July Movies Part 4: Theater Camp, Nimona, The Beanie Bubble

To round out July, I have three final film recommendations. Whether you're into theater, animation, or beanie babies, you're gonna enjoy these films.

Theater Camp: Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Ben Platt and Noah Galvin, this is a mockumentary about theater kids, written by former theater kids. It's the story of a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains where a bunch of kids who love theater gather to learn their craft from a bunch of wacky teachers and put on some spectacular productions at the end of their stay. This year is a little different, however, because the beloved camp founder, Joan (Amy Sedaris), is in a coma, and her son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), a finance bro who knows nothing about Broadway, has taken over running the camp. Or rather, running it into the ground.

Platt and Gordon also star as Amos and Rebecca-Diane, a pair of very co-dependent teachers who went to this camp when they were kids and have now returned as high-strung teachers, who write and direct an original production every year. This year, they are writing a play about Joan's life, but as the summer progresses, there are all manner of hiccups, and it's clear that these best friends have some long-buried issues they need to work through. The rest of the cast are equally compelling, hilarious, and great, serving as a motley crew of haggard experts and complete nitwits (Ayo Edebiri is particularly fun as a new hire who lied on her resume and has no idea what her class on Stage Combat is meant to entail). But the true stars are the kids, these child actors who absolutely nail it as precocious little theater nerds who are brimming with talent and bursting with enthusiasm. This is a breezy gem of a film and you will not stop laughing for 90 minutes straight. Get thee to the theater!

Nimona: Written by Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor (based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson) and directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, this animated movie was a surprising little Netflix discovery that brightened up my afternoon. Riz Ahmed voices Ballister Boldheart, a soldier in a medieval-futuristic kingdom who rose up the ranks and is now eligible for knighthood into the Institute for Elite Knights. He wasn't born to this position, and his knighting would serve as progress for the city, an indication that even those from humble backgrounds can achieve such heights. Unfortunately, as the Queen knights him with his sword, something goes terribly wrong and she is killed. In the ensuing melee, Ballister escapes, but he is now on the run with the entire city and the Institute convinced he is a Queen killer. 

This is when he runs into Nimona (voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz). She is a teenage shapeshifter, who lives on the outskirts of society because she is viewed as a monster. She desperately wants to team up with Ballister so they can be villains together, which is a plan he is not keen on. However, he could use her help to clear his name, so they reluctantly embark on an adventure that is filled with many great plot twists that I will not spoil. Suffice to say, Nimona is a compelling film, chockful of gorgeous animation, a wonderful story, and a lot of meta commentary on unconscious bias, misinformation, and prejudice. This might also be the first animated film I've seen with such a matter-of-factly gay main character (Ballister's boyfriend is the deliciously named Ambrosius Goldenloin). Overall, it is a sweet and surprising movie and is well worth a watch.

The Beanie Bubble: Written by Kristin Gore, who also co-directed with Damian Kulash, this is the story of the rise and fall of Beanie Babies in the late 80s and 90s. If you're a millenial, you will enjoy this nostalgia trip - Lord knows I enjoyed collecting Beanie Babies with my Happy Meals when I lived in Toronto in the 90s, but hoo boy, I had no idea about the craze for these toys and how they were like the NFTs of their day (except, you know, more fungible). This is the story of the man who created the company, Ty Warner (Zach Galifinakis), but more importantly, it's the story of the three women who supported him through three distinct phases of this company: Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), his co-founder, Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), an intuitive marketing whiz who helped spark the craze and fuel it with the newly burgeoning power of the Internet and eBay, and Sheila (Sarah Snook), his girlfriend, whose two daughters from a previous marriage helped him come up with Beanie baby designs.

This movie can be a bit tricky to follow given that it keeps jumping back and forth in time, trying to draw parallels between the experiences of these three women through three different time periods, some of which overlap. It was a bit distracting at first, but as the movie went on, I grew to appreciate why the story was being told in this fashion. Because of course, this is a story of how all three women were ultimately screwed over by this ambitious and petulant man. I have no idea how much of this story is embellished and how much is strictly true, but Banks, Snook, and Viswanathan are three incredible actors that I would happily watch for hours, so I was along for the ride. It's a fun streaming movie, especially for someone like me who was too young to appreciate the absolute madness of adults who were investing fortunes into Beanie Babies. So watch it for some nostalgia and some righteous feminist indignation - what a potent combo!

July Movies Part 3: Barbie & Oppenheimer

I did not subject myself to the full-on Barbenheimer experience where you watch both films in a day, but I have now watched both films (Barbie first, natch) and lived to tell the tale. Let's get into it.

Barbie: It's official, writer-director Greta Gerwig is one of our greatest living filmmakers. This movie is a wondrous feminist confection, bringing together an incredible ensemble to give us the story of...Barbie and Ken. Yes, this is ultimately a ploy by the corporate overlords at Mattel to sell more Barbie dolls, but my God, Gerwig has taken this doll and created a masterful commentary on the patriarchy, sexism, and the burden of being a woman through the decades. And given her ability to find the absolute perfect song to deploy in any scene (I will still never get over the use of Crash Into Me in Lady Bird), you will be pleased to hear that this film is practically a musical, with some incredible music throughout, and a particularly excellent deployment of Matchbox Twenty's Push that I have not been able to stop humming for days.

The production design is incredible, perfectly capturing the plastic and pink Barbie aesthetic, and the outfits are spectacular. But of course, the highlight is Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie, a beautiful doll who is content with how every day in Barbieland is absolutely perfect until she is suddenly visited by "irrepressible thoughts of death." And cellulite. Seeking help from Weird Barbie (the glorious Kate McKinnon), she discovers she must go to the Real World to fix her ennui. She grudgingly heads out, but Ken (who is played to "pretty but dumb, oh wait no, just pretty dumb" perfection by Ryan Gosling) stows away in her car, so he also gets a taste of the Real World. Turns out Ken was pretty miserable in Barbieland where his entire existence was only to serve as Barbie's boyfriend, but in the Real World, he learns about the patriarchy. Chaos ensues. Meanwhile Barbie finds Gloria (America Ferrera), a Mattel employee who took to playing with her daughter's old Barbie doll, and unwittingly unleashed this existential crisis on Barbie. When the CEO of Mattel (played as a glorious dimwit by Will Ferrell) starts chasing Barbie down, it's time for Gloria and her daughter to visit Barbieland.

I know this is all very high concept and bizarre, but believe me, it is told magnificently, with so much heart and humor. There are a myriad mansplaining jokes, and it's wonderful to see the interplay between the different Kens (stalwarts like Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir), Barbies (folks like Issa Rae and Nicola Coughlin) and...Allan (Ken's best friend played by a hapless Michael Cera) and Midge (a pregnant Barbie played by Emerald Fennell and mostly treated like a horror element throughout the film). Every cast member is having a raucous good time, but Robbie in particular is a shining beacon, able to convey the drop-dead gorgeous womanhood of a stereotypical Barbie doll, but then infuse all that seeming perfection with vulnerability and pathos to give you a human woman who is suffering when she discovers that in the Real World, a construction site isn't filled with supportive women and there has never been a female President. This film is a joy from start to finish and I might need to watch it again to fully revel in its glory.

Oppenheimer: Well this is a good movie but it certainly isn't a joy from start to finish, more of a crescendo of ceaseless horror. The best thing about this film is probably its sound design that propulsively beats in your ears as the film nears its climax. And the central performance from Cillian Murphy is magnificent. Christopher Nolan is of course a consummate writer and filmmaker, so the script also does this magical job of weaving back and forth in time, with Nolan's trademark love for non-linear narrative. But yeah. The whole time I was impressed by all these technical elements, but did this film resonate with me emotionally and make me feel invested in this tale of man's ultimate hubris? Not really.

Perhaps the problem wouldn't be as noticeable if you weren't pairing this movie with Barbie but man, this film is about as patriarchal as it gets. It's a bunch of genius men standing around playing God, and the only major female roles in the film are played by Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's alcoholic and decidedly uninterested in mothering wife, Kitty, and Florence Pugh as the woman Oppenheimer periodically has an affair with, so she spends most of her screen time naked. Which is obviously my least favorite use of an actor in a movie that already has a dearth of female representation. Also, the parade of cameos from famous male actors got a bit silly. They would pop in to say a few lines and pretend to be some famous scientist/politician and then disappear again. I would spend the whole time being so surprised to see that famous face that I wouldn't pay any attention to what they had to say, so I don't know that this helped the plot any.

I was quite impressed at how Nolan kept the pace of this film brisk - the first two hours genuinely flew by and as we get to that inevitable test at Los Alamos when they first detonate the atomic bomb, you will be on the edge of your seat. But this film certainly has some third act problems when it tries to get you re-invested in Oppenheimer's show trial for alleged Communist sympathies and his damaged legacy. This is a movie that is all about how no one ever knew how he really felt about his involvement in creating a weapon that murdered hundreds of thousands of people, but the movie makes it clear that he was pained by it and spent his life trying to get governments to reign back the horror that he and his scientists had wrought. But I was expecting so much more. I would have rather had a shorter movie that was a true character study, than this three-hour hagiography with a somewhat inevitable conclusion that mankind is doomed. 

Look at the news, we're all well aware that we are perpetually on the brink of nuclear annihilation. I was hoping Oppenheimer had something more profound to say, but that's about the gist of it. Men suck, and the apocalypse is nigh. I'm gonna go watch the Barbie movie again. 

July Movies Part 2: Joy Ride & Mission: Impossible 7

Do you just want to have a fun time at the movie theater? Like a crazy good, delightful time? Then these next two movies will provide exactly what you seek.

Joy Ride: Written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao and directed by Adele Lim, this is a perfect movie about a group of Chinese* (I won't spoil, but that asterisk is there for a reason) women who head to China for a work trip/girl's trip and all manner of shenanigans ensue. 

Ashley Park plays Audrey, who was adopted by white American parents as a baby and lived in Washington in a town called White Hills that wasn't exactly a beacon of diversity. As a child she befriended another Chinese girl, Lolo (Sherry Cola), and the two of them continue to be best friends into adulthood, though their paths have significantly diverged. Audrey is a successful lawyer, while Lolo lives in Audrey's guesthouse and is a struggling artist who likes to make sex-positive artwork. Audrey is  straight-laced and proper, Lolo is decidedly not. But Lolo was raised by Chinese parents and is fluent in Mandarin, so when Audrey has to go to China for work to woo a big client, she brings Lolo along to serve as her translator. Lolo's Kpop-obsessed cousin "Deadeye" (Sabrina Wu), joins them as well, and when they get to China, they team up with Audrey's college roommate, Kat (Stephanie Hsu) who is a successful actress on a Chinese soap opera.

After the business stuff takes a turn for the worse, they pivot to trying to find Audrey's birth mother, which leads to a road trip that has many lewd and hilarious pitstops. It's an incredible R-rated rampage, but at the same time, it is also an incredible story about identity and friendship. Audrey's struggles with racism and always being told she's too Asian for white people and not Asian enough for Asian folk was very relatable as a third culture kid. This is a movie with so much heart, even as you bust a gut laughing at all the inanity that takes place on screen. This is a phenomenal cast, all doing phenomenal work, and I am ready for them to give me Joy Ride 2: Electric Boogaloo. 

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One: Phew, did you make your way through that title? Well, just wait till you watch the glorious two and a half hour extravaganza that is this movie, the seventh entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise. The plot revolves around a dangerous artificial intelligence called The Entity that has stealthily found its way into the nooks and crannies of top secret intelligence software across the planet and now seems poised to wreak havoc on the world. I wish I could tell you more, but come on, we all know the plot is completely besides the point in these movies. I'm just here to watch Tom Cruise run.

Oh man. There's so much running. And epic car chases through Rome (which definitely gave me Fast X flashbacks - Hollywood has really destroyed Rome this year!), an insane fight in a narrow and claustrophobic alley in Venice (I found myself aghast at how they even managed to film that), a finale on a train where you will literally be on the edge of your seat for twenty minutes, and then be like, oh my god, it's still going! And of course, the famous motorcycle jump right off a mountain. Tom Cruise filmed that stunt on Day 1, so that if he got terribly injured, or, you know, died, at least they wouldn't waste all their money shooting the rest of the movie. Which is some foolhardy commitment to the craft. 

And while the action is incredible and wondrous, I was also very pleased at how funny this film was. Writers Erik Jendresen and Christopher McQuarrie (also the director!) have injected way more comic relief into this movie, particularly when Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames show up as the bantering sidekicks, and there are also plenty of meta asides about how the Impossible Mission Force (yes, IMF, no, not the World Bank one) is such a ridiculous organisation. This movie contains a hearty serving of absolutely everything you wanted from a Mission: Impossible movie, and at the end, I clapped my hands in glee. Part Two, I'm ready.

July Movies Part 1: Every Body & Black Ice

There are even more movies to watch in July than there were in June, so here we are again, with a plethora of film reviews. To kick things off, I give you two stellar documentaries that are sure to broaden your horizons and remind you of the ongoing injustices many people face in our world. They pack an emotional wallop and provide an incredible education in 90 minutes that will stick with you for a good long while after you leave the theater. 

Every Body: Directed by Julie Cohen, this film is a wonderful portrait of three intersex people, Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, and River Gallo, and their experiences of growing up intersex in different parts of the United States. As they share their stories with the documentary crew, we also get a history of how intersex people have been treated in the past, and the work of Dr. John Money, a man who pioneered the surgical and medical care given to such people from birth, and who is responsible for the dangerous ideology and misinformation that is still quoted in medical textbooks and spread in the medical community today. 

Intersex people are born with any combination of sex characteristics that don't fit our binary model of male or female bodies. For example, you could have a vulva and a vagina, and externally present as female, but internally you could have testes, with no ovaries or uterus. Historically, doctors would assign a gender to the intersex baby, and perform invasive surgeries or medical procedures as an infant as well as when the child entered puberty to ensure they "conformed" to their assigned gender. Which of course doesn't take into consideration what the child wants, and what gender they feel is right for them. And the entire thing was shrouded in secrecy, with parents often being told never to talk to anyone about this, and the patients often even keeping medical practices secret from their parents.

It's all very horrifying and sad, but the three wonderful people at the heart of this documentary are now incredible activists, fighting to give intersex people more visibility, leading protests, and actively trying to persuade lawmakers to change laws to ensure intersex people have more rights and agency. A startling fact that Alicia notes is how anti-trans bills are often about how trans people should not have the right to get surgeries or take hormones to makes their bodies align to their chosen gender identity, but at the same time, those same bigoted lawmakers are desperately pushing bills demanding intersex surgery and hormone therapy be performed on infants and children so they would be forced to adopt a gender that may not reflect their true identity. I know it all sounds very heavy, but I promise this is also an inspirational film that showcases the improvements in recent years to treat intersex individuals with more compassion, and ultimately ends on a note of joyous positivity. There is much work to be done, but perhaps you can begin by educating yourself with this movie.

Black Ice: I do not watch ice hockey, but I certainly watched the hell out of this documentary. A comprehensive look at the racism directed towards hockey players in Canada, it is a wondrous history lesson about the contributions of Black people to the sport of ice hockey, as well as an infuriating reminder of the many barriers to entry they currently face at all levels of the sport. It also offers up a fascinating insight into Canadians and their view that they are not racist - that's viewed as an American problem, but as this film proceeds to demonstrate, Canada is no multicultural paradise.

Directed by Hubert Davis, over the course of the film we learn about the Coloured Hockey League in Nova Scotia, which was an all-Black hockey league where many innovations that are commonplace in the sport today were first seen. These players were great athletes who simply wanted to play the sport they loved, but any attempts to integrate them into the National Hockey League were denied and there were so many socioeconomic factors that consistently kept them down. As is true of the history of so many sports, there were some pioneers who broke that color barrier, and this documentary tells their stories as well, featuring Willie O'Ree, who was the first Black man to play in the NHL. 

In addition to the historical perspective, however, this movie is urgently driven by interviews with current hockey players and their many tales of the systemic racism they have encountered beginning as young children and all the way into the NHL. The running theme with all these stories is how isolating and startling these experiences can be - they were usually the only people of color in their entire team, and it is particularly disheartening to hear them say that this abuse was often coming from adults and they had no idea what to do as children. Hearing a player talk about playing in a junior league and walking past parents hurling racist abuse at him is beyond the pale, but alas, that is the world we live in. As distressing as this documentary is though, it also offers up many uplifting examples of diversity initiatives that these folks are now running to ensure that young kinds of color can play hockey with their peers and have a safe space to hone their skills and gain mastery of the game. This film is a searing indictment of the NHL's pitiful attempts to diversify hockey, but at a grassroots level, it offers up a lot of hope that perhaps these new leaders in the sport, who already went through their share of horrors, will help create a better world for future players.

Old Adult Binges: Queen Charlotte, Platonic, Based on a True Story

I haven't just been bingeing shows about high schoolers. There have also been a slew of great shows about very adult things and now it's your turn to watch them!

Queen Charlotte: I put this off for a while, but I mean, there was no way I wasn't going to check out a Bridgerton spin-off right? This limited series serves as a prequel of sorts, giving us the story of the young Queen Charlotte (India Amarteifio) who arrives in England to marry the mysterious King George III (Corey Mylchreest). She is a fiery and independent woman, but George is a good match, willing to take her on as she is. But of course, there are so many other obstacles along the way. Which include the fact that she is Black and he is...mad.

Bridgerton only glancingly acknowledged the fact that the cast of the show was not as white as one would expect from a typical period drama about rich British people in the 1800s. This show is an attempt to explain the "social experiment" that Queen Charlotte brought about with her dark skin, where the Crown saw fit to elevate Black families so the Queen wouldn't feel quite so alienated. The show also has to deal with George's fits and the fact that he is eventually overtaken by a "madness" that history has yet to fully diagnose. The show's take is that they had a very happy marriage, and Charlotte protected her husband as best as she could from the outside world. But it's definitely a lot of drama to deal with.

Queen Charlotte is trying to thread a very delicate needle. It half succeeds, but with only six episodes in the season, it can only make a cursory attempt at dealing with questions of race and mental health. Where it is more successful, of course, is in the aesthetics - the costumes and hairstyles and production design are wild and flamboyant and outrageous. And there are definitely plenty of sex scenes to keep you entertained if that's all you want from your Bridgerton binge. But if you don't want your smut served with a side of social commentary, this may not be the right show for you.

Based on a True Story: Chris Messina and Kaley Cuoco star as Nathan and Ava, a couple living in Los Angeles who accidentally discover the identity of a serial killer. And instead of turning him in to the cops, they decide it would be a good idea to partner up with the killer to make a podcast about his exploits. What could go wrong?!

Over the course of eight episodes, things naturally go completely off the rails. This is one of those shows that veers from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, so I'm not going to get into much more plot. But suffice to say, Messina and Cuoco are incredible actors and they are hilarious and compelling in this show that is just as much about the struggles of marriage as it is about keeping tabs on a serial killer. Also, not for nothing, but Cuoco's character is massively pregnant, and I've never seen a show treat a pregnant woman with quite so much agency as this one - this lady is getting up to more shenanigans whilst pregnant than I've ever gotten up to with a completely barren uterus. 

Tom Bateman, who plays the killer, is also excellent, managing to be charming and exceedingly creepy, which is exactly what you want from your serial killer character. The increasingly farcical nature of the relationship between these three people keeps spiraling out of control; it's a well-contained first season, with plenty of jokes and thrills, and I hope they can continue to pull it off in Season 2. 

Platonic: I love this show. It is so clever and smart and has so much to say about gender dynamics and approaching middle age and friendship. Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen star as Sylvia and Will, two people who were best friends in college (Will even served as Sylvia's maid of honor at her wedding) but then had a falling out because Will married a woman that Sylvia couldn't stand. Fast forward to several years later, where Sylvia and her husband now have three kids, and she discovers Will has gotten divorced. She tentatively reaches out to see how he is doing, and after a few meetings, they rekindle their friendship.

Yes, this is a show that seems like it is going be tongue-in-cheek about the title and actually this is some sort of slow-burn romcom where the man and woman can't just be platonic best friends but will have to hook up at the end. But no, Sylvia's husband, Charlie (the gorgeous Luke Macfarlane), is a supportive and loving husband, and she's not about to blow that up. Instead, this show truly is focused on what happens to men and women when they get older, and the gendered ruts they can fall into. What's lovely is how their re-established friendship forces both these people to view their lives with fresh perspectives and institute some changes that will make them happier and get back on track with the hopes and dreams they had for themselves when they were younger.

Of course there's still jealousy and misunderstandings, because most of society is not prepared for the idea that straight people of opposite genders can just be friends. But after watching ten episodes of this show, all I can say is that it is a delicious and warm comedy about friendship, and how sometimes that is a relationship that is much more important than romance. 

June Movies Part 2: No Hard Feelings, Indiana Jones, Asteroid City

The movies keep on rolling into the theater and I keep on going every weekend. June ended with a slew of films that ran the gamut of blockbusters to plain ol' busts. Read on if you want to know what I would recommend and what I would not.

No Hard Feelings: I had been looking forward to this movie for a while and it did not disappoint. It tells the story of Maddie (the delightful Jennifer Lawrence), a woman in her early thirties who is broke, mad at the world, and very commitment-phobic. In urgent need of some cash, she find an ad posted by some concerned helicopter parents who want a young woman to "date" their college-bound son, Percy (the very sweet and wonderful Andrew Barth Feldman). Percy is a pathologically shy teen who rarely goes out and doesn't have any friends, and his parents are desperate to draw him out of his shell before he leaves for Princeton in the fall. 

What follows is an extremely raunchy comedy where Maddie first tries to get this awkward teen to realize she wants to bang him, but subsequently turns into a very sweet and earnest movie where these two broken people help each other grow in unexpected ways. Directed by Gene Stupnitsky, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Phillips, this is both a glorious comedy that fully earns its R-rating (with one incredible sequence on a beach that might be my absolute favorite use of female full-frontal nudity ever) and also a touching one, and that's an incredibly hard tone to pull off. So watch this movie. You'll have no hard feelings (groan) when you leave the theater.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Harrison Ford is back as the swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana Jones, and despite the grey hair and wrinkles (except for the scenes where he has been miraculously de-aged), this movie is still a wall-to-wall action extravaganza. Throw in Phoebe Waller-Bridge as his goddaughter, Helena Shaw, and you've got a thrilling film that keeps you thoroughly entertained for the entirety of it's 154-minute runtime. 

Set in 1969 (though dipping into other years at various points), the premise is simple - there's a literal Nazi, Jurgen Voller (played by Mads Mikkelsen, of course), who is in search of Archimedes' dial, an ancient artefact that Indy had stolen from him in World War II. What follows is a quest across New York, Morocco, Greece, and Italy to decipher the clues that Archimedes left behind and recover this dial before it falls into the wrong hands. There are action sequences on planes, trains, automobiles, and tuk-tuks. Really, any vehicle you can think of features in this movie in some glorious stunt sequence at some point. Directed by James Mangold, this is a thrilling action-adventure with a great finale. And of course, every time that score by John Williams blares out, you'll want to stand up and cheer. This franchise is 42 years old, but boy does it feel as fresh as ever.

Asteroid City: Lately, Wes Anderson's movies have been falling fast in my estimation. Last year, I was terrifically bored by The French Dispatch and thought he was leaning more into his twee aesthetic than the need to make actual narrative sense. Little did I know that movie would be considered a narrative masterpiece in comparison to Asteroid City, a film where he seems to have decided that plot is not of the essence whatsoever. I would really like to be able to describe this movie to you, but that would necessitate actually understanding what happened in it for an hour and a half minutes, and that is not something I can claim to have done. 

Set in the 1950s, a large cast of characters congregate in a desert town in Arizona called Asteroid City. They are there to celebrate some high-school students who have made some marvelous scientific inventions and do some stargazing, but then an alien shows up so they all get put into quarantine by the US government who doesn't want word of the alien to get out. But there's also a meta-narrative about how none of this is real and is actually just the story of a play that's being put on, so you have to follow that whole parallel narrative which renders anything that anyone says completely moot? I don't know man. It was self-satisfied and artsy and I didn't have any patience for it. It was, of course, aesthetically delicious, but I am becoming increasingly convinced that maybe all I want from Anderson is a series of photographs or portraits. But cinema is not the art form he should be dabbling in if he thinks having a coherent narrative is so beneath him.