Primal Fear – Can a Movie So Stuck in the 90’s be Enjoyed Today?

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High school is a pretty good time to start watching Edward Norton’s hot streak of movies from the mid 90’s to the early 2000’s. They’re often very serious and not all that subtle. That’s a perfect combination for a high school-aged kid; you get to watch adult movies that deal with mature themes that don’t run too deep so that you don’t miss any real subtext. Norton hit the apex of this with Fight Club: the ultimate high school movie. It has big performances, enough pseudo-intellectualism to kill a liberal arts student and a crazy fucking twist. Even at age 16, I was able to look at Fight Club and think to myself, “Nah. This is a piece of shit.”

No matter how some of his movies turned out, Norton is an undeniably magnetic performer. He can play intensity with ease, as many dramatic actors can, but also slip into softer characters with just as much success (something over-acclaimed actors like Leonardo Dicaprio and Jack Nicholson are genuinely terrible at). The movie that allows Norton to flex both of those muscles is his big screen (and Academy Award nominated) debut in 1996’s Primal Fear.

Norton plays Aaron Stampler, an altar boy accused of murdering an Arch Bishop in Chicago. Richard Gere plays the lead character, Aaron’s lawyer, and honestly gives what should be hailed as one of his career’s best performances, but gets overshadowed by Norton’s meatier supporting performance (ain’t it always that way?). What we get, is a relatively standard courtroom thriller with just enough twists and turns in its pocket to keep you interested, buoyed by powerhouse performances.

What struck me as I re-watched it for the first time in at least 5 years is just how 90’s it is. Yes, there are the shaggy haircuts, parted down the middle, the goofy-looking suits and actors like Maura Tierney (who isn’t given enough to do) and Laura Linney (who should have rocketed to fame after this) to remind us that this movie was made right in the thick of the 90’s but there are also some indescribable features that place us in that decade. Maybe it’s the music cues, maybe it’s just the general swagger people held back then, I’m not sure, but if you showed this movie to someone without any prior knowledge, it’s likely they’d guess it was made somewhere between 1994 and 1998.

So, does it hold up, despite being undeniably 90’s? To be honest, I’m never quite sure what “holding up” means. Yes, there is the direct interpretation of, “is it still a good movie, all these years later,” but everyone seems to have their own take on what it means. It’s definitely dated but I also think it still works. The performances aren’t any less captivating today and the story structure still works well enough. So, if that’s the case, what would have to happen for a movie not to “hold up?” Short of new social and societal revelations, I see no reason why a movie should work in one decade and crumble in another.

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Primal Fear’s biggest asset is its performances and characters. Gere’s Martin Vail actually has layers that go beyond the normal “hot shot lawyer” archetype, not many layers… but layers nonetheless. Even the supporting players, like Andre Braugher have backstory that doesn’t smack you in the face. For a blunt courtroom drama about a sociopathic murderer, there is a fair amount of restraint at play.

Of course, Norton runs away with the movie, thanks to his character’s mid-story revelation of multiple personality disorder, but the snappy dialogue between the rest of the characters keeps you watching almost as much. There’s a certain composure these actors hold, that keep them from getting bogged down by some of the cheesier lines they’re forced to spit. And the quippy banter? As always, when quippy banter is done right, it’s nothing short of delightful.

Tommy: That’s the worst bullshit story I’ve heard in my entire life.

Martin: Now it’s our bullshit story.

I was talking about this movie with a friend once who said it was the perfect kind of movie to remake in the modern era. At first, I was intrigued by the idea, maybe giving it a new coat of paint could revitalize it for a new generation. Throw Bradley Cooper into Gere’s role, stick Scarlett Johansson in Laura Linney’s place and find a fiery new talent for Norton’s role… why not? But then I firmly stood against the notion. Beyond the fact that studios don’t make movies for $30 million anymore, this movie can’t be remade now because it would be trash. It should have been trash in the 90’s but it isn’t. Thanks to the right talent all coming together, the material is elevated to something much better than it had any right to be. Leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Look what happened to Total Recall, another clinically 90’s movie. When they tried to update it for the modern era with new actors, all of a sudden it became clear that it was the talent involved that made that cheesy movie work, not the convoluted story.

After watching it again, it became clear to me that Primal Fear doesn’t really have anything to say. It boils down to being an entertaining-as-hell film adaptation of a murder mystery novel you would probably see sitting on your grandma’s coffee table, with a menacing ending that I legitimately never saw coming (at age 16, at least). To me, that’s fine. Maybe not every movie has to be a musing on what it means to be human or what makes someone crazy (maybe we’re the crazy ones!!). Some movies can just be about a killer in a courtroom. Nothing wrong with that.

Everybody Wants Some!! One of the Most Charmingly Annoying Movies I’ve Ever Loved

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This one is just a plain ol’ gem. While it essentially exists as a middle-aged man looking back on his college years and only remembering the best parts, it is pretty damn fun to watch. It took me a few viewings (I’ve gone through this movie more times than I should) to understand that these characters aren’t really supposed to be that lovable… most of them are entitled assholes who you probably met and hated in college. Having said that, it would be hard to find a movie where the cast has better chemistry than this one; they obviously love spending time with each other and it shows. Even if you find EWS exhausting at the beginning, what with its absurd fetishization of college life, the swagger and charm of its cast will wear you down.

Hollywood has been hyping up college to kids for decades and while this movie does its fair share to pile on to that, it approaches the subject matter with a little more delicate nuance. The characters love to drink and get girls but honestly, it’s entirely possible that, that was Richard Linklater’s college experience in the early 80’s.

The obvious standout here is Glenn Powell as Finn, the charming, pseudo-intellectual you definitely met five times in college. He’s the character you most want to be and also the one you’d probably want to tell to shut up after he rambles about his theories on Dante for ten minutes. The obvious weak point is Blake Jenner as Jake, the lead character, which seems to be a recurring issue in Linklater’s movies recently: Ellar Coltrane started out pretty charmless and eventually became insufferable in “Boyhood,” and here, Jenner is pretty monochrome from start to finish, and not even in a way where he grounds the rest of the wackier characters in reality… he just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the actors. Put Wyatt Russell in his role, or at least someone that I believe A) has played baseball once in their life and B) acted in something other than Glee.

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Linklater, as he has done many times in his career, seems to be out to prove that “plot” is overrated and he’s right to think so. There’s no overarching goal these characters have, they’re just having as much fun as possible during those glorious few days when you show up to college but classes haven’t started yet. He proves that if you create a cast of characters that feel real and put them in a fully-realized setting, you can get away with just letting them exist, in fact, you probably should. There doesn’t need to be a ham-fisted plot about them earning enough money to save the team or having to win the big game so they can go to the playoffs, they can just exist without the need for some climactic payoff.

Much like my real days in college, hoping that classes wouldn’t actually begin and I could just hang out with my friends all day, every day; I spent this whole movie, dreading the idea that it would eventually end and that the characters would have to go to class and I’d have to leave the theater. In a theatrical landscape where many movies are overlong and overstuffed with lore and in-references, I find myself playing “fantasy film editor” and trying to figure out which scenes could be cut or trimmed so I’m not in the seat for way over two hours but here, I was bummed out by the constant reminder that the characters’ long weekend was rapidly coming to a close.

I would be totally game for Linklater to make direct sequels to this movie on a regular basis because I know it wouldn’t grow tiring. What works about the movie isn’t some clever storyline or hook that can be ruined with a continuation. What works is the comradery and that will never get old. Show me more weekends of these guys; show me what else they do! The parts that work best are not the slightly toxic party/girl chasing scenes, but the scenes of them day drinking on a Saturday afternoon. They feel authentic. The scenes of the WILD AND CRAZY parties sometimes feel not too far off from an American Pie movie, and only the charm of the cast brings them back to reality, especially when it borders the line of parody: “let’s get these girls to mud wrestle!!,” and “theater kids are so weird!”

It would be totally reasonable for someone to find this movie and its characters completely insufferable, but I would argue that most college students are pretty insufferable, no matter what their personality is. I would understand if someone had a hard time watching these entitled douchebags get whatever they want, especially in the semi-forced subplot of Jake meeting his first love in the thoughtful, legitimately interesting and intelligent Beverly (Zoey Deutch) despite the fact that there is literally nothing interesting about him.

EWS is far from indicative of what the real college experience is and one could argue that it inflates male egos quite a bit, but you can’t take away the fact that this movie, at its core, clicks into what a bunch of guys hanging out is really like sometimes and as a guy who has spent a lot of time hanging out… it was fascinating to see it portrayed so accurately.

Overlooked Gems from the Last Few Years (Part 2)

As I did before, I just want to give some quick shout-outs to some movies that came and went, without much recognition, that deserved a little more attention. They could be great movies or just ones that have more to chew on than the world realized at the time.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

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From the directors of Crazy, Stupid Love, writer Robert Carlock (showrunner of 30 Rock), and starring Tina Fey, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is an unexpectedly tense movie that was sold as something else. Understandably, the studio didn’t know how to market this movie; with such a high caliber, comedy background, it seemed to make sense to advertise it as a goofy satire of the war against terrorism in the Middle East. Yes, there are plenty of comedic flares to this movie but it certainly isn’t a comedy.

WTF is far more of a tense meditation on how journalists cope with the stress of living in a war-zone for the once in a lifetime opportunity to make a name for themselves (I majored in journalism in college and jumped ship at the last second… you spend your entire career trying to establish yourself in an overcrowded, dying medium; I totally get why a journalist would take this opportunity). Tina Fey gives far and away her best film performance here and that is obviously aided by the script from her longtime collaborator, Carlock, who knows exactly what her strengths are. The movie is a little wobbly and probably could have used a little more time in the oven but if you were turned off but the goofy trailers, try giving it a shot, you will likely be surprised by the final product.

Midnight Special

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Following up 2013’s nearly-perfect, Mud, would be an impossible task for director Jeff Nichols… and it was. Nichols came back in 2016 with two films: Midnight Special and Loving. Both deserve a larger conversation than they were given at their time of release, even though neither of them quite live up the powerhouse film that Mud was.

Midnight Special paints a very tense and mysterious picture for the viewer and is a promising look at what Nichols can do with an expanded budget (mind you, it only cost $18 million, but that’s the biggest budget he’s ever worked with). It feeds you lots of breadcrumbs and gives you half ideas that you expect to pay off later. Without spoiling anything, it doesn’t quite pay off in the satisfactory manner that we have become accustomed to. I applaud Nichols for giving us as little exposition as possible; he trusts that the viewer is intelligent enough to piece things together or at least get a general concept of what’s going on. Because of this, we don’t have to deal with too much awkward dialogue where characters state things that all the other characters already know, just to fill us in.

Michael Shannon works well with Nichols, as always, and does a great job as the rock of the movie, portraying Roy Tomlin, the weary father of a boy with vaguely-defined supernatural abilities. Joel Edgerton (who seems to be working as often as James Franco these days) is a solid addition to the cast as the muscle of the getaway operation. For most of the movie, we’re served a long-term chase where we learn bits and pieces of what this mysterious boy is capable of. He can mentally tune into the radio, he can hypnotize people with his eyes, although we are never quite sure what this does, and in one scene, he is able to telepathically pull a satellite from space and crash it down to earth (we never see him use any abilities this powerful again in the film which is strange because if he has that kind of power, he could probably use it to take down some faceless henchmen with ease). Overall, we are treated to a kind of movie that we rarely ever see: fully realized to the creator but almost intentionally hidden from the audience to create an air of mystique.

Again, it does not provide the most satisfying conclusion in the world but damn is it creative. This is one you can definitely revisit on multiple occasions to find new hidden secrets.

Loving

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If Midnight Special is Nichols at his most mysterious (and he’s been plenty mysterious in the past), Loving is him at his most straightforward. It’s unfortunate that I have to admit this but I didn’t know anything about this story before I saw this movie and I honestly cannot believe this story, about how an interracial married couple, was breaking the law, simply by being married, isn’t something more people talk about.

This could, perhaps, be called Nichols’ attempt at Oscar glory but I don’t think it comes off that way. In the end, the film received a Best Actress nomination for Ruth Negga (who is undeniably great), but it really doesn’t play as Oscar-bait. Don’t get me wrong, the elements are all there but Nichols never goes for the sweeping “Oscar Moments.” He simply tells the story; he lets the material speak for itself and it’s an honorable notion, even if it did leave this film as an afterthought to most people.

The performances between Negga and Joel Edgerton as the titular Loving family are pitch perfect. They don’t seem like two people whose personalities would click, what with Mildred (Negga) being so soft and warm while Richard (Edgerton) is the epitome of a gruff, “rough around the edges” kind of guy but ultimately just wants to do right by his wife and kids.

What speaks volumes about this movie is how well it all works without it trying to entertain. It also doesn’t go bleak; it gets depressing and at time feels hopeless but (at the risk of sounding too cliché for my own good) there is a pervading sense of love throughout that really holds it all together. The moment where Loving’s attorney, Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll) asks “Is there anything you’d like me to say to the supreme court justices of the United States?” and Richard responds, simply “Yeah. Tell the judge I love my wife.” Is a chillingly beautiful moment that reminds us of the importance of this movie better than almost anything that was rewarded at the Academy Awards that year.

I Can’t Believe I Enjoyed Isle of Dogs

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There’s a window in your late teens and early 20’s where you have a chance to appreciate the idiosyncratic nature of Wes Anderson: old enough to get what he’s going for but not too jaded to dismiss it. Unfortunately for me, I tried watching his body of work when I was a little too young to appreciate it, thus spent the rest of my time eschewing his movies as best I could and completely missed the window where I would have been transfixed. Something about watching A-list stars acting deadpan and quirky was off-putting to me.

I watched some of his movies along the way. I saw Moonrise Kingdom and Fantastic Mr. Fox around the time each of them were released and ended up liking them slightly more than I had liked his films in the past. Simply put: I find his brand of goofiness easier to digest when it involves children or animation. It just feels better suited to the material. I found myself watching The Royal Tenenbaums recently (7 months ago) and I just couldn’t get past the painfully dry performances from Luke Wilson and Gwenyth Paltrow; it doesn’t feel right coming from adults.

I also hate seeing his movies (and other movies of his ilk) in packed theaters. I would much prefer to be alone. His fanbase gets so excited about his new releases that they end up being a more annoying crowd than the folks that turn up to see a Marvel movie on opening night. They have this tendency to laugh as loud as possible at every little comedic flare so that everyone in the theater knows how much they love Wes Anderson and how much they “get it.” Anderson’s movies are comical for sure but the aim isn’t go for big belly laughs; there are maybe two quick ones in each movie. To laugh so hard so often does a disservice to the gentle humor he’s trying to convey.

Naturally when I was dragged to see Isle of Dogs last night, I was dreading it. My girlfriend didn’t know it was opening night and didn’t realize the movie we were seeing, combined with the artsy theater we were seeing it at were going to attract a frenzy of Anderson die-hards like gnats to a light. I sat down in the packed theater and prepared for the worst. Initially, I was validated in my worry: Isle of Dogs opens with a comical little haiku, that should, at best, put a little smirk on your face. That didn’t happen. Of course, the entire theater was uproarious with laughter. Congrats people of Brooklyn: you get his humor. This continued in a similar fashion for the first 12 minutes or so and I wasn’t surprised, after all, his fans have been waiting four years for him to release a movie.

But then something happened that I’d never experienced in a screening of an Anderson movie before: people seemed to settle down once it got going. As soon as the pacing started to roll into motion and the audience became captivated in the charm of the story, they started appropriately responding to the comedy and in that moment, so did I. I was actually able to relax and just enjoy the movie and I have to say… the movie is pretty delightful.

Everything rolls along nicely and while I was at first a little apprehensive to tone of the animation, I came around to really enjoying the beat-up nature of it. It’s fitting; the movie takes place somewhere called Trash Island, so why not have the characters look like they’re covered in dirt? While watching, it starts to make sense why it took Anderson four years to make this; the animation is pretty meticulous in a way that feels a step above Fantastic Mr. Fox. There are some scenes that are so simple yet so perfectly crafted that the whole thing ends up looking easy (there is a brief scene everyone is talking about that involves making sushi that is an absolute pleasure to watch).

The world Anderson creates is really cool to watch both from a visual and storytelling standpoint. Some of the voice cast is a little underutilized (I’m fairly certain Scarlett Johannson spent a total of 40 minutes in the voiceover booth and Bob Baliban has said that he, Murray and Goldblum were only in there for about a day, maybe a bit more) but the ones we do spend time with are pretty fully realized, mainly Chief and Atari and the narration from Courtney B. Vance is honestly pretty great.

So what’s the point of Isle of Dogs? What is Anderson trying to say? I honestly am at a loss here. It’s not just the story of a boy and his dog. It’s not necessarily a “love letter to Japan,” (love letters to *insert place director loves here* are some of my least favorite kinds of movies; yeah, I’m looking at you, Boyhood) although it is clear Anderson has a great affinity for Japan and its culture. He’s trying to say something political but it’s either too obvious or too vague and I don’t know which. There are a lot of political overtones to it and that’s basically the thing about the movie that doesn’t work (more on that in a second). There is something of a Holocaust allegory that gets tacked on late in the movie that made me scratch my head.

So unfortunate piece of the movie is in the final act when the Holocaust allegory takes prominence and things start to fall apart a little bit, to the point where it almost seems like they had spent so much time on the movie that they scrapped a more fleshed out ending in favor of just wrapping things up quickly. It doesn’t ruin the movie but it isn’t as satisfying as the early scenes of just watching the dogs hang out on Trash Island are.

I can’t say that this movie makes me excited for the next Wes Anderson movie, especially if he goes back to live action but it does make me consider seeing another one. A movie as delightful as this is pretty hard to come by. In an age where we have superheroes being taken too seriously and five new horror movies every month, it’s nice to have something like Isle of Dogs come along to relieve us of unneeded stress in our lives.

When We First Met is a Charmingly Odd Piece of Cinema

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When We First Met is a true testament to the sheer force of nature that Adam Devine brings. For a movie that should be, at its best, “passably enjoyable while it’s on in the background,” Devine works 110% to bring it up to “passably enjoyable while you actually watch it.” It’s almost remarkable how hard he works to try to bring this movie up from mediocrity; his relentless effort is more interesting to watch than the actual movie around him is. He didn’t have to try so hard; he easily could have phoned it in and taken his Netflix paycheck and been on his merry way, but he doesn’t… he genuinely wanted to raise the bar for this movie and because of that, I have an incredible respect for him.

The movie functions as a rom-com Groundhog Day, in which Noah (Devine) needs to re-live the same night he meets Avery (Alexandra Daddario), the love of his life who friend-zones him because he waited too long to make a move. Of course, hilarity and hijinks ensue, or at least that’s what the movie attempts. Each time Noah goes back in time, he has a new method of flirtation he’s trying which leads to various different futures for him and Avery with equally varying amounts of amusement for the viewer.

Other than Devine, what helps sell the movie is how damn earnest it is. Its naïve charm works to its favor which is almost refreshing. In another world, there is a gross-out, hard R-rated version of this movie that would be an absolute slog to sit through. A version with constant F-bombs and genital references to cover up the lack of anything interesting. It was nice to watch something that was so unabashedly PG-13. Having said that, just because you’re PG-13, doesn’t mean you can’t take any risks. The movie’s biggest flaw is how squeaky clean it is even when it tries to deal with adult themes like sex, one-night stands, hookup buddies and drinking. In one timeline where Noah becomes hookup buddies with Avery after trying out a “douche” persona to woo her, he asks her what her favorite sex position is, but the movie is afraid of anything beyond a parental, focus-group approved impurity, so she never responds. “Yes, they can briefly talk about sex existing, as long the nice girl doesn’t admit to enjoying anything too salacious.” You can be 100% PG-13 and still try to have fun with it. The movie is essentially for high schoolers and everyone knows how much high schoolers love content that their parents approve of.

Ultimately, the movie continues to ride along on the charm of Devine alone. The rest of the cast just tries to anchor the world around him with varying success. Though she’s basically given nothing to do, Daddario is a pretty perfect choice as the girl Noah just can’t seem to get it right with but her fiancé, played by Robbie Amell, is about as interesting as a wooden plank. Why not make some of the other characters slightly interesting? Give them a personality of something more than just “person for Devine to bounce off of.” There is a good cast in here: use it! At the very least, Shelly Hennig gets to play a few more notes than the rest.

This movie accomplishes what it sets out to be: something that is on and offends no one. The problem is with that is it’s such a dreadful goal to have, let alone achieve. Of course, I don’t want the R-rated version but it would be nice to see this movie maintain its romantic earnesty while still showing us something even slightly exciting. I can see the executives trying their hardest to make this something pleasant to watch for everyone (maybe slightly skewering towards teens) but when you make something for everyone, you end up making it for no one. That’s why you have to hire Devine to lift the entire thing up on his shoulders and carry you. If we don’t get scenes where he thinks he knows the piano but doesn’t or him drunkenly exclaiming he has a “play-doh” face, or anything else he throws himself into, then there would really be nothing worth even mentioning about this movie. At the very least, we can say, “damn, Adam Devine really wants me to like this movie.”

It really is a testament to Devine: you can replace any actor with someone else and it wouldn’t make a difference but if you lose him, you should really just shut down production.

Netflix: The Savior & Destroyer of Mid-Budget Movies

While it may be doing damage to the classical theatrical experience, Netflix investing in mid-budget movies is unfortunately a net positive. As we’ve come to find in recent years, studios seem to mostly be making two kinds of movies: giant tentpole blockbusters, like “The Avengers” and the teeny tiny indie that they hope will be the next “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Why gamble on a movie that costs $50 or $65 million that may only end up grossing $98 million back? It makes much more sense to dump truckloads on something that will make billions or spend as little as possible on something that might turn out to the charming little hit of the season? It’s a reliable business model; I get it.

But mid budget movies are something we desperately need. It’s nice to see a few A-listers in a dramedy, courtroom drama or cop movie. Unfortunately, much like romantic comedies, they have become few and far between. Yes, you’ll see them from time to time when the right kind of money and star power come together: a movie like The Judge (an overlooked gem) doesn’t get made unless it has the undeniable box office gravity of Robert Downey Jr, and the 2010 remake of True Grit doesn’t get made unless it has the Coen Brothers directing with an all-star cast. The problem is, these used to be the movies that dominated most of the movie calendar and there would only be blockbusters in the summer and Christmastime; now we have movies like Deadpool and Black Panther, that come out in February and Logan come out in March. This year we’ll get a Venom movie in October. Even Avengers: Infinity War was changed to the last weekend in April for maxim box office receipts.

So where can a mid-budget movie thrive if no studio will pay for them? Netflix. For a few years now, Netflix has been testing the waters in terms of original movies. They’ve made some attempts at Oscar bait (Mudbound, Beasts of No Nation & First They Killed My Father) and they’ve even thrown their hand into blockbuster territory (Bright), but now they’re starting to realize where they can really thrive: mid-budget movies that studios are too scared to make. In 2018 they’ve already dropped, Mute, The Cloverfield Paradox, Game Over Man and When We First Met. All of those would have had a hard time finding a home at a major, theatrical studio.

So why is it unfortunate that Netflix is carrying the mid-budget torch when no one else will? It’s simple: all movies are meant to be seen in theaters. That’s it. There is no counter argument. You should see art in the medium it was created for. I have plenty of friends that tell me “I just saw (insert movie title here) and it thought it was shitty.” Oh really? Did you see it in theaters? “No.” Did you watch it on a phone/computer/TV/airplane? “Yes.” Then you did not see the movie, you watched it. Seeing a movie implies that you went to a movie theater to literally see that movie. I re-watched Interstellar a few weeks ago… but I didn’t see it.

Movies are meant to be seen in a theater. You cannot have distractions. I don’t care how fucking sick your home theater setup is, it is not as good as a movie theater. In a movie theater, you have no control over anything and that is how it should be. At home, you can talk to the person next to you, you can check your phone, you can get distracted by literally any outside visual stimulation. Film is a long-form version of visual art. If you break the tension with anything, then the moment is lost. I know lots of you may think that just seeing something in your room won’t distract you, but it will; it’s how the human brain works. We see things and then we think about them.

I have friends that have told me “I won’t see a movie in theaters unless it’s some Avatar-level of visual effects” (you know who you are). That is an awful way to see movies. All cinematic stories deserve to be seen without being interrupted, without being paused to take a crap, without your roommate coming in and loudly cooking in the kitchen.

That’s why Netflix is a necessary evil. I’m grateful that The Meyerowitz Stories is able to exist because of Netflix but I also wish I could have seen it in a theater. As time goes on this will only get worse. There is one simple cure to this: go to the movies. See things that look interesting to you; I love blockbusters too but if we aren’t careful, eventually a movie like “The Nice Guys” won’t even have the power to grant a theatrical release and eventually, we’ll all just end up going to the movies to see which new superhero is fighting which new supervillain.

I’m Sorry I Didn’t Like _____ as Much as You?

I thought Inside Out was good. I didn’t love it to the same degree that it seemed the rest of the world did. People seemed to think it was the cleverest thing ever put on screen. The movie was fine; it had a few laughs along the way but I didn’t love the concept and I felt like it tried too hard to get you to cry. If I want to cry, have your movie build up to a reason to cry within the story, don’t just have a bunch of scenes that exist solely to try to get me to cry; have a reason for it. All that being said, I think it’s a good movie. One day, someone at work was raving about it for about 5 minutes and then asked me what I thought about it. I told them I thought it was good and they gave me a perplexed look.

“Just good? You didn’t love it?”

“No but I thought it was fine.”

“Why are you so cynical? How could you not like that movie?”

And from that moment, I was labeled as an Inside Out hater. I was confused. I said I liked it. Some movies, I’ve come to find, are just like that. Even though we live in an age where everyone thinks they have the most singularly individual taste, some cultural phenomenona come along that dictate we all universally adore something or universally damn it. Any deviation from this, even a slight one, is wrong.

I liked Black Panther but when I told someone I thought some of the story was a little dull they were thrown damn near into a fury about how wrong I was. Again… I said I liked it; I just don’t fully subscribe to the zeitgeist that demands I love every aspect of it.

Some people think Call Me By Your Name is absolutely brilliant. I thought it was pretty good but it was also a lot of Euro-glamorizing and a little short-sighted to try to tell the audience that a kid’s first romance at 17 will be the absolute most special connection he’ll ever make in his life especially when the two actors didn’t really have the greatest chemistry. Of course, when I told a friend that, I was informed that I had no idea what I was talking about and that I didn’t understand it at all.

This perplexes me. Why does it bother someone if I don’t love something to the exact same degree that they do? It goes the other way too: I know that The Accountant is a pretty crappy movie but there are a few things I like about it. Upon telling that to a friend who hated it, I was branded as someone who loved it. What are you talking about? I said I liked a few small things; now here I am defending a movie that I didn’t even really like.

Maybe since I’ve never been a complete fanboy of any particular genre or franchise, I don’t get quite as swept up in the unrelenting hype around certain movies? I’ve listened to friends lecture me about Star Wars and the deep, very serious nature of these movies, that to me that are decent enough but I didn’t grow up with, so I don’t have the metamorphic pressure of decades of nostalgia fueling my hype. Can’t I just think Star Wars is pretty good? It doesn’t seem much better than most other blockbuster franchises.

What about Harry Potter? It was never really my thing; those movies were never particularly great nor particularly horrible either, but when I say that, I’m met with rage. I told a friend that I thought Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was decent enough and they ranted to me about how wrong I was: the world of Harry Potter is not cute and it does not center around imaginative creatures; it is a very dark story about pain and suffering and making it into a movie that isn’t rated R does a complete disservice to the source material. Oh? I didn’t realize. I thought they were kid’s books about a magical orphan boy.

Look, of course, anyone is allowed to feel strongly about a movie. I feel strongly about lots of movies, but for some reason they often tend to be ones that few people care about (I’ll always fight for you, Everybody Wants Some!!), but can’t we accept that someone who partially agrees with us is at the very least on our side? Wouldn’t you rather have a spirited debate with someone who feels differently about the art you love, rather than sit around giving it unending praise together?

Oh, and now that I think about it, Inside Out actually isn’t that good.

Let’s Look Back at Knocked Up (11 Years Later)

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I always loved Knocked Up. I don’t watch it very often (this is the first time I’ve revisited it since probably 2009), but it has a soft spot in my heart. It’s weird looking back on this movie from 2007 and remembering that Seth Rogen hadn’t really been in movies before. Yes, he had a supporting role in The 40 Year Old Virgin, but his screen time in that movie is probably equivalent to what Martin Starr gets in this movie. Rogen really owes a lot to this movie (as well as Superbad which came out a month later, but we aren’t here to talk about that). This is the movie that put him on the escalator to stardom.

Knocked Up had a pretty famously… complicated publicity tour when it was coming out. Katherine Heigl, who also owed this movie almost as much as Rogen did, famously… criticized (?) it for portraying men as lovable slobs and women as “shrews” because they actually took life and the responsibilities that come with it seriously. This was unfortunately one of the first reasons she was later stamped with the most damning of all Hollywood labels: DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH. This movie did launch her into stardom, much like it did Rogen, but she had that stamp on her forever after that and she couldn’t seem to scrub it off until she virtually ceased to exist in Hollywood. It’s a shame: she’s really good in Knocked Up! This movie doesn’t work without her; she is the solid spine that everyone else gets to swing around.

I found her remarks interesting on my latest re-watch. Is that true? Is this movie a little harsh on women and a little too easy on the guys?

The answer is: yes. It’s not a resounding “yes,” but there is validity to what she said. The most on-the-nose example is the scene about midway through the movie where Pete (Paul Rudd) is cautiously apathetic to the reality that there are multiple sex offenders in his neighborhood where he lives with his wife, Debbie (Leslie Mann) and his children.

Debbie: So I’m the bad guy because I’m trying to keep our children safe from child molesters and mercury and you’re cool ‘cause you don’t give a shit?

Pete: Yeah.

Debbie: Yeah? Is that it?

Pete: Pretty much.

Debbie: God you’re an asshole.

Now that scenario is never really explored again and that’s why it seems unfair to the female character… because she’s 100% right: Pete is an asshole. There is no moment where Pete has to roll back and admit he’s wrong and should have taken it more seriously. On the other hand, and I don’t know this to be true, I would bet my girlfriend would find that scene incredibly cathartic on its own, because it sheds light on how goddamn frustrating men are. And I think that may be the core dispute with this movie, more so than many others: your gender can have a gigantic effect on how you perceive character motivations.

The real question I have about this movie and its motivation is this: how are we supposed to feel about Ben (Seth Rogen)? Are we supposed to feel anything at all or just see how things play out for him? As Heigl noted, he is lovably oafish in this movie, so do we want him to stay that way and for Alison (Heigl) to lighten up or do we want him to rise to the occasion and become the responsible parent he needs to be? If they want you to feel the latter, then they really make you hold out for it because his growth to maturity happens in a 2-minute montage right before the end of the movie.

I think Knocked Up wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants you to relish in all the dopey shenanigans the male characters enjoy for about 100 minutes and then asks you to grow up and see that the men were immature and the women were right all along in the last few minutes of the movie. So I can see why Apatow would argue that it is a pro-female movie but because the bulk of it lingers on a “boys will be boys” sentiment, Heigl has a fair point in saying it feels unfair to women.

Independent of all that, the movie is still hilarious and is easily the best rom-com in recent memory (sorry, Forgetting Sarah Marshall).

When you watch it, you start to realize that the camera hardly moves, and obviously there’s reason for that: with the actors improvising so much, it would be hard to edit the best comedy together if the shots kept changing so the motion is pretty static but it doesn’t matter; it is more than worth the comedy we get.

Leslie Mann and Seth Rogen have never been funnier than they are in this movie (Paul Rudd is great too but he’s still best in Anchorman). Katherine Heigl is not just charming but also quite funny too.

Alison: I do NOT want you to fuck me like a dog.

Ben: It’s not like a dog… it’s doggy-style.

At the end of the day, this movie is insanely charming. It has some issues but it is well intentioned. Keep in mind, it also features Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Alan Tudyk. This is one of those movies that could only exist in the year it was created; if it was made now, everyone would be way too expensive (except, unfortunately for Heigl). Be thankful that we have Knocked Up, warts and all.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a Pretty Frustrating Movie

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Don’t get me wrong, I walked out of Captain America: The Winter Soldier pretty satisfied back in April, 2014. Really cool choreography for the hand-to-hand combat sequences, a pretty fun story and a cool performance from Samuel L. Jackson. I got my money’s worth for sure.

But I’ve never had the urge to go back and watch it again. Any urge I’ve had was satisfied by watching some of the fight scenes on the internet and that’s about it. I once tried watching it again, not out of a strong desire to do so, but just to see why I never wanted to. And now I know why: for a movie that’s touted as one of the absolute best MCU films… it’s kind of dull. Like I said before, the action is spot on and the overall story is a fun adventure but this movie is pretty devoid of anything human or interesting.

Captain America is a pretty dull superhero, and frankly, I find all his solo outings to be pretty dull. Each one is better than the one before it but Civil War is only better because he has to share the screen with some Avengers with more interesting motivations and personalities; other than that, it falls victim to the same bland issues that The Winter Soldier does. I always hear about how this movie finally “challenges” Captain America’s morality. Did I watch a different movie? This movie is about a dude who is morally unshakable, believes one thing to be true and in the end is proven completely right and everyone who tried to steer him away was wrong. Very captivating.

I don’t necessarily need a hardened anti-hero, but it would be nice to have your protagonist… learn? Grow? Change? Homer’s Odyssey is interesting because even though Odysseus is undoubtedly a hero, he is also marred by his hubris, but over time, learns from his mistakes. Captain America is perfect at the beginning and equally perfect at the end.

Look, this movie is light years ahead of the first one, which was legitimately just boring. At least here, we do get some thrills. It’s just a shame that a pair like the Russo Brothers, who are known for directing irreverent comedy television, were relegated to such a soulless script.

“But it does have a soul! What about Cap’s conflicting relationship with Bucky?!”

Who’s Bucky? Oh, the character from the first movie that had no personality or charisma? The character that we barely spent any time with and had no real chemistry with Chris Evans?

I genuinely dislike it when people claim MCU movies are too interconnected and they can’t remember who is who or what happened in previous films; these are movies that are built for mass audiences that really exist to sell toys… the connections between them are really surface-level and can mostly be made without even having seen previous films, based on context alone (I didn’t see Ant Man but I wasn’t thrown in a tizzy when he showed up in Civil War). Having said that, the reveal that the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes from the first movie had no effect on me because I genuinely forgot who he was. Now, I understand, some of that is on me. I would argue that Captain America: The First Avenger is maybe not the worst, but definitely the dullest movie in the MCU and I have not revisited it or thought much about it since I saw it. So, the scene where his identity is revealed, is supposed to have a lot of emotional heft and make both Cap and the audience stop dead in their tracks. All I could think was “who cares? Kill him… he’s killing everyone else.”

Bucky Barnes was a slightly duller character in the first movie but now because he’s brainwashed, he is completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever. So now I’m in the middle of a movie where the big emotional pull comes between the world’s dullest superhero and is even duller friend. Thankfully the movie is smart enough to know not to linger on this wasted attempt at emotion and just have them go into a brilliantly-executed hand-to-hand fight.

What really sucks is that all of this supposed “emotion” bleeds over into Civil War, where the film wants us to root for Bucky to get better and reunite with Cap. Once again: I have spent no meaningful time with this character; you are asking me to root heavily for a friendship that I saw a few scattered moments of, that didn’t really even work that well, in a boring movie from five years earlier. If you want me to care, then show me why I should care, but having Cap say “he’s my friend,” over and over doesn’t convince me.

Overlooked Gems from the Last Few Years

Most people like to discuss their top ten favorite or least favorite movies of the year and that’s fine; I’ll fall for that clickbait every single time. But the real reason we click on those is because we know we’re gonna be pissed off by it and work ourselves into a fury about how stupid the writer is and that they have no taste. It’s great. It’s the journalistic version of Chipotle: you have a great, delicious experience but by the end, you’re burning out of your ass.

While I like to read those pieces, I find it more interesting to look at movies that maybe weren’t that great or no one really saw but had an undeniable charm or personality to them. Those are the ones I find myself reflecting on more often than others. I’m not going to confine these next examples to a particular year… these are just movies that came out in the last few years that you may want to take a second look at.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

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This movie is legitimately great. There hasn’t been a funnier movie since it came out. I honestly do believe if this movie had a little more of a marketing push, word of mouth would have carried it to the finish line. It is literally built for millennials and not just because it essentially works as “The Lonely Island Movie” but it is so representative of the popular music scene right now. The music industry is and always has been a bloated, self-aggrandizing world, so satirizing it is as easy as doing a slam dunk with the hoop on the lowest height. For some reason, audiences do not turn out to see comedies about the music industry; if you want an audience for your music movie, it needs to be as straightforward and unflinchingly self-serious like “Ray” or “Walk the Line.”

Popstar isn’t just a string of new music videos from The Lonely Island, it does have a legitimate story to tell about friendship and success. Of course, beyond all of this… it’s insanely hilarious and its true feat is that it isn’t just one kind of comedy. When you watch a Will Ferrell or Seth Rogen movie, you get the exact same tone and style of comedy all throughout. Popstar looks for comedy down all sorts of different avenues. It manages to make excessive cameos funny. 99 times out of 100, when a movie relies heavily on cameos (Zoolander 2), it means the script sucks. In Popstar, the cameos help build the reality of the movie; it helps to have A$AP Rocky, Carrie Underwood, Ringo and many more discuss the fictional band in the movie… it feels real.

Out of the Furnace

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I get why this one never permeated the culture. Out of the Furnace is bleak. It meanders quite a bit in the first half and even when it sets the final plot in motion, it is still very patient to move. Having said all that, this movie is great. I don’t always love Christian Bale, especially when he uses his monotone American accent; everything he says sounds like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. But here it seems like he’s comfortable enough to get a little rangey with his accent; he puts on more of a small-town twinge to it and somehow that allows him to emote a bit more.

The rest of the cast is great as well –it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen Forest Whitaker do in years. What really sells the movie though, is the non-stop rising of tension. It’s remarkable how tense it gets despite how quiet the whole thing is. It lets you agonize over every crunch, bullet and punch you see as it all crescendos to the finale.

A friend of mine said a few weeks ago that director Scott Cooper is a master “at taking scripts with lots of potential and making them as mediocre as possible.” I would agree with that for films like Crazy Heart and Black Mass but I believe he’s tapped into some kind of beautiful, soaring brutality with Out of the Furnace. This movie doesn’t care if you think it’s slow; if you tried to cut it down then you’d all complain that it was too rushed. Take some time with this one; it’s worth the wait.

The Judge

I imagine I’m really the only big fan of this movie (I’m well aware it isn’t that great) but I seriously love it and I know exactly why. This movie came out right around the time when I was moving out of my parents’ house in suburbia, where I had lived my whole life (other than my college years), to New York City. Of course, on some level, I was proud of myself; many people from my life were staying in the area we grew up in, but I was moving on to BIG things down in the city and one day I could come back as a big city hotshot and look down on everyone still living their quaint little lives… that’s the fantasy anyway.

The Judge has some key elements of that plot: Hank (Robert Downey Jr.) moves away from his little town as soon as he can and becomes a bigshot lawyer in Chicago. He’s forced to return to his hometown for his mother’s funeral but it takes a huge turn when a legal issue regarding his estranged father arises, and he is forced to spend weeks back home to defend him in court, oh and his dad is the TOWN’S JUDGE! While he stays there, he is forced to reconcile with his own past in the fictional town of Carlinville, Indiana, as well as make amends with those he’s left behind, all while desperately trying to get back to his old life in Chicago. “You’re just a boy from Indiana, trying to do whatever it takes to pretend that’s not true,” his old high school girlfriend tells him in a very on-the-nose sequence.

I get it. This one plays into my own personal fantasy more so than it does for others. That’s fine, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of worth here. We get legitimately great performances out of Robert Duvall (who was nominated for an Oscar) and Robert Downey Jr. Watching them go back and forth throughout the movie is an absolute delight to see. There’s even a solid Vincent D’Onofrio performance in there, along with delightful offerings from Dax Shepard and Vera Farmiga. This movie is long and it probably doesn’t earn its runtime but I love spending time in this fictional town; it feels very real. Robert Downey Jr. aside, the people look like normal people rather than a town of gorgeous movie stars. The setting feels authentic and it overall is just a nice place to live for the entire run of the movie. I’m always down to go back.