Grade: B plus

At the Movies in 2022, Concept Is King

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Ana de Armas in Deep Water, Sandra Bullock in The Lost City, Daisy Edgar-Jones in Fresh, Mark Rylance in The Outfit, Mia Goth in X

When it comes to modern movies, there are now two Americas. The first is a land of franchise dominance and corporate hegemony, where superhero flicks and sequels rule the multiplex. Even for fans of costumed entertainment—and I generally count myself among their number—surveying the box-office landscape can yield a dispiriting and homogenous view. The 10 highest-grossing films of 2019 were all based on existing IP, with seven hailing from the Walt Disney Company and an eighth (Spider-Man: Far from Home) that’s fully enmeshed within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, i.e., the Mouse House’s flagship franchise; zoom out to the top 15, and only two pictures (Us and Knives Out) were truly original creations. The COVID-19 pandemic aggressively accelerated this trend, and while cautious audiences may finally be returning to theaters, they only really pack the place for familiar properties. The mushrooming sprawl of these four-quadrant productions—competently made, ruthlessly merchandised, exceedingly familiar, rigorously safe—has inspired many industry experts to lament the death of cinema.

Maybe they’re right. After all, as the collective conception of a box-office hit perpetually narrows in scope and variety, it’s difficult to imagine studios routinely green-lighting risky original projects. And yet! I am once again compelled to repel these dire predictions, because there lurks beneath this marketplace of non-ideas a second America—one where original movies keep getting made, and in different shapes, sizes, and styles. Last month alone saw the release of at least five new films that are noteworthy for their strangeness, their pluck, their originality. Forget recycled superhero stories; these are movies with genuine concepts. Read More

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The Batman: A Dark Blight Rises

Jeremy BeckReviews
Robert Pattinson and Jeffrey Wright in The Batman

Who’s the big bad of The Batman? Modern superhero movies can scarcely subsist on just one antagonist, and this latest take on Gotham City’s caped crusader—directed with spirit and smarts by Matt Reeves, from a script he wrote with Peter Craig—piles on the villains the way his makeup artists slather prosthetics onto Colin Farrell’s face. Farrell, as it happens, plays the Penguin, but while his mannerisms seem to echo Robert de Niro’s work as Al Capone in The Untouchables, he’s hardly the film’s apex predator, instead operating as a mid-level mobster with women to leer at and masters to serve. One of those masters is Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), a slippery mafia don who’s too shallow and profit-oriented to fill the role of comic-book megalomaniac. It surely can’t be Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), a waitress at Penguin’s sleazy nightclub who possesses several feline pets, some calf-high boots, and a knack for cracking safes; she may be Catwoman, but she’s not a madman. The most logical candidate is the Riddler, portrayed here by Paul Dano as a disturbed and disturbing serial killer who knows how to wield blunt instruments and a grudge. He’s a bad dude, no question, but The Batman has the nerve to suggest that his dastardly schemes are merely symptomatic—the inevitable consequence of a more pernicious evil. What if, the movie asks, the real villain is you?

Well, not you you; if you’re reading film criticism online, you’re surely more cultured than the particular brand of troglodytic malcontent that this movie places in its surprisingly topical crosshairs. The Batman posits, with unnerving fluency, that some of the creeps who swarm your social-media mentions are more inclined to blow up a theater than attend one. Remember the gun-toting monster who murdered 12 people and injured 70 others at a midnight showing of 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises? This time around, he might as well be a character. Read More

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Red Rocket: A Star Is Porn

Jeremy BeckReviews
Simon Rex and Suzanna Son in Red Rocket

Cognitive dissonance is a valuable artistic tool, but there’s something especially fascinating about Sean Baker’s Red Rocket, which is one of the most enjoyably disturbing—and disturbingly enjoyable—movies I’ve seen in quite some time. On one level, it’s a blaring warning beacon—a chillingly persuasive portrait of exploitation and predation. Yet it’s also a pleasingly relaxed hangout comedy—a sun-kissed ode to the eternal pleasures of sex and drugs and NSYNC. It’s appalling and enthralling; I was aghast watching it and can’t wait to see it again.

The force of nature who provides Red Rocket with its queasy allure is Simon Rex, a journeyman actor and chiseled beefcake whom I’ve never seen before but will almost certainly be seeing again. Armed with a rippling chest and a wolfish smile, Rex plays the coyly named Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star crawling back home to his impoverished roots in Texas City, where he attempts to shack up with his estranged wife (Bree Elrod); unable to secure legal employment thanks to the lengthy gap in his résumé (“You can call Brazzers and ask for a pay stub…”), he starts scratching out a living by selling weed to local oil riggers. He also manages to ingratiate himself with his wife and her couch-potato mother (Brenda Deiss), thanks to his rugged charm, not to mention his other talents. As his prior occupation suggests, Mikey is good with his dick and also slick with his words, which helps compensate for the black hole where his soul should be. Read More

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Thanksgiving Roundup: Encanto and House of Gucci

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Stephanie Beatriz in Encanto; Lady Gaga in House of Gucci

The double feature is a long-defunct relic of moviegoing, but lately I’ve done my best to revive the concept in my writing, if only to give myself the excuse to review as many films as possible. But while I’ve previously managed to contort unrelated movies into purportedly similar shapes—Dune and The French Dispatch are both made by obsessive world-building auteurs, King Richard and Tick Tick Boom both contemplate tortured geniuses, Malignant and The Card Counter both go for broke, etc.—this Thanksgiving’s pair of high-profile releases presents a more daunting challenge. How to possibly unify Encanto, the cheery new animated musical from Disney, with House of Gucci, Ridley Scott’s sordid fact-based saga of opulence, betrayal, and murder? I could argue that both films center on crumbling dynasties who cling to their power through deceit and corruption, but let’s not kid ourselves—not when one of them is geared toward kids and the other toward creeps. Instead, let’s focus on their qualitative differences, because one of these movies is quite good and the other one isn’t.

Conceptually speaking, Encanto isn’t anything special. Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard (Zootopia) from a script Bush wrote with co-director Charise Castro Smith, it’s another of Disney’s misfit-kid pictures, centering on a plucky heroine who, despite her wholesome spirit and positive attitude, is unsure of her place in the world and within her family. Of course, world and family are essentially the same thing for Mirabel (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz), who technically isn’t a princess in the same way Moana technically wasn’t a princess. She’s nonetheless the granddaughter of Alma (María Cecilia Botero), the benevolent matriarch who rules over her brood, the Madrigal family, with what might be called generous rigidity; everyone is happy, so long as—and perhaps because—everyone abides by Alma’s decree. There is even something vaguely feudal about the Madrigals’ elevated position; they’re basically aristocratic leaders of a humble South American village, one whose welfare hinges on the noble class’ prosperity and munificence. Read More

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Last Night in Soho: Going Back, Going Blonde, Going Bonkers

Jeremy BeckReviews
Anya Taylor-Joy in Last Night in Soho

Remember the Swinging Sixties? That blissful English era of artistic revolution, high hedonism, and rampant sexism? At least, I think that’s what it involved; I wasn’t alive at the time, but I’ve consumed enough cultural artifacts from the period to approximate the woozy sensations of decadence and discovery. So has Edgar Wright, a voracious student of 20th-century pop culture whose movies tend to function as tributes to his dilettantish obsessions, as well as advertisements for the breadth of his own taste; his prior film, Baby Driver, was less a heist thriller than a feature-length playlist of classic tunes with vibrant visual accompaniment. Wright’s new feature, Last Night in Soho, initially scans as an ode to the lascivious London of yesteryear, a passionate homage to the pristine past that doubles as a sour lament for the degraded present. But there is more going on here than you might suspect—more ideas, more innovation, more mistakes.

“I like the old stuff better,” says Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie), an aspiring fashion designer newly arrived in London from the country. It’s a valid preference—the music that pours through her Beats by Dre headphones includes hits by The Kinks, Dusty Springfield, and Peter & Gordon—that nonetheless carries dubious implications. Nostalgia can be simplistic as well as seductive, and many a filmmaker has fallen prone to romanticizing the gauzy bygone days without grappling with their dark marks and complications. This time around, Wright is smarter than that; Last Night in Soho is simultaneously an appreciation and a reckoning. It conjures a hypnotic veil of old-world glamour, then vigorously pierces it to reveal the rot festering underneath. Read More

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