I’m back with a new series!
First, here’s a brief rundown of what I’ve been up to: My new job doesn’t require me to write nearly as much as my last job did, so I’m trying to keep that muscle sharp by doing some more freelancing. for Book & Film Globe. Recently, I wrote about how Disney+ is all about hosting TV-MA content, as long as it’s comic-book-themed; whether or not Netflix is truly doomed (it isn’t); and how a recent viral clip of Steve Martin’s King Tut skit shows why media literacy is on the decline in America. And if you’d like to hear me talk about those last two subjects, I appeared on the Book & Film Globe podcast this week.
Now, on to the new newsletter series.
The social media/film blogging site Letterboxd has become a bit of an obsession of mine. Not only can you log each and every film you’ve ever seen, but you can also organize them into lists as well! And you can export those lists into spreadsheets! And you can talk to other movie lovers about what they’ve been watching! The dream, honestly. At this point, it’s the most positive social media experience I’ve had. I started using it a lot at the start of the pandemic when I had nothing else to do except work and watch movies, and it helped a lot with creating lists of what I wanted to see, categorizing movies I had already see before, etc.
One of my favorite Letterboxd features is that it lets users pick four favorite films to display at the top of their profile. It hearkens back to the Old Internet when you put your favorite song on your MySpace page. Some people use the Top 4 as a way to showcase movie themes; some pick their childhood favorites; others try and make the sequence of movies into a joke.
This year, I decided I would make my top four movies my four favorite first watches of the previous month. These don’t have to be new movies released this year, just new to me. I’m going to write a newsletter on each month’s picks at the top of the month. So, for this newsletter, you’ll get picks for January, February, March and April.
I’ll make a list of all of the picks at the end of the year and share those as well. Here we go!
January
“Bad Trip”
I can’t remember laughing this hard at a movie in a long time. “Bad Trip” is “Tommy Boy” by way of “Borat”: A scripted buddy road comedy full of real pranks, featuring real people, but never harmful. For as much as I laughed in this movie, the best parts were seeing how helpful everyday people were when they watched Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery and Tiffany Haddish do something crazy.
Available to stream on Netflix
“The Mitchells vs. The Machines”
This was nominated for a Best Animated Film Oscar, but in a year where three other Disney films were also nominated, this sci-fi romp about a family trying to destroy a cellphone AI never had a chance. Which is a shame. This is a movie about movies, about the ways technology is encroaching on all aspects of our lives, and about a family dealing with growing pains. It’s also got some great animation and a great vocal performance by Danny McBride, who tones down his “Righteous Gemstones” shtick to play a put-upon dad who’s just trying to understand his daughter. I watched this for the first time when I was sick with COVID earlier this year, and it felt like a warm hug in the best way.
Available to stream on Netflix
“Nine Days”
Oh man. I was not prepared for this movie, which is about a man living in a house interviewing a group of human souls for a chance to be born into the world nine days later. Is the man an angel? Where do the souls come from? Where in the plane of existence is this house located? None of that matters. This movie is concerned with much larger ideas: What it means to be truly alive, experiencing the ocean for the first time, or eating a great meal, or telling a really funny poop joke. Describing this as like “Soul” but for adults is entirely too simplistic; it’s more about how life, all life, is a miracle, even the mundane moments. Winston Duke’s monologue at the end brought me to tears.
Available to buy or rent on demand
“Scream” (2022)
I love the “Scream” franchise, and I had high hopes for the 2022 continuation, or “requel,” as the film nerds in this version call it. Directed by the same guys who made the riotously funny and violent “Ready Or Not,” this new “Scream” pays the appropriate amount of homage to the original franchise while also acting irreverent to the current fascination with homages and nostalgia. The new kids are all right, too.
Available to stream on Paramount+
February
“C’Mon C’Mon”
A lesser movie would have made the main conflict of this film be the moment where Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) loses his nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) in a New York bodega and desperately searches for him and gets angry with him. That version of the movie would be about how the two of them learn to like each other and learn something from each other. But Mike Mills doesn’t direct lesser movies, and this gorgeously shot film is a great look at learning to see the world through another’s eyes. It’s also got great sound design. As a new uncle, it warmed my heart.
Available to buy or rent on demand
“I Was a Simple Man”
I loved Christopher Makoto Yogi’s first feature film, “August at Akiko’s,” which showcased the everyday side of Hawai’i, away from Waikiki and the tourist traps of Honolulu. “I Was a Simple Man” is a ghost story, but an unconventional one, as a man dying of cancer starts to see visions of himself at different time of his life, learning to come to grips with the way he’s lived and the ways he’s treated his family. Yogi uses the man’s life as a way to also examine how much the island of O’ahu has changed from pastoral lands to apartment complex towers. I’m excited to see what he does next.
Available to buy or rent on demand
“Jackass Fore❤️er”
“If you’re gonna be dumb you’ve gotta be tough,” goes the end-credits song for the “Jackass” series. After three seasons, five movies (if you count the DVD sequels) and countless broken bones, Johnny Knoxville and the “Jackass” crew may be older and tougher, but they’re still dumb. And thank God for that, because “Jackass Forever” is one of the most cathartic watches I’ve had in a long time. The prank series has had a bit of a cultural revision lately, with many praising the crew’s positive masculinity and genuine affection for one another. That is nice to see, and there's probably something there about how comfortable and trusting you have to be to let someone, say, use your penis as a puppet Godzilla (the first setpiece in this movie is graphic and hilarious in every way you can imagine). But “Jackass Forever” also understands that it’s also funny to see someone get hit in the balls, as long as that someone isn’t you.
Available to stream on Paramount+
“Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”
Everyone remembers The Slap from the last Oscars ceremony. What you may not remember is that Chris Rock was introducing the winner for Best Documentary before Will Smith told him to keep Jada’s name out of his mouth.
That Best Documentary film was Questlove’s “Summer of Soul,” a documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival featuring archived footage that just came to light. Not only is the documentary a great time capsule and social history, it features amazing concert footage from everyone from Aretha Franklin to Nina Simone to BB King. A joy to behold.
Available to stream on Hulu and Disney+
March
“21 Bridges”
One of my favorite traditions lately has been watching action films with my parents whenever we visit. This one was the best one I saw during my week-long stay in Tennessee earlier this year. Chadwick Boseman is doing his best ‘90s Wesley Snipes impression here, and he’s great at it. We lost him too soon, and this movie hints at what could have been a great career as a serious action star. Hollywood used to make like 20 of these types of cop action thrillers a year, and now we’re lucky to get three good ones every now and then. This is one of the good ones. My only qualm is that, for a movie about shutting down all 21 of New York’s bridges, this features shockingly little footage of bridges or what would happen if they shut down.
Available to steam on Netflix
“Turning Red”
This movie got some attention upon its release for a series of stupid controversies. First there was the really dumb review written by a white dude who basically said that the movie was bad because he couldn’t relate to it. The review was immediately taken down after a lot of internet backlash, which shouldn’t have happened- leave the article up and print a correction or an editor’s note, but if you’re gonna publish something, stand by it or don’t publish at all.
Then, a lot of parents got angry with the movie for daring to discuss the fact that girls get periods and for showcasing a parent-child relationship that was tense and rebellious at best and openly combative at worst. (Those getting angry with the film showing a rebellious child would do well to remember literally any Disney protagonist- Ariel, Belle, Aladdin, Simba, Cinderella, Mowgli, etc.)
Anyway, not the point. The point is that “Turning Red,” about Mei, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl in 2002 Toronto who realizes that she turns into a red panda when she gets emotional, is one of the most relatable Disney films in a while. Like “Minari” or “Short Term 12,” the specificity of the film is what makes it universal. No matter who you are, puberty sucks, and it seems like the only people who understand you are your friends. This movie gets that. Would make a great double-feature with “Eighth Grade.”
Available to stream on Disney+
“A Walk Among the Tombstones”
Another one in the “action programmer with my parents” category from when they visited me in Dallas. I thought this one was going to be a standard Liam Neeson Action Movie. What I got was a hardboiled crime noir that’s probably the grittiest and darkest thing Neeson has done in the last 20 years besides “The Grey” (which not enough people have seen). I immediately bought the book this is based on and can’t wait to read it.
Available to stream on Netflix
“X”
I don’t really like classifying something as “It’s like X meets Y, but with a twist.” Feels lazy. But there is truly no better way to encompass this movie’s vibe other than “‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ meets ‘Boogie Nights,’ but with a modern slasher twist.”
Director Ti West’s latest horror film is about a group of young filmmakers trying to shoot a porno in a guest house in 1979 rural Texas under the nose of the property’s elderly owners. Things go south real quick once Pearl, the woman of the house, catches on to what’s happening. It’s gory and shocking and pays homage to the exploitation films of the ‘70s (the title is also a cheeky nod to the “X” rating), but once you get past the blood and titillation, there’s a lot of angry commentary here about how America capitalizes on its young people and discards its elderly people, and how we commodify people in general. That, and it’s got one of the most unexpected usages of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” I’ve ever heard.
Available to buy or rent on demand
April
“27 Dresses”
I had always heard that this movie was bad, and early aughts romcoms are a genre that I am not that well-versed in. Then this list of the 50 Greatest Romcoms Ever came out in The Ringer a few weeks ago and caused all kinds of ruckus because people were arguing about which one was best. “27 Dresses” was #30 on that list, and Taylor was amazed I had never seen it. I tried it, and liked it a lot. It’s predictable, but comforting in the way that it’s confident in its plot structure. And it combines three of my favorite things: realistic newsrooms in movies, Judy Greer, and great “cynical but actually a big softie” performances from both Katherine Heigl and James Marsden.
Available to stream on HBO MAX
“CODA”
I haven’t seen all of the films nominated for Best Picture this past year, so I’m not sure if this is truly the best of the group, but I see why this film about a Child of Deaf Adults yearning to spread her wings won the award. It’s tear-jerking, tender, tells a universal story in a very specific setting, and it’s full of great performances from Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur (who won Best Supporting Actor for his role here), Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant.
Overall I felt like this was a TV movie bolstered by amazing performances and great setpieces, like the final scene where Jones signs and sings “Both Sides Now.” Hopefully this leads to more work for everyone involved here.
Available to stream on Apple TV+
“Everything Everywhere All At Once”
This is my favorite movie of 2022 so far, and will probably remain my favorite movie of 2022, barring any upsets. Pundits are trying to pin this movie’s success on the fact that it’s about multiverses, which are in right now. No, this movie is successful because of great word-of-mouth and because it’s a movie that uses the multiverse framework to tell a bigger story about family, immigration, parents and children, living up to your potential, love, happiness, choosing the hard parts of life, and rejecting nihilism. Oh, and there’s also a universe in this movie where everyone has hot dog fingers. It’s actually very profound within the context of the film.
Watching this movie felt like watching “The Matrix” for the first time. Not because “Everything” revolutionizes the technology used in the film medium, but because it so succinctly and effectively throws everything and the kitchen sink into it, and it somehow works. This is maximalist cinema at its finest, and it finds profundity in the chaos.
This review from Walter Chaw is also a must-read after you’ve seen the movie. It’s the best piece of writing I’ve read on the film.
Currently in theaters
”The Northman”
I’m a big Robert Eggers fan, but I realize that stuff like “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” isn’t for everyone. “The Northman” is probably his most accessible, but it’s still plenty weird, with all of the bodily functions and pagan ritual and folklore aspects of his first two features. The story of “The Northman” was one of the inspirations for “Hamlet,” a tale of revenge and kingdoms lost and kingdoms gained. Eggers’ interpretation is bloody, violent and historically accurate, but also subversive; by merely showing Viking culture in its proper context, a modern viewer knows that Eggers isn’t endorsing much of what’s happening. The violence Eggers chooses to not show says just as much about modern sensibilities as it does about Vikings of the past.
“I live by the sword, I must die in battle,” one character says at the beginning of the film. This movie telegraphs its ending from the beginning. But the journey to get there makes you question why we value tales of revenge in the first place. This is thought-provoking and entertaining, a blockbuster the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a long time.
Currently in theaters
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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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