4 Favorites: March 2024
What are you Dune if you're not reading this newsletter?
Welcome back to the 4 Favorites series!
I didn’t get around to a lot of other writing this month, but I did watch a lot of movies.
Now, as Vin Diesel says … THE MOVIES:
“Dune” (1984)/”Dune: Part Two” (2024)
I have become “Dune”-pilled. I’m about halfway through Frank Herbert’s original book (a vastly different experience than the David Lynch film or the Denis Villeneuve films), I saw Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” twice in theaters (once in IMAX), and I finally saw Lynch’s 1984 adaptation this month, at the Texas Theatre in Dallas.
Lynch has gone on the record saying the 1984 “Dune” is the movie he hates the most out of his entire filmography. He lost creative control and asked for his name to be removed from the project (it wasn’t).
But I don’t know, maybe it was because my first experience with it was in a theater with an enthusiastic crowd, maybe it was because the screening was hosted by film critic Matt Zoller Seitz and author Max Evry (who was there signing copies of his “Dune” oral history book “A Masterpiece in Disarray” after the screening), but I really enjoyed it. It’s not a great movie, but it’s definitely a Lynch movie, no matter what happened with creative control. I was especially taken with how much Lynch focuses on characters crying, even on a planet where water is precious. His name has become shorthand for a type of weirdness that people can’t describe, but everyone always forgets that a big part of a “Lynchian” movie is the humanity of the characters. The 1984 “Dune” is plenty weird, with its extensive voiceover and wild, gorgeous set design, but it’s also embued with earnestness and heart.
“Dune: Part Two” is also earnest but in a different way. I don’t think I’ve seen a blockbuster this sprawling since…I’m tempted to say “Lord of the Rings.” Definitely haven’t felt that much awe at a movie since “Oppenheimer.”
Villeneuve’s “Dune” series (now a trilogy; “Dune: Messiah” is in the works) is less concerned with the special effects and gee-whiz set design of Lynch’s original (although there are plenty of great special effects and set designs here), and much more concerned with the central point of Herbert’s book: Maybe we shouldn’t trust people who claim they are messiahs.
Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides goes from a reluctant heir to a tyrannical religious figure over the course of this film, and Villeneuve is fascinated with how religious communities can go from fringe movements to militant fanaticism under the right leader. All of Stilgar’s (Javier Bardem) over-the-top belief in a savior from a royal family is initially played for laughs, but becomes increasingly fanatic as the movie goes on — a warning about how easy it is for religion to corrupt countries, and planets, if placed in the wrong hands. It’s fascinating to watch Lynch’s and Villeneuve’s visions side-by-side.
“Dune” is available to stream on HBO Max and also available on physical media; “Dune: Part Two” is in theaters now and also available to rent or purchase on VOD.
“The Holdovers”
Alexander Payne’s latest film quickly became a new holiday favorite for me. Set at a New England boys’ boarding school in the early ‘70s, the film focuses on the three “holdovers” at Barton Academy during Christmas break.
They are Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a kid whose parents decided to take a trip without him over the holiday; Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a disgruntled and jaded classics professor who got the babysitting job as punishment for failing a blue-blooded senator’s son; and Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cook, who is mourning her only son’s death in Vietnam.
It’s a melancholy film, not unlike the holiday season itself, but it ultimately becomes a sweet, humanist coming-of-age film for all three of our protagonists. All three actors shine here, and Randolph’s Oscar-winning performance strikes the right note between saccharine and lived-in.
I met my own Mr. Hunham in the 10th grade: my honors teacher Ms. Helm. She was a tough grader, was kind of a jerk, suffered no fools, and was clearly fighting her own battles, but I learned more in her class about how to go through and remain curious about the world while staying empathetic toward people than I did almost anywhere else.
This film is a celebration of the Mr. Hunhams and Ms. Lambs we find everywhere.
Available to stream on Peacock and also available on physical media or on VOD.
“Lynch/Oz”
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about ‘The Wizard of Oz.’” — David Lynch, when asked if his films have any connection to “The Wizard of Oz”
I’m hit-or-miss on documentarian Alexandre O. Phillipe. I liked “78/52,” his look at the shower curtain stabbing scene in “Psycho”; enjoyed “The People vs. George Lucas” as an early look at how whiny most of the “Star Wars” fan base would become; and was utterly baffled by the freshman film thesis feel of “Memory: The Origins of Alien.”
But “Lynch/Oz,” his latest movie about movies, hit me in that sweet spot where speculation and film theory meet. “Lynch/Oz” isn’t a documentary; it’s a series of connected video essays about how “The Wizard of Oz” influenced David Lynch’s filmography. Since he’s been famously tight-lipped about what a lot of his movies are “about,” any quote that can connect him to his influences is given a lot of importance (see above).
The thoughtful analysis from directors Amy Nicholson, Rodney Ascher, John Waters, Karyn Kusama, Benson & Moorhead, and David Lowery made me want to go back and re-watch “The Wizard of Oz,” and made me see Lynch’s work in a new light.
Available to stream on The Criterion Channel and also available on physical media.
“Problemista”
After debuting at South By Southwest in 2023 and then getting sidelined because of the writers’ strikes, comedian Julio Torres’ directorial debut is finally out in wide release.
Torres stars as Alejandro, an American immigrant from El Salvador who dreams of one day making toys at Hasbro. But when he’s rejected from their internship program and he loses his job as a worker at a cryogenic freezing company (long story), he needs to do something for work or he’ll lose his work visa status.
Enter Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), an eccentric and erratic artist who is looking for an assistant to catalog her dead husband’s art so that it can be sold at auction. She’s brash and contradictory, but she gets things done — something the conflict-avoidant Alejandro is drawn to. Together, they teach each other to be less abrasive to those who love them and more demanding of others (respectively). Torres plays Alejandro with a literal pep in his step, despite navigating the Sisyphean labyrinth of the American immigration system; and Swinton’s nuanced performance makes Elizabeth a layered, sympathetic character who we love because Alejandro loves her.
Available to rent or purchase on VOD.
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This newsletter is written by me and edited by my favorite person, Taylor Tompkins. Views expressed here are my own and don’t reflect the opinions of my employer.
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