Delicious Documentaries: The Romantics & Cunk on Earth

I've been having a rough few weeks but Netflix really came through with two short "documentary" series that made me smile. If you're in the need of some uplift, perhaps one of these shows is exactly what you need in your life.

The Romantics: This series is a Hindi movie extravaganza. Purportedly the story of Yash Chopra, the celebrated director who began making movies in the 1950s and had an extraordinary career that spanned decades and essentially defined every era of Indian filmmaking, the series features interviews with a veritable who's who of Indian actors, directors, and the behind-the-scenes folks who were involved in making these movies. And I say "purportedly," because Yash Chopra's son is Aditya Chopra, a man who also became a director and is renowned for the movies he made in the 90s and 2000s that are still an essential part of my childhood and adolescence. So really, this is a documentary about a dynasty, how it came to be, and its dreams for the future. 

I must confess, I never paid much attention to producers and directors of Hindi movies when I was growing up - all I cared about were the actors. So it came as quite a surprise to me as I watched this documentary unfold to learn how much Yash and Aditya Chopra’s movies are some of my (or my parents') favorite films of all-time. And not just as directors but through their film studio, Yash Raj Films. The series pays homage to how this studio came to be and the mentorship that is involved where Aditya is trying to mold new producers, get them to take on the mantle of this immense legacy, and have a stake in their own careers.

This series is created by Smriti Mundhra, the woman behind Indian Matchmaking, who really knows how to craft a compelling narrative for television along with her co-writer Michael Vollmann. This series is only four episodes long, but those first three episodes end with such dramatic cliffhangers that you’ll be smashing that “Play Next Episode” button. And the stellar collection of interviewees offer up varied and amusing anecdotes about the Chopra legacy. I loved that they go in-depth into Uday Chopra’s career - he is Aditya’s brother, and he tried to become an actor, but even with that family legacy behind him, it simply didn’t take. This is a series filled with “nepo babies,” i.e. Indian actors who come from a long line of famous filmmakers and stars. But it’s refreshing to see that audiences can still force a kind of meritocracy onto the screen.

There are also fun tales of actors like Bhumi Phednekar and Ranveer Singh, who had no film connections but made it into the studio via the charismatic casting director, Shanoo Sharma, who is a real hoot. But when we come back to that central father-son dynamic, the story that I find most charming is about a question of costume design. When Aditya Chopra was directing his first film, he wanted an actress to wear a silk sari. His father, who was on set and was always very hands-on about every element of his films, was aghast, insistent that a chiffon sari was the only acceptable material because it would billow in the wind and be much more cinematic. Through this one anecdote, this series brilliantly conveys how these two men approached filmmaking in entirely different ways. Chiffon to silk saris was all it took to herald a new era in cinema.

Cunk on Earth: Oh where to begin? It almost seems foolish to try and describe this show to you, so why don’t you just log on to Netflix and binge the five half-hour episodes? No? You need more? Sigh, fine.

Diane Morgan stars as Philomena Cunk, an earnest British documentarian who is attempting to host a documentary about human civilization from its ancient beginnings to now. But, this woman is an absolute idiot, to put it mildly. This show is a brilliant satire, highlighting what serious BBC documentaries would be like if David Attenborough had done no research, constantly mispronounced things, had various startling opinions, didn’t believe in facts, and said disdainful things to his interviewees. 

Over the course of the series, Cunk interviews many academics on a host of topics, and my favorite part is watching these people either look very shocked or desperately try not to burst out laughing. The best might be a professor of philosophy who, true to form for a philosopher, always gives due weight to Cunk's questions and interprets them in a favorable way that suggests she actually knows what she’s talking about. Much to her own surprise. 

This might be the most joke-dense show I have ever watched. Created by the brilliant Charlie Brooker, every single line of dialogue made me burst out laughing, with jokes that run the gamut from silly puns to visual sight gags. There are silly descriptions like, “Julius Caesar, the most famous Roman, until Polanski” or maps that are meant to show the territory of the invading Mongol Horde that are simply divided into sections that say Genghis and Genghisn’t. And by the end of five episodes, you will be very familiar with a certain piece of Belgian dance music. Oh what a splendidly silly, stupid, and spectacular show!

And the 2023 Oscar Goes To...

Wow. This marks the tenth year I have posted about my Oscar predictions, hopes, and dreams. What a decade it has been. And given that the Academy has seen fit to award the most nominations to Everything Everywhere All at Once, a movie that I declared was 2022's Best Movie in my review back in April, I am feeling optimistic about this year's ceremony. Let's dive right in!

Best Picture: Unlike last year, I am pleased with this year's nominees. Obviously I am rooting for Everything Everywhere All at Once (referred to as EEAAO from here on out), and given the momentum it has going into this Oscars ceremony, I would be very surprised if it didn't comfortably win the top prize. But this is a good crop of films overall and you should genuinely take the time to check most of them out. Obviously my other favorite movie from this list is Women Talking, which was an absolutely soul-stirring tour de force. It seems to have dropped off the radar, but I cannot urge everyone strongly enough to seek it out and contemplate its quiet grace. On the other end of the spectrum, there's The Banshees of Inisherin, which could be renamed, Men Talking. This was a violent, funny, and bizarre movie, but with that Irish setting and Martin McDonagh dialogue, you know you're going to have a poetic and melancholy good time. Then we've got Tar and Triangle of Sadness. Which are two movies that startled and delighted me in thoroughly unexpected ways. I had no idea what I was getting into with either of these films, and was thoroughly expecting to be bored by them. But wow. They both got me good. And ended with quite a bang. Which leads me to The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film that served as a love letter to his family as well as the movies, and had a wonderful final shot that made me delightedly giggle. Then we have All Quiet on the Western Front, which is the traditional Oscar pick, a grim German World War I movie that is wrenchingly told but rehashing a lot of old ground. We also have Elvis, fulfilling our need to honor a musical biopic - this movie was fine, and of course that central performance is great (we'll get to it below), and if you love Elvis and his music, walk right up. And then finally we have the two blockbusters: Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick. I am already dreading having to watch decades of Avatar movies, so that's a pass from me, but Top Gun was a thoroughly entertaining summer movie and is worth your time if you need some mindless good fun. Though you might need to watch it on the biggest screen you can find. 

Best Director: Obviously I want this to go to the Daniels, aka Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert who are responsible for the wondrous EEAAO. I recently listened to them on Marc Maron's podcast, and they are just as fun and sincere as I wanted them to be. The other directors on this list are no slouches either. I wouldn't mind Todd Field winning for his masterful work in Tar, or Ruben Ostlund for his bonkers brilliance in helming Triangle of Sadness. Spielberg already has an Oscar so he can sit this one out, and McDonagh also technically has an Oscar, though that was for an early short film. Of course, it's a travesty that Sarah Polley has failed to be recognized for her work in Women Talking and this is yet again a category stacked only with men. But among those men, the Daniels deserve it the most and would probably give the best speech. 

Best Actress: So we're all agreed on Michelle Yeoh for EEAAO, right? She is sublime, has been steadily working for years, consistently at the peak of her craft, and she is going to walk away with this statue. Her competition is fierce, but she still manages to blow them out of the water. Cate Blanchett's magnificent turn in Tar is the strongest contender for an upset here, but she already has two Oscars so she needs to spread the wealth. Michelle Williams is wonderful and ethereal in The Fabelmans but that is a typical Oscar performance and didn't particularly move me. The same could be said for Andrea Riseborough in To Leslie, and Ana de Armas in Blonde. All these women acted their hearts out and deserve these nominations, but Michelle Yeoh deserves the award.

Best Actor: None of these men have ever been nominated before. So honestly, I would be happy for any of them to walk away with a statue. The favorites appear to be Austin Butler for Elvis, or Brendan Fraser for The Whale. Both are films I didn't particularly care for, but both performances are worthy and deserving (Butler is still talking like Elvis and can't seem to kick the accent - now that's dedication!) But I also have a soft spot for Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy, who offer up quiet but powerful performances in Aftersun and Living respectively. Colin Farrell is great in The Banshees of Inisherin and much like Fraser and Nighy, has steadily been churning out excellent work for years. This is a category that only has winners, and I wish them all the best of luck on Sunday night.

Best Supporting Actress: Both Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu are nominated for their turns in EEAAO and both are equally deserving, though I would argue that Hsu's performance carries much more emotional heft in that movie. I would certainly not be upset if Angela Bassett swooped in with a win for her excellent work in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Hong Chau was good in The Whale, but overall that's not a movie I care to spend more time talking about - she has recently been doing a lot of fantastic work so I hope to see her re-nominated for more sterling achievements in the future. And Kerry Condon is wonderful in The Banshees of Inisherin, serving as the lone female perspective in this island full of Irish madmen. So, not clear on who will win here, but no outcome would be particularly upsetting.

Best Supporting Actor: This should be an absolute lock for Ke Huy Quan in EEAAO. This is an award not only for his magical performance in this film, but a reward for all his work as a child actor that has become a staple of so many people's cinematic memories. This movie singlehandedly revitalized his career and I greatly look forward to the Quanaissance, but for now, give him that Oscar. The other nominees also put in fantastic work: Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan are both weird and wonderful in The Banshees of Inisherin, Brian Tyree Henry is quiet and marvelous in Causeway, and Judd Hirsch is loud and marvelous in The Fabelmans. But none of them can hold a candle to Quan and I cannot wait for his acceptance speech. 

Best Original Screenplay: EEAAO. No contest. There is nothing I have seen in 2022 that is more "original" than that bonkers script. The closest contenders are of course Tar and Triangle of Sadness, who are incredibly worthy nominees. And The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin were also great. It is certainly interesting that every single one of these movies was written or co-written by the director(s), all of whom also got Best Director nominations. Perhaps that accounts for why these films are so self-assured and masterful. You can't go wrong with any of them, but EEAAO is the one to beat.

Best Adapted Screenplay: This is a rather spectacular category and I find myself torn in many directions. Obviously my #1 pick would be Sarah Polley for Women Talking - I even read the novel and recognized what a phenomenal feat it was to adapt it in a way that made it so wonderfully cinematic. But I am also a sucker for a good murder mystery, and with Glass Onion, Rian Johnson continues to prove what a consummate writer he is, with an ability to generate laughs, gasps, and all-out mayhem. I love Kazuo Ishiguro's novels, and even though he was adapting a Kurosawa film (that was itself adapted from a Tolstoy novella), his adaptation of Living felt like watching one of his novels come to life, languidly building to an emotional crescendo that packed quite a wallop. I haven't read All Quiet on the Western Front, but have heard that Germans have been ridiculing this movie as a poor adaptation of the novel - I found some elements of the script fascinating, but am otherwise neutral on this movie. And a screenplay nomination for Top Gun: Maverick feels terribly silly. That movie was a lot of fun, but the script is not the part I was paying attention to.

That's all for the major categories. I would love for Pamela Ribon and Sara Gunnarsdottir to win Best Animated Short for the hilarious but still moving My Year of Dicks. It would be charming if Jenny Bevan won yet another Oscar for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, as that movie brought me much joy last year and made me actually care about a dress for two hours. Monika Willi ought to get an award for Best Editing for Tar - that movie was three hours long, yet I truly think it is the art of the editor to ensure you don't feel bored for a second of that runtime. And if Marcel the Shell with Shoes On could somehow win Best Animated Feature (unlikely, but a girl can dream), I would be over the moon. 

That's all folks. It has been a glorious year of cinema and the Oscars haven't done too badly in recognizing movies that truly brought some joy and emotion to audiences this year. It seems poised to be a ceremony that rewards many deserving people and I can't wait to watch all of their speeches and then rewatch all of their movies.

Oscar Catch-Up Part 2: All Quiet on the Western Front, To Leslie, Living, My Year of Dicks

Well, some of these movies were harder to find than others but I finally did it! Nominated for acting, writing, a host of technical awards, or short-form animation, this is quite the collection and there is sure to be something to intrigue even the most jaded Oscar watcher.

All Quiet on the Western Front: A German adaptation of Eric Maria Remarque's 1929 novel by director Edward Berger (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell), this movie is incredibly harrowing and gorgeously shot. There were multiple frames of this film that I would pause and stare at because they were beautiful to behold. But of course, at the end of the day, this is a dark and bloody movie about World War I, and all that beauty fades away amidst all the bloodshed. 

Felix Kammerer plays Paul, a young German schoolboy who is swept up in the patriotic fervor overtaking his country and quickly enlists alongside his other friends who are all turning eighteen. They are shipped off to the front and are filled with naive dreams of what a grand adventure this is all going to be. Their very first day quickly disabuses them of any notion that this is going to a fun boyhood romp, and for the next two and half hours, you will be forced to witness just how hellish war can be. I particularly appreciated the manner in which the movie highlighted the incongruity between the top brass who are negotiating a peace deal versus the actual men who are fighting their bloody war - there is such a discrepancy in the living conditions and realities that these two sets of humans are experiencing, and it wasn't something I had seen emphasized in a war movie before. Because I saw this movie on Netflix, I was able to pause it periodically to give myself breaks, which ultimately probably did the filmmakers a disservice but was of great service to my brain. It's a good movie, but it is also a very typical Oscar movie, grim and bleak and portraying the darkest days of humanity. Watch it if you're a completist, but if you know this genre is not your thing, you probably won't regret giving it a pass.

To Leslie:  Directed by Michael Morris and written by Ryan Binaco, this movie has gotten infamous due to the unexpected Andrea Riseborough Best Actress nomination that is mired in controversy for potentially dubious campaigning practices. But let's put all that aside and consider the movie itself. Is Riseborough turning in an impressive performance, with a marvelous Texan accent to boot (she is very British in real life)? Yes. Do I think this performance is the best thing I've seen all year? Not particularly. Is it very typical Oscar fare? You betcha.

This is the story of Leslie, a woman who won $190,000 in a lottery. We then pick up her story six years later, to find that she pissed away all that money, is estranged from her entire family, and continues to make extremely poor decisions because she is an alcoholic. What follows is a tale of a woman who returns to her hometown, occasionally tries to get on the right track, but keeps backsliding and is her own worst enemy, until a terribly generous and compassionate man decides to give her a shot. This man is played by Marc Maron, who I obviously love from listening to his podcast every week, but who is definitely doing some questionable accent work. His relationship with Leslie is quite sweet and ultimately, this movie did end up going in a direction I hadn't initially expected. It's a perfectly reasonable watch, but this is the kind of big "ACTING" role that the Oscars love but doesn't quite translate into making the overall movie something magnificent and memorable.

Living: I had to go to my local independent cinema to watch this movie - that's how dedicated I am to the cause. And also how dedicated I am to Bill Nighy, who has never been nominated for an Oscar before. Directed by Oliver Hermanus, with a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, who adapted it from Akira Kurosawa's 1952 Japanese movie, Ikuru, this is the story of Mr. Williams (Nighy), a very boring bureaucrat who works for the London County Council in 1953 and seems to be a very plodding, ordinary sort of man. However, when he finds out he has terminal cancer, he decides to shake up his life and find some joy before it's too late.

This is a very sweet movie, very British and melancholy, and also deeply profound about the human yearning for meaning in a rather pitiless existence. Those of us with office jobs will probably relate a little too closely with the plight of Mr. Williams, recognizing in him the tendency to become defeatist drones who just drearily shuffle paperwork from 9 to 5. But his quest to make human connections and find purpose in his final days is rather startling and it is of course impossible not to root for Nighy throughout the entire movie. I do want to be clear - this is a very slow and deliberate film, and it's the cinematic equivalent of reading an Ishiguro novel. It is all vibes, and very British, so steep in it like an Earl Grey tea bag and delight in the experience. 

My Year of Dicks: Best Short Film (Animated) is not a category I pay much attention to. But this year, a number of hosts on pop culture podcasts I enjoy were very excited about their friend Pamela Ribon being Oscar-nominated for writing this hilarious and charming short film based on her 2014 memoir. It is the story of 15-year-old Pam, a virgin who has decided this must be the year she pops her cherry. And in five chapters we meet the various boys she encounters on this quest. Each chapter is told in a slightly different style, always with an over-the-top voiceover from the melodramatic Pam, who thinks that she is the star of a romance novel and talks like a Victorian heroine even though what she wants is decidedly un-Victorian. 

Directed by Sara Gunnarsdottir, this movie offers up wonderful insight into the mind of a teenage girl, the grossness (and then occasional sweetness) of teenage boys, and the awkwardness of parents. It's only twenty-five minutes long but it tells a classic tale in a novel fashion. Ultimately, it is a delicious romcom, and it will make you chuckle and sigh as you think about all of your failed relationships and the voices in your head that don't always give you the best advice. This is a great opportunity to check out an Oscar movie that won't take up all of your time and will make you smile - what more do you need?

Thrills and Twists: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Sharper, Cocaine Bear

Do you want more Marvel, a twisty con man tale, or a story of a drugged out animal rampaging in the woods? Hollywood's got it all. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: What do you want me to tell you? It's another Marvel movie, it's the third in the Ant-Man series (which is astonishing as I barely recollect watching the previous two Ant-Men), and it continues the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. These are popcorn movies that I find thoroughly entertaining, and with Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly at the helm as Scott and Hope, aka Ant-Man and the Wasp, I can't complain. They are charming, the stunt choreography is insane, the visuals are great, and the dialogue has the right amount of witty banter to make you chuckle. 

There are jim-jams galore that I won't get into, but essentially the plot is that Scott, his daughter, Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope, and her parents, Hank and Janet (the excellent duo of Michael Douglas and preternaturally gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer), accidentally fall into the Quantum Realm. The Realm is being ruled over by a man named Kang (Jonathan Majors, star of everything these days), who is all set to be the MCU's new big supervillain. OVer the course of the two hours, you will be treated to some gorgeous visuals and truly weird creatures that inhabit this Realm. It's all a bit bizarre but beautiful, and it sets us up for the next slate of films. If you're exhausted by Marvel, this is emphatically not a movie for you, but if you're all in for some light entertainment with great special effects, then step right up and indulge. 

Sharper: This is a proper twisty thrill of a movie about...well, I almost don't want to tell you what it's about because that would ruin all the many surprises that are in store for you. Directed by Benjamin Caron and elegantly scripted by Alessandro Tanaka and Brian Gatewood, this movie starts out as a love story that quickly turns into the story of con artists, and we then get multiple nested stories that flash backwards and forwards in time. After a while, you'll maybe predict some twists, but oh boy you'll definitely never see every single thing coming. This is a movie that delights in constantly pulling the rug out from under you, but it never does so in a condescending way - it's always done with this fabulous cinematic flourish that makes you want to gasp and laugh and wonder what on earth will happen next.

Starring Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, and John Lithgow, this cast is a tour de force and they all do absolutely wonderful work to capture the complexities of these characters who all have a little bit to love and little bit to hate about them. There are no abject heroes and villains until you get to the very end and then you're in for a rather satisfying conclusion with a neat little bow that ties everything up. Never fear, you won't be left with some ambiguous conclusion. But you might find yourself wishing you had more movies to watch just like this one.

Cocaine Bear: I mean, the title kinda says it all, right? Based on a real incident in 1985 when a smuggler dumped a bunch of cocaine in Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia, this is the story of a bear who found all that cocaine and then went on a rampage. Let me clarify right away that the "based on a true story" part of this movie is just that a dead bear was found who had consumed a bunch of cocaine. It is not known to have killed anyone during that time and we have no idea what happened between it eating all that cocaine and subsequently dying. But this movie takes that premise and decides to run with a narrative about what would have happened if that bear had encountered a bunch of humans. Which means that the audience is in for a deliriously high body count.

If you are squeamish, you'll need to sit this one out, because this is a viscerally gory movie (I mean that literally - the bear will be eating some human viscera at one point). But if you need a laugh-out-loud horror comedy to while away the winter blues, this is absolutely the movie you've been seeking. Directed by Elizabeth Banks and written by Jimmy Warden, this movie is a supremely silly 90-minute extravaganza that knows it has one great premise and will not overstay its welcome. Trust me, you'll have a beary good time. 

February Round-up: Missing, Magic Mike's Last Dance, Knock at the Cabin

Hold on to your seats, we've got an eclectic set of movie reviews coming up!

Missing: Written and directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, this is a follow-up to the excellent Searching that I raved about a few years ago. It's not a follow-up in terms of the characters, but in terms of the narrative structure. Yet again, we have a story of a missing person, and a family member who is searching for this person using all the ubiquitous technology available at their fingertips. And the entire film is told from the perspective of the technology, so we only see the characters on FaceTime or their laptop camera, and we watch our protagonist type her searches and scroll through maps trying to figure out what could have happened to her mother. Is it gimmicky? Of course. But is it a wonderfully effective gimmick that helps to heighten the thrills and action? Of course. 

Here we get the wonderful Storm Reid playing June, a teenage girl whose mother, Grace (Nia Long), went off to Colombia for a week with her new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), but then never returned. What follows is a twisty tale where June is trying to dive into Grace's whereabouts, figure out if Kevin was a con artist, uncovers some startling information about her own mother, and falls deep into a mystery that has a very satisfying conclusion. If you think too long and hard about it, there are aspects of this film that certainly seem too far-fetched. But for the two hours you're in the theater, you'll be along for the ride. And at the end of it all, you might decide to talk to Siri a bit more often.

Magic Mike's Last Dance: Listen, you've either already seen this movie or know that you never will. All I can do is tell you that I saw it, it was a bit weird, but the dancing was incredible and I will watch Channing Tatum make about twenty more of these movies if he is so inclined.

Written by Reid Carolin and directed by Steven Soderbergh, in this installment, Mike (Tatum) ends up in London with a wealthy woman, Max (the glorious Salma Hayek), and agrees to help her put on a one-night-only extravaganza of a male stripper show. There's a lot of plot about Max and Mike and their will-they-won't-they status. There are class dynamics at play given that Max has a ton of money and a butler and all manner of privilege while Mike is a working-class man from Miami who is still economically reeling from the pandemic. But at the end of the day, there are men dancing to "Pony," Tatum takes his clothes off, and a dull woman named Edna gets treated to a lap dance and is so deliriously happy. 

All the women are pleased and the men are eager to please them. That's all I want from these movies, and it delivers. The dialogue is odd and Hayek's character is all over the place. But I love the way that Tatum has almost no lines but conveys so much information simply with a small smile and the oodles of charisma radiating off his body. Frankly, if we made a silent movie with this man, we wouldn't even need dialogue cards. Just play some music and watch him dance his heart out on the screen. It's truly magic.

Knock at the Cabin: Well, M. Night Shyamalan is back, writing and directing an adaptation of the novel, The Cabin at the End of the Woods, by Paul G. Tremblay. As always, there's a supernatural element to the proceedings, and a twist ending. And as always, your mileage may vary as to whether or not the twist was worth it. I was decidedly on the side of No, it wasn't.

The film tells the story of a family of three who are vacationing in a remote cabin in the woods (people really need to stop doing that, they're just asking for trouble). There's seven-year-old Wen (played by the exceedingly adorable Kristen Cui) and her fathers Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) and they're all having a wonderful time until four visitors arrive at their house with weapons. Led by Leonard (the marvelous Dave Bautista, who really gets to showcase his dramatic chops), these four strangers have come to deliver an ultimatum to this family. The world is on the brink of an apocalypse, and for some reason, this family is the key to saving the world. 

I won't tell you anything more - it's a perfectly well-told story, but it starts to get a bit repetitive and loses steam by the end. However, it does feature some fine actors and if all you want is a diverting horror-thriller to while away an afternoon, this isn't terribly objectionable. It's not Shyamalan's best work, but it's certainly not his worst, and that's a relief. 

Fun Dumb Action: Plane and Shotgun Wedding

Recently I have watched two different movies that involve foreigners on an island in the Philippines having to defend themselves from kidnappers and pirates. These movies are dumb but endlessly entertaining (well one more so than the other) and they both understand that they need to be an hour and a half and then call it a night. No bloated blockbusters here - just lean, ridiculous, action films that provide some thrills and laughs.

Plane: I have been gushing about this movie to every single person I've met since watching it. I first saw the trailer at the movie theater, and the audience collectively laughed when the title of the movie was finally revealed. Just PLANE. Considering that the trailer depicted Gerard Butler as a pilot who crash lands a commercial plane in the middle of a Filipino island and then has to protect his passengers as armed separatists try to kidnap them, I made a lot of jokes. Why is this movie called Plane if the plane crashes right at the beginning of the film? What a ridiculous title. Well, readers. I am here to eat crow. This movie fully deserves to be called Plane and I bow down before its genius.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet from a screenplay by Charles Cumming and J. P. Davis, here's a very cursory plot summary. Butler is playing his Scottish self (no fake American accents to contend with) although his character does have the insanely non-Scottish name of Brody Torrance. Yoson An and Danielle Pineda play the co-pilot and head flight attendant who have to help out a fair amount as things go haywire on this flight. You'll spend some time with the passengers, but the main passenger you need to know about is Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter, who you may recognize as Luke Cage from the Marvel Cinematic Universe). He is a handcuffed prisoner who is being extradited on charges of homicide. He's a former French Foreign Legion soldier, so you can imagine that once they crash on the island and are dealing with a bunch of rebels, Brody is going to decide that maybe it's time to take Gaspare's handcuffs off and use his unique set of skills.

The movie also goes back and forth to New York where the airline has set up a crisis center. The man they have hired to help manage this crisis has the wonderful name of David Scarsdale, and he is played with relish by Tony Goldwyn. He's everything you want him to be, as is Gerard Butler, and together, this is the most stereotypical and entertaining action flick I've seen in a while. Turn your brain off and settle in for a non-stop action-packed adrenalin rush. It's a little violent and bloody for sure. But it's all worth it. PLANE.

Shotgun Wedding: Do you want to watch Jennifer Lopez get increasingly dirty and disheveled for an hour and a half and yet somehow still be the most gorgeous woman you've ever seen? Then this is the movie for you. Here, we're back in the Philippines, but this time it's because Darcy (Lopez) is getting married to Tom (Josh Duhamel). Tom is being a Groomzilla who has decided this destination wedding is the perfect way to celebrate their love, and Darcy is going along with it to make him happy. She has also been forced to wear his mother's terribly extravagant wedding dress - this dress is a marvel of costume design and will get progressively degraded over the course of this film; though only in a way designed to increasingly flaunt Lopez's assets.

There isn't much more to say. Pirates attack on the day of the wedding. Tom and Darcy were off having a pre-wedding fight, so now they must try to rescue their families while fighting off armed gunmen. You can imagine that much chaos ensues, especially considering that Darcy has a fear of blood and Tom is a retired baseball player who doesn't have much in the way of combat skills. The supporting cast includes such stalwarts as Jennifer Coolidge (playing Tom's extremely clueless mother) and D'Arcy Carden (playing Darcy's father's new girlfriend). And did I mention Lenny Kravitz shows up as Darcy's ex? It's quite the reunion of music superstars. 

Directed by Jason Moore and written by Mark Hammer, this movie is terribly silly, racks up a surprisingly high body count, and is a perfectly mindless film to stream while you're sprawled on the couch on a wintry afternoon. It's certainly not as good as PLANE (what film could be?) but if you simply want some action, some romance, and some laughs, this film will deliver.

Oscar Catch-Up Part 1: Aftersun, Causeway, Blonde

Every year I think I have watched every conceivable movie and will be all caught up when Oscar nominations are announced. And every year, the Oscars throw me a curve ball and nominate a bunch of movies and performances I missed. So I have been diligently trying to make my way through the nominees in the major categories. Here are my reviews of what I've seen so far: spoiler alert, I've arranged them from best to worst, so pick your poison accordingly.

Aftersun: I knew Paul Mescal was a fantastic actor when I saw his breakout role in Normal People. So it is hardly surprising that he has brought that same emotional vulnerability and acting prowess to this movie and garnered an Oscar nomination. Written and directed by Charlotte Wells, this is the story of 11-year-old Sophie (played by the sublime Frankie Corlo), a Scottish girl who is on holiday with her father, Calum (Mescal) at a resort in Turkey. She is filming their vacation on a small video camera, so the film is interspersed with some of that grainy footage, as we are both following the events of this vacation, but also looking back on the events from the perspective of the adult Sophie, twenty years later. 

This movie is a feat of subtle storytelling and it does demand your attention. I regret not watching it when it was out in theaters, as I fear I may have given it too distracted a viewing. But despite my less-than-diligent home viewership, I was still captivated by its melancholy vibes. You have to let the narrative unfurl around you, so I won't give away any plot. But this is emphatically a tale of the hero worship young girls can have for their fathers, the ways in which parents hide things from their children, the ways in which children can be both perceptive and oblivious to what's going on around them, and the many ways in which individuals simply cannot know what the people around them are going through. It's a beautiful movie, gorgeously shot, empathetically acted, and delightful to behold. 

Causeway: Brian Tyree Henry is a phenomenal actor, so I'm excited he has gotten his first Oscar nomination for his work in this movie. Directed by Lila Neugebauer from a script by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel, and Elizabeth Sanders, this is the story of Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence), an American soldier who has returned home to New Orleans after suffering a traumatic brain injury in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. She gets a job cleaning pools and is living with her somewhat flighty mother (Linda Emond), and seems unwilling to reckon with her depression, desperate to get a clean bill of health from her doctor so she can go back to active duty. However, she then strikes up a friendship with James (Henry), and together, they might be able to help each other.

This is a well-acted film: Lawrence and Henry are unsurprisingly excellent in it, and the evolution of their friendship feels real and true. I'm less convinced that this is a well-written film, and in the hands of any other actors, it might have been a slog. The silences where we just watch these actors emote or reflect on their trauma is where this movie shines, but otherwise it doesn't feel like it has anything particularly revelatory to say. I'm glad Henry bagged an Oscar nomination, but I look forward to the day he wins an award for a much more memorable movie. 

Blonde: Oh what a travesty. It is devastating that Ana de Armas, who is a fantastic actress, should have received her first nomination for this awful film. She fully deserves that nomination, acting her heart out as she effects an astonishing transformation as the iconic Marilyn Monroe. But written and directed by Andrew Dominik, who based the script on Joyce Carol Oates' pseudo-biographical novel about Marilyn Monroe, this movie is an exploitative, deeply weird, and unnecessary piece of cinema. And it clocks in at a runtime of nearly three hours, which is inhumane. This movie truly is an act of cinematic terrorism.

The film proffers a fictionalized look at the life of Marilyn Monroe. It aims to be a biography, but most of what it has to say is a complete fiction. We all know that Monroe was exploited by Hollywood and mainly viewed as a sex symbol, but this movie goes absolutely overboard by turning her life into nothing more than a series of rapes and tragic encounters with greedy men. It doesn't allow her to experience an iota of joy. There are brief flashes of her wonderful intellect, but we never spend too much time exploring this woman's inner life and rich mind. Instead, the director was too busy telling de Armas to take her top off and do another violent sex scene.

This movie also has weird arthouse pretensions - we keep moving from black and white to color and back again. There are scenes with a talking fetus. There are weird transitions and cinematic effects that feel like they are the product of a film student who has just been allowed to direct a movie for the first time and is trying to see what tricks he can get his camera to do. So yeah. Go watch Ana de Armas in literally anything else but do not watch this movie. Unless you want to make Marilyn roll over in her grave.