Rankings are a scourge. They create the illusion of rigidity; if X is ranked 12th and Y is ranked 14th, then X is indubitably better than Y, with zero room for argument or ambiguity. This in turn provokes bafflement, derision, and fury. How could you possibly rank that movie three spots ahead of that other movie, you utter philistine?
Of course, conversation is the lifeblood of criticism, and silly disputes about rankings can lead to more substantive debates about quality. Still, the impression of quantitative inflexibility is distasteful. That’s why, in this annual series, MovieManifesto no longer imposes actual rankings on every movie of the year. Instead, we separate them all into distinct tiers, with no ordering within individual tiers. This will surely eliminate all possible complaints about my taste. Read More
Awesome in multiple senses of the word, Robert Eggers’ The Northman is a swaggering, delirious monument to cinematic excess. It’s difficult to select a single scene that best encapsulates its bravura decadence—the moonlit swordfight against a skeleton? the hallucinogen-aided bonding session where father and son bark and howl like feral dogs? the fiery duel at the literal gates of Hell?—but I’m partial to the early sequence where a Viking warrior fells a helpless adversary with his axe and then, having already vanquished his hapless foe, bends down and sinks his teeth into the dying man’s neck.
This unchecked, animalistic ferocity is part of what animates The Northman, which is noteworthy for its sheer frenzy alone; on the surface, it seems to have been constructed purely to inspire giddy instant reactions along the lines of, “omg u guyz this movie FUCKS.” (A quick Twitter search confirms its success in this regard.) Yet look past the blood-soaked savagery on display, and you will discover that there is something more sophisticated at play here. I don’t mean to minimize the berserk (and berserker?) quality of the film’s content, or to imply that its straightforward themes of vengeance and obsession stretch beyond the obvious. What I mean is that, for all its gonzo energy, as a piece of aesthetic craftsmanship, The Northman is absolutely beautiful. Read More
One of the qualities that I prize most in filmmaking is personality. It’s a quality that’s hard to find these days, at least at the multiplex. The exponentially increasing market share of the Walt Disney Company has crowded out riskier, more adventurous big-budget fare, forcing viewers who crave originality and audacity in their entertainment to flee to the art house or the internet. (Fortunately, there are still plenty of good original pictures being made.) So when a loud, brash action thriller arrives—a would-be blockbuster with no ties to any existing franchise, spandexed hero, or comic book—its mere existence is arguably cause for celebration; when its aesthetic bears the unmistakable stamp of its creator, that sense of collective joy should feel even more profound. And yet: What if the artistic personality that’s being so exuberantly flaunted is—for lack of a more precise critical term—bad?
I’m speaking of Ambulance, and more specifically of its director, Michael Bay. His name is perhaps not the first that leaps to mind when you hear the loaded word “auteur,” yet it’s impossible to deny that Bay has spent his lengthy career polishing and refining his own distinctive brand. It even has its own term: Bayhem. His movies represent less a viewing experience than a visual and sonic assault—a vigorous, over-caffeinated cocktail of metallic carnage, swaggering machismo, and militaristic fetishism. They don’t feature human characters so much as avatars of teenage-boy cool; his heroes are cigar-smoking quipsters who just want to have fun, but they’re also physically gifted warriors whose willingness to disregard societal rules in service of the mission purports to lend them a certain moral integrity. The putative story that unfolds around these muscle-bound he-men is merely a mechanism, a narrative device that assists in achieving the films’ true purpose: blowing shit up real good. Read More
Among the innumerable genres represented in Everything Everywhere All at Once—the universe-hopping, tone-mutating, brain-scrambling whatsit from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as Daniels)—is the martial-arts instruction picture. Like Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, its protagonist receives tutelage from a wiser, more experienced combat veteran. But here, rather than preaching about the virtues of discipline or the importance of practice, the seasoned mentor encourages our hero to weaponize absurdity. “The less sense it makes,” he insists, “the better.”
This is a matter of opinion, at least when it comes to movies. At the cinema, the twin values of logic and imagination are often in tension with one another, resulting in an artistic seesaw in which adding weight to one sacrifices the other. The brilliance of Everything Everywhere All at Once isn’t that it strikes the perfect balance between these qualities but that it loads up so heavily on one as to render the other irrelevant. Here is a work of bold, boisterous originality, teeming with rich ideas and vivid images and the quixotic thrill of genuine inspiration. It isn’t better because it doesn’t make sense. It’s better because it redefines the concept of making sense entirely. Read More
Have the movies finally come back? Or did they never leave? Or maybe my outlook is too rosy; survey any random flock of experts, and you’ll likely be met with an alternative, despairing answer. The state of the motion-picture industry is in constant motion, requiring perpetual reassessment and funereal lamentation. You’ve heard all of these eulogies before: Movies for adults are dead. Disney has monopolized the box office. Streaming is cannibalizing theaters. Superheroes are the only remaining genre. Martin Scorsese lost.
All of these exaggerated appraisals of modern movie-going may well carry an element of truth. (Scorsese, after releasing his last film on Netflix, has changed horses and will distribute his new picture via… Apple.) And yet, as I did last year (and last week), I again find myself resisting the notion that our classical understanding of cinema—of anticipating, watching, and arguing about film—is in mortal peril. Sure, certain trends—in particular the box-office supremacy of the superhero genre at the expense of, well, virtually everything else—are alarming. But while audiences may no longer be piling into theaters with the same multi-pronged hunger, good movies just keep getting made, and you have ample opportunity to watch them. All that’s required of you is artistic curiosity. (Well, and the means to access the ever-expanding buffet of streaming services.) Read More
