Capsule reviews and stray thoughts on what I watched in January (and a bit of December). All reviews via Letterboxd.

Poor Things (2023)

On the one hand it’s certainly fun watching a self-proclaimed hedonist destroyed by a woman who genuinely doesn’t care about the rules of polite society, and the way supposedly intelligent men fall in love with a mental six-year-old is obviously meant to be stinging. But I can’t shake the feeling that this is a very masculine take on female liberation, especially in its fascination with sexuality to the exclusion of almost everything else. Bella is a cipher for most of the film, more defined by her effect on others than by her own inner life. Her alternative to the possessiveness of men is pure callousness verging on intentional cruelty. She’s a spin on the magic pixie dream girl, but less a subversion than a caricature. 

Except when she isn’t, and maybe that’s part of showing someone essentially inventing themself, and pushing against social limits in the process. You can’t be fully developed and a work in process at the same time. So sometimes she’s a male fantasy or a nightmare, others she’s a real person trying to understand her past and define her future. 

Anyway, it’s impressive to see what a stylist Lanthimos has become here. The performances are mostly sharp, and the production design and costuming deserve all the awards they’re bound to get. This is vivid, imaginative, and fun, but it does leave me feeling conflicted.

The Creator (2023)

Hero’s journey, blow up the Death Star with the Force space fantasy with a bit of hand-wavey political subtext for good measure. I’m glad that a non-franchise story can get told on this scale, but if I’d realize I was getting into a 2.25-hour set of military skirmishes with shades of Eastern mysticism thrown in as set-dressing, I would’ve just accepted it as “not my thing” and moved along. There’s not nearly enough time spent establishing the relationship that’s meant to anchor the story, so it relies on indistinguishable action sequences and mawkish sentimentality for interest and gravitas respectively, and I found neither to be all that effective. I know others who enjoyed it, but aside from the visuals I found it quite dull.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023)

Our choice for first movie of 2024 was between this and a cult post-apocalyptic Aussie action film, and this was definitely the better choice. Sharp, fun, and genuine. Even with the title I didn’t realize how much religion would play into this, but even that is handled deftly. Good stuff.

Dream Scenario (2023)

I saw another review on Letterboxd that said this movie takes a fantastic premise and then takes the least interesting route at every opportunity. That’s overly harsh, but it’s not totally unfair, either. At a certain point, the movie drifts from being about a character responding to an absurd situation, to being about cancel culture and fame and the strokes just keep getting more and more broad. It gives way to a pretty rote downward spiral, which is disappointing given the odd but engaging specificity of the early scenes.

That said, I will always enjoy watching Tim Meadows doing his thing. I don’t know what it is exactly, but he’s just such a steady presence. He’s never let me down.

Paris, Texas (1984)

Mild spoilers

Travis starts the film as someone who doesn’t want to be saved, and ends it as someone who probably doesn’t deserve to be—he aims for understanding instead of atonement, and while he seems to recognize that he’s still a destructive force (hence the desire to disappear again), he doesn’t see that even his better intentions are still selfish and poorly thought through.

It’s tough, because Stanton is so likeable, and what Travis has done is so horrific. I want him to do better, or to be punished but it’s neither: he emerges from purgatory and then goes back to it, stuck in a stasis with nothing resolved. He runs from himself, puts himself in a place with no language and no memory, and leaves everyone else with the challenge of functioning and rebuilding and carrying on.

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

The ’90s were pretty great for getting a bunch of fantastic character actors, a weirdo director, picking an underappreciated genre, and just going for it. I don’t know for sure that this got greenlit after Pulp Fiction became a smash, but it really feels like it’s of that era where no one quite knew what was going to work, so they took a bunch of swings just to see what would happen.

Gene Hackman is great as always, a pre-Titanic DiCaprio is somehow already mocking his pretty-boy image a year before Romeo + Juliet even came out, and even dang-ol’ Woody Strode makes a cameo. Raimi takes the close-up-on-the-eyes thing to ridiculous extremes. Lance Henriksen gets to play the least Lance Henriksen role I’ve ever seen and he eats it up. Russell Crowe is even almost likeable.

This is just fun, is what I’m saying.

The Rat Catcher (2023)

First of Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl shorts that I’ve seen (we don’t have a Netflix subscription right now), and the tone is certainly something. Somewhere between storytime, children’s theatre, and student film, albeit with incredibly talented people handling all the details.

I almost would’ve preferred if the short hadn’t used a prop/animated rat at all—they were so committed to the bit of imaginary props that it was a bit of a letdown to drop it. Otherwise, I’m not really sure what to make of this. It’s a fun diversion, and it seems like that’s probably all they were going for, so… well done, I suppose.

Ruthless People (1986)

Would never have guessed that this is ZAZ (directorial trio Zucker Abrams Zucker)—the sense of humour is completely different from your Airplanes and Police Squads and Hot Shots, much more grimy and mean and, well, Danny Devito-y, for lack of a better term. And I think it would’ve been better with someone like Devito at the helm really playing up those elements, because as it is, it’s directed a little more lighthearted than the plot and subject matter really call for. In other words, it’s not vicious enough for how vicious it is, if that makes sense.

But Bill Pullman is phenomenal in this, and they gave Sally Cruikshank some work on the opening credits, so I’m still all for it.

Elemental (2023)

Something felt off in the scale of this. There’s such elaborate world building in its depiction of a massive city populated by elemental creatures; you just know someone has a 100-page bible outlining each Element’s architecture and cultural history and technological preferences. The story itself is relatively intimate and personal, but because the world is so elaborate, it feels like it’s is going to go bigger—there are recurring floods in the city that seem poised to open to some Chinatown-style conspiracy, or at least something that ties more deeply into the narrative—but it never does. It’s just there because the filmmakers needed a big set piece, even though the stakes of the smaller story would have been more than enough. 

Magic (1978)

It would be fun to sell people on this Anthony Hopkins muderous puppet movie by saying “it’s from the author of the Princess Bride” just to see what happens.

The main character, a musician/ventriloquist named Corky, is more a Michael Moriarty character than a Hopkins one—my memory is already sort of swapping in Moriarty’s jazz musician from Q: The Winged Serpent into the role—but Hopkins really does give this his all. Ann Margret has to sell the idea that anyone would find this act charming enough to throw away your life, and does a decent job showing the desperation that would require. It stretches credulity more than a few times, but it’s effective all around. 

I fully believe that Burgess Meredith’s aging agent would pitch a combination ventriloquist/magician act as the next big thing; less confident audiences would eat it up, but hey, I wasn’t alive in 1978 so what do I know. They reference Steve Martin and Rich Little and maybe they saw that as proof of a neo-vaudeville revival. So, sure.