Quick Reviews and Stuff: March

Happy April! We’ve made it through the first third of the year!

This month I finally gave in and upgraded my AMC subscription to A-List, which lets me see three movies a week for one monthly fee (I promise this is not an advertisement), which is essentially unlimited movies if you’re someone with a job and other activities and stuff. In a more expensive market like Chicago, seeing two movies a month pretty much puts you out ahead of your monthly fee (let alone if you go see something in IMAX —I have a ticket for an upcoming IMAX movie that would have otherwise cost $21 on its own, which is just under the $23+tax that the monthly plan costs).

Don’t worry, my local indie theaters still get a ton of my money— all hail the Music Box — but it’s nice to be able to take the chance on movies I’m curious about but might not otherwise want to pay to see in the theater. All that to say that if there’s an inundation of super mid horror movies on this list over the next couple months, that’s why.

Movies

• Dune (2021)— I think this may have been the first movie I saw back in the theaters post-everything-closed-for-COVID and, after rewatching it on my average-sized television, the theater was the right way to go here. The visuals are impressive no matter what but this (and the sequel) was a film made to be seen on the largest screen possible. The sheer scale of this movie (series) is impressive, and the CGI work is seamless (though, again, more impressive on A Big Ass Screen). I was and remain indifferent towards Timothée Chalamet but he really embodies the vibe of “rich boy thrust into things more serious than he bargained for”. Also, Oscar Isaac. That is all. Thank you.

• Dune 2 (2024)— For as long as this movie was, it also felt unevenly paced. It was still a very good time, particularly seen on the IMAX screen, but like, for all the build-up that Austin Butler got as Peak Weirdo Feyd-Rautha, he’s in the movie for like eight minutes. Sure, they’re eight sick as hell minutes, but come on. Aesthetically beautiful, funnier than I expected, but as someone who hasn’t read any of the books, there’s a lot that I’m just having to accept solely via vibes rather than because it actually gets explained.

• Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) — I have been ruined for any future biopics which do anything so brazen as “tell the truth”. This was an incredibly fun, absolutely ridiculous film, and the only way I ever want to (not) learn anything about Al Yankovic. It hits all the clichés in the Iconic Musician movie genre and it’s clear that everyone there had a blast while filming. Congratulations as always to Daniel Radcliffe for deciding to spend his celebrity success capital on doing weird stuff as an adult.

• Drive-Away Dolls (2024)— Hilariously, over the top horny. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan are both so good as mismatched friends who accidentally embark on a chaotic road trip. I am more impressed with Qualley every time I see her, with her ability to play wildly different characters and commit fully to them. Viswanathan is perfect as the reserved Marian, wide-eyed and cautious and very deadpan funny. Recommended reading: this interview with Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke about their unique relationship (“the Coen polycule”, someone on Twitter called it) and how this film came into existence.

• Love Lies Bleeding (2024)— Thank you universe for giving us the Dirtbag Lesbian Movie that we’ve so very much needed. Both Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brien are excellent in what I guess you could call a thriller? Drama with murder but also girls going down on each other? I for one am pleased that we’re bringing back the Erotic Thriller, just with better, gayer content this time. But no, seriously, this was highly entertaining and while some of the fantasy aspects didn’t quite vibe with me, the breakneck speed of the plot, the surprising brutality, and the movie’s lack of interest in overexplaining anything to you were all very good things. There’s still a lot of time left in the year but for right now, this is making it through the first cut for my year-end list of favorites.

• A Fistful of Dollars* (1964), For a Few Dollars More* (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* (1966) — Lumping all three of these together as they are ostensibly a series (despite several lawsuits that say No, Of Course Clint Eastwood Is Playing A Different Character, Obviously) and my thoughts on all of them are kind of wrapped up together.a. What an absolute treat to get to watch all three of these, back-to-back, in an increasingly packed theater, filled primarily with people who had never seen at least 2/3 of these before. I’m sure I’ve seen bits of TGTB&TU (is that an abbreviation people do??) but otherwise they were all new to me and, truly, how delightful! b. I knew in general what to expect — these films are iconic for a reason, and their influence is all over media, regardless of genre — but I didn’t go in expecting to laugh so much. The dry humor, particularly in the first installment, was just such a pleasant surprise. The humor gets broader and, I guess, more coarse as the series goes on, in ways that are very much A Product Of The Times, but which were less enjoyable for me, and the third movie in particular relies a lot on Tuco as comic relief, which only sometimes works for me. c. I think A Fistful of Dollars was actually my favorite of the three, an opinion which might be film blasphemy and which I might revise over time, as I’m sure to revisit these in the future. The smaller budget and more contained plot made for a simple yet efficient movie, which resonated the most with me. You get enough of a hint of backstory and motivation for our lead character but so much is left up to the imagination which was, honestly, so refreshing in comparison with media today that has to Explain Every Single Thing. d. Hot Young Clint Eastwood turning out to be your Racist Libertarian Grandpa is just, like, so depressing.e. Yes I absolutely did get out of the first movie and immediately search the internet for where I can buy that poncho. The whole look is [chef kiss].

• Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!* (1989)— RIP to the couple who went to this movie as a date, with the boyfriend having never seen an Almodovar film before and not having any idea what he was getting himself into. Could this movie even get made today? The sexual content is practically tame by today’s standards, but the general subject matter — woman falls in love with her kidnapper — is still pretty ick, no matter the pretty sheen that Almodovar puts on it. Antonio Banderas delivers a great performance as the bumbling, misguided Ricky; the use of color gives this a lot of character; and the whole thing is earnestly campy, I just couldn’t help but to be mostly put off by the “but she actually LOVES him” twist. I did like the ambiguity of the ending — Marina certainly did not look happy — but overall, this just didn’t work for me as soon as I started trying to use any critical thought whatsoever.

• Late Night with the Devil (2023)— Do you like movies about sad anxious little men who really really REALLY messed up? Then you may just like this. David Dastmalchian gets his turn in a mainstream starring role that I am hopeful will get enough attention to nudge him out of the “character actor who’s only in the movie for seven minutes” box and into more screen time, because he really nails it here as Jack Delroy, a struggling late night talk show host who gives the devil a prime time platform. The plot is predictable, sure, but it doesn’t rely overly on jump scares and there’s an emotional vulnerability at the heart of Jack’s story that doesn’t often land in horror movies. The complete commitment to the 70s aesthetic, including the “found footage”, really works. Recommended reading: Dastmalchian and Trent Reznor talk about art, creation, and sobriety. (Yes, the use of AI to create the interstitial art was tacky and lazy and someone should have been able to scrouge up a couple hundred bucks to pay a real artist but I also take the filmmakers at their word when they say that this was done with their art/graphics people and that when they were doing the work on this movie several years ago, that AI was not the hot topic it is now. Your mileage may vary and you’re certainly within your rights to dismiss this movie because of that.)

• Cinema Paradiso* (1988)— I feel like the absolute biggest curmudgeon for not really liking this movie, but here we are; the movie was just so overwhelmingly heavy on nostalgia and sentimentality and those are not things that traditionally work for me. There are nuggets of something in there that I would find interesting — little boy befriends old man and learns life lessons from him is good, grown man lives lonely sad life because of single-minded pursuit of a dream is fine, lost first love is timeless — but smooshing them all together and also trying to tie it in with a whole Look How The Movies Bring The Community Together (Yes, Even That Row Of Tweens Jacking Off That Got So Much Screen Time For Some Reason) was just too much. What is supposed to be heart-warming about “guy takes misguided advice and ghosts his family for THIRTY YEARS”? They didn’t even show me that he was A Great Filmmaker or anything, he was just a lonely rich guy in bed with his hot girlfriend, reflecting on his life. This didn’t make me reflect on what it is I like about the movies but it did make me think “wow if only Toto could have had Therapy at any point”.

• The Battle of Algiers* (1966) — Absolutely stunning. I’d never heard of this before and had honestly been tempted to skip it in favor of eating an actual meal on another day of multiple moves in one sitting. Curiosity won out and what I saw was a movie that is still wildly topical today. An unflinching look at colonialism, centered on the Algerian War in the ’50s-’60s, where the Algerian people were fighting against the French occupiers. The actors in the film are almost all non-professional actors and are actually people who lived through the war and were often key players in the conflict. It is impossible not to watch this movie, with its frank gaze at conflict — violence towards prisoners, children being pulled from rubble, casualties of innocent civilians — and not think about what’s going on in the world today. I was absolutely transfixed by the unflinching way this looked at the subject.

• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)* — Dario Argento’s directorial debut, this was an unintentionally hilarious movie about an American in Italy who witnesses an attack on a woman and subsequently gets pulled into the search for the attacker. I had expected it to be more violent, given its spot in the history of giallo films, but this was fairly tame and, more importantly, wildly unintentionally funny. Please, if you will, consider the below image, taken in the police station after they get a bunch of Scientific Evidence from the scene, load it into the computer, and then a giant dot matrix printer prints out the image of what the suspect looks like:

There’s a scene later where some highly unlikely things occur with an oscilloscope, as well. Vibes-based police work aside, this gets a bit melodramatic in the third act, but overall is a fun time.

• Immaculate (2024)— I did not expect this to be good and I was not disappointed. I think this had the potential to be a much better horror movie than it was, if a) Sydney Sweeney was a better actor and b) it didn’t rely on jump scares quite so much. The third act of the movie goes completely buckwild and I kind of wish they’d gone for that “fuck it we ball” attitude for the whole movie instead of the slow burn. Sweeney does have her moments where I thought she was very good but any time she’s asked to do serious, convincing emotional work other than fear/revulsion, she can’t sell it. This was one of the more aesthetically pleasing horror movies that I’ve seen, though, and ends on an absolute banger (lol you’ll get it if you see it).

• Days of Heaven* (1978) — Someone should just let Terrence Malick make a nature documentary and be done with it. I don’t aspire to be a Serious Film Person but if I did, disliking both this and Cinema Paradiso might get me kicked out of the cool kids movie club. Days of Heaven is visually stunning, extraordinarily detailed, and lovingly shot. The Oscar it got for cinematography was well deserved. But like … the whole “we had a script and then decided to toss it and just film our actors making things up for the vibes” does usually not a great story make. The whole thing is essentially a series of vignettes centered around the one sequence you could tell they really really wanted to make (the locusts/fire). It’s like when I write my little fan fictions and only write a few lines of each scene, with notes that say “go back and flesh this out later”, and then my beta reader is like “uh hey so are you gonna go flesh that out or what, you don’t really have a scene here” and I’m like “nah you know what, I’m good”.

• The Thing* (1982)— This is another movie that I’ve spent my whole life lying about having seen. Iconic in the horror movie world, I’d just never quite gotten around to it and wow do I regret having wasted all this time, because this was fantastic. The way this builds tension and uncertainty is like master-class level stuff, and yet for 40+ years, horror still struggles to clear the bar that The Thing raised. I look forward to revisiting this one again in the future. Also: I need the oral history on Kurt Russell’s stupid hat that he wears.

• Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010): No. Okay, wait, no, hang on, I won’t leave it at that. This has more than fairly earned its 1.6 rating on Letterboxd and is talked about as the worst movie ever for good reason. The only redeeming value is watching it with your friends and laughing at it the whole time.

• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005): The sarcastic banter humor reads as Very 2005 and it’s got a lot of flaws in the way that the camera views women but Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. are both fully committed to their roles really sells this movie. Both are hilarious and in a just world we would have had a sequel to this, but, alas.

• All of the starred movies above were part of the Cinema Morricone film series at the Music Box here in Chicago. I think if you’re even a little bit of a movie person, you know Ennio Morricone, but like most people, I was mostly familiar with his work on westerns. So the biggest surprise for me in seeing nine of these movies was the sheer variety of musical styles he worked in. You want breathy, sultry moaning for a giallo? Got it! Schmaltzy classical-sounding stuff? Done. Eerie? Yep. Forward-driving, intense, mysterious? Yep, sure. The longevity of his career certainly demonstrates that he can adapt to whatever a filmmaker wants from him, but watching so many diverse films in such a short period of time really drives it home. He’s a legend for a reason.

Books

• Blood Debts, Terry J. Benton-Walker — I went long on Goodreads on all the things that frustrated me about this book. The lead characters are 16-year old twins in a family of magic users, where magic is passed down through the generations. They’re dealing with grief, trauma, illness, and betrayal. I desperately wanted to like this book: gorgeous cover, southern paranormal/urban fantasy, different magic systems, BIPOC/LGBT+/neurodiverse representation. But yikes did this fall flat for me. One of my biggest dislikes was the lead characters themselves, all of whom were extremely petty and non-communicative about their problems. While this is technically a YA book, the main characters acted much more like they’re at least in their 20s — they’re both 16 yet the book opens the first chapter with each twin having their respective boyfriends spending the night, in their bedrooms, under the same roof as their literally dying mother — and yet all of the drama (she was mean to me on social media!!1!1! she was mad that I started dating her ex!!!1!1) is very soundly teen nonsense. The themes of dealing with generational trauma, grief, and systemic racism are good, but overall this book is so messy and not written well enough to make the mess worth it.

• The Three Little Tardigrades, Sandra Fay — A take on Goldilocks, only with tardigrades instead of bears. I, a grown adult, found this picture book to be very cute and funny, with a charming rustic-ish art style and lots of tardigrade facts. I think some of the humor may be lost on younger readers who don’t get things like “sarcasm” but I personally identified with Doug the tardigrade who is not known for his spontaneity. One of those picture books that I imagine is going to entertain the adult who has to read it to their kid 17 times in a night. There IS a spider in this book and the spider DOES do jump scares (as much as one can jump scare in a book) so if you or your little one has a spider thing, this may not be the book for you.

• A House with Good Bones, T. Kingfisher — How delightfully creepy! Our main character is Sam, a 30-something scientist who has to return to her family home after her work gets put on hold and she needs a place to stay. Scary things ensue. I loved Sam’s narrative voice, which was right on the spot for a 30-something self-aware nerd. The tone felt natural and funny without feeling forced. I enjoyed the way the mystery aspect (as in: wtf is going on in this house) unfolded. Even though the general concept of the mystery was pretty easy to guess, I enjoyed following the breadcrumbs to understand WHY and HOW. The cast is kept pretty small so you don’t have to remember 100 characters, and the ones who you meet all impact the plot in some way. This is overall a tight, effective little horror story and very easy to read in just a sitting or two. This is somehow my first read by T. Kingfisher but I’m excited to dive in more.

• The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance, Mensun Bound — Marine archeologist Mensun Bound chronicles the two expeditions he undertook in order to find the wreckage of the Endurance. Bound, following in the path of explorers throughout the centuries, presents his journals from these expeditions. It’s presented as a day-by-day account, complete with the minutiae that make up any trip like this — lots of waiting, lots of thinking, brief surges of action. I liked how he wove his story in with what the men on Shackleton’s crew were experiencing at roughly the same time, a hundred-some years apart. I knew some but not a lot about the original Endurance, so I enjoyed getting to see the parallels between the trips. The target audience for this is People Who Really Like Polar Exploration, so if you’re outside of the target audience, you may find yourself bored. I enjoyed this a lot, although it took me quite some time to read. The writing can be somewhat dry at times, but the format of short chapters/journal entries makes it easy to read a bit at a time without feeling like you’re stopping in the middle of something.

• The Very True Legend of the Mongolian Death Worms, Sandra Fay — Another picture book, this time centered around a family of fictional (maybe) worms. Come for the death worms, stay for the illustrations of all of the shocked and terrified other desert animals. This was very cute and funny, with, of course a great message of acceptance and finding your place in your community. The illustrations of the worms are just wild enough to probably get some EWWWs from little kids, which can be a great teachable moment about not judging others by their looks or something. (What do I know, I have cats, not human children.) Also probably a great tool for teaching about geography and land types, as the worms live in the Mongolian desert. (Shai-Hulud sends its regards)

• Eclipse: Our Sky’s Most Dazzling Phenomenon, Kelsey Oseid — This short illustrated book gives readers the basics behind eclipses, making it the perfect book to pick up to prepare for the one coming up this week. Beautifully presented, with whimsical art that helps illustrate the concepts being explained. Looks at the way past cultures experienced (and learned to predict) eclipses, as well as the science behind what it is we’re seeing. This is such a great way to present science to non-science people. The writing is accessible and an easy entry point for someone who doesn’t really know much about the topic (hi!) but may be inspired to go learn more in the future.

Other Stuff

I spent a few days in New York in March — I was supposed to go in February, but, you know, life — and, being the person that I am, crammed in as much theater as possible. My thoughts:

• Sweeney Todd: I’d heard mixed reviews from my theater friends, so when I missed out on tickets to a few other things I wanted to see, I snagged one to this, instead. Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster play Todd and Mrs. Lovett and I find myself once again perplexed at Tveit’s inability to have chemistry with, well, anyone. I think he has a lovely singing voice and certainly looks the part of Handsome Modern Actor, but I continue to be let down by him on stage — I also was very disappointed in Moulin Rouge, for which he won the Tony solely because no one else was eligible to be nominated. I want more menace out of a Sweeney Todd and I don’t feel like he delivered. Overall this just didn’t work for me and the horror/sadness of the ending didn’t feel earned. The orchestra is very good, though. (The real story here though is maybe that I just don’t like Sondheim that much. Sorry.) (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, through May 5)

• All the Devils are Here: Patrick Page, known for his turn as Hades in Hadestown, put together a one-man show focusing on Shakespeare’s villains. I honestly have not spent that much time with Shakespeare so this quick and dirty overview of the way the role of villain evolved was a great experience for me in terms of learning something new. Page is captivating and with his notable bass voice, I’d listen to him recite just about anything, anyway. He did a talk-back after the show, so it was great to get to hear more about his creative process, the way he views the role of villain, why he chose to do this show, etc. (DR2 Theatre, through March 31)

• Hadestown: This is the third time I’ve seen the show, and the second on Broadway; I was determined to see Ani DiFranco as Persephone. But I had lots of competition — most other people wanted to see Lola Tung (Eurydice) and Jordan Fisher (Orpheus); additionally, Lillias White (Hermes) was nearing the end of her run, as well — which resulted in seats selling for $400+, and that’s before you look at the secondary market. So instead I showed up around three hours before the box office opened on Sunday to wait for standing room tickets. All my years of waiting for concerts paid off as I was second in line and secured a $39 ticket to lurk at the back of the room. Not an ideal way to see a show if you’ve never seen it before, but it was fine for my needs. (Hadestown only sells SRO tickets when the show has sold out; if they do sell them, they go on sale as soon as the box office opens; if they aren’t sold out for the day, the box office will likely suggest you try back again closer to show time.) Anyhow, DiFranco is a delight, reprising a role that she originated when Hadestown was just an idea of Anais Mitchell’s. I was curious as to how she would take to acting, because loads of singers think they can hold their own on Broadway and then find out that no, no they cannot, but she owned the part, bringing a sort of weary experience to Persephone that I think has been missing for a while. Tung has a beautiful singing voice but I don’t feel like she conveyed the scrappy/desperate nature of Eurydice enough for me. Fisher may be my favorite Orpheus that I’ve seen, managing to strike the balance between passion and the general clueless/dweeby nature of the character. White was a powerhouse as Hermes and I was so glad to get to see her take on the role before she left the show (an understudy performed last time I saw it in NYC). The “wow you sure managed to go through life without knowing this story” award goes to the gentleman in the audience who shouted NO at the end. (Walter Kerr Theatre, no end date)

• The Hunt: Tobias Menzies (The Terror, Outlander, The Crown) stars in the stage adaptation of a Danish film. It is a difficult story — Menzies plays Lucas, a grade school teacher who faces a false accusation from a child. You see very early on what actually happens, and you see how the child gets led into sticking with her accusation, thanks to severely leading questions from adults unqualified to be assessing the situation. Menzies delivers a very understated performance, with Lucas being just different enough, just off enough from the other Stereotypically Masculine Men in town, that people easily believe that he could have done what he was accused of. I don’t know that this is a story that needs to be told now, in a world that yells about ‘cancel culture’ but doesn’t approach the subject with any sort of nuance, but it’s a strikingly chilling performance nonetheless. Menzies is at his best when he is playing a character who is quietly tormented. Also notable was Alex Hassell (Cowboy Bebop, The Boys, His Dark Materials) as Theo, Lucas’s best friend and father of the initial accuser. (St. Ann’s Warehouse, through March 24)

Recommended Reading

“One day you’ll barter bread for our DVDs.” Great feature from The Guardian on the rise of physical media. I am a huge proponent of keeping your physical media, and love seeing this conversation pick up steam.

I think we can embrace the best of both worlds. I love my Kindle, which makes it convenient when I travel. I love streaming or digital movie downloads for the quickness and convenience and for me not having to get up to change a DVD out. I love streaming music because it means I don’t have to pretend it’s 1999 again and take a Walkman with me when I’ve got a long train ride and would like to disappear into some tunes for a while.

But the catch with digital has always been that unless you’ve been given a PDF or an MP3 or whatever that you can physically actually download, then all you’re doing is paying for the license to be able to use that string of 0s and 1s, and if, say, two companies merge, there’s a chance that the new entity won’t honor the digital purchases you made previously and that they’ll all disappear. Or a company may decide not to renew a show for future seasons, and then will just delete the show entirely from their platform for “cost-cutting measures”. If you didn’t own the physical media, or if the physical media was never produced, guess what! There’s no legal way to watch that media anymore! Disney, Amazon, et al can do many things but they cannot actually just walk into my house and take a DVD off of my shelf and leave with it.

Yes, owning hundreds of books and CDs and DVDs is a right pain in the ass when you move. The joke on the internet always is that the more you move, the less you’re going to own heavy clunky physical media. And if that’s true for you, that’s great! No one can tell you not to do that! But it’s not the right personal choice for me. I have moved so, so many times — I moved probably six times in my first eight years in Chicago — and while I’ve gotten more intentional about pruning my collection of things that no longer interest me or hold no emotional value for me, I’ll never get rid of it entirely. You never know when the power’s going to go out or the internet’s going to go down or your streaming service of choice loses the rights to your favorite piece of media.

What’s Next?

I’m rotating between a few books, the most interesting to me so far is North Woods by Daniel Mason, although I’ve got a few library books that I’m really eager to start on, as well.

On the movie front, I’m most excited about Monkey Man, the Dev Patel-helmed action movie that we all have been asking for for so long.

A couple different travel things happening, including a trip down to Indiana coincidentally timed to hit the eclipse. Good thing I read that book about them.

What are you up to? What’s on your reading list?

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