HBO Original

Wonder Woman 1984, The Midnight Sky, and the Christmas of Flops

Jeremy BeckReviews
George Clooney in "The Midnight Sky"; Gal Gadot in "Wonder Woman 1984"

On Christmas Day 2019, I attended one of the most memorable double features of my life: Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, followed by the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems. Forget the visual and verbal audacity of both pictures (not to mention their, er, tonal differences); what I remember most now is the sensation of sitting in a jam-packed auditorium. Neither of those films is conventionally crowd-pleasing, but I don’t think I’m manufacturing a memory when I recall the communal thrill that swept through the audience when Saoirse Ronan delivered an impassioned speech, or when Adam Sandler placed yet another dubious bet. What could better distill the holiday spirit—the anticipation, the laughter, the shared cheer—than watching a movie with total strangers?

Suffice it to say that Christmas Day 2020 unfolded a little differently. But even though the COVID-19 pandemic prevented me from spending my holidays at the movie theater, it didn’t prevent me from spending it watching movies. The clear highlight of the season was Pixar’s Soul, which I’ve already reviewed, but Christmas also brought us two other high-profile streaming releases: Wonder Woman 1984 (on HBO Max) and The Midnight Sky (on Netflix, and technically released on December 23). Both have received fair-to-middling reviews, though I’d argue that one is rather underrated. Read More

Read more

Unpregnant, The Glorias, and Women Directing Women

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Julianne Moore in "The Glorias"; Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira in "Unpregnant"

The COVID-19 pandemic has ruined lives, crippled economies, and paralyzed entire nations, but what has it meant for the movies? The received wisdom is that 2020 has been a lost year for cinema, and there’s a degree of truth to that; I’ve lost count of how many major studio releases have been delayed until 2021 or beyond, and many other films—which ordinarily would have had the opportunity to chase eyeballs on the big screen—were unceremoniously interred in the graveyard that is VOD. But while it’s understandable to lament the movies that this year has taken from us, it’s also important to acknowledge those that it’s given us. The dearth of blockbusters created a cinematic vacuum that was promptly and happily filled by scrappier, less conventional titles: quirky comedies, chilling horror flicks, tender romances, robust actioners. And many of these movies came from a demographic that Hollywood has long neglected: They were directed by women.

Perhaps this has nothing to do with COVID-19; maybe 2020 was already shaping up to be the Year of the Woman even before the coronavirus reached American shores. Regardless of causality, it’s oddly invigorating to survey the year’s best films and to see how many were helmed by women, and with such variety. Consider: the quiet agony of The Assistant and the boisterous fun of Birds of Prey. The contemporary sadness of Cuties and the classical enchantment of Emma. The male friendship of First Cow and the female solidarity of Never Rarely Sometimes Always. (I dissented on both The Old Guard and Shirley, but other critics would surely point to them as well.) Women have always been making good movies, but their collective voice seems to be growing louder now, telling stories of ever-greater urgency and vitality. Read More

Read more