Nine Thoughts on 2018 in Movies

1

I watched a few James Bond films recently: Roger Moore vehicles For Your Eyes Only (1981), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Octopussy (1983) plus Pierce Brosnan starrers Goldeneye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). I am sorry to confirm that Octopussy is still the most abysmally terrible of these. Sure, Bond films don't always strictly "make sense" -- see, for example, everything about Silva's confinement to and escape from MI6 in the generally excellent Skyfall (2012) -- but I have watched Octopussy many times and I am still baffled by the plot. I truly don't understand who is doing what to whom or what any of the villains are trying to achieve in this movie. The film has a few great set pieces -- the auto rickshaw chase through the streets of Udaipur and the climactic fight on the airplane exterior stand out -- yet as a whole, Octopussy is a confused, boring mess. I urge you to avoid it.

It pains me to say that after Octopussy, The Spy Who Loved Me, a perennial favorite, fared the least well for me on these recent viewings. It's the sexism. One particularly odious scene in which Bond is offered an unspeaking, scantily clad woman as a companion for the night just spoiled the movie for me. I seem to be reaching the point where these old cinematic friends grate against my strong feelings about misogyny.

Combining his sexism with his imperialism, Bond quips: 
"When one is in Egypt, one should delve deeply into its treasures."

Thankfully, For Your Eyes Only was much more bearable on the gender front -- Melina Havelock may be the most empowered, least sexually objectified woman co-star in the Bond corpus. Furthermore, Topol is superb as Columbo and Eyes' climactic rock-climbing sequence is a series high point. The Spy Who Loved Me still has the best villain (Stromberg), the best villain's henchman (Jaws) and the best theme song (Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better"), and I will need to re-watch The Man With The Golden Gun to be completely certain of this, but For Your Eyes Only might well be the best Roger Moore James Bond film.

Goldeneye was also excellent -- definitely the best Brosnan Bond film by far, featuring the franchise's second-best theme song. Tomorrow Never Dies is pretty good, Michelle Yeoh is terrific and Jonathan Pryce has a good time chewing scenery. Yet it has the very worst theme song of any Bond movie, no offense to Sheryl Crow.

2

The Favourite or BlackkKlansman or Sorry to Bother You is my favorite movie of 2018. Probably BlackkKlansman. I don't know. BK is a surprisingly upbeat and enjoyable film made by a very talented and focused director at the height of his powers. It may even be Spike Lee's best film, or is surely ranked among his best. Its ending, when it shifts into documentary footage, is one of the most potent and saddening and moving and gut-wrenching moments I had in cinema this year.

I love the audacity and genre-bending qualities of both The Favourite and Sorry to Bother You. Sorry To Bother You is scrappy, rough around the edges, more satirical and weird than pathos-driven, yet it packs a cumulative wallop with its zany absurdism and its willingness to address key social issues like labor strikes in a head-on way -- a rarity in Hollywood cinema. It is a satirical comedy with a touch of the surreal and science-fictional. Though it won't ultimately appeal to everybody, it is definitely a must-see.

The Favourite is a comedy of manners without the manners -- a dark comedy with touches of pathos, depth, and unexpected beauty. Visually audacious in its use of fisheye lenses, natural lighting, and long takes, The Favourite is riveting due to its tight script and its nuanced handing of interpersonal rivalries, lust, and love. All three leads are terrific but Olivia Colman as Queen Anne and Rachel Weisz as Lady Sarah are particularly revelatory. 

3

As far as big "popcorn" movies go, the only ones I clearly remember enjoying in 2018 are Black Panther and The Meg. I especially appreciated the women characters in Black Panther and also its villain Killmonger. He convinced me. And the rhino battle near the end ruled. I guess Black Panther is the best Marvel movie, though to me that is not necessarily the highest compliment, but whatever. This stuff is also true:

Killmonger is disenfranchisement turned into a person, someone for whom killing is a better fate than life and death is a better fate than bondage. He recalls slaves specifically, who would rather throw themselves from the ships than face a lifetime in chains.

The film’s idea of solving its dilemmas is always contained, to avoid conflict with other kinds of civics, to black-on-black violence . . .

Black Panther identifies and neutralizes its target audience by marketing empowerment but ultimately discarding it as the foolhardy goal of a Marvel villain. 

But whatever. I think I want to check out Into the Spider-Verse soon -- I have a feeling that might be the kind of superhero movie I will enjoy. I am also greatly looking forward to Captain Marvel. End of superhero movie talk.

Big-budget prehistoric giant shark movie The Meg actually surprised me  -- as predictable and rote as it is, I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Jason Statham and Li Bingbing make excellent co-leads. I need to re-watch that one soon I think.

4

I also really enjoyed Eighth Grade and Will You Be My Neighbor? this past year but those ones haven't stuck with me as much.

5

One of the highest points of my moviegoing year was attending the Eastman Museum / Dryden Theater's Fourth Nitrate Picture Show last May. The Nitrate Picture Show is a three-day film festival screening only nitrate film prints, by definition pre-1950s films since the industry switched to less flammable "safety film" after that. I am incredibly fortunate to live in a city -- Rochester, NY -- that can show such prints, as apparently there are only four or five theaters capable of screening nitrate films in North America, and the others are in California.

The entire program was wonderful, including a collection of shorts that kicked things off on Friday afternoon and Saturday night's headliner The Red Shoes (1948). Yet the real highlights of the festival for me were three films I hadn't seen before: the Robert Siodmak film noir Cry of the City (1948), George Cukor's delightful rom-com Holiday (1938) -- shown in a rare sepia-toned print -- and surprise "blind date with nitrate" festival finale Man of Aran (1934). The basking shark fishing footage in the latter film was the apotheosis of my Picture Show experience and a great way to cap off this very special event.

Just a few weeks ago I went to the Dryden's encore New Year's Eve screening of The Red Shoes -- a fun way to ring in the new year and a reminder of how much I am looking forward to attending the Nitrate Picture Show again this year. 

6  

Hereditary was 2018's best horror movie. (I enjoyed A Quiet Place while watching it but it didn't really stick with me afterwards and I was bothered by its big plot holes -- where does the farm's electric power come from? -- and its melodramatic valorization of John Krasinski's patriarchal father character.) Hereditary is suspenseful, emotionally harrowing, and visually striking. Its plot presents an interesting twist on the demonic possession plot, with some gendered elements I am still trying to work out. All the performances are excellent, though Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, and Alex Wolff are especially compelling. With its possession / parenthood themes and paranoia-inducing cinematography, Hereditary's closest cinematic cousin is Rosemary's Baby. A must-see for horror fans.

One of my favorite recurring images from Ari Aster's excellent Hereditary.

7

I teach film studies and my students are often kind enough to loan me DVDs and Blu-rays of movies I haven't yet seen. Two of the best movies I've seen in awhile came to me as loaners from students last fall: Escape From Tomorrow (2013) and Mandy (2018).

Escape From Tomorrow is a movie I knew about largely due to its audacious premise and unique, controversial production history. Shot surreptitiously and illegally and in the Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks, Escape tells the tale of Jim (Roy Abramsohn), a husband and father who seems bored with his family's trip to the Magic Kingdom. Shown entirely from Jim's somewhat disengaged and prurient perspective, Escape From Tomorrow, in one of its finest sequences, depicts the It's a Small World ride as a nightmarish, acid-trippy hellscape. Unable to use the song "It's a Small World" for licensing reasons, the film's soundtrack music actually makes the well-known ride both more familiar and more uncannily horrifying.  Brilliant.

Escape continues its deconstruction of the Disney experience with science-fictional behind-the-scenes machinations, an undercurrent of commentary about Disney princesses as sex objects, and its weird -- yet successful -- twist ending. Featuring great black and white cinematography and a haunting musical score, Escape From Tomorrow is much more than a guerilla filmmaking stunt -- it is a truly compelling satire. That said, it is surely aimed at Disney critics like myself or at least Disney fans with a sense of humor about their fandom and a tolerance for irony and dark comedy.

Mandy is one of the most visually striking movies of last year. It fuses a male-oriented revenge thriller / action movie with horror-movie trappings and art-film visual techniques. Laden with slow motion, wordless sequences, and red filters, Mandy is similar in general premise to Sam Raimi's wacky Army of Darkness (1992) but serious-minded and deliberately paced, more interested in mesmerizing visuals than speedy action. Mandy features one of Nicolas Cage's best performances in years -- he gets Cage-ishly unhinged by the end but earns it via a relatively restrained and measured performance in act one. Linus Roache also deserves kudos for being extraordinarily creepy and despicable as death cult leader Jeremiah Sand.

Nicolas Cage in Panos Cosmatos' artsy revenge thriller Mandy (2018).

Both of these films are strongly male-centered. Escape From Tomorrow, while clearly lampooning protagonist Jim's pretensions, also presents its women characters mainly as sexual objects (e.g., the two young women Jim keeps encountering in the park) or as two-dimensional, shrewish villains (e.g., his wife Emily [Elena Schuber]). Mandy does a little better, giving Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) some degree of agency in the first half, but ultimately she is a woman in a refrigerator, her death fueling Red's drive for revenge. In both cases, I guess the films' black humor and artsy visuals redeem them for me despite their palpable sexism.

8

Some comments on two 2018 films I saw in the past week:

First, the documentary RBG. This is a wonderful, well-constructed, inspiring feminist film that I highly recommend. Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a feminist trailblazer, having spent her long career doggedly fighting against gender inequality in the U.S. legal system. She is a true American hero, driven, hardworking, and unswervingly ethical. She is also, despite her serious exterior, great fun, as the later parts of the documentary, tracing her recent rise as a pop-cultural icon, make clear. This is a great movie about a great person.

Second, Mary Queen of Scots, which I just saw two nights ago at the Little Theater. This was a movie I really wanted to like, yet despite my somewhat middling expectations, I was disappointed. The two stars, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, do everything they can with the material, and Ronan in particular manages some lovely moments, especially when interacting with Ismael Cruz Cordova's David Rizzio, the second most compelling character in the movie after Ronan's Queen Mary. Yet the film commits three major fuckups:

• It wants to be a movie about sisterhood and the oppression of women, yet it lacks the focus to deliver on its own heavily belabored thesis. I know we are supposed to care about how much Queens Mary and Elizabeth suffer at the hands of scheming patriarchal men, but the way the film sketches this oppression is too two-dimensional and facile to have any emotional resonance. This is especially the case in the film's egregiously stupid portrayal of Elizabeth (Robbie), who despite early promise is reduced to a maudlin, petulant, woe-is-me figure in the film's second act. Her final confrontation with Mary, a contrivance not based on historical incident yet featured in many fictional tellings of this tale, also feels contrived -- and when Elizabeth confesses that she is jealous of Mary's beauty and love life and motherhood, I almost barfed. The movie ultimately sells out both its female leads by making them obsessed with motherhood at the expense of all else. 
• The movie utterly squanders Margot Robbie and David Tennant. As she demonstrated in I, Tonya, Robbie is capable of fully committing to difficult, complex characters, but Mary Queen of Scots does not give her enough screen time to develop Elizabeth properly, and, as just mentioned, it has no idea what to do with her in the second half of the movie except to make her weirdly jealous of Mary yet uninterested in doing anything about it. Regarding Tennant, in Jessica Jones Season 1 he played Kilgrave, one of the greatest pop-cultural villains of the last several years, yet Mary Queen of Scots mostly makes his John Knox stand behind a pulpit and deliver dull, clunky sermons about how all women are duplicitous whores. Just watch Tennant's compelling performance in Jessica Jones Season 1 and see also Jonathan Goad's performance as Knox in The CW's Reign (2013-2017) for examples of how this could have been handled.  
• Bothwell is way too boring and de-romanticized, acting as a raping, scheming conspirator against Mary rather than her lover and co-plotter against Darnley. This choice robs Mary of her agency. She is a victim of patriarchal trickery rather than a lover caught up in genuine passion for Bothwell and a desire to be rid of her drunken, weak-willed first husband.  

Ultimately, the film is just too rote and boring, like the shitty Imitation Game. It takes very interesting people and situations and flattens them out via clunky storytelling and lack of focus on its purported theme. It cannot decide if it wants to tell a compelling tale about sisterhood or to check all the expected boxes in terms of what is known (or suspected, or speculated) about the historical Mary Stuart. Guy Pearce and the rest of the supporting cast do good jobs but it's not enough to save it. I cannot recommend Mary Queen of Scots except to hard-core period drama enthusiasts, Saoirse Ronan fans, or Mary Stuart completists.

9

Lastly, a short list of films I want to see in the near future: If Beale Street Could Talk, First Reformed, You Were Never Really Here, Leave No Trace, Escape at Dannemora.

Review: Halloween (2018)

The latest Halloween movie, directed by David Gordon Green, is technically a sequel to John Carpenter's slasher masterpiece Halloween (1978). The new film ignores and supersedes all other Halloween franchise films from Halloween II (1981) onward, wisely erasing the first sequel's backstory that there is a blood relation between Myers and his target / nemesis Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). This shift restores the original film's notion that Michael Myers is an impersonal killing machine, not a slighted brother looking for psychological vengeance. This is a good change that, along with its evocative visuals and (mostly) tight storytelling, makes this new quasi-"requel" a worthy successor to Carpenter's influential, entertaining horror classic.

Halloween (2018) looks higher-budget than Carpenter's film, with more sets and settings and more nuanced lighting and set design. Yet on the whole, it is aesthetically of a piece with the spare 1978 original. The camerawork, all superb, seems like it almost could have been shot by Carpenter, especially if he had a budget like this one. Produced by Universal Studios and Blumhouse, this new iteration is a slick, precise, exciting, terrifying slasher movie that works on its own terms while providing a satisfying "bookend" to the narrative of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. As the Red Letter Media guys say about nine and a half minutes into their video review, "we didn't even need this movie, but we have it, and it's pretty good, and now we need to be done. It's nice closure."

I agree with most of what the Red Letter Media reviewers say about the new Halloween, i.e.:

• Michael Myers (here played by James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) is scary.
• The movie doesn't "do anything too stupid" (as Mike suggests here).  
• As usual, Halloween co-producer Blumhouse, the company also responsible for recent horror hits Get Out (2017), Split (2017), and the Paranormal Activity franchise (2009-present), "knows what they're doing."

"Hi, my name is Jason Blum. If you're a horror fan, just give me all your money now."

[SPOILERS FOLLOW]

The best thing about Green's Halloween is how it makes Michael a genuinely menacing, evil, frightening presence. He is genuinely scary every minute he is on screen, and his first significant attack, in which he brutally kills two true-crime podcasters in a gas station washroom, is one of the finest murder scenes I've seen in a horror movie in a long time. On this basis alone, I really enjoyed this movie a lot and feel more in harmony with Jay's enthusiasm for Green's Halloween than with Mike's more reserved response to it.

I like the film's sporadic comedy moments, especially those provided by young Julian (Jibrail Nantambu). Despite liking most of Julian's bits, Red Letter Media Mike claims that in general the film's humor "weirdens the tone" and breaks the mood of horror and fear the movie otherwise maintains so well. I don't fully agree, though I concede that the offbeat "bahn mi" dialogue between the two oddball cops late in the film is not as effective as would have been some serious talk about what's going on in Haddonfield, which surely the two cops, soon to die, know of via their police radio. Mike's dialogue idea (which he discusses starting here) would definitely work better there.

Mike and Jay also correctly assert that the twist that brings Michael within spitting distance of Laurie's fortified home feels contrived and clunky -- it sure is a lucky break for Laurie that Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) is a psychopath! However, despite its clunkiness, that twist moment works for me, or at least it did upon my first viewing. I like the idea of a "mad doctor" in this movie, since Loomis was always kind of an obsessed loose screw in the original anyway.

Yet I wanted to see Laurie take an even more active role in tracking Michael down and luring him to her isolated compound. That would be more compelling and thematically on-point than watching her driving around somewhat aimlessly in certain parts of Halloween's back half.

Haluk Bilginer as Dr. Sartain, the late Dr. Loomis' protege, Michael's new keeper, and the character whose story arc provides Halloween's major plot twist. 

That said, in addition to its depiction of Michael, Halloween's other greatest achievement is to give Laurie Strode an appropriate revisit and sendoff after 30 years' (ret-conned) hiatus. Though the previews for Halloween make Laurie look like a Sarah Connor-in-T2, gun-toting badass, the film's portrayal of her is more complex and rewarding than that. She is, in fact, frightened and traumatized to the point of being more or less totally unhinged. As Red Letter Media's Mike says, the scene where Laurie shows up at a celebratory dinner for her granddaughter and breaks down crying is basically the best (non-murder) scene in the whole film. And Laurie's hunting of Michael through her own house in the film's climax is a terrifying nail-biter that tops Michael's washroom double murder scene for intensity.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode.

I assume that anyone who likes well-made slasher movies and/or Carpenter's original will enjoy this sequel. It will never be 1978 again, so don't expect quite the same low-budget scrappiness in this version. But slick though it may be, this sequel has it where it counts: it is an exciting, scary, tightly paced horror movie with a top-notch soundtrack, newly composed by none other than John Carpenter (with collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies).

In short, Halloween (2018) is a must-see for slasher horror fans.

Leatherface's Easter Egg Alert: Keep your eyes open in Halloween for at least two distinct homages to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The first one involves Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) only. The second involves all three generations of Strode women and happens right at the very end of the film.

Bonus Afterthought: The release of this latest "requel" in the Halloween franchise has kicked up some internet talk about Rob Zombie's generally maligned duo of Halloween films released in 2007 and 2009. Despite being a Rob Zombie film fan, I am no great defender of Halloween (2007), Zombie's Zombie-ified reboot of the 1978 original. The first portion of the film, about Michael Myers' white-trash upbringing, is interesting and well crafted but unnecessary, whereas the back half is simply a hasty, uninteresting rehash of Carpenter.

Yet as Richard Newby argues, "as a film lacking the beautiful simplicity of Carpenter's, Halloween '07 made a case for itself as an inelegant, raw and dirty psycho-fantasy drawn out of the idea that, as the Zombie-utilized Nazareth song goes, 'love hurts.'" Indeed so -- the Michael-Laurie family connection established by Halloween II (1981) and rejected by Green's reboot is front and center in Zombie's take. And Zombie builds upon and improves his focus on this theme in his criminally underrated 2009 sequel. As Newby contends:

It's in Zombie's Halloween II that the director is at his most interesting and assured as a filmmaker. Michael Myers takes a back seat to Laurie Strode and the trauma she's endured. [Scout] Taylor-Compton's girl-next-door vibe from the first film is stripped away and replaced with something damaged and genuinely human in its fragility. It's a performance, one of the best and most surprising to come out of horror in that decade, that rejects former notions of the final girl and her invulnerability.

Not only does Zombie's depiction of Laurie gain tragedy and resonance in his second Halloween outing, the film also renders Michael (Tyler Mane) as more of an animalistic wild man. The iconic Myers spends good chunks of the film trudging through the countryside, killing people, and seeing visions of his dead mother. It is weird, hallucinatory, and melodramatic, like Zombie's other hillbilly horror masterpiece, The Devil's Rejects (2005), and it works.

Indeed, Newby concludes that "Halloween II '09 is one of the most original films to come out of the slasher movie subgenre, and [it] ended on a note far more interesting than any of the sequels that had come before it." Agreed -- I would rank Zombie's Halloween II as the third-best Halloween franchise film overall, behind Carpenter's original and Green's.

To again quote Newby: "While so many horror remakes in the 21st century feel like a shadow of the original, Zombie managed to create two films that feel fully formed, even if audiences disagree over whether they enjoy the shape they took."

Review: The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

I watched the new Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House and despite admiring many of the visuals and respecting what the show's creators are trying to do, I have come away feeling underwhelmed. I basically had to force myself to watch the last three episodes because I felt done with the whole thing by the time I finished episode seven (of ten).

I have not read the source novel by Shirley Jackson but have seen (and very much like) the 1963 Robert Wise film adaptation The Haunting with Julie Harris. This new version actually bears very little resemblance to Jackson's book or that 1963 film, instead grafting a family melodrama onto the basic premise of a haunted house. As Holly Green's informative article notes, the haunted house premise and a few character names is where the similarities to the source material ends:

The novel exhibits enormous restraint, serving as a metaphor for female repression while leaving much open to interpretation. There’s only one scene in the book where two characters verifiably experience the same phenomena; all other supernatural encounters are from Eleanor’s perspective and offer no definitive take on whether the incidents were real or the product of her mind. Many times, we’re led to believe that Eleanor may be having a breakdown due to her inability to function under the prospect of her own freedom, as evidenced by the book’s horrific ending.

While Green attributes the show's problems to its deviations from the novel, I think the series' flaws can be mainly attributed to one root cause: Netflix bloat. Mind you, I am extremely open to slow-paced shows and films -- hell, I am an Andrei Tarkovsky fan! However, this show suffers from being too dragged-out and slow-paced. There just isn't enough meat on its bones. I was bored during long stretches of most of the episodes. I think this show would have been much stronger if it had been condensed to six or seven episodes rather than ten.

A few of the episodes really deliver --  I would single out ep. 4 "The Twin Thing" and ep. 3 "Touch," as being particularly riveting ones. But most of the others range from "dull but with a few good bits" (ep. 5 "The Bent-Neck Lady" and ep. 6 "Two Storms") to "utterly unnecessary" (ep. 8 "Witness Marks"). So overall, despite its high production values, compelling mood, and promising premise, it is hard for me to recommend this show. I am somewhat baffled at the strength and number of positive reactions I have heard about this series from other viewers.

Victoria Pedretti as Nell in the final moments of "The Bent-Neck Lady," one of the better episodes of The Haunting of Hill House. 

Specifically, the high points of The Haunting of Hill House include:

• The character of Shirley and the actress who plays her, Elizabeth Reaser. Hers is by far the best-developed character and the best performance by an actor in this series. 

• The twins' characterization and plotline -- aside from Shirley, the twins Nell and Luke are the only two other characters I truly care about, especially in their back-to-back episodes "The Twin Thing" and "The Bent-Neck Lady."

• The final few moments of episode 5 "The Bent-Neck Lady." This reveal is the most mind-blowing and emotionally resonant moment of the series. (Yes, the show peaks early.)  

• "Two Storms," the much-touted "single shot" episode, which functions as an homage to Hitchcock's Rope (1948), another "single-shot" film centered upon a body in a trunk / coffin. The problem is, this episode suffers for the comparison to Hitchcock's tightly plotted thriller. Much as I appreciate the gimmick of the "single shot" and admit the creators deployed it well, especially in the "Hugh pursues Olivia" sequence and in how the cuts were incorporated to indicate time-shifts, the episode is still about ten or fifteen minutes too long. It is draggy and boring at several points, especially early in the episode, and as usual, Theodora's character and her abilities are criminally under-deployed. 

Hugh follows Olivia -- the best scene in "Two Storms."

Sadly, for me, the low points -- or really just indifferent, dull points -- overwhelm the positives here. The few really excellent performances  -- Shirley, Nell, Luke, and their mother Olivia -- are swamped by the presence of the other characters that I don't care about (the oldest brother, the father) or that I want to care about but who are under-written and under-deployed (Theo, the Dudleys). Plus the whole happy ending of the finale just feels, as much of the series' emotional moments do, over-determined, cliched, canned. It just doesn't land for me.

I love me a good, tawdry, emotionally heightened family melodrama. I love Hollywood melodramas like Stella Dallas (1937), Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959), Now, Voyager (1942), All That Heaven Allows (1955), etc., and I am a super-fan of the PBS series Poldark (2015-present) -- yet The Haunting of Hill House is too sluggishly paced and too clumsy in (not) landing its emotional beats to earn my recommendation, with the exception of that fourth episode and a couple key moments in eps five and six. 

I would instead advise people who want to see a family melodrama fused with a haunting-type story to check out The Sixth Sense (1999) or The Babadook (2014). Those seeking a flat-out great ghost story movie should try the original version of The Haunting or (even better) The Innocents (1961).  

End of the Year Roundup 2017

To begin with, I acknowledge that last year's roundup was WAY too long. One of the hallmarks of this year's roundup will be its brevity.

I'll start by discussing the films that made the deepest impression on me this year. These are not in any particular order after the first one, and should NOT be taken as some kind of ranked or preferential list of any kind. Remember, film reviews are subjective!

My favorite movie of the year is Lady Bird. I can hardly believe that this wonderful, confident, superbly written and directed coming of age story marks Greta Gerwig's feature film directing debut. It never hits a false note. It is funny, self-assured, and poignant. It is a must-see.

If Lady Bird possesses any flaw, it is not intrinsic to the film itself (I hope). Instead it lies with claims that it may have plagiarized. Michelle Cruz Gonzales has written a blog post mentioning the eerie similarities between Lady Bird and Real Women Have Curves (2002), another must-see mother-daughter themed movie. Gonzales calls Lady Bird "the white-lady Real Women Have Curves" and outlines the case for plagiarism on Greta Gerwig's part. While I am not sure (and Gonzalez admits in a follow-up article that she cannot prove) Gerwig plagiarized the earlier film, I also noticed striking similarities while watching the newer one: the hard-working, "tough love"-oriented mother figure, the daughter who goes to New York City at the end. So I consider this a valid issue yet I still love Lady Bird very much. 

The other most memorable and affecting films I saw this year include . . .

. . . another feature film-directing debut, Jordan Peele's great thriller Get Out -- see my review here. Also, read Mark Harris' smart commentary about the film and its place in contemporary Hollywood.

Blade Runner 2049 is probably the most visually stunning film of 2017, a lavish sci-fi spectacle I enjoyed very much. Despite some lingering questions about its gender politics (which could be an interesting provocation or just more of the same Hollywood sexism), the Blade Runner sequel is easily my favorite big-budget film of the year. Read my complete review here.

The Shape of Water is another visual stunner -- though I would expect no less from director Guillermo Del Toro, one of the great masters of lavish mise-en-scene. Water is an offbeat, 1950s-set love story between a mute janitorial employee (Sally Hawkins) at a U.S. government facility and a Black Lagoon-esque amphibious creature who is being held there. The film drags a bit in its second act -- it could use a bit more Octavia Spencer and a bit less government (and Soviet) plotting -- but overall, this is a remarkable film, lovingly crafted, chock full of superb performances (Richard Jenkins is a standout) with about the best ending of any film I've seen this year.

My favorite action film of the year is Wonder Woman - read my complete review here.

I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi about a week ago, I plan to see it again, and while I really enjoyed it my first time out, I am unsure how it will hold up over time. But whether I like it or not, this one is going to loom large in the pop-cultural conversation for awhile, especially since Disney has recently furthered its plans to take over the entertainment universe. My review is here.

Recent movies I would like to see but haven't include The Disaster Artist; Colossal; The Big Sick; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Thor 3; Beatriz at Dinner; and The Post.

And my favorite TV shows of the year include:

Big Little Lies (HBO) - The best dramatic show of the year.

The Crown (Netflix) - The other best dramatic show of the year.

Poldark (BBC / PBS) - A persistent favorite of mine, an artfully crafted, zippy bodice-ripper featuring the world's greatest villain, Jack Farthing's George Warleggan.

Outlander (Starz) - I've been watching this for three seasons and found it uneven early on but despite one sluggish and unnecessary episode (Ep. 5 "Freedom & Whisky"), season three is a knockout!

The Good Place (NBC) - The funniest, cleverest, and most poignant comedy around. I can't say much without giving stuff away, but Kristen Bell and Ted Danson lead a stellar cast in this whip-smart metaphysical comedy. A must-see, but don't read too much about it ahead of time as there are big twists ahead!

Schitt's Creek (CBC) - The other funniest, cleverest, and most poignant comedy around. Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara drew me in, but younger stars Daniel Levy and Annie Murphy keep me coming back. A warm-hearted, very funny series about a formerly rich family down on its luck.

GLOW (Netflix) - Easy to take for granted because of how effortlessly this series combines comedy and pathos. This first season is mostly buildup to greater things yet to come, but is worth watching for Alison Brie's and Marc Maron's performances alone.

That's all for now. Happy New Year!

Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

[MASSIVE SPOILERS FOLLOW]

Despite my mostly positive comments here, I recently tried to re-watch The Force Awakens and could not get past Han Solo's entrance. I find that, like Tony Zhou, I long for a different new-trilogy-kickoff film, one that spends more time on its new characters than its legacy ones. And one that tells a different story than the one that is already told more impactfully and economically in George Lucas's 1977 Star Wars.

However, despite my "blah" feelings about Episode VII, I stand by my concluding sentiment in that review, which says that

I sure look forward to seeing the next couple episodes of Rey's ongoing adventures. She is the single most compelling element of this latest Star Wars viewing product.

Indeed, I went into Episode VII with mediocre expectations overall but some hopes for interesting Rey / Luke developments. I ended up enjoying the film very much, at least on my first viewing. For me, The Last Jedi strikes a good balance between "soulless corporate pablum" and "a film somebody actually wanted to make." I like writer / director Rian Johnson's idiosyncratic touches and  I mostly found the tone of Last Jedi and the whole Luke Skywalker storyline to be spot-on. Kylo Ren continues to be the best-developed new character and Rey is compelling onscreen despite thin, predictable scripting for her this time around. I even enjoyed the Yoda cameo, an aspect I assumed I would hate. Yes, it was obvious fan service but it was handled well for the most part.

Even some of the gratuitous nods to the structure and visuals of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi didn't bother me too much. I am not sure we needed walkers attacking a rebel base on a "snow" (er, salt) planet yet again at the end, and some of the visual homages were heavy handed (e.g., the image of Yoda in the foreground, Luke in the background watching a ship take off copied from Empire). Along the same lines, the whole "gambler betrays the heroes" story element felt shoehorned in, but maybe that's because that whole Finn-Rose subplot, despite those two characters' good interpersonal chemistry and a fun animal chase, was clumsy, thinly plotted, and unnecessary.

All that said, I mainly enjoyed Last Jedi a great deal. Visually, it is a cut above most other Star Wars films (reason enough to see it in a theater) and there were enough new twists and fun ideas, mostly surrounding Luke's renouncing of the Force and his big astral-projection-trick finale, to keep me on the hook. I especially liked Leia's return to the ship after her brush with death -- FINALLY the series does something with HER portion of the Skywalker Force-imbued bloodline. That moment was weird and powerful and unexpected and I liked it very much.

The very best element of this film is its meta-commentary on failure:

In tackling this notion head-on—in being willing to not only challenge Star Wars’ happy ending, but to question whether happy endings actually exist—these new films are giving the saga something that it’s always somewhat lacked, even in all its constant grappling with themes of the spirit versus the machine: humanity.

Indeed, The Last Jedi, especially as it concerns Luke Skywalker, is the most humanly resonant Star Wars film since 1980's Empire. It is, as other reviewers have noted, a bit overlong and messy, but probably not too much the worse for it. I certainly enjoyed this film -- and had elements of it stick with me afterward -- in ways not even remotely achieved by any prequel or recent sequel.

The Last Jedi contains far fewer dead moments and outright imaginative failures than does The Force Awakens (e.g., Leia and Chewie failing to acknowledge each other post-Han's death) and I'm quite glad Johnson at least tried to take some chances (e.g., with Luke's character arc, with our understanding of what the Force can do). There were some subtle yet palpable misfires, such as:

• Holdo's big death scene should have been Leia's.

• Speaking of Holdo, why doesn't she just tell Poe the plan (or at least admit that she's got one) so as to eliminate that largely superfluous subplot he secretly and insubordinately sets in motion?

• Finn's self-sacrifice should have been allowed to happen, even though he's then a black guy sacrificing himself for the whities.

• Ren's bullshit talk of letting everything die, of letting go, seemed like a coded message to fans rather than anything he actually believed. He still wanted to indulge his hate and destroy the resistance. I guess we're supposed to just take it as bullshit, as lies he tells Rey to win her to his side, but it still felt weird and too meta-textual to really work.

"Hey guys, director Rian Johnson here. Be sure to let go of the past 
before you watch The Last Jedi!" 

Is Yoda a bit jokey? Yes, but this works for me -- he and Luke are colleagues now, not master and student. When Yoda blows up the tree and Jedi library, it fits the theme of the film and Yoda's approach to the Force. I like it.

But the smash cut from the end of that scene, Luke and Yoda sitting together watching the fire, to a ship hurtling through hyperspace comes a few seconds too soon and is emblematic of the film's most pervasive weakness: it is trying to pack so much in that it rushes things. It doesn't fuck up character moments as badly as J.J. Abrams does in the prior film but it still rushes them. I get that the casino planet sequence is ultimately a lesson about failure, a meta-theme of the movie, yet couldn't some of that material be eliminated or trimmed to give us a few more grounded character moments with Rey and Kylo, or even Luke and Yoda?

Also, as the Red Letter Media guys note, there is a real sense of finality at the end of this installment. The Last Jedi, even in its title, has the feel of a final chapter, not a penultimate one. So while it vastly improves on the lackluster Force Awakens, it doesn't really leave us with anywhere interesting to go. With Luke dead in the film and Leia dead in real life, two of the best characters are gone, leaving us with Ren and Rey. But what can they do next except battle it out some more?

I guess we'll find out.

JAY: See you again in two years for the next one . . . 

RICH: . . . when they just have to blow up a super-weapon and she has to get into a light-saber fight with Kylo Ren again. 'Cause they can't do anything new or interesting with Star Wars, they just can't, it's not there. I'm sorry -- you've wasted your life and your fandom.

UPDATE 1/2/2018: I saw The Last Jedi again yesterday and overall, I enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, I did the first time. It honors (most of) its characters and really keeps the viewer on the hook. I still think it is TOO fast-paced and overfull at times (that cut away from Luke and Yoda at the burning tree is quite wrenching -- it does not even wait for the last note on the musical score to resolve), yet overall the movie jells very well and is a real pleasure to watch.

That said, my main critique of it -- that the subplot involving Benicio del Toro's codebreaker character is especially weak -- still stands, and in fact was even more glaring to me on a second watch. As much as I love del Toro -- and I really do, I have sat through the shitty James Bond film Licence to Kill many times largely for his great performance in it -- his character in Star Wars is woefully underdeveloped and the whole plot involving him is, as I said, unnecessary. The "failure" theme is more than adequately covered by the Luke storyline, and the only part of the casino planet sequence that really comes alive is the stuff with the racing herd animals and the stable-cleaning kids. THAT part of that subplot IS narratively relevant, as it continues the theme of empathy for non-human animals that begins with Chewie and the porgs and concludes with the "crystal critters" on the salt planet.

But as for the "finding the codebreaker" stuff, it is weakly scripted (how and why do they meet Benicio in that prison cell?) and should probably have been cut. It would make far more sense to just have Rose be the codebreaker (or know someone who is) and have the side quest forego the casino planet altogether and head straight for Snoke's ship.

In fact, this time through I noticed what I think is The Last Jedi's one and only plot hole, and of course it involves the Benicio del Toro plot. (And let me preamble this by saying that I almost NEVER notice plot holes or continuity errors unless they are especially glaring. I did not catch this one until the second viewing.) It is this: when Finn, Rose and Benicio are in Snoke's ship at the end, and our two heroes learn that he has betrayed them, how does he know the information that he uses to buy his freedom? That is, how does Benicio know that the rebels are escaping in shuttlecraft when the film has already established that NOBODY except Holdo and possibly Leia know about that plan? Finn and Rose surely don't. So how does Benicio learn about it?

Review: Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

I fucking love Blade Runner. I first saw the original 1982 theatrical cut on VHS in the mid-1980s. That version intrigued me a lot, and haunted me, even though I didn't like the clumsy Harrison Ford voice-overs and weirdly upbeat ending. To be fair, I first came at Blade Runner with little understanding of film noir. Instead, I'd recently seen other fast-paced Ford vehicles like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. In contrast to these, Blade Runner felt slow and weird, but I still liked it. Its three principal characters -- Deckard, Roy, and Rachel -- stuck with me.

I happened to be living in Los Angeles in 1992 when the so-called "Director's Cut" of Blade Runner was discovered in a vault and screened at the Nuart Theater. That's when my true Blade Runner fandom began. That new version appeared just at the right time for me as a developing cinephile. I had started watching independent cinema, stuff like Do the Right Thing, Slacker, Reservoir Dogs, and sex, lies and videotape, so I was ready for a visually arty, downbeat, science-fictional neo-noir to sweep me away. Indeed, that cut of Blade Runner (and the essentially identical 2007 "Final Cut") remains one of my all-time favorite movies, even though I am made uncomfortable by the coercive nature of Deckard and Rachel's sex scene. I realize the dynamics of the scene are complicated by their both being replicants -- or maybe only Rachel being a replicant -- but it disturbs me. Nevertheless, I love Blade Runner. (I also love the Alien universe, so Ridley Scott has pulled me in twice.)

So I looked forward to seeing Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. I went last weekend assuming I would like it and I did, very much. In my recent review of It I state that film is about 80% what I would want to see in an It movie. I mean that as high praise. I would say that Blade Runner 2049 is about 94% what I would want to see in a Blade Runner sequel.

The film often -- but not always -- touches on the mesmerizing quality that makes Ridley Scott's original so special. As with the noir-inspired original, Blade Runner 2049's main strengths are its beautifully lit visuals of grimy, lived-in settings and its overall melancholic tone.

Sure, Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014) is a more compelling thematic follow-up to Blade Runner and is its true "spiritual sequel" ideas-wise. But Villeneuve's 2049 gets the tone and visuals dead right and introduces the reproducing replicant motif, a logical next step for the franchise that takes the story in an interesting, Pinocchio-like direction. And 2049 ends really well -- both its blade runners get superb final scenes and shots.

Although it ends with a haunting close-up of Deckard, 2049 features minimal -- just enough -- Harrison Ford. It's the new characters' show. Ryan Gosling is pitch-perfect as protagonist "K" aka Joe -- a strong silent type who is nevertheless more emotionally vulnerable than Deckard ever was (or is). Supporting cast members Sylvia Hoeks as Luv, Ana de Armas as Joi, and Robin Wright as Lieutenant Joshi (who I really thought was going to pull one more trick out of her hat before getting brutally murdered -- alas) are also especially good.

2049 does right to stay focused on Joe's present-day story, only bringing in Deckard when he becomes relevant to the mystery Joe is trying to solve. Indeed, too much emphasis on legacy characters weakens Star Wars and accounts for 2049's most awkward and least necessary scene: Niander Wallace's unsuccessful tempting of Deckard with Rachel 2.0.

There is no point to the Rachel 2.0 scene -- we know Deckard would never go for this ruse, and the use of computer generated imagery (CGI) to re-create a circa-1982 Sean Young looks, as CGI Peter Cushing in Star Wars Rogue One looks, uncanny, cheap, and (therefore) jarring.

Rachel sez: "Sorry folks, I should never have been in this sequel." 

2049's other main weak point is its almost comically underdeveloped depiction of an underground replicant revolutionary force. That scene only takes place to "explain" how Joe escapes Las Vegas, and there's a million other ways to do that -- he could just hijack some other vehicle from around Deckard's lair. Or the Wallace mercenaries could haul Joe back to L.A. along with Deckard, and Joe could escape at that point. Or he could be taken in the very same airport transport as Deckard, and would end up at the same climactic fight. The thing the rebellion leader tells Joe about his origin is something he could realize on his own -- he already suspects it before that dumb scene.

Deckard being tempted and Joe being rescued by an anonymous replicant resistance movement are stupid and unnecessary scenes. 2049 should just cut from Deckard being taken away in Vegas to "K" commandeering a new vehicle and pursuing him. No Ford / Leto meeting needed. The CGI Sean Young reveal is hackneyed in the film world and the real one.

I have been a Blade Runner fan since 1992 and was likely to want to see this sequel in any case. Yet the stellar track records of Denis Villeneuve, 2049's director, and Roger Deakins, its cinematographer, strongly contributed to my anticipation to see it. Villeneuve has made several excellent films over the past several years, including Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015), and my favorite, his recent science-fiction film Arrival (2016). Deakins has worked with the Coen brothers since 1997, when he shot Fargo. He shot Prisoners and Sicario for Villeneuve. He also lensed the James Bond film Skyfall in 2012. He utterly rocks.

Is Blade Runner 2049 slow paced? Yes, of course it is. Like the original, 2049 is a bleak, moody, science-fiction film noir -- it is NOT an action film. There are basically two fights, two swift stabbings, and one extremely brief flying car chase. That's it -- the rest of 2049's two hour forty minute running time is people talking to each other on amazingly-lit and -designed sets. Don't expect much action, but expect a visually stunning, fully developed world of the future.

And expect me to crush people.  

UPDATE 10/28/2017: After reading my review, one of my friends noted on Facebook that she enjoyed Blade Runner 2049 too but had "some questions about Joi." Indeed, I share her concerns over the sexism of both the original Blade Runner -- the roughness of the Deckard-Rachel love scene has always disturbed me -- and its sequel. Honestly, I agree with everything Lauren Jernigan says in her penetrating article about the pervasive sexism of 2049. She writes: 

Joi has very little, if any, true agency as a character. She’s a programmed hologram that will be whatever K needs her to be, so he has his perfect fantasy woman. She is a literal product designed for the happiness of men.

Agreed. Like Jernigan, I find the sex scene with K, Joi, and her hired body double to be quite unnerving. Is this the film's way of critiquing this situation by making me feel unnerved and uncomfortable with it? Or is the film simply reinforcing the role of women as objects of desire for men? It's hard to tell. 

In defense of my Blade Runner fandom I can only say that film noir presents a strange case: it is so highly stylized and hyperbolic that I think it is possible to read the genre's abysmal treatment of women as a critique of patriarchal violence. But it is an ambivalent, ambiguous case, and there is no doubt that noirs like the Blade Runner films portray women as "only there to help move the story of men forward, rather than act as protagonists in their own right in a story very much about oppression against them," as Jernigan correctly asserts.

UPDATE 11/8/2017: I also found this piece by Joseph Aisenberg to offer an insightful interpretation of Blade Runner 2049. "Morose and morbidly meditative in tone, it gnaws around the edges of the assumptions underlying its plot mechanics, giving viewers time to think through the fakery in its themes about fakery versus authenticity."

Review: Stephen King's It (2017)

I saw It and I mostly really enjoyed it. I am a fan of Stephen King's original novel -- I think it is his best work -- and feel that despite a couple of sad blunders, the recent film adaptation (which its closing credits make clear constitutes "Chapter 1" of a presumed two-parter) is about 80% what I would want to see out of an adaptation of a horror epic this nuanced and great. I would probably even watch it again someday, and I intend to see the sequel. My review:

The good:

• The overall tone. As AV Club's Katie Rife astutely notes, the visuals are particularly excellent: "Cinematography from Chung Chung-hoon, Park Chan-wook’s longtime DP, gives the film a richness and texture that’s far beyond that of most Hollywood films, let alone horror films."

• The casting, especially Finn Wolfhard as Richie -- of whom Andrew Barker writes, "Wolfhard all but steals the show as the gang’s cheerful antagonist Richie" -- and Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. My biggest concern going in was my deep love of Tim Curry's iconic portrayal of the killer clown in the 1990 TV-miniseries version of It -- the great character actor is basically the best thing in a generally mediocre movie. The new remake is thankfully a better movie and Skarsgard is terrific in the role, not as great as Curry but very scary and amusing if a bit over-exposed: "The more we see of him, the less scary he becomes" Chris Nashawaty correctly deduces.

The bad:

• The sexist "Beverly used as bait" problem, as well documented by Jackie Perez, who writes that "Beverly is stripped of her power and equality when she’s taken by Pennywise the clown in order to propel the six boys into the sewers to rescue her. The tired and sexist trope of using female weakness to show male strength goes directly against everything Beverly stood for in the book." Indeed, I found the kidnapping subplot to be the movie's absolute low point -- it is both sexist and too narratively boring and overused. Why not just have the Losers including Beverly head down to the sewers to defeat It, for which they already have more than sufficient motivation at that point? Why does Pennywise even choose Beverly? He always seemed most interested in Bill. 


• The needless backgrounding of Mike Hanlon, the Losers' Club's sole black member. When It downplays Mike's character and role, it omits the complex racial history of Derry and the racism Mike experiences -- he is bullied by villain Henry Bowers but the racial motivations for it are sidestepped. As Kristen Yoonsoo Kim writes, "the racism that Mike faces is so watered down that he loses some of the individual purpose in the kids’ fight against evil." Indeed so. For example, why does Henry never utter the word "nigger" when tormenting Mike? Especially in these troubled (real-life) times, when open racism is a constant front-page issue, the film's choice to avoid that word feels out of place and weird -- an omission that causes more discomfort and dissonance through its absence than it would if the film just went for it and told the truth. 


• Furthermore, regarding the gratuitous flattening and marginalizing of Mike in this movie, why does Ben Hanscomb need to take over Mike's researcher role? Can't a black kid be a smart kid in American cinema? Besides, likable though he is, Ben doesn't need more to do -- he has his hands full with the film's amplified Bill - Beverly - Ben love triangle.

• The film's amplified Bill - Beverly - Ben love triangle. This stems from the film too weirdly sexualizing Beverly. For while foregrounding her sexual nature allows for some Carrie-esque moments in the bathroom sequences, it kind of ruins the dynamics of the kid Losers in the film. Instead of fitting in with the guys as a tomboy, Bev becomes a highly sexualized object of desire from the get-go. My memory is that in the novel, Ben's feelings for Bev don't really come out into the open until the adult phase of the action. Am I mis-remembering that?

The strange:

In the theater where I saw It, it opened with video footage of Stephen King in a neutral studio setting introducing the film and saying how blown away he was by director Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of his favorite work. Now I love Stephen King, both as a pulp author and as an irascible left-centrist public figure, but he seemed downright awkward in this introduction video. He was clearly reading from a teleprompter -- I could see his eyes reading and I think I saw the teleprompter screen reflected in his glasses.

King has always had a fraught relationship with film adaptations of his books, famously despising the very best one, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), even making a TV miniseries version in 1997 as a kind of public "I'm taking it back" gesture. And as A.O. Scott notes, a great many King adaptations are mediocre or worse, so maybe this isn't a very high bar. But it was interesting to me that someone took the time to film this footage of King and place it up front -- King subtly asserting his authorship? A precautionary measure to assure audiences this isn't another Dark Tower (2017) fiasco?

Anyway, horror fans or King fans should go see this film. It is fun and mostly scary, though a couple of the clown attacks are so over-the-top as to be silly rather than convincing (including, IMO, the first one). The final battle is, as Scott correctly states, boring and unaffecting: "The climactic sequence of It sacrifices horror-movie creepiness for action-movie bombast." And obviously, as I've said, big sexism and racism alert. But It is worth your time for the cinematography, a few scares, and Richie's one-liners alone.

Richie sez: "If you don't like this movie you can fuck off!"

Franchises, Fandom, and Film Criticism

It is hard for me to write about films of which I am not a fan. I can do it, and sometimes I have produced good analytical papers by doing so, but here on the blog I mainly post about films toward which I am positively inclined.

This truism partly explains why I have been so slow to complete my promised review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I want to get that piece out there, but it is more an intellectual goal than a passion project. I want to review a Star Wars prequel to show I'm a good sport and to inoculate myself against accusations of bias against them. But the truth is, I am biased: as a movie fan, I loathe and despise all three prequels.

Winchester: "I loathe you, Pierce."
Pierce: "I call your loathe and raise you two despises."

Conversely, I noticed recently that there are certain film-worlds I simply enjoy inhabiting and will take the opportunity to visit them even via relatively mediocre movies, e.g., the Tron universe or G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) or anything involving the Fantastic Four. Then there are other cinematic universes, like that of the X-Men, that I don't find too compelling. I enjoyed X-Men: First Class (2011), for example, but I cannot rally the enthusiasm to make it all the way through Days of Future Past (2014). It's a perfectly well-crafted movie, and if I were really into the X-Men I would probably love it, but I am not invested and no X-Men movie, no matter how good, has much re-watch value for me. Maybe I am just Wolverine-fatigued?

Owen Gleiberman wrote a recent piece that gets to the heart of this issue. Ostensibly about his disappointment with Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and Alien Covenant, the article notes that

Franchises are the basic commercial architecture on which the movie business now rests, so the whole culture — audiences, critics, the industry — has a vested interest in viewing this situation without cynicism.

That is, the way the film industry is structured right now encourages viewers to buy into a whole different kind of movie -- the intertextual franchise entry -- than existed in the recent past. According to Gleiberman, our experience of sequels and franchises has shifted since the blockbuster era began in the 1980s:

One of the reasons the word “franchise” passed from industry talk to a colloquial term is that it sounds strong and powerful. You’re not just seeing a movie, you’re glimpsing a part of something larger. You’re not just watching it, you’re joining it. 

This "joining" with something larger can be great fun, and explains my enjoyment of the G.I. Joe films, yet sometimes I just want to see a well-made movie that isn't hyperlinked to a bunch of other stuff. As I said in my review, part of what makes Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman so refreshing is that, whatever its internal flaws, it mostly feels like its own movie, even if you can tell from its overuse of slo-mo combat sequences that it is part of the "DC Universe" and that Zack Snyder vaguely oversaw its production.

I ultimately advocate for both experiences. It can be fun to immerse oneself in a franchise-universe that you enjoy, and this kind of fandom creates a special relationship to (at least certain) films in the franchise, e.g., my love of Prometheus. Yet as Gleiberman suggests, "it can be healthy to return to the mindset of the ’80s and remind yourself that a sequel is often just a sequel: a movie that has no organic reason for being, even if it pretends otherwise." Agreed.

I greatly enjoy hanging out in the Alien universe, and absolutely loved Alien Covenant, but I totally agree with Gleiberman when he says that "the thing that can’t be recaptured, even by director Ridley Scott, is the essence of the original 1979 Alien: the sense of revelation, of seeing a monster that immerses the audience in transcendent horror." I agree. Yet as a committed fan of the Alien franchise, I don't go into Prometheus or Covenant expecting to relive the greatness of the original film. I go in wanting simply to hang out in that world some more.

Still, there are limits and contours to my Alien franchise fandom. For example, I find the abominable Alien Resurrection (1997) all but unwatchable. I re-watch Alien and Prometheus much more often than I do James Cameron's generally excellent Aliens (1986). And I am currently enjoying Ridley Scott's run of Alien prequels quite a bit -- see this EW review for a gloss of what I think of Covenant.

I have written about movie fandom before -- maybe the best thing I came up with (besides the catch phrase "Fuck the Tomatometer") is that "holistic film criticism is always colored by the history, tastes, predilections, hatreds, and fandoms of the individual reviewer." In saying that I am echoing Gamasutra's Katherine Cross, who writes that criticism is "the product of a gut reaction; it is a melange of values, emphasis, and personal judgement. It can never be objective."

To the extent to which that is true, criticism and fandom are somewhat inextricable. Yet it is the critic's job to be as clear as possible about their fandoms and leanings so that the reader can have some kind of barometer to use in evaluating the critic's work.

This means being able to talk about fandom -- a kind of gut-level, euphoric, gushy thing -- in concrete terms. I've been thinking that fandom has a few different levels:

• casual fandom, describing someone who will remain loyal to a franchise or genre or star in a vague way, but doesn't get too wrapped up in the deep mythology or details
• fandom proper, which exists in a big range but includes a certain loyalty to a brand, studio, star, director, franchise, starring character, etc. Often the true fan tries to protect what they see as the canon of their preferred genres and franchises, and probably has some apocryphal knowledge
• crazy-assed fandom that is so specific and particular that it destroys the fan's ability to enjoy a thing transposed into another medium or changed in the "wrong" way

I have this last thing with Lord of the Rings. I love the original J.R.R. Tolkien books so much, and they were so deeply influential upon me at an early age, that for me no film version of those works has ever really come close to the version I have in my mind. I find the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings (1978) watchable, and Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) passable, but I guess I will always be swayed by my abiding fandom of those novels. Of course, the Rankin and Bass animated The Hobbit (1977) is an exception to this rule, since it is a brilliant and beautiful work of genius that is utterly enjoyable on its own merits, especially its delightful songs.

This is not to say that Jackson's Rings movies aren't good movies in some more objective sense -- though they do get worse as they go, especially screenplay-wise -- but simply that I will probably never love them the way many fans do. As a critic, I can see their positive qualities (e.g., high production values, great casting and visuals), even though I can also see the concrete reasons (e.g., contrived dialogue, shitty characterizations, numbingly bombastic battle sequences) that make at least the second two entries completely unappealing to me. My loyalty to the books plays a key role in how I respond as a viewer, and I acknowledge this in my criticism, but I also have legitimate critiques of the Lord of the Rings films themselves. I am a fan and a critic.

In "Hollywood Blames Critics for Its Movies Being Unimaginative Pieces of Shit," The Daily Beast's Kevin Fallon observes that

When a film like Get Out or Hidden Figures skyrockets to surprise box office success on the fuel of critics’ raves, it’s a credit to the value of positive reviews. But if a well-reviewed film is a box office bomb, then it’s used to argue that they don’t matter. What’s interesting, though, is how often critics and general audiences’ tastes align.

Indeed. Gleiberman echoes this sentiment in his article on superhero movie fandom, writing that "1) Critics are fans. 2) Fans are critics." As Gleiberman concludes:

Take the all-too-relevant issue of critics and comic-book movies. Do we critics reflexively dislike them? No. Do we sometimes dislike them? Yes. Do fans of comic-book movies agree with us? More often than not, I would say…yes. Four years from now, will people be talking about what a kickass movie Suicide Squad was? Prediction: Not really.

But all of us, critic-fans and fan-critics alike, will continue to passionately debate the films, franchises, and pop cultural loyalties we enjoy, nurture, refuse, and resist. The best thing we can do is to articulate these positions clearly and be as respectful as possible in how we communicate our ideas and passions.