Who thinks this is a mainstream Hollywood movie from Luca Guadagnino?

In Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino), through the language of cinema (which is always to say, subtext), the evolving balance of prominence between gay and straight sexual relationships in modern mainstream movies is depicted through tennis. Though its point on its timeline constantly bounces back and forth, the story is an obviously gay guy is married to TASHI DONALDSON (Zendaya), and the guy we all know he really belongs with is his opponent in a tennis match. 

     Before I saw Challengers I thought if a mainstream Hollywood movie was subversive that it also had to be provocative. But in a very confident way, Challengers doesn’t so much try to do a gay version of a romantic relationship drama as much as it allows its gay relationship to freely exist as one of the key dramatic components of the film alongside a straight relationship, while even adding in the classic romantic genre tropes career v family v friendship v sexual attraction v power dynamic v what works for you and all that. At first you find tennis is about fucking; then that tennis is also about relationships; and the best part is that the tennis is both. And just as in real life, sex and relationships are only individually learned through experience. When Tashi says “I don’t want to be a homewrecker,” it doesn’t stop her from going after each of the 2 gay men for her own different reasons; and she learns as she goes. In Challengers Tashi not wanting to be a homewrecker really means not wanting to have to hinder the gay relationship—because ultimately she (and the film) don’t. Because in the movie world of make believe she can not want to spoil what she knows the 2 men have, then spoil it, and still not spoil it, because when people get a happy ending in a Hollywood movie they don’t need answers. This movie isn't provocative, it's elevated. It's not about thinking about lifestyles or politics because it proves in cinema, form is about where you can take the story and its characters as a means of providing an intelligently well crafted entertainment. And it's good when a movie lets you decide and figure out things for yourself, but even far less seldom achieved and way better is when it understands the form of cinema so well it never bothers to try to deal with any.

     Zendaya’s character is present as an object of sexual desire. From the first shot of her entering the court with her lithe body and wind blowing up her skirt as she flaunts her rear end in an obvious nod to 50s mainstream Hollywood’s Marilyn Monroe Seven Year Itch campaign, to her luxury underwear, and athletic outfits flattering her thigh gap, Challengers depicts both homosexual and heterosexual attraction. (Because we know Hollywood would love to have a mainstream crossover box office hit. And you obviously don’t have to be a guy or hetero to think Zendaya is hot.) 

     The point isn’t to try to wonder about the logic in how it can realistically do both, because cinema isn’t about reality; and in this case points to the similarity of the two and defies the burden of having to stick to only one or the other. It’s like a well crafted joint fitting. Because this isn’t just a bi movie where all three hookup to like say poly is the easy solution. And even though I just said cinema isn’t about reality, here it succeeds in ultimately communicating a very real truth: in life there are some who go after things they want so bad they are competitors, and when they get serious about it, it becomes their whole life and they don’t stop until they do everything they can not only to get it, but to obsess, and study the ways the game is played and even every aspect of what it is to play. It gets to be metaphysics really. Notice how often characters ask "is this still about tennis?" And once you get to that level is it still a game? Hint: long ago Renoir precisely answered this for us when he told us la règle du jeu.

     But another thing that’s so great about Challengers is how it's so easy to follow in a way that’s always very fun and sexy. Although as satisfying as it all is, my only sneaking reservation is that when Luca Guadagnino gets to the point of too much like Snyder cut levels of slow motion in the tennis matches that he might be tongue in cheek parodying the mainstream Hollywood style to a degree that's no longer genuinely enjoyable. But the synthy Reznor-Ross electropop thumping is more delightfully hypin as anything they’ve done since The Social Network. Okay so final random thought, without analyzing it too much or anything, I’m still thinking about how if Tashi is considered either as the woman or female character or the straight relationship signifier, does it mean anything that she gets injured so early in her career and can no longer compete on the court? Oh and my answer is yes this is absolutely a mainstream Hollywood movie and the evidence I'm basing this final assertion on: all the product placement.

04/26/2024 

AMC Phipps Plaza 14

DCP

Self-important and limelight for all

The People’s Joker (2022, Vera Drew) wants you to think it’s about what it takes to discover your own identity and embrace it. But the problem is it’s really about wanting to be seen and heard by everyone; not merely being recognized or accepted but more like fame, or notoriety. If that sounds familiar maybe it’s because it’s the Rupert Pupkin DNA of Joker (2019, Todd Phillips). But in those films isn’t the protagonist clearly deranged as a warning of how sad and scary it could be for someone to want fame so desperately to the point of being delusional despite having like zero talent or reason to likely become a celebrity themselves? So where does that leave us?

     Is the real life filmmaker so deranged she is under the delusion that just because she came out as a trans woman that her life story deserves its own movie? Apparently. Because that’s what the whole movie felt like: a tedious spoken word open mic night of her life story. I don’t think there’s anything subversive about The People’s Joker. It’s like it defies the movie rule of show don’t tell by doing just the opposite—which proves the point of the rule, that from there boredom ensues. And why does it have to feel so topical? Or what I guess I mean is like buzz words, or easy, obvious pop culture trendy jargon like in a real low point of a scene where not only do we see her being gaslit, but her toxic partner uses an actual gaslight to do so; and this same partner is not only a one dimensional textbook narcissistic type but even gets his own on-screen checklist. This movie feels like it was written by a pop sociology AI. 
     Ok the part taken from the DC comics where we see her hormone injections transition as falling into the chemical vat was kinda clever. Although it feels like that’s maybe the only idea that was used to convince anyone that making this movie was a good idea. And I mean yeah deadnaming and t4t awareness is cool but again like feels labored as if under some burden to spell everything out. The worst cringe wasn’t the holocaust joke, but that after its delivery she felt compelled to explain to the audience that Treblinka was the site of a concentration camp. I’m sorry. I do feel bad writing such a negative review. 

4/14/2024 Plaza Theatre
Atlanta, GA
DCP
     

Oh Léa Seydoux

On the strength of the scene in House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello) set to “Nights in White Satin” alone I am way in awe vibing the moods this guy builds. How are there so many great contemporary French directors? And although I much prefer House of Tolerance over Nocturama (2016, Bonello), it’s just as satisfying and exemplary of his style that’s constantly distinct enough a blend of these fully realized places in the cinematic landscape unique unto themselves. 

     The perils his characters face are savage, yet our pathos for them is tender. These films avoid ever coming off melodramatic. Well, he is French. But they’re not too bleak either. I’d feel like a sap if I just threw around the term existential too lightly, but still.

 

Léa Seydoux in The Beast (2023, Bonello) is the Marilyn Monroe of our times. On screen her plentiful curvature and cherub star face engulf any frame she inhabits. But this isn’t garbage Hollywood product. 

     The Beast is about tangible emotions accessible as set pieces. It's everything art cinema should be: something in the realm outside of conventional three act structure where inspired creativity replaces plausibility. And no, I don’t think it’s pretentious.

     It’s like going somewhere outside of our own reality yet isn’t spoiled by being too trippy or whatever. The emotional stakes guide us. If anything GABRIELLE (Seydoux) is searching for something she’s lost; and that’s what’s most pertinent and relatable to our own modern society where nobody ever seems to have enough. I’m not just talking about ennui. Gabrielle exhausts her very being through every conceivable effort to track down this feeling she’s missing. And on her way we get something like the romantic bliss of the 19th century along into 2010s detached coldness and well into sci-fi AI future where all the streets are empty, sharing the same narrative plane.

     Bonello’s characters' plight is a matter of bottomless emotional introspection. So in The Beast,  the sounds, editing and moody cinematic sense of place with such moments as the thrill of first love couple being drowned alive while trying to escape through their only way out, and the nonchalant strangling breaking the neck of the housecat, the junkmail attack and searching your own name and finding only Trash Humpers (2009, Harmony Korine), and all that stuff about the pigeon are all I need to know I’m all in for this; and like its characters I can’t escape.

4/14/2024 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

DCP

Elephant

Remember how when Elephant (2003, Gus Van Sant) won the Palme d’Or film journalists had said it was inspired by the 1989 Alan Clarke BBC tv movie Elephant; then later others would say Van Sant hadn’t even seen the Clarke film? The Alan Clarke film is a powerful commentary without words that depicts 13 separate filmed murders to convey the senseless nature of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. 

     But the Van Sant film is powerful too, in its own way. Maybe does it have something to do with the way we get to know the victims first? The Columbine coded students had no reason to be in the crossfire. They weren’t fighting a war. They were just navigating the turmoil and carefree terrain of being a teenager. What both of these films seem to have in common is their basis on contemporary tragedies related to gun violence in their respective regions. Or like you know, stuff that really happened.

 

Civil War (2024, Alex Garland) isn’t so much a depiction of senseless violence as it is a pointless exploitation of violent aggression. Like Clarke’s Elephant there’s an ambiguous quality to how the factions’ purposes are never revealed, nor is there any apparent meaning behind any of it in the end. It might be chilling if it wasn’t so ugly horrible; and well, unlike Alan Clarke's film, all made up. Am I missing something or what was the point of all this? 

     It just seems like it’s one drawn out sequence: Americans are killing each other for no reason. My other problem with this movie is I don’t really think there’s anything glamorous or cool in the way the film romanticizes war photographers. It hero worships them to the point of being redundant. Like how many times do we need to see someone skulking around with their Leica in danger zones? It’s like how I hate how stupid photos of directors framing something with their hands or pointing at something with their mouth agape is supposed to be cool.

     I don’t know I just have a distaste for what I deem people wanting to film or create works of depravity for their own sake. Yeah it’s a fine line I guess. It’s subjective. Free speech, art, blah blah blah. When it comes to horrific combat journalism I need nothing more than that Time cover of the aftermath of the Corto Maltese revolution by Vicki Vale in Batman (1989, Tim Burton) for my imagination to do the rest; there are some things it’s not necessary to show to convey the idea. 

4/13/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
DCP 

Soft satire

What was it Robert Altman said about his 1992 film The Player? It was a soft satire or something? 

If Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023, Radu Jude) is a satire then what is its target? Globalization, capitalism, commercial filmmaking? That’s what I thought, but no. That seems too easy. Unless this is some kind of soft satire thing. 

     The film’s third act climax shows the subject of the interview to be manipulated and duped into getting exploited by the film crew. Or so I thought. But afterwards I thought about it some more. Isn’t it just an industrial training video to be shown in the workplace, so does it even matter whether or not it adheres to journalistic integrity? And he applied to be selected for the video, and got paid. I’m tempted to laugh at all of this, except that he was in a coma and can’t walk and everything. Now I’m trapped. 

     Same with the PA. Is she actually overworked and underpaid? I thought so. But afterwards I thought about it. I don’t think her having to wake up at 6:00 in the morning is that bad. She seems to have cool clothes, her own car, phone, laptop, apartment, so is she really that underpaid? I don’t wanna sound like a scab or anti-labor, but I hope these are fair questions. I think she might represent a type of victimized phony or misguided morality and that’s the target of the satire here. She complains of being overworked but how much of that time is she making her tiktok videos? She sleeps in the office. And when she has to go pick up the client from the airport she’s late, and denies any accountability about it, which is all because she met up for that parking lot quickie. This is one of several instances where we get these contrary ideological or moral nuances. I don’t think any of these characters are supposed to be that bad; they’re more like relatable. Oh and like she complains all the drivers in Bucharest are idiots but she honks, flips off, and cusses out the other drivers all the same.

     I like the tone of part 16mm grainy black and white indie slacker vibes, with a dose of we are all doomed to it. But really how doomed are we? I’m talking here about the cross montage. It makes a great point and hits hard. What’s her mother say something like we’re suffocating each other because there’s too many of us? That hit me the hardest. Something like all of the carelessness on the busy roads and all those dead because of it. Maybe the best thing about Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is it totally got me reflecting and ultimately loving life and people a little bit more. Okay maybe my last thought is like are her jokes so bad no one laughs at them another subtle indicator of maybe her craving for attention and not really picking up on how while on the job maybe no one else thinks she’s funny? 

04/13/2024 Tara Theatre

Atlanta, GA

DCP

Something to chew on

The films of Jessica Hausner are cold petri dishes where we may observe a live specimen of romantic idealistic passions yearning for purpose. And it usually doesn’t end well for them, but at least they maintained their own sense of individuality or remained true to themselves.

Club Zero (2023, Jessica Hausner) is an eating disorder comedy. Okay no it’s not really that exactly I know I can’t say that. But it does open with a trigger warning due to its depiction of eating disorders. And eating disorders are no laughing matter, yet there is something uncomfortably funny about human behavior and the extremes we’re sometimes capable of.

     The zeitgeist of Club Zero is social elitism; and in a most wonderful way it doesn’t pathologize it in a manner that explores its causes. Instead, we see its symptoms. So, what’s the premise? Something like a small group of high schoolers enroll in a class where their cult leader-like teacher indoctrinates them into not eating anymore. As in ever.

     And I point this out as social elitism because what’s the biggest movie right now? Dune: Part Two (2024, Denis Villeneuve) is and just happens to be sold based on its 2 leads Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya neither weighing over 100 lbs each. Skinny isn’t the new sexy, but it’s back again. In Club Zero the aim of the class is to stop eating because your body doesn’t need food. So is the resultant being emaciated the underlying reward: thin as attractive a way to achieve being better than everyone else? 

     ELSA is the ringleader. She’s the most dedicated; but also has a history of being bulimic before she’s enrolled in the class. And her mother seems to subtly approve of it maybe, and even seemingly at times herself believe weight loss is worth an eating disorder. Elsa has these rich parents where for her not eating is also a form of rebellion, which suggests this dynamic where someone who has it all goes on a hunger strike for her own convictions she’s fully dedicated to but not for us to comprehend. That for me says it all. It’s about the modern struggle for individuality. And I’m not just talking about food here. 

     But Hausner’s other kids in the class don’t all fit into a mold. There’s the kid from a working class household who wants a scholarship and doesn’t buy the core beliefs; the girl (with dyed punk streaks and combat boots) who says she’s all in but secretly eats behind everyone else’s back; the guy whose family keeps him at a distance (also the neck tattoo and possibly latent twink) hint at other examples of the search to define or create one’s own identity or indicators of individuality.

     Anyway Club Zero isn’t exactly a comedy, although it is obviously satire. At first I thought these kids were something to laugh at, but I realized that wasn’t the case at all. And I’ve too often already encountered the narrative about how a cult can occur so gradually as to be totally unbeknownst to the few in it before it’s too late, but this is more than that. I think it’s about how youth and its requisite currency as means to being ahead of anyone else in knowing what’s cool or chic or whatever comes with its own cost, as some kind of moral lesson. Either way I gotta say it’s kind of lame the way they ripped off the Barton Fink (1991, Joel Coen) ending though. 

04/03/2024 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

DCP