I was reminded of this movie when news broke about Scarlett Johansson’s dispute with OpenAI for using her vocal likeness without permission.
I recall being underwhelmed by my first viewing when it first came out. Back then, I thought it was a simply a riff on the rom-com formula, which swaps one of the couple with an artificial intelligence1. In hindsight, I understand my lukewarm reaction as coming from my lack of relationship experience. At the time, any romance that I saw on screen, even between human characters, felt artificial to me because they were only characters, and I couldn’t see myself in them. The fact that one of the characters was a computer program didn’t make it any more artificial.
But now that I’m happily married, movies like Her work much better for me, because of course there’s a difference between connecting with a human and conversing with your phone. Of course the protagonist would be attracted to a personality that molded itself to his needs, after losing a marriage to someone he loved but didn’t love him back.
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I’ve been selectively revisiting the X-Men series, which, as a whole, are known to be a mixed bag. At their best1, they’re great action spectacles that effectively explore the opposing philosophies of Professor X and Magneto. At their worst… well, I didn’t rewatch the bad ones, so I won’t comment.
These two entries, both directed by James Mangold, stand apart from the rest in the way that they zoom into the psychology of a single character. The Wolverine is the more conventionally comic-booky of the two, featuring ninjas and a cool bullet train fight scene. Logan doesn’t feel like a superhero movie at all, and lands more like a crime drama, with brutal violence that makes you feel every kill.
Both follow a similar emotional arc for the character: he’s a broken man, haunted by the past, until he finds someone to care for and protect. It’s especially effective in Logan, due to the compelling performance by Dafne Keen as Wolverine’s clone-daughter.
I have to say though, Wolverine’s lack of emotional range (99.5% brooding and angry, 0.5% vulnerable) is more noticeably one-note when he’s flying solo and not part of a team.
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This film has a fascinating and unique premise: a family who has adopted a Chinese girl purchases an android with the same ethnicity—a cultural techno-sapien, as they call it—to act as her older brother, and to ensure that she has a connection to her heritage. But he malfunctions, and in the process of trying to repair him1, they gain access to his storage modules and are able to view his memories.
Due to the title, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that their efforts are unsuccessful, and the film becomes an emotional meditation on grief. When we lose someone close to us, we usually focus on our memories of them. This film uses the sci-fi premise to invert that idea and ask, what would the departed hold as their most treasured memories of us?
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I’ve lately gone on a kick of revisiting movies that have left a lasting impression on me. With that in mind, I rewatched this pair of Ari Aster films in quick succession, and my snap verdict is: Midsommar has gone up in my estimation, while Hereditary has gone down.
I don’t scare easily at horror movies, but part of the reason is because I tend to avoid seeing them in the theatre. The big screen and loud sound, along with being surrounded by the dark, would probably overwhelm me, and raise the fear factor beyond what I’d be comfortable with.1 This is all to give Hereditary the credit that it deserves: it freaked me the hell out the first time I watched it, even in the comfort of my basement man cave. On this second viewing, because I knew what was coming, it didn’t hit me much. I didn’t expect to be scared, but great horror can be rewatched because it offers more than fear2, and Hereditary didn’t.
Midsommar, on the other hand, opened up for me the second time around. I don’t think it was ever really that scary in the first place, more shocking and disturbing. Without the element of surprise, it becomes a fascinating exploration of how outsiders perceive “foreign” cultures, and the thin line between community and cult.
Things that connect the two films:
- The lead actors, Toni Collette and Florence Pugh, are both great.
- Corpses in Aster’s movies have a bloodless, rubbery quality that I “enjoy.” I can’t say they’re realistic, but they’re also not clearly fake. It’s like a gross, macabre version of the Yoda puppet in The Empire Strikes Back.
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I first saw this movie at TIFF in 2016. At the time, I was in the (relatively) early days of the relationship that would become my marriage. In other words, less emotionally evolved, let’s say. I remember being moved by the core theme of the movie, which—spoiler warning—hinges on the question: if you have foreknowledge that your child would die from a childhood illness, would you still choose to have that child? But, I think the main appeal for me back then were the sci-fi elements. Cool spaceships! Alien first contact!
Rewatching it this time around, I’ve been happily married for years. We don’t have kids, but the notion of being a parent is way more immediate and accessible to me now than eight years ago. As such, the movie had a bigger emotional impact for me this time. But the connection that actually resonated the most for me, unexpectedly, was this: pet owners, in most cases, know that they will outlive their pets, and yet, we choose to share our lives with our animals. These can be some of the most fulfilling relationships we have, in fact.
Of course, I’m not equating the loss of a child to that of a pet. But both types of loss highlight the message of Arrival, I think: the act of fully loving someone or something requires accepting the possibility of loss. And if you know that the loss is certain, it makes the love that much stronger.
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The Andy Serkis Planet of the Apes trilogy, especially the middle entry, are some of my favourite movies ever. What the new sequel retains is the utter believability of the special effects. You really believe that you’re watching living apes, and that they are persons with thoughts and feelings.
I loved the first half of the film, which establishes the culture of the future ape society, through the main character Noa, and then the studies of a monk-like ape named Raka. If the film had stuck with the “buddy search quest” plotline, where the two of them try to find Noa’s missing clan, this would have been a home run. Unfortunately, the film loses steam for me when it introduces a triangular conflict involving a power-hungry self-proclaimed king ape, and a mysterious human girl. The focus shifts to a big action climax instead of fleshing out the motivations of the antagonist(s), and made me miss the moral complexity of the original trilogy.
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According to my records, I’ve watched this film four times before this—twice in the theatre, as I recall—but not since 2011. But it feels like I’ve watched it many more times than that. It’s one of those movies where I can anticipate moments just before they happen: I can hear a line of dialogue before it’s spoken; I can see the framing of a shot before it’s cut to; I could even imitate the gestures of the actors before they moved, if I were the kind of person to fidget during movies.
I’m not going to say much more about the movie itself, other than that it holds up and remains one of my favourites. Rather, I’ll use this as an opportunity to reflect on how my media-consumption habits have changed. Inglourious Basterds came out in a time before streaming services and YouTube created this feeling that I always have something new to watch. Back then, I used to rewatch movies and shows (see also: Curb Your Enthusiasm) over and over again. Even if not the whole thing, I would pick out favourite scenes to revisit; for example, the best scene of this film, the chapter in the bar featuring M. Fassbender and D. Kruger.
I’m going to sound like a grumpy old man when I say this but it goes to show that less is more: less choice means that you can spend more time on the movies that you really love, and it’s through repeated viewings that your favourites becomes your favourites.
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I enjoyed the premise and the humour of this Nicolas Cage vehicle. (Am I childish because the biggest laugh for me came from a well-timed fart joke?) Cage plays a boring professor who starts to appear in many people’s dreams, even if he doesn’t know them. The first act setup is at its best when it’s showing the contents of those dreams—whether they be surreal or nightmarish, it’s always funny when Cage wanders in looking bemused and out of place.
The film loses me as it escalates into the second half. It tries to introduce social commentary about the temptations of fame, but its message wasn’t particularly enlightening. It’s too easy to mock college kids for being snowflakes who want to cancel everything. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s a stale stereotype.
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I’ve mentioned before my pet peeve about stories that feature writers. I think I should qualify that a little by saying that if the story isn’t about writing, then the characters don’t need to be writers. You Hurt My Feelings gets an exemption because it’s all about the anxieties and insecurities that afflict artistic people.
I barely consider myself to be a writer, but I could relate to the protagonist, who accidentally eavesdrops on her husband telling his friend that he didn’t like her latest book. I can imagine taking this revelation as hard as she does, if my entire identity was founded on my creative work. Luckily, I have other skills around which to build my sense of self-worth.
The humour in the film leans more towards the cringe comedy style, which I know doesn’t work for everyone. At the end of our viewing, my wife said, “I thought it was supposed to be funny,” apparently not noticing that I had been laughing through the whole thing.
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The character of Lydia Tár is like a fictionalized illustration of the debate that’s investigated in the excellent Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer: can we separate the art from the (abusive, problematic) artist? Everyone has to answer that for themselves, and the movie is appropriately evasive about stating a definitive opinion.
It’s almost three hours long, but it flew by for me. Not that it’s fast-paced; in fact, there are many long jargon-filled dialogue scenes, especially near the beginning, where I didn’t even know what they were talking about. But it’s riveting precisely because of this: my mind was just working so hard to convince myself I’m smart enough to understand expert music theory that I could never get bored. Of course, Cate Blanchett’s charisma helps.
What I found most fascinating were the supernatural and almost horror-like aspects of the film. Tár is haunted by her dark deeds, and there are really mysterious scenes where this haunting becomes physically real. The most memorable shot for me was when she’s playing the piano, and then she suddenly startles and looks towards the camera as if someone is there, but we never see what she sees.
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