Speed Run, Any %

Things here have gotten a little movie-heavy recently, but what can I say, it's that time of year. The January-February block really, really did not used to be "that time of year" at all. These used to be the dark doldrums where studios dumped the films that tested so poorly, they couldn't risk releasing them in a time when movies would expect to be profitable normally at the expense of some other bullshit they had on their docket (in terms of precious, precious calendar real estate in the summer or holiday season) but had already sunk too much cost that the logic fallacy had to be shepherded through its endpoint. Near zero return is superior to zero return, if only in a strictly numerical (not mathematical, as there will be no factoring or scaling) sense. Everyone knows I'm looking at you A Good Day to Die Hard.

January and February releases were for action movies with unlikely action stars or comedies starring people you forgot used to be on Saturday Night Live. The right response typically was not to go out and seek these movies, but to note their existence with the one TV spot you might happen across, register the correct amount of sadness/secondhand embarrassment and then not think of them again until you come across them at 3 am on TNT because the flu has turned your digestive system against you and sleep is an asphyxiation hazard, probably also ironically in a subsequent January.

That system has died out, of course, as fewer and fewer stinker movies are being made with theatrical release in mind at all. Those all live on streaming services now, where they can be absentmindedly silent-farted into the pop cultural ecosystem with no risk since total vertical integration of the production process means distribution by the same company that conceived of this bad idea also gets to birth it via a method that costs them approximately zero extra dollars. No expense means no risk to Netflix or Paramount or whatever, no obligation to advertise it even, counting entirely on people finding it naturally in the revolutionary way that has long-since DISRUPTED the broadcast/pay cable model, by scrolling around the menus at 3 am with the flu. But TNT doesn't see a fucking dime! Eat shit, boomer-ass paradigm!

Among the bullshit detritus, you used to also get the limited-release prestige pictures in slightly wider release, which typically meant instead of just one screen each in LA and New York ahead of the December deadline for awards eligibility, you could see it at the weird place in your state near a college that still raises a curtain before every showing, just like it never stopped being 1978. I would normally take advantage, even as a young dad, to get out and see 2-3 films in a day to take them in before the Oscars showed up and all the heady, vamping cultural currency around these films was all spent. Also my kids would have to stay home, an almost opiatic incentive in itself.

And of course now, the time gap between the theatrical "release" fig leaf for award eligibility and streaming availability is negligible so as to be functionally zero, plus even a lot of the art houses or industry-friendly venues have dried up and blown away (RIP, Arclight Hollywood), so even I just hang out and watch them at home these days. The fact that my kids no longer require my constant supervision at home has even blown up my most powerful drive to get out.

All of that is preamble* to say I've semi-binged a bunch of nominated movies in the last month or so. Instead of separate reviews, I'm going to shotgun all right at your face right now, hopefully with no spoilers:

All Quiet on the Western Front: These Germans sure love a world war! Beautifully shot and composed film, but I think I'm just getting old and have seen enough anti-war war films to not be particularly moved. It delivers its message about the futility and madness of it all with brutality and graphic violence and utter bleakness at points. Great, but also just fine.

To Leslie: I mostly knew about this because I listen to Marc Maron's podcast and he's in it. Then there was controversy! because people did an Oscar campaign for Andrea Riseborough, which apparently was an idea just invented this year? Anyway, kind of same as above, a story you've seen, but with an ending that was maybe not dark enough for what it felt like it was trying to earn, emotionally. Other supporting cast of real heavy hitters, Stephen Root, Allison Janney, Andre Royo... Would be more to it if they had more to do. But Riseborough really is good, if a bit showy.

Avatar 2: Already covered! Saw this one in public with strangers.

Black Panther Wakanda Forever: Just Angela Bassett is nominated, which is, like Andrea Riseborough, a bit of a showy and full-throttle performance, but this is a different kind of melodrama, a comic-book kind, so somebody has to chew some goddamned scenery. The movie itself feels very much like how it was made (after the unexpected death of its star and during COVID). Similar inessentialist vibes as I got with Ant-Man.

The Banshees of Inisherin: Pretty fucking dark, but deeply Irish, so humor and blood are the same thing. The motivations of the characters start off and remain steadfastly inscrutable, but that's a feature rather than a bug, in my opinion. The one I liked the most. The Barry Keoghan-Kerry Condon scene is already a buzzy all-timer, for good reason. Good shit, and I didn't even mention either of the leads.

Tár: Very polarizing. Two hours of nothing really happening. A lot of exposition and a kind of wooden performance by Cate Blanchett in the beginning as she has to speechify and sell the movie a lot. But she warms up and earns what she's earned. In the end, it's an attempt to comment or reflect on a social movement that has evolved in the time it took to produce and release the film, so it comes across as sort of out of step if not... accidentally right wing? The whole ending is weird.

Nope: I don't like horror movies. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are so good, with entirely different approaches and with entirely different effect, they almost sold it to me. The chimpanzee bits are riveting and unforgettable. The rest is occasionally fun but overall uneven. In the war for my affections between satire (delicious) and horror (yuck), the former isn't quite enough to rescue it from the latter for me.

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Lauded as the Greatest Movie Of Its Generation when it came out, the buzz was fucking palpable. We all got palped by buzz and you know it. A mild backlash at the moment, but eh, I don't have much time for that pop culture reflex shit. The movie is kinetic and weird and very, very sure of itself. The ending and the message will not surprise you, but the brisk walk to get there will leave you the right amount of winded. Michelle Yeoh is infallible to me, which is cheating. Also best use of a Goonie in film since Avengers: Endgame.

Top Gun: Maverick: Also already covered! Unrelated point: Scientology can eat a dick.

The only real forward-leaning contenders I haven't seen are The Fabelmans and The Whale, but I'm not sure I can handle Spielbergian family-ness or the raw-nerve intensity of Brendan Fraser. That whole latter movie just feels like it was designed to fuck you up, and I'm not sure I'm good with that at the moment.

I should point out that, for the 14th year running, the Oscars will not be making an appearance on my viewing screens of any type this year. You all can cringe through that scripted banter shit all you want. I'll be looking at slideshows about dresses and feeling smug/outraged at the validation/repudiation of my tastes the next Monday online like the rest of you casuals.

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*my writing style has evolved almost entirely to like six paragraphs of "preamble" to what I initially intend to write about, which I get to either in the last few sentences or avoid altogether, you know, for time.