Substance abuse and mental illness are both sexy and dangerous...

…if you’re hot.

Smile 2 (2024, Parker Finn) is so innovative because it demolishes the line between whether it’s all in your head or not. This is a narrative where we follow a truly fucked up character into a moral abyss that she can’t help but react to through a never ending series of violent nervous breakdowns. And it’s the most fun I’ve had in a theater this year. 
     Ichi the Killer (2001, Takashi Miike) was the first movie in the crime genre where I thought yeah why have any good guys? Why have anyone whose anywhere even close to morally reasonable? How brilliant to have a crime movie where every single character has evil motives, is in some way insane or deviant, and all desperately and mutually contributing to the destruction of Shinjuku. I tend to like crime and horror movies when the protagonist is flawed and no hero comes along to save the day. When I wanna feel good I can always watch a musical, comedy, family, melodrama, historical epic or pretty much every other genre. (Except yeah I don’t know why I brought that up because while the overall effect is comparable, in Smile 2 her team and mom might not be all that bad I don’t know. And her best friend is clearly good. I am such a sucker for Dylan Gelula—she’s by far the coolest actress around lately.)
     Smile 2 sets up this dichotomy where the savagery of the attacks are either coming from an oppressive force that’s targeting you but no one else can see, or from voices inside your own head; and the best part is, what’s the difference? That’s the motor that keeps this particular model of psychological horror running. 
     On the technical side I gotta say I think that in the prologue and the flashback reveal particularly, when the camera pans an entire 180° that’s gotta be an aesthetic allusion to the arch of a smile. And same when the frame is upside down: by spinning along the z axis 180° to flip the image it’s a similar motif. And I do apologize yes I feel smug like I’m showing off because I noticed this. Also there’s a montage where she turns on all the lights and I wanna say it’s an homage to Army of Darkness (1992, Sam Raimi) Ash building his chainsawhand with same lens, speed, length and duration of zoom, except in this case zooms out instead of in.
     I love how in Smile 2 this protag, even though she has done some really awful things and is spiraling, the narrative never gives her a way out. Nor does it necessarily say she’s wrong for what she’s done or make her atone for any of her transgressions. It just shows everything crushing her under its force. I love a cautionary moral tale with no redemption. And I love this Paramount horror franchise.
 
10/19/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA

Hey you wanna see a couple as perfect as you are?

Have you ever encountered one of those people who say, “I love A24?” I suspect if you asked them what an A24 movie is they wouldn’t know. They’d probably say they’re weird, wtf, dark, slow burn, or elevated horror, I don’t know. Ari Aster belongs in the pantheon. Robert Eggers seems to have gained a following. So I guess if we’re talking stuff like Lamb (2021, Valdimar Jóhannsson) and Men (2022, Alex Garland) maybe there’s a distinctive art horror product they’ve amassed (even if they’re outliers are numerous). 
     But I really think the success of A24 is as a luxury brand based mostly on people seeing their trailers with the elaborately ornate company card being foremost and prominently the thing that sticks with audiences. The vibe. I just feel duped because like a sucker I went to go see a movie because I was A24 hyped.

We Live in Time (2024, John Crowley) feels as insufferably bland generic as a commercial for a luxury brand while coming across like a parody of a romantic drama. It’s smug and off-putting because it depicts and is aimed at people who are morally beyond reproach. How do you sell to people who want the perfect life? Target them with portrayals of perfect people so that they can identify with, and give you their money. 
     We Live in Time is also relentlessly obnoxious because it keeps shifting its timeline for no clear reason. And it’s not like I have a problem with jumping around temporally, because Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino) is the best movie this year and why does it constantly keep jumping through time? Because it’s a high energy 80s tennis movie and the chronology of its narrative goes back and forth between 2 different sides with the ferocity of a tennis ball serve. 
     And I’ve never seen a movie where someone has cancer and I actually give a shit. As far as tragic goes, it’s a bit low hanging fruit innit? But in this when Florence Pugh’s character has to go through chemo her hair looks like it was buzzed with clippers on like a #3 guard, we don’t even see her scalp. That doesn’t feel very cancery. 
     When you finally find out what the dramatic climax is of this thing it will be clear that in a contrived desperate reach for you to cry over the martyrdom of the bald saint Joan winning a cooking competition it should be tearfully anguished over how beautiful and perfect her life was. Again, seek this out if you want an example of a movie whose main characters are all good, and there are no villains, or flaws in this world they inhabit. I’m sure some people enjoy that kinda thing. 
 
10/19/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA

If the Hollywood epic hadn't forgotten how important it is for it to be frivolous and fun

Megalopolis (2024, Francis Ford Coppola) is alive with the joy of the craft that Hollywood hasn’t seen since before the collapse of the studio system. It’s got the sparkling effervescent fresh sharp propulsion of escapist delights that in contrast make me yawn collapsing out of fatigue over all the Marvel, DC, LOTR, Avatar, Nolan and Villeneuve over-serious, bloated, way too long modern tentpoles (with the exception of maybe James Gunn, Taika Waititi and Barbie). And the reason it rises to the forefront of the pack here is because it knows how important it is to harness a frivolous means of entertainment with an underlying framing structure of what being an American feels like.
     If you’re asking yourself why Megalopolis depicts NYC as a new Roman Empire, you’re asking the wrong questions. The point isn’t the why, it’s accepting that in movies this kind of imaginative premise can occur. And if it feels fun, why try to intellectualize a feeling? If you’ve left the movie wondering what Meglaon is, you’re asking the wrong questions. It’s a plot device. What do we know about it? It can be used as a material to design a dress that captures what it sees. It can infuse itself to create new living tissue to replace the broken leg of a small dog or half of Cesar Catalina’s face. So, it represents something like the progress people are capable of in advancing civilization through discoveries in the arts and sciences. 
     This is a personal film. And while its themes and questions are big, its story is simple. Its setting is confined to New Rome, and specifically the site of what’s to become Cesar’s new Megalopolis. Its characters are no more than the power elites embroiled in the struggle to adapt to where this leads. And what a beautiful narrative it is. Because amidst all that’s wrong with many of its characters, like the best of the classic Hollywood era, it has an uplifting ending. Megalopolis has got an old-fashioned sense of morality.
     Because after Nush Berman is out of the way, Mayor Cicero is free to come clean about what really happened with the case of Cesar’s wife; and it no longer matters why he was so opposed to Cesar marrying his daughter. Their child, along with Megalon, along with Cesar’s utopia are all in service of the theme of a hope for the future of our civilization. Is that a little much? Great. It should be. Because that’s the kind of clear-eyed sentimental product the dream factory used to churn out. And I miss it. And on top of all that, for go for broke Coppola to throw in all of his philosophical querying truly brings this thing into the modern age of cinema. And it doesn’t matter anymore about all of the corruption, scandal, and shame; because, redemption access is easily bestowed upon Cesar, Cicero, and Crassus so we can all live happily ever after. 
     As for the art direction, I’ve always been one to prefer stylized artifice over bland naturalism/realism. With its lush gold/red/black hued palette, and ceaselessly eye-popping indulgence in everything fake, there’s a feeling of being in a world that exists as an expression of all that the creative potential of cinema is capable of achieving. 
     Last year the second I walked out of Oppenheimer, the first thing I thought was that I knew Robert Downey Jr. would win the Oscar for best supporting actor. I know it won’t happen in a million years, but this time I think Shia LaBeouf deserves it.
 
10/05/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
10/12/2024 Tara Theatre
Atlanta, GA