The Great Movie Conquest of 2022: October

I kinda let myself off the hook this month by not giving myself a specific theme for what movies I hit this round. While, yes, this made the selection process a little easier, it does pose a problem for deciding what I should write about for this month's report.

Something that's been on my mind these last few months of the challenge is the way that, even if my rate of intaking new films has increased dramatically, the frequency with which I come across favorite films hasn't really gone up. Sometimes, it actually feels like it's declined. As the ritual of intaking a new film each day just becomes part of the routine, I am often hit with the outlandish but nonetheless troubling possibility that maybe I have just seen every movie that I like--that maybe there are just no more gems for me to discover. As my rate of enjoyment has declined these last few months, it's a possibility that feels less incredulous.

But sometimes I'm lucky enough to reel in a big fish that keeps me on my feet. And sometimes, after a long drought, I find a couple of them in quick succession. The first of these came right at the start of the month with San Francisco, a piece starring an underdiscussed musical presence, Jeanette MacDonald, and her romance with Clark Gable set just before the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Ben is Back has probably been my favorite movie I've encountered in the last several months of this challenge. The movie follows a young drug addict, played by Lucas Hedges, who sneaks home from treatment to spend Christmas with his family. While his mother, Julia Roberts, is thrilled to see him home, his visit brings about unintended consequences, forcing his mother to unlock the depths of her love for her wayward son and ask how far she'll go to keep him safe. It's the kind of movie that pinpoints very specific sensitivities and just barrages them with emotion. So naturally, I was deeply moved by the experience. So much so that this very viewing inspired me to start assembling a new Professor's Picks, one which, if it actually comes to fruition, you'll see in the next few months.

At the same time, my effort to become more literate sometimes leads me to view films that I know in my heart are only going to make me gag, but I tell myself that it's important for me to understand these films just the same. (And how can I judge these movies so harshly unless I've actually seen them, right?) I had that experience earlier this year with Deadpool, whose wanton crassness was outpaced only by its irritating smugness, and I had it again this month with The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I'd say that I hated the assumptions it made about people like Steve Carrel's character, but the movie wasn't actually any nicer to his friends. It was just universally juvenile. I honestly don't know what the lesson here is, except that maybe it's sometimes okay to judge a film by its cover?

Only one review this month, that of David O. Russell's Amsterdam, but given that we're heading into the most crowded time of the year for new movies, I don't lament the lighter load this month.

As I finally approach the end of this year, I'm trying to zero in on the films that I want to check off before the challenge has concluded, while also internalizing the fact that exposing myself to the full breadth of films that deserve attention is going to be a lifelong endeavor. I very much look forward to the day when I can give myself some breathing room between new viewings, when I don't have to strain to shove a two-hour film into my schedule before I go in for my shift, but nonetheless I look at the library offered by film, a medium so expansive that I could watch a movie a day for the rest of my life and still never wrap my arms around it, and I feel nothing but gratitude.

Yeah, even for films like The 40 Year Old Virgin.

--The Professor

A visual representation of how this challenge makes me feel. (I'm the one wearing the straps.)

October's Harvest

San Francisco (1936)

Rodan (1956)

Big Fish & Begonia (2016)

American Psycho (2000)
It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Amsterdam (2022)

That's Entertainment (1974)

Original Cast Album Recording: Company (1970)

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Misery (1990)

The Idle Class (1921)

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2004)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Uncharted (2022)
Ben is Back (2018)

Savages (2007)

Harper (1966)

Jackie Brown (1997)

Cat's Eye (1985)

Dracula Untold (2014)

The American President (1995)

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Future World (1976)

District 9 (2009)

Nothing to Lose (1997)

Moonfall (2022)

Fright Night (2011)

Comments

Toy Story 4: Pixar's Tribute to Regression

It was about this time last year that I came across the one person who actually hated Toy Story 3 . I was reading Jason Sperb’s book “Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Age of Digital Cinema” as part of my research for my essay on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu . It was in one of his chapters on the Pixar phenomenon that he shared his observation from the ending of Toy Story 3 , essentially casting the film as this nostalgia mousetrap for adults: “ If Andy lets go of his childhood nostalgia and moves on, then Toy Story fans don’t really have to , as the narrative recognition in the potential value in such an act is sufficient. Actually moving on becomes indefinitely deferred in an endless cycle of consumption (rewatching the movies, purchasing new versions of the movie, purchasing more and more Toy Story-related merchandise, rewatching them yet again with the next generat...

REVIEW: Disclosure Day

Maybe it was self-control that compelled Spielberg to build his whole movie around aliens but give the aliens themselves as little screentime as possible. (Or, for all I know, he did it on a dare.) But this is only one of the risks taken by his latest film. This first encounter picture is distanced from something like Independence Day and more toward something like 2001: A Space Odyssey --and it's even closer to something like Arrival . The film sees a cyber-security worker, Daniel Kilner (Josh O'Connor) who defects with the intent to reveal what he knows to the world: the government has had repeated, secret encounters with extraterrestrial life. He has a team of underground sympathizers, lead by Hugo Wakefield (Colmon Domingo), but he also has agent Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) out to stop the truth at any cost. Kilner's only chance getting the truth out there is in joining up with Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a newscast personali...

(Almost) A Love Letter to the "Percy Jackson" Movies

Maybe it's just living through a pandemic-stained world rife where each election feels like a last-ditch effort to rescue liberty from the oblivion, but I'm sometimes nostalgic for the days when the most traumatic thing in my life was a poor adaptation of a favorite book. My generation will remember the film adaptation of the popular YA fantasy book Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan with something like embarrassment, if not outright lividity. The book follows a young teen, Percy Jackson, who discovers that the gods of ancient Greece not only exist, but also sire modern day heroes. As a child of one of these gods, Percy is continually drawn into their Olympian-sized conflicts wherein he gets to prove himself every bit as much a hero as Hercules. Each installment of the five-book series reads like a theme-park ride through Greek mythology as the teens travel across the country battling ancient m...

Some Much Needed Love for Megamind

Following this year's Oscars ceremony, filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directors of The Lego Movie , penned an op-ed for Variety bemoaning the stigma around animated films. They report taking issue with Naomi Scott, one of the presenters for best animated film, saying that animated films are some of the most formative experiences a kid has, and that kids tend to watch these films over and over, further noting "I think some of the parents out there know exactly what I'm talking about." Lord and Miller seemed to take this as implying that adults can't appreciate animated films, saying "Surely no one set out to diminish animated films, but it’s high time we set out to elevate them." I didn't personally find Scott's observation that kids make their parents watch the same animated films over and over again innately demeaning--certainly not any more than Schumer joking that her toddler made he...

REVIEW: Project Hail Mary

The elements in Project Hail Mary are all mostly straightforward and build to a fairly familiar end: drop an average Joe into an extraordinary situation where he is required to be extraordinary also, and watch extraordinary things happen. This is proven territory. And I spent most of the time drafting this review trying to decide whether that was a point for or against the film, helmed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller--and whether that made a difference for a non-franchise piece like this, the exact kind of film we need to succeed at the box office in order to have a healthy landscape. I think the answer to that question is honestly bigger than any one film, even a reasonably well-done one such as this. But I will say that a movie like Project Hail Mary gives me some hope, and it's my wish that the film continues to find people who will receive it with zeal. And I hope that the people who do will continue to search for other films that they...

Charade: The Shortest Distance Between Two Words

It can feel hackneyed, and even a little lazy, to echo that oft-repeated sentiment that “they really just don’t make ‘em like they used to.” That kind of nostalgic wallowing has us forget that, yeah, even the old masters sometimes produced real stinkers. And it’s also not fair to the many storytellers today who, working against ever turbulent conditions, still manage to create something deeply profound and worthy of the deepest reverences … But there are absolutely times where it’s really easy to believe this anyways. Let me explain by describing my recent experience watching Argylle for the first time earlier this year. The film was designed as a spin-off from the “Kingsmen” franchise and saw poor Bryce Dallas Howard playing Elly, a reclusive spy novelist, whose life is turned upside down when a host of malicious agents converge on her demanding that she write her final book because the events in her novels have predicted real w...

REVIEW: Song Sung Blue

I came into Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue with little context for the real-life couple at the center of this movie, for Neil Diamond, or for the world of celebrity impersonators interpreters. There are no doubt subterranean connotations to the specific songs that they chose to sing at certain moments in the narrative that are lost on me. I have no doubt, though, that the intended audience will find this movie before long. But the film was still viable enough that even a relative neophyte like me could still find himself humming along to this musical drama. The film documents the real-life couple of Mike and Claire Sardina, celebrity impersonators who fall in love, marry, and form a tribute band for legendary singer, Neil Diamond. We track their relationship from its beginning through their career aspirations and the crossroads in their marriage, including a violent accident that changes their family forever. Again, I don...

REVIEW: HOPPERS

In the 1950s under the threat of nuclear warfare, Hollywood premiered such exercises as The Day the Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds where an alien power would pass judgment on humankind, holding its fate in its hands. Here in the 2020s under the shadow of such threats as climate change, Hollywood sends to be our judge ... beavers. Let me back up ... Daniel Chong's new film from Pixar Animation, Hoppers , sees Mabel (Piper Curda), a college student whose self-appointed mission is to preserve the glade where she used to find sanctuary with her now deceased grandmother. Her biggest opponent is hometown boy and beloved mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), who has designs to plow over the glade in order to open his new freeway--estimated to save travelers four whole minutes of commuting. Mabel gets her golden opportunity when she uncovers secret technology pioneered by her professor which allows a human to rem...

REVIEW: Soul

Pixar's latest film, Soul , dropped on Disney+ Christmas day, another regrettable casualty of the virus. This time around, we follow a hopeful musician bursting with enthusiasm. Music is an oddly appropriate metaphor for the film: both certainly touch the outer rim of mankind's emotional faculty, but good luck summarizing the experience to your friends. Joe Gardner is a music teacher at a public school whose enthusiasm for music is spilling out of the walls of his classroom. Opportunity strikes Joe the same day that misfortune does, and a fatal accident lands him in a celestial plane of existence known as "The Great Before," where souls are developed and finessed before being sent to earth to experience human existence. Joe is saddled with mentoring 22, a soul sapling who has settled in The Great Before for several hundred years and has no intention of ever giving mortality a chance. But in 22, Joe sees a chance to return back to earth and fulfill his purpose if he ca...

REVIEW: Supergirl

Some will say, "We don't need another edgy superhero!" But that's not what makes the utter mediocrity of DC's new Supergirl so devastating. People were saying "We don't need another X superhero" since 2012, and the post-Infinity saga stupor we've slogged through was not triggered by piling one-too-many superheroes onto the camel's back. The Flash sucked because its perversion of the butterfly effect theory was convoluted and ham-fisted. Black Adam sucked because nobody on that film knew what a moral dilemma actually looks like. "Love and Thunder" sucked because, despite what everyone thought in 2017, Waititi's style only barely worked in "Ragnarok" and was not going to work in a script which feels like it was farted out half-past midnight. Supergirl had none of those issues. The real tragedy of Supergirl is that it so easily could have worked. Drifting around the universe has mostly worked for Sup...

Films and Feelings

Search This Blog