We’re six months from January, so it’s time to consider how the year’s shaping up. My verdict? Not great, although I’ve seen 35 new releases and looking at my ranked list, I guess about half of those films I’ve given a heart to (though some of those hearted movies have since long gone from my memory in my old, withered age). Still, of those 15 or so movies I’d say I enjoyed, only seven or eight I’d say I thought were “great” if someone asked me in casual conversation. Maybe that’s a reasonable number of movies to say are great out of 35 – maybe that’s too many, even. There are a handful of movies I thought were mediocre to abysmal that many others would say were great, so perhaps that compensates for the deficit of greatness, in theory.
Still, I’d agree with the assessment from some that, on the whole, movies are not very good anymore (at least, definitely American movies). I’m not as preoccupied with keeping up with new releases — especially the blockbusters and mainstream stuff — because I’m more likely to be disappointed and feel my time was wasted than if I throw on something from decades ago. Is this “pretentious” or “reductive” to say? I don’t know, I just base this judgment off my experiences, and my experiences tell me that the hit-to-miss ratio from movies made in the past few years (again, nominally American films) is lowkey kind of dreadful. I’m no arbiter of quality, but I’m of the mind now that I don’t need to sit down for movies I’m not interested in. I’m not going to be worse off from having missed out on getting to offer an opinion on Elemental.
Ok, so what did I like? My top 5 at the moment consists of:
I won’t say anything about the movies I’ve already reviewed (I have put in the work), but I’ll say a couple things about Pathaan, Boston Johnny, and Master Gardener. Pathaan is like the best version of what American action blockbusters could be; the most entertaining and legitimately sexy action film I’ve seen so far this year, and so genuinely brilliant and beautiful in execution as well, and to have seen people compare it negatively to “Marvel” is beyond the pale to me. In what universe are Pathaan and Thor: Love & Thunder even in conversation with one another? In what universe are Shah Rukh Khan and, like, fucking Chris Evans comparable? You idiots? You fucking swine???? Sure, you could argue that Pathaan displays Marvel influence, I guess, probably because it’s easy to say that because Marvel is everywhere. But even that feels so greatly diminishing of what Pathaan is doing and ultimately accomplishes, and feels more indicative of the particular viewer needing to expand their frame of reference.
Boston Johnny is the newest film from New England low-budget auteur Matt Farley, whose body of work I wrote about for Paste Magazine last year. Nobody is doing anything anywhere close to the kind of films that Matt Farley and oft-director and collaborator Richard Roxburgh make, and not just because their work happens nowhere near Hollywood or even independent studios. Boston Johnny is a deeply bizarre film that demands to be seen (probably one of few films in existence that deserves that trite critic turn of phrase), and I guarantee there is no other film out there that exists like it. A profoundly unique and absurd work of cinematic brilliance that could only happen outside the very studio system that would never allow something like it to get greenlit in the first place.
I think I liked Master Gardener so much because it is the first film I’ve seen where I was really blown away by Joel Edgerton. I sort of forget that he exists because he stars in a lot of films that seem made to be forgotten about (sorry to any Edgerton heads who may be reading this). His presence has never been quite as thrilling to me as in Paul Scharder’s latest release, though I appreciate the idiosyncratic physicalities of his face in a time when actors are required by contract to look as Instagrammable as possible. Ok, in all seriousness, all my thoughts and feelings on Master Gardener are far more eloquently summed up through this gorgeous interview with the man himself and this review, both penned by critic Mark Asch.
The rear of this top 5 is followed very, very closely by Asteroid City and, genuinely, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Asteroid City has to go up high because it’s a Wes Anderson and I’m preconditioned to like his films even if he peaked with The Grand Budapest Hotel and is never going to reach those heights again. That’s fine! I disagree with the people who say that Asteroid City is his best film in years. It’s better than The French Dispatch (I staunchly disagree with defenders of that movie, which I do nevertheless like), and it’s neat that Wes Anderson is more focused on playing with form in his late films than in cultivating the kind of tragedy and soul-crushing that made me and many others fall in love with his earlier work. Again — that’s fine. It makes sense why people really love Dispatch and this new one as well, it’s just not really what I’m personally interested in from him. I love his style, and how he’s only becoming more refined and insane with it, but I love the way he used to write stories (paging former co-writer Owen Wilson, perhaps). Anyway, we’re better off having him around. His movies are better than most others.
When I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3, I had to remain in my theater seat for a few extra minutes — not to anticipate an after-credits scene, but to let the rest of my theater funnel out a bit more because I had sobbed so much and for so long that my face was swollen and beet red and it was too embarrassing. A lot of that had to do with the content of the movie; I’m extremely sensitive about animals in distress and this film shows some images that I cannot unsee and have been actively working to repress every day since I saw them.
That said, it’s still crazy, for all it’s litany of flaws, how much this film feels like a real film by comparison to the rest of the slop from the Slop Factory, right from the moment it starts. I also just have big soft spot for Gunn and for my movie friends, the Guardians. They’re the only Marvel films I genuinely love, and I love these characters, so it was doubtful that I would dislike the rightful conclusion to the trilogy (a real shame this movie had to piggy back off the bullshit from Avengers — if my dad, noted Guardians fan, went to see it, he’d probably be mostly confused and spend too much of the movie asking me questions). Also, Academy Award for Bradley Cooper’s voice work as Rocket when? This movie is probably too high up on my list, but it’ll stay there for now.
So, what about the remaining 30-ish films? Spots 8 to 18 are all films I enjoyed (shout-outs in particular to Tommy Guns, Fool’s Paradise, and Knock at the Cabin), with 19 to 35 made up of films I thought were ok to pure crap. Blackberry was nowhere near as good as people have been saying (I think mostly symptomatic of *everything else* in the landscape comparatively), but Glenn Howerton does Independent Spirit Award 2024 nominee-making stuff. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was like watching a Lifetime movie in a theater. At some point I guess I watched a biopic on Emily Brontë (edit: initially referred to this movie, Emily, as being about Emily Dickinson; that’s the kind of impression it left on me). I think the reason this year feels so particularly bad to me thus far is because the bad stuff is like, some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen in my life. I will regret for the rest of my days that I spent hours of my life — over one-quarter of the way through, at this point — on Cocaine Bear, Paint, Renfield, Peter Pan & Wendy, and, yes, Skinamarink, which I saw *twice* because I thought “Ok, maybe this will play better for me in a theater.” Nope! It played much, much worse!
However, I feel hopeful for the year ahead. We’ve got Killers of the Flower Moon on the way to save American cinema, in addition to Barbie (which I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy a shameful amount), Oppenheimer, Drive-Away Dolls, The Last Voyage of the Demeter (yes), Insidious: The Red Door (yes — I have not seen the last two Insidious films btw), Passages, Maestro, Priscilla, The Zone of Interest, May/December, Ferrari, D2une, The Killer, Napoleon, and, of course, who could forget, Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom. Definitely other stuff too, either stuff that hasn’t gotten an official release date yet and stuff that I’m forgetting about (no, I’m not forgetting to include Poor Things. I am lukewarm on Yorgos, though it’s nice to see Mark Ruffalo returning to acting in real films).
Odd and Ends…
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Have you thought about going through Columbo?