A Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2022 Edition!

Hallooo0o0o0o0ooo!!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  It's time for this year's medley of macabre movies!

Due to a variety of factors (including the constantly stressful state of the world) I haven't been in a mood to tolerate a lot of scary content this year, but I nevertheless have a decent array of films to offer you, dear friends, in case you're in the mood to watch something spooky to celebrate this delightful holiday.

As usual, each of the films to follow will be accompanied by the usual 1 - 5 rating scale for overall quality, as well as a scary/intense rating of 1 - 5 exclamation points, to be interpreted as follows:

! = not at all scary

!!!!! = so scary!

This year's films are:

"Nope" (2022)

Rating: 3  Scary Rating: !!!

This year's classic horror movie, care of director Jordan Peele.  As I've already shared, I wasn't as blown away by this movie as I was by his astonishing debut, "Get Out" (2017).  That said, "Nope" definitely presents a fun twist on the alien/monster-y genre, showcases great performances, and offers some good tense moments with one or two jump scares for good measure.  It may not blow you away in the way we know that Peele is capable of, but it's still reasonably fun and scary for Halloween.

"Don't Worry Darling" (2022)

Rating: 5  Scary Rating: !!!!

Having watched this last night I'm admittedly coming in a bit hot but I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO TALKS ANY MORE TRASH ABOUT THIS MOVIE.  

For those of you who have managed to remain blissfully unaware, there has been an over-abundance of gossip-y nonsense around this movie, which has bizarrely and more importantly inaccurately led people to conclude that they know enough about the film to conclude that it won't be good (??).  It's almost like sexism is prompting people to assume that a lady director can't direct competently if there's any extra stuff happening while she's doing her job.  And while this is only Olivia Wilde's second turn at directing, anyone who bothered to watch "Booksmart" (2019) (or who is aware of my feelings about "Booksmart") might be reasonably curious to see for themselves how such a promising directorial voice fares in her sophomore offering, and they might have at least a little faith that she would deliver despite all the background noise.

That preamble aside: I'm hoping to write more extensively on this movie to further and more stridently defend it because IT IS SO GOOD, both simply as a movie but also as riveting tale of feminist horror in the current societal era.  It is consistently tense and increasingly scary, all while providing a commentary on the present-moment conditions of women in society and the forces seeking to entrap and destroy them.  It is extremely well-acted in an immersive, beautifully-constructed artificial world, with little Easter eggs and tells nestled throughout to reward the attentive viewer.  I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone seeking a headier yet still viscerally scary horror movie this Halloween season.

"Meru" (2015)

Rating: 4  Scary Rating: !!

This year's documentary offering!  While any of the films I commented on when I wrote about "Meru" could to some extent fit the bill for anyone wanting to watch a non-fiction scary movie, this one is probably the most similar to a conventional horror movie structure.  Three friends set out on an adventure for which they are arguably way out of their depth, with extremely high stakes (and altitudes) in a battle against an indifferent and unforgiving landscape.  What could go wrong?

While not scary in the conventional horror movie sense of the term, this movie is nevertheless very stressful and induces some real anxiety on behalf of the climbers risking their lives in pursuit of the summit of a once-in-a-lifetime (if they're lucky) summit.

"Don’t Look Up" (2021)

Rating: 1  Scary Rating: !!!!!

I have also already shared my feelings about "Don't Look Up".  In short--and as evidenced by my rating--I hated it.  But it is precisely the premise I hated so deeply that makes this movie so deeply disturbing.  While theoretically it was supposed to be a societal commentary--actually, a darkly comic social commentary--instead it read to me as simply a deeply upsetting screed against a seemingly unredeemable and intrinsically self-destructive human race.  So if that's your target vibe for a Halloween horror movie, look no further than "Don't Look Up".

"Spencer" (2021)

Rating: 4  Scary Rating: !!!!

Finally, as I've shared with all of you, "Spencer" is a film I suspect was somewhat under-appreciated when it was released and that I did not anticipate to be scary.  Surprisingly, "Spencer" delivers a really satisfying homage to an early 1980s horror classic and uses that foundation to build atop it an unsettling and psychologically unsound haunted royal manor with our heroine trapped inside.  It's moody, atmospheric, and drenched in beautiful foreboding.  If you're wanting a haunted house-feeling movie imbued with royal intrigue, this is for you.

Happy Halloween movie watching!  I hope this holiday provides precisely as much creepy thrill as you wish!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: When "Pandering" Gets Nautical: The New Little Mermaid

Greetings again,

Here's hoping I can fit one more quick post in before the end of the month!

You may have heard that Disney is releasing a new, live action version of its 1989 film "The Little Mermaid".  If you have heard this news, you have very likely heard that the lead role of Ariel will be performed by Halle Bailey, who is a Black actor.  And if you've heard that news, you've probably heard about how some people lost their damn minds--not in a good way--over this development.

Unfortunately there has already been occasion in this blog to write about how problematic and entitled it is for white people to freak out about Black and other PoC people existing in media, and unfortunately this is not the only movie or tv show about which this has happened in very recent memory.  But there are some additional nuances to this particular petty racist tantrum that bear stating out loud.

First, unlike with "Black Panther" where the original source material centered an explicitly Black protagonist, the original "Little Mermaid" movie and its source material did not.  While this fact may seem to lend legitimacy to white viewers crying foul at Ariel being recast, it actually doesn't matter one bit.  Characters can be reimagined, and there is nothing intrinsically white to the character of Ariel, so changing this aspect of her character is fair game.  We're not even going to get into the excruciatingly obvious fact that MERMAIDS ARE NOT REAL AND THEY CAN THEREFORE BE ANY RACE WE WANT.

Second, to people crying foul because they are attached to Ariel as an arguably rare instance of representation for red-haired people (can you hear my eyes rolling from there?), congratulations!  Disney is not erasing the 1989 version of this movie.  If it means that much to someone to see their hair color (and whiteness--because we're not even going to get into the excruciatingly obvious fact that PEOPLE OTHER THAN WHITE PEOPLE CAN AND DO HAVE RED HAIR) represented in film form, they can watch and rewatch that version to their little heart's content.

Relatedly, third, those people claiming, perhaps sincerely, to feeling inspired or empowered by their representation in the form of the animated Ariel are engaging in a kind of callous emotional greediness and selfishness that I sincerely cannot fathom.  The argument is essentially: seeing myself in this character was deeply meaningful and uplifting for me, so I refuse to share that with anyone else who might benefit from seeing themselves in this character.  

Hearing it this way, I don't know how to interpret that argument as anything other than extremely and voraciously self-centered to the point of being both incredibly embarrassing and incredibly cruel.  It's only made worse by having seen, just like with "Black Panther", the exhilarated and thrilled faces of Black children seeing a snippet of Bailey's performance in the recently-released new "Little Mermaid" trailer.

Finally, while I already elaborated on this point in my earlier post on the white people freakouts prompted by "Black Panther", the point very much bears repeating in the form of questions: Why can't, or more pointedly, won't white people see themselves in people who don't look like them?  Do they have an expectation that everyone else see themselves in white characters, therefore it's somehow redundant or unnecessary for non-white characters to exist?  Or is the issue perhaps that entitled white people just don't freaking care about anyone else feeling seen, uplifted, celebrated, or empowered but themselves--that they want all media to be about them?

It strikes me that what we're discussing here is a children's movie.  We expect children to learn that other people are people and therefore to treat others with kindness and respect.  Starting at very young ages, based in this premise, we expect children to share.  Yet many grown-ass adults have managed to get well into their grown-ass adult lives never learning how to do exactly that, to the point that they feel comfortable blasting their racist selfishness all over the internet.

I don't know how to get through to these people.  That may simply not be possible.  But in the meantime, I'm glad that there are ever more depictions of characters from a broader array of humanity so that everyone can have heroes and imagine themselves in their place.

{Heart}

A Bit Nope on "Nope"

Hihi,

Frustratingly, I've managed to leave writing this month's posts until the last conceivable moment, so I'm going to need to be mercilessly brief.

I was excited to watch "Nope" (2022), Jordan Peele's latest film.  

This excitement was of course informed by my deep adoration for "Get Out" (2017), albeit tempered by my comparatively diminished enthusiasm for the extremely inventive yet messy "Us" (2019).  I'll admit I was also somewhat anxious about "Nope" after seeing some indications online that there might be animal mayhem of some kind, but a thorough perusal of doesthedogdie.com helped me feel adequately prepared without overdoing it on potential spoilers.

So I went for it.  And while I'm glad to have watched it, I have to admit I found it pretty underwhelming. 

Starting with the good: the performances were great, the premise was interesting, and the effects were overall really good--although the quality of the set design in some scenes where you get up close and personal with the film's "monster" somewhat undercut its otherwise really cool conceptualization.  There are some little twists and turns in the discovery of the exact nature of the beast that Daniel Kaluuya's OJ and Keke Palmer's Emerald are up against that are creative and intriguing.

Moving on to the less good: "Nope" wasn't a scary movie so much as it was at times stressful or upsetting.  Instead of building to a thrilling, tense conclusion, the film's emotional impact felt really uneven to the point that the movie dragged at times.  Furthermore, while I understand was Peele hoped to accomplish with sequences related to the backstory of Steven Yeun's Jupe, those components landed simultaneously as a bit tacked-on, gratuitous, and at once overly obvious and psychologically incongruous as a way of explaining Jupe's stunning hubris.  (Surely, having previously experienced the damage that can be done by an animal run amok, he all of all people would know better than to play the treacherous role of lion tamer to a mysterious carnivorous intergalactic predator?)

Overall, this film was fine--neither terrible nor excellent.  It was fun and I am satisfied to have checked the box of watching it, but I also hope Peele's next film far exceeds this one.

Summing up my middling response to this movie, I gave "Nope" a 3.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability x Belated Pride Post: "Fire Island"

Hello again,

I wanted to write a pride post this year despite not getting to it during actual pride month, so here we go!

Let's talk about "Fire Island" (2022)!

Written and starred in by Joel Kim Booster, "Fire Island" deftly updates Pride and Prejudice by transporting it to New York's Fire Island, long regarded as a major gay vacation destination.  While its foundation in that literary allusion grants the film a comfortable narrative arc that many viewers will recognize either from reading the original or from its multiple film adaptations and references, it also delightfully shakes up and updates what could be a tired narrative by centering gay men of color (and Margaret Cho!) at the heart of the story.  The result is as charming and amusing as it is also imbued with a sweet heart plus a little dash of pathos.

This film continues a seemingly robust parade of extremely enjoyable, high quality comedies from Hulu, which makes me excited to see what they might have in store next!

I gave the movie a 4.

{Heart}

Save the Date for "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"

Hey friends,

I'm mindful of the ongoing slow-down in movie watching and writing this past several months and I'm hoping to start reversing that trend.  While my motivation for both has admittedly flagged recently, this continues to be a precious outlet for me and I'm still very firmly committed to maintaining it.  Happily, I've had some success this month in watching more movies than I have the past three months, and I'm hoping to write a couple of brief (emphasis needed to myself: BRIEF) posts this weekend to compensate for only writing one last month.

So let's talk about a movie I watched recently: "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" (2016).

As you might be able to guess from the title, this is hardly fine cinema.  Precisely because rest has been a major priority for me recently, this was a desirable attribute of the movie, and it delivered what I needed--it was a great, silly escape.  

One of the successes of the film is that it immediately plays with the expectations it sets up at its beginning, where we are greeted with what appears to be a celebratory montage of hijinks concocted by the titular brothers, Mike and Dave (played by Adam Devine and Zac Efron).  We are swiftly disabused of any illusion that these guys are anything other than garbage party bros (in the biological and figurative sense of the term) who manage to ruin the aforementioned party for everyone else, as we learn their family is launching an admittedly somewhat harebrained intervention in advance of the next family event: requiring that Mike and Dave have dates to their sister's upcoming destination wedding, because surely being accompanied by some nice ladies will tame them.  

As yet another little twist, the film then mercifully eludes the tired trope of yet another film about self-involved hedonistic dudes by instead creating a head-to-head competition for who is the most trash: the brothers or their titular wedding dates, Alice and Tatiana (played by Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza).  Many laughs and absurd, relatively low stakes scenarios ensue.

I don't mean to oversell this movie.  It's in the same vein as wedding-themed "Vacation Friends" (2021), but arguably not as successful.  It's certainly not as inventive as "Free Guy" (2021) another comedy I loved earlier this year.  And let's be honest, I'm probably more than a bit influenced by my long-standing love for Aubrey Plaza (and a cameo by Kumail Nanjiani!).  But still, if you're in the mood for a low-stakes and fun little romp through an all-but-ruined-by-ultimately-redeemable-living-messes Hawaiian wedding, this is your film.

I gave it a 4.

{Heart}