The Great Movie Conquest of 2022

The Great Movie Conquest of 2022 - Febuary

Welcome back, one and all, to my latest attempt to justify being enslaved to a million different streaming services. My efforts to watch one new movie a day all year haven't worn me out yet, but we're not even past the first quarter yet.

My first film of the month brought me to Baz Lurhmann's Australia, and it reminded me what a beautifully mysterious animal the feature film is. My writer's brain identified a small handful of technical issues with the film's plotting, but the emotional current of the film took me to a place that was epic, even spiritual. I don't know. When a film cuts straight to the core of your psyche, do setup and payoff even matter anymore? I think this film is fated for repeated viewings over the years as I untangle my response to this film.

One of my favorite films of all time is Billy Wilder's The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. You'd think, then, that learning that the three had collaborated again with Irma La Douce would excite me, but their electric combination just feels like a bolt of lightning that could never strike the same place twice, so I went in feeling apprehensive.

The film itself had Wilder's signature cleverness, and it carried over the plot's absurd twists and turns. Lemmon and MacLaine were at their best. I don't know if this movie could ever supplant The Apartment, but at the same time I don't know if that's a fair expectation or if any film should be evaluated on such terms. Irma La Douce was a lot of fun, and I can be content with that for now.

I think the worst viewing experience goes to Lake Placid. Mind you, I don't think that the film's ambitions were ever that high, but my goodness it's irresponsible to make a film so hostile to human psychology. Don't tell me it's just a creature feature and I shouldn't be thinking about it so hard. Crawl had the same basic human vs crocodile plotline and that one didn't leave my brain feeling like grated cheese.

My apathy toward the state of award show politics, and my frustration with this year's ceremony in particular, hasn't stopped me from wanting to brush up on this year's Oscar nominees. The two that I hit this month were Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog and Lin-Manuel Miranda's tick, tick ... BOOM! Both offerings represent genres or topics I am invested in (toxic masculinity and modern musicals), though neither really gave me what I was looking for. I don't consider that a waste or a failure. We all need to listen to someone who disagrees with us from time to time.

I'm always interested to see the modern film world give westerns a try. Just so, I didn't resonate with some of the assumptions The Power of the Dog made about where toxic masculinity comes from or how to respond to it. Meanwhile, I was elated by the hyper-stylization of Tick, Tick ... BOOM! at least when the film's protagonist didn't feel so self-obsessed. (Just take the piano and be grateful, Jon.) This wasn't my favorite musical offering of the year, yet it somehow was the film that made me most hopeful for the future of the genre. I look forward to reading about how both films do at the ceremony this year.

Speaking of musicals, my one theater visit this month took me to Joe Wright's Cyrano, the review for which I only published yesterday. I'll just say here that the film makes a really good case for period-piece musicals.

Anyways, looking forward ...

The masses have spoken, and March's theme will be movies that my roommates say I need to watch. (What would my professors say if I finally ended up seeing Baby Driver at the behest of my roommates when I put off their own recommendation for years?)

I'm wanting to dedicate April to a specific country to help increase my literacy with international film, but I'm leaving it up to you to decide which country that will be. I've narrowed it down to Japan and France. Cast your votes here.

If I'm being totally honest with myself, this challenge was born mostly out of impatience. I want to be fluent in every kind of movie right now, and if I just consume a bunch of new movies in rapid succession, then I will finally get what I want. But if I look back at the things that have helped me feel secure in my study of film, numbers or scores factored very little into the equation. Realizing I had the capacity to understand a text deeply, that's what gives me peace of mind, and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to use this space to process the films I'm seeing.

So I guess the question is ... can a person's expertise have depth and breadth? I'll let you all know in January.

--The Professor

Alright, March, you're next!

Febuary's Harvest:

Australia (2008)

Journey to Italy (1954)

Shark Tale (2004)

Irma La Douce (1963)

I Shot Jesse James (1949)

Abominable (2019)

Prisoners (2013)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Social Dilemma (2020)

Easy A (2010)

An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)

World War Z (2013)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Lake Placid (1999)

Hollow Man (2000)

The Power of the Dog (2021)

The Bravados (1958)

Designing Woman (1957)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

The Coward (1965)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

tick, tick ... BOOM! (2021)

The House with a Clock in its Walls (2019)

Cyrano (2021)

The King of Kings (1927)

Ride Your Wave (2019)

Comments

REVIEW: ELIO

Here's a fact: the term "flying saucer" predates the term "UFO." The United States Air Force found the former description too limiting to describe the variety of potential aerial phenomena that might arise when discussing the possibility of life beyond earth. There may have to be a similar expansion of vocabulary within the alien lexicon with Pixar's latest film, Elio , turning the idea of an alien abduction into every kid's dream come true. The titular Elio is a displaced kid who recently moved in with his aunt after his parents died. She doesn't seem to understand him any better than his peers do. He can't imagine a place on planet earth where he feels he fits in. What's a kid to do except send a distress cry out into the great, big void of outer space? But m iracle of miracles: his cries into the universe are heard, and a band of benevolent aliens adopt him into their "communiverse" as the honorary ambassador o...

JAWS: The Father of All Blockbusters Turns 50

The saga of Hollywood lives and dies on the ripples of a thousand different choices. Hundreds of movies each year from hundreds of artists serving hundreds of markets creates a complex, interconnected ecosystem that can never really be explored in its totality. Still, if there was one film, one moment, that trampolined Hollywood from one era into the next, it was in 1975 with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws . Moviegoing had naturally been a part of the global industry since moving pictures stole everyone’s attention at the start of the century. Tentpole films were also very much a part of the program. But the treatment of movies like The Sound of Music and Ben-Hur was done with an eye for prestige, more comparable to how Oscar hopefuls handle things today. Theaters at this time were still generally accustomed to having sporadic releases across the country over a period of several weeks. Limited roadshow releases were how you signaled that a movie’s importanc...

REVIEW: Jurassic World - Rebirth

I had a mixed reaction to Jurassic World: Rebirth, but it did make for one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I've had in recent memory. I have to imagine that a part of this is because my most common theater appointments are matinee screenings, but I had the opportunity to see this one at a fairly well-attended midnight screening. And there's nary a film more tailored for surround-sound roaring and screens wide enough to contain these de-extinct creatures. ("Objects on the screen feel closer than they appear.") It was natural for me to cap the experience by applauding as the credits stared to roll, even if, as usual, I was the only one in the auditorium to do so. Yes, I am that kind of moviegoer; yes, I enjoyed the experience that much, and I imagine I will revisit it across time. That's not to imagine the movie is beyond reproach, but for I suppose it bears mentioning that, generally , th...

Resurrecting Treasure Planet

Wherever any given cinephile falls on the totem pole, they are certainly familiar with the idea of the film canon, this idea of an elect selection of films that signal the height of the artform's cultural value, touchstones for all who consider themselves good and true lovers of cinema. Films that belong to "the canon" are secure in continued cultural relevance even decades after their premiere. Any person's chosen reference for the canon will certainly vary between which list they believe carries the most authority (AFI Top 100, IMDb Top 250, The Academy Awards), or just as likely will synthesize a number of sources, but however any one person defines it, the canon is real, and it demands to be recognized. It will surprise some, baffle others, and offend others still, to think that Walt Disney Animation has its own film canon of sorts. Belonging to this selective society come with some very specific be...

REVIEW: The Legend of Ochi

This decade has seen a renaissance of movies claiming to be "this generation's ET ," but you probably can't remember their names any better than I can. We could have all sorts of debates why it is no one seems to know how to access that these days, though I don't think for a moment that it's because 2020s America is actually beyond considering what it means to touch that childhood innocence. But A24's newest film, The Legend of Ochi , does have me thinking this mental block is mostly self-inflicted by a world whose extoling of childhood is more driven by a dislike of the older generation than anything else. Fitting together narratives like How to Train Your Dragon with Fiddler on the Roof and tossing it in the sock drawer with 1980s dark fantasy, The Legend of Ochi is intermittently enchanting, but it's undermined by its own cynicism. On an island stepped out of time, a secluded community wages war against the local population of ...

Wicked vs Maleficent

“Witch” has historically been used as a pejorative for a non-conformist woman, someone who does not obey the expectations of her culture. It’s little wonder, then, that a society with more progressive mores would commandeer the witch archetype into a warrior for social justice, or that the most famous witch of them all would spearhead this retyping. Yes, I am thinking of a certain Broadway musical and a fiery, green-skinned, justice-bent rebel-rouser. Wicked is a stage musical that follows the infamous Wicked Witch of the West as featured in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz . By shedding light on what happened before Dorothy dropped into Oz, Wicked recasts the witch as not a villain, but a misunderstood heroine. The show has been defying gravity on Broadway for coming on twenty years now, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. When Disney’s Maleficen t came along a little over ten years later, the shorthand description of the film was basic...

REVIEW: SCREAM VI

Ever since Sidney Prescott asked audiences nearly 30 years ago "how do you gut someone?" with such disgust, the "Scream" franchise has forced a stab-hungry audience to question how they could ever entertain a ritual so violating as the gruesome act taking someone else's life. Last year, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett delivered arguably the franchise's strongest offering yet. Strong because the film played its game very well. These guys also know that subversion in film is fun, certainly, but also that films which sell themselves on their subversion tend to be very hollow. You need a strong thematic lifeblood and a cast of characters to root for. If your audience is more excited about the cut-up bodies than the victors, you have a problem. This is where the newer films, including this most outing, have found their strength. Scream VI sees the survivors of the last installment making a fresh break in New York City. Sam, Tara, Mindy, and Chad a...

REVIEW: Superman

I feel like it's essential that I establish early on in this review that this marks my first time seeing a Superman movie in theaters. The Zack Snyder saga was actually in swing while I was in high school and college--back when I was in what most would consider in the target audience for these films--but that kind of passed by me without my attention. And I'll be clear that I take no specific pride in this. I wasn't really avoiding the films by any means. My buddies all just went to see them without me while I was at a church youth-camp, and I just didn't bother catching up until much, much later. I'm disclosing all this to lay down that I don't really have any nostalgic partiality to the Superman story. Most of my context for the mythology comes from its echoes on larger pop culture. I know, for example, that Clark Kent was raised in a smalltown farm community with his adopted parents, and it was them who...

REVIEW: Belfast

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the world needs more black and white movies. The latest to answer the call is Kenneth Branagh with his semi-autobiographical film, Belfast . The film follows Buddy, the audience-insert character, as he grows up in the streets of Belfast, Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though Buddy and his family thrive on these familiar streets, communal turmoil leads to organized violence that throws Buddy's life into disarray. What's a family to do? On the one hand, the father recognizes that a warzone is no place for a family. But to the mother, even the turmoil of her community's civil war feels safer than the world out there. Memory feels safer than maturation. As these films often go, the plot is drifting and episodic yet always manages to hold one's focus. Unbrushed authenticity is a hard thing to put to film, and a film aiming for just that always walks a fine line betwe...

An Earnest Defense of Passengers

Recall with me, if you will, the scene in Hollywood December 2016. We were less than a year away from #MeToo, and the internet was keenly aware of Hollywood’s suffocating influence on its females on and off screen but not yet sure what to do about it. Enter Morten Tyldum’s film Passengers , a movie which, despite featuring the two hottest stars in Hollywood at the apex of their fame, was mangled by internet critics immediately after take-off. A key piece of Passengers ’ plot revolves around the main character, Jim Preston, a passenger onboard a spaceship, who prematurely awakens from a century-long hibernation and faces a lifetime of solitude adrift in outer space; rather than suffer through a life of loneliness, he eventually decides to deliberately awaken another passenger, Aurora Lane, condemning her to his same fate. So this is obviously a film with a moral dilemma at its center. Morten Tyldum, direc...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog