Black Bag: Sex, Spies, and Videotape

Jeremy BeckReviews
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett in Black Bag

Multiple dinner parties take place in Black Bag, and you, perceptive viewer and honored guest, are expected to bring a number of things to the soiree. Don’t worry about the wine or the hors d’oeuvres; your host, director Steven Soderbergh, has all manner of luxury covered. Your job is to arm yourself with more sensory gifts: a sharp set of eyes, the better to peer through the low digital lighting; an engaged and discerning mind, crucial to navigating David Koepp’s labyrinthine script; and a healthy appreciation of classical glamour, incarnated here by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender.

That last ask is hardly a tall order. Blanchett and Fassbender are capable of getting dirty—she melted down memorably in Tár, he went feral in 12 Years a Slave—but they’re best associated as ambassadors of crisp, patrician elegance. Here they play Kathryn St. Jean and George Woodhouse, and if those names don’t tip you off as to their nationalities, their accents and wardrobe surely will. One of the first times we see George, he’s prepping a roast, decked out in a striped apron, his features accentuated by a neat haircut and severe black spectacles; after a dollop of sauce stains his shirt cuff, he insists on changing before the company arrives. Quite a few crimes are committed in Black Bag—theft, murder, unauthorized government surveillance, bleeding on a new rug—but the one offense that unifies the characters is that of aggravated Britishness. Read More

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Mickey 17: Live Esprit or Die Scarred

Jeremy BeckReviews
Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17

Cinema is a medium of imagination, and science-fiction is a genre of possibility. So it’s understandable that movies about the future tend to be, if not optimistic, at least aspirational—conjuring a realm of flying cars and exotic planets and soulful cyborgs. Mickey 17, the latest whatsit from Bong Joon-ho, tacks in the opposite direction. It asks, with a mixture of whimsy and sincerity: What if the future sucks?

To be fair, this line of prospective apprehension has its own gloomy descendants. (Just last year, Alien: Romulus continued that franchise’s preoccupation with capitalistic drudgery, conceiving of a mining colony where indentured servants labored in permanent darkness.) But Bong’s vision here is distinctive for how it depicts galactic exploration as an error-riddled process that’s permanently, perpetually janky. Hardly anything works smoothly in Mickey 17; its characters are constantly beset by glitchy conveyor belts and ineffectual antidotes and crappy cooking, not to mention the usual human malice and venality. It feels a lot like the world of today, only with more spaceships and aliens. Read More

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The Monkey: Toy to the World, the Sword Is Come

Jeremy BeckReviews
Theo James in The Monkey

Longlegs may have cemented Osgood Perkins’ stature in the horror community, but his twisted sensibility has been fully formed ever since his debut feature, The Blackcoat’s Daughter. In both of those films, as well as the two that came in between (Gretel & Hansel and I Am the Pretty Thing Whose Title Is Too Long), Perkins flaunted his gifts as a skilled purveyor of heebie-jeebies, wielding slick camerawork and atonal rhythms to keep viewers on edge and off balance. You might think that venturing into the realm of Stephen King would only elevate the director’s midnight-madness credentials, but The Monkey, which Perkins has adapted from a King short story, is his least scary movie thus far. There is, however, a reason for its relative lack of terror. Quite simply: It’s a comedy.

Specifically, The Monkey deploys countless variations of a single joke. It posits, not without cause, that the spectacle of watching human beings die on screen can be funny as well as tragic. This is undeniably in poor taste, which is part of what makes it amusing. Perkins, channeling his bloodletting instincts in a direction that’s silly rather than spooky, commits to his premise with innovative gusto. People don’t just die in this movie; they are shot, stabbed, dismembered, decapitated, electrocuted, immolated, trampled by horses, and engulfed by a swarm of bees. It’s your worst nightmare, unless you’re a coroner who loves your work. Read More

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Oscars 2024: At a Sturdy Ceremony, a Daring Victor

Jeremy BeckOscars
Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in Anora

The internet demands extreme reactions; favored adjectives include disastrous, extraordinary, loathsome, and life-changing. This tends to chafe with my obnoxious penchant for suggesting that most things are Fine. So this year, I’ll do my best to deliver a hot take and proclaim that this year’s Oscars were… pretty good! They were not exceptional; most of the speeches were dull, the songs were a bore, and the lack of clips/footage was infuriating. But while Conan O’Brien initially seemed to be pulling the tedious shtick of complaining that the nominated films weren’t “popular” enough (I groaned when he mocked the length of The Brutalist), his overall vibe proved positive, earnest, and charming; no single movie was the butt of his jokes more than he was himself. His general enthusiasm infected the rest of the show, which had the feel of a playful, buoyant get-together. If Hollywood’s celebrities indulged themselves while the world around them burned, at least they had a good time and let us vicariously share in their joy.

As for the awards themselves, in one sense the Academy spread the wealth; eight of the 10 Best Picture nominees scooped up at least one trophy, with five of them scoring multiple victories. But the night belonged to Anora. Yesterday, I noted the oddity of my predictions, which pegged Sean Baker’s odyssey to win the top prize but only one additional Oscar; I knew that I’d be wrong, but I wasn’t sure which way. Happily, my favorite of 2024’s contenders went on a spree, winning five of the six categories it was nominated in. The sands of history will decide how this quasi-sweep is perceived, but in the moment, I’m very pleased for one of the year’s most enjoyable and poignant movies.

Per tradition, let’s run through the categories in their order of presentation and see which ones I messed up: Read More

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Oscars 2024: Full List of Predictions

Jeremy BeckOscars
Selena Gomez in Emilia Perez

Tonight’s the big night, so for your convenience, we’re combining all of our predictions in the 20 feature categories at this year’s Oscars into this omnibus post. It’s curious that, while I’m (tentatively) picking Anora to win Best Picture, I’m also pegging it to take just one other prize; if that holds, it would be only the second Best Picture winner to do so since 1952 (along with Spotlight).

Of course, that won’t hold; a number of these picks will be wrong. Last year I went 18-for-20, thanks in part to Oppenheimer’s dominance; I expect to do far worse this time around. Which is cool! Praise be to a suspenseful and unpredictable 97th Academy Awards. (Categories are arranged alphabetically; click on the header link to be taken to our analysis for that specific race.)

Best Actor
Will win: Adrien Brody—The Brutalist (confidence: 2/5)
Should win: Ralph Fiennes—Conclave
Worst omission: Glen Powell—Hit Man Read More

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