The Whale (4/5 Stars)

Director Darren Aronofsky is cinema’s equivalent of the phoenix. Every ten years or so he spontaneously combusts in a show of flames before rising again from the ashes. The first time around he started with a basic black & white low budget film called Pi (1998) caught fire with the brilliant and intense Requiem for a Dream (2000) and subsequently burst into flames with the over-ambitiously overly complicated box office disaster known as The Fountain (2006). From the ashes, he pulled himself together with a basic low budget film called The Wrestler (2008), caught fire with the brilliant and intense Black Swan (2010) and burst into flames with the overly ambitious and overly complicated box office disasters of Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017). 

Now in 2022, from another pile of ashes, there is The Whale, a stripped down low budget film based on a play. The whole thing takes place in one house over the course of a single week. Despite its back-to-basics feel, the tell-tale sign of Aronofsky are here, the extremes of the human experience. Our main character Charlie (played by Brendan Fraser) is a morbidly obese man. Like the kind of obese where you wonder what the decision making process was a few hundred pounds ago. The other main interest of Aronofsky (at least for the last decade) is religion and there is a fair portion of this movie dedicated to that as well.

I would expect morbid obesity to be a lonely state of affairs. We get a nominal sense of that here: Charlie teaches remote English and Writing community course classes with his laptop camera off. He orders pizza, but tells the delivery man to place it outside the door so he doesn’t have to show himself. Aside from these examples though, the movie is based on a play, so we get a lot of people barging into his house that normally would not be there. There is Charlie’s nurse Liz (played by Hong Chau) who tells him he has congestive heart failure and will be dead within a week if he doesn’t go to the hospital. There is Ellie (played by Sadie Sink), Charlie’s daughter, a cruel girl who is here to guilt her father into doing her homework. Finally, there is Thomas (played by Ty Simpkins) a door-to-door missionary who, upon seeing Charlie, believes that God sent him there to help. 

 The movie takes place in Idaho but has such a  hostility to organized religion you'd think it took place in Portland. Charlie is fine with the presence of Thomas. However, Liz tells him a few times to get out and never come back. Liz is interesting in this regard. She relates that she was adopted by the local sect, New Faith, but left because they were all self-righteous hypocrites (The local sect is against homosexuality). Liz is Chinese. It isn’t explicitly said but one may assume based on her age and gender that this local sect was adopting children, especially girls, from China because of the CCP’s one-child policy. It doesn’t seem to occur to Liz that she should be grateful for having been saved from infanticide. Ellie is a bitch to Thomas, but then again she is a bitch to everyone. The local sect is against homosexualilty true, and Charlie is gay, but that doesn’t stop Thomas from trying to help. Could organized religion help someone in Charlie’s condition? I have no idea, but the problem seems to be large enough that it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

Ultimately, Charlie is eating himself into an early grave because that seems to be the plan. Around ten years ago, he left his wife and child to pursue a romance with a younger man. This younger man committed suicide. It is posited that the local sect caused the suicide, although I am unaware of any christian denomination that promotes suicide for homosexuals. Then again, New Faith isn't Catholic. In any event, Charlie has been alone ever since and steadily gaining weight. There are other people in this world that go through similar experiences and they do not end up slowly eating themselves to death. It is not really clear then why Charlie in particular has decided to do it.

Charlie is played by Brendan Fraser. This is the type of role that is so unique it is award worthy simply by being handled competently. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fraser was nominated. I haven’t seen Brendan Fraser in a substantial role since 2004’s Crash. (I did see him in last year’s “Out of Sight” in a supporting role. )You could call it a comeback (and people are) but taking a look at IMDB, it would appear that Fraser hasn’t stopped working during this time. He just hasn’t done anything notable. Well, call it a comeback. 

I recognize Sadie Sink from Netflix’s Stranger Things. I didn’t like her character in that show either. It was nice for Samantha Morton to drop in for a scene. I look forward to seeing Aronofsky’s next film. He should be catching fire on that portion of the phoenix arc by that time which should mean a third masterpiece.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (3/5 Stars)

The first “Black Panther” was a product of its time. King T’Challa ended the film with a speech about the importance of openness and the responsibility that the enlightened and technologically superior Wakanda had to the greater world. It was an obvious rebuke to the present political climate in America, specifically the border wall politics of Donald Trump. The movie was wildly successful and Hollywood patted itself on its back for their political courageousness. Four years have since passed (maybe nine in Marvel time depending on the blip). At this time, I think it would be appropriate to take a step back and assess whether King T’Challa’s promises were kept. From the looks of it, the Wakandas haven’t started. 

This movie makes a big deal as to whether or not the Wakandans have shared the secrets of Vibranium, their exclusive and all-purpose natural resource. They haven’t, but I don’t blame them for that. America doesn’t share its nuclear weapons technology and the original Black Panther wasn’t making the argument that it should. No, I’m talking about the immigration policy of Wakanda. King T’Challa, the monarch of a nation with an eternally closed border and a 100% ethnically homogenous population, had made a veiled criticism of the United States of America, the most immigrant friendly and diverse country in the history of the world, for not being open enough. Surely, within four years, Wakanda would have allowed some migrants to enter their lands. How about some refugees from the interminable civil war in neighboring Congo or from the chaotic and famine stricken Horn of Africa? No? Well, then they must at least have let in some Indians with P.H.D’s in software engineering. Nope, not one. The people of Wakanda are as pure of race as they have ever been.  

Beneath the comic book facade of Marvel’s Black Panther franchise lies a fascinating philosophical conundrum. Its contradictions are manifestly apparent, but because of the political climate in Hollywood, they go unmentioned. Wakanda is based on an erroneous premise, one that has been taken to such extraordinary lengths and with such artful sincerity in these two films that it goes a full 360 degrees and unwittingly presents its own antithesis. 

It is one thing to be appalled by the evils of five hundred years of European hegemony: the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, environmental degradation, etc.. It is something else to argue that Europeans (read white people) have contributed nothing good to human civilization during the same time period, no advancements in culture, morality, or political science, as well. But this is what the premise of Wakanda must argue. Otherwise, it couldn’t exist.

What is the Wakanda premise? It is succinctly articulated in the first minute of the first film. Five tribes in Africa had access to a special resource: Vibranium. They fought with each other until one man used Vibranium to become stronger than all the rest: the First Black Panther. This Black Panther imposed his power over the rest of the tribes and Wakanda became peaceful. The remainder of the world was without vibranium. Presumably without a material that would make one particular person stronger than the rest, it descended into chaos and war while Wakanda thrived.

According to that, what is the source of political power? It’s technology. The corollary to this argument follows: White people’s position of power in the last several hundred years is due solely to their advanced weapons technology. If the colonized people of the Earth had the same technology as the Wakandans, they would have been able to fight off the Europeans and keep their way of life, which in its natural state was advanced and peaceful. It is not a mistake to note that the Black Panther, although his position is one acquired and maintained by brute strength, is not the oppressor of his people, but it's protector, and that the Wakandans, even with their advanced technology, sought no conquest or colonialism over neighboring peoples. Why does the Wakandan monarchy not descend into bloody successionary wars or attack its neighbors like every other hereditary monarchy in history? Well, because Wakandans are a closed society with a pure race untainted by the outside world. In other words, because the Wakandans (see black people) are inherently good and the outside world (see white people) are inherently bad.

This train of logic goes so far as to argue against democratic principles. You see, if you take the premise that a society untainted by foreign elements will remain in its advanced and peaceful ideal form, then a democracy with its openness to expression and immigration and its wild swings from popular passion to popular passion is an obvious threat to the system staying the same. In other words, if everything is already perfect, a hereditary monarchy with absolute power handed down from superior man to superior man is a much better system for the job: keeping everything perfect. As the Queen points out in this movie, it is not that Wakanda will not share its secrets of Vibranium, it is that a country such as America (represented here by white people) cannot be trusted with it.

Like critical race theory, which appropriates much of its thought from non-racial Marxism, the Wakandan premise overlays a racial element from very ancient non-racial philosophy. (You can’t make any philosophical argument in America nowadays without including race somehow). It really goes back to that age old question: whether change makes things better or worse. A philosopher like Plato would argue the latter. He argued that the world in the past was composed of ideal forms that had since, via intermixing with foreign elements, become decayed and degraded. The idea of a secret utopian society bereft of the outside world’s ills is not new. Voltaire included it as El Dorado in Candide. The Shire in J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings is another good example. Modern fascism and totalitarian regimes embrace the idea and use it as the main reason for rigid censorship and propagranda. What has always struck me as absurd is why open and prosperous societies such as America and Athens of old consistently produce intellectuals that swear by the superiority of such evil states as the USSR and Sparta. Marvel’s continued practice of criticizing its own country and leaving such nations as China off its villain list is yet another iteration in this age-old tradition. But then again, there is something inherently unequal and undemocratic about superheroes in general. They are quite literally superior to the rest of us and according to the Wakandan premise, that superiority in strength entitles them to unquestioned political power. (I disagree of course, which is why I was firmly Team Iron Man for "Captain America: Civil War")

The interesting thing about both Black Panther movies is that this ugly premise is present but not belabored. I believe that the writer/director Ryan Coogler does not have a racist bone in his body nor do I believe he is philosophically pig-headed. He is working for a large corporation that has given him this premise to work with. Mr. Coogler follows it with reason and competence. In doing so, the Black Panther movies are good comic book movies with decent action and great production value, yes, but they are also plausible narratives of power politics. The main characters are Wakandan royalty and they act with a knowledge of their absolute power and a sense of entitlement to it. The main antagonist is royalty himself, King Namor of Talokan, an underwater Mayan secret society (appropriated from the myth of Atlantis). 

The interactions between the royal families are done so well that the two nations go to war for reasons so stupid and arrogant that it would fit right into the Hundred Years’ War. Neither King Namor nor Princess Shuri bother to seek counsel or permission from their respective populace’s before sending men to fight and kill each other. They just decide to do it and their subjects just obey orders without any second thoughts.  The war is fought to a draw and nothing is gained or lost that couldn’t have been negotiated by diplomats or voted on in referendums. Unless, that is, you count the lost lives of subjects, which the movie barely registers. 

You may be wondering why I’m talking at length about political philosophy and not the movie. Good question. These ideas are not new to me. In fact, I could have inserted them into my review of the first Black Panther movie. I didn’t because there was so much that was new and exciting about that movie that I just gave it five stars and talked about the good stuff. This movie, Wakanda Forever, though is actually quite mediocre. The plot is pretty simple and the action sequences, well, you’ve seen them before. Overall, I believe my philosophical digressions are more interesting than an in-depth review of the movie. At least this is what I was thinking while I was watching this movie. 

Here is my proffer for the plot of the third Black Panther movie. One or more of the tribes finds out that King T’Challa has a son and recognizes him as the proper heir to the throne as a direct challenge to Princess (now Queen) Shuri. Queen Shuri plots to murder her cousin and all other blood relatives in order to consolidate her power. A bloody and ruthless civil war ensues which depopulates the countryside and expends the wealth of the nation. In order to gain advantage, both sides start trading secrets of Vibranium to the outside world, which brings in other nations into the fight. Ultimately, the USA and UN intervene and insist that Wakanda install a democracy. Falcon represents both the USA and UN in this development and this is accepted by Wakandans as something other than a humiliation because Anthony Mackie is black. Finally, have someone other than Ryan Coogler do it. That man has done his time and should be choosing projects that are more personal in nature.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (3/5 Stars)

 

I had the pleasure of watching writer/director Rian Johnson’s first Knives Out mystery, appropriately entitled Knives Out, when it came out in late 2019. (This movie has nothing to do with knives per se, but the marketers perhaps wisely avoided the subtitle “A Benoit Blanc Mystery”). I wrote a review about it, which having read again, I believe holds up.

I can build upon and elaborate on the effectiveness of murder mystery tropes here. There is a moment in the original Knives Out which proves its status as a top-notch murder mystery. Like a lot of the stories in the locked room mystery genre, at the climax the Detective gathers all the suspects in the same room, reveals the killer, and explains how he figured it out. In Knives Out, I posit that one could pause the movie at that moment, rewatch the first 3/4’s of it again, think really hard about it, and actually come to the same conclusion as the detective. For that reason, even though the explanation was complicated, it didn’t come out of nowhere, and an astute observer would be rewarded for paying close attention for the first hour and a half.

The problem with Glass Onion is that when Detective Benoit reveals the killer and propounds his theory, I believe no audience member could possibly predict the killer no matter how many times they watched the beginning (at least with the reasoning given by Benoit). Why? Because Rian Johnson breaks his own Knives Out rules as to point of view and narrative.

I won’t give much away by explaining what I mean. In “Knives Out” the main characters are the maid (Ana De Armas) and Benoit. Their point of view are stand-ins for the audience. At no point, do those characters know or witness something that the audience also does not witness. There are no scenes left out that these characters are not sharing with us. This is not the case in “Glass Onion”. In both movies, we are introduced to Benoit Blanc showing up at an event not knowing who invited him. In “Knives Out”, Benoit didn’t know who had hired him and had no agenda. In “Glass Onion”, Benoit knew who had hired him and had an agenda the entire time. The movie keeps this detail from the audience until the climatic reveal.

The ultimate effect is a sense of deflation when one realizes that they have been tricked by a movie that was not as clever as it seemed. Now this, in and of itself, seems to be a theme here. A Glass Onion is apparently a metaphor for things that appear complicated, but are in fact, pretty stupid. Here, the murder and murderer is staring everyone plain in the face. This is true. The suspects involved, a politician (Kathryn Hahn), a scientist (Leslie Odum Jr.), a fashion influencer (Kate Hudson), a Twitch Star (Dave Bautista) have been summoned to the island of the Tech CEO/Genius Miles Bron (a la Elon Musk?) played by Edward Norton. On the surface, they appear to be successful and interesting people, but it turns out they are vapid and rather silly.

Then there is our hero. In Knives Out, this was the maid who physically could not tell a lie without throwing up. Here, it is Andi Brand (played by Janelle Monae) whose back story is that she was the real brains behind the tech genius’s success and got screwed out of the company in a recent court case. Dare I say it, the maid’s character even with her rare physical disorder made more sense. The problem here is that the explanation for why Andi Brand is the real genius is kind of dumb. We are told that the court case all hinges on an algorithm that she wrote on a cocktail napkin in a bar several years ago. The movie would have us believe that the information on this cocktail napkin is all it took to create a stupidly successful billion dollar tech business and that she could be frozen out of this business if she couldn’t prove that she wrote what was on that napkin. The actual tech on the napkin, (or for that matter what Alpha, the tech business, actually does) is never explained (because how could it be without sounding ridiculous), but given what I know about court cases, and the little I know about intellectual property, it all sounds pretty stupid. A more effective reason for trusting Andi Brand over Miles Bron, and maybe what the movie was relying on, is the modern audience’s inclination for believing that a white man has taken all the credit for a black woman’s work.

As Benoit explains with annoyed incredulity at the end, the murder and the murderer were really stupid and it was merely the inclination that we have as audience members to expect a more complicated mystery. Sure, I guess, but couldn’t this all just be a convenient excuse for writing a lazy and stupid murder mystery. After all, if the characters and the mystery are stupid, well, ahem, isn’t that because Rian Johnson wrote them that way?

The Banshees of Inishiren (4/5 Stars)

Inishiren is an island off the coast of Ireland. This movie, the latest by writer/director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Three Billboard’s Outside Ebbing Missouri) takes place on Inishiren in 1923. Apparently, at that time there was a civil war on the mainland. The characters can hear and see distant explosions off across the channel in the distance. But no one on the island seems to know what the fighting is about nor do they have an opinion as to how it should end. Its just this bad thing that exists in the world and nobody can do much of anything about it.

The location of Inisherin is as much a character in this story as any of the humans inhabiting it. It is exceedingly small, holds perhaps hundreds(?) of people, mostly farmers and herders, and everybody seems to know everybody else and their business. Indeed, they would have to because there is only one church, one post office, and one bar in the whole place. The bar is called the pub, short for public house. You don’t need a brand when you’re the only place in town.

This isolation and poverty makes what would be a trifling event into a very big deal. You see Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) does not want to be friends with Padraic Suilleabhain (Colin Farrell) anymore. He doesn’t want to drink pints with him. He doesn’t want to sit next to him. Indeed, he makes it clear that he never wants to speak with Padraic ever again. Padraic, much hurt, asks Colm why. After all, they were very good friends and Padraic does not recall ever saying or doing anything wrong. It is not anything you said or did to me, Colm explains, its just that life is short, he has things to do (or at least he feels that he should) and Padraic is dull. In other words, Colm feels that Padraic is wasting his time, time better spent working on composing music (he plays a mean fiddle) than listening to Padraic talk about his donkey. This would be a mean thing to say and do in any town, and in any other town it may just stop there. Maybe Colm and/or Padraic would just start hanging out in different pubs. But in Inisherin, there is only one pub, and its 1923, so there is absolutely nothing else to do in the evenings than drink in this one pub and stew about this cold breakdown in a long standing friendship.

Martin McDonagh is best known for employing cruel wit with low born characters, many of them criminals. As an example, in In Bruges, the first time Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell were teamed up in a McDonagh movie, Gleeson’s character was tasked with an honor killing of Colin Farrell but changes his mind at the last moment in order stop the Colin Farrell character from committing suicide. That’s the type of irony that appeals to Mr. McDonagh black sense of humor, and it works more often than not in his plays and movies (A Behanding in Spokane, yes, Seven Psychopaths, not as much.) Interestingly, Banshees is one of McDonagh’s least funny movies and that probably is a good move. Cruel humor would be out of place here given that all of the characters are basically good and some of them faultless. When bad things start to develop, it is appropriate that McDonagh does not try for the types of laughs he usually goes for. This keeps the story engaging as opposed to off-putting. There are only so many ways this can turn out given the constraints of the location and it remains fresh up to the end.

What drives the material home is the performances by Gleeson and Farrell. Gleeson has always been an interesting actor. He has the type of looks that generally would deprive an actor of a starring role in anything but interesting movies. Over time he has become one of those beloved actors that can just show up in a mainstream flick like an old friend and liven up the joint (have you seen Paddington 2?). It is Colin Farrell that is more of a revelation. Here is a man that has the looks of a leading man and if he wanted to, could remain a boring hot shot indefinitely. Instead, he has become a favorite of movie buff’s for his great acting against type. You wouldn't know to look at him but Colin Farrell is at his best playing losers (In Bruges, The Lobster, True Detective). I tell you, he is exceptionally good at it. His character is Banshees is a boring dolt. It’s another fantastic performance.

It can also be noted that the movie is particularly adept at capturing the language of 1920’s Ireland. I have no idea whether the dialect is accurate, but can attest that it is much different way of speaking than you may hear today. At the least, if you see this movie, you’ll finally have an idea of how to pronounce the name Siobhan.

Three Thousand Years of Solitude (4/5 Stars)

 

“Three Thousand Years of Longing” is a small movie with big trappings. Like George Miller’s last outing “Mad Max: Fury Road” it is a demonstration of the benefits of the last two decades revolution in cheaper digital movie-making. The plot is too alien for a mainstream audience: an aging scholar of ancient Mesopotamian culture (Tilda Swinton) comfortable in her solitary life, by happenchance and/or fate finds a bottle in Istanbul thrift shop which contains an ancient djinn (Idris Elba), or as you may have heard in a Disney movie, a genie. He grants her a wish, but she refuses to make one. She is well versed in myths and genies and believes that making wishes is not wise. Trickster genies abound and, well, she does not need anything. To convince her to make a wish, this djinn delves into its lives and loves of the past three thousand years. We meet King Solomon, spend time in the harem of the Ottoman sultan, and attain knowledge of the universe. Imagine if this movie had been made twenty years ago. First of all, it wouldn’t have been, at least not with this level of sophistication. It would have been far too expensive a gamble for a storyline that is inherently so niche. (I believe I called “Mad Max: Fury Road” a ‘niche blockbuster’. This is even more so). If it had been, I swear it would have been ugly. There would be no budget for the expanse required. All would be darkness, robes, and sandals.

As it is, we live now, and “Three Thousand Years of Longing” feels like the movie it should be. Much of it takes place in a hotel room in Istanbul in which Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba carry on a long debate amidst flashbacks of the djinn's long life and misfortunes. You could do much worse than spend a few hours listening to the back and forth between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, two of our most talented actors. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as scholar of foreign and ancient knowledge. Idris Elba it can be noted, is Black. Really, an ancient djinn should be of the middle-eastern persuasion. No matter. He has been appropriately cast. He he has the body frame and the intelligence to pull of an ancient djinn (as opposed to say, a Will Smith) and I can’t really think of anybody else I would like to see in the part (honorable mention, Robin Williams for the parody).

Idris Elba tells three stories. The first takes place a long time ago and is pretty straightforward. The djinn is advisor to the Queen of Sheba that falls for King Solomon. I won’t get into it too deep but it ends with the genie being entrapped in a bottle and thrown into the ocean. The second story involves the genie being found by a young concubine in the harem of the Ottoman Sultan. What makes this story interesting is that the concubine actually wishes for something someone of her stature and education would wish for at that time period. Given her narrow view of the world, she wishes to carry the son of the prince as it would automatically catapult her in social standing. And with another dose of realism, she doesn’t fully understand why this might be a dangerous wish in a place where political power is directly related to bloodlines. After some palace intrigue, the genie finds himself in a bottle in at the bottom of the sea again. The third story is the best and legitimately interesting. The genie is found by the youngest wife of an aging merchant. He keeps her in a tower and doesn’t let her out of the house. What she wishes for is the knowledge of the universe. This is granted to her not by some Matrix mind-meld, but by the genie scouring the earth and bringing back to her the best scientific texts. This is the type of woman a djinn could fall in love with and he does. I won’t tell you how this one turns out.

The stories are engaging enough as they are being told, but the movie itself finishes with a bit of an anti-climax. You see Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba are actually quite reasonable people so ultimately there is not much of a conflict. Actually the largest controversy in our modern times involves her taking the djinn back to London where two of her nosy old lady neighbors take exception. Why they do this doesn’t make much sense. They make general xenophobic points about culture and what not. Actually, the old neighbors have a point given that the genie is from a place of polygamy and harems, (which might be offensive to the modern woman?). Except the old ladies don’t know that Idris Elba is a djinn, so they just come off as having a prejudice against black people. But the genie shouldn’t be played by a black guy and the movie works best if that fact is quietly ignored. In any event, the whole thing seems to resolve rather quickly once they get a good look at him and realize he's Idris Elba. I believe, yes I believe you could say that everyone lived happily ever after.

Vengeance (4/5 Stars)

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This adventure in West Texas is brought to you by B. J. Novak, its writer/director/star. Mr. Novak is well known for his role as the temp Ryan Howard in the long running TV Show "The Office." The interesting thing about Novak's contribution to "The Office" is that he was also one of the writers. I once heard that he and Mindy Kaling (also a writer) were always in the office's backroom so that they would not have to spend an inordinate amount of time onscreen as they had other responsibilities. Also notable about Novak's contribution to the "The Office" is that his character was the most amoral on the show. He didn't mind how his writing affected how his character was presented to the world. I think it is fair to say he has a sense of humor.

This type of self-deprecation shows up right away in Vengeance. Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a writer from New York, who receives a seemingly random phone call about a funeral is West Texas. The funeral belongs to Abilene Shaw, a girl he had hooked up with a couple of times in Manhattan. Apparently, she had told her family about him and made it seem like they were more serious than he ever considered them to be. She went back home to West Texas (perhaps because of a lack of making it in New York) and overdosed and died at a party. The family wants him to attend the funeral.

Ben attends the funeral seemingly to avoid breaking it to the family that he didn't care at all about Abilene. He puts on a good face the entire time. This fools Abilene's brother Ty Shaw (played by Boyd Holbrook) and he decides to let Ben in on a secret. Abilene's death was no accidental overdose. She was murdered and a lot of people were in on it. It's a conspiracy. Ben doesn't see a conspiracy afoot. He does see opportunity though: a story that he can turn into a podcast. A bunch of hicks in the middle of West Texas, slowly dying in their dead-ass towns, looking for bogey-man to blame for all their problems because they won't take responsibility for their lives. He pitches this idea to his producer Eloise (played by Issa Rae) who thinks he has something. They give the podcast a working title: "Dead White Girl." Ben Manalowitz decides to stay in Texas and "help out" by making this grieving family famous for being stupid. Ben is an awful person.

B.J. Novak understands where the satire lies. It is about time someone poked fun at the innumerable number of podcasts wherein people without any specialized knowledge riff on their views of the world. The prominent one that comes to mind is "Serial" by Sarah Keonig, which is the story of a clueless woman trying and failing to solve a murder that has already been solved. As a wise man in this movie aptly puts it, the truth is drowned out by everyone needing to give their own "take" on a story. Inaction and conspiracies prevail because the average person's urge to put themselves into the story makes it far more complicated than what it is in actuality.

There is plenty of red-state blue-state humor here and Novak does a fine job of spreading the jokes evenly. For the city slickers, the main problem is The Tyranny of Choice. This occurs whenever you go to the supermarket to buy cereal and are confronted with way more options than you require. (Aziz Ansari's "Master of None" TV series is perhaps the best exploration of this phenomenon.) The outcome is a character like Ben who won't engage in something meaningful because he is always afraid of missing out on something better. Was Abilene, that girl he hooked up with a couple of times, a special person? Ben didn't stay around long enough to find out. For the Texans, the problem is the opposite. They do not have any choices and fill in that emptiness with an absurd amount of pride. Why do they love Whataburger and will fight you about it? Because its there.

"Vengeance" starts getting interesting when it subverts its own premise by introducing certain evidence that Abilene may not have just overdosed at a party. It is revealed for instance that the scene of her death was in a hazy no-man's land of four separate legal jurisdictions: city, county, highway, and border patrol. If one wanted to murder Abilene, where she died would be a good place to do it.

"Vengeance" has a lot to say and a lot of thoughtful characters to articulate it. The conspiracy may not be corporate evil doers and/or crooked cops. The conspiracy may be a sort of cultural decay brought about by vague outside forces. If Abilene was using drugs, why was she doing that? Was she unhappy? She had a loving family and a small town's respect. Was that not enough? 

Close by to this nowhere town in West Texas is a another town called Marfa. This is a well-known real place where well-to-do artists with lots of time go to work on their hobbies without distraction from the outside world. A recording studio run by a guy named Quentin Sellers once produced several songs written and performed by Abilene. Quentin Sellers is played by Ashton Kutcher in one of his best roles. (I think this is the first dramatic role I have seen him in). He is particularly good at coaxing performances out of clients. In one scene he compares the woman singing at the microphone with the creation of the universe. I was reminded of the great Will Durant quote, "Those who cater to human vanity, seldom starve."

Why does it matter whether art is recorded? So that it can be packaged and sold to strangers? So that one can become well known to people whom they have never met before? How did fame, in and of itself, become meaningful? "Vengeance" ends on an impulsive act performed in secret. It is shocking and fitting. This movie will be one of the best written of the year.

Men (2/5 Stars)

 

 Looking at the trailer for “Men”, I had a feeling that this was going to be either a bad or weird movie and probably both. But, the movie was written and directed by Alex Garland, who has made some of the better movies in the past five years including “Annihilation” and the exceptional “Ex Machina”. So, I thought I would give “Men” a chance. The movie is both weird and bad. 

The story is simple (or maybe not). A woman named Harper (played by Jessie Buckley) has been recently widowed. She broke up with a man who couldn’t handle it and committed suicide by jumping off the roof. She decides to visit a cottage in the English countryside for rest and relaxation. The visit is not relaxing for very long. She is stalked by a naked man and then has a series of encounters with other creepy men from the village. Actually, the men are all the same man. Each one is played by Rory Kinnear with different accents, makeup, and costumes. There is a metaphor in here somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is supposed to be. 

This is the second Jessie Buckley movie that I’ve seen that features her wandering around a weird home with weird inhabitants. The first was “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”. (Come to think of it, that movie too had a weird love interest.) “Men” though is more of a horror movie. I think. Well, at least there is more violence and much more gore. Actually the ending is quite gruesome, but after it goes on for quite awhile, you may find yourself considering the spectacle with the expression of Jessie Buckley, as in: Is this still going on now? and where did I leave that hatchet so I can finally put an end to this movie? 

As I said, the men in “Men” are all played by one actor, Rory Kinnear, who is generally underrated. I have seen him play the comic relief in rom-coms like “Man Up” and meld into the bureaucratic background in James Bond movies like “Skyfall” and “No Time to Die”. Given that he is usually a supporting actor, one may then be surprised that he can throw down with great orations as he does in “Peterloo” where he plays the historical public speaker Henry Hunt. In this movie, the most we can say about Rory Kinnear is that he is a very good sport. He gives up the full frontal nudity, grows plants from his face, and tries some silly accents. I hope Alex Garland got what he was looking for at least because one might characterize the performance as embarrassing. 

What is this movie about? I can only really glean one attempt at metaphor. There is an apple tree in the front yard of the house that might be analogous to the apple tree in the garden of Eden. Beyond that though, what is anything else supposed to be? I suspect there may be some message critical about men or how men treat women, but why do you need a vague metaphor for that? Aren’t there enough real world examples that don’t require the use of metaphor? Am I supposed to watch this movie, and come to the realization that a woman’s experience is like being chased around a british cottage by Rory Kinnear in different costumes? 

Is this movie offensive to men? Well, I don’t think so, but maybe that is just because I didn’t understand what the movie may have been trying to tell me. After all, to be truly offended requires understanding. For instance, I got Jordan Peele’s message in “Get Out”. I was offended because I understood it. I can’t say the same for “Men” and this is not one of those movies that was at least interesting enough where I would be curious to hear the director’s commentary. 

One last thing: like “Thor: Love and Thunder” there is a scene that employs CGI to digitally enhance a human body where it should be totally unnecessary. There is a boy character whose face is digitally enhanced so it looks like a young Rory Kinnear. The CGI is really obvious and distracting in a bad way. I don’t understand why a young actor that vaguely looks like Rory Kinnear couldn't be used or why regular makeup was not utilized.

Thor: Love and Thunder (3/5 Stars)

 

I don’t think anyone could have predicted that Thor would be the Marvel character to be the first to get a fourth movie. After all, Iron Man had gotten his third before anyone had even gotten their second and Thor’s second movie “The Dark World” is arguably the worst Marvel movie ever made. But Marvel took a fairly substantial and ultimately successful risk with the third movie “Ragnarok”, replacing the pseudo-Shakespearean seriousness of the first two installments with the rainbow goofiness of Taika Waititi, the new director of “Ragnarok” and here as well “Love and Thunder”. So dramatic was the reorientation of the Thor franchise, that the third movie left out entirely the largest subplot of the first two movies, Thor’s romantic relationship with the scientist Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. Say all you want about the acting chops of Natalie Portman (and there is much to say), but she isn’t all that funny. Given the new direction, ditching her was probably a wise move. But her story was still out there to wrap up. This “Love and Thunder” does while expanding dramatically the “Thor” universe of the “Marvel Universe”. 

There’s a lot of expanding going on all over the place in the Marvel Universe Phase 4. I watched the TV Series “Loki” and that introduced an infinite amount of timelines. I watched “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and that introduced an infinite amount of universes. I didn’t watch “The Eternals” but it seemed from the trailer that Marvel had decided to start its own religion (diverse and abnormally good looking, just like the world’s present elite). Now “Love and Thunder” establishes that every polytheistic religion in history has real gods that all hang out together in Omnipotent City. There is, among others, Queztalcoatl the Aztec god, Bast the Egyptian god, some sort of Samurai god, and Bao the god of dumplings. They are ostensibly led by Zeus, played here by a fat Russel Crowe with a Greek accent. It is hard to tell where Marvel is eventually going with all of this, but I expect it will be a bit more difficult to tie together something with the weightiness of the previous Avengers movie. After all, what does it matter what occurs in an Avengers movie when it has been established that we are watching but one timeline in one universe with an infinite amount of other timelines and other universes where something else entirely different occurs. I expect Marvel was always going to have this problem no matter what if had gotten so successful that it eventually introduced all of its characters. It seems like an exceedingly wise decision looking back to start the journey with the simplest of heroes, Iron Man, whose superpower was mechanical in nature. It helps to ease the audience into it. 

It was once opined by some person whose name escapes me that the advent of comic book characters was like the resurrection of the old polytheism. (I only remember that this person went on to prepare a thesis about this topic and then became a professor who taught this class for his entire career). I think that is only fitting that a villain of the “Thor” universe be a character named Gorr, The God Butcher, who vaguely resembles Jesus. What do I mean by that? Well, for one he is played by a thin Christian Bale and is dressed in sandals and a robe. He looks vaguely like Jesus might if he were a character in a Marvel movie. Also like Jesus (at least as compared to the old polytheistic gods) he lacks a sense of humor and is a bit of zealot. But really, the biggest similarity is that he is going around killing all of the gods, much like the intolerant Christians (and also Muslims) of history. It is not a mistake that Marvel did not include Jesus (and especially not the Prophet Mohammed) in the crowd in Omnipotent City. There would have been protests in America and riots in the Middle East. 

In “Ragnarok” the villain played by Cate Blanchett was kind of by-the-numbers and the weakest part of the movie. Here, Gorr the Butcher is one of the strongest parts. In particular, Christian Bale’s performance is so strong and his arguments so on point there is a real danger that his seriousness might overpower the goofiness of Thor’s new groove. Here is an example of how Taika Waititi (and his co-writer Jennifer Kaitlin Robinson) deftly avoid that. In one scene the children of New Asgaard (appropriately now a tourist attraction in the Disney owned Marvel Universe, see The Northman) are kidnapped by Gorr the Butcher, spirited to the Shadow Realm and threatened with death. Thor explains to the children that they are in a tight spot, but as they are Vikings of Asgaard, they will gain eternal reward in Valhalla should they die in glorious battle. Classic Thor. 

Two more notes. First, in one scene Thor gets his clothes blown off. The movie clearly uses CGI on Thor’s naked body. Really? Is even Chris Hemsworth not good looking enough for a Marvel movie? Second, one of the throw-away scenes involves an allusion to gay romance. I don’t think Marvel should get diversity credit for that unless they keep it in the Chinese version.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (4/5 Stars)

 

It appears that I will be talking about Jackie Chan for two movie reviews in a row. That’s okay. I love talking about Jackie Chan. In the 1980s, Jackie Chan made a series of movies that were not great in any classical sense because the plots, to put it mildly, they were contrived, that is deliberately created to showcase martial arts sequences.)Also, since Jackie Chan made family movies, the action itself was contrived so that nobody died or was hurt too bad). This is the sort of thing that movie critics get haughty about. But, as far as I am concerned, these are great movies because what they excel at, the physicality, creativity, and humor of the martial arts is unsurpassed in cinema. Sometimes, a movies contrivance in pursuit of showcasing a certain excellence is the draw.

Enter “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” starring Nicolas Cage as himself. What Nicolas Cage has been doing in movies for the past forty years has led to many jokes, memes, and YouTube Compilations, the best of which has to be a four minute compilation entitled “Nicolas Cage Losing his Shit”. The thing is that Nicolas Cage has been in a lot of bad movies and is prone to taking acting choices that are interesting/loud. To take his most emotional scenes and cut them together without context is a lot of fun and also very unfair. Something seems to be happening to his celebrity that I can best define as the “Keanu Reeves is Sad” affect.

There was once a meme called “Keanu Reeves is Sad”. It was just a picture of Keanu Reeves on a bench eating a sandwich. He was alone and looked sad. It went around the internet and lots of people laughed. Keanu was a really good sport about it. Then those same people seemed to feel guilty about it, and ever since. Keanu has received an upswell of goodwill. They all went to see John Wick.

Now Keanu Reeves is a good action star and “John Wick” are good action movies. Nicolas Cage is not a good action star (I mean come on). He is though a good actor, or at least a very interesting one. He has won an Oscar that was deserved (Leaving Las Vegas). But what he is best known for is trying really really hard to elevate mediocre material. This basis of competence and the fact that we all made fun of him and feel bad about it, I think is the reason why “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” exists. It is a movie contrived to give Nicolas Cage as many moments of throw down acting as possible. That is the point of the movie. They threw in a kidnapping plot, a drug lord, and the CIA to tie the threads together. But what you want to know is this:

Does Nicolas Cage give a scene reading in a desperate and inappropriate manner? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage quit acting and cry about it? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage have conversations with an imaginary friend, himself 20 years younger? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage leave a man behind in dramatic fashion? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage take LSD? Yes

Does Nicolas Cage say “The bees! The bees!”? Yes (although that scene was perhaps too contrived even for me)

I was surprised by how well this movie worked. I think the main reason it does, is not Nicolas Cage, but who is acting opposite to him. Nicolas Cage is invited to a birthday party of a drug lord named Javier Martinez (played by Pedro Pascal) who is a big fan of Nicolas Cage. There are two levels of awkwardness that need to be handled here. One is how Pedro Pascal’s acts toward Nicolas. He has a true appreciation for Nicolas Cage, and is also aware that his level of appreciation might be creepy to Nicolas Cage, so he is shy and guarded about it (while also being really excited that he is hanging out with Nicolas Cage). Nicolas Cage, on the other hand, notices this and is cool about it. That is, he is not freaked out, and in a weird very Nicolas Cage way, decides to match the weirdness. A good example is the scene where Nicolas Cage is given a tour of Pascal’s Nicholas Cage memorabilia den. Pedro Pascal owns a life sized sculpture of Nicolas Cage from the movie Face/Off. Seeing this statue of himself in this guys den, Nicholas Cage calmly asks how much it costs.

“$5,000” says Pedro shyly.

“I’ll give you $20,000 for it.” says Nicolas Cage

“I’m sorry, it’s not for sale.” says Pedro (truly sorry and hoping not to hurt Cage’s feelings)

Then the contrived plot devolves into an action climax which turns into a movie that there is a premier of. Demi Moore plays his estranged wife. You get the idea. I recommend it.

Top Five Nicolas Cage Movies (No Particular Order)

1. Pig

2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

3. Leaving Las Vegas

4. Honeymoon in Vegas

5. Peggy Sue Got Married.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (5/5 Stars)

 

There are plenty of big budget movies that are designed to be sensation overload, think of your run-of-the mill action blockbuster. You sit there for several hours as armies run into each other and/or worlds are destroyed but you do not come away feeling like you have seen something new. After all, armies running into each and worlds being destroyed (looking at you Emmerich and Abrams) happen a lot.

Then there are a few rare small budget movies that can be described as sensation overload. These movies do not have the money for a stupid amount of special effects. What they have instead, is a stupid amount of creativity. “Everything, Everywhere All At Once” is one of these rare movies. On a scale of 1 to Being John Malkovich, I would give it around 8 or 9 Charlie Kaufmans. I haven’t seen a movie so jam packed since 2018’s Sorry to Bother You. This will be one of the best movies of the year.

This movie was written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They are relatively new. I had not heard of them before I saw this movie. Almost as important are Brian Le and Andy Le. These are the fight choreographers. They also join many action scenes as stunt men. These four have made a movie that feels big budget and action packed, but if you really think about it (you don’t have to), most of everything takes place in two locations, a laundromat and an office building. This is a master class in efficient film making. There are things that money can buy that do not matter. Then there are things that do matter that do not take a lot of money. Fight choreography is one of those things. Practical effects are another. A sense of humor only comes in cheap (raccoonnie shoutout). But the cheapest and most important thing of all when making something fast paced and complicated is this: a clear vision of what it is you want say. “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” may seem like it is all over the place, but there is a theme to this film that all the different strands of its multiverse are relevant and building to. Like a great symphony, there are many places where discordant themes and notes take center stage, but then they all intertwine and culminate in a climatic harmony, a sum greater than the multitudinous parts.

The plot conceit can be briefly summarized. Today is the day of an IRS audit of a laundromat business owned by Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) and her husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan). Evelyn Wang is in a middle-aged crisis. She is not happy with her business or her marriage or her daughter. Her disapproving father Gong Gong (James Hong) is in town for a visit and the IRS auditor Deidre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) says things like this: “You see all these auditor of the year awards. You don’t get these if you haven’t seen a lot of bullshit”.

On her way to the audit and in the middle of it, her husband’s body is taken over by her husband in an alternate dimension who explains that the fate of the universe relies on her fast action, that there are forces from other dimensions out to kill her, etc. It is explained that every decision in her life creates another universe where the possibilities are developed endlessly in an infinite cycle. In some lives she is an opera singer, a Beni-hana chef, an action move star [whose red carpet appearances look like they come from a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon press circuit :)]. An evil force is on the loose and, sort of like The Matrix, can inhabit the ordinary beings around them. This is how Michelle Yeoh gets into a ridiculous martial arts fist fight with Jamie Lee Curtis. I knew Michelle Yeoh could fight. I did not know Jamie Lee Curtis could.

The fights are ingenious and reminded me of a Jackie Chan movie. They are not as good (how could they be) but they have the same sense of humor. The moves are jokes, they use mundane items as fodder, and the outcome is the punchline. A very good example is Ke Huy Quan’s initial fight in which he fends off several security guards with a fanny pack. The martial arts are very good. The scene is shot in wide angles so you can see it all. And it ends with a move that I would do an injustice trying to explain (Essentially Ke kicks the fanny pack into the security guard’s nose, brings it down with force, and the security guard does a face plant into the floor. I’m sorry you just have to see it). Then there is a tour de force scene with Jenny Slate and her dog/nunchuk. Enough said.

Ke Huy Quan? Who is that? Could it possibly be that kid? It is!! Ke Huy Quan is none other than that adorable asian kid in Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. Shortround! The one that went around saying “Okie Dokie Dr. Jones” in the cutest imaginable way. Apparently after being everyone’s favorite in two big Spielberg movies (the second one being “Goonies”), he stopped acting. There weren’t any roles, so he transitioned into a being a stunt actor. This is his first speaking role in twenty-five years. And he kicks ass! Who knew? Look, If Ke Huy Quan was wondering whether the world remembers him with fondness, my God, we do. He is incredible in this movie. What a comeback.

Beneath all the action and practical effects is a story with true heart. In a way, this movie is a mirror to another great movie that came out this year, Pixar’s “Turning Red”. That movie was about a Chinese-Canadian daughter with a tiger mother. “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” is about a Chinese-American mother with a daughter who is having a crisis of nihilism. How Evelyn Wang deals with her daughter’s depression, depends a lot on how she feels about her life, her business and her marriage turned out. The movie has something very specific to say about this. It definitely has a point of view, which at one point is expressed in one of the multiverses wherein reality is a Wong Kar Wai movie.

When one great movie comes out, its a great movie. When two great movies seemingly from the same area of people, you’ve got a cultural moment. What is ironic, is that I don’t think the government in China would approve of either of these movies and especially not “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.” The communists would disapprove of the effete men, the crude humor, and, above all, the idea that life could be any different (or better) than what it already is.

The Northman (5/5 Stars)

 

If there ever was a movie that I hoped would make its money back and a whole lot more, it would be "The Northman". This is writer/director Robert Eggers' first medium sized budget movie. His previous movies, "The Witch" and "The Lighthouse" were small independent films. What made these movies special was the attention Robert Eggers paid to historical detail. In particular the dialogue stood out. "The Witch" took place in 17th Century Puritan New England. "The Lighthouse" took place on some non-descript 18th century British Isle. Robert Eggers not only took the time and study to unearth the way people back then would talk, but he also had enough faith in his audience to grasp all the temporally foreign words and phrases. The movies are insular and specific, they feel like you have been fully immersed in another place and time. This generally makes a good movie but almost never one that makes a lot of money. So when I heard that a studio had given Eggers a lot of movie with understanding that this would be an Eggers film, not the latest installment of a franchise, I knew that with would be a potential cinematic moment. And it is. "The Northman" is the most unique action blockbuster since "Mad Max: Fury Road". You haven't seen anything quite like it.

Or maybe you have a dozen times. There is plenty of originality in the movie: the culture and lore of Vikings is explored in depth in all its pre-Christian savagery and weirdness. but the plot should be instantly recognizable and for good reason. The story being adapted is the medieval Viking saga of Amleth, a prince whose father kings is murdered by his uncle who then marries his mother. Yes, this is the same saga that William Shakespeare adapted and modernized (in the year 1600) for his stage play Hamlet. It is well that the plot should be familiar because almost nothing else is likely to be recognizable. The Vikings were the white man's last gasp of tribal barbarity before Christianity fully covered the continent and made its inhabitants, in ideal if not in deed, a loving people. For those white people interested in the triumph of the will, it is fitting that they would look to the Vikings for inspiration. Their culture is not for the faint of heart. Having said that, I believe we can all understand the basic instinct for a prince to avenge the death of his father.

There is a level of energy about this movie that is on some level of badass. We get to witness a Vikign coming of age ritual wherein Young Amleth joins his father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke, doing well) and the town shaman (Willem Dafoe) in some Viking version of a Native American sweat lodge. We get to witness the pre-battle fireside rituals of the berserkers in which they obtain their trancelike rage. We get to witness an actual Berserker raid in which unarmored Nordic men terrorize and butcher a hapless Rus village. We get to witness a Viking proto sport called Knattleikr (translates as "ball game") in which men with clubs try to hit a pole with a ball while also hitting each other until one is left standing. We get to watch a swordfight in a Volcano. This is exhilarating stuff, and amazingly, historically accurate.

 Amleth is played by Alexader Skarsgaard, a very tall and muscular Nordic actor. I got some real Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian vibes from him. The love interest of Amleth is Olga, a slave from the Rus village he attacked. She is a cunning survivor played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Eggers fans will remember her from The Witch. She has a face and presence that belongs in movies about the distant past. Other familiar faces show up: there is Willem Dafoe from The Lighthouse and Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie is minor roles. An actor new to Eggers and exceptionally suited to his type of material is Nicole Kidman who plays Amleth's Queen Mother. There is a subtext in Hamlet that is hinted at in some adaptations. That subtext is brought out in full in The Northman in an exceptional scene that twists the story right round.

It is disheartening that "The Northman" had an underwhelming record at the box office. Hopefully the VOD marketplace will make up for it. I very much want artists like Robert Eggers to be successful, not just for their sake, but for other artists like them. It is hard to make movies about the distant past. If these movies are made at all, there seems to be this overwhelming urge to twist the motivations of the characters in some inauthentic way so that it will not offend modern sensibilities. Viking culture is not so different from other pre-Christian cultures. In particular, I believe it has much similarity with polynesian culture. Both peoples were seafaring (and thus exceptionally tall people), had warrior classes, and volcanoes. But imagine if you wanted to make a movie like "The Northman" about a non-white group of people. I'm not sure it would be allowed (Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is the exception that proves the rule). However, if artists like Robert Eggers made money, I don't see why there couldn't also be an artist who has an idea for a badass movie about the Maori. I would love to see that. Right now, all we have is Disney's Moana. 

OSCARS 2022

I had a few things to say about the 2022 Oscars, although at this point, most of it has already been said a thousand times over. So I won't say anything about Will Smith and make a general complaint about something else entirely.

I have a big problem with the choice of "CODA" as Best Picture. It is not a problem with the movie. I have no opinion of the movie. I have not seen it. That is my complaint. The movie is hard to see. CODA exists entirely on Apple+ TV. It was never in any theaters and you cannot rent it on DVD, on YouTube, on Amazon, or anywhere else. There is only one place to see it, and you need a annual Apple+ subscription.

Way way back in the day, the Academy had this rule that all movies in contention for the Oscars needed a theatrical run. This theatrical run was limited but ostensibly, it meant that if you were looking for a movie, you could see it (if you lived in NYC or LA). If you didn't live in NYC or LA, at the least you could wait for the VHS/DVD release and see the movie. Those days are over and not coming back. I'm not saying we need to bring back that particular rule, but the idea behind the rule was sound: that is a celebrated movie should be able to be seen. You should be able to buy a ticket to or rent the thing. There needs to be some new rule that mandates all Oscar nominees should be available somewhere other than a closed streaming subscription service. If the Oscars are good for anything, it is to give suggestions to the audience as to what people who make movies think are good movies to see. If the movies cannot be seen, the Oscars truly are pointless, a vapid stew of pretension where rich and beautiful people complain about inequality in designer dresses. 

Here are my picks for 2022. The best that can be said about 2022 is that it was a better year than 2021, which was the worst ever. I have excised the categories for Animated film and Foreign Language film, perhaps permanently as they seem to be kids' table categories, and have added a category for Stunt Direction, an integral part of many movies which has been overlooked for way too long of a time. 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Dune

Drive My Car

The Green Knight

House of Gucci

The Power of the Dog

Best Original Screenplay

The French Dispatch

A Hero

Licorice Pizza

Midnight Mass

Red Rocket

Best Production Design

Dune

The French Dispatch

The Green Knight

Spencer

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Costume Design

Dune

House of Gucci

Last Night in Soho

Nightmare Alley

Spencer

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Dune

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

The House of Gucci

The Green Knight

The Suicide Squad

Best Supporting Actress

Brenda Deiss - Red Rocket

Kirsten Dunst - The Power of the Dog

Vera Farmiga - The Many Saints of Newark

Meryl Streep - Don't Look Up

Marisa Tomei - Spider-Man: No Way home

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon - The Last Duel

David Dastmalchian - The Suicide Squad

Ethan Darbone - Red Rocket

Hamish Linklater - Midnight Mass

Jeffrey Wright - The French Dispatch

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain - The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Lady Gaga - House of Gucci

Alana Haim - Licorice Pizza

Frances McDormand - The Tragedy of MacBeth

Best Actor

Nicolas Cage - Pig

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog

Adam Driver - House of Gucci

Simon Rex - Red Rocket

Denzel Washington - The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Use of a Song in a Movie

“Nearer My God to Thee” – Midnight Mass

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – The Eyes of Tammy Faye

“In the Heights” – In the Heights

“L’Ultima Volta” – The French Dispatch

Gym Dance “Mambo” - West Side Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xtkGKeccLI

Best Use of Cultural Appropriation

The Green Knight – Dev Patel

Midnight Mass – Catholicism and Vampires

The French Dispatch – The French Dispatch of the Kansas Evening Sun

Licorice Pizza – waterbeds, sushi bars, licorice pizza, L.A., the movies, Haim, hustlers

West Side Story – “America”

Best Visual Effects

Black Widow

The Suicide Squad

No Time to Die

Dune

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Best Stunt Direction

Black Widow

The Suicide Squad

No Time to Die

Dune

Red Notice

Best Film Editing

No Time to Die

Dune

The French Dispatch

The Power of the Dog

Red Rocket

Best Sound

Dune

No Time to Die

The Power of the Dog

The Green Knight

West Side Story

Best Cinematography

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Red Rocket

The Power of the Dog

The French Dispatch

The Green Knight

Best Director

The Green Knight – David Lowery

Dune – Denis Villeneuve

The French Dispatch – Wes Anderson

The Power of the Dog – Janet Campion

Red Rocket – Sean Baker

Best Picture

Pig

The Green Knight

Midnight Mass

Dune

The French Dispatch

The Power of the Dog

Licorice Pizza

Red Rocket

The Tragedy of Macbeth

A Hero