Delayed Reaction: Drive My Car

Premise: A theater director continues to work through his emotions after the unexpected death of his wife 2 years before.

 

It’s very easy to say why a mediocre movie is good or bad. It takes little to sway things one way or the other. One great performance or sequence. Even just a good mood as an audience can sway things. It’s much harder to explain when a very good movie isn’t great. Part of the problem is that I spend much of the time explaining why I don’t think it’s great rather than all the reasons why it is very good. This is going to be one of those Reactions. Drive My Car is a movie I strongly recommend. It’s a journey of a movie, full of profound emotional moments and compelling characters. Despite being 3 hours long, I never got antsy to get out of the movie.

 

I do have some trouble understanding why this movie is the ride or die pick this year, with an almost unprecedented Oscar nomination. A tiny foreign movie. Didn’t win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Had a distribution studio with little modern Oscar history. No international stars. Fairly obscure director. This rode its way to a Best Picture nomination off grass roots love alone. And that’s where I’m confused and start to pick at it. I don’t think this is a very focused movie. There are several subplots that don’t serve much purpose. They enrich the overall feel of the movie. Some of this feels like stalling for time. The length of the movie is a feature in some ways. It’s using the TV trick of the more time you spend with characters, they more you connect with them. I don’t think the emotional journey would feel satisfying had I spent only 2 hours with the movie. That does lead me to question if a film is the best medium for this story. Apparently, director Ryusuke Hamafguchi’s last film was 5 hours long, so this feels like a trend. I’ve seen a lot of 90-minute indie movies that, had they stretched them out to 3 hours, I would’ve felt much stronger about them by the end. It’s natural. Time creates familiarity and connection. Internally, I set the bar higher the longer a film goes. In that sense, the rate at which Drive My Car got more satisfying over time lagged behind where I think it should’ve. I hope that makes sense. A Stronger movie would’ve got me feeling this strongly in much less time.

 

In terms of long movies, Drive My Car is much more of an Amadeus than a Paris, Texas. Amadeus is a magic trick of pacing. It flies by, despite its length. I have trouble understanding how it’s so long, because it doesn’t seem like that much is happening. Paris, Texas is a movie I adore. The first half is painfully slow and just about building up the characters. The second half is so great that I forgive the somewhat tedious first half. Everything from the early parts pay off like a slot machine late. Drive My Car’s emotional climax didn’t hit me as hard as it needed to. I was quite engaged from scene to scene rather than experiencing highs and lows. The movie does have some homework that would help with appreciating it more. I don’t know the play Uncle Vanya. Knowing that would really help. Knowing Japanese would really help too. And I’m not being glib. This film is centered around a multi-lingual production of Uncle Vanya. Much of the cast spoke different languages. Knowing when two people were saying things the other couldn’t understand would’ve helped a lot. I don’t hear the difference between Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin. Just knowing the little English they spoke didn’t do much. A good counter-example is The Handmaiden from 2016. One dub I saw of that color-coded the Japanese and Korean parts. Given how they were examples of high and low status in the film, that helped tremendously.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Formula: 1 / Adaptation.

 

There’s no way that this movie could work, right? Everything about it reeks of the least cool people trying to be in on the joke. It’s a corporate Twitter account that’s trying to be funny. It’s a joke that a writer snuck into an episode turned into an entire movie. Nic Cage is a baffling actor. Good Nic Cage is almost indistinguishable from Bad Nic Cage in a movie. His willingness to try anything and how hard he goes at every performance makes it impossible to tell the difference between a movie he took because of financial trouble and one he chose for creative reasons. Then comes The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: a Nic Cage movie about being Nic Cage in a Nic Cage movie. This movie is a 2-hour Rick-Roll. Even the title is desperate to make sure people know it’s in on the joke. This whole thing is too recursive to stand on its own…right?

 

While far from being a perfect movie, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent delivers exactly what it promises. It’s a movie about Hollywood actor Nic Cage trying to reestablish his reputation with a good starring role, but first he takes a million-dollar gig to appear at a superfan’s birthday party in Mallorca. That superfan is played by Pedro Pascal, who is living off billions of dollars in family money and might be tied into the criminal underworld. It’s the kind of movie real Nic Cage would make playing a character named Tex Midnight. That it’s a fictionalized version of himself is what makes this movie notable.

 

I barely understand the logistics of how this movie exists. Was it written specifically for Cage before he ever knew about it? Was he onboard when it was just a pitch, and his provisional agreement to do it is what paid for the screenplay to get written? It’s not like this could’ve been adapted to be about another star. It’s very entertaining that it does exist though. Would you believe it’s a perfect vehicle for Nic Cage? He gets to flex all of his acting muscles, really. There are big and small scenes. It’s an ideal movie for his career rehabilitation. It already felt like we’re close to a Cage-aissance. Recent films like Mandy and Pig have gotten praise. The general tone of the internet about Cage has turned favorable. I’ve even seen pieces defending his years in the wilderness with a lot of questionable roles. It’s highly reminiscent to Keanu Reeves and Matthew McConaughey in the early to mid-2010s. Massive Talent lets Cage own all the bad roles and remind the audience that he never really changed. The movie essentially says it’s OK to like Nic Cage.

 

Beyond the Nic Cage of it all, this is a reasonably enjoyable movie. I love how Pedro Pascal’s career right now is that once he removes the Mandalorian helmet, he’s a big goofball. If you blind pitched this movie too me, I would’ve imagined a John Leguizamo or Zach Galifianakis for this role. Pascal is a nice surprise pick. The rest of the cast are straight out of literally any random comedy movie from the last 5 years. Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz are some CIA agents who get involved with Cage. Sharon Horgan is Cage’s ex-wife (or maybe they’re just separated). A celebrity’s kid plays Cage’s daughter*. I liked Alessandra Mastronardi (who I mainly know from S2 of Master of None) showing up, although she doesn’t get much to do. No one is doing inspired work here – not even Cage – but, as they say, they all understood the assignment.

 

*It looks like that would be Lily Sheen, daughter of Martin Sheen and Kate Beckinsale. And she is perfectly fine in this role.

 

By all means The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent should be awful or at least too niche to be embraced by a wide audience. It works though. It’s not perfect. I don’t think there is a perfect kind of movie like this. The screenplay could be a little cleaner. Some of the humor is familiar or a little lazy. A 2-hr. version of this would’ve been interminable, so I appreciate the 1h47m runtime. I just fully enjoyed this movie. I never got the sense that they were holding back jokes that Cage wouldn’t allow. It’s an egoless performance and movie. I don’t need this to become a franchise, but I wouldn’t be against Cage doing something like this every few years. And it would be cool if this was a stepping stone to Cage getting another Oscar nomination a few years from now. Life imitating art, in a way.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Northman

Formula: (Thor + The Legend of Tarzan) ^ Immortals

 

I remember coming out of Robert Eggers’ last film, The Lighthouse, with an odd reaction. I didn’t love that movie the way I loved his first film, The Witch. It felt a little too much like the bit overtook the film. It was all sizzle AND steak but somehow no meal. However, I came out of the movie even more excited for what he’d do next. In a way, he’d gotten all the hard stuff out of the way. He proved he could nail tone. He could get visceral reactions out of an audience. He knew how to get really wild and interesting performances out of actors: really established actors who didn’t have to listen to him. He even showed an ability to scale up. The Lighthouse definitely felt more expensive than The Witch yet it still looked like he got ever last dollar of that budget onscreen. The only thing left for him was to get a bigger budget and more of a story board.

 

That’s exactly what The Northman is. This is the exact movie I’d hoped Eggers would follow up The Lighthouse with. He’s telling the story that Hamlet is based on. A young Viking prince sees his father get killed by his uncle, disappears for several years while dreaming of revenge, then returns to get that revenge. It’s still simple enough for Eggers to add all his flourishes but structured enough that it isn’t wallowing in them. The budget is about 7-8x The Lighthouse, but it still looks much more expensive than it is. This film has no business costing less than $100 million and makes me wonder what all these blockbuster directors are doing. While I still prefer The Witch, mainly due to genre preference, The Northman is the exact movie I wanted it to be.

 

Alexander Skarsgard plays the grown prince Amleth. Sure. He is a tad old for the role. I’d really prefer someone closer to 30 or younger. It’s especially weird since his mother in this, Nicole Kidman, played his wife in Big Little Lies*. Skarsgard otherwise works for the role. He’s Swedish and can get very ripped. Anya Taylor-Joy plays his Slavic sorceress love interest. It’s a fun use of her kind of crazy genealogy. She’s not ethnically ambiguous in the Ben Kingsley way. Instead, you can put her in anything as someone who isn’t from here, wherever “here” may be. It’s nice seeing her reteam with Eggers. Same with Willem Dafoe, who brings a lot of his Lighthouse willingness to go weird to this. Ethan Hawke is game too. This is a movie filled with actors getting really weird, and I’m all for it. This isn’t a movie about people trying to act like people. Eggers is so good at establishing a world and getting performances to match that very unsettling or irregular world. The Northman isn’t an accurate account of Scandinavian kingdoms. It’s more like an accurate account of what the Viking folklore would’ve sounded like around a campfire.

 

*Before anyone gets too deep into ageism in Hollywood in this, let’s point out a couple things. Kidman was likely cast to match Ethan Hawke as her husband early on. She is 9 years older than Skarsgard which helps split the difference. She’s too old to be his young mother and too young to be his old mother. If we also add in that Skarsgard really should be younger in this film, then it all feels less egregious. That’s not to say there isn’t ageism in Hollywood. There definitely is. This just isn’t the case I’d build my argument around.

 

I don’t have any real complaints about the movie. It’s a hair long perhaps, but what isn’t these days? I love that someone gave Robert Eggers a budget to make a Robert Eggers movie. The Northman is the final film I needed to believe he can go in whatever direction he wants. Continuing with highly stylized genre seems most likely, but I’d also be curious to see his toned-down prestige play or see what he could do with a major franchise. And before you complain about the idea of a Disney or Universal defanging him by throwing him into their machine, I’d like to point to Dennis Villeneuve as exhibit A. Anyway, The Northman is good.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

Formula: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them + politics

 

I really considered copying my The Crimes of Grindelwald Reaction and replacing all those mentions with “The Secrets of Dumbledore” and see if anyone would notice. I’m really not into this franchise even after being pretty optimistic about the first one. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was low stakes and presented Newt Scamander as a Doctor Who character they could use for standalone adventures exploring a different facet of the Wizarding World each time. By the second movie though, it became clear that they were using the franchise as another saga, and that the strengths of J.K. Rowling as a novelist were very different than as a screenwriter. Not much has changed for the third installment except that I feel even more left behind.

 

The Secrets of Dumbledore picks up shortly after The Crimes of Grindelwald. Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen replacing Johnny Depp) has his army of followers and is carrying out a plot to get elected as the head of the Ministry of Magic, at which point he’ll kill all the muggles. He somehow acquired the power of foresight, so when Newt (Eddie Redmayne), Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), and others hatch a plan to stop him, they have to be strategically uncoordinated (i.e. If they don’t know what they are doing, then how can Grindelwald?). In theory, that sounds like a really fun idea for a movie: a bunch of characters using their guile and creativity to combat a logical paradox. Like an improv show to save the world. This is the kind of playful idea that made the Harry Potter books so much fun. That’s how you get things like the time travelling in the third book or Harry getting the Philosopher’s Stone from the Mirror of Erised. The problem is that the idea is never fully embraced in this. Dumbledore always seems to know the entire plan. Toward the end, there’s a twist that seems to rely on the audience not knowing how to count to 5. None of it seems very thought out on a screenplay level. It actually requires a lot of work to make it seem like characters are making things up as they go along.

 

This comes back to a problem I had with the last film too. J.K. Rowling as the co-screenwriter for these is a problem. A writer has a lot of control over a novel. The publisher and editor have input but the lion’s share of the work is the author’s. With the success of Harry Potter, Rowling barely had to listen to an editor after a while. When those books were adapted to films, they were fully formed stories. This is important, because so much of a film is made in editing. The screenplay can point to the source material to argue for hinge points in the story. It’s clear what can and can’t be cut out to maintain the core of the story. With the Fantastic Beasts movies, I get the feeling that the screenplays were written more like a book, with a specific sequence and each scene mattering. That makes editing or changes during production super difficult. The Secrets of Dumbledore feels like a movie where the balance of the screenplay was compromised and the resulting film could never find footing. Nothing about this screenplay feels clever. It’s very perfunctory.

 

Similarly, I don’t find these movies very accessible to the non-obsessives. This film often feels like it was written entirely from liner notes in a book. It approaches much of the exposition from a perspective of “as you already know…” as opposed to “in case you didn’t know…”. I could follow the basics of it, but I sure felt like I forgot to do the summer reading before class started.

 

At the end of the day though, it is a Wizarding World movie from people who know what they are doing. It’s director David Yates’ 7^th film in this franchise. He can make a competent Wizarding World movie in his sleep. This film does make the argument that his take might be getting a little stale. There aren’t many franchises, good or bad, that keep on a director for that long. He’s on his 4^th US President since he began making these. Similarly, this is the 8^th movie in the franchise with Steve Kloves credited as a screenwriter. Pair them with J.K. Rowling who must be tired of this too, and you have a creative team who know what they are doing well, possibly to the detriment of the franchise.

 

The cast balance in this movie is off too. It doesn’t seem interested in Newt Scamander as a main character anymore. He isn’t a POV character and no one in the movie is that amused by him. Going back to my Doctor Who comparison, that character works because there’s a sidekick always trying to figure him out. There are no characters curious about Newt in this, and the way Redmayne plays the character, he tends to disappear. And I like Redmayne’s performance. It’s the franchise that has changed around him since the first movie. It wants Jude Law’s Dumbledore to be the lead. I wouldn’t be against that. Law is pretty good in this. It just feels like every scene he’s in, the camera eventually drifts to him and he has to respond with some version of “oh, you want this to be about me now?” Dan Fogler as muggle Jacob Kowalski has the story of a main character. He’s the chosen one of sorts. They bring him in on the mission for absolutely no reason other than “you were popular in the last two movies”. The movie would’ve been very dull without him, but they make no good case for his inclusion on a story level. Jessica Williams is a fun addition as Professor Lally Hicks. She doesn’t really get a character, but she’s competent. That might as well be a character, right? Alison Sudol returns as Queenie although right away, the movie is confused about why she’s following Grindelwald. She doesn’t have a heel turn. It’s more like she accidentally getting in the villain line at the amusement park and said she’d meet up with her friends when she got off the ride. I don’t know what to make of the recasting of Grindelwald. Mads Mikkelsen is a better actor than Johnny Depp at this point. This movie really didn’t need another stoic character though. Mikkelsen’s Grindelwald is very buttoned down and calculated. Most of his action happens in his eyes. That’s great, except I thought the point of Grindelwald was his charisma. Johnny Depp at least tried to bring that in the last movie. Mikkelsen felt like a stand-in in a very literal sense. I’d like to know the story of Katherine Waterston’s involvement in this. Was she busy with something else? She’s barely in the movie, but she’s in it just enough that I don’t think she was opposed to being in it more. While I like Jessica Williams, I don’t understand why Waterston didn’t step into that role on the team. I have to stop listing the cast there. It’s a Wizarding World movie. There are so many people in it. No one really stood out.

 

I am getting a lot of Solo: A Star Wars Story vibes from The Secrets of Dumbledore. Right now, this movie looks a lot worse than it probably will in a couple years. It’s a decently fun Wizarding World movie with a good cast and solid production value. Like Solo, there are a lot of flaws with the movie. It’s surely going to mark a course correction for Warner Brothers with this franchise. Going in, the film was marred by behind-the-scenes turmoil that colored my impression going in. With some distance, I’m sure this will look less bad and more mediocre. I’m not rooting for another one, but it’s entirely possible that they could repair this franchise with another one. It’s got the ingredients. The recipe just needs some work.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: In Cold Blood

Premise: Two murderers live their lives after killing a family of four, seemingly unaware of the investigation going on to find them.

 

Throw this into the list of movies that I respect much more than I like. A lot of what In Cold Blood is doing is pretty cool. It de-sensationalizes the events as much as it can. It’s a very matter-of-fact movie. The documentary approach is very rare for the time. The closest thing I can think of from that era is The Battle of Algiers. There’s even a little Citizen Kane to the structuring. Robert Blake is good casting that only got better over time. I never realized how much a young Scott Wilson had Lee Pace energy. There are a lot of movies that would never exist without In Cold Blood as a template for success. Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer definitely, but really any crime movie that strives for realism.

 

In Cold Blood may be a victim of its own influence though, much like old trial films that suffer as audiences understand how trials really work better. I’ve seen a lot of crime movies made since In Cold Blood. Every variation is out there. Murderers who are more inscrutable or more sociopathic. Crimes that are bloodier. Murders that are more professional or more deranged. I appreciate what In Cold Blood was in 1967, when Doctor Dolittle was a Best Picture nominee. It’s a key New Hollywood movie. The things that make it work can be topped in a way that contemporary films couldn’t. The Graduate (1967) speaks to a very specific moment in US history. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is so visually stunning that it still slaps today. In Cold Blood could’ve come out at any time, looked better, and had numerous similar caliber performances.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Red Riding Hood

Premise: The story of Red Riding Hood in a Twilight world.

 

We dodged a bullet with that Mank nomination for Amanda Seyfried. She has been famous for nearly two decades now (I think we can all agree on Mean Girls as her breakout moment). She’s had a very successful career and floated around critical accolades. Veronica Mars and Big Love on TV had pockets of love. She’s sometimes forgotten in the principal cast of 2012’s Les Misérables. Seyfried is almost too good at ceding the spotlight to others. She’s the third breakout from Mean Girls. She only exists in Veronica Mars as a memory. She’s the poster for Mamma Mia! but she’s by no means the lead of those movies. Jennifer’s Body has become a cult favorite, yet Megan Fox is still the first name for that movie. She’s led several movies, however they tend to look like Red Riding Hood: forgettable trend chasing. Thankfully, Mank got her that nomination with, yes, a supporting role, but the kind of supporting role that is what everyone remembers. Without Mank, I was really worried she’d hit a Parker Posey situation where everyone agrees she’s great but never at the right time. At a still pretty young 36, it’s exciting to see where things go for her now that she’s graduated to that level. An Emmy nomination for The Dropout certainly feels more likely now that she’s campaigning as “Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried”.

 

Thankfully, Red Riding Hood, Letters to Juliet, and In Time was only a phase. These are the thoroughly forgettable movies of a young-looking actress in her mid-20s who people are still figuring out how to utilize. Red Riding Hood is a relic from when studios were trying to deconstruct what made Twilight so successful. Was it the source material? Was it the young female breakout star? The male eye candy? The brooding and moodiness? The werewolves and vampires? RRH takes a couple of the pieces (hot young star, supernatural creatures) and tests it out. The movie isn’t very good. Seyfried somehow comes out of it looking fine. That performance in a better movie could’ve saved her from some of those forgettable mid-10s roles. Nothing else works though. The men in this cast are duds. Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons have a face-blind kind of handsomeness. It turns out, I’ve seen a lot of movies with them both and remember them from none of them. Billy Burke just plain doesn’t look right in a period movie like this. There are some Oscar winners in this. Gary Oldman takes any role he’s offered. I don’t get the sense that he prepared for this the way he would’ve for other roles. And Julie Christie confirms the criticism that Hollywood has nothing for actresses over a certain age.

 

I’m a little torn about the production design and costuming. The set is impressive in size and some of the costumes are quite striking. They all look fake though. I was always aware that I’m watching people on a movie set wearing clothes that were just dry cleaned. With period movies you have a choice to make: make a set and clothes that look worn in or make a set and clothes so impressive that I don’t care if they are fake. Red Riding Hood falls short of both.

 

Finally, let me be frank. Red Riding Hood just isn’t a feature length story. There’s not much to it, and the edits that have to be made to accommodate Red being a young woman instead of a young girl only make the story sweatier. This film doesn’t offer enough for a decent Amanda Seyfried performance to save it.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

Premise: The Teen Titans chase legitimacy by getting a film of their own.

 

I like that DC doesn’t have their shit together. They took a stab at a true extended film universe. That didn’t go as well as planned. Since then, they seem to be greenlighting any idea. Shazam! is off in its own world. Joker went in a totally different direction. Harley Quinn had a spinoff. The tones are all over the place. You could maybe even throw The LEGO Batman Movie in there. Mixed in with all of that is Teen Titans Go! To the Movies: a comic adaptation from the TV show. I have no idea how much this movie pulls from the topics and humor in the show. Certainly, the Justice League voice cameos are probably bigger than the show can get. Otherwise, this movie is just an excuse for DC to get in on the joke; make all the jokes the serious movies can’t. So, this has everything from the shared Marthas to a Stan Lee cameo. It’s a very fun dissection of the superhero movie craze.

 

As with most animated show film adaptations, I do see why this works best as a show. I enjoyed this from beginning to end, however I kept hitting saturation points. The intensity and comedy are designed for 10-20 minutes chunks and commercial breaks. This clocks in at 84 minutes and it feels like it. This is the kind of movie that makes me wish they’d bring back the old package films Disney used to do. Make this more explicitly 5-6 themed or connected shorts packaged together. Or perhaps I’m just revealing that I have the attention span of a toddler.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Premise: Some influencers buy up the Texas Chainsaw Massacre town to revitalize and…well…you know what happens.

 

I adore the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I fully understand the desire to keep remaking it or making sequels. It’s a simple premise that can be reconfigured a lot of ways. I’m 100% fine with someone taking a stab at it every couple of years. However, I do remain unconvinced that anyone will get a sequel/reboot/requel right. The first movie is cheap and ugly. There’s no history that it’s responding to, and that’s why it works. It’s a grizzly movie that isn’t trying to prove anything. Every attempt at a sequel either wants to expand on the idea or tries to manufacture the lo-fi look. That’s hasn’t worked. The lack of explanation is what made the original work. There’s a difference between costing $50,000 to make and getting $5,000,000 to make something look like it cost $50,000.

 

Other than the title, which I’ll get to in a side rant, I like a lot of what this new movie is bringing to the franchise. It’s not a re-envisioning or a reboot. It’s much simpler. “What would be a fun group of victims for this installment?” It’s a movie that is very aware that it’s the 9^th installment of a franchise that has never had a great sequel. I don’t think it’s trying to be a great sequel. It just doesn’t want to be the sequel everyone complains about when going through the series. In that respect, I think it’s a success. It has some gory kills. It went for nice low hanging fruit in terms of targets. A horror movie set in the 60s kills hippies, in the 70s kills disco dancers, in the 90s kills grunge people, and in the 2020s kills influencers. It’s the good kind of lazy. Best of all, the movie is short and to the point. It doesn’t spend too much time investigating who Leatherface is or how a man who must be in his 70s now is still so good at killing. He just is. Give him 81 minutes to kill people and leave me with enough time to fit in another movie after it if I want.

 

While I’m forgiving of a lot about the movie, I can’t say I cared much for it. None of the characters were all that interesting, even as types. There’s wasn’t a lot of creativity in terms of location scouting or how to shoot things. Very little buildup of suspense or terror. I’m starting to wonder if found footage is the only way to get the right level of griminess for a proper sequel. I really didn’t care for Elsie Fisher being the survivor of a school shooting. That’s was the wrong kind of tasteless.

 

Side Rant: I’m starting to think title “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a problem. It’s a perfect title. However, it is a long title that you can’t do much with. Giving it a subtitle (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Leatherface’s Revenge) is too long and clunky. The words in the title don’t work unless they’re all together. Calling a sequel “The Oklahoma Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Texas Machete Massacre”, or “The Texas Chainsaw Slaughter” would get the point across that it’s part of the franchise, but it doesn’t sound right. I really don’t think Leatherface is evocative enough to work as its own title (the 2017 film with that title didn’t even get a US Theatrical release). So, we’re stuck giving these movies really unhelpful titles. This is the third one called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unlike the 2003 movie, this is a sequel, not a reboot. It’s not even a launching point movie. It’s simply a Texas Chainsaw Massacre installment. This movie absolutely should have a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 9: Rebirth, but that sounds awful, not to mention that there’s no consistency to the titles before it.

 

Compare this franchise to similar ones. Halloween is short and generic. It could be any Halloween. Friday the 13^th is longer yet still uncommitted. A Nightmare on Elm Street is about as wordy as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it implies that there could be multiple nightmares and invites contortions of the title. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is definite. There’s “the” massacre. The title is a mouthful and all words are needed. There’s isn’t much implied variation there. Perhaps the title has doomed all sequels. Just a thought.

 

[Correction: I realized after writing this that this title is "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Most of my points still stand though.]

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Quick Reaction: Short Cuts

I respect the hell out of Robert Altman’s work in these ensemble movies but the magic trick just doesn’t work on me. This is quite the juggling act. The cast is huge. The number of stories going on is incredible. The way they mix together is impressive. It’s had to find a weak performance. But the net result is that “I spent 3 hours for that?” I had a similar reaction to Nashville and The Player, although I see why Nashville is generally the highest praised. I don’t need frogs falling from the sky, but I need just a little more to bring everything together. The earthquake wasn’t enough of an inflection point. In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that this film’s only Oscar nomination was for directing. The greatest accomplishment of this movie is that it somehow comes together into something coherent. It’s so damn long though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Black Bear

Premise: A look at a marital struggle through different phases of a film production.

 

This is definitely a movie where I feel confident about my read of it yet I’m equally confident that someone who made it would tell me I’m wrong. I see it as a deconstruction of a marriage told through the stages of film production. Like someone has reverse engineered a relationship. It’s a relationship in trouble in a film for the first hour. It’s then about how the relationship in the movie is informed by the fractured relationship during production. And the film ends with the beginning: Aubrey Plaza’s character ready to take her experiences to inform the writing of the screenplay. It’s a clever movie. Perhaps too clever. Like the filmmaker watched Mulholland Drive too many times and wanted to apply it to a love story.

 

Aubrey Plaza holds it together for me. Her natural sarcasm and willingness to try anything lead her performances in interesting directions. She’s impossible to read in the first half then a raw nerve in the second. Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon are fine too, but there’s a reason it’s Plaza on this poster.

 

The first part is overall stronger than the second. It’s just three characters and all three are playing more natural roles. When it shifts to the film production later, it’s more unwieldy. There are so many more characters. Abbott and Gadon don’t seem as comfortable. Even Plaza doesn’t seem fully right until she gets drunk. The comedic tone injected in the second half threw me off too. When it ultimately ends with Plaza about to write the movie, it felt a little self-congratulatory.

 

I respect the effort of this movie. It’s a good idea. It took me a while to get proper footing watching it, which I believe was the point. I’d rather watch this than the more generic movie I thought I was watching at first. It just doesn’t fully work for me. I wish they could’ve found a way to break it into three parts instead of two. Really show of the evolution of the story and the different dynamics in each.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Body of Lies

Premise: A CIA agent attempts to catch a terrorist in the Middle East.

 

It’s nice how there’s seemingly a never-ending supply of populist Ridley Scott movies to stumble onto. There’s aren’t many directors who are more reliable to deliver an entertaining, competent movie. He makes one every year or two, especially in the 2000s. Some are Oscar plays. Others are just for fun. He always gets a cast and has people who know what they are doing on the crew. Body of Lies is a movie that I won’t carry with me for any amount of time. But, when I was looking for a movie to watch that didn’t make me go through a whole emotional journey, I was happy to find this one in my queue.

 

This is a movie from what I call Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dirrty phase. He was boy wonder from about 1993-2000, where he was in full heath throb mode. From 2001-2004 he was in his weaponized youth phase, taking roles like Catch Me If You Can that used his youthful appearance as a way to very serious roles. From around 2005-2008, he picked some “dirt on his hands” roles that played down his looks (The Departed, Blood Diamond, Body of Lies). Roles that didn’t rely on his movie star charisma at all*. Leo never disappears into his Dirrty phase roles. I like his pissant energy though. These guys all have Scrappy Doo energy. I almost feel like if you brought up Titanic to him in those years, he’d tell you to fuck off. I don’t think he’s an optimal Ridley Scott protagonist. He’s a bit too intense. Scott’s best movies tend to have characters who seem annoyed to even be doing this. They’re often sarcastic and/or tired. Like, I can’t imagine what Scott would do with a Daniel Day Lewis showing up on set with all that intensity. Leo makes it work, partly because Scott is not a director whose vision can be overpowered, but it’s not his cleanest fit in a role.

 

*For the record, after that is his Oscar hunting phase (2009-2015) and his current phase that so far I’m calling the “Just for fun” phase.

 

Body of Lies also sums up 2008 Middle East stories in the US. Post Invasion of Iraq, pre-killing of Osama Bin Laden. There’s still some belief that all these efforts will result in something although there’s annoyance that it hasn’t yielded results yet. We weren’t at a terrorist story saturation point yet. 4 years later and this would make a lot more sense as a TV show.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: I Want You Back

Premise: Two strangers form a friendship and alliance to get back together with their exes.

 

One of the underrated aspects of a proper RomCom is that it’s easy to assemble a good cast for them. It turns out, actors enjoy an easy job for a decent paycheck working in chill conditions with presumably pleasant people. That’s the sense I get from I Want You Back. The movie doesn’t get anyone who isn’t normally gettable. It just gets a lot of them. Charlie Day and Jenny Slate are nice leads. Scott Eastwood and Gina Rodriguez are good choices for the exes. It is a bit of a shame to see Rodriguez underused here. I was delighted to see Manny Jacinto and Clark Backo as the new partners for the exes. It’s like Jacinto and Backo are in a training program to lead their own RomComs in a couple years. You’ve got Dylan Gelula and Mason Gooding there in the background, living their own RomCom about a couple trying to get rid of their irresponsible roommate. Pete Davidson shows up for some reason. They even get Benjamin Mackenzie for a scene. And while I know Mackenzie is in his mid-40s, it still feels rude to me to have him as the father of a teenager. Look at all those names. How am I supposed to not watch this movie?

 

Once you get past the cast, there isn’t much to this movie. We’ve all seen RomComs. We know how this is going to play out. They aren’t in the business of pulling the rug out from under anyone. I’m not sure I’d want them to try and get ahead of the audience for this either. There are some small choices I appreciated. I like that it doesn’t make anyone the villain. The exes aren’t toxic people who Day and Slate shouldn’t want to be with. They are just compatible with other people. Same with the rival love interests. It would be easy to sell out Jacinto as a himbo jerk, but they decide to redeem him instead. I appreciate that the movie doesn’t oversell the moment when everyone finds out about Day and Slate’s plan. It ultimately doesn’t matter. The others are rightly pissed, but they do seem to appreciate that their plan was ineffective.

 

My biggest issues with the film are more key to its success, sadly. Day and Slate never read as more than friends to me. The characters don’t feel written to their strengths. Along those lines, the movie isn’t very funny. There are long serious stretches. Even some of the comedy set pieces fall flat. When Day gets trapped in the laundry bin as Eastwood proposes to Backo and proceeds to have set with her is funny on paper. I spent most of the time dreading the idea that he’d get caught, yet they also don’t take advantage of how awkward that was for Day. The movie is full of missed beats: moments where the director notices the scene is lacking energy, looks around at the wealth of screen talent around him, and comes up with a quip or zinger. So, no matter how winsome the cast is and how genuinely good-spirited the movie is, this is a RomCom that doesn’t sell me on the Rom or the Com. There’s only so good it can be.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend