I'm someone who cries at the movies a lot, but I'm also someone who can be pretty cynical when it comes to films that are manipulative tearjerkers. But every now and then, a movie can be both manipulative and feel completely heartfelt, and All of Us Strangers is one of those movies.
I mean, it centers on a lonely man who reconnects with his parents....who died when he was twelve. Like, "pause for audience tears" can basically be written into a script with a concept like that! Add to that a burgeoning romance with a slightly mysterious neighbor, and the fact they these two men are played by Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, two actors who just ooze charisma and soulfullnes, and you've got a movie that earns its tears.
I'll also have to admit one other factor that contributed to my absolutely dissolving into a teary mess at the film's end, and that's the use of a song I listened to obsessively when it came out in 1984; "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. (Side note: I do NOT remember them--the band behind "Relax"!--releasing a Birth of Jesus-themed video for the song! That's a plot twist!) Hearing that song during the film's finale brought up a TON of feels, and I was an absolute sobbing mess. I didn't think I'd ever emotionally recover from it.
And then a week later I just had to watch the movie again. That says it all.
All of Us Strangers is currently playing in theaters.
Promising Young Woman was my favorite movie of 2020, so I've been looking forward to Emerald Fennell's follow-up since then. When I heard Saltburn referred to as a kind of Brideshead Revisited and Talented Mr. Ripley mash-up, I knew, if nothing else, it would at least hit the aesthetically pleasing mark.
I was pleased to find it was more than that, although I feel like there's been some backlash against it of late, accusing it of being shallow or meaningless. I don't agree that its either of those things, but also think had it been made by anyone else, it wouldn't be getting that type of criticism.
Saltburn has plenty to say about class, and yearning, both for a lifestyle and for people who will never have you. And man, does Fennell get the yearning part down; Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan have never looked more beautiful than they do in this film. I definitely had my moments of yearning watching them.
I'll say the movie also benefited a lot from seeing it in a crowded theater, as there are some moments in it, and if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, that elicit such a comedic variety of reactions you don't usually hear unless you're watching a horror movie.
Saltburn isn't perfect, and I can't really argue with those who may have issues with it's ending, though to me it works beautifully. I think the ultimate aim of the film is just pleasure and fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. As long as you aren't killing to get it.
I'm always a little trepidatious about creating top ten or even top five lists every year, because I'm always certain there's some movie out there I haven't gotten a chance to see that could very well turn out to be my favorite when I finally do get to see it, one, two, or three years from now. But I have to say, I've done a pretty good job of seeing as much as I could in the past two months (over 60 films, if we're counting) so I am fairly confident that I can narrow it down to at least five.
5. May December and Priscilla
OK, I lied, it's really a top six, because I just couldn't decide between these two as my number five.
I saw Priscilla early in the "awards season," so while other movies definitely demoted it, it was still a movie that lingered with me for a long time. It's not a traditional biopic, and I can see how that might annoy some, especially when you compare it to last year's manic Elvis, which I did not like at all. In fact, I'd say Priscilla is the antidote to that headache inducing movie. It's a calm, introspective look at a period of time in one woman's life, from her point of view. And yes, Jacob Elordi, is too tall (I think this worked visually because it emphasized just how young Priscilla was when they met), and the period details are not entirely accurate (the heels are just all wrong), and you aren't going to learn a lot about either of them (if you're an Elvis fan, you already know everything, and if you aren't, Wikipedia is your friend).
But none of that ruined the movie for me. Priscilla is about memories, and teenage dreams, and adult realizations. It's another Sofia Coppola movie about sad girls in pretty rooms, and I am here for it.
I've watched all of my top movies more than once, but May December is one I watched again almost immediately, because once it ends, you kind of realize you've been watching a different kind of movie all along. I've dubbed it "the year's best camp melodrama horror comedy," because it's all those things, and maybe even more. (Let's not forget thinly disguised true crime drama!)
Julianne Moore and composer Marcelo Zarvos both deserve an Oscar for the combined genius that is the "I don't think we have enough hot dogs" moment at the beginning of the film. Charles Melton definitely deserves one for his heartbreaking performance as a man who's slowly realizing he may be married to a monster. And Natalie Portman deserves one for that ending, which lets the audience realize she's....not as great of an actress as she thinks she is. It's an ending that really caught me off guard the first viewing, but then I heard more than one person compare it to the ending of Tár, and it all made sense.
And while we're giving out Oscars, or at least nominations, give Todd Haynes one too (can you believe he hasn't been nominated for Best Director yet?), and definitely give one to screenwriter Samy Burch, for one of the best debut screenplays I've ever read.
Priscilla is currently available to rent, and May December is streaming on Netflix.
Barbenheimer is here, and there has been a lot of online chatter about which order you should see the movies, should you choose to see them both (and I say you should). It seems most agree you should start with the darkness of Oppenheimer and move on to the brightness of Barbie, but I'm not sure I agree.
I saw Barbie on a Monday night and Oppenheimer on a Tuesday night (one thing I will say: try to see Oppenheimer during the day, as it's three hours long, and the film's closing message may keep you up at night), and I was happy with that ordering. Both films are, in one way or another, cautionary tales, and some of the warnings expressed in the Barbie movie are fully executed in Oppenheimer, and that becomes more apparent if you see Oppenheimer with Barbie on your mind.
And Barbie was definitely a movie I was still thinking about a day later. Greta Gerwig has created a garishly pink, girl-power fantasy packed to the gills with gags, music, fashion, dancing, and philosophical questions. There is so much happening in almost every scene of the movie it's impossible to catch everything on a single viewing. It's borderline chaotic, but if you've ever been a child who plays with Barbies, this tracks.
Margot Robbie's "stereotypical" (as she deems herself) Barbie lives in Barbieland, a land essentially fueled by children playing in the real world. She wakes up everyday in her Dreamhouse, takes a dry shower, eats a fake breakfast, and floats into her pink convertible to drive to the beach.
Almost every Barbie in Barbieland is known as Barbie ("Hi Barbie!"). The President; the Supreme Court; doctors; construction workers. And almost all of the men are Kens (except for Allan, who is hilariously played by Michael Cera), and they spend their day doing their job, which is..."Beach."
Stereotypical Barbie's Ken is played by Ryan Gosling, and I cannot think of more perfect casting. (Of course Robbie is also perfectly cast, but there's also a funny breaking of the fourth wall moment that calls that into question). Gosling easily steals all of the scenes he's in and I would love it if he got another Oscar nomination for this.
When Barbie starts to develop a sort of consciousness, with thoughts of death, and visible signs of imperfection, Barbie and Ken enter the "real world," where Barbie discovers the horrors of objectification and Ken discovers the joys of the patriarchy. While Barbie's presence in the real world is seen by the president of Mattel (Will Ferrell) as a threat to the very existence of both worlds, Ken takes what he learns back to Barbieland, turning it into a Kendomland filled with bros drinking "brewski beers," playing guitar at the Barbies, or obsessing over horses and the Godfather movies.
The ultimate message is that neither type of monosociety is ideal, but I couldn't help but think of this Kendomland more than once when watching Oppenheimer. The Ken-filled land of Barbie does quickly devolve into war (albeit one that includes a terrific fantasy dance sequence), and Oppenheimer does, of course, center on the creation of the ultimate weapon of war.
I liked Christopher Nolan's Memento a lot, but after that, I've found all of his films to be very loud, very busy, and very cold. He's Kubrick on steroids. Oppenheimer is all of those things, but Cillian Murphy's performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer is so riveting I could almost feel some emotion while watching it. I felt a bit more watching Emily Blunt as his wife Kitty, a character who for the majority of the movie is the troubled wife annoyed by her husband's work, but she eventually gets one of the best scenes in the movie. (Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer's earlier girlfriend, Jean, is not given enough screen time, especially considering the film's length and the fact that she's really the only other major female character in it.)
Oppenheimer like most of Nolan's other films, is loud, with a constant soundtrack that makes it feel like it is being constantly propelled forward, even though the movie is half flashback. Frankly, it's exhausting, but I have to admit, when the film finally does quiet, for the Trinity test, this sudden calm makes the scene all the more astonishing. It's perhaps the best sequence in any of his films to date.
I'm not one of those people who insists the only way to truly experience films is in a theater. But I do think Oppenheimer will lose a lot of its impact on a small screen. I saw it in IMAX, which was perhaps a little TOO big and loud, but there is no doubt Nolan knows how to use that format effectively.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon pleases me primarily because it's proof there is room for an unapologetically pink feminist manifesto next to a deadly serious anti-war story in our existing cineplexes, and that plenty of people will indeed see both. It's a Barbenheimer World, and that's fantastic.
No Hard Feelings is being marketed as a gross-out sex comedy, something akin to films like American Pie or Superbad, but it's really more of a romantic comedy than a sex one (even if star Jennifer Lawrence does appear completely naked in it; more on that later).
Lawrence plays Maddie Barker, a Montauk, NY native who is fighting to keep the house she inherited from her mother. It's been paid off, but because of Montauk's rising property values, she can't afford her property taxes. When her car is repossessed, and she can no longer work as an Uber driver, she answers a Craigslist ad from some parents looking to hire a young woman to date their introverted 19-year-old son as a kind of pre-college crash course in sexual adulthood. Payment would come in the form of a used Buick.
Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) is of course very suspicious when this thirtysomething woman starts to come on to him, and it's a running joke that everyone who meets Maddie assumes she's anything but his romantic interest, because she's so old. Her attempts to seduce him fail multiple times because Percy has been so sheltered he hardly recognizes them as attempts at all.
One of the biggest problems with the "classic" teenage sex comedies of yore is their inherent misogyny, so I will always appreciate any attempt to update the genre, especially if that update centers on a woman, gets rid of the objectification, but still retains the raunch the genre needs.
No Hard Feelings definitely tries, and the scene featuring a full-frontal Lawrence, in which she fights some teenagers who have stolen her clothes while she's skinny dipping, seems to be a direct comment on the genre's need for nudity. She's definitely nude, but the scene is played for laughs, not titillation. I wanted more risky moments like that, but too much of the movie takes the tame route, seemingly not understanding that a modern raunchy sex comedy can have the sex, and the raunch, and still be worthy of a star like Jennifer Lawrence.
