Republished Letterboxd capsules I wrote in March 2018.
dir. by Ruben Östlund
rating: 6/10
Would have been significantly more enjoyable at a shorter running time, as this episodic narrative ultimately feels kinda disjointed, and nearly every scene goes on too long, but several are weird enough to overcome that, and there are numerous big laughs to be had over the 2.5 hour running time. Unfortunately, this also frequently stops to explain itself, and alas I didn't find it quite consistently funny enough to make up for that, or for the fact that most of what it's trying to say is really kinda trite. Mostly it's about liberal elites not living up to the values they espouse, which isn't necessarily a bad point, but when it's still contrasting the protagonist's behaviour with shots of homeless people well over an hour in, I start to check out - though whenever I do, there's something really funny or absolutely bonkers going on, and several scenes are spontaneously interrupted in amusing ways. There's a YouTube video some two-thirds into this, for instance, which is absolutely hilarious, and the much-lauded ape man scene is as riveting as you've heard. Ultimately, however, it's Ostlund's narrative diversions and aesthetic sensibility which give this most of its impact, and the more pointed its social commentary gets, the more it drags. So again: might have been a proper riot with 45 minutes shaved off, as is frequently amusing but deeply uneven.
Black Mirror, S01E01: "The National Anthem" (2011)
dir. by Otto Bathurst
rating: 7/10
Takes a somewhat absurd premise and takes it 100% seriously, exploring all the dark implications in surprisingly compelling fashion. I laughed every time someone stared solemnly at goofy Internet comments, but I actually quite liked the dichotomy. The premise, while bizarre, is nonetheless believable, and that keeps the thought experiment grounded even though this plays like a parody of prestige television. Mostly, this just loses points for its smug moralizing - wow, people are drawn to crude spectacle even when it’s horrifying and immoral? You don’t say, show. You don’t say.
Black Mirror, S01E02: "Fifteen Million Merits" (2011)
dir. by Euros Lyn
rating: 6/10
This one's really heavy-handed, frequently stating its themes in blunt dialogue, and most of those themes are pretty obvious anyway. The dystopia here is inventive, but its ties to the real world are pretty simplistic: reality shows are bullshit, people are sheep, modern capitalism is vapid, etc. There's something insightful here about inescapable capitalistic exploitation, how we're all trapped in the system, but the whole concept of people sedated by lowest-common-denominator media is kinda condescending. While the setting is imaginative, it's dampened by Bing talking on multiple occasions about how nothing is "real," which is just the most curmudgeonly anti-technology position to take, and even the pretty creative premise of advertising taking over society is a bit trite and melodramatic. At least the direction is stylish and the story is entertainingly twisty.
Love, Simon (2018)
dir. by Greg Berlanti
rating: 7/10
I can imagine this being very affirming to gay teens. There's a charming sincerity to all of it, and the title character's struggles feel very genuine. There's a really trite and predictable blackmail subplot that makes up a disproportionate amount of the film, and that brings a lot of it down, but the burgeoning romance and the introspection are both genuinely sweet, and the crowd-pleasing narrative payoff at the end is just splendid. There's just something irresistibly warm about it, which is especially enhanced through nearly every remotely interesting character being pleasantly supportive and unjudgmental, even when they don't know Simon's sexuality. There are a lot of genuinely funny moments, and honestly, I wish it were even more episodic, because the blackmail plot which holds the film together kinda just gets in the way. Lots of good acting here for a bunch of reasonably nuanced characters, the best of whom feel like they have their entire own movie happening right off-screen. Yes, it's a little cliched and a little sanitized, but there's just a vibe of earnestness to this that I found delightful.
The Death of Stalin
dir. by Armando Iannucci
rating: 8/10
A lot more contingent on funny dialogue than I expected. There's an outrageous contrast between the fairly broad historical caricatures and dark subject matter, such as one scene where the cast bickers about how to carry Stalin's body out of his room. The political satire here seemed to me like a pretty straightforward cocktail of bumbling, narcissism, and chaos, more or less exactly what you'd expect, but it's still pretty funny, and I never got sick of the detached outbursts of violence. Just so jarringly dark, and the film is never more barbed than when it contrasts the ivory-tower power games with the very real atrocities happening in the USSR. It is a little distracting that nobody even bothers to affect a Russian accent, but that suits the style of humour, and all of the performances are terrific anyway, so it's hard to care too much. Just a lot of energy and wit on display here, and you really can't go wrong with that.
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