Monthly Archives: April 2024

Movie Previews

The Movies of Summer 2024

This upcoming summer season is likely going to be very different from the last couple we have had.  Coming out of the pandemic affected years, the summers of 2022 and 2023 looked pretty close to the kinds of Summer movie seasons that we were used to in the decade before.  The big movie studios were lining up their tentpole features once again in a big way, with all the Summer months booked with the kinds of movies that were ideal for bringing in audiences.  Or at least that’s what the studios were hoping for.  While the selections of movies felt like Hollywood was back in the Summer season groove, the box office results were not indicative of a return to normal for the industry.  Some would say that audiences were still hesitant about going back to the theaters post-pandemic, but there was also the effect of the push towards streaming.  Things had changed drastically in the last couple of years, and this year has shown that Hollywood is beginning to readjust somewhat to the new norms.  There are decidedly fewer large tentpoles coming out in the upcoming months, which shows that Hollywood in general is slowing things down.  Of course, the sparsity of this Summer’s tentpoles also has to do with the months long delays in production due to last year’s labor strikes.  We are getting fewer movies because Hollywood either had to push back a number of films or cancel them all together, and it’s a situation that the studios only have themselves to blame.  The ones who unfortunately suffer the most out of this situation are the exhibitors, who unfortunately may have to lower their expectations about having a big Summer season this year, or find clever ways to draw more people into the cinemas during the next few months.

Even still, there are some movies worth getting excited about in the days ahead.  With the competition being less fierce week to week, there’s a good chance that a lot of these Summer movies may take off and become big hits with strong legs at the box office.  Like I do every year, I will be breaking down the Summer movie season with the movies that I think will be the Must Sees, the ones that have me worried, as well as the Movies to Skip.  These picks are solely based on my own level of interest in each movie based on my reactions to the buzz surrounding the film and the effectiveness of it’s marketing.  My track record has been hit and miss over the years, as some of my good picks have turned out to be bad, and vice versa.  I do feel confident about the movies I’m about to discuss below, and my hope is that it provides you the reader with an informed guide of the movies that will be talked about over the Summer movie season.  So, with all of that said, let’s take a look at the Movies of Summer 2024.

MUST SEES:

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (JULY 26)

Easily the most eagerly anticipated movie of the Summer season.  Things have changed a lot since the last time Ryan Reynolds has suited up as the “merc with the mouth.”  The former studio that was the home of the Deadpool franchise, 20th Century Fox, has since been merged into The Walt Disney Company, which is the home of all the others Marvel characters.  Now, Deadpool no longer has to exist on an island separated from the rest of the MCU due to franchise rights; he now has free reign to play in the same sandbox as the Avengers.  This will be the third Deadpool movie, following up on 2018’s Deadpool 2, and the first with Marvel Studios now in creative control.  A lot of people worried that Marvel, and by extension Disney, were going to ruin the character by cleaning up his act to make him more presentable to family audiences who watch their movies.  But thankfully Kevin Feige and the other Marvel heads understand what has been Deadpool’s appeal and they have come to the conclusion that if it isn’t broke, than don’t fix it.  This will be the MCU’s first ever R-Rated film, and it definitely looks like Deadpool’s penchant for edgy material is making the transition intact.  Even more exciting is the fact that Ryan Reynolds is bringing another friend from the Marvel/Fox films to come and play with him.  Hugh Jackman is once again donning the Adamantiam claws as Wolverine, a character he has now played over a 24 year period.  A lot of the excitement for this movie is no doubt do to seeing the two icons finally sharing the screen together (especially after all the teasing that Deadpool made at Wolverine’s expense in the first two movies) and also due to the fact that both are finally making their debuts in the MCU.  We only have hint in the trailer as to how the characters are going to factor into the greater MCU storyline, and I feel like Marvel is still holding many surprises close to the chest.  We’ll definitely have to watch the movie to find out what all that will be, but the fact that we get more of Deadpool and Wolverine on the big screen is enough to get us all excited for the Summer to start.

INSIDE OUT 2 (JUNE 14)

I feel like Disney has been trying to pay an apology to their Pixar Animation wing over the last year.  Last year’s Elemental (2023) was one of the few Disney tentpole films that actually exceeded expectations, managing to build on word of mouth and turn a modest profit at the box office, as opposed to other movies from Disney last year like The Marvels (2023) and Wish (2023) which crashed hard at the box office.  Disney recognized that their Pixar brand was still one of their most valuable assets and that it was time to stop neglecting it.  After pushing many of Pixar’s films onto streaming during the pandemic, this Spring they finally put those films out into theaters for the first time.  It may not have been much as the number of screens were limited, but it was a message from Disney that they recognized that Pixar’s films do indeed belong on the big screen.  Elemental made a big difference in changing the perception of Pixar’s value at Disney, and this year it looks like Pixar will indeed be roaring back to the top of the box office with their sequel to one of the biggest hits ever.  Inside Out 2 picks up right where the last film left off with the emotions that live inside the head of a young girl about to head into uncharted waters of puberty.  This new film expands the roster of characters with more complex emotions moving in and taking things over very quickly, including Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment.  The first Inside Out (2015) did a remarkable job of taking complex concepts like emotional psychology and brilliantly wove it into an engaging and funny story that represented Pixar at their best.  It will be nice to revisit this world again, and the next stage of this concept should be interesting as it explores how emotions change as we grow older.  It’s great to see Pixar regain it’s valued state in the Disney company, no longer as the easily tossed aside brand shipped off to Disney+, and my hope is that Inside Out 2 puts Pixar back on top of the box office as well.

KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (MAY 10)

One of the best franchise resurrections to have occurred in recent years has to be the return to prominence of the Planet of the Apes series.  Once revered as a classic science fiction franchise, the series became more and more irrelevant and mocked for it’s often cheap look, with the apes merely being actors in cheap masks rather than the impressive make-up effect that once set the series apart.  Since then, technology has caught up and has gone beyond what make-up effects can do.  The Caesar trilogy as it is now known pushed the boundaries of motion capture performance, allowing the acute mannerisms of an actors performance be fully translated into the highly detailed model of a realistic looking ape.  Thanks to the incredible talents of an actor like Andy Serkis and the digital wizards at Weta Digital, Caesar was one of the most impressive CGI characters to have ever been put on the big screen, capable of carrying the franchise on his own and re-inventing it.  This new film in the franchise seems to be carrying on the franchise to the next level.  The motion capture technology looks to have been improved upon even more, with the apes now able to speak and having it look impressively natural.  It’s great to see the Planet of the Apes franchise actually take what they’ve built before and push it even further.  What is especially exciting with this new film is that it’s going even further with the world-building.  This film takes place many years after the death of Caesar and shows us the world of humanity completely overtaken by the natural world, with the apes building up their first attempts at an advanced civilization.  Director Wes Ball, who previously worked on the Maze Runner franchise, has a knack for blending the natural world and the mechanical world in a visually beautiful way.  This film could definitely be one of this Summer’s most epic adventures and it will be interesting to see if this is another big step for the Planet of the Apes franchise as it begins a new generation.

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (MAY 24)

George Miller shook up Hollywood in a big way when he unleashed his long anticipated fourth film in the Mad Max franchise; 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.  Hailed as a masterpiece for it’s impressively mounted action sequences, many of which that were done with real practical stunts, the movie propelled the veteran Australian director back into the spotlight and had many fans eagerly anticipating what he would do next.  Apart from a detour into a smaller scale fantasy flick with 2022’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, Miller very much was eager to return to the desert for more adventures in the world of Mad Max.  But, instead of focusing on the Road Warrior himself, Miller was interested in exploring more of the story of the other hero who stood out in the mayhem that was Fury Road; the one armed heroine known as Furiosa.  Played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, the character Furiosa became an instant fan favorite, and it definitely felt like she was a character capable of carrying on with her own series.  Well, Miller believed that was the case too, and we now have Furiosa commanding her own film.  Because this movie tells us Furiosa’s backstory, she needed to be played by a younger actress, so Anya Taylor-Joy has stepped into the role, doing her best to live up to what Charlize laid the groundwork for.  She looks up to the task, but what I think may be the even bigger draw for this movie is the larger than life villain she is going to face off against.  Her adversary is a mad man named Dr. Dementus, played by Chris Hemsworth who seems to be going full blown Australian in his demented, off-the-wall performance.  It’s going to be a lot of fun to watch Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth working off of each other, and the trailer shows a lot of the crazy, intense action that Miller has already demonstrated himself as being the master at.  Can it live up to high bar of Fury Road.  Let’s hope so, because it’s been a while since we’ve had a crazy ride like that worth taking.

KINDS OF KINDNESS (JUNE 21)

So, Yorgos Lanthimos has finally made the cut into my “must see” category.  After being a little cautious going into his last couple of movies based on the bad experience that I had with The Lobster (2015), I can now say that I am now excited to see what Yorgos has cooking for us next.  And he is not wasting any time either.  Right on the heels of his multiple Oscar winning feature Poor Things (2023), he has this new film heading to theaters right in the middle of summer.  What’s interesting with Kinds of Kindness is that it finds the director working again with contemporary set story, after spending his last couple films in period settings with Poor Thing and The Favourite (2018).  Even still, it looks like he’s still applying his odd ball sense of humor based on the trailer.  We don’t really get much of an idea about what the story will be in the teaser, but I imagine it will be some kind of darkly comic narrative with echoes of the Coen Brothers mixed in.  One of the big pluses for this film is that it is the third collaboration in a row between Yorgos and actress Emma Stone, who is also coming fresh off an Oscar win for Poor Things.  Emma has become something of a muse for Mr. Lanthimos as his best work in the past decade has been with her in the cast.  Both of them are coming off of the high of their recent Oscar success, and will be interesting to see the encore they have with this feature.  At the same time, the movie also has a few other alum from Lanthimos’ other films, including Poor Thing’s Willem Dafoe and The Favourite’s Joe Alwyn, plus an impressive cast of newcomers like Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau being brought into this weird mix.  Of all the counter-programming, art house fare being mixed in this Summer, I feel like this one will be the stand out and hopefully it’s one that hopefully continues to help me become more of a Yorgos Lanthimos fan.

MOVIES THE HAVE ME WORRIED

TWISTERS (JULY 19)

It’s hard to know exactly what kind of movie we are going to get with Twisters.  It seems odd that Universal would be making a sequel to their 1996 blockbuster after almost 30 years, but here we are.  The original, which was little more than a two hour demo reel for cutting edge for the time environmental CGI animation, isn’t exactly screaming out for a second chapter.  But, that’s exactly what we’re getting, and the only thing that seems to have been upgraded is the visual effects now catching up to the present day.  Other than that, it looks like we are getting the same story all over again, just with new actors.  The original film was notoriously corny and one dimensional, but over time that became part of it’s charm as audiences look to it now as an unintentional comedy.  I don’t know how much this sequel is going to lean into that, because it could go either way.  It could play things loose and have a little fun with itself, or it could take itself way too seriously and become something of a joke.  One thing that could be a negative for this movie is that it doesn’t have quite the same level of star power as the last, with the likes of Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman bringing some personality into the film.  None of the actors in this new one look bad per say, but I don’t think there is anything to really hook onto with their characters, except maybe the one played by Glen Powell, who is clearly stepping into the same type of role that the late Bill Paxton filled in the original.  Powell is on a career upswing right now after appearing in Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and the surprise rom com hit Anyone But You (2023), so that might be something working in the movie’s favorite.  I think it’s safe to say that much like the orginal Twister, this is going to end up being a pretty dumb movie.  Let’s just hope that it’s the fun kind of dumb that can at least make it an entertaining ride at the cinema.

HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA (PART 1 – JUNE 28 / PART 2 -AUGUST 16)

When Kevin Costner makes a movie, it seems like it’s go for broke every time.  The Actor/Director is a passionate filmmaker, and that is something to be admired.  However, he is someone known to be his own worst enemy on set; often being fatally self-indulgent.  His passion has paid off before in some of his movies, such as the Oscar winning Dances With Wolves (1990), but also at the same time his name has been connected to some of the most notorious flops in movie history, such as The Postman (1997).  His next film will indeed be a major test for Mr. Costner, as he returns to the Western genre that loves.  This two part epic saga is releasing less than two months apart from each other this Summer, which is going to be quite an experimental release strategy.  The last time I recall two interconnected movies being released in the same year, it was for the Matrix sequels, and it didn’t work out so well for those movies.  Really, any Western is going to be a hard sell for audiences, given that it’s not a huge money making genre at the moment.  So this movie is indeed going to be a gamble, and that could prove disastrous for Kevin if it doesn’t work out, because he apparently has a significant amount of personal investment put into this project.  There is no doubt that he’s going to make a beautiful looking movie with impressive panoramic shots; you can see that from the trailer.  But, the worry is that Costner’s penchant for self-indulgence could turn this into a fairly dull experience too, with too much time padded with unnecessary subplots and repetitive pacing.  Hopefully it’s more engaging than that.  One of Costner’s more underrated films was the Western Open Range (2003), which had a very memorable shootout in the finale.  My hope is that both parts of Horizon carries that same kind of engaging action, and that all of Costner’s better impulses as a director are utilized, with the indulgences kept in check.

ALIEN: ROMULUS (JUNE 16)

At first the instinct is to roll your eyes at the aspect of there being another film in the Alien franchise.  The series honestly hasn’t found it’s footing since James Cameron’s action packed sequel Aliens (1986).  This new movie on the other hand does show some promise.  From the looks of this teaser, it does appear that the series is returning to it’s horror movie roots.  In a sense we are getting the old school haunted house of horrors style Alien, the kind that director Ridley Scott brilliantly realized in the 1978 original.  Of course, that’s what the trailer is having us believe will be the case, and it could end up being a misdirect.  We’ve been tricked before into believing that Aliens was redefining itself with a new direction, including a couple directed by Ridley Scott himself.  But other than James Cameron’s beloved sequel, none of them panned out.  One thing that does show promise with this movie is that it’s being directed by Fede Alvarez who made the thriller Don’t Breathe (2016), which is a film that plays upon surviving in claustrophobic situations.  Perhaps he’ll make that work well in this movie too, which indeed would be truer to the spirit of the original Aliens.  We’ll have to see if the new direction works out in the end.  It’s been too long since an Alien movie has truly felt scary.  The image of a swarm of facehuggers attacking the crew of the ship certainly is an unsettling image.  Plus this movie looks dimly lit and filled with steam, which is a definite call back to the original film’s mood setting environments.  There’s always the worry that these franchise revivals are just more empty promises, but here the desire to bring this series back to it’s roots is something worth holding out hope for.

BORDERLANDS (AUGUST 9)

It’s a good time right now to be in the business of adapting video games into film.  The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) broke all sorts of box office records, while Sonic the Hedgehog has been enjoying a surprisingly successful run of it’s own with his franchise.  On the television side, we’ve also seen acclaimed adaptations of The Last of Us and Fallout hit the airwaves.  Now this Summer we are getting a big screen adaptations of one of the most popular shoot-em-up games from the last decade; Borderlands.  The movie has some promise to it, with an all-star cast attached to it, including a couple Oscar winners like Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis.  The movie also looks to be faithfully recreating the look of the video games, which had a sort of comic book art style to it.  The one thing that worries me about this film is that it seems to be trying to hard to be another Guardians of the Galaxy rip off.  Maybe that’s just the way it’s being marketed, but there definitely seems to be a Guardians vibe in the movie’s sense of humor.  And yeah Eli Roth is a talented filmmaker, but he is no James Gunn.  The reason Guardians of the Galaxy works so well is because James Gunn’s unique voice comes through so well in the incredible balance between the humor of the movie and the emotional resonance beneath the surface.  This movie just seems to be aping the humor of the Guardians  movies, but is missing the heart.  I hope I’m wrong, and that the movie is more substantive than that.  But if it is just another copycat, it will be a huge waste of a beloved video game IP that certainly has the potential to be the next big action movie franchise.  Let’s hope what ends up saving this movie is a harder, possibly R-rated edge that eschews close to the game itself, and that it’s not watered down for general audiences.

MOVIES TO SKIP:

KRAVEN THE HUNTER (AUGUST 30)

In an environment where comic book movies are universally on the decline, the Sony Spider-Verse is easily scrapping the bottom.  Apart from the successful animated projects they have going on and the Tom Hardy led Venom movies, the Sony Spider-Man adjacent movies have been the laughing stock of the industry.  2022’s Morbius seemed to have set a new low for the franchise, but that was until we were subjected to the mind-numbingly bad Madame Web this Spring.  Things don’t look too much better going into this Summer with their next film based on the famous Spider-Man adversary, Kraven the Hunter.  The movie was actually due to premiere last Fall, but it was pushed back almost a full year partially due to the on-going strikes, but also because the overall field was just too oversaturated with comic book movies.  I don’t feel like the delay is going to help this movie either, because the look of it still has that cheap, low effort feeling that we got from Morbius and Madame Web.  The only upside is an R-Rating, which will make the violence a bit more brutal.  But it’s becoming increasingly sad watching Sony desperately trying to stretch out their stranglehold on the Spider-Man IP by making sub par films based on characters only loosely connected to the webslinger.  They are itching to get another proper Spider-Man movie into production again, and it’s sad that we have to suffer through this cynical cash grabs in the meantime.  The next animated Spider-Verse movie or MCU connected adventure can’t come soon enough.

TAROT (MAY 3)

Speaking of low effort, here we have yet another horror movie trying to bank off of an already known property.  This one uses Tarot cards as the basis for it’s horror elements, and the whole thing just looks like more of a gimmick than an actual movie.  The trailer pretty much is showing us the standard jump scare fare we see from a dozen other horror movies, but the things that the characters are supposed to be scarred by seem especially unimaginative.  When you make movie monsters that are supposed to be iconic, they have to be distinct and I don’t see creatures like The Magician or The Hermit catching on with audiences.  I know that there was a successful horror movie based on the Ouija board game, but that one only worked because it had a visionary in the horror genre like Mike Flannagan behind the camera.  I highly doubt that Tarot is going to be any more than the movie we have here.

DESPICABLE ME 4 (JULY 3)

It sadly has become the case in recent years.  Illumination Animation has consistently put out subpar movies that are light on story and heavy with sophomoric humor, and they never seem to strive to be any better than what have become.  And even still, appealing to the lowest common denominator, they still make a billion dollars with every film they make.  I just don’t get it.  I understand that these movies are not meant for me, but I’ve seen so many other animation studios branch out and try to do bolder things.  Illumination just sort of sticks in their lane, which I guess has worked out for them, but they are creatively inert as a studio.  And lo and behold, we get yet another entry in their flagship Despicable Me franchise, with of course those cash cow Minions playing a central role.   I haven’t watched anything in this franchise beyond the first film and nothing about the marketing of Despicable Me 4 makes me want to jump back on board either.

So, there you have my preview of the upcoming Summer movie season.  It’s going to feel much different this year with the smaller sampling of tentpoles that we’re used to.  Marvel, which usually puts out multiple films a year, is giving up their entire calendar year solely to Deadpool and Wolverine, which is a telling sign about the changing dynamics of the industry at this moment.  We probably would’ve had a different Summer this year had the studios not wasted so much time trying to wear out the striking workers to no avail.  And the sad thing, it’s the already struggling theatrical market that bears the burden of a slower year at the box office.  It’s unfortunate, but at the same time, there needed to be a shift made in the way movies were being distributed.  The old way was just not working anymore in a post-pandemic environment, and 2023 say many potential blockbusters crash at the box office because too many of them were underperforming because of their massive budgets and lack of interest from audiences.  2024 will hopefully be a year of healing, and perhaps we may find in this year a better sense of what the future may hold for the industry as it starts to find it’s footing again.  I doubt this Summer will see another Barbenheimer phenomenon, but there could be some fun surprises at the box office.  My only hope is that the movie theaters are able to weather what will likely be another depressed year at the box office, and hopefully there will be enough strong performers at the box office to drive up business.  I can imagine Deadpool being a big draw, and sadly yes even the Minions in Despicable Me 4; I still don’t like them, but I know movie theaters owners do because they’re good for business.  And hopefully the ratio of box office successes is parallel to what movies are actually good this year.  With Barbenheimer, we got two great movies that could also make a lot of money for their studios.  My hope is that the movies this Summer follow that lead and are able to be great movies themselves.  So, I hope my guide has been helpful.  Have a wonderful Summer and a good time at the cinema.

Film Exhibit Reviews

TCM Classic Film Festival 2024 – Film Exhibition Report

Turner Classic Movies went through quite a year since the Festival held in Hollywood in the spring of 2023.  In the midst of all the cost cutting going on at offices of Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of the beloved cable channel, there were rumors that TCM may have been on the chopping block as well.  This was thought to be the case when a massive round of layoffs were passed down in the TCM offices.  It lead many to speculate that the channel itself was on it’s way towards shutting it’s doors completely, or perhaps be merged into another channel under the WBD umbrella.  This worried many fans of the network, and it lead to an unprecedented intervention on the part of high profile figures like Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson personally imploring Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslev to spare TCM.  With TCM shedding so much of it’s staff, there was also the worry that some of the collateral of that shake-up could include the end of one of TCM’s greatest yearly traditions; it’s annual Film Festival in the heart of Hollywood.  Thankfully, the worries of an end to TCM and it’s Film Festival were relieved when it was announced that the network was going to live on, as well as the Festival.  And it’s a great thing that both survived into the next year too, because 2024 happens to be a landmark celebration for both TCM and the Film Festival.  This year marks 30 years since TCM first hit the airwaves in 1994 and for the Festival, this is it’s 15th year (though not the 15th edition, since 2 years were cancelled due to Covid).  For many classic movie fans who come to Hollywood every year from all over the country (as well as the local ones like myself) this is an especially welcome thing to see happen given how close we all thought it might be coming to an end.  I of course have my Festival coverage below, broken up by each day I attended, and I will give you my movie by movie breakdown of this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, including all the special guests I saw, the experiences of seeing these classics on a big screen, and just my general overall thoughts about the vibe of the Festival.  So, let’s get started.

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2024

Like with the last couple of years, I have had to work my day job during the festivals first two days.  This limits me being available only to see the evening and nighttime showings at the fest.  Thankfully, the Festival doesn’t actually begin until 6:00pm on Opening Night.  So, right as I got off work, I made my way cross town quickly to get to the Hollywood and Highland complex, now called Ovation Hollywood.  Here is the home of all the main venues of the Festival; the legendary TCL Chinese Theater as well as the Chinese Multiplex.  Thankfully, this year’s Festival marks the triumphant return of another iconic venue to the Festival that has been missing the last couple years; Grauman’s Egyptian Theater.  The Egyptian had been closed since 2019 in preparation for a massive remodel to the century old structure, and it’s construction had been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Finally, the theater re-opened last November and it has now been returned to the stable of venues for the TCM Fest.  The American Legion Hollywood Post, which had filled the vacancy these last couple years was retired as a venue this year, with no word on if it may be brought back in future Festivals.  The Legion is a fine and beautiful theater and it’ll be missed this year to be sure, though I feel a lot of Festival patrons are happy this year that they don’t have to make the half mile trek up the hill any more to get there, with the Egyptian being refreshingly closer.  And like year’s past, the Egyptian is also bringing back one of the Festival’s most unique attractions; screenings of ultra-rare Nitrate prints.  For this first night, My focus was on some of the smaller screenings in the multiplex.

The first film I chose to start my Festival experience with was a bit of  last minute choice.  Basically, I needed to pick a movie that started at a time late enough for me to get to from work on time, but not too late to make it harder to fit in another movie after it.  So, what I ended up choosing was the Rock Hudson and Doris Day romantic comedy Send Me No Flowers (1964).  Thankfully, it worked out on my schedule and I was able to find a seat for this film fairly easily, given that it was playing in one of the Chinese multiplex theaters.  The film was introduced by TCM personality Alicia Malone, who gave us some context for the film we were about to watch.  This was the third and last collaboration between Hudson and Day, and it was also an early film for one of the rising star filmmakers who would help define the next generation of cinema in the decades ahead; the late Norman Jewison.  To conclude her introduction, Malone called on four members of the audience to share any trivia about Doris Day that they’d like to share.  One of the four just so happened to be in the middle of writing a book about Ms. Day and he shared his own personal experience about meeting her for an interview.  Each person called up was given a TCM Festival pin as a prize, and after that it was ready to get the Festival rolling with the first movie of the night.  This was the first movie of this year’s festival that would be a first time viewing for me.  I can tell you it’s not my type of movie, but it was interesting to see this very specific era of film in the way it was intended to be seen on the big screen.  It’s also neat to see the versatility of Norman Jewison on display, especially comparing this to his later work like In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971).  So, a low key but nevertheless successful start to this year’s festival.

While my first movie was playing, the Festival was having it’s official opening night kickoff in the iconic Chinese Theater.  Those opening night shows in the Chinese are limited to just the highest level pass holders, and even among them it’s a hot ticket event.  Being someone who solely goes through the standby lines, I of course go in knowing those shows will be closed off to me.  I can, however, take a look at the pre-show red carpet for that screening, albeit from the opposite sidewalk across Hollywood Boulevard.  I didn’t see much in the way of famous faces, though I did find it interesting that this year they included a spectator bench to the Chinese Theater courtyard for a select number of fans to watch the celebrities as they arrive; ala what they do in a similar way at the Oscars.  For this year, the big event is the 30th anniversary screening of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), with John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Harvey Keitel as the special guests.  But, I needed to quickly make my way to the next and final show of my night.  This one was going to be tricky, because it was playing in the smallest of theaters at this festival; Chinese Multiplex Auditorium #4.  Capacity in this venue is only 150 seats, so a standby ticket is hard to come by.  Remarkably, I was able to get one of the very few available.  Once inside, I could see that the room was nearly full, and I grabbed the closest single seat I could find.  The pre-show discussion was already started, which for this movie included a sit down interview between TCM host Jacqueline Stewart and character actor Stephen Tobolowsky.  Tobolowsky was there to talk about the movie we were about to watch, the Oscar winning Grand Hotel (1932), and more specifically about it’s star, Greta Garbo.  As a self-professed Garbo fan, he talked at length about what the movie meant as part of her legendary career, including giving her the most famous quote of her movie career, “I want to be alone.”  One of the other perks of getting a covet seat in Theater #4 is that it is one of only two venues playing film prints at this festival, the other being the Egyptian.  It was a first time viewing for me, and though the print was very scratched up, I am grateful that I saw it with fresh eyes the way it was meant to be seen, on celluloid.  This was a great way to start off this year’s fest and there are still three more to look ahead to.

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024

After another work day, I planned to spend the following evening trying to catch at least another two movies.  Instead of heading straight to the venues from work, I decided to focus on the late night showings on my second festival day.  Unfortunately, I missed out on a lot of great movies on this Friday, including a screening of 101 Dalmatians (1961) at the El Capitan Theater across from the Chinese (the only use of that venue for this festival), a screening of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) at the Chinese with Jodie Foster as the special guest, and another Chinese Theater screening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with Steven Spielberg as the special guest.  A lot of sadly missed opportunities that I had to skip because of work, but this Friday night still offered some important screenings that I was eager to attend.  Chief among them was a 9:45pm screening of the horror thriller Se7en (1995), with director David Fincher as the special guest.  I made sure I got myself in line early for this one, because even though it’s a late night show, a big ticket attraction like this one still could turn into a sold out show.  Thankfully, being prepared worked out and my placement in line was early enough to get a standby ticket for the show.  What I found interesting was that the Chinese Theater’s IMAX screen was fully opened up without masking, meaning we were going to get this film shown in an IMAX format.  I didn’t even know that there was an IMAX version of Se7en, but apparently there is.  Though there was a good amount of people in the theater, it turned out not to be a sell-out, and I was able to get a good seat not too close to the massive screen (the largest in North America according to the festival’s fact sheet).

There was a little hope in me that we would get a surprise special guest from the movie to join David Fincher on stage, similar to how George Clooney joined director Steven Soderbergh in the last minute at the screening of Ocean’s Eleven (2001) at last year’s festival.  Actor Morgan Freeman was scheduled to be at the Festival for the Saturday afternoon screening of The Shawshank Redemption (1994), so I thought there might be a chance he’s show up to this one too, but alas it was not the case.  Still, our screening still had David Fincher who was definitely worthy of the wait in line to see this night.  He talked about how this movie helped to save his directing career after the disaster that was his debut with Aliens 3 (1992).  He also talked about the difficulty of convincing the studio to keep the identity of the actor playing the villainous John Doe a secret in the marketing, so that it would be a surprise when it’s revealed to be Kevin Spacey.  It was an interesting interview, conducted by Noir Alley host Eddie Mueller, and helped to give us some interesting insight into the movie we were about to watch.  In IMAX format, I can definitely say that Se7en looked pretty incredible.  Even after nearly 30 years, the movie look pristine and the IMAX presentation really made the film feel even more engrossing, which could be very spine-tingling given the subject matter of the film.  Unfortunately, because the movie started so late into the night, I had to make a tough choice; do I stay and watch the whole movie and have it be my one and only movie for the day, or do I duck out early to catch the midnight screening happening in the multiplex?  It was not easy, but I wanted to get another movie in before I left for the night, so I chose to leave with ten minutes left in the movie.  Unfortunately, those are the most famous ten minutes of the movie Se7en, the “what’s in the box?” scene, which turns the film into a tragic masterpiece.  But, I’ve seen the movie before so I knew what I was going to miss and was fine with my choice.

So, leaving the main show behind, I made my way quickly to the Chinese Multiplex Auditorium #6, which was hosting the midnight show for this evening.  The movie selected was a pre-Code era sensationalist film called The Road to Ruin (1934).  This was one of those cautionary tale movies to teach audiences about the evils of a debaucherous lifestyle, while at the same time indulging in it for the shock value on screen.  The movie was introduced by Quatoyiah Murry, an author for the TCM Underground and a former channel manager for TCM’s YouTube page.  She gave an interesting rundown about the movie’s history, and how it skirted the restrictions of the Hays Code by positioning itself as “educational.”  Thus far, I have to say since I started attending the midnight showings at the TCM Film Fest in these post-pandemic years I’ve had the most interesting mix off films.  In 2022, I watched an 80’s apocalyptic thriller and last year I saw a Mexican sexploitation super hero movie.  This pre-Code film era film is another interesting choice for a midnight show, and it is a fascinating relic of it’s time.  I was shocked to see a movie, made just shortly after sound became mainstream in Hollywood, that had a scene where a woman is shown topless.  That kind of moment in a film of that era is shocking to see, knowing how much the Hays code cracked down on anything deemed remotely sexual in any way.  It really gives you a sense of just how much the art of film was allowed to go in it’s early days before things changed and censorship became the norm.  The movie itself kind of reminded me of Reefer Madness (1936), with the way it exploits it’s subject for shock value, while also lecturing the audience with it’s heavy handed morals.  And with that, a second day is finished.  The next two will be where the bulk of my Festival experience will take place as I have the weekends off from work.

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024

Day 3 is typically where my TCM Film Festival experience really ramps up, and this year was no exception.  I began the morning later in the day after sleeping in because of the midnight show from the night before.  One of my goals this year was to attend one of the few screenings using a nitrate print.  These rare and fragile film prints made on the highly flammable film stock are always an interesting thing to see screened, and I’m very happy they have returned this year, along with the theater that hosts them; the Egyptian.  This isn’t my first time back in the Egyptian Theater.  I paid a visit back when it first re-opened in November 2023 and saw a screening of Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023) there.  Suffice to say, the remodel is spectacular and the Egyptian finally looks the way it should with it’s interiors finally restored to their original ornate glory.  The seating has been greatly improved as well, with more space and cushioning.  Eye levels are also much better, and the theater’s acoustic levels are amazing.  This year’s festival only has their Nitrate screenings on Saturday in the Egyptian, so I had to choose the later to fit in my schedule.  The nitrate movie I ended up seeing was the 1950 musical, Annie Get Your Gun, starring Betty Hutton and Howard Keel.  Before the movie started, host Eddie Mueller brought up the manager of the theater to speak about the safety precautions we needed to know before the start of the screening.  Essentially she reassured us that the film was in the hands of trained professionals, but in the case of a fire breaking out, she pointed to the nearest exits.  It was good to know that they were adamant about letting us know the risks involved in screening these rare, volatile prints.  The screening itself was interesting, given the condition of the print.  It’s definitely an old copy, likely from it’s first run in theaters, and it’s got all the scratches and stains to show for it.  In some ways, this improved upon the experience because you are in a way going back in time watching a movie this way.

With the first show of the day complete, and one of my must sees scratched of the list, it was time to head over to the Chinese for my second show.  This one would be a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), a movie that I’ve seen a dozen times, but never on the big screen before, so it was something I was looking forward to.  The problem at the same time is that many other people also had the same goal.  When I got in the standby line, there were already 50 other people in front of me.  There was a chance that this would be my first sold out show of the festival.  Thankfully, I was able to get in, but it took quite a while to funnel us standby ticket holders inside the Chinese Theater, because there were so many pass holders getting in there first.  I found my seat pretty close to screen and off to the side.  The auditorium was close to the fullest that I have ever seen, which is pretty remarkable for the 912 seat venue.  Given the lengthy amount of time it took us to get in, the pre-show discussion was already in full swing.  TCM host Alicia Malone was present and her guest was writer/director Nancy Myers.  She was there to mainly talk about the film’s star Cary Grant.  While I missed most of her interview, I was able to catch perhaps the highlight at the end.  Myers talked about her early days as a writers assistant, and one of her jobs was working with legendary film critic Gene Siskel.  Siskel just so happened to be granted a sit down interview with Cary Grant and somehow Nancy Myers got roped in to assist, and she recounted how she was able to spend a whole weekend in the company of Cary during the whole interview process.  That’s quite a story to hear, and I’m glad that I was able to catch at least this part.  Of course, seeing North by Northwest on the giant Chinese Theater screen was worth it too, and it’s definitely the kind of movie that was made for this kind of venue.

From there, I had my eye on one of the more unique programs at this festival, which was a special presentation called Back from the Ink: Restored Animated Shorts.  Apparently the UCLA Film Archive and The Film Foundation have collaborated on restoring old animated shorts from the 30’s and 40’s that had deteriorated into poor condition and this festival was going to premiere the results of their efforts.  Most of the shorts were from the now defunct Fleischer Animation studios and were languishing in the public domain, so quite a few of these have been largely forgotten and unseen by audiences.  This special program was going to be hosted by animation historian Ben Model and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.  It was something that I was looking forward to seeing, but alas, this became my first sell out of the Festival.  Probably should have seen it coming given the near sell out that I experienced at the Chinese.  This was in the smaller Multiplex screens, so it makes sense that high demand among pass holders made this a hard to get into program.  So, I went with my back up showing, which was in the same multiplex.  It was a screening of Ernest Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner (1940) which I chose as a back up because it was yet another movie I hadn’t seen yet.  No special guests, other than an intro by Eddie Mueller.  For the final film of the night, I chose to see Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954), mainly because it was the next earliest screening available.  The screening was the easiest to get into, as the 300 seat Auditorium #1 only got half full.  Thankfully, we had a special guest for this screening; British film director Mike Newell.  Newell is famous for movies as varied Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) which had anniversary screening at the Festival, as well as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2004).  He had an interesting talk about Fellini, as well as noting that his wife once acted in one of Fellini’s films, which is where he managed to encounter him.  While the movie played, we unfortunately had a mishap as the fire alarm started blaring.  The movie was paused and everyone had to evacuate.  Thankfully, it was a false alarm but it made for a odd finale to my third night of the Festival

SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024

So, here’s the conundrum that I found myself in on my final day of the Festival.  My favorite movie of all time, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was being screened in the morning, inside the magnificent Egyptian Theater with a pristine 70mm print.  How could I pass up an opportunity like that.  Well, I did.  It was very tempting to see Lawrence in the best imaginable presentation, but given the movie’s 3 hour an 40 minute run time, it would’ve left me with very few other options for the rest of the day, and I wanted to spend that day watching as many movies as I could.  So, I chose to use the same amount of time watching two other films that I hadn’t seen before.  My first show of the day was a 9:00 am screening of the movie National Velvet (1944) starring Mickey Rooney and a then 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.  The special guest for this screening was Ms. Taylor’s personal assistant during her last several years, Tim Mendelson.  It was interesting to hear him talk about being in the legendary actress’ inner circle towards the end of her life.  One of his main duties was to help her with the management of her perfume line, White Diamonds, which he generously brought free samples of for the whole audience.  Of the never seen before movies that I saw at this year’s festival, this may have been the best discovery.  I found it to be an especially charming little film with incredibly beautiful Technicolor cinematography.  It was also crazy not just to see Elizabeth Taylor so young, but also her co-star, the late Angela Lansbury, who was a teen when she made this.  My second movie of the day was in the Chinese Theater.  It was a 70th anniversary screening of Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954).  The special guest of this screening was not anyone associated with the movie, but more so a famous fan.  Actor Kin Shiner of General Hospital fame was there to introduce the movie, and mainly to talk about actress Audrey Hepburn, whom he had gotten to meet on several different occasions during his career.  Again, it was great to have my first experience with this movie on a screen as big as the Chinese, and while it isn’t exactly top tier Billy Wilder like Double Indemnity (1944) or Sunset Boulevard (1950), it was still a fresh and funny little romantic comedy.

The next movie that I had planned for the day was a 70mm screening of John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) at the Egyptian.  My hope was to get in one more screening at the festival inside the returned venue, and to also get the opportunity to see this classic in pristine 70mm.  Unfortunately, this was another extremely popular event at this year’s festival.  The pass holder line pretty much filled up the entire Egyptian courtyard, which has also been beautifully restored.  My place in the standby line was number 69, so it was going to be a miracle if I got in.  Not only did a miracle not happen, but not a single person in standby made it into the screening.  I believe even a few pass holders were even turned away.  So, my number of sell outs numbered 2 this year.  But, there was one more goal that I had yet to complete, and this was perhaps priority number one for the entire Festival itself for me.  The closing night show in the Chinese Theater was going to be a screening of Spaceballs (1987), and director Mel Brooks was going to be attending.  I knew this was going to be a big deal showing, given that Mel is now 97 years old and you don’t really know if he’ll ever come to one of these Festival screenings ever again.  I could fit another movie in between as a back up for my sell out at The Searchers, which might have likely been the current screening of Chinatown (1974), also in the Chinese Theater.  But, seeing that would mean getting into the standby line for Spaceballs too late.  So, I decided to cut my total number of movies short at 11 total instead of 12, and I took my place in line a full 3 hours before showtime.  There were already two other people there before me with the same idea.  We ended up killing our time in line by talking movies, so thankfully I wasn’t standing there bored.  That’s one of the great things about the TCM Festival is that it’s easy to find strangers in line with the same passionate love for movies as I do, making small talk easy to participate in before the movie starts.  Despite what looked like an impossibly long line of pass holders giving us the impression that we might be in for another sell out, they did thankfully let in standby guests, and my lucky number 3 paid off.

The theater looked as full as the North by Northwest screening the day before, and there were plenty of people seated close to the front, likely in anticipation of seeing Mel up close.  I was seated a few rows back, with a good enough view of both the stage and the screen.  Before the start of the interview, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, who I realized was absent from every one of my screenings at this festival until this one, came up to the podium and gave shout outs to all of the behind the scenes staff who put the festival on this year.  Of course, the moment of the evening was here and Ben brought out Mel Brooks to thunderous applause from the 900 strong in the Chinese Theater audience.  Mel, for someone of his advanced age, still looked fantastic and in great spirits.  And most importantly, he still has the power to make us all laugh.  During the interview, he mentioned how he got his first role by having a great impression of a cat, which he hilariously demonstrated.  The he said he also does a great Hitler too, to which he pulled a comb from his pocket and held it up to his nose making it look like the dictator’s distinct mustache.  The interview was a blast to listen to, especially with all of Mel’s hilarious tangents.  I especially liked his summation of the Star Wars movies, saying it’s got a lot of “zaps.”  I’m sure the interview could have gone on for as long as both Ben and Mel wanted, and Ben seemed almost emotional as he thanked Mel for being there, but they had to end the interview so they could start up the movie and bring the Festival to a close.  It was my third time seeing Mel Brooks at the TCM Film Festival, the other times being for screenings of The Twelve Chairs (1970) and High Anxiety (1977).  I’m grateful for every time I get to see one of my heroes like Mel Brooks live in person, and I feel that this one will be especially monumental, because it could very well be the last time.  The movie of course was great, and though I’ve already seen it many times before, this was a first on a big screen.  It’s also always great to end the TCM Film Festival on a comedy, because of that high of laughing together with a crowd of other film lovers in an amazing cinematic venue like the Chinese Theater.

So, there you have my chronicle of my experience at the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival.  Though I was disappointed that I missed my record goal of 12 movies in total, I still got up to 11 movies overall, and even better, I got into my top priority events as well.  I was especially happy to be back at the Egyptian this year.  The Egyptian was very much missed over the last couple Festivals.  While it’s too bad that a great venue like the Legion Theater was left out to make way for it’s return, I don’t feel like the shuffling up of locations deterred the overall experience.  I also managed to catch at least one movie in each of the venues at this year’s festival, including the elusive Auditorium #4 at the multiplex.  I was also able to see some great special guests at the Festival this year, with Mel Brooks and David Fincher being the highlights.  One thing that I still wish was available are the program books.  Those always made great souvenirs from each festival.  Sadly, all they give out now are fold-up schedules that don’t tell you anything about the movies.  Instead, you have to look up the details on the app.  Even still, there is little to complain about with this festival and I commend TCM on their organization and flawless presentation.  It’s just such a great experience spending four days out there in the heart of Hollywood mingling with other die hard cinephiles and sharing our love of cinema.  It’s also a great way to make new discoveries with movies that are new to me at each festival, helping to keep my love for classic cinema burning brightly.  I hope the big wigs at Warner Brothers Discovery are taking note and seeing the value of the TCM brand and how beloved this Festival is to so many.  I will definitely be looking forward to next years Festival, and I feel confident that the TCM Classic Film Festival will remain an essential part of Hollywood’s annual festivities.

Movie Reviews

Civil War – Review

It’s no mystery that we are in polarizing times.  With online discourse fanning the flames of mundane disagreements into profound cultural wedges, it’s as difficult as it has ever been to discuss anything civilly anymore.  This is especially true when discussing media, as too many people are quick to project their own prejudices upon any new TV show or film without ever having seen one second of it.  Sometimes you’ll get a film that can rise above the “culture war” attacks, like last year’s Barbie (2023) did, but too often a new movie that tries to shake up the normal formula will be subjugated to attacks from purists, or people who are just looking to stir up controversy just for the clicks.  While online discourse is tiresome when it delves into “culture war” discussions, there is also the growing anxiety that is rising from the lack of accountability in our media coverage.  We are at a point where accountability can not keep up with the quickness of viral social media, and misinformation has become rampant in our culture.  Before the truth wills out, the misinformation will sadly have taken hold with too many people, and this has led to the rise of radicalization which leads to increasingly tense situations in our society.  Worries about rising violence in our communities are becoming ever more a concern in today’s age, and that makes many people wonder if our union as a nation is heading toward a cataclysmic end.  With that worry circulating in our culture, it makes one wonder how movies of this era will document the moment we are living in.  Given how “culture war” discussions have become so toxic in recent years, any movie or show that tries to take it head on is likely to face a heavy bit of scrutiny and resistance.  And stirring up controversy is something that the major movie studios are keen to avoid.  Luckily there are risk takers out there like A24 who are willing to stick their necks out and make a movie that at the very least tries to put some perspective on what a moment like this could lead us towards.

Into this tumultuous time comes a new film from Writer and Director Alex Garland.  Garland first gained notoriety for his gritty and grounded screenplay for the zombie flick 28 Days Later (2002), which was directed for the screen by Danny Boyle.  Garland would contribute a number of other celebrated screenplays before ultimately stepping behind the camera himself.  His directorial debut, Ex Machina (2015) was lauded for it’s subtle, grounded portrayal of the perils of unchecked A.I. implementation, and how it could wreck havoc by blurring the lines between reality and artificiality.  It also won a surprise academy award for it’s visual effects, which did a remarkable job of transforming actress Alicia Vikander into a humanoid robot.  Garland’s follow-up, Annihilation (2018) was even more of a mind-trip, bringing a new twist to the alien invasion subgenre of Science Fiction.  He left his Sci-Fi comfort zone with the horror thriller Men (2022), which is his most divisive film to date, as well as his least successful at the box office.  Coming off of that, he is embarking on his most ambitious film yet as a filmmaker with a scenario that feels eerily timely.  Civil War (2024) imagines a scenario where the United States of America has broken out into a second civil war.  It’s a risky type of movie to make  because in this kind of climate, especially in an election year, too many people are going to try to project their own political views upon the movie, which could either drive people away or be misinterpreted as something it is not.  Before the movie even was released, some pundits were poking holes in the premise of the movie, noting that the U.S. government in the film is at war with an alliance of the states of California and Texas, which of course is not something that could happen today given that both of those state’s governments are polar opposites in their political make-up at the moment.  But, Alex Garland is not telling a story about America as it is now, but is instead imagining an America that could exist and telling us a story about the people who would be caught up in the chaos that a modern Civil War could bring.

The subjects of Alex Garland’s Civil War are not the main players in this nation at war with itself, but rather the people who are risking their lives trying to capture the memory of it.  It’s a story about a rag tag group of journalists who risk their lives in order to capture the brutal reality of the war as it happens.  We meet Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura), two Reuters affiliated documentarians who are partnered up as they cover rioting in the war torn city of New York.  Lee is a celebrated veteran photographer who has seen one too many wars in her lifetime, while Joel is an interviewer who craves the adrenaline rush of combat.  While they make rest in their hotel, they have a conversation with a veteran New York Times journalist named Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who was once a mentor to the two.  They let it slip to Sammy that their next goal is to head to Washington D.C. and get an exclusive interview with the President of the United States (Nick Offerman).  Sammy tells them it’s a suicide mission, as the Western Forces of California and Texas have advanced far into the Government’s territory and are now encircling the Capital.  And if they even make it past the frontlines and into D.C., the President’s army has been ordered to shoot all intruders, including journalists.  Lee and Joel still remain determined, and they even offer Sammy a ride knowing that he has the same goal that they do.  Before they make their treacherous trip southward, the team takes on another passenger, a young freelance photographer named Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) who looks up to Lee and wants to get her first taste of combat coverage.  The four passengers head out on a Heart of Darkness like journey through the depths of the once prosperous nation now brought to ruin through conflict.  Through it, they experience the extremes of both sides of the battle, and even have run ins with psychopaths who thrive in the chaos of war.  And as they get closer to Washington, D.C., the more violent and dark the world becomes.

Suffice to say, Alex Garland’s Civil War is not an easy movie to watch.  The film is very blunt about the atrocities of war and how it is often impossible to decipher who are the good and bad guys in the moment of battle.  It’s a very smart move on Garland’s part to not make the movie about the politics of the the two warring sides, but instead center the movie on the journalists who put their lives on the line in order to document the events that take place.  Now the movie is not entirely apolitical; the film does portray the President as a despotic dictator who has committed atrocities in the past against the American people as a means to hold onto power, and the timing of the story puts the conflict in it’s final days where the Government is on it’s last legs, showing definitively who the victors in this war will be.  But that’s all background noise.  Garland’s movie doesn’t try to hold up a mirror to our current political climate, but rather makes us the audience understand the gruesome nature of war by showing us an all too realistic portrayal of modern combat in a setting which hasn’t seen combat on it’s soil since the first Civil War.  The movie’s message is that there’s nothing glamourous about fighting in a war, and that the hard work of wartime journalists is terrifying but also essential.  And that’s what makes the movie such a profound experience that really needs to be experienced.  If anything, this is a more essential movie than anything that would have carried a more pointed political argument.  Anyone who trivializes the nature of war and thinks that another Civil War fought in this country would be an ideal outcome in order to silence those who disagree with them should be required to watch this movie and see what a folly that would be.  It’s a profound statement that I’m happy to see Alex Garland make.

Despite working with a bigger canvas and budget, Garland’s Civil War is still just as grounded as most of his other movies.  Garland’s directorial style is not flashy and remains centered and precise, giving us a very you are there feel.  This helps very much with the world building of the movie.  The America in this film is not some post-Apocalyptic hellscape, but rather a country that still looks familiar and somewhat in tact, but has been scarred by battle.  One of the things that this movie reminded me of is the recent Best Documentary winner at this year’s Academy Awards, 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), which was a movie compiled of footage from real war journalists who captured the early days of the Ukraine-Russian war in 2022 in the titular war torn city.  Having seen that documentary and the horrible things that it shows, you see the desperate ways that people try to hold their cities together even as war is trying to tear it apart.  Places that were once peaceful suddenly become devoid of life and littered with the reminders of war, like the wreckage of a helicopter in a mall parking lot, or an apartment high rise turned into a swiss cheese like ruin through constant shelling.  In Garland’s film, he juxtaposes those images in profound ways that constantly reminds you of how fragile peacetime can be, and how things we just take for granted can be taken away suddenly.  Suddenly, a routine gas station stop could turn into a life or death situation depending on how you interact with the locals.  There are times in the movie where I do feel Garland’s imagination does exceed the limitations of his budget, as some of the rendering with the visual effects do look a little cheap and it breaks the illusion, but thankfully these are rare as the movie presents the majority of the action in ground level depictions of combat.  And this is definitely a movie that benefits from a robust sound system as the battle scenes are loud and intense.

The staging of the battle scenes are definitely the highlight of the movie, as Alex Garland puts you right on the ground in the midst of it all.  You really experience the battles in this movie the way that the war journalists would.  One thing that I really liked in this movie is the emphasis it puts on capturing moments in combat that will inevitably be what the war leaves behind and frames it’s history.  This is shown in the film as snapshots taken by the characters of Lee and Jessie.  As the battle scenes play out, you see the characters aim their cameras and then the movie pauses for a second and displays the still photo that they just took, with the sound also being paused in that scene to emphasize the singular documentation that has been made.  It makes you think of the war photographs that have survived throughout history and how those brief moments have shaped our understanding of what the wars were, from something triumphant like the flag raising in the Battle of Iwo Jima to something horrific like the pained faces of the survivors of the My Lai Massacre.  A picture can say a thousand words, and this movie puts an emphasis on what it means to capture a moment that matters in a battleground photograph.  Jessie even uses an older model camera that runs on film, and she is able to capture her subjects in an even grittier black and white image.  While the movie is limited in budget, it nevertheless feels big when viewed through the eyes of the characters in this movie.  This is especially true in the climatic battle in Washington D.C. at the end of the film.  The movie doesn’t try to be epic in it’s depiction of a fortified D.C., but rather shows us what it likely would look like in a realistic sense, meaning crude barricades quickly built in an urban setting.  The battle scenes are still shot in an impressive way by cinematographer Rob Hardy where you do feel the scope of the conflict as it’s happening, and it’s definitely the type of movie that benefits from the biggest possible screen.

A lot of the success of the movie comes down to the authenticity of the performances in the film.  We know very little about the characters other than what their jobs are, and they only give us the briefest of backstory.  Mainly, it’s up to the actors to define these personalities, and the cast assembled does an outstanding job.  Kirsten Dunst does an especially great job of conveying a person who is just numb to all the violence that surrounds her.  There’s a great moment in the movie where she is just silently staring off in the direction of a battle that is glowing in the distance under a night sky, and her face just reads this hardened, jaded lack of optimism that tells you so much about her character.  But Kirsten also does a great job of showing those brief moments of warmth, especially when Cailee Spaeny’s Jessie manages to crack through that wall with her more upbeat personality.  Spaeny also does a great job of portraying that spunky, novice personality within Jessie that you watch get broken down as she gets into increasingly hairier situations.  Wagner Moura provides the movie with some of it’s brief moments of levity with his gun ho adrenaline junkie portrayal of Joel, who often is the one that has to break the ice in tense situations.  Veteran character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson also does a wonderful job of rounding out the quartet with his soulful portrayal of the seasoned and wise journalist Sammy.  Nick Offerman, who only briefly appears in the movie, still leaves a strong impression as the lightning rod of a President at the center of the conflict, wisely choosing to not emulate any specific familiar political figure and instead making him one that eerily feels too normal, hiding the fact that in the context of this movie that he’s committed horrible atrocities.  What the movie also does a great job with is make all of the minor characters stand out as well.  Each new encounter the characters make along the way adds to the tension of the movie, and all the supporting actors do a great job of creating these civilians who are barely hanging on, often through brutal and desperate means.  One particular standout is a cameo from Jesse Plemons as a white supremacist mercenary that becomes an especially terrifying obstacle for the main characters.

I don’t know if this is the kind of movie that will change hearts and minds with regard to the divisive cultural situation we are in right now.  But, as a cinematic experience, it’s an exceptional piece of work that know doubt will leave an impression on it’s audience.  There will be some who will try to frame the movie in a way that fits their own agenda; you would have to think that the movie is courting that a bit by calling itself Civil War.  But, upon watching the movie, you’ll see that there is a universal story about survival in here and also about fighting to capture the truth in the moment so that it can be preserved and remembered for future generations to learn from it.  Alex Garland and the actors in the movie have said in interviews that this movie is meant to be a love letter to journalism, and specifically to front line journalists who put their life on the lines to document the truth.  At a time when so many politicians and media personalities are trying to gaslight people into believing an alternate reality that suits their fortunes through misinformation, the work of these independent, battlefront journalists is even more essential than ever and Civil War does an excellent job of showing us the important role that they play.  We are seeing the important work of these journalists making an impact right now with conflicts happening in both Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.  What makes Civil War feel so impactful is that it is bringing that unimaginable situation home and showing us how fleeting our domestic peacetime situation can be.  We trivialize the idea of a domestic civil war, and in some grotesque cases even fantasize about it, but if one were to break out here in America it would have devastating effects that ruins the lives of everyone involved, and this movie does an effective job of communicating that bleak scenario.  Hopefully it makes audiences more aware of how devastating modern warfare is on those countries that are living through today.  It’s not a perfect war film; some of Garland’s creative choices do undermine the impact of the harshest scenes, especially some needle drop choices that feel a bit out of place.  But as an overall experience, Civil War is harrowing and thought provoking in all the right ways, and in many moments hauntingly beautiful to look at.  And to see wartime journalism at it’s finest, please also seek out the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, though prepare yourself first for some harsh, graphic content as part of the experience.  Civil War may be a dramatized depiction of war through a scenario very much separated from our current political situation, but there is a lot of truth in the story that it is telling with regards to the people who live through such times as depicted in the movie, and it hopefully acts as a cautionary tale for us as we grow more and more closer to having our own petty conflicts flare up into something much worse.

Rating: 8.5/10

Collecting Criterion

Collecting Criterion – Mulholland Drive (2001)

There are some filmmakers out there who are best described as acquired tastes.  These are the auteurs; movie directors who unique style is uncompromised in the final product of their films, which may be off-putting to some people who find that style a little dense and impenetrable.  But, these types of filmmakers are also the kind that develop a dedicated following from audiences who are drawn to that kind of bold, un-compromised type of filmmaking.  The Criterion Collection understands the appeal of unique voices in cinema, and they have served these kinds of niche fanbases with excellent home video collections from a select number of auteur filmmakers.  These include movies from Canadian director David Cronenberg, whose body horror features certainly are meant for a certain discernable audience.  There’s also Terrence Malick, whose visual poem style features can sometimes test casual audiences who are looking for more linear storytelling.  And then there is the most notoriously cerebral filmmaker to have made it through the Hollywood machine; David Lynch.  Lynch’s style is very much an acquired taste for many, given his often dark and disturbing directorial vision, but that has been the thing that has turned him into an icon for many die hard cinephiles.  There really is no one else that makes movies the way that David Lynch does; often visually daring and just plain weird from concept to the final shot.  Many say that no one captures the feeling of a dreamlike state, often a nightmarish one, on film better than he does.  Criterion has included seven of Lynch’s most noteworthy films in their collection, including his daring debut Eraserhead (1977, Spine #725), two of his most famous deconstructions of Americana with Blue Velvet (1986, #977) and Lost Highway (1997, #1152), as well as what many see as his most personal film, which is a deconstruction of the myths of Hollywood itself in Mulholland Drive (2001, #779).

The making of Mulholland Drive has a unique story on it’s own.  In addition to making his name well known as a filmmaker, Lynch also managed to break through on the small screen as well.  In 1990, he produced the mystery thriller series Twin Peaks for ABC Television, which became a massive hit for the network.  Lynch’s dark and bizarre trademarks were very much present in the show, and it made the show stand out as very much a departure from the standard network television fare at the time.  However, meddling from the network with regards to the direction of the story and also with it’s time slot placement caused the show to lose much of it’s audience in it’s second season, and ABC pulled the plug soon thereafter.  Still, the 48 episodes that it managed to air on TV left an indelible impact, and it is the thing that cemented David Lynch as a household name.  Lynch tried to put Twin Peaks to rest with a prequel movie that is also included in the Criterion Collection, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992, #898), and twenty years later he would even get to make a third season revival on the cable channel Showtime.  But after the disappointing short run of Twin Peaks, Lynch wanted to try his hand again at creating another television series.  Initially, he imagined a spin-off of Twin Peaks, centered around the character of Audrey Horne.  But, over time he devised a new idea that centered around the dark side of the film industry.  This concept would become the basis for a 90 minute pilot titled Mulholland Drive.  The show would center around several characters living on the periphery of the entertainment industry, with the main character named Betty Elms played by a then unknown Naomi Watts.  Unfortunately, the pilot was never picked up and Lynch was left with another incomplete vision that this time audiences would sadly never see.  That was until he received financial assistance from French based production company Studio Canal to shot more scenes and turn the open-ended pilot into a fully realized feature film.  The resulting completed film is pure Lynchian madness, as it deviates from the straight-forward mystery of it’s original vision and becomes on of the director’s most cerebral head trips in it’s new form.

The film introduces us to the titular road that crisscrosses the peaks of the Hollywood Hills in the dead calm of night. A woman emerges as the only survivor of a deadly car wreck, and she seeks shelter in a nearby apartment complex.  The following morning, an aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts) arrives in Hollywood with dreams of stardom.  She takes up residence in an apartment loaned to her by her aunt.  When Betty enters the apartment, she is shocked to find another woman there already; the same woman from the crash.  Suffering from amnesia, the woman goes by the name Rita (Laura Harring).  Betty tries to help Rita remember who she is, and to also find out why she has so much cash in her purse as well as a mysterious blue key.  While having dinner that night, Rita suddenly remembers a name; Diane Selwyn.  They track down an apartment address listed to Ms. Selwyn and shockingly find a rotting corpse inside.  Meanwhile, a film director named Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) is struggling to cast a lead role in his film, and is being pressured by the mafia connected Castigliane brothers (Dan Hedaya and Angelo Badalamenti) to chose a girl named Camilla Rhodes for the part over everyone else, including Betty.  After the trauma of finding the corpse, Betty and Rita return to their apartment.  The grow more intimate and end up making love.  In the middle of the night they are awoken and drawn to mysterious theater down the road called Club Silencio.  The performance they watch puts both girls into an intense hallucinatory state.  Afterwards, we meet the woman Diane Selwyn, who looks just like Betty, who is a struggling actress having a secret affair with a movie star named Camilla Rhodes, who looks like Rita.  We watch their relationship crumble and Diane takes increasingly more dark turns in her life before things ultimately fall apart for her, becoming yet another casualty of the broken dreams of Hollywood.

It’s clear when watching the movie where Lynch shifted gears and turned his pilot episode into a fully realized feature film.  The first half of the movie plays out in a Twin Peaks sort of mystery soap opera.  But once the Club Silencio scene begins, the movie pivots and becomes something entirely different.  Lynch dispenses with the story that he had been telling for the last hour and he even makes you question whether any of it was real by the questions posed in the final half of the film.  The theory posed by the second part of the film is that the story we were being told was an imagined dream of the doomed Diane Selwyn, creating a different reality where her life isn’t in shambles and where she is the heroine of her own story.  That’s why Betty comes across as the more traditional heroine, because it’s the kind of cinematic role model that Diane always wished she had been.  Rita, on the other hand, is an imagined version of Diane’s lover Camilla, one in which she is more easily controlled by the possessive Diane.  It’s interesting that Lynch takes this dramatic turn with his film, especially with the knowledge knowing that it was being developed as a TV series.  Instead of completing the story that he envisioned when he originally developed the pilot, Lynch stops the narrative dead in it’s tracks and deconstructs it completely.  The movie as a result becomes far more of a commentary on the nature of the cutthroat movie business.  By showing us the contrast between Diane’s lonely, bitter existence and the imagined heightened reality of the soap opera that Betty lives within, we see how so much of the entertainment business is built upon the tragic rejection of so many people who get used and abused all in the pursuit of the fleeting promise of stardom.

It’s the main reason why David Lynch chose for his title Mulholland Drive.  The street is a winding road that sits atop the Hollywood Hills and marks a bit of a boundary between the rich and glamourous opulence of Hollywood itself and the drab and lower rent San Fernando Valley.  In a way, Mulholland Drive becomes a bit of a metaphorical dividing line between the have and have nots, which becomes central to the theme of the movie.  Mulholland Drive often gets compared with another classic movie named after another famous thoroughfare in Tinseltown; Sunset Boulevard (1950).  Billy Wilder’s acclaimed satire about the broken dreams of the film industry certainly had a big influence on what David Lynch intended for his look at Hollywood, but where the two diverge is in how the depths of humanity are focused on in the story.  In Sunset Boulevard, we witness the madness of Norma Desmond through the eyes of another, but in Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, we are brought into the madness itself.  In typical Lynchian fashion, the lines between what’s real and what isn’t is blurred and through that contrast, Lynch is able to deliver his portrayal about the dark side of show business.  There’s also another interesting wrinkle added to this move when you learn about Naomi Watt’s own history with the movie industry.  She has said in interviews that her own experience trying to make it in Hollywood was very much reflected in the characters of Betty and Diane.  She struggled for years trying to break into acting, and even fell into deep depressions during that time.  Right before David Lynch cast her, Naomi was facing eviction from her apartment and had lost her health insurance.  She nearly quit acting before her friend and fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman talked her into staying, and sure enough Mulholland Drive would indeed be her big break.  She knew all too well the kind of part she would be playing and that personal experience really carries through in the film.  The role may have hit close to home, but Naomi Watt’s authenticity in the role really helps to elevate the film beyond just it’s eccentricities.

The Criterion Collection edition of Mulholland Drive is an interesting exercise in preservation.  David Lynch shot the movie like most of his films on celluloid.  However, the parts of the film that were supposed to be part of the TV pilot are shot on a different kind of stock than the parts that were filmed a year later to make the movie.  Most people won’t know the difference, but when it comes to restoration, the difference in film quality can be substantial.  Luckily for Criterion, Lynch and his director of photography Peter Deming were deeply involved in the production of this new 4K digital master, making sure the color correction and fidelity of the picture remained consistent throughout.  Lynch’s movies are often very saturated in color, often for thematic purposes and in many cases intentionally antithetical to the tone of the scenes.  The color blue is an especially important thematic element in the movie, and the 4K restoration really helps to make the blue tones stand out in this movie.  The film is available in both Blu-ray and 4K UHD formats, and those looking for the highest quality experience should definitely go with the 4K version.  One of the interesting things about the film’s transfer is that it reflects the preferred framing that David Lynch wanted for his movie.  Film made for television usually runs at an aspect ratio of 1.76:1, but on cinematic screens, films are formatted for 1.85:1 in the same widescreen format.  To account for the difference between screen and TV formats, Lynch actually gave theaters specific instructions on how to show Mulholland Drive, by having the frames manually lowered so the actors’ heads wouldn’t get cut off.  In the restoration for Criterion, Lynch was able to supervise the framing so that it will play in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio with the image centered the way he wants it.  The film’s 5.1 surround sound track is also boosted with a new DTS restoration that helps to make the film sound exceptional, especially in the more cerebral moments late in the film.

In terms of the special features, this edition of Mulholland Drive is a bit light compared to other films in the Criterion library, including the other ones directed by David Lynch.  The most substantial bonuses are the collection of interviews conducted with David Lynch as well as assorted cast and crew.  These were all filmed specifically for the movie’s original debut in the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray in 2015.  One involves both David Lynch and Naomi Watts looking back on their memories of the filming.  Watts, in particular, recounts the aforementioned struggles she faced before she got the role.  Another collection of interviews includes actress Laura Harring, actor Justin Theroux, and casting director Johanna Ray, all talking about what it was like shooting specific scenes.  Other interviews include composer Angelo Badalamenti, cinematographer Peter Deming and production designer Jack Fisk, all of whom are frequent collaborators of David Lynch and they share their different experiences working with the man on set and off.  Another substantial feature is a vintage featurette showing on set footage during the making of the film.  It’s an interesting look at what went into the making of the movie, and it gives us insight into David Lynch’s process behind the camera as well.  A short deleted scene is included, set within a Hollywood police station.  It’s an interesting inclusion, but ultimately the scene is nothing substantial and it’s easy to see why it made the cutting room floor.  Finally, the film’s original theatrical trailer is included.  Overall, it’s a light collection of bonuses, but each one is still interesting on it’s own and well worth pouring through, especially the one’s that give you a good look behind the scenes of the movie.

For a lot of people, David Lynch’s movies may be a bit too weird to fully appreciate.  I myself will admit that I don’t really get him either. He’s not anywhere near the top of my favorite filmmakers, and I am mostly mixed on a lot of his films.  Even still, I do recognize the artistry behind his filmmaking and I do admire his originality a lot.  No other filmmaker makes movies the way that he does, and that certainly is something worth celebrating.  The Criterion Collection understands that too, and that’s why they have been eager to make his movies celebrated additions to their ever expanding library.  Mulholland Drive may not be his greatest work, but it certainly is his most interesting.  Given the backstory of how this movie got made, it is remarkable how he was able to turn lemons into lemonade by repurposing an abandoned TV pilot into a daring cinematic achievement.  The way it shows the bitter downside of the Hollywood dream machine and how it contrasts the dream against a crushing reality is quite a poignant statement to make, especially for someone who has been an integral voice in cinematic history.  Though David Lynch has had his share of success in Hollywood, he’s also experienced his fair share of frustration as well; from the studio meddling that prematurely killed Twin Peaks to the nightmarish production that he endured to make the movie Dune (1984).  It wasn’t an easy road to maintain the purity of his unique style throughout his career, and there was a point where Mulholland Drive wasn’t going to survive either.  For those who find their ideal cinematic experience in the weird hallucinatory worlds that David Lynch creates for the big screen, they will undoubtedly be please with how Criterion treats his filmography.  Mulholland Drive, even after over 20 years, is still one of the director’s latter films.  He hasn’t directed a new feature since 2006’s Inland Empire (#1175), and is spending most of his days recently just working on increasingly bizarre short Avant Garde projects on his website, including delivering weather reports for some reason.  While many would like to see him return to feature films, he seems content in his own creative atmosphere for the moment, and upon seeing Mulholland Drive, it’s easy to see why Lynch is keen on avoiding the cutthroat world of Hollywood.  For the film itself, it gets a beautiful and richly textured 4K restoration via Criterion that will certainly please fans of the film, as well as a nice collection of features included on the disc.  When Criterion is spotlighting a filmmaker of David Lynch’s ilk, they are catering to a very specific and niche audience, but their work on the the restoration of these films is so pleasing to the eye, that they even will please those of us who find David Lynch just a tad bit too weird to fully love.

Criterion.com – Mulholland Drive