Thoughts on Monolith (2022)

The jump scare is a curious thing. It has to be sudden, but suddenness alone just creates disorientation. You can add loud discordant notes, but that’s like your friend “scaring” you by punching you—a purely biological reaction devoid of cinematic interest. No, a good jump scare depends on expectation: The viewer must expect  something to happen, but not know when. And as viewers grow savvy to horror beats, the not knowing gets ever harder. Which brings us to Monolith (2022).

Bring Your Own Boat: Evan Almighty (2007)

Yes, Tom Shadyac’s Evan Almighty (2007), about the titular news anchor turned freshman congressman (Steve Carell) who asks God to help him change the world and in return is assigned to build an ark in the middle of a drought, is all low comedy and unfunny clichés. Yes, you can see every single plot twist from the moment Congressman Long’s (John Goodman) bill’s title is revealed to include the word “land” (written by Steve Oedekerk). (We should have a discussion about Goodman being typecast as the heel due to his body shape.) Yes, the CGI is intrusively obvious. But most of these faults are due to the film’s commitment to the philosophical bit. Also, they named the Noah-character’s wife “Joan” (Lauren Graham) because her husband is building an ark. Gotta love that.

Thoughts on White Balls on Walls (2022)

In Sarah Vos’s documentary White Balls on Walls (2022), new director Rein Wolfs spearheads a government-initiated effort to diversify the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s collection: Only 4% of its art was by women, no works by artists of color were exhibited, and they only had a single curator of color, Charl Landvreugd. The proceedings keep you on tenterhooks, but nuanced discussions and good faith see them through.

Thoughts on The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Though small in scale, even bracketing out the Irish Civil War raging just across the strait, writer-director Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) is epic in proportion. There’s a reason for this almost everyone has missed.

Thoughts on At Long Last Love (1975)

Contemporary critics weren’t ready for At Long Last Love (1975), I think, and entered the theater with erroneous assumptions, the same issue that tanked Hollywood Homicide (2003). They thought that writer-director Peter Bogdanovich was trying for an authentic 30s musical—and maybe so, but as Peter Sobczynski notes in his otherwise error-prone piece, it was doomed by how the studio system that kept a stable of comprehensively trained players no longer existed. Instead, it’s a modern recreation of the 30s musical that deliberately punctures holes in the atmospheric framing device—fun, witty, captivating.

Thoughts on Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Tom Cruise is kind of like a modern-day studio head, grabbing collaborators to produce and put out big tentpole films. Just read his interactions with his actual studio, Paramount Pictures. His most fruitful collaborator to date has been with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the latest Mission: Impossible films and did the final rewrite of Top Gun: Maverick (2022), directed by Joseph Kosinsky. After Cruise and McQuarrie perfected the action thriller with Mission: Impossible—Fallout (2018), now they’re back (along with some other screenwriters and story originators) to perfect the hero’s farewell.

A Few Brief Thoughts on Some (More) Interesting Short Films

It’s been a year and a half since my last shorts roundup, and the pandemic is still ongoing; the only difference is that people are starting to not care anymore. I wonder if it has something to do with how the internet has diminished our attention spans and memories. In any case, here in chronological order of premiere date are the shorts I watched that engaged me enough to want to finish them and write about them. If I don’t provide a link, I saw it on MUBI.

Thoughts on Margaret (2011/2012)

Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret (2011/2012) is probably the closest we’ll ever get to a William Gaddis adaptation, especially the Lonergan-approved director’s cut, which is the one I saw.

Thoughts on Practical Magic (1998)

Despite its dismal Rotten Tomatoes rating, Griffin Dunne’s Practical Magic (1998) has a large cult following that I think is well-deserved. Few films have such warmth and purity of heart, which are buoyed by its fabular storybook quality, shared by other films also produced by Denise Di Novi such as Heathers (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)—as well as Mermaids (1990), also a film of female solidarity set in an out-of-the-way house in Massachusetts (though Practical Magic was shot in Washington state) featuring a scene of women dancing around a kitchen.

Thoughts on After Yang (2021)

After Yang (2021), writer-director-editor Kogonada’s science-fiction followup (based on a short story by Alexander Weinstein) to the sublime Columbus (2017), clarifies his strengths as a filmmaker: mood, camerawork, and production design. In Columbus, it was the locations; here, with the help of production designer Alexandra Schaller, he builds marvels from scratch. The short story’s world is much grimier.