Thoughts on The Orville 1-3 (2017-2022)

Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville (2017-2022) was sold as a Star Trek (1966-1969) parody and/or homage, but it became its own thing.

Thoughts on Microhabitat (Sogongnyeo / 소공녀 2017)

Writer-director Jeon Go-woon’s debut, Microhabitat (Sogongnyeo / 소공녀 2017), is a straightforwardly told adaptation of Tokyo Story (Tōkyō Monogatari / 東京物語 1953), and is almost as moving, mostly thanks to lead actress Esom’s compassionate and free-spirited performance as Mi-so. She knows what makes her happy—Esse cigarettes, Glenfiddich whiskey, and her boyfriend, Han-sol (Ahn Jae-hong)—and how to get them: direct contribution to society via housecleaning and donating blood. When rent and cig prices go up, she can’t afford all three, so she decides to cut back on rent. Instead, she couchsurfs with her former university bandmates. But there’s always a reason she can’t stay long.

Thoughts on Spencer (2021)

Pablo Larraín’s Spencer (2021) is in fascinating tension with itself in two main ways.

One of the Best Music Videos Ever Made—All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault): The Short Film (2021)

That’s right—despite its name, All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault): The Short Film (2021) belongs squarely in the genre of the music video. But that the level of craftsmanship and resources on display is on par with that of short films just serves to emphasize the significance of its achievement. In this sense, it’s a perfect synecdoche of Taylor Swift, the song’s singer and cowriter, and the music video’s writer-director and one of its actors.

Thoughts on Bright Star (2009)

Writer-director Jane Campion’s Bright Star (2009), ostensibly a biopic of English Romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw), plays up the human interest aspect by being told from the viewpoint of his true love, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), whom he was too poor to marry. Keats famously died young of tuberculosis, so extra tragedy and melodrama are unnecessary. Everything is simple and understated, allowing the big moments their space.

The Cinematic Grammar of Prophecy—Dune: Part One (2021)

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One (2021), cowritten with Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, has many shortcomings. But it succeeds nevertheless because it gets the most important thing right: the mood. Namely, the mood of prophesied destiny. As Glenn Kenny says, “Villeneuve’s movie is “Dune.””

Thoughts on A Quiet Passion (2016)

A Quiet Passion (2016), writer-director Terence Davies’s Emily Dickinson biopic, is a paragon of the genre. Perhaps due to the restricted setting, it stays laser-focused on its subject and the aspects of her immediate context that feed into her work. It’s not just a record of a life, it succeeds at doing what every biopic aspires to: It reanimates.

Thoughts on JT Leroy (2018)

Yet another film to perfectly cast Kristen Stewart, Justin Kelly’s JT LeRoy (2018), cowritten with Savannah Knoop based on the latter’s memoir, is about one of the crazier literary phenomena of the 90s, in which Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, wearer of blatant disguises and author of semi-autobiographical novels about his traumatic childhood, was revealed to be—fictional isn’t quite the word for it. The physical person seen disguised in public was Savannah (Stewart), while the books were written by Laura Albert (Laura Dern) as the product of therapeutic writing to cope with her own traumas. There are not one but two documentaries about this revelation, and behind this film there’s a whole meta-layer (or two, depending on how you count). But JT Leroy digs into the drama to get at something infinitely more interesting than identity and authenticity: How do you frame your life story?

Great Feats of Recitation: Cosmopolis (2012)

Fresh off filming the last Twilight film (2012), Robert Pattinson jumped straight into portraying yet another nearly affectless pale leading man with stylish hair in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (2012), adapted by Cronenberg from the Don DeLillo novel. Rarely have I encountered a film with such single-minded focus: Everything here, from production design to camera angles to score, is in service to the dialogue. As it should be.

Stabbed in the Heart: The Twilight Saga (2008-2012)

I confess: I used to freely shit on Twilight (2008) too. What started changing my mind are the excellent work of its two leads, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, in later work, though never together after their breakup. I’m glad that this, and not misogyny against media embraced by teenage girls, is the angle from which I approached these films, based on the four novels by Stephenie Meyer. Because they’re fascinating.