Category: Commentary and Essays

The Twelve Movies of Christmas

Post author By jandersen
Post date November 25, 2023

‘Tis the season for Christmasy movies, so let’s discuss twelve holiday classics and where they fall in the definitive rankings.

BONUS – Worst Christmas Movie: The Polar Express

This film has its advocates. Why, I can’t explain. My top eleven Christmas films emphasize the value of family, the joys of generosity, and the importance of looking past commercialism. You know, Christmasy themes. On the other hand, The Polar Express argues that the real priority—so crucial as to determine the health of one’s very soul—is to actually believe in Santa Claus.

The problem with this message, identifiable by anyone over the age of nine, is that Santa Claus is not real. He’s only a symbol, a representation of childhood innocence and the spirit of giving. He isn’t a deity who requires and rewards literal belief in himself (with implied dangerous consequences for those who step out of line). The film’s ending, in which an adult version of the protagonist proudly reports his continued belief in Santa despite others’ lapses, leaves a strange aftertaste: is he mentally okay?

That’s to say nothing of the failed animation that looks worse with each passing year. But bad effects can be overcome by true aims. When a towering Santa in The Polar Express holds a contest to reward the child who believes in him the most—a terrifying spectacle straight out of the Old Testament—we know director Robert Zemeckis has shot well wide of the mark.

The Best Christmas Movies

#11: Die Hard

I’m giving Die Hard a token placement on this list. It’s a great movie, and it takes place during Christmas, so there’s that. But Christmas doesn’t have much to do with its plot or even its setting, so I don’t feel it warrants a high placement compared to others on this list. I’ve already written at length about Die Hard‘s ingenious script and direction here, so if you want a more in depth commentary on its successes, check out that piece.

Die Hard does have some semblance of a family drama, with NYPD detective John McClane seeking to reconnect with his estranged wife during the holiday season. For this reason, some viewers remain adamant that Die Hard is a legitimate Christmas classic—maybe even the Christmas classic. I don’t agree, but I’m including the movie here in deference to them.

#10: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

A somewhat more cynical vision of Christmas cheer compared to others on this list, Christmas Vacation highlights the trials and tribulations of the holiday season: the difficulties of coexisting, even briefly, with family who live very different lifestyles. But it’s all in the name of a good time—especially when the never-ending mishaps are juxtaposed with the determination of Clark W. Griswold, who insists that it’s all worthwhile. And although he’s wrong about nearly everything else, on this particular topic, he’s right. Even his evil boss joins the fun and turns out to be not so evil, a welcome suggestion that good times together can melt away material differences.

I dock points, though, for the movie too frequently crossing into bad taste. Griswold is Chevy Chase’s best character, but even here, his flaws as a comedian occasionally show through. One subplot involves the married Griswold ogling an attractive retail worker and later fantasizing about her. Maybe this was more of a knee-slapper in 1989, but I have a feeling that, even then, it was one of a few flashes in this otherwise heartwarming comedy of the trait that would eventually tank Chase’s career: that he’s kind of a jerk.

#9: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Rudolph is the longest running television special in history, so it must’ve done something right. I’ll admit, however, that, watching it recently, I had some difficulty discerning what that might have been. Although the dated claymation adds a silly charm, the special is dragged down by goofy antics and annoying supporting characters, and it ends on an odd note: bullied and rejected time and time again, Rudolph finds acceptance only when he does something useful for Santa. In this scenario, jolly old Saint Nick comes off as… quite transactional.

But the intended message of Rudolph does shine through more successfully at other moments. The highlight is Rudolph landing on the “Island of Misfit Toys,” where assorted playthings bewail their Christmas exclusion due to various defects. The toys’ direct plea for empathy—“How would you like to be a bird that doesn’t fly?”—summarizes the theme in a way that children can understand. And unlike Rudolph’s suspicious happy ending, in which he resolves his problems simply by becoming popular, the misfit toys find happiness by discovering that Christmas has a place for everyone, even the weirdos. That’s surely a message worth airing for sixty years straight.

#8: Elf

Elf is a crowd pleaser. It doesn’t break much new ground, and it risks overstuffing on silliness, but never quite goes over the top. I think that’s because of its sneakily realistic portrayal of a jaded New York City.

Nearly everyone who interacts with Buddy the Elf assumes the worst. His eventual love interest, Jovie, accuses him of stalking her in the shower. His boss interprets his handiwork as evidence of corporate sabotage. His dad pegs him as a bad practical joke sent to humiliate him. And their cynicism isn’t just Christmas humbug; in fact, the movie goes out of its way to suggest that the characters’ pessimism is justified. Jovie, for example, was only showering at work because her landlord cut her water off. Buddy’s dad has to give a presentation on Christmas Eve, and when he refuses, he loses his job. So there’s no sugarcoating it: greed and cruelty are alive and well at Christmastime in New York.

That might lead us to expect the worst, but might there also be reasons to expect the best? That’s where the fun of Elf comes in. Don’t sleep on this movie as a healthy argument for optimism alongside—not in place of—being realistic about troubled times.

#7: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

Dr. Seuss’ immaculate rhymes and Boris Karloff’s perfect narration make this whimsical story a deserving holiday staple. Its ending is a legitimate challenge to young children, who likely doperceive Christmas as a primarily material event and who might be just as shocked as the Grinch to learn of the Whos celebrating “without packages, boxes or bags.” And for adults, the Grinch is a surprisingly relatable character: his conversion upon realizing that Christmas “doesn’t come from a store” implies, contrary to the catchy musical ode to his odiousness, that his grumpiness and isolation stemmed from dislike of consumerism rather than inborn nastiness. Even the Grinch’s most evil episode—deceiving Cindy Lou Who to escape detection—resonates for adults, most of whom, facing interrogation by kids, have, by necessity, “thought up a lie” and “thought it up quick.”

The 2000 live action remake would later butcher the character, the tone, and all of Seuss’ themes, offering a terrible Christmas viewing experience perhaps exceeded only by The Polar Express. If you want a trashy version of Edward Scissorhands, then good for you, because it exists.

#6: Home Alone

Macaulay Culkin’s turn as Kevin McCallister is one of the great child acting performances. I think the key to the character’s enduring popularity is how the film simultaneously conveys the dueling truths that 1) kids are far more capable than we give them credit for and 2) despite this, they still need grownups around.

The movie’s best moment, very overlooked, is when Kevin reacts to his mother’s return by looking away, pained, until she apologizes for leaving him behind. At this point, he’s made no mention of what he understands about his parents’ mistake or how he feels about it. But these two seconds tell us all we need to know. More than anything, they reveal how emotionally vulnerable Kevin really is. Sure, he playacts at adulthood. However, this is perhaps only to compensate for the overwhelming dependence of childhood: egregiously overlooked by his family, he’s reliant on them to set things right. Such is life as a kid.

In the film’s notorious finale, Kevin lays waste to two small time crooks—smashing them with a steam iron, shooting their testicles with a BB gun, setting their heads on fire, and terrorizing them with a live tarantula, among other tactics. Is this sadistic streak compatible with the spirit of Christmas? (The cops, portrayed as capable defenders, were a mere phone call away.) Apparently, in the opinion of most Christmas moviegoers, it is. I abstain.

#5: A Christmas Carol (1951)

Charles Dickens’ original novella has inspired, in some way, about half the entries on this list (including, sneakily, Home Alone). So it may justifiably be named the best Christmas story of all time. In my view, though, it’s a story somewhat better experienced through reading or onstage.

Having said that, the classic 1951 version starring Alastair Sims stands the test of time as a faithful adaptation of Dickens’ intentions. When other movies borrow from A Christmas Carol, they tend to cherry-pick the happiest element: the joyous turnaround of a bitter, wayward grouch. They often omit the darker sides of Dickens’ tale—for instance, the heavy portrayal of working class suffering and the harrowing projection of a life of greed.

This latter aspect is actually pivotal to the original story. Scrooge, unlike his many spinoffs, repents early on. He doesn’t vow to change, though, until witnessing townspeople celebrating his future death. In other words, there’s nothing like being scared straight. These days, nobody has the guts to send that message—which is maybe why A Christmas Carol keeps getting remade. This way, filmmakers can harness the original’s power while maintaining plausible deniability. That was Dickens, not me!

#4: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

I consider this the beginning of the top tier. In other words, the films from here on have a legitimate claim to the #1 ranking. The claim for Miracle on 34th Street rests on its superior filmmaking: its production, script, and acting stand out from other holiday favorites. Because of this, it holds up extremely well: watching it this year, I was startled at how modern it felt. It’s thematically similar, in fact, to Elf, dampening any idea that the urban malaise portrayed in the latter film is new to the 21st century.

Kris Kringle—if that’s really his name—is not Santa Claus. He has no magic abilities, notwithstanding the movie’s final shot. He doesn’t even make toys; he only knows where to buy them. By all indications, he’s just an old man living on Long Island.

But he has made the conscious choice to assume the identity of Santa Claus. He’s a sort of holiday season Don Quixote, diving into a role with such aplomb that others begin to struggle to separate his fantasy from reality. Kris tips his hand when he gives young Susan a lesson in “pretending,” advising that using one’s imagination enables infinite possibilities. Indeed they do, since, as Kris shows, pretending to be Santa Claus has much the same effect as actually being him: in both cases, Christmas principles—generosity, kindness, love—inspire others, not the man himself.

The takeaway from Miracle on 34th Street is interesting and leaves much to ponder. Essentially, the film argues that Santa is effectively real because, well, we can’t do without him. Department store executives intervene for Kris because he boosts their bottom line. A judge rules in Kris’ favor because voters in the next election will reject an anti-Santa outcome. Parents acknowledge Kris as Santa because they sense their kids’ innate need for optimism and hope. In summary, we all need to play pretend: commercially, politically, parentally, even psychologically. So, by democratic inevitability, if not factual truth, Santa is real. Again, an interesting, thought-provoking statement—certainly worthy of a yearly Christmas watch.

#3: A Charlie Brown Christmas

There’s a melancholy to Christmas that only A Charlie Brown Christmas really taps into. It opens with a dreary jazz tune, bringing forward the Christmas blues that Charlie Brown just can’t shake. “I know nobody likes me,” he complains. “Why do we have to have a holiday to emphasize it?”

When Charlie Brown, inspired by Linus, leaves his commercial-minded friends behind on the theater stage, they shuffle after him. Why? After all, they make extra clear that they don’t like him or enjoy his company. Do they follow him out of sympathy? Guilt? Worry? It’s open to interpretation, but in my opinion, it must be that Charlie Brown, by openly pining for a deeper Christmas experience, has given voice to a spiritual hollowness that, really, they’ve all been feeling. They’re just too cool to say it themselves. (Remember that they’re all “actors” in an upcoming Christmas play.) With a big smile as he carries off his tree, Charlie Brown has suddenly become the one that, deep down, they’d all like to be. They follow him because they want what he’s got.

Of course, he falters soon afterward. But the group comes to his rescue, and their assistance is interesting, too. They steal the flashy trappings of Snoopy’s campy, prize-winning doghouse and use them to turn Charlie Brown’s tree into a tasteful Christmas centerpiece. To me, this is a reminder of the purpose of Christmas ornamentation: to bond through experience and show affection. Christmas does have an external component, but, to land meaningfully, it needs a proper foundation. The Peanuts gang had mastery of the former, but had neglected the latter until the neighborhood blockhead showed them the way. The takeaway: we make the holidays pretty not to attract attention or win prizes—but to rejuvenate the ones who, like Charlie Brown and his tree, need “a little love.”

#2: It’s a Wonderful Life

This movie’s soaring high points justify its silver medal performance on this list. True, an abundance of overly folksy scenes and dialogue may rightly turn off highbrow critics and confer It’s a Wonderful Life to the status of holiday classic rather than all-time great. But at other moments, the film veers back toward realism, creating some of the most memorable and inspiring scenes anywhere, let alone in the Christmas canon.

Chief among those inspiring moments is the finale, maybe the happiest in Hollywood history. It comes after a fun but somewhat cliche chapter detailing George Bailey’s glimpse of a world in which he was never born, courtesy of Clarence the Angel (himself a spinoff of Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Future). The horror that George witnesses in this altered universe leads him to re-value his own life, even despite the certain financial ruin and imprisonment that await him.

Certain—but, in fact, not forthcoming. While Clarence may show George the value of life, even he can’t bring George (or us) to anticipate what’s to happen next. In an earlier conversation, Mr. Potter had gleefully imagined the scenario of George asking his working class friends to cover his shortfall: “They’d run you out of town on a rail!” It’s the genius of this movie that George had accepted this as the sad truth, and so had we. But what are the holidays for, if not looking after the ones who’ve looked after us? Valuing our own life is only the first step; the second is realizing that others value it, too—even in dollar terms, if necessary. Clarence knows enough to let George’s friends and family reveal that for themselves. For me, the ultimate tearjerker.

#1: A Christmas Story

If anyone wants to know what Christmas is all about, this movie, in my opinion, is it.

Christmas is for everyone, but most of all, it’s for kids. And A Christmas Story, more than any other movie, is concerned with how kids actually experience the holidays. It’s especially concerned with the thrill of Christmas: the barely bearable anticipation of wondrous, mysterious gifts. In fact, A Christmas Story is the only movie on this list (and possibly the only movie ever) to authentically celebrate the receiving of presents. While the other films and specials—not without wisdom—largely dismiss presents as a superficiality, A Christmas Story alone knows that for kids, it’s not. Ralphie, in desperately wishing for a Red Ryder BB gun, isn’t seeking material gain. He’s seeking a means by which to become skilled, important, and formidable—in other words, an adult. The gun, to Ralphie, is the vessel of childhood’s universal promise: that life in the future will be so much better.

Grownup Ralphie concludes by acknowledging that this promise doesn’t last forever: “It was the greatest gift I had ever received or would ever receive.” In other words, this was the most exciting time of his life. But by finally hinting at a tinge of sadness, Ralphie has only acknowledged the obvious. Because the truth is that all meandering childhood tales—of schoolyard bullies, quirky teachers, overprotective parents, etc.—are about loss: the loss of the magic of being new to the world. We tell these stories in the first place because we want to recapture that magic. And if we’re honest in our recounting, we might just succeed. Like in a seance, we can conjure up some of those long-departed sensations: the trepidation of the classroom, the alarm of family squabbles, the humiliation of the uncool, and even the euphoria of Christmas—what was once, and can still be, the best time of year.

–Jim Andersen

Commentary and Essays

Justice League and the Approaching Age of AI Screenwriting

Post author By jandersen
Post date October 18, 2023

A hot topic during the recently-ended Hollywood writers’ strike was artificial intelligence. Apparently, we’ve reached the point at which the industry legitimately believes that artificial intelligence is capable of providing tangible benefit to screenwriting, and the industry is turning its head toward the possibilities of the future.

For instance, some have speculated that AI programs like ChatGPT could be trained to produce a first draft of a screenplay, which would then be scrutinized and redrafted by human writers. This, of course, poses a threat to the importance of those humans’ jobs, since, in such a scenario, they become relegated to proofreaders rather than the crucial originators of cinematic ideas. Their role in the creative process becomes significantly less valuable.

The question for viewers, though, is whether, if AI were involved, such a process would be truly “creative.” And the answer, to me, is fairly obvious: no.

ChatGPT and similar AI programs do not create, nor do they claim to. They function only as “learning” models that rely on feedback from humans to build proficiency in producing suitable language responses. In other words, they merely learn (with extreme efficiency) what their masters deem “good,” and they spit it out flawlessly.

Most viewers likely have a negative reaction to the notion that film dialogue and plot lines may be computer-generated in the near future. But I posit that large studios have already adopted an essentially AI-like approach to their work. Therefore, the dawning age of AI-written cinema is less a paradigm shift than a fulfillment of what mainstream audiences have already embraced.

Consider a notorious example of troubled blockbuster production: 2016’s Justice League. The Warner Bros. superhero film was originally directed by Zach Snyder, but in post-production, Snyder stepped down to grieve death of his daughter. Following his departure, Warner Bros. hired Joss Whedon, who had directed The Avengers (2012) and The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), films very different than Snyder’re prior releases. Whedon, at Warner Bros. behest, rewrote and reshot large portions of the film. His contributions had the predictable effect of fundamentally altering Snyder’s vision.

In all cases, Whedon’s modifications resulted in a more sanitized, safe product. We know this because in 2021, Snyder’s director’s cut was released, and it’s laughably different from the theatrical cut.

Of course, the reasoning behind Warner Bros. onboarding Whedon is easy to follow. Snyder’s previous DC-based films had met polarized responses. His characteristically dark and brooding style had turned off many viewers and critics, and his most recent output, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), was a full on flop. On the other hand, Whedon’s “Avengers” films had enjoyed enormous box office and critical success due in large part to his implementation of a light, comedic tone. Warner Bros. got cold feet after reviewing Snyder’s footage and brought in Whedon to save the film by Avenger-ifying it.

But I don’t care whether Warner Bros. makes logical corporate decisions. I’m interested in whether a movie has any creative value. If it doesn’t, why am I watching it?

Whatever you think of Snyder’s abilities—I certainly don’t claim to be a fan—the kind of studio meddling that affected Justice League is antithetical to anything resembling a “creative process.” That might seem obvious, but…did anyone care? Was anyone rankled that what they were watching was a blatant ripoff of the “Avengers” series? Were audiences offended that Whedon had near-exactly aped the plot of Avengers: Infinity War and had even digitally reimagined the villain, Steppenwolf, to visually resemble Thanos? Were they disturbed that Whedon had reworked the main expository sequence into a flagrant duplicate of the opening to Lord of the Rings?

Maybe some were. The reaction to Justice League was mixed, and the movie fell below box office expectations. Nevertheless, the film has an audience score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics mainly called the film an improvement over most of its fellow DC-inspired movies—although still weaker than the Marvel movies that Whedon had tried so hard to copy. In summary: copy harder next time.

That brings us to artificial intelligence. AI, after all, is the king of copying. It can copy far better than Joss Whedon or any other human intelligence. Using its “learning” algorithms, it can do exactly what Warner Bros. hoped Whedon could: regurgitate components of previously successful content without indulging in risky stylistic ventures. It can process our tastes—or, more accurately, our purchasing patterns—and cater to them flawlessly.

Mainstream audiences have already proven willing to cede originality for familiarity, as long as it comes with the degree of quality control that Marvel, for example, has perfected. Will audiences, then, also be willing to sacrifice the literal possibility of originality, by seeking out movie and television content that has been, by definition, processed from the material they’ve already seen?

If they rebel, it will be only against the optics. The age of algorithm-generated screenwriting isn’t approaching: it’s already here. And it has been for quite some time.

–Jim Andersen

For more analysis, see my review of Oppenheimer.

Tags artificial intelligence, justice league

Commentary and Essays

The Twenty Greatest Movies of All Time

Post author By jandersen
Post date May 21, 2023

Friends of mine often ask for movie recommendations. I typically respond with recent films that received uncontroversial acclaim but undeservedly slipped under the cultural radar. Some examples might include The Father (2020), Nightmare Alley (2021), and even Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022).

Recommendations like these carry low risk, since they have low likelihood of jarring viewers, offending them, or confusing them (inordinately). Plus, they’re really good films.

But many are interested in recommendations of a higher order. Viewers already versed in older and more arty films may be searching for something more profound than the diatribes of a talking shell. They may be wondering: what, ultimately, are the best of the best?

That’s an incredibly loaded question, but also an important one. To answer it in a way that might be useful, I’ve used a combination of objective and subjective criteria. Essentially, I’ve chosen movies that often appear on respected lists of “best” films—but I’ve chosen my personal favorites among those. In other words, I’ve deferred to the larger critical community to curate my options, and I’ve selected from the consensus list they’ve provided. This, hopefully, has kept the list “personal” while also avoiding excessive idiosyncrasy.

I’ve also used two rules to further narrow the list:

Silent films are excluded. This removes from contention many of the films that experts tend to deem the greatest of all time. But I didn’t feel it was fair (or possible) to adequately compare silent films with sound ones. This is in part because I don’t yet feel that I personally appreciate the aesthetics of silent films enough to authentically place them on a list like this.
Only one film per director is allowed. This, again, guards against idiosyncrasy. For example, I’m an admirer of Stanley Kubrick, but this rule stops me from packing the list with his films.

The second rule also encourages a more diverse, representative list. And that’s important to me, because I want this list to function as a canon. In other words, if you’ve seen these twenty films, you’ve seen a fair representation of the best that cinema has to offer. Without further ado, here they are, in chronological order:

M (1931) – Fritz Lang, Germany
The Rules of the Game (1939) – Jean Renoir, France
Citizen Kane (1941) – Orson Welles, USA
Breathless (1950) – Jean-Luc Godard, France
Rashomon (1950) – Akira Kurosawa, Japan
Tokyo Story (1953) – Yasujiro Ozu, Japan
Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock, USA
The Adventure (1960) – Michaelangelo Antonioni, Italy
La Dolce Vita (1960) – Frederico Fellini, Italy
Persona (1966) – Ingmar Bergman, Sweden
Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) – Robert Bresson, France
Playtime (1967) – Jacques Tati, France
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Stanley Kubrick, USA
Mirror (1975) – Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) – Chantal Akerman, Belgium
Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese, USA
Blade Runner (1982) – Ridley Scott, USA
Spirited Away (2001) – Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
Mulholland Dr. (2001) – David Lynch, USA
The Tree of Life (2011) – Terrance Malick, USA

Notes

–I freely admit that I haven’t seen every film that many experts would rank among the best, so I’ll have to continuously update and expand this list as I become familiar with more films.

–Rule #2 created some very difficult choices. For the Kurosawa entry, I chose Rashomon over the great Seven Samurai (1954). The Hitchcock entry could have been Rear Window (1954) or Psycho (1960), but following my lengthy analysis of Vertigo, I chose it instead. Finally, I didn’t like leaving Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) off the list, but I couldn’t pass on Mirror.

–The list is skewed toward the 1950s and 60s. So be it. The films during that period were generally more aspirational, art-conscious, and socially conscious than those of the decades that followed. I only chose one film from the 80s or 90s. However, it should be said that some of the masterpieces from those decades were boxed out because their directors made even greater works in other decades (The Shining (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) being two examples). In addition, it’s quite possible that some of the greatest works from that period have yet to be re-highlighted by critics after a quiet initial response.

–My most controversial choice is The Tree of Life. It’s fashionable these days to roll one’s eyes at Malick’s masterpiece, in part because his subsequent outputs were inconsistent and ungrounded. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m confident that the tide will eventually turn back toward The Tree of Life.

-Jim Andersen

For more commentary, see my ranking of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

Commentary and Essays

Movie Review: The Fabelmans

Post author By jandersen
Post date December 11, 2022

As I see it, Steven Spielberg over his long career has made films that fall roughly into two categories. The first category, on which he originally made his name in Hollywood, consists of character-driven thrill rides like Jaws, Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and Minority Report.

The second category consists of more personal, grounded films. Those films often return to certain motifs, including quiet, bullied kids (E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, The BFG, Ready Player One); broken homes (E.T., Ready Player One, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds); and Jewish heritage (Schindler’s List, Munich). Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans, is the culmination of this second tradition.

But this tradition is the weaker of the two. So while The Fabelmans appropriately summarizes and concludes it, the film suffers from the same defects as its predecessors—namely, a lack of honesty or, more accurately, wisdom about adult life.

Although I listed three thematic preoccupations of Spielberg’s more intimate films, one of them occupies a particularly central place: the broken home. Spielbergian protagonists often display yearning for family unity or at least the pained confusion of a child whose parents have split. And Spielberg deserves praise for consistently portraying these emotions with love and warmth.

The problem, though, is that young people have an inherently limited understanding of adult relationships. They only grasp so much. Therefore, telling stories through the eyes of those characters risks providing too little content—of leaning on the characters’ ignorance to avoid presenting the complexity that the subject matter demands. For example: why have the parents split up in E.T.? We don’t know, because the kids don’t know. A story is thus left untold.

We might look to Spielberg’s movies with older protagonists for a different perspective. But, troublingly, in those films, his protagonists display barely more maturity than his child characters do. For example, Frank Abagnale Jr. from Catch Me If You Can runs away from home and perpetrates a series of crimes after his parents’ split, which is only briefly covered early in the movie. The family’s dissolution appears to drive his lawless behavior, as he now dreads normal life and feels he has no home to return to.

Frank is 21 years old. Divorce of one’s parents surely hurts at any age, but when will Frank learn that adults are complicated, flawed people, too? When will he learn that he can now start his own adult life without needing the protection of his family?

It seems relevant that Spielberg, to my knowledge, has never made a movie about divorce from the perspective of one of the parents. (The closest may be War of the Worlds, the ending of which suggests, without plausible explanation, that the couple in question will reunite.) This despite Spielberg having been divorced himself, back in 1989. Why, given this lived experience, does he return only to the material of his parents’ divorce?

These patterns all point to one logical conclusion, and if there was any doubt, The Fabelmans now makes that conclusion explicit: that Spielberg lacks sufficient understanding of divorce and, indeed, adult relationships in general to properly portray these subjects on film. On this topic, he remains the confused, vulnerable boy who recurs in his movies. He therefore can only make movies convincingly from this perspective.

Let’s examine The Fabelmans, an autobiographical film about Spielberg’s discovery of and increasing interest in filmmaking. The film’s central artistic theme presents itself early on, when the mother (Michelle Williams) of protagonist Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) surmises that her son’s fascination with filmmaking stems from a desire to “control” a frightening subject, thereby mastering it and alleviating the fear. As his parents grow apart, Sammy indeed turns further toward filmmaking, presumably to gain a sense of control over his increasingly chaotic family life.

And of course, by making such a movie that explores his parents’ relationship, Spielberg himself has attempted to master the subject in the very manner his mother in the film elucidates.

To be sure, this represents interesting and honest introspection from Spielberg. But desperation to control one’s surroundings doesn’t serve as an effective foundation for art. Spielberg is 75 years old, and, at the risk of insensitivity, he should have mastered this subject long ago. He should be providing us with further understanding of what makes marriage so difficult, why couples break up, and why kids react the way they do when a split does occur. He should be sharing his learned insight with us.

But as usual, he has none to offer. Not one character in The Fabelmans has anything resembling understanding of what has happened to the family. Sammy’s mother, Mitzi, gives a blubbering speech about how she knows she has to leave the family, even though she can’t explain why. Sammy’s sister believes the issue is that the man his mother loves, Benny (Seth Rogan), “makes her laugh.” Sammy’s dad, Burt (Paul Dano), is a nerdy engineer and doesn’t have the faintest idea of why his erratic wife does anything she does. Sammy himself, supposedly the insightful observer, can only peek through old camping footage and discover his mom holding hands with Benny in the background.

This simply isn’t good enough. Why does Mitzi lack feelings for Burt? Why did they get married in the first place, and what changed? What was the tipping point, and why? What is the nature of Mitzi’s feelings for Benny? How have the responsibilities of raising children affected the Fabelmans’ marriage? How has their parenting been altered by Mitzi’s feelings for Benny?

In short: what happened?

Confusion is a limited aesthetic. It traps the audience in the dark, preventing nuanced reflection. If Spielberg has more wisdom on the subject of family separation than the bewildered Sammy (who has none), he keeps it to himself. And he has kept it to himself for his entire career.

My negative view of Spielberg’s more personal filmmaking puts me at odds with the critical community. Critics tend to prefer his most intimate films, in particular E.T. and Schindler’s List. I don’t like those movies very much, and I believe that general audiences tend to agree with me in prizing instead Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park as his most memorable outputs. (Some day, I hope they’ll join me in cherishing A.I., too.)

Perhaps critics have mistaken personal filmmaking with effective filmmaking. Looking back toward landmarks like The 400 Blows (1959), they may see Spielberg as the carrier of a French New Wave torch, which the Hollywood studio system has come closer and closer to extinguishing via the ever-increasing pressure to pack movies with disembodied action and chaos.

But Truffaut and his compatriots had the quality that Spielberg has always lacked: they knew what they were talking about. Acknowledging his impotence, as Spielberg has done with The Fabelmans, doesn’t rectify the deficiency. Rather, it only codifies it.

Filmmaking can be both personal and insightful. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017), for example, covers similar ground to The Fabelmans through a more discerning lens. A lens that reveals what we don’t ordinarily see. A lens that shows us: what happened? That’s what makes personal movies truly enjoyable. And it’s what makes Steven Spielberg, although a great director of blockbuster fun, a limited director of artistic, intimate films.

–Jim Andersen

For more commentary, see my discussion of the visuals of Avatar.

Tags steven spielberg, the fabelmans

Commentary and Essays

5 Modern Horror Movies You Need To See

Post author By jandersen
Post date October 30, 2022

Hereditary (2018)

The first half of this movie contains some of the most disturbing filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Movies don’t shake me often, but the gruesome and hallucinatory imagery in Hereditary’s first act stuck with me for days.

Plenty of other movies feature intense body horror, but few resonate like this one. In fact, director Ari Aster concocted visuals with similar shock value in his follow up, Midsommar (2019), but that film left little impact on me. I think the difference is that the horror of Hereditary has huge emotional weight. Every horrific event has enormous emotional significance, because every event has enormous family significance, and so many of our greatest fears involve our families. Perhaps Aster’s sum statement is how precarious our family relationships really are.

Any discussion of the greatest movie acting of the decade has to include Collette’s raging, hysterical performance here. Plenty of other critics have said the same. In a genre that often showcases up-and-coming actors, her work in Hereditary shows the impact a veteran can make.

It Follows (2014)

Another one that should go right into the horror canon, It Follows leans on a nightmarish antagonist that George Romero would be proud of. But whereas Night of the Living Dead (1968) eventually settles on the terror of numerical disadvantage, of being swarmed, director David Mitchell keeps his film planted in the peculiar, uneasy horror of that very first zombie—the one that just won’t stop.

And the horror of It Follows rests within an insightful coming of age story. The two lead characters as they enter adulthood learn to accept the permanent presence of…something. To explore what exactly would necessitate a full-length essay. But it has a lot to do with the prospect of death: the slow, marching figure behind them destined to one day close the gap.

It’s no accident that the creature is linked with sex, the activity of adulthood and the thing that creates life. Losing their virginity and now potential parents themselves, the characters of It Follows lose the protected feeling of childhood: they become aware of the always-present dangers—and the inevitable ending—of life. That’s what the creature represents. And director Mitchell effectively conveys the mood of that realization, which is, yes, part horror—but also part triumph.

Get Out (2013)

By far the most popular movie here, this one probably doesn’t need me to sell you on it. The sometimes-awkward experience of interracial dating typically supplies material for comedies. Jordan Peele had the stroke of genius to realize that it could do that and fuel a great horror flick at all once. My favorite scene: Mr. Armitage (Bradley Whitford), who spends his free time removing the cerebral cortexes of Black people, volunteering that he would have voted for Barack Obama a third time: “Best president of my lifetime.”

Cam (2018)

I came across this movie on Netflix one night with no prior knowledge of it and expected a typical Netflix production: half-baked, provocative, pointless. Upon watching it, my only question was why I hadn’t heard of it before. This is one of the best Netflix movies I’ve seen, and I recommend it to everyone.

It’s not the most ambitious film ever made, but its psychological undertones grip you. I don’t invoke his name lightly, but David Lynch is the major influence for the concept and, at times, the execution. Think Lost Highway-lite. (Okay, very lite.) There’s no Toni Collette-caliber acting in the low budget Cam. But Madeline Brewer holds steady in a legitimately strong performance as a young woman who tries to regain control of her webcam channel from a malicious, demonic imposter.

Few movies to my knowledge have seriously engaged with the bizarre, surreal experience of social media exhibitionism—an experience that, by now, most young people can relate to. This movie undertakes that engagement honestly. Sometimes the allegory is facile; sometimes it’s complex. But what better subject for a horror movie? The terror of seeing yourself on-screen and feeling no connection to what you see, of losing control of your own image—again, Lynchian preoccupations—that’s scary stuff.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Some might argue that this doesn’t belong on a list of horror films. I disagree. While raising a bratty kid usually gets comedic treatment in moviemaking, this film, like Get Out, has the guts to highlight the scary side of something long laughed at. Rosemary’s Teenager.

And more than a nightmare about parenting, We Need to Talk About Kevin functions as a convincing nightmare of suburbia in general. Persuaded to move there for the benefit of her fussy baby, Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) finds that no one in her new environment understands or even listens to her, including her husband. Everyone around her has lost themselves in the fantasy of the bucolic suburban ideal. They’re blind to all evil. Only she can see the truth, and she’s first chastised for observing it and later wrongfully blamed for it. She lives in a Twilight Zone world of illogic and ignorance.

The film tempts us with the guise of social commentary, but I don’t think it contains much of value, other than the vision of suburbia I just described. Don’t expect Bowling for Columbine. Still, with its paradoxic claustrophobia—the open space of the suburbs suffocates and destroys Eva—this is probably the darkest film on the list. Only the ending, which I won’t spoil, finally points toward goodness, and it’s a quick pointing. An unpleasant movie that I don’t plan to re-watch any time soon—but that I recommend for a unique horror experience.

–Jim Andersen

For more on horror movies, check out my selection and analysis of the greatest slasher movie ever.

Tags horror movies

Commentary and Essays

Good Egg, Bad Egg: A Tale of Two Wonkas

Post author By jandersen
Post date September 22, 2022

Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) is on Netflix, which is an opportunity for critical reflection. Specifically, I want to talk about why the movie is so much worse than its classic predecessor, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). So let’s dissect both films and discuss the major differences that have led one film to stand the test of time while the other quickly fades into obscurity.

I. Good Egg

The classic status of the 1971 film, directed by Mel Stuart, is intriguing given the severity of its easily identifiable mistakes. Foremost among them is poor pacing: the movie is supposed to be about Charlie Bucket’s wondrous tour through the magical factory of his idol, chocolatier Willy Wonka, but it takes an excruciatingly long time to get to this stage. Rather than forge ahead to the main event, Stuart dwells tiresomely on the hardscrabble life of Charlie’s family—an especially strange emphasis given that his kin will soon disappear from the film completely, except for Grandpa Joe.

Another major blunder is portraying Charlie with no evident personality traits other than simple humility, resulting in a bland, unrelatable protagonist. In fact, the downgrading of Charlie’s role in the story—reflected in the altered title—so upset Roald Dahl, the writer of the source novel, that he disowned the movie.

Smaller errors by Stuart include thin, poorly acted portrayals of minor characters such as most of the parents, as well as odd aesthetic choices like displaying the Oompa-Loompas’ lyrics on screen and out of frame as if the movie were a kiddie sing-along.

So why, given these glaring problems, has Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory remained in the public consciousness after over fifty years? I think a few inspired elements deserve their dues, but none more than Gene Wilder’s smarmy portrayal of Willy Wonka.

Wilder’s Wonka is a truly unique character in American cinema. At times he demonstrates the idealism we expect from the great visionary earlier hailed by Grandpa Joe; for example, he sings about the great possibilities of “Pure Imagination”: “Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it.”

But more often, Wonka is cutting and cynical, especially when Charlie’s golden ticketmates are in danger. With Violet Beauregarde about to chew her infamous stick of gum, for instance, he warns her not to but then quickly gives up and appears to enjoy her blueberry-ification. With Mike Teavee about to zap himself into, appropriately, a television character, Wonka merely deadpans, “Don’t. Stop. Come back.” Only during Augustus Gloop’s demise does he become upset, and he makes clear that his vexation isn’t due to the departure of the daft Gloop but rather to the unacceptable touching of his precious chocolate by “human hands.”

The effect of these moments is to suggest that Wonka doesn’t particularly like children, which might seem like an unsavory trait, but I actually think it’s the very reason he’s so beloved as a character. The movie, more than anything, is about how terrible kids can be, and Wonka is the hero because he understands, more than any other character, just how terrible.

It’s not that he’s the only one with insight in this regard. Grandpa Joe, for one, calls Violet a “nitwit” for disobeying Wonka. But after Violet is taken away for “juicing,” Wonka goes much further than this, casually observing: “Two naughty, nasty little children gone. Three good, sweet little children left.” Naughty and nasty indeed—who could argue otherwise about Augustus and Violet, the first two to go? Wonka is harsh, but he’s right. And perhaps this film appeals particularly to children because they understand more than adults how right he is: they are the most unbiased evaluators of their peers. It’s the fawning adults who can’t see the monsters their kids have become. But Willy Wonka can, which makes him a hero to good kids.

And I haven’t even mentioned the most terrifying of Charlie’s rivals and the second best character in the movie: Veruca Salt. Played memorably by Julie Dawn Cole, Veruca explodes at the slightest disappointment or concern, like every horrible child. She’s so genuinely annoying that the other kids, accomplished brats themselves, immediately despise her: in one exchange, her insufferable whining is rejoined by Violet: “Stop squawking, you twit!” I’ll admit that Veruca’s heavy-handed “Bad Egg” demise is a little disappointing, but that may be in part because she’s such a formidable presence that we wish she’d stay around longer.

It’s a credit to Stuart’s judgment that Veruca is the only child character to get her own musical number; not even Charlie gets one. And there are subtle touches that add interest to an otherwise simple sequence. Keep an eye on Wonka during this song. He makes a point to refuse to look Veruca in the eye—ignoring her, the very response that would help her unlearn her narcissism, if only her parents could muster it. Appropriately, then, Wonka reserves a special ferocity for Mr. Salt, encouraging him, alone among the parents, to join his child’s fate. Again, I suspect that kids grasp the terror of a girl like Veruca and relate to Wonka’s recognition of it more than adults do.

I also suspect that they pick up on the consistency of the aesthetic of Wonka’s factory, which some reviewers inordinately criticized upon the movie’s release. Words like “shabby” and “cheap” were used to describe the set designs. But these criticisms are the remarks of professionals trained to examine parts of a film rather than the big picture. The fact that Wonka’s factory looks like an actual factory is no weakness; rather, it’s one of the film’s strongest elements. Sure, the sets appear limited by budget constraints—but Wonka is a businessman, isn’t he?

I refuse to believe that this goes over kids’ heads. Gene Siskel wrote that the chocolate river “looks too much like the Chicago River to be appealing.” But what kid knows what the Chicago River looks like? And among those who do, which of them can ascribe to it the unsanitary connotations that Siskel is invoking? Kids just want to be able to believe what they’re seeing.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has stuck around for a reason. It’s a kind of horror movie made for kids: a quasi-haunted house tale with villains that children can understand, because they encounter them every day: spoiled brats and their obsequious parents. And it’s all held together by the chocolatier who, long isolated from humanity, has lost the will and perhaps even the ability to apply the coddling, excuse-making filter through which we’re accustomed to seeing school-aged menaces.

II. Bad Egg

Now, on to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the newer film, which, as I indicated in my introduction, is far inferior to the old one. There’s no point in wasting time before naming its central, insurmountable weakness: Johnny Depp’s terrible performance as Willy Wonka.

The aim here appears to be, as with several later Burton-Depp collaborations, to achieve weirdness by any means necessary. Wonka in this film is a human Jack-in-the-Box, donning clownish grey makeup and grinning throughout in a severe, frozen manner. This doesn’t mean he’s always happy, though; actually, he’s petulant and insecure, often appearing wounded by the kids’ mean comments and reflecting on the sadness of his own childhood.

The effect is certainly weird, but weirdness for its own sake is worthless. Weirdness needs to gesture toward something, some recognizable quality or motive. This alien-like Wonka is totally foreign to the human experience, so he doesn’t warrant any emotional investment.

And worse still, the new direction of the character disarms the entire message of the story. Whereas Wilder’s Wonka, as I’ve noted, enjoys the ticketholders’ misfortunes out of relatable moral judgment, thereby inviting us to share in the enjoyment, Depp’s Wonka, on the other hand, enjoys their woes because he’s just as childish and bratty as they are, and he’s therefore in competition with them. This means that Charlie and Grandpa Joe are the only ones above the fray, the only relatable characters. But they don’t suffice, because they rarely speak during the tour. All that’s left is a group of painfully annoying people squabbling throughout the entire runtime.

Plus, Charlie isn’t really a viable moral authority, because he’s too young. At the finale, he’s tasked with educating the clueless Wonka about basic life truths, but this is disappointing, because it feels like a stretch. Charlie is a child; he shouldn’t be teaching the adults; that’s not how life works. Even in the novels of Dickens—the progenitor of Dahl’s aesthetic—children achieve virtuousness by listening to and heeding their wise mentors, advisers, older friends. They’re not tiny sages who correct their elders. Such a presentation rings immediately false.

As for the other children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there’s not much to say about them, because they’re barely in the film. And since Depp’s Wonka is already so childish, they add nothing anyway. Veruca Salt is a shadow of her former iteration. Violet becomes a ten foot high blueberry, perhaps as compensation for her diminished, one-note personality, which was already thin in the 1971 version, but not so thin as to preclude an applause-inducer like, “Stop squawking, you twit!”—which this Violet, with a monotone voice and eyes wide like a robot’s, could never muster.

The aspect of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was most widely praised upon release was the appearance of the factory, which many contrasted favorably with the more industrial look of the 1971 film. But again, this is dutiful professional evaluation detached from the larger vision of the film. The visuals of the new factory are certainly more colorful and elaborate, but they’re obviously computer generated and thus unconvincing as a place that anyone could enter and inhabit. And the CGI responsible for these visuals now looks dated and lame, as do, by extension, the reviewers who celebrated them in 2005.

For my part, I think the factory looks like something from a Dr. Seuss book. That’s not an insult. But as a kid, I wouldn’t exactly have been clamoring for a ticket to see the Lorax.

Plus, Wonka himself shows no imaginative talent at any point, so, in addition to the other visual issues, it’s impossible to believe that he was truly responsible for creating the factory shown on the screen. Instead of taking pride in the fruits of his “Pure Imagination,” as Wilder’s version does, this Wonka spends his time marveling at the creativity of his Oompa-Loompas (who, for a tribal people, have a suspicious affinity for the mid-2000’s pop sound). Who is really the brains of this factory?

You get the idea: one movie is good, the other is bad. There’s actually a third movie in the making now, starring Timothee Chalamet as a young Wonka in the midst of rising to prominence and building his factory. Maybe this time his dad will be a film critic, and as a show of rebellion, he’ll decide to appear in film after film after film, each one worse and more pointless than the last…

–Jim Andersen

For more movie commentary check out my panning of Forrest Gump.

Tags charlie and the chocolate factory, willy wonka and the chocolate factory

Commentary and Essays

Forrest Gump Is Incredibly Overrated

Post author By jandersen
Post date September 22, 2022

It’s easy to find movies that receive undue admiration at the time of their release. Look no further than the recent Best Picture win of CODA. But such errant acclaim typically flames out within a few years. It doesn’t usually extend for decades.

For Forrest Gump (1994), though, it has. Having recently subjected myself to the unpleasantness of re-watching it, I can only point out its stark defects, speculate on why it remains so well liked, and perhaps forecast when it might finally go away.

The artistic interest of Forrest Gump is supposed to be the ironic contrast between Forrest’s simplistic narration and the more complex version of events presented onscreen. But this irony falls flat, because Forrest is so limited that his interpretation of events is essentially irrelevant. In other words, by setting up this irony, the movie is cheating: seen from Forrest’s viewpoint, anything will be ironic. His mind is such a low bar that anything he tries to understand will seem relatively complex.

The question, then, is whether the events seen outside Forrest’s perspective carry any significance—and the answer is, very obviously, no. It’s true that the historical events Forrest witnesses are worthy of examination, which is why they’ve all been the subjects of numerous pictures. But Forrest Gump adds exactly nothing to this body of historical cinema.

One sequence, for instance, depicts the Vietnam War. Many other films have done so, attempting such varied approaches as elegy (The Deer Hunter), satire (Full Metal Jacket), psychological exploration (Apocalypse Now), and stoic realism (Platoon). Forrest Gump, by contrast, attempts nothing. The sequence’s visual content has the semblance of depth when compared to Forrest’s narration, but compared to any of the other films I listed, it’s visionless and reductive.

The film reaches perniciousness, as opposed to mere badness, in its second half. At this stage, director Robert Zemeckis’s intention becomes clear: to promote Forrest as an American ideal—a savior for our wayward times. To this aim, Forrest’s lack of understanding is cast as not a limitation but as the only authentic response to the catastrophes he witnesses. For example, when shoved onstage at an antiwar rally, Forrest’s mic cuts off so that no one can hear his speech. The crowd erupts, and Abbie Hoffman exclaims: “You said it all, man! You said it all!”

The message here is that for a horror like the Vietnam War, there really is “nothing to say”; therefore, Forrest’s lack of audible response is more profound than any words. This view is wrongheaded and troubling. In fact, the many citizens who have written and spoken about the government’s errors during this period have done the country a great service, since understanding those mistakes may help us avoid them in the future. Words are, contrary to this scene’s takeaway, powerful and necessary, even (or especially) in the face of disaster. Forrest’s effective silence may be the best he can do, but it’s not good enough for the rest of us.

I may be late in making this point, since Wikipedia asserts that Forrest Gump has recently been subject to a negative “reevaluation” on account of its perceived “conservative politics.” I disagree, however, that the film is especially conservative, except in the sense of not being overtly liberal. Rather, it’s merely anti-intellectual, wary of thinking. The best course of action, the film argues again and again, shouldn’t require thought: life is simple, if only we’d stop overcomplicating things. We should all be more like Forrest, who never agonizes, never second-guesses, never regrets.

But are Forrest’s actions above second-guessing? He might not be capable of it, but we are. For instance, to protect Jenny, Forrest repeatedly interferes in her affairs despite her pleas for him to desist. Is this truly the good and noble thing to do? And he rescues a crippled Lieutenant Dan from the battlefield despite his explicit demands to be left to die. Is this moral? The film would have it be so on both counts: later, Jenny apologizes for being “messed up,” while Lieutenant Dan gets rich, finds a fiancée, gets prosthetic legs, and thanks Forrest for saving him.

Convenient—but not convincing. Unfortunately, the right thing to do isn’t always easy to discern, despite what Forrest Gump would have you believe. The corollary, of course, is that those who lack the ability to weigh complicated factors often unintentionally choose wrong.

So be it. Because in refusing to acknowledge this truth, the movie becomes, despite its intentions, patronizing to those with mental handicaps. The marginalization of the intellectually disabled is countered with the portrayal of perfection, rather than the portrayal of humanity. The comedy Tropic Thunder (2008) would later underscore this with some of the most devastating movie-to-movie satire I’ve ever seen: in one notorious dialogue, an acclaimed actor admonishes his peer by emphasizing that, to win an Oscar, one should “never go full retard”—instead, for viewers’ comfort, it’s best to portray a mentally disabled individual as having inexplicable talents. Forrest Gump is referenced specifically.

In 2007, Forrest Gump was rated by the American Film Institute as the 76^th greatest American movie of all time. Based on this ranking, it may indeed be the most overrated movie ever made. But I suppose, based on the Wikipedia paragraph I referenced above, a negative reappraisal is already in progress. Even though that appears to be due to a contemporary demand for social consciousness rather than a recognition of the film’s central, insurmountable flaws, I’ll take it. There are few movies I despise more.

–Jim Andersen

For more movie commentary see my pick for the worst movie of the decade.

Tags forrest gump, robert zemeckis

Commentary and Essays

Why the New Batman is the Best Batman

Post author By jandersen
Post date September 16, 2022

I grew up watching the acclaimed 1990’s television show Batman: The Animated Series. So for me, the version of Batman portrayed in that series is Batman. Voiced by Kevin Conroy, the character is gruff, physical, and has a temper, but his laudable principles remain steady even in the face of many twisted and powerful foes. These foes often overcome Batman initially—only to fall when he employs intellect and quick thinking to exploit a fatal weakness.

The Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman movies, for all its merits, is totally inconsistent with this vision of the character. Nolan’s Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale, isn’t a recluse occasionally posing as a playboy. Rather, he’s an actual playboy: he spends shamelessly, dresses handsomely, and socializes smoothly, like Bale’s previous signature role, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (2000).

This iteration of Batman triumphs not with trickery or understated gadgetry, but instead rolls up in, basically, a tank, aiming to obliterate his opposition. In the most disappointing moment in the trilogy, when faced against a seemingly unstoppable foe, he uses his resources to commandeer all mobile device data in the city, essentially buying a cheat code to victory. Whereas the animated Batman, taking cues from the comics, outsmarts his villains, Nolan’s Batman outspends them.

There are undeniable appeals to the playboy aura—production value certainly among them. But these appeals come at the expense of the audience’s relationship with the character. Perhaps this is why Nolan’s movies are best remembered for the performances of their antagonists: Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow, Heath Ledger as the Joker, Tom Hardy as Bane.

All of these villains are more likeable than Batman himself because their principles are stronger. While Nolan’s Batman retains the character’s classic rules of not killing anyone or using guns (Ben Affleck’s later rendition would discard even these), he’s hardly gung-ho about them. In the first movie, he finishes off Ra’s al Ghul with the questionable line: “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.” The impression is that his principles are burdensome requirements, not sincere values.

Of course, Nolan wanted a morally flawed Batman. He wanted avoid a perfect protagonist who wasn’t relatable. The problem is that a hero who isn’t heroic will eventually spawn a villain who is, creating discomfort with the very premise of the franchise.

This came to a head with the release of Joker in 2019. The hit film presented the Joker, Batman’s most formidable enemy, as a mentally ill, downtrodden loser. He’s shunned by the city and in particular the wealthy Waynes, a family of fat cats too busy in their walled off mansion to care about the suffering going on around it. A subverting like this is inevitable when you paint a hero as too much of a jerk: the villains will catch up and surpass him morally. And indeed, after Joker, it’s hard to watch Nolan’s films without wondering about the many Arthur Flecks scraping by in misery while Christian Bale buys restaurants and hosts fundraisers with the uber-wealthy.

The newest Batman film, The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson in the title role, understands, by contrast, what the character is all about. The film is the closest Batman has come on the big screen to his original persona: cerebral, stealthy, honorable. A detective, first; a public servant, second. He’s the kind of Bruce Wayne that bigwigs have to ask, again and again: where have you been?

He’s been fighting crime! Because he’s Batman!

The casting of Pattinson was initially met with high skepticism, as many considered it unlikely that an actor best known for hamming it up in the painful teenage fantasy Twilight (2008) was cool enough to embody the Caped Crusader. But here’s the thing: Batman isn’t cool.

Or, he’s not supposed to be. No superheroes are cool, really; they’re all a little nerdy and weird, which is why their comic book source material was originally enjoyed, notoriously, by an audience that related to these traits. Pattinson’s supposed defects are actually strengths when it comes to the role of Bruce Wayne: he shuffles around moodily, hiding mounting bruises and scars (both physical and psychological), a far cry from the strutting dapperness of Christian Bale. We’re so much better off for this: Pattinson’s lack of coolness allows us to rediscover the core of Batman.

His adversary in this film, Riddler (Paul Dano), is an anarchist revolutionary with a philosophy similar to that of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). But whereas Bane is a scene stealer, oozing charisma and repeatedly outsmarting Batman and his allies—just call the movie Bane Rises, why dontcha—Riddler is pathetic, grating, and not incredibly original: he directly pilfers aesthetics from killers in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Saw (2004), and Halloween (1979). (An obsessive loner, we can imagine him watching and worshipping all of these films.) Therefore, we find ourselves not thrilled by his victories, as with Nolan’s villains, but cursing his success. Damn you, Riddler!

And this isn’t a black and white morality tale, which I hope I haven’t given the impression of advocating for. Riddler undeniably does the service of exposing corruption in Gotham, and Batman on several occasions appears to sympathize with his enemy’s actions, if not condoning them. But then Riddler targets Bruce Wayne himself and later reveals that Batman is the inspiration for his crimes—disturbing developments that necessitate reflection. When a radicalized goon parrots Batman’s own preferred identification late in the film, it’s clear that our hero needs to reexamine his approach to the fight for justice. He appropriately does so, completing a meaningful story arc.

This is how to portray a morally flawed hero: with pure intentions but, perhaps, misguided tactics, which, of course, he vows to modify once they’re shown to be wrong. There won’t be any Joker-type movie that leans on the callousness of this version of Bruce Wayne, because this time, we actually like him. When he prevents ally Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) from going too far in her quest for revenge against a loathsome mafia sellout, we’re certainly glad that he doesn’t tell the poor sucker: “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.” Instead, he advises Kyle, like an actual hero, that when you stoop to that level, “You become like him.”

I could go on about the other successes of this movie. The car chase. The rooftop visuals. The acting, especially that of Colin Farrell as one of Batman’s lesser foes and Jeffrey Wright, who grounds the movie with working class steadiness. Sure, The Batman isn’t a masterpiece, becoming a little clunky in particular toward the climax, but we shouldn’t expect a Batman film to be one, whatever Nolan’s fanboys might tell you. I had a great time watching Reeves’ film and connecting with the vision of Batman that drew me to the character as a kid, and I recommend it to anyone who thinks they might respond similarly.

–Jim Andersen

For more movie commentary, check out my thoughts on Daniel Craig’s James Bond.

Tags matt reeves, robert pattinson, the batman

Commentary and Essays

The Problem All Along Was Daniel Craig

Post author By jandersen
Post date September 16, 2022

**MAJOR SPOILERS HEREIN**

No Time To Die marks the end of Daniel Craig’s tenure playing James Bond. There are some very good things about it, but unfortunately, smack dab in the middle of them is the movie’s worst quality: Craig himself. His version of Bond, we can now safely conclude, is the worst major portrayal on record.

The critics will contort themselves in knots to avoid acknowledging Craig’s aggregate failure despite the mountain of evidence in front of them. To be sure, they’ll have to admit that something is clearly off with this most recent film. It fails to leave any emotional impact whatsoever despite desperately blaring every possible cue to coax its viewers into tears. But the blame will fall anywhere but on Craig’s shoulders. The supporting characters are too thin. Too much action. Too much dialogue. Too confusing. Too generic. Too campy. Too serious.

Craig has accrued immense critical goodwill despite appearing in only one entertaining Bond movie: Casino Royale (2006). This abundance of establishment support stems from his dedication to playing the character as a dark and troubled individual. The narrative goes: whereas most of the gents who preceded Craig emphasized Bond’s suavity or comedic flair, Craig brought realism back to the character. And this, so goes the narrative, saved the franchise.

After all, the same exact about-face was applied successfully to another cinema icon at almost the exact same time for the exact same reasons. I’m referring to Batman. In 2005, the Batman character was rebooted in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins with a noticeably grittier tone compared to his last appearance, the infamously campy disaster Batman and Robin (1997). This change of course proved extremely well judged, initiating a critically and commercially successful trilogy that put Batman back on the map in the 21^st century (although I have my gripes).

Just like Batman, James Bond in the mid 00’s was reeling after his previous appearance. Pierce Brosnan’s final film, Die Another Day, was, like Batman and Robin, heavily criticized for its campy tone and goofy set pieces. In fact, the similarities between these two flops run curiously deep. Both movies are remembered for barrages of bad puns, ridiculous action scenes relying on ice as a recurring visual gimmick, and plots that involve villains stealing diamonds to create lasers that terrorize the world. Yeah, they’re that similar.

And like Batman Begins, Daniel Craig’s comparatively dark Bond reboot, Casino Royale, was a critical and commercial hit. But this is where the parallels end. That’s because unlike the subsequent films in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Craig’s ensuing Bond films mostly stumbled. Why the contrasting trajectories?

I think it’s because Batman is different than Bond in a crucial way that makes a dark, brooding style more appropriate to his films: Batman, originally, is fundamentally a loner. He works in secret in a cave. His identity is hidden from the world. He hunts criminals at night, avoiding detection.

Bond, on the other hand, isn’t like this. He can’t be; his job doesn’t allow it. When Sean Connery debuted the character in Dr. No (1962), he understood that an agent whose duties consisted of traveling the world, schmoozing with crooks, infiltrating shady agencies, and rendezvousing with key allies needed to be exuberant and outgoing. Plus, those traits were needed if he were to successfully smooth-talk gorgeous women.

On the other hand, a sad sack Bond can’t function. A prime example of this comes in No Time To Die when Bond must infiltrate a party with a pretty comrade (Ana de Armas).

This should be exactly the type of fun, sharp sequence that has always made Bond so entertaining to watch. And De Armas is up to it, but Craig can’t pull it off. He has placed himself inside such a small box of emotions by scowling through the entire first half of the movie (and all of the previous three movies) that when he inevitably attempts to flirt with de Armas, it comes off as weird: why is he smiling all of the sudden—did he forget his constant misery? And when he tries to make winking, witty quips to enliven the sequence, it’s suspicious: how can he joke around when he’s so tormented by loss and regret?

So while some may fear that criticizing Craig’s Bond implies a criticism of complexity, a vote against realness, in actuality this version feels less real than his predecessors because the character is so inconsistent. Just in this one film alone, Craig goes from attacking a prisoner, a la Jack Bauer; to a stately declaration of love, a la Mr. Darcy; to befuddled parenting, a la Ted Kramer; to a lovey-dovey death scene, a la Captain America. The ending falls eerily flat because it has no clear meaning: who has died? What was his identity? What were his character traits?

Successful character creation, after all, doesn’t require that we believe that the character could actually exist in real life. It only requires that we sense the humanity of the representation. Craig has reached to be more “real” as Bond, but it’s a futile effort; after all, his character is still performing impossible stunts and utilizing ridiculous weaponry. All Craig has done is confuse us.

The other reason critics have avoided and will continue to avoid condemning Craig’s Bond is the thorny issue of political correctness—especially regarding gender roles. The old Bond films are notoriously terrible in this regard. Most of their female leads (“Bond girls”) exist primarily as sex objects and have absurd names like “Pussy Galore” and “Octopussy.” The Craig films break with these traditions. Craig’s Bond can even take a rejection, as he does from de Armas’ character in No Time To Die without missing a beat—a skill Connery’s and Roger Moore’s Bonds never had much need for. Craig’s Bond, in fact, has spent much of his five films being commanded by women, bested by women, shot by women, in love with women, and replaced by women.

So this isn’t your granddad’s Bond. Critics, appropriately, have welcomed the change, but does this mean that Craig himself is above censure? Does bashing Craig’s portrayal equate to endorsing a return to the old ways, to macho womanizing and objectification? Critics seem to worry that they’ll be accused of exactly that.

This quandary has already been explored, actually, by someone who now seems like a sort of unlikely Bond prophet: Mike Myers. The movie Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) is an immensely underrated comedy, ostensibly a straight parody of the Bond franchise. The premise is that a 60’s secret agent and celebrity (Myers) transports forward in time to the 1990’s, where he finds that his preferred methods—especially seducing friends and foes alike and goofing around while the world nears destruction—are none too welcome anymore. As Roger Ebert summarized in his positive review: “Bond meets political correctness.”

Such a premise isn’t some farfetched notion. In fact, it was actually happening at that very moment, because, thanks to the magic of movies, James Bond had in fact been transported in time to the 1990’s, where he was portrayed by Pierce Brosnan for four films. And filmmakers were indeed forced to grapple with how to import the character’s sleazy tendencies into an increasingly hostile cultural and political environment. Consider a seminal 1990’s event: the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

Brosnan’s films (perhaps until the aforementioned Die Another Day) thus predictably downplayed sex, preferring to focus on maniacal, disturbed villains. This element of the Bond formula was, by contrast, 90’s-approved (see: Hannibal Lecter).

Given these modern tweaks of Bond’s familiar shtick, one recalls the shouting-down Austin Powers receives from his offended new coed partner (Elizabeth Hurley) in the 90’s: “You can’t just go around shagging everyone anymore!” Brosnan’s producers, apparently, felt the same way, judging by relatively dry, prudish outputs like Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and The World is Not Enough (1999). And by the time Craig was through with Bond, the character was parting ways with the lovely de Armas with little more than a tip of the cap.

Myers’ premise in International Man of Mystery, then, is funny because it reflects the very real awkwardness of trying to shepherd the Bond moneymaking machine into an era in which the character doesn’t quite fit. The true object of the parody isn’t Connery’s old films, which were congruent to their era. It’s Brosnan’s newer ones, which are the first to reflect a palpable discomfort with some of the character’s qualities, even as the films continued to draw fans and succeed at the box office.

So we want Bond back, but we don’t like some integral features of his personality. I suppose we can’t blame Craig too much, then, for grasping at straws. What, given our collective indecision, is an actor to do? What is a screenwriter to do? One gets the impression, in No Time To Die, of a focus-grouped movie, but the focus group couldn’t make up its mind. Or broke out into a food fight midway through.

The problem is best captured, again, by Myers. At the end of International Man of Mystery, a cornered Dr. Evil makes a surprisingly insidious argument. He taunts Austin Powers by sneakily suggesting that, with the 60’s long gone, Austin has become a menace:

Isn’t it ironic, Mr. Powers, that the very things you stand for: swinging, free love, parties, distrust of authority—are all now, in the 90’s, considered to be…evil?

The problem with Craig’s five Bond films is that none of them have an answer to this challenge. They’re ashamed of their own protagonist: like Dr. Evil, they believe that the essence of the character is a problem in the modern age.

But this needn’t have been the case, as Austin eloquently proves in his retort to Dr. Evil:

No, man, what we swingers were rebelling against were uptight squares like you, whose bag was money and world domination. We were innocent, man! If we’d known the consequences our sexual liberation, we would have done things differently, but spirit would have remained the same. It’s freedom, man!

If only someone from Eon Productions had seen this film, and incorporated this message! If only Bond’s producers, screenwriters, and actors had recognized that the ways of Bond could change without sacrificing the exuberant “spirit” of Bond. Then the character might still be entertaining in the 21st century.

After all, people of all eras like exotic locations, action, roguish wit, and sex. Bond could still have appealed to that in all of us. But instead, for fifteen years Bond hasn’t liked anything. He gets no pleasure out of the fantasy into which he’s supposed to be inviting us.

I don’t know who the next person to portray Bond will be, but I hope it’ll be someone who can incorporate Mike Myers’ solution to “Bond meets political correctness”—embracing the character’s core traits while operating happily within 21^st century mores. Daniel Craig and his collaborators weren’t able to strike that balance.

But Craig’s Bond, after all, is dead now: good riddance?

–Jim Andersen

For more commentary, see my takedown of the epic disaster, Cats.

Tags daniel craig, no time to die

Commentary and Essays

How the Worst Movie of the Decade Came to Be

Post author By jandersen
Post date September 13, 2022

We’re safely into the 2020s now, so I don’t think it’s jumping the gun to look back on the previous decade and contemplate its cinematic output. For example: what’s the best film of the 2010s? I personally suspect it’s The Tree of Life (2011), but I’m also partial to Moonlight (2016) and Under The Skin (2013), and there’s certainly no shortage of admirers for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) or Get Out (2017), among many others.

The worst film of the decade? That’s easy.

Tom Hooper’s 2019 adaptation of Cats is not only the biggest flop of the 2010s, but has a decent claim to being the biggest movie flop of all time. The pre-release hype for Cats was insane, and for good reason: the cast may well be the most exciting group of stars ever assembled for a single picture. A-listers in their primes like Idris Elba and Jennifer Hudson had signed on. Veritable acting legends like Judi Dench and Ian McKellan were committed. Hot comedians like Rebel Wilson and James Cordon promised to add levity. And even chart-topping musicians like Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift agreed to play significant roles.

With such abundance of diverse talents, what could go wrong? Oh, everything?

The word that best summarizes Cats is “disturbing.” Cats is not merely a disappointing film; it’s a film that misses its mark so badly that its ostensible aim—of providing a whimsical good time—is completely buried by the movie’s end. We not only don’t have a good time, but we seriously wonder whether the filmmakers truly wanted us to: whether they didn’t, in fact, intend for their creation to be eerie, unsettling, and grotesque.

These adjectives are primarily attributable to the film’s most egregious mistake: the decision to use motion capture animation to creepily meld the actors with cat bodies, turning them into…what, exactly? Not cats, since cats don’t walk on two legs or have ballerina cheekbones. But not humans, either, since humans don’t have furry bellies and don’t strut around totally naked.

When I saw this film, the nudity issue rattled me for the entire runtime. The handling of clothing in Cats is baffling: most of the cats don’t wear clothes at all, which makes sense, because they’re cats; but some of them, especially the major characters, do wear clothes—but then during a dance, they might dramatically take the clothes off, giving the alarming impression that they’re completely exposing themselves. And some of the actors’ dancing exacerbates the issue: Rebel Wilson, for example, brings her usual brand of physical comedy, throwing her weight around in striptease-type poses—but there’s a problem with this, because her character has no clothes on to enable the tease! There’s nothing to tease when there’s nothing to hide! There’s also nothing to tease when you’re a cat, or at least the teasing shouldn’t consist of the same poses, since cats don’t have the same features or sex characteristics as humans do. The dance sequences (Wilson’s in particular) viscerally repulsive for a reason: they make no visual sense.

In the stage version, actors wearing crazy makeup and wild costumes parade around, and, as in the movie adaptation, there are sexual overtones throughout. But sexual overtones are fine when we’re watching people in costumes, because the humanness allows us to still relate to what we’re seeing. Humans can still be sexy when they’re dressed as animals. But when the characters have been turned by a computer into actual animals, things suddenly become gross: there’s a crucial boundary that separates kinky fun from an episode of Planet Earth, and this movie crosses it. Or worse, sits on it.

The faces aren’t much more watchable than the bodies. At times, for instance, it’s clear that we’re no longer viewing motion capture animation but rather extremely sloppy CGI that has pasted the actors’ faces on to stunt doubles’ limber, catified bodies. Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), especially, often looks like a product of the same technology that created Annoying Orange. How was this allowed to stand through postproduction?

Another unforced CGI error is that the cats fluctuate wildly in size throughout the film in comparison to their backdrops. The number “Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat” is one of the better sequences in the film, but it’s marred by the apparent shrink ray that has suddenly brought the characters to approximately the size of mice. Speaking of mice, there are some in the film, but based on what we can see, they’re closer in size to bugs. They’re also played by children, and Wilson’s character implicitly threatens to…eat them if they don’t dance correctly. The child actors seem a little too genuinely scared of this possibility.

Let’s take a step back and talk about Andrew Lloyd Weber’s original Broadway version of Cats, which, to be fair to Tom Hooper, doesn’t exactly lend itself to box office dynamism. For one, Weber’s plot is largely nonexistent, consisting only of a vague contest to determine which cat goes to some sort of cat heaven, allowing the characters to sing about themselves and each other for the duration of the play. But this has the potential to work onstage, because singing and dancing alone can thrill us when we’re up close to the performers in person. Movies can’t offer that type of thrill, making Cats an especially difficult experience to adapt for the cinema.

Hooper, though, was still riding high in 2019 following the success of his 2012 adaptation of Les Miserables, also previously a landmark stage musical. For that film, Hooper had been trusted with an ensemble cast of top talent, and he scored big: Les Miserables was a box office smash and critically acclaimed. It earned Hugh Jackman a Best Actor nomination and Anne Hathaway an Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress. On top of that, let’s not forget that back in 2010, Hooper managed to nab Colin Firth a Best Actor victory for The King’s Speech, as well as a (ridiculously undeserved) Best Picture win and Best Director win for himself.

To those who say that Academy Awards aren’t as important to actors as they used to be, I give you…Cats. Because it’s fairly clear that the general feeling was that if Hooper could get Hathaway—who in 2012 was most known for The Princess Diaries and playing a forgettable Catwoman—an Oscar, and if he could get Hugh Jackman of Wolverine fame a nomination, too, and if he could defeat The Social Network for Best Picture in 2010 (nice one, Academy), then, well, what couldn’t he do for his next batch of stars?

They all saw, of course, Hathaway’s Oscar acceptance speech for Les Miserables. Many casual viewers saw it, too, and didn’t like it: her suspiciously breathless, awestruck delivery helped spark a fairly widespread backlash against her that persists to this day. The clip forcibly reminds me, at least, of Eve Harrington, the titular character from the classic film All About Eve (1950) who engages in cutthroat behavior to achieve her ambition of acting stardom. Eve accepts an achievement award and is subsequently criticized by the other characters, who have learned to see through her façade of graciousness. But famously, the film ends with a young woman posing in the mirror with Eve’s award after the ceremony, apparently dreaming of attaining Eve’s success—and implying that she, like Eve, will do anything to reach it. So although the other characters do condemn Eve’s phoniness and masquerading, many remain enamored by her studied affectation.

How prescient. As All About Eve portrays, the allure of acting glory can be irresistible to some. And for them, it didn’t matter that Cats’ source material didn’t have a plot or that the visual concept for the film clearly hadn’t been thought through: if Mia Thermopolis could be on that stage gushing oh-so-humble thank you’s, then, dammit, they could, too! The talent swarmed in. And Universal Pictures, eagerly awaiting the surefire windfall—after all, the Broadway Cats’ fan base was far larger than Les Miserables’ had been—readily paid up for the big names.

Well, Universal lost a reported $114 million. Impressive. But the cast members were hit, too: each one of them will live with the mistake forever. I’ve noticed that critics and casual fans alike when discussing this movie have a habit of trying to rescue their favorite star from its wreckage: “Well, Taylor Swift was pretty good, at least!” “James Cordon was kind of funny!” “Idris Elba tried the best he could!” Admirable tries, but no. The “best they could” would have been to avoid this film and go do something with lesser fanfare that would have been worthy of their various gifts. But they got greedy, and now this clip and this clip and this clip and this clip are at everyone’s fingertips indefinitely. I can’t help but notice that Taylor Swift, for one, hasn’t been quite as ubiquitous since her contribution to Cats—the aura of infallibility has been wiped away.

I think Jennifer Hudson, though, in the coveted role of Grizabella the Glamour Cat, fares worst of all. In an alternate universe where Cats was good and won awards, Hudson would have been first in line; after all, she gets the chance to lend her considerable vocal abilities to “Memory,” which is the climax of the story and one of the greatest numbers in Broadway history.

But Hudson comes up incredibly flat. In the stage version of Cats, Grizabella has dignity and grandeur, trying and failing multiple times to rejoin the tribe that ostracized her, until she summons the courage (aided by the young cat Jemima) to sing “Memory,” summarizing her lonely experience. But in the movie version, inexplicably, Grizabella repeatedly slinks away from the Jellicles and has to be dragged into the contest by Victoria (Francesca Hayward), who then prods her to sing her famous melody. In accordance with this new approach to the character, Hudson’s acting performance is mopey, meek, and helpless; and her performance of “Memory” reflects none of the resilience and grit that make the song so famous.

For instance, the stage play’s signature moment is a faltering Grizabella mustering the strength to pick herself off the ground and belt out the final verse (wow!), but Hooper maddeningly decides instead to have Victoria physically help Grizabella off the ground, such that the lyrics of the ensuing verse—“TOUCH ME!”—no longer make any sense. Um, she just touched you, Grizabella. Calm down.

So yes, it’s Hooper who’s ultimately responsible for Hudson’s awful performance. But the performance is what it is, and it’s still awful. You don’t get to take the credit for the successes while blaming the director for the failures.

Hooper won’t get off scot-free, though. He may have been behind the camera and thus hidden from the public outcry, but Hollywood is a small world. When studio executives, sore from their huge monetary loss, and noteworthy actors, fearful of being caught up in the next pop cultural trainwreck , inevitably turn down his next big idea, I imagine he might feel a little bit like Grizabella the Glamour Cat: yearning for better days of popularity and adoration, shut out of the party he once energized.

I wonder if he’ll realize then that being unwanted doesn’t make snot come out of your nose.

—Jim Andersen

For related criticism, see my analysis of the flawed Slumdog Millionaire.

Tags cats, tobe hooper