Why You Should Dismiss Emmy Nominations

Emmy prognostication just isn’t as fun as Oscar prognostication. I have to remind myself of this every year around this time. I spend a lot of time making predictions and doing deep dives into both, and no matter how I measure it, the Oscars are more entertaining. I'm even tempted to say they are better. And this isn't a Movies > TV argument. I've been firmly in the TV camp my entire life, even before the golden or platinum or peak-TV age of television, or whatever you want to call it. No, the point of this post is to explain why you shouldn't bother getting worked up over Emmy nominations the way you should even with the Oscars.

I'm going to start with a little math. I'm sorry. I'll try to keep it simple, but it's the best way to illustrate my biggest point. In 2016, BoxOfficeMojo lists 736 films that were released in theaters. Let's say that's roughly the pool of movies for the Oscars*. Let's says those average out to 2 hours each. It's probably less, but I'm OK with that number. That means, to watch all the movies for that year, you would need 1472 hours - a little more than 61 days. On the Emmy nomination ballot, there were 180 series submitted for Outstanding Drama series. Those shows almost all last 42-60 minutes. Most are closer to 42 minutes, so let's say the average show is 45 minutes long per episode. Season lengths vary from as few as 6 episodes to 22+. To make this easy, I'm going to average it out to 13 episodes per season. That means, to watch all those shows, you would need 1755 hours - more than 73 days. That's 1472 hours  (movies) to 1755 hours(drama series), and let me remind you that I purposely overestimated movies and underestimated the drama series lengths. By the way, there's also another 540 hours of comedies** and 140 hours of limited series. I didn't even make estimations for TV Movies, Variety Talk and Sketch series, Variety Specials, Special Class Programs, Short-Form Comedy or Drama Series, Short Form Variety Series, Children's Programs or Series, Reality (Structured, Unstructured, and Competition) Series, and Information Series. That is an unwieldy amount of things to watch in order to fill out an informed nomination ballot. Yes, it's true that, much like the Oscars, the nomination process is broken up by the different branches (i.e. Performers pick the performer categories, writers select the writing nominees, etc.), but I checked. According to the official Nomination Voting Procedures "All members are entitled to vote for outstanding program nominations. This rule does not  include  animated  programs or  documentary/nonfiction  program  categories". So, at the nomination stage, everyone votes for their top 5-7 series in all those categories.

*Technically, shorts, foreign films, animated films, and documentaries have their own processes that aren't exactly tied to theatrical releases that year. Then again, not every film submits for the Oscars, so I'm going to say it balances out.

** 104 series. 24 minute average length. 13 episode average season. That's a significant underestimation considering the number of hour-longs in the category and network 20+ episode orders.

*** 25 series. 45 minutes average length.  7.5 episode average season. Again, a significant underestimation.
The point I'm trying to make is that there's not enough hours in the day for even the most retired Television Academy member to cover it all. Most of the academy members are people who are still working though. What hope do they have?

Now, no one, not even for the Oscar voting, has seen everything. We all curate our selections. That's natural. TV curation is much harder than film curation though. There's two big reasons for this.

1) You can stop watching a TV show, but should you? A television series is a constantly evolving piece of content. How many times have you heard someone tell you "It gets a lot better after the __th episode"? For some shows, a pilot or a synopsis is plenty to judge it. I've been dead wrong about enough shows based on what I assumed about it that I don't really trust anyone who hasn't watched the whole thing. Think about how hard it would be to sell someone on a premise like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a classic but it didn't get there until the end of the first season (if I'm being generous). And how many episodes is enough to judge a late night show? Do you know how many hours of The Tonight Show there are? I don't but I know it's a lot. How do you even rate one season of it versus an earlier season? I get why those shows get nominated based on reputation. I want to make it clear that I'm not wagging my finger at Emmy voters for not doing their homework. My argument is that it's an impossible amount of homework in the first place. It's no wonder that Emmy inertia* happens.

*Once something starts getting nominated, it keeps getting nominated and if something is snubbed, it stays snubbed.

2) Where are the precursors? Say what you will about the Oscars, but the endless precursor awards really help narrow things down for the Oscar season. There's all the critics awards first. Those are people who are paid to do nothing but watch movies. They  weigh in and champion as many small movies as they can. Some movies take hold and move to the guilds to weigh in on after that. That's when the people who work in specific fields highlight the rock stars among their peers. All the while, the National Board of Review, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, BAFTA Awards, Gotham Awards, and others weigh in. By the time it gets to the Oscar nominations, you know the contenders. Your disappointment is tempered when your favorite film is snubbed because it's been ignored all along. Look, I loved The Nice Guys last year. I also knew it wasn't in the running for anything. The Emmys are different. I guess you can call the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, or PGA Awards precursors. They literally are following a different calendar though and carry very little momentum. For example, the Golden Globes and Emmy winner for Dramatic series has only matched up 7 times in the last 20 years. When the Emmy nominations are announced, literally anything feels possible. I tricked myself into believing that The Leftovers could really sneak in some major nominations this year because nothing was there to tell me I was wrong to think that. All I heard was the sounds of a lot of critics banging their drums for the series. Critics don't vote for the Emmys, thus, no nominations for The Leftovers.

I don't even know if the Television Academy knows what it wants to stand for. Does it want to recognize the highest quality shows on TV? Does it want to reflect what people are really watching? Does it want to represent what's best for the industry? Last year was a banner year for the critical community at the Emmys. Critical darlings on little seen shows like Tatiana Maslany, Rami Malek, and Louis Anderson came away with trophies. Master of None raked in nominations. Tired shows like Homeland and Modern Family were nominated but not taken seriously. I don't think I've ever been happier with a set of Emmy nominees. Granted, that was a hiatus year for The Leftovers, so I could excuse the lack of nominations. This year, things went back to business as usual, kind of. Many of the best shows on TV went minimally or un-noticed. The Leftovers got a token Guest Actress nomination. Rectify ends as a 0 time Emmy nominee. The Americans inexplicably fell out of the Outstanding Drama field. Those were left out to make room for shows like Stranger Things and This Is Us. As much as I like both of those shows, are they really the best shows on TV? I say "no". Then again, aren't these progressive picks in their own right? Both are massive audience hits, yes, but they  each have formulas they tend to be ignored by Emmy voters. Stranger Things is a genre series with a very young cast. When was the last time something like that got nominated? The Wonder Years? Kind of, maybe. This Is Us is a broadcast network family drama: a genre some theorized was dead. It took Friday Night Lights five seasons and technically a move to cable to get this kind of Emmy attention (and it was never a ratings hit). Is there really a big difference between This Is Us and Parenthood or Brothers & Sisters? Is it so wrong for Emmy voters to recognize that broad appeal, especially in this fractured entertainment landscape, is a quality unto itself?

My point is that without an actual awards circuit around it, the Emmys have to serve as everything. They are expected to have the qualitative acuity of the National Board of Review or the LA/NY Film Critics, the populist "what's hot now?" fickleness of the Golden Globes, and the historical record austerity of the Oscars. And, it's supposed to do this across a broader spectrum of programming and with no precursor circuit for guidance.

It's great when your favorite show gets recognition you believe it deserves, but don't trust that the Emmys are the place to do it. I don't know if there is such a thing as a good system for recognizing the best that television has to offer. If there is, I hope someone finds it. As is, it's not the Emmys. I'll still be examining the nominations and winners because I find institutions like this fascinating. However, you really shouldn't get that worked up by it. There's too much good TV to watch to waste time complaining about what a bunch of people too busy to watch it think.

Top 10 Movies I've Seen in 2017 So Far

Since I released my Top 10 TV Shows of 2017 So Far yesterday to mark the mid-point in the year, like I did last year, I wanted to do a movie list as well. Here's the problem: The first half of 2017 hasn't been that great for movies. While the TV/Emmy calendar front loads the year, movie studios back load the hell out of their schedules. Of the movies that have been released, not a lot has really connected with me. I'm sure it will even out by the end of the year. Already in July (which I won't be including here), I've seen two strong Top 10 contenders for the end of the year in The Big Sick and Spider-Man: Homecoming. The rest of July looks abnormally strong too.

Regardless, I tried to come up with a mid-year top 10 list for 2017 movies and it wasn't very good. So, I decided to try something else. I've watched a bunch of movies for the first time this year from years before 2017. I'm going to rank all of them. In that respect, a better name for this post would be "My Top 10 Recommendations From January to June 2017". This is what I came up with.

Top 10
1. The Blues Brothers (1980)
This is a classic that doesn't really need me to champion it. It really holds up.

2. Free Fire (2017)
I don't think this is for everyone, but it sure was for me. This 90 minute shootout is a stupid good time.

3. Margin Call (2011)
This is a smart screenplay that manages to squeeze a lot of tension out of some pedantic business matters, and it avoids many of the lazier "evil businessman" tropes without letting them off the hook. That's harder to do that it sounds.

4. Paradise Lost: Purgatory (2011)
It's hard to pick just one from the trilogy of documentaries about West Memphis Three. I'm going to go with the last one because of the cumulative effect it has even if you haven't seen the first two parts and for the happy(ish) ending it gets. This is a tremendous series that I strongly recommend.

5. Rashomon (1950)
I finally got around to this classic. As much as I liked the movie, I'm probably most excited to be able to say things like "It has a Rashomon quality to it" any time a movie I see plays with POV at all. I get to mark that off my pretension checklist. It's a classic for a reason though.

6. The Look of Silence (2014)
The powerful follow-up to The Act of Killing. Killing was more brutal. Silence was more dangerous. I know that a subtitled documentary about an Indonesian genocide is a hard sell on just about every level. I promise that it's worth it.

7. Tower (2016)
I swear, this will be the last documentary. I've gone documentary crazy over last few months. This is a pseudo-animated retelling of the University of Texas shootings in 1966 told by the people who were there. The mix of animation and actual footage make this feel more alive than I imagined possible. It's barely 90 minutes and is as tense as any thriller you'll find.

8. All About Eve (1950)
What can I say? Bette Davis is great. It's crazy to think the same year had both All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard.

9. The Handmaiden (2016)
I wasn't seeking out a twisty Korean/Japanese period film, but I kept getting enough recommendations from the internet that I decided to give it a try. I'm sure glad I did. This is a trip. Funny, smart, a little kinky, and surprising at every turn.

10. Baby Driver (2017)
I might as well fit in another 2017 movie. I don't know if this movie has any nutritional value, but it has all my favorite things put together for a great dessert.

Next 10
(I won't say anything about these. I just wanted to get them out there)
The One I Love (2014)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
The Beguiled (2017)
Arthur (1981)
Mistress America (2015)
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
Get Out (2017)

And in case you were wondering, my top 5 for 2017 so far are:
1. Free Fire
2. Baby Driver
3. The Beguiled
4. Get Out
5. Logan
(Wonder Woman barely missed the cut)

Top 10 TV Shows of 2017 So Far

It's July and that means two things: We are at the midpoint of 2017 and I am bored as hell. This is my big lull project-wise. I have Oscars in the Winter, basketball and TV in the Spring, Emmys and year-end prep in the Fall. Starting July 1st, I need something to do. Thanks to the recent irrelevance of my DVR Bloodletting, I decided to start doing mid-year check-ins.

I'll be making a list for TV and Movies I've seen this year. As you'll see tomorrow, I had to make some changes  to how I do the movie list, because there's just not enough to check in on. TV doesn't have that problem. Most of the best programming airs before July thanks to all the networks maneuvering to release around the Emmy voting calendar (i.e. November/December is to Movies as April/May is to TV). Last year, six of my mid-year top 10 series were still in my end of year top 10. This year, I'm expecting even more.

A couple clerical points I'd like to note. This list includes any show that has aired new episodes this year that I have seen, including some still in the middle of their seasons. For network shows, I'm only including the episodes that aired since 1/1/17, which certainly handicaps them against shows with full seasons. Finally, this is a snapshot in time. I reserve the right to switch up the order for my end of the year lists.

1. The Leftovers
Favorite Episode: The Book of Nora
How to Find It: HBO Now/Go
I wish I had the dedication to write about TV the way I do about movies, because I'd've written a tome about The Leftovers every week it was on. I almost put out a retrospective piece on it too, but it got lost in the shuffle. I loved the divisive first season that many found too bleak. The more universally praised second season was terrific as well. The eight episode third and final season that aired this year was the best and craziest of the bunch. I love the world that Damon Lindelof and Tom Perotta built. I love all the performances too. I challenge you to find a stronger lead quartet than Carrie Coon, Justin Theroux, Christopher Eccleston, and Amy Brenneman. Every week was something new. Choosing a favorite episode is close to impossible. I could've picked "G'day Melbourne" for the no holds barred verbal brawl between Kevin and Nora. Or "Don't Be Ridiculous" which brought Mark Linn-Baker in to turn one of the series' running jokes into one of the best guest performances on any show this year. I wouldn't be wrong to call the out of sync "Certified" the season's best for sneaking in an extra-episode's worth of information in the margins of an already significant episode. I nearly went with the insanity of the tiger sex boat in "It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World" that has one of the great closing lines of any episode of TV. As the sequel to season 2's "International Assassin", perhaps the show's best episode overall, I have nothing bad to say about the lunacy of "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)". However, I'm picking "The Book of Nora" for being the satisfying ending to the series that I didn't realize I wanted: a two-hander with a 20-years-older Kevin and Nora that reminded me that this series was a small character story, not about the larger mysteries of that world. This was a final season that really held nothing back, and I will miss it greatly.

2. Better Call Saul
Favorite Episode: Chicanery
How to Find It: Current Season Unavailable. Previous Seasons on Netflix
What the hell? Wasn't Better Call Saul supposed to be the comedy spin-off of Breaking Bad that we laughed off until it finished a moderately successful, albeit unremarkable, run? Instead, it's giving Breaking Bad a run for its money. The stakes will never be as high on Better Call Saul, but the talented team running the show sure makes it feel like it's high stakes. It's still two (almost three, depending on how you place Kim) shows in one. Mike Ehrmantraut's half got deeper into the Albuquerque underworld, finally putting him in a room with Gus Fring. Mike's story has because a lesson in how to move a narrative forward in as few words as possible without diminishing the audience interest at all. I'm amazed how much I care about Jimmy McGill's story. All the stakes on that side are small and interpersonal but no less impactful than a feud between two cartels. The trial in "Chicanery", the standout episode in a great season, was as tense as anything I'll see this year. I wasn't looking for Better Call Saul to become one of my favorite shows. It earned it.

3. Master of None
Favorite Episode: Amarsi Un Po
How to Find It: Netflix
Speaking of shows I never expected to like. Based on Parks & Rec and his stand up, I had no reason to think that Aziz Ansari (and the often under-credited Alan Yang) had something like Master on None in him when the first season premiered in 2015. I was ready for it with season 2. This is a thoughtful, inventive, funny, heartbreaking, and clever series. The second season isn't structurally different from season 1 - half random musings, half doomed romance - but there's a lot of room to be creative in that. This is another series with a lot of great contenders for my favorite episode. I admire the obvious Italian cinema homage of "The Thief" and the concurrent stories in "First Date". "New York, I Love You" introduces unconnected characters who I'd gladly watch an entire series about. "Religion" captures much of what made "Parents" the most discussed episode of the first season. By my year end list, "Thanksgiving" will probably and rightfully end up my favorite. For now, I've gotta go with the raw emotional nerve left by the hour-long "Amarsi Un Po" though. Ansari is every bit deserving of his Emmy love. Even though Francesca isn't as fully developed at Rachel was in the first season, Alessandra Mastronardi's chemistry with Ansari is undeniable. I hope it's not too long before Ansari and Yang are back with season 3.

4. Veep
Favorite Episode: Georgia
How to Find It: HBO Now/Go 
Two things are undeniable: This was the weakest season of Veep in several years and Veep is still one of the best comedies on TV. It's almost splitting hairs to call seasons 4 & 5 an A+ and this an A-. The bench of characters they have to pull from is unbelievably deep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus continues to give an all-time great performance. Timothy Simons is a force. Sam Richardson is one of TV's great scene-stealers and does so with superb efficiency. Kevin Dunn, Gary Cole, Matt Walsh, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Reid Scott, Sarah Sutherland, Clea Duvall, Dan Bakkadahl. All great! In season 6, the writing staff took a chance by moving beyond the President's office to mixed results. A few times, characters, Selina in particular, were a little too awful to the point of being mean. The show managed to remain just as funny though, so who am I to complain?

5. Review
Favorite Episode: Cryogenics, Lightning, Not Reviewing
How to Find It: Comedy Central's website if you sign in with your cable provider
Are you still not watching Review yet? Was my glowing praise of it in 2015 not enough? Or did you not even realize that a third season happened? Well, you aren't alone. Review was never watched by a large audience and Comedy Central's attempts to advertise for season 2 went unnoticed. Andy Daly and company were granted a tiny three-episode season 3 to end the show on their terms and did so with aplomb. All three episodes were great and the finale was fittingly dark, sad, and hilarious as "reviewer of life" Forrest MacNeil proved that he was his own greatest enemy. The whole series is only 22 episodes. That's a low time investment and it's well worth it.

6. Legion
Favorite Episode: Chapter 7
How to Find It: Illegally
The first of two Noah Hawley FX shows on my list. Just a soon as I was worried that there wasn't anything new a TV show could do with a Marvel property, this came along and blew me away. I mainly started watching because I liked what Noah Hawley did with Fargo and I'll see anything with Aubrey Plaza in it. Now I have to look up everything Dan Stevens and Rachel Keller have been in* because they are great too. This is probably the weirdest show I've seen this year (I haven't seen Twin Peaks, which I know would beat it). This show was overflowing with originality in a superhero show landscape that was starting to feel pretty stale. I could've easily named the excellent pilot as my favorite episode for how effectively it set up the universe and style of the series. Or, I could've gone with the oh-so-weird "Chapter 4". I loved the Bolero fight in "Chapter 7" enough to push it over the edge though.

*Except Downton Abbey. I've let that ship sail.

7. The Americans
Favorite Episode: Dyatkovo
How to Find It: Current season unavailable. Previous Seasons on Amazon Prime
The Americans had a weak 5th season only in comparison to the three seasons that preceded it. I love the patience of the show. They managed to make 15 minutes of digging a hole riveting. That's impressive. Matthew Rhys looks thoroughly miserable for 13 episodes and no one does that better. Keri Russell finally showed some cracks in her steadfast allegiance to mother Russia. Holly Taylor is the best child of a prestige TV protagonist since Kiernan Shipka in Mad Men (and possibly even surpassing her). As powerful as the scene was when Phillip and Elizabeth develop Paige's photographs of Pastor Tim's journal in "Darkroom", nothing this season tops the execution of a former Soviet traitor that nearly pushes Elizabeth over the edge in "Dyatkovo".

8. Fargo
Favorite Episode: Aporia
How to Find It: FX's website if you sign in with your cable provide. Previous seasons on Hulu
Season 3 of Fargo took a little longer to get going than previous seasons. The story was a little tighter in Season 1 and Season 2 went all-in repeatedly with great results. I loved the moral ambiguity of Season 3 too. Carrie Coon and Mary Elizabeth Winstead gave a pair of powerhouse performances that made up for other ills. I sure hope that Fargo doesn't go on hiatus for too long.

9. The Good Place
Favorite Episode: Michael's Gambit
How to Find It: Hulu 
Only four episodes of the first season aired in 2017. I liked the first couple of those episodes fine. However, it's the big twist in the finale that was too awesome for me to not give it a place in my top 10. I don't watch shows to "figure them out", so I let the twist surprise me as much as it could and marveled at how it completely transformed the first 12 episodes. Besides, as I've said before: Kristen Bell + Ted Danson + Michael Schur is a winning formula.

10. 13 Reasons Why
Favorite Episode: Tape 6, Side A
How to Find It: Netflix
I covered a lot of this in a post already a few months back. As I figured, I've come off the high some. It's is an imperfect show that completely sucked me in.

(Notable shows I haven't seen this year: Twin Peaks, American Gods, Billions, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Catastrophe, Fleabag, I Love Dick)

I can't believe the shows that I'm leaving off this list. Big Little Lies (HBO Now/Go) and The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu) were superb in nearly every way. I can see either of these moving into the top 10 by the end of the year. Silicon Valley (HBO Now/Go) is still one of the funniest shows on TV. Last Week Tonight (HBO Now/Go) is a victim of its own consistency. SNL (Hulu) had a banner season, especially Melissa McCarthy's inspired work as Sean Spicer. Speechless (Hului) capped off the strongest debut season for an ABC comedy since Modern Family. Oh, and When We Rise (Hulu). How could I forget that? You don't see many true mini-series like that any more, and Dustin Lance Black did a great job with it. It's impossible to see everything, but I'm pretty pleased with my selections so far this year.

Movie Reaction: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Formula: Spider-Man - 2 years + MCU

Let's all agree to pretend that The Amazing Spider-Man & its sequel don't exist. Emma Stone took a little break between a great 2011 (The Help, Crazy, Stupid Love) and her Oscar nominated turn in Birdman. Andrew Garfield has been in a uninterrupted string of critical hits from Never Let Me Go and The Social Network in 2010 to 99 Homes, Hacksaw Ridge, and Silence more recently. Director Mark Webb has been filling his time since 2009's 500 Days of Summer mostly with TV work, although he just make the quaint Chris Evans movie Gifted as his theatrical return. Denis Leary has been focusing on TV work and Ice Age movies for the last 15 years straight. The screenwriters have been keeping busy with other unremarkable movies*. Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Dane Dehaan, Felicity Jones, and Paul Giamatti haven't popped their superhero movie cherries yet. See? Easy enough. Those movies just didn't exist. Let's continue.

*Seriously. They did not call in a murderers row to write those movies.

It's been a decade of false starts for Sony with the Spider-Man franchise. We last saw the webbed crusader in Spider-Man 3, which was a massive hit but a creative disaster that left no one involved wanting to come back for a part 4. Sony hasn't been doing great with their superhero properties lately. After the Ghost Rider sequel crashed and burned in 2012, they've stayed out of the Marvel business entirely. Finally, after too long of a wait, they've teamed up with Marvel Studios (i.e. Disney) to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe* with the very enjoyable Spider-Man: Homecoming.

*Technically, he did show up in Civil War, but this is his first stand-alone movie.

The two words I heard a lot leading up to this movie were "ground level" to explain the approach of the film. Director Jon Watts and company followed through with that. The Avengers are saving the world. Peter Parker is just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I guess Sony learned their lesson with the last Spider-Man movie - 2007's Spider-Man 3 - that it's best to not get too big. There's no need to outline the next 3 sequels down the line. The worst mistake they could've made with this would've been to start the first movie in the reboot with something big like, say, the Lizard trying to poison all of New York City. That would be too much too quick.

Homecoming employs a similar strategy to how BvS: Dawn of Justice introduced Batman: it assumes we all know the story already. Peter was bitten by a radioactive spider and gets his powers before the movie begins. He lives with his Aunt May (Marissa Tomei). His uncle (I assume his name was Ben) isn't around any more. You can fill in whatever blanks you need. All Homecoming is concerned with is that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is still in high school. The film begins with a delightful explanation of Spider-Man's involvement in Civil War and the nature of his relationship with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Happy (Jon Favreau). Beyond that one special mission, he's an on-call Avenger and hasn't been called on since. Most of this film is Peter being bored and clumsily getting used to his powers. He is a nerd at school. He has a best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon) and a girl he likes, Liz (Laura Harrier). There's a bully who isn't actually threatening (Tony Revolori) and - hey - Zendaya's around for some reason. Eventually, Peter stumbles onto an underground weapons manufacturer (Michael Keaton) who is using dangerous alien technology. It's a fairly contained story and it works along the margins of the MCU nicely.

The Marvel formula is pretty simple and Homecoming effectively sticks to it. There's a few key actions sequences and enough plot to keep things moving forward. Otherwise, it's a funny movie. Everyone in the movie knows how to get a laugh.Hannibal Buress and Martin Starr are teachers at Peter's school. Donald Glover shows up a couple times. Michael Keaton's henchmen are familiar faces from other comedies who you probably couldn't name but might might recognize. Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau know how to bust into a room, get a laugh, and leave. Even Zendaya gets some zingers. Tom Holland really should be more annoying than he is. He's playing an overeager and needy teenager which should spell disaster. He makes it work though. He knows exactly when to pull back before getting annoying and can switch into hero mode comfortably. I'm still partial to Tobey Maguire, but that could change with a sequel or two.

Another thing I appreciated  [that's only a spoiler if you haven't seen any of the trailers] is that Peter's friend Ned knows about Peter's identity pretty early. In the Rami movies, Peter had to carry this burden on his own too much. Between Ned as a sounding board and Tony Stark's supervision, Peter has the kind of support system that keeps the movie light and fun.

Homecoming isn't perfect. It has the same issues that you could pick at in all of the Marvel movies. All of it is silly. There's at least one big plot coincidence that had my One Big Leap-senses tingling. Spider-Man causes millions of dollars of property damage throughout the movie that appear to be consequence-free. Frankly, I just don't give a damn about any of that. Quit trying to kill my buzz.

I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming as part of a back-to-back with The Big Sick. It's going to be hard to do better than that any time soon. This was exactly the Spider-Man film I was hoping for after waiting a decade for the character to return to the screen in his own film. At the end of the day, regardless of the actor, Spider-Man is the most popular Marvel hero among general audiences and this was a great reminder why.

OK, we can go back to acknowledging the Andrew Garfield/Emma Stone movies...I didn't like them. I enjoyed writing this reaction a lot more by excluding those movies. They were better than Fantastic Four. We'll always have the crane scene. RIP.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend 

Movie Reaction: The Big Sick

Formula: Funny People / While You Were Sleeping

"Based on a true story" is a cheat. The more a movie sticks to telling the story it's based on, the less I can pick at it. I can't say "this would never happen" or "that's too much of a coincidence" if it really happened. I don't have a deep reservoir of movie criticism thoughts. Cinematography and production design are lost on me, especially in contemporary films. When editing is good, it's hard to even notice it. The music and score I don't normally pick up on until at least a second viewing. I can pick out some performances I like. Mostly, in these Reactions that I do, I'm responding to how well a movie tells a story, and if the story is true, that's gets tricky. Can I even apply my handy-dandy One Big Leap test to something like The Big Sick? Not really. It's a cheat, I tell you, a cheat - a protective shell a story can hide inside.

Not really though. Films rarely ever claim to be 100% true. If nothing else, no one actually remembers word for word conversations they had and events never organize themselves as cinematically as a film requires. The discussion ends up being about how well the fictionalized story reflects the honesty of the actual events. And there's a lot more that can be said about that.

The Big Sick is, as I've mentioned, based on the true story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon. I'm pretty familiar with those two already between seeing them on Comedy Central's The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail and them popping up on all sorts of podcasts I've listened to. So, I'm not sure if my perspective on the movie will be the same as someone who maybe only recognizes Nanjiani from Silicon Valley or not at all. That won't be a limiting factor for anyone though. The film tells the story of how Kumail and Emily met, broke up, and got back together. Nanjiani plays himself in the film and Gordon is played by Zoe Kazan*. They meet while Kumail is still an aspiring stand-up looking for his big break and they hit it off immediately. Kumail keeps her distanced though, because he's hiding her from his traditional Pakistani family. His family, his mother in particular, wants him to agree to an arranged marriage. If Kumail doesn't follow through with this, there is a good chance he will be excommunicated from his family. Emily learns of this in a non-ideal way and they break up. Soon after, Emily gets sick and Kumail is pulled back into her life. She goes into a coma. He then bonds with her parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano). All the while, he's still trying to keep his comedy career moving forward and figure out how to be honest with his own family. The trailers cover about this much of the story, so I'm not considering any of this a spoiler.

*The real Emily is not an actress and didn't want to play herself anyway, so don't get upset that they cast a pretty Hollywood actress to play her part.

There's a lot of story packed into this. The movie is almost 2-3 smaller movies - pre-coma, coma, post-coma - combined into one. I really liked all the stories though. Early on, Kumail and Emily (Kazan) have a charming chemistry together. It's different enough from what I know about Kumail and the real Emily that I could appreciate what Kazan was bringing to the role. Zoe Kazan is an actress I'm familiar with although I haven't seen any of her more notable roles. Her history in movies like Ruby Sparks and What If, appear to have prepared her well for this. The film has to develop that relationship quickly and it succeeds. Kumail proves to be a much better actor than I expected. I had no doubts about his comedy chops, but he makes the more dramatic parts work too. I imagine the personal connection to the material helped with that. Hunter and Romano don't show up until after Emily is in the coma. It's a late introduction, but they establish themselves swiftly. I don't need to tell you that Hunter is great in the "mama bear" role. She's Holly Hunter after all. Romano might be a bit more of a surprise for anyone who hasn't seen him in Men of a Certain Age or Parenthood. He's shifted his dry comic persona to a world-weariness that works well for more dramatic roles. They cast some Indian and Pakistani actors* to play Kumail's family. I don't really recognize them from anything else, but they're quite good. 

* The parents (Zenobia Shroff and Anupam Kher) are established Indians actors and the brother (Adeel Akhtar) is a Pakistani actor who has been featured a little more stateside.

The movie isn't perfect. There's a little too much story juggling. The stand-up stuff is underserved. However, I'd rather that be the case than make the movie any longer. It's already long enough at about 2 hours. This also features an odd pet peeve of mine. I don't like on-stage breakdowns that are supposed to mark a dramatic shift in the movie. I had a similar issue with Obvious Child and Don't Think Twice. When it happens, I can't help but imagine being in the audience when it happens and how awkward that would be. It's only a big moment for the person on stage. The Big Sick does recognize that awkwardness though, so I give it more of a pass.

The movie is funny, although it's not a laugh a minute. It's a comedy the way that Funny People is a comedy. You'll laugh plenty. Even the jokes that have been used in all the trailers and commercials still got a good response. There will also be stretches in which it abandons the jokes when they don't fit. I liked the balance, but if you come in expecting, I don't know, Knocked Up, you'll be disappointed. Crazy, Stupid Love is another good example of the tone it's aiming for. Not quite as light though.

I really, really liked this movie. It's almost a lock to be in my top 10 at the end of the year. For anyone complaining about the death or dearth of the RomCom, this'll give you some hope. I love films that are this personal. One of the things I love about Superbad is that you can tell this was a script Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg began writing as teenagers and went through numerous drafts an phases over the years. It's shaggy and messy and doesn't follow all the best practices of screenplay writing, but its authenticity makes up for it. The Big Sick has the same quality. It's a husband and wife teaming up - oh yeah, Kumail and Emily wrote the screenplay -to tell a story only they can tell. There is no movie without that. 

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend 

Delayed Reaction: Tallulah

The Pitch: Juno steals a baby.

This'll be a great movie to point out the difference between a reaction and a review. I write reactions of movies. This started because I didn't feel knowledgeable or articulate enough to write reviews. I'm better at that now to the point that my Movie Reactions function as Reviews. I still like the idea of the unorganized thought though. When you think too hard about something, you can trick yourself or be affected by outside influences. Reactions are honest and immediate. If I find a movie boring or if I was distracted while watching it, then I may end up not even talking about the film at all in the reaction. It's a loose system.

All this is building up to say that I didn't like Tallulah and it's all because of one thing that I couldn't get past: I don't like stories about the escalation of a lie or a bad decision. Call it a pet peeve or an aversion to lazy writing, but as soon as the story hinges on a lie that a character should know better than to keep up, I mentally check out. I think back to the 5th season of The Wire - the dual lies of McNulty's fake serial killer and the journalist who lied about his stories. That's what ruined that season for me. Similarly, Tallulah fails to diffuse or escape her situation repeatedly and I wanted to crawl out of my skin watching it. It's a shame too, because there's a lot of stuff in the movie I really liked. Oscar Nominee Ellen Page and Emmy-juggernaut Alison Janney are both excellent in this. It tackles issues of motherhood and aging so well and with touches I don't often see. However, the stealing of the baby and everything about it that follows lands uncomfortably close to farce and derailed my appreciation of the movie too often.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

July Movie Preview

June got busy late with a few weeks sagging in the middle. July looks steady all the way through, and that's without figuring in whatever expansions movies go through. No sense wasting any time. What's coming up?

2017
 Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June  
2016
Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec  
2015

Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | June | Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec 

2014

Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

2013

Mar |  Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

7/7

Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man adapts to living life as a normal teenager after getting his powers.
Working for It: Tom Holland won a lot of people over with his brief appearance in Civil War. After Sony tried to stuff the world-building down our throats with Amazing Spider-Man 2, this appears to be taking a step back and taking a small-scale approach instead, like Ant-Man (tee-hee) a couple years ago. While having six writers attached to the script is somewhat alarming, the names in the list are impressive, such as Chris McKenna (who probably wrote your favorite episode of Community) and the team of John Francis Daly & Jonathan Goldstein (Horrible Bosses, Vacation). Disney looks committed to giving the movie support help from Robert Downey Jr. in particular. Oh, and Donald Glover, Martin Starr, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Angourie Rice (the daughter from The Nice Guys), and the list keeps going, not to mention Michael Keaton as the villain.
Working Against It: So many writers worries me. I'd like a director with some more familiar credits to his name, although I do recognize that Marvel movies are produced more than they're directed.
Verdict: I know I'm too committed to the Marvel movies to start missing any now, and this one looks like a lot of fun.

City of Ghosts [Limit]
A documentary about ISIS protesters living anonymously in an ISIS-controlled region of...(I forgot to check what country).
Working for It: This looks like a natural follow up to Cartel Land for director Matthew Heineman. He excels at ground-level filmmaking and appearing to put himself in danger to get access and footage. This looks like it will be an invaluable glance into a part of the world we don't see much of from this perspective.
Working Against It: Cartel Land was a case of the topic being more interesting than the filmmaking on display. I think there's no way that the story of ISIS protesters will be boring, but it would be nice for the editing and filmmaking to do some of the work.
Verdict: It's probably worth finding eventually if it stays around for the awards circuit or critics lists at the end of the year.

A Ghost Story [Limit]
A white sheet ghost stalks an old house and the people living in it.
Working for It: It's a Sundance film from David Lowery (Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Pete's Dragon) starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. This certainly looks more like Ain't Them Bodies Saints (which I still need to see) than Pete's Dragon. Either way, I'm calling that a good thing. I like the lead actors and I'm a sucker for Sundance films.
Working Against It: The trailer looks downright Terrence Malick-ian. I'm not convinced about if I like Malick though. That trailer is cryptic in content and filled with pull quotes about how great it is without saying all that much about it. In short, it's a mystery and perhaps a pretentious one.
Verdict: I won't be risking a movie ticket on it, but it will go in a streaming service queue when it gets to one of them.

7/14

War for the Planet of the Apes
The conflict between man and ape escalates further.
Working for It: I assumed Rise of the Planet of the Apes would be as false a start as the 2001 Planet of the Apes was. Instead, it was a contained and heartfelt movie. I assumed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was an ill-fated attempt to raise the stakes that was relying too much on ape characters that the audience would have trouble connecting to. Instead, it was an exciting action movie that deftly handled themes of the delicate nature of maintaining peace and fear of "the other". In other words, I'm just going to trust that War will be pretty good instead of doubting it. It bringing back one of the writers and the director of the last movie. It still has Andy Serkis as Caesar. It adds Woody Harrelson, who improves more movies than he hurts.
Working Against It: But, real talk for a minute. The trailer makes Harrelson look really hammy. And, looking at the cast, this is the least reliant they've been on a human cast (Harrelson is the only human actor who I recognize at all), which worries me some.
Verdict: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was too good to not see what the third act will bring.

Wish Upon
A girl finds a box that grants her wishes at a deadly cost.
Working for It: If supernatural horror movies about teens with a PG-13 rating is your thing, this looks fine. Joey King is the lead, and other than Ryan Phillippe, the only person in the cast I recognize*.
*Scratch that. It also has Dong from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so...
Working Against It: Is Joey King well known? I know who she is. I've seen her in a bunch of movies and TV shows. I know she's not a Dakota Fanning or even a Chloe Moretz. Is she like a Bella Thorne who everyone under the age of 20 knows but adults don't? Regardless, this doesn't look like a great vehicle for her.
Verdict: This is not for me.

Lady Macbeth [Limit]
A 19th century English woman who has been sold into marriage begins an affair with a worker on her estate, kills her husband, and tries to hide it.
Working for It: ...At least, that's the impression I get from the trailer. Visually, it looks like The VVitch, although it doesn't appear to be a horror movie. It has that indie film circuit vibe that I normally respond well to.
Working Against It: It's the debut film for the director and screenwriter. The lead actress has few credits, none all that notable. If this is good, it has to be taken on faith to see it. I can't point to anything drawing me in on their past experience.
Verdict: Realistically, I'll forget that this exists, but I would appreciate it if I saw it.

7/21

Dunkirk
Allied WWII soldiers are pinned down by the German on a beach and must be rescued by civilians.
Working for It: Christopher Nolan's biggest creative "miss" was Interstellar and that was still pretty good. I trust him to deliver a good movie. He pairs frequent collaborators like Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy with the likes of Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance. That's enough to feel pretty good about this.
Working Against It: I don't know how we haven't run out of WWII stories by now. If it wasn't for Nolan, I wouldn't be excited for this.
Verdict: A Nolan movie is always worth seeing.

Girls Trip
Four lifelong friends take a trip down to New Orleans.
Working for It: I like Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifa, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish (some more than others). I'm encouraged by seeing Kenya Barris (showrunner of Black-ish) as a credited writer. I'm sure if I watch this, it will be decent enough.
Working Against It: It's from the director of The Best Man Holiday. I'm not a big fan of that movie and this looks pretty similar.
Verdict: This weekend will be busy enough.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
A space opera based on a long running French comic series about a special operative duo tasked with stopping a dark force that threatens the giant city of Alpha.
Working for It: This is by far the most intriguing question mark of 2017. Will it do well in the US? Will it matter if it does well in the US? The Valerian and Laureline series, by my understanding, is an institution in Europe but not as well known stateside. I'm reminded of the 2011 Tintin movie in that respect, because that too is a property largely unknown by the US public, and that film underwhelmed in the domestic box office. Valerian is a massively expensive movie (>$200 million) with an ambitious marketing campaign. I have no doubt in director Luc Besson's ability to pull this off (just look at The Fifth Element), but let's not forget that 2014's Lucy is the only film of his to even break $100 million in the US Box Office. Stars Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are familiar to some, but hardly big stars on their own. The supporting cast, including Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, John Goodman, Clive Owen, and Elezabeth Debicki, aren't pulling that many people in on their own. The movie looks really interesting and very well could be excellent. I just don't know, and that's what intrigues me.
Working Against It: This movie feels like a big gamble. I'm getting a lot of John Carter/Warcraft vibes, which is worrisome. The last time I remember a studio putting this much into a single unproven property that actually worked out was The Hunger Games, and even that only had a $78 million budget.
Verdict: I'm invoking the "Lone Ranger" rule, which roughly states that if I've seen trailers for a movie enough times in the months leading up to its release, I will see it. I don't know what "enough times" means exactly, but if the combined number would be the length of a feature film, it counts. It  helps that I'm also very curious about it in general.

The Gracefield Incident [Limit]
Three couples on a trip in the woods stumble onto some sort of alien invasion.
Working for It: This is a found footage movie, which is a style that I like to an unreasonable degree. That's about all this has going for it, since I don't recognize the cast or writer/director.
Working Against It: As much as I love found footage, it doesn't have many cards left to play. This film looks like a mix of the first and last stories in V/H/S 2, so it doesn't get points for originality.. At some point, found footage films work so hard to explain why or how this person would still be recording in this situation that's it's hard to buy into anything else in the film.
Verdict: This doesn't look like it's worth seeing.

7/28

Atomic Blonde
Charlize Theron is an undercover MI-6 agent during the Cold Wars who kicks ass and doesn't take names.
Working for It: If Charlize Theorn kicking ass is enough for you, then don't even bother. This is being positioned as a female John Wick. The director of this even worked on John Wick in an uncredited role. It also has Sofia Boutella, presumably taking advantage of her physicality more than The Mummy did. James McAvoy and John Goodman too.
Working Against It: Recent hits like John Wick and Lucy have made us forget about all the Aeon Fluxes, Ultraviolets, and Jason Statham movies that aren't able to successfully employ the beat em' up formula. This is not a guaranteed hit.
Verdict: John Wick 2 has me too encouraged by the genre to skip out of this.

The Emoji Movie
A failed 'meh' emoji looks for his purpose in the world.
Working for It: Sony Animation has assembled a fun voice cast including TJ Miller, Anna Faris, Patrick Stewart, and many others. There's a part of me that says, since there's no way that Sony isn't aware of how bad this idea sounds, there must be something special about this we don't realize yet that convinced them to make it anyway.
Working Against It: This is the movie that comedians like Mindy Kaling write about in their books with they talk about bad studio pitch meetings. There's no positive spin I can give on this. It looks like either Sony scraped from the bottom of the intellectual property barrel for this idea or made the least inspired rip off of Inside Out imaginable. Possibly both. This is the same family of companies that released the Angry Birds Movie last year, so this shouldn't surprise me. Is Farmtown or Candy Crush coming in 2018? Words with Friends in 2019?
Verdict: This is a hard and principled 'no'.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power [Limit]
An Inconvenient Truth, 10 years later and in direct response to Trump.
Working for It: An Inconvenient Truth is a multi-Oscar winning documentary with a topic that is as timely as it was a decade ago. It seems like this one has a bit more production value.
Working Against It: The trailer makes this look too pointed toward Trump or like a big "I told you so" in response to the first movie. None of that is what I'm looking for in a documentary.
Verdict: If I didn't see the first one, what hope does this have?

Menashe [Limit]
An orthodox Jewish widow looks for a way to be allowed to raise his son on his own.
Working for It: This is known on the festival circuit as the film that's all in Yiddish. That's enough for me.
Working Against It: All unknown actors, from a documentary filmmaker taking a stab at fictional narrative, and it sounds more like an experiment than a fully realized film. There's a lot of reasons not to trust this.
Verdict: I'm not going out of my way to see this, but if I see it on a Netflix list one day, I'll probably watch it.

Movie Reaction: The House

Formula: Casino / Sisters

I'll be straight with you. I have no special insight about The House. It isn't a film that requires one. It's a simple movie. The idea is that Amy Poehler and Will Ferrell, Kate and Scott, are the parents of a daughter, Alex (Ryan Simpkins), who gets into Bucknell. The scholarship they had lined up for Alex falls through and they have no back up plan. Scott's friend Frank (Jason Mantzoukas) convinces them to open a casino out of his freshly abandoned house (the result of his pending divorce). And that's pretty much it. There's some business about a local city councilman (Nick Kroll) who is the straw man villain and a local cop (Rob Huebel) investigating the casino. A mob boss too. That's just plot to fill time and give this some semblance of structure.

This is not a tight script. It's more of a heavily workshopped sketch that got ballooned out to fill 90 minutes. Some plot was thrown in at the beginning and end, but mostly, the idea is to fit in a bunch of jokes about a suburban illegal casino. Some of the jokes are good. Others aren't. Nothing lingers long enough to be a problem. That's kind of my biggest issue too. There's way more conflict than the movie needs and it's all half-baked. They introduce both a corrupt city councilman and a mob boss character to potentially be the main villain. They float the possibility that Mantzoukas' spending could be their undoing, or that the conflict could entirely be that Farrell and Poehler are sacrificing their relationship with their daughter for this scheme. Any of these things would've been enough to support the film. I wonder if, given the already short runtime, they just needed all that to fill time. It seems like the premise is joke-rich enough for that not to be the case.

The cast is overflowing with actors you will recognize, even if you actually know the names of only a couple of them. It's basically all the sketch performers they could find between the ages 30-50. Farrell, Poehler, and Mantzoukas at the center of the film deliver exactly what you want and expect them to. They get some big laughs. Poehler is the best of the three at being funny as an adult. Leslie Knope gave her a lot of practice. Ferrell is still trying to figure out how Frank the Tank can still work as he prepares to turn 50. It's an awkward transition, but he's making it work. Mantzoukas likes to play characters who I can't believe functioned in society for the 30+ years before the film begins. It works within the film though. I don't know what to make of Simpkins as the daughter. It's a limited role, but she fit comfortably with Poehler and Ferrell when she got the chance. I'd like to know if she's funny or just looked like she could be the daughter of those two.

The House is not designed to be a movie that you pick at. None of it is plausible, even within the world the film creates. It's good for some laughs, which is the height of its ambition. If you were a fan of Sisters, you are nearly guaranteed to be a fan of this. Sure, this film doesn't need to exist, but I don't mind that it does.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Baby Driver

Formula: Drive ^ Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I wish I was an Edgar Wright fanboy. There's certain directors whose superfans seem like they are having a great time. Tarantino diehards get super-invigorated for everything he does. Kevin Smith had that going for a while. I'm pretty close to it with Christopher Nolan, I suppose. I like Wright, but I wouldn't say I'm a fanboy. I don't count down the days until his next film. I don't even think I've rewatched any of his films. And it's a limited filmography that we're talking about: just the Cornetto Trilogy and Scott Pilgrim unless you go back to his British TV days. Shaun of the Dead is good, albeit over-hyped. Hot Fuzz didn't leave a mark on me at the time, although I've heard an increasing number of people list that as their favorite of Wright's films more recently. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World brought in a new audience for Wright. I think the film is fine, but I'm mostly impressed by how great the cast is. The World's End is probably my favorite of his films, but it wasn't even my favorite examination of friendship taking place during an apocalypse that came out that year.

I was looking forward to Baby Driver being the movie that got me to fully buy in. The trailer is my favorite of the year so far and the reviews have been uniformly favorable. Basically, it looked like Drive, but fun. That turned out to be pretty accurate. Baby Driver tells the story of a driver named Baby (Ansel Elgort). He's always listening to music because a childhood accident caused there to be a hum in his ear he tries to drown out. He's a precision getaway driver repaying a debt he owes to Doc (Kevin Spacey). Doc rotates through thugs to run all sorts of heists but he always uses Baby as his driver. Baby falls for a diner waitress, Debora (Lily James), right as he finishes paying off his debt to Doc, hoping to leave that life behind. And, wouldn't you know it, he gets pulled in for one last job before he's really free. The plot is familiar. The execution is what gives the film life.

Edgar Wright shifts his love of music into overdrive with this one. Baby is always listening to music. So much so that the few moments when he doesn't have earbuds playing something are very uncomfortable for the audience. I believe Wright wrote the screenplay with the songs already chosen (a screenwriting 101 no-no thanks to the difficulty of getting all the rights) and it shows. Scenes are edited around the songs, not the other way around. This keeps the film lively throughout, although there is a bit of a burnout effect by the end. It's a lot.

Wright also has a lot of fun with the stunts. I've been complaining a lot about the awful geography of action sequences this summer, from Pirates 5 to Guardians 2 to Fate of the Furious. That is not a problem with Baby Driver. Scenes are carefully considered and easy to follow. He often goes wide on a number of shots to show off the precision of the sequence and clearly sets the players and placement in a location before something goes down.

The movie puts together a good cast. Spacey was born to play a role like Doc. Lily James is charming enough in a thin-by-design role (Is it just me, or does the British accent translate to a Southern accent easier than other American accents?). The collection of thugs (Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Bernthal, Flea, and Lanny Joon) are perfectly scuzzy, with a solid mix of them playing with and against type. CJ Jones has a nice role as Baby's deaf foster father. I like that they hired a deaf actor for the role too. I think Elgort is the only person I'm not sure about. Apparently, I've seen all but one of his movies, and I still don't know how I feel about him as an actor. He doesn't really fit in this movie, which is kind of the point. He's fine, this just isn't the right role to judge him with as a performer.

My biggest problem with the film is that it lost control of the story by the end. Early on, everything is very tight and considered. By the end, a number of thematic and story threads are ignored or over-simplified in order to fit in another or escalate an action sequence. Wright is normally so good at fitting an emotional core into whatever genre movie he's working on. It was surprising how thin and haphazard it was this time.

Baby Driver is up there with Wonder Woman as the best films this summer has offered so far. That's faint praise given the paltry selection so far and isn't likely to last long with a stacked July. It's Wright's most crowd-pleasing film to date and a two-hour dessert. If Wright can make this kind of popcorn action movie for "only" $34 million, what's the excuse for all these mediocre films with 5x the budget?

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend 

Movie Reaction: The Beguiled

Formula: The English Patient * The Witch

I'm going to pitch a movie to you. It's about a Union soldier during the Civil War fighting in the South. He is wounded on the battlefield and flees to the woods rather than die in battle. In the woods, he is found by a young girl who brings him back to her school, filled only with women. The handful of women remaining in this school all vie for the handsome soldier's attention. They have fancy dinners for him and dress in their nicest clothes. They even let him stay around a while after his injuries heal despite it putting them at great risk if the local Confederate soldiers find out. Things eventually get out of control and he tries to take charge of his situation.

What I've just laid out is more or less how I'd describe The Beguiled, but it misses the point. The key is that the Union soldier isn't the subject of the film, he's the object of it. Everything does revolve around him, but it's not his story. A friend of mine joked that despite a 7:1 female to male ratio, this film manages to fail the Bechdel Test, which just serves as a reminder that the Bechdel Test is a shorthand, not a definitive measure. Think of it in the reverse. If there's a movie about two guys who like the same girl and spend the entire film competing for her, that film is still about the two friends, not the girl. That's what's going on in The Beguiled. It's a film about how all these women respond to this new stimulus in their isolated environment. In this case, the stimulus is a good-looking soldier played by Collin Farrell.

This is a stellar cast. Farrell plays a charming chameleon. It's clear early on that he's a sort of con-man, although not one outright. He changes how he acts around the different women. We aren't entirely sure what his motivation is. The movie doesn't put us in his head, which makes him a great mystery. It's the female cast carries this. Nicole Kidman as the headmistress is stern and reserved. Kirsten Dunst is the schoolteacher, desperate to get out of her current disappointing life. She's the most blinded to the soldier's charms. Elle Fanning is, most simply put, a horny teenager. She's bored by virtually everything and attracted to Farrell because he's something new that she hasn't figured out yet. Her positioning and angling in nearly every scene made me chuckle every time. The other girls (Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, and Emma Howard) all have similar shades of the same big brother response to Farrell with a touch of schoolgirl crush. The film an examination of women representing different stages in life and how they respond differently to the same situation. I was impressed by them all.

The film is set during the Civil War, but it doesn't need to be. It's in its own world. The Civil War just gives an excuse for all the other men to be gone. What I enjoy about this is what I liked so much about Free Fire (a very different kind of movie). I love a story that sets up characters in a confined space and sees how they bounce off each other. There's very little plot that's externally-driven once Farrell gets in the house. It's all interpersonal conflict. That's how I like it. Even when the film takes a big tonal shift in the third act, it fits with the rest of the film.

Coppola's direction very well may be the star of this movie. I love how the film is lit. It's a very dark film. If you told me they filmed it only using natural light, I'd believe you. It feels like something awful is around the corner the whole time. That reminded me a lot of The Witch last year. It lingers more than it scares. There's a dread throughout. Coppola's sense of humor is equally dark. Like some amazing gallows humor with the girls' stitching lessons, for example.

I can already tell this movie is going to grow on me. I saw a bunch of movies this weekend, and this is the one I keep coming back to. It's a similar feeling I had with The Witch. I can't shake it. It's excellently directed and well acted. The story is simple and it's a lean 90-ish minutes. It won't be for everyone, but if you like low-boil thrillers with a haunting touch, this is a good one.

Side Note: Ok, one thing was bugging me the whole time I watched this. I'm 95% sure I've never seen the 1971 original film, but this story felt very familiar. Does anyone know of another movie or maybe an episode of a TV show that pulls from this story structure? I haven't found anything yet.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend