Succession (2018-2023)
I finally watched, having somehow resisted the DEAFENING buzz over the last couple of years. I like Jeremy Strong, liked his small moment in Zero Dark Thirty, he totally stood out in The Big Short (directed by one of Window Boy‘s best friends, who also exec-produced Succession – all part of the crowd I hung with during my Chicago years, at least when I was with him, which was …. always. All those dudes are famous now, either as actors, or writers with the best jobs, the jobs every comedy writers wants – writing for Conan or Colbert or Seth Meyers, winning Emmys etc. … but Adam McKay is FAMOUS famous.). I was intensely annoyed by all the “wow, Jeremy Strong is obnoxious, he takes the Method too far” chatter, pattered around by people who will never be excellent at anything because they suffer from tall poppy syndrome. What he was doing is not necessarily Method, Jesus Christ. It’s his process, you mediocre assholes. Vulture made fun of him for using the word “dramaturgy” – he used it correctly, I might add – and it’s a valid term, in common use in his profession. Way to … make fun of someone for using a big word correctly? And you’re a major entertainment outlet? It’s disgusting. Yes, let’s all just talk in Twitter-ese snark all the time. Fuck all those people. I hadn’t even seen the show by then and I was on Strong’s side against that ridiculous chatter. That out of the way: I binged it in … God, I don’t know. Two weeks? It’s everything everyone said it was, although I think some of the “this is the best show ever made” chatter is … more of a commentary on the state of affairs than reflective of reality. It’s a very good show, though. What’s wild is your feelings about the characters fluctuate on an episode to episode basis, sometimes even a moment to moment basis. GREG. TOM. I CAN’T KEEP UP WITH YOUR DUPLICITY. I love Roman, he might be my favorite character. And honestly, Jeremy Strong’s work in Succession is evidence of what that deep a process has given him.

Strong goes deeper because he wants to and feels he needs to and the proof is onscreen. The ending was brutal. I wish we had more closure with Marcia. Was she an asset? Like a Ghislaine Maxwell asset? With her mysterious past? Loved that character. Honestly, I think Matthew Macfadyen’s work rivals Strong’s, and in some cases surpasses it because of the nature of the character he played. A sinister snakey sycophant with an incredible public face, almost hapless. Boy, everyone underestimates him. I am trying to think of an equivalent character in current culture and I’m coming up empty. Claude Rains could have played it and, in some cases, did. But … it’s a “type” … the ambitious court jester, eye on the prize … Nobody saw Tom coming because nobody gave him a second thought and obviously that was a grave error. I dug it and I needed the escape, I needed a good binge. These people are all despicable. People like this are why the world sucks. The wrong people are in charge. Elon Musk and Zuck challenging each other to cage matches. God, they’re so embarrassing. I guess I’m just used to having better quality men in my life, not insecure losers. So watching Succession was like hanging out with the worst of the worst. The miracle of all of these actors is that they could generate sympathy for these characters, even though what they want is … despicable. What they REALLY want, of course, is to be loved in an unconditional way by their monster of a father. That’s never gonna happen. But … it’s heartbreaking in a way. All of the scenes where Kendall gets manic, and plans parties … UGH I CAN’T WATCH. You’re not a hip hop mogul, Kendall! STOP.

Mending the Line (2023; d. Joshua Caldwell)
Speaking of Brian Cox …I reviewed for Ebert.

Brooklyn 45 (2023; d. Ted Geoghegan)
I really liked this. I reviewed for Ebert.

On the Waterfront (1954; d. Elia Kazan)
Speaking of the so-called Method … but again, Brando wasn’t really a Studio guy, he was an Adler guy, but even that isn’t accurate. She said he was fully formed already in her class, a natural. His instincts were perfect. I know this movie practically by heart – my Dad loved it – but it’s always good to revisit.

RMN (2023; d. Cristian Mungiu)
I made up my list of the best films of 2023 before I saw RMN, directed by the great Cristian Mungiu, one of the leading lights of the Romanian New Wave (and that’s a pretty crowded field). He’s directed two films I consider harrowing classics – 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and 2012’s Beyond the Hills (which I wrote about here). Both films are unforgiving and relentless, brutal and mortifying – as in the religious meaning of “mortification”. I highly recommend both films, as well as Graduation (2016). Mungiu, like Christian Petzold, like Jafar Panahi (well, him most of all) are two of the international directors I wait – patiently – to hear from again. And so we’ve heard from him again. RMN quickly shot to the top of my unofficial list of best movies I’ve seen so far: another harrowing experience, things moving to an inevitable climax, nothing to stop it, the vicious bigotry of small towns, the xenophobia, the racism … all incited by a small boy walking through the woods where he sees something, something so traumatic he stops speaking. We in the audience don’t know what it was. The entire film is powered by that mystery: the forest on the edge of town, filled with bears, wolves … The final sequence is just terrifying because … this is how these things go, it’s how it would go. Same with his other films. Beyond the Hills is based on a true story and the others might as well be. Great film. There’s also one incredible scene – with about 40 people onscreen at the same time – a town meeting where people debate the crisis – and it plays out in one, the camera in a static position, the “debate” – poisonous and divisive – plays out in real time. Extraordinary.

Shiny Happy People (2023)
I can’t believe this exists now. It’s akin to what Leah Ramini did to Scientology. She didn’t just go after the symbolic figures. She went after the whole thing. This looks like it’s about the Duggars, and it is to some degree. But it’s really about the IBLP, and if you are into this sort of thing – and follow controlling groups with queasy fascination the way I do – then you know about the IBLP. But I don’t really matter: I am an outsider, an onlooker, the people who grew up in it REALLY know what it is, and they are the ones who matter. The Duggars saw their TV show as a “ministry”. They are such dyed in the wool hypocrites it really is amazing, to use a cliche, that they can sleep at night. So for the tabloid part of it, you get all the Duggar shenanigans. But that’s window dressing for what’s really going on. Very bold documentary, with victims centered in the story.

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952; d. Roy Ward Baker)
I’ve written quite a bit about it over the years, including recently.

Asteroid City (2023; d. Wes Anderson)
Some directors have quirks – most of the good ones do – and in some cases, the quirks drive me insane. In other cases, I love them and when people complain about a certain director’s quirks, I feel like … you want him/her to get rid of the thing that makes them unique? Wishing they would just stop it with this or that artistic quirk is … like asking Titian to stop being so obsessed with the color red. Like, dude, it’s his thing. Find another painter who never uses red if you can’t stand it, but Titian’s gonna Titian. This happens all the time with Lars von Trier and Baz Luhrmann, two examples of directors who get criticized for the very things – in my view – that make them successful and unique. Take away Baz Luhrmann’s so-called over-the-top-ness and you don’t have Baz Luhrmann. He chooses material wisely and well, considering his sensibility. He comes from OPERA, people. Why are you looking for subtlety? It’s idiotic. People have very strong opinions about Wes Anderson! Wow! I wouldn’t say he’s my favorite, but I love a couple of his films DEARLY, they are in my heart forever, and his wistful-ness and bittersweet-ness is a real sweet spot for me. I think the farthest he ever pushed his quirks was in The French Dispatch (which I reviewed) – the film was almost alienating. It kept you at arms’ length. The film was the opposite of welcoming, and the nostalgia was abstract. Not nostalgia for family or childhood but a magazine’s heyday, a magazine which pre-dated Anderson’s own existence. (By the way: I really relate to that kind of nostalgia). I think French Dispatch is one of his best films. I loved the alienation effect, the sheer obsessiveness on display. Asteroid City is, in a way, back to the early themes he’s explored: childhood, sad yearning, loneliness, flawed parents … but the atmosphere, the colors, the fake desert, the fakeness of it all … It’s as far out there at the very edge of his quirks, just like French Dispatch was, only in a different way. I adored it. I really loved my pal Glenn Kenny’s review.

Morning Glory (1933; d. Lowell Sherman)
Allison and I watched this. I sometimes forget how damn DARK this film is. Long ago I wrote about Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in this. It’s just really upsetting. A departure for Hepburn. She’s out on a limb.

Summer with Monika (1953; d. Ingmar Bergman)
It’s been a minute since I watched this. In 1953, Harriet Andersson appeared in two Ingmar Bergman movies – this one, and Sawdust and Tinsel: two totally different characters, so much so it seems like two different actresses. A CRASHING talent, which of course was not a fluke, as the rest of her performances with Bergman show, particularly Through a Glass Darkly where she gives, in my opinion, one of the greatest performances in cinema. But it all started with the coming-of-age (in the truest sense) Summer with Monika, which expresses the Eden – almost literally – of first love, young love – and then what happens when you leave Eden. As of course you must do. You can’t be 17 in a Utopia forever. Her direct-to-camera look grips you. She’s daring you to judge her. It’s beautifully shot too: the light, the water, the silvery-ness of it all.

Catching Killers: Body Count: The Green River Killer (2021)
This is how I relax. I watch docu-series about serial killers. I was actually not familiar with the ins and outs of this case, although I knew the bare bones of the facts. The cops who worked the case are still alive, and they still seem haunted by it, they still get upset in their current-day interviews.

The Wild One (1953; d. László Benedek)
Marlon Brando is outRAGEOUS in this. The charisma is inSANE, and he oozes it everywhere. It’s a very QUIET performance, tender and thoughtful – one of his instincts for material (see: the cab scene with Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront). Brando’s willingness to retreat into interior thoughtfulness and interior pain is one of his tendencies – if you could say he has a tendency. This tendency, or instinct, or whatever you want to call it, unbalances The Wild One, tilting it towards Brando. Which of COURSE we’re gonna tilt towards Brando. If you don’t want us to tilt towards Johnny in The Wild One, then for God’s sake DON’T CAST BRANDO. We’re supposed to be on the townspeople’s side. I mean, Stanley Kramer produced. He was the opposite of counter-culture anti-establishment. But who on earth is going to be on the townspeople’s side watching this? You want to get on the back of one of those bikes, and roar out of town! There’s a lot of silliness: the biker gang is more like a group of rowdy teenagers or drunken frat-boys as opposed to the criminals on a rampage they often were. (See: Hunter Thompson’s entire book about the Hell’s Angels, particularly the incident in Hollister in 1947 – on which The Wild One is loosely based. The bikers in Hollister weren’t jitterbugging in the club, and goofing off on the sidewalk. They were tearing shit up, and dragging girls into the bushes, and the situation was extremely scary.). The guys in The Wild One look like Grease extras. And strolling through it all, calmly, deliberately, sexy as FUCK, is Marlon Brando. This performance launched a generation, it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say. This performance inspired James Dean (who had yet to appear, although he was right around the corner), it inspired Elvis (sideburns, motorcycles, motorcycle cap).

The performance inspired young actors – it was more influential than Streetcar, at least in terms of the coming youthquake. Elvis was only two years away. (He recorded his first tracks at Sun Records in 1953, the two quavering ballads he said he recorded for his mother. Uh-huh. Okay, Elvis.) Brando’s reply to the question “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” was “Whaddya got?” You could say, again without too much exaggeration, that the late 1960s youthful rebellion was launched over a decade before in 1953 with those two words.

Stalag 17 (1953; d. Billy Wilder)
It’s hard to choose, considering the body of work, but Stalag 17 is maybe my favorite Billy Wilder. I talked about it on my pal Nic Rapold’s excellent podcast, The Last Thing I Saw. (It was a group event: my friend Farran, Steven Mears and I were all guests. Each of us had to pick a Wilder to discuss and I picked Stalag 17. We each – without planning it – chose films from different eras so it was a nice balance.) At any rate, Stalag 17 appeals to a part of me not really socially acceptable, the part that doesn’t want to play well with others – at least not if the “others” are assholes. Maintain your independence. Not everyone is going to like you. Fuck them. Don’t try to fit in to a group dynamic if the group dynamic is SICK. (See: Twitter. When I hear writers – writers!! – saying “This wouldn’t play on Twitter” I think: “Why are you judging what will or will not play based on the sickest dynamic on the Internet?” Fuck Twitter. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Write as though it doesn’t exist. Refuse to participate and refuse to let it get inside you. I mean, you can be on Twitter – I’m still on Twitter – but there’s a dynamic there and you can actually refuse to participate in it. RESIST THE GROUP.) I think Stalag 17 is one of Holden’s best. Hard-bitten. Tough-minded. His final line … yeah, you could see it as a wisecrack, but I think he means it. I never want to see any of you assholes again and if we run into each other on the street let’s pretend not to know each other because FUCK each and every one of you. Now THAT’S a catharsis.

The Earrings of Madame de … (1953; d. Max Ophüls)
Masterpiece. I’ll never be “over it”. Breath-taking accomplishment by every single person involved, before the camera and behind. Wow.

Prisoner’s Daughter (2023; d. Catherine Hardwicke)
I just reviewed for Ebert. I love Catherine Hardwicke’s work, so this gave me a chance to sing her praises.

 
 
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