.

4. Tár - I recognize that this is a good film, and possibly a great one, but I just didn't enjoy watching it. So, this is where it's going on the list, above some favorites that aren't so technically accomplished, but below others that are even rougher. Watching "Tár" become a meme during awards season was fun, and Cate Blanchett's performance can't be denied, but I couldn't get over the film paying so much lip service to the art of conducting - and barely showing any.

5. Women Talking - Speaking of technical issues, the cinematography here really rubbed me the wrong way. I know the majority of the action takes place in a hayloft, but it's no excuse for the dim visuals hiding the lovely production design. Otherwise, I love the talented ensemble here, Sarah Polley's thoughtful script, and the positive treatment of faith. The film feels very timeless and I expect that its stature will only grow as more people discover it.

6. All Quiet on the Western Front - This is where I ranked "1917" back in 2019, and I feel much the same about "All Quiet." You've got thin characters, a lot of technical gimmicks, and ultimately the same kind of bombastic war movie tropes that the Academy is such a sucker for, year after year. It's good to see an adaptation of "All Quiet" from German filmmakers, but the film feels so anodyne and lacking in personality that I couldn't get behind it.

7. Triangle of Sadness - Now, personality is not something Ruben Östlund has trouble with. The criticisms of capitalism and the rich/poor divide in this film are as scathing as they are entertaining. The trouble is that the first half of the film is so much better than the second half, which depends more on characters that Östlund didn't really bother to make functional human beings. Kudos to the Academy for an unusual pick, but the level of filmmaking isn't quite there.

8. Top Gun: Maverick - It's impossible to protest that the most obnoxiously Hollywood film of the year that blew up the box office and possibly saved the theatrical business as we know it doesn't belong here. Outside of the technical categories, however, I really have my doubts. I suspect that this is a matter of personal taste, as I can find nothing in "Maverick" to complain about, but Cruise's films - and maximalist filmmaking in general - don't do much for me anymore.

9. Elvis - Never underestimate Baz Luhrmann. If Austin Butler wins the Best Actor trophy for playing Elvis Presley, it'll be well deserved. However, Tom Hanks's performance as Colonel Parker really is a low point of his career and drags much of the movie down with it. This is really neck and neck with "Maverick," but "Elvis" just had too many unforced errors for me to put any higher on this list.

10. Avatar: The Way of Water - And never underestimate James Cameron. "The Way of Water" looks gorgeous and is obviously a high water mark for special effects and CGI (pun intended). However, I wasn't much of a fan of the original "Avatar," and the sequel doesn't do much for me either, aside from the spectacle. Also, Sigourney Weaver playing a teenage character weirds me out to no end.

---

My Favorite Kathryn Bigelow Film

I wrestled with whether this was the right time to be writing this entry for Kathryn Bigelow.  She's absolutely had an impact on American filmmaking, both with her failures and her successes.  However, that impact has so much to do with her status as one of the rare female directors who was working at her level during the 1990s and 2000s.  You really can't have a discussion about female directors without talking about Bigelow's career and what she accomplished.   

It was difficult to pick a film for Bigelow, but in the end I had the most to say about "Blue Steel," the crime procedural starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a policewoman and Ron Silver as her stalker.  This is one of those cases where the movie got better the more I thought about it, and elements that I originally thought of as weaknesses turned out to be something else.  On one level, the film is about catching a criminal, and follows the typical pattern of cop dramas and erotic thrillers from the era, like "Sea of Love."  Curtis's Officer Turner is a rookie facing a steep learning curve and lots of hostility in the workplace - inevitable for a New York cop in the 1980s.  

However, the film's real accomplishment is that it manages to capture the psychology of a woman who is trying to make herself seen and heard in an environment where women typically don't exist.  The discrimination is rarely overt, yet it's incredibly oppressive.  There's a scene toward the end of the movie where a killer gets away because Officer Turner's statement to the police is deemed insufficient to make an arrest.  From a legal and procedural standpoint, this is infuriating because there are many arguments you could make based on the testimony that could absolutely be used to convict the killer.  However, the point of the scene is that Turner's standing as a woman and as a rookie is so poor, nobody is willing to stick their neck out for her.  She's not believed because she has no authority or credibility in this situation, which is something that is unheard of with a male police officer in this role.

Over and over again, we see Turner in situations where she's rendered powerless due to institutional or cultural forces that automatically discount her based on her gender.  She's constantly being held accountable for her actions, but doesn't seem to be afforded the same protections and deference enjoyed by other cops.  Even in her own family, you can see the constraints on her ability to act due to old fashioned perceptions of propriety.  The film acknowledges the difficulties of being a woman in a dangerous profession in a way that other films of the time period do not, and never glamorizes it.  Even in the end, Turner doesn't become the typical action movie badass, and her path to empowerment is much rockier than those typically faced by her male movie counterparts.  There's also an argument to be made that others seeing her as some avatar of violent wish fulfillment ends up being deeply detrimental to her life and relationships.

The film's cast is fantastic, featuring a slew of familiar character actors, including Richard Jenkins, Louise Fletcher, Ron Silver, Tom Sizemore, Elizabeth Pena, and Clancy Brown - in one of his few roles that qualifies as a romantic lead.  And he's well paired with Curtis, in one of the more difficult, fascinating parts I've ever seen her play.  I so appreciate that "Blue Steel" is an adult drama that addresses the characters' sexuality in a fairly realistic way, and isn't afraid to incorporate it into the story.  The relationship between Curtis and Silver's characters is handled well, and given much more nuance than I expected.  

Bigelow made her name as an action director, with films like "Point Break," but "Blue Steel" eschews spectacle and big set pieces in favor of more intimate moments of violence.  And though occasionally stretching the limits of plausibility, this violence has just as much impact.  I love the final shot of the film, which is just Turner sitting in a police car, absorbing everything that's happened to her.  It's a good reminder that though Bigelow has been most consistently celebrated for her films about men, her films about women are just as impressive - though often overlooked.  

  

What I've Seen - Kathryn Bigelow

The Loveless (1981)

Near Dark (1987)

Blue Steel (1990)

Point Break (1991)

Strange Days (1995)

The Weight of Water (2000)

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Detroit (2017)

---

Nepo Baby Critical Mass

Well, The New Yorker wrote the article that I was trying to write, off and on, for a couple of years now, about nepotism in Hollywood - what it is, why everyone is mad about it, and why everyone is so mad  about it right now.  I figured I should throw in my two cents while they're still kinda relevant.

So, my take on the "nepo babies" (good grief, what a moniker) as far as the ones in acting go, is that they're inevitable, and actually kind of a fun phenomenon from an audience standpoint, even the bad ones.  I've got a pretty macroscopic view of Hollywood, and nepotism is absolutely not new in any respect.  We've had actors who are the kids of other famous actors as far back as Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Lon Chaney Jr.  And that's understandable when such a big part of being a bankable star is what you look like and the relationship you can cultivate with an audience. 

Some degree of pushback is to be expected, as increased nepotism means fewer chances for everyone else trying to get into the entertainment industry.   You can absolutely get by for years being a mediocre actor with the right name, but to really be a success requires more.  Hollywood actually is a meritocracy when it comes to the really visible acting gigs that everyone wants, and audiences and critics are merciless if someone doesn't live up to expectations.  All of us can tell the difference between someone genuinely talented and charismatic, and, well, somebody's kid.  For every nepo baby who made it, there are just as many who didn't, who gave up after a few flops and had to move on to something else.

As a movie fan, tracing the nepo baby connections can be a source of nerdy joy.  Who hasn't had that moment of flabbergasted astonishment, when they learned that Nicolas Cage was actually born Nicolas Coppola, and is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola?  Or marveled that Maya Hawke's screen presence is a perfect combination of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman?  As someone who watches a lot of old movies, I'm constantly finding the parents of future stars.  In "The Sting," for instance, I came across an older actor who sounded exactly like James Earl Jones - his father Robert Earl Jones, of course.  If you recognize a famous last name in the credits, there's a good chance it's not by accident. 

There's a lovely sort of irony in discovering an older actor's work through their kids.  Jane Birkin, Jill Clayburgh, Jayne Mansfield, Bruce Dern, John Mills, and Roy Kinnear all have actor offspring whose work I was familiar with first, before learning their parents were also celebrated actors a generation ago.  It's just like recognizing Michael Douglas is Kirk Douglas's son, only backwards.  Inevitably you run across the Barrymores, the Richardsons, the Carradines, the Bridges, and the Arquettes.  There are third and even fourth generation screen actors who are active now, with roots stretching all the way back to the silent era and vaudeville and beyond.  Acting is a much less disreputable profession than it used to be, so it's no wonder that these legacies are getting more common.

Still, most nepo babies aren't talented or tenacious enough to last in the entertainment industry for very long.  I suspect the majority of the prime targets of the current anti-nepotism wave are on their way out already.  It's a nasty business, especially when it involves younger kids, but their parents can't claim they didn't know what to expect.  However, when an actor with a legacy appears who does have an interesting screen presence, or who does display good acting chops, I guarantee that that's what you'll notice first.  Probably the best compliment that you can pay to someone like Zoey Deutch or Lewis Pullman is that you had no idea they were related to so-and-so.     

I'm purposely leaving out a lot of specifics and a lot of examples, because I have no wish to comment on any of the individual spats going on.  However, as usual, both sides have a point, however muddled or blown out of proportion.  There will always be nepo babies.  It's not fair.  Nepo babies will always get flack.  It's not fair.  I just hope that someone will come up with a better term soon, because I cannot keep a straight face reading about the "nepo baby" issue, let alone writing about it.

---

Let Us "Do Revenge"

In the '90s, there was a brief, but memorable run of teen movies that took their plots from classic literature.  "Clueless" was "Emma," "10 Things I Hate About You" was "Taming of the Shrew," and "Cruel Intentions" was "Dangerous Liaisons," all set in high school.  So, naturally a throwback to these movies should follow their lead.  "Do Revenge," written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is very loosely based on Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train," spruced up a bit for the age of social media, with a soundtrack full of '90s pop songs, and fashion choices that Cher Horowitz would die for.  

At the same time, "Do Revenge" is a very 2020s teen movie, featuring actors from a wide array of current teen franchises.  Our main character, Drea Torres, is played by Camila Mendes from "Riverdale."  Her boyfriend Max is Austin Abrams from "Euphoria," and bestie Tara is Alisha Boe from "13 Reasons Why."  And who is that new girl, Eleanor, soon to be Drea's partner in crime?  Maya Hawke, naturally, from "Stranger Things."  They all attend the ultra posh prep school, Rosehill, overseen by a lovely headmaster, who happens to be played by "Cruel Intentions" alum Sarah Michelle Gellar - none too subtly hinting where this story is going.  

Drea is the school's queen bee, until a leaked sex video brings her low.  Her boyfriend Max was probably responsible, but he's protected by seemingly impenetrable white male privilege, and Drea's angry retaliation against him just lands her in hot water.  Stewing in exile from her former social circle, Drea befriends the mousy Eleanor, who is not looking forward to starting at a new school with Carissa (Ava Capri), the girl who outed her as a lesbian and branded her a predator four years ago.  Drea sees an opportunity to use Eleanor to infiltrate her old friend group, and promises to help her ruin Carissa's life.  Will they become revenge besties together, or allow their bitterness to turn them against each other?

Everyone in this movie is status obsessed and identity conscious.  Drea is a person of color, which doesn't matter, but being a scholarship student with no money does.  She's gotten as far as she has by being very gifted and very vicious.  Max is a scumbag, but very good at playing up feminist ally bona fides, and has access to expensive lawyers in a pinch.  Initially, I was wary that the film would be entirely populated by amoral monsters, because I wasn't keen on rooting for any of them, but I think it's actually one of the film's strengths that it keeps you guessing about Drea's redeemability for so long.  Camila Mendes makes her hateable one minute, and admirable the next, sometimes for the exact same behavior.  It's not hard to see why lonely Eleanor is willing to let her take over her life and fashion choices.  Maya Hawke steals the movie, by the way, because of course she does.   

And after all, who can say no to a little revenge?  The machinations going on here are sometimes a little haphazardly executed, but the twists and turns are a lot of fun.  Rosehill is a heightened world where everyone is decked out in matching uniforms or ungodly expensive outfits, there's money for every imaginable extracurricular, and the students throw elaborate, hedonistic parties at the drop of a hat.  Drea and Eleanor's revenges are also beautifully deployed, amazingly timed events that will leave you cackling with glee at their cleverness and bitchiness.  It helps that the script is also very aware that Drea and Elenor are terrible, and they both have to face their demons in the end.

"Do Revenge" is a better looking production than most of the Netflix originals.  Sure, there's iffy editing here and there, and probably too much cribbed from other movies, but "Do Revenge" sells the fantasy of this opulent high school world where you can run everything if you're smart enough or rich enough.  The last couple of twists may be a bridge too far (I suspect there was originally a different ending), and some of the indulgences - like recreating the date sequence from "10 Things I Hate About You" - are a little too indulgent.  Still, I enjoyed "Do Revenge" like few movies this year.

And the great irony is, I wasn't much of a fan of '90s teen movies when I was actually the target audience for them.  It's only now, looking back, that I understand more of the appeal.

---

"Pinocchio" and "My Father's Dragon"

I want to talk about Guillermo Del Toro's "Pinocchio" and Nora Twomey's "My Father's Dragon" together, since they're both recent adaptations of beloved children's literature.  Conveniently, they're also both animated films released by Netflix.  

I'm more familiar with the "My Father's Dragon" books, written by Ruth Stiles, and was looking forward to the first English language adaptation (a very faithful anime version was made in 1997).  What I got was much darker than I was expecting.  Elmer Elevator (Jacob Tremblay) is a little boy, who with his mother (Golshifteh Farahani), faces hard times when their shop is closed down and they're forced to move to a big city.  Elmer goes on an adventure to rescue a dragon named Boris (Gaten Matarazzo), who is being held captive by a group of animals, who want him to help save their sinking island.  Aside from Elmer going to rescue Boris and a few minor details, none of this has anything to do with the books.  On the one hand, I understand that Stiles' books only offered a very simple, uncomplicated adventure story with characters who were likewise very one-dimensional.  Additional material was absolutely to be expected for an adaptation.  Also, the books are over 70 years old, and needed some updating.

On the other hand, a story I loved for being charming and funny and endearing has been entirely subsumed by something much more complicated and serious and emotionally fraught.  Taken on its own, the "My Father's Dragon" movie is perfectly good children's entertainment.  The animation from Cartoon Saloon is lovely, the star studded cast delivers good performances, and the screenplay by Meg LeFauve is solid and clearly very well intentioned.  However, I just can't get over the extreme tonal change.  There have been other adaptations, like Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," and Mark Osborne's "The Little Prince," that have taken children's stories in more adult directions without losing their whimsy and lightheartedness.  "My Father's Dragon" has been so fundamentally changed in adaptation, so burdened with manufactured gravitas that much of the joy has been sapped out of the story.  I eventually had to just think of the leads as entirely different characters to get through the movie.  

It was hard to explain why this bothered me so much until I saw Guillermo Del Toro's long awaited stop-motion animated "Pinocchio."  Del Toro also makes some significant changes to the original Carlo Collodi story.  The tone is now much darker, with the story set in Fascist Italy.  New themes and new motivations for many characters have been introduced, and the film begins with the Cricket (Ewan McGregor) introducing us to the woodcarver Gepetto (David Bradley) and his young son Carlo (Gregory Mann), who soon dies tragically.  In this version of "Pinocchio," a grieving Gepetto creates his living puppet boy son (also Mann) in a drunken frenzy, and struggles to parent him.  Further adventures include Pinocchio being conscripted into Mussolini's army, and multiple trips to the underworld to meet with Death (Tilda Swinton).  One of the new characters is a mistreated monkey, Spazzatura, who doesn't actually speak, but Cate Blanchette is still credited with voicing him.         

I've seen a lot of warnings being relayed to concerned parents that this version of "Pinocchio" is not for small children, but nothing here strikes me as especially inappropriate.  The business with the Fascists is only worrisome if you understand who the Fascists were, and Pinocchio can't die despite all the damage he suffers.  Furthermore, all of the adaptations of "Pinocchio" I've ever seen have had similar amounts of alarming imagery and troubling existential concepts.  Even the recent Robert Zemeckis version, despite watering down the content to the point of absurdity, couldn't entirely escape the story's dark, psychological underpinnings about parenthood, morality, and learning how to be a good person in a terrible world.  

In short, Guillermo Del Toro's "Pinocchio" may be darker than most adaptations, but it's very true to the spirit of the original work.  The stop-motion animation, featuring wonderfully intricate puppets and a gorgeous production design, is a touch rougher than what we see out of Aardman or Laika.  It has a very handmade feel that fits perfectly with the ephemeral, but often monstrous nature of the characters.  The story wisely doesn't foreground its more adult content, sticking to the basic formula of Pinocchio getting into trouble, over and over, and having to deal with the consequences.  It helps that this Pinocchio is very much a bratty child at first, and only becomes a selfless hero over time.  There are plenty of funny moments to balance out the intensity, and the most profound bits of the script are often in throwaway dialogue you might miss if you're not paying attention.

My only real complaint about "Pinocchio" is that there are a few songs in the first half that feel mostly perfunctory.  Otherwise, it's clear this was Del Toro's passion project and he didn't compromise an inch.        

---