Jeremy Beck

Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.

In “Long Story Short,” Jews Will Not Be Replaced

Jeremy BeckFeatures
A scene with the full family in Long Story Short

Long Story Short is a surrealistic animated comedy whose plot points include wolves invading schools, mattresses bursting from tubes, and donors misplacing sperm. It’s the most relatable TV show I’ve seen in years.

This dissonance isn’t exactly unthinkable. Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of Long Story Short, is best known for BoJack Horseman, the wonderfully ridiculous Netflix series that anthropomorphized animals and afflicted them with decidedly human problems. Compared to the absurdity of BoJack, Bob-Waksberg’s newest effort can feel downright grounded; there are no talking cats, no underwater festivals, no three kids standing on top of each other in a trench coat presenting as “Vincent Adultman.” But aside from confining its speaking parts to two-legged creatures—there is a cute dog named The Undeniable Isadora Duncan, but it merely barks—Long Story Short resonates with me for a more specific reason: It’s a rich and complex portrait of American Jewishness. Read More

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Original Screenplay Weekend, Again: Honey Don’t, Eden, and Relay

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ana de Armas in Eden, Margaret Qualley in Honey Don't, Riz Ahmed in Relay

The top grosser at the box office last weekend was a sing-along version of KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix’s animated phenomenon about a girl-pop trio who use their musical talents to battle demons disguised as a boy band. I’m not lamenting this; it’s a mostly charming movie, and it’s nice to see any Netflix product in theaters, even if that company remains philosophically committed to eradicating the very existence of cinema. KPop Demon Hunters is also an original work, meaning its success derives from thoughtful artistry and word-of-mouth rather than by leveraging intellectual property.

Not every new release last weekend was so triumphant. Look considerably lower down the box-office chart, and you’ll find the debut of three movies with original screenplays that combined to gross less than one-third of Demon Hunters’ $19M. (I’m ignoring Splitsville, which played in just five theaters across the country.) When I last performed this exercise in 2021, I expressed gratitude that original pictures had returned to theaters as the industry rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic. Four years later, I’m less optimistic about our cinematic future. But let’s celebrate (and evaluate) what we’ve got, while we’ve still got it. Read More

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Sydney Sweeney Is Not Your Sexpot

Jeremy BeckFeatures
Sydney Sweeney in Americana, Euphoria, and Anyone But You

On last week’s episode of Platonic, Seth Rogen and Beck Bennett rhapsodize about the attractiveness of Sydney Sweeney. Their appreciation manages to be simultaneously crude (“She’s stacked”), onomatopoetic (“She’s ridonk-adonk”), and even architectural (“She’s cantilevered, she’s like a Frank Lloyd Wright building”), though Bennett later insists that his admiration is intellectual as well as physical (“She was the head of her high school robotics team!”). It’s a playful sequence that also proves to be vaguely prophetic, because right now Sydney Sweeney is, in pop-culture terms, Having A Moment.

To be clear, I am not referring to her American Eagle jeans ad, which dropped last month and whose purported backlash (read: a handful of people kvetched about it online) ignited a counter-assault of manufactured right-wing outrage (about “wokeness,” or whatever). I’m instead talking about the arc of Sweeney’s career: an ongoing refinement that blends sex appeal, actorly talent, and interesting choices. Put those qualities together, and you have the makings of a true-blue movie star. Read More

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Weapons: From Soup to Guts

Jeremy BeckReviews
Julia Garner in Weapons

The title is plural for a reason. The characters in Weapons brandish any number of destructive instruments—not just guns and knives, but also needles, scissors, forks, teeth, locks of hair, and more. You’ll never look at your vegetable peeler the same way again.

Yet the most potent tool on display here—maybe second-most, given how the use of that peeler has seared itself in my brain—is writer-director Zach Cregger’s craftsmanship. Weapons is a bold and bloody movie, full of ghoulish turns and ghastly violence. It is also a work of consummate skill—a deftly constructed tapestry that weaves imagination, precision, and patience. It’s a beautiful nightmare. Read More

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The Naked Gun: Burden of Spoof

Jeremy BeckReviews
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson in The Naked Gun

Wander into The Naked Gun at the exact wrong (or right) moment, and you may suspect that you’ve mistakenly arrived at the latest Mission: Impossible flick. As a henchman lies handcuffed to a hospital bed, a detective coaxes incriminating information from him under the pretense that the villain’s master plan has already succeeded. Once the crucial details are revealed—and just before the room’s false walls fall away to reveal a phony set, confirming the elaborate masquerade—the cop asks his unseen colleagues, “Did you get all that?”

You probably didn’t. The chief attribute of The Naked Gun, the new sorta-sequel to the Leslie Nielsen-led franchise from the ’80s and ’90s, is density. It runs 85 minutes and features roughly 10 times as many jokes, to the point where your brain can’t possibly process all of the purported humor in real time. The assault is relentless but also oddly reassuring. If a line or gag or reference sails over your head, you need not spend time chasing it; another one will be arriving within 10 seconds. Read More

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