Home Screenings: October-November 2023
Many new films and two older ones
Welcome to HOME SCREENINGS! This is a newly recurring section in which I will be talking about the movies I’ve seen recently. Today there’s a lot of 2023 movies - I was catching up on some buzzed movies before I moved onto my first themed watch. We’ll be talking about these films today:
Renfield
I, Robot
Dog Day Afternoon
Passages
The Gentlemen
Perpetrator
Anatomy of a Fall
Caramel
I think that’s a healthy mix of genres, most of them solo watches. This one will be in chronological order, like the first one. Let’s get this started!
Renfield
2023, dir. Chris McKay
Robert Montague Renfield (<3 Nicholas Hoult <3) is in a destructive relationship. Thing is that his boss, Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage), wants Renfield to bring fresh blood, while Renfield gets nothing out of it. (Sure, there’s superpowers when eating bugs, but ask him if he wants that? No!) They’re withering away in an abandoned hospital down in New Orleans – Renfield is withering away there, anyway – and while he’s helping out people in a local support group by killing their abusers, one such attack goes awry, and now he’s got the mafia (Ben Schwartz) after him. And the police (Awkwafina) now thinks he’s a hero. Renfield likes that. Actually, Renfield likes humans. But it’s not like Dracula is gone… and the mafia has a bone to pick, too…
This was so, so much fun. It’s a bit spotty in some elements, namely the lead-up to the climax and things revolving around the police – the black hole of action strikes here, plus a very slim runtime for such a story – but the acting of Nicholas Hoult had so much heart. Renfield is someone you root for and can’t help but adore if you have a penchant for pathetic losers that try their best <3 Nicolas Cage on the other hand hand made for an immensely fun Dracula, while Awkwafina was quite awkward. I loved the idea of applying mental health discussions to such a classic story that also didn’t feel like it was made fun of at all; Renfield really did feel like a victim trying to do better for himself. There were also super, super fun action scenes that had us all guffaw at home. Can you believe it, movies can be romps. I feel like the United States forgot that, to make original, funny… romps.
I, Robot
2004, dir. Alex Proyas
Del Spooner (Will Smith) can’t stand robots. Unfortunately for him in 2035 Chicago, they are everywhere: construction workers, deliverymen, kitchen help. Spooner believes these robots to be able of evil just as much as humans, which nobody but Spooner believes, as all robots must abide by the Three Laws of Robotics (never harm humans; always obey humans; protect your own existence unless it conflicts with rule 1 and 2). When the leading robotics expert (Dr. Alfred Lanning) “kills himself”, it is up to Spooner to find out what has happened. Immediately, he blames the robots. But is it personal grievance that makes him say that, or is there more? And what’s up with the robot that was in his office who claims to have feelings, even calling himself Sonny?
This was a movie that was genuinely tense at the beginning – whether robots can be trusted is a potent question, even more so in our current year, what with AI and robotics used in military situations – and gradually succumbed to its own action set pieces until it completely broke all logic and (spoiler) let all the robots violently take over like we’re re-living Robot Nazi Germany. What in the world? Will Smith was the best actor, a truly magnetic force, a Leading Man that infused Spooner with important bits of humanity and quips that didn’t sound like Joss Whedon wrote them. Imagine that. And Spooner was literally right. These robots are not good!
Dog Day Afternoon
1975, dir. Sidney Lumet
This movie follows the real story of Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) trying to rob a bank in Brooklyn with the help of Sal Narturile (John Cazale) in order to pay for the gender-affirming surgery of his lover, Leon (Chris Sarandon). Will he make it? Or will the police get the best of him?
So there’s a funny thing that happened to me while watching this movie, which was that so many movies since have been trying to get a bank robbery right that this one simultaneously shines and pales in comparison. Like when you see the original after seeing the dupes first? And the original is kind of… plain? I’ve seen Breaking and Inside Man earlier this year, both movies that are inevitably inspired by this one – the latter deliberately picking the same pizza guy and namechecking the movie – and so this movie felt a little less than either of the two. It is certainly less reliant on music and closeups to bring dramatics. It’s working almost subliminally, an undercurrent – by the end, you’re like, this can’t be it, right? And then… it really isn’t. The shots are brilliant, the colors perfectly coordinated; the humanity of the bank, the electricity of Sonny and Al Pacino’s livewire acting… it treats the audience like it’s just as smart as the characters, and that makes for a very satisfying watch. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen. Thank you to
for suggesting me to watch it!Passages
2023, dir. Ira Sachs
Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is in the process of finishing his latest movie, also called Passages. At a party, his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) refuses to dance with him, but primary school teacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchopolous) is more than willing to; they end up having sex. Tomas lets Martin know; he’s in love. This isn’t like those last times. This is different. Is Tomas right? What will his relationship with Agathe look like? And what of Martin?
Usually on Twitter, there’s an argument every six week on what sex scenes add, if they’re necessary and important. This is the ultimate argument for sex scenes: the backs of these characters, the way they have sex, their positions matters so much. The way Tomas will be at the bottom for both Agathe and Martin; the need to succumb to it. What Tomas wants is so logical and yet unattainable: the familiar new thing. He wants a movie as a person. Maybe not just that, but he wants in a person what a rewatch can elicit.
It’s a minimal, almost skeletal movie. I was surprised at the choice of admitting to cheating coming in very early, though admittedly that is because I am used to the typical setup-payoff firework that such a secret brings. Instead, the drama unfolded moreso in watching Tomas flail about, fall deeper into the quicksand of easy desire. Unfortunately, in the process, I felt like Agathe as a character fell somewhat short, as did the idea that she will drown if they try a throuple, because so much of the film the idea is Martin and Tomas are falling apart and perpetually so. Other than that, it is a very good film. A very horny one.
The Gentlemen
2019, dir. Guy Ritchie
American Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) has made an empire of weed over in the United Kingdom. He’s looking to cash out; the deal is almost done and perfectly in place with Matthew (Jeremy Strong), but there’s other players too: Chinese Dry Eye (Henry Golding), and Fletcher (Hugh Grant) trying to sell a story…
To be clear: the way I tell you this is not the way it’s presented. It’s through these annoying flashbacks that Fletcher tells Pearson’s right hand man Raymond (a particularly baffling Charlie Hunnam), who… should… know what went on? That and coupled with Fletcher’s quipping lines already made for an irritating watch. You’re trying to get into the story, but here is Hugh Grant acting like he was told to play a stereotypical homosexual. ??? Did somebody tell Colin Farrell (here as the Coach) to get in his Slav bag for this one or…??? The ending pulled a couple switcheroos that felt just felt like Ritchie was trying to impress the viewer with his own intelligence. That’s annoying too. And then to top it all off, the racism. In a 2019 movie. Having the Asian character rape Pearson’s wife Rosalind?? Just a bad movie. I caught this one on German television.
Perpetrator
2023, dir. Jennifer Reeder
Jonny Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan) is about to turn eighteen. Just before she does, she is taken to her aunt, Hilde (Alicia Silverstone) – and various illnesses manifest on her birthday. Illnesses… and abilities. Hilde tells her that she is equipped with the power of Forevering now. And Jonny is roped into a plot in which the girls at her high school are abducted… will she be able to escape the kidnapper? And what happened to those girls?
This is a very messy film. The first half is more comical than spooky and barely can get all its plots going. Genuinely one of the worst first halves I’ve seen this year, and riffs on more than one horror film you likely already know (Jennifer’s Body and Carrie are two prominent ones) But – but – the second half is genuinely pretty good, a serviceable thriller. Very feminist at its core, even down to its usage of blood as powers. And mother-daughter relationships! The idea is so good that I felt writerly jealousy, which is honestly not something that I get a lot nowadays. One thing about the movie, it did rattle my conviction that third act problems were first act problems. There were no third act problems here. It’s just that first act.
Anatomy of a Fall
2023, dir. Justine Triet
Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is an author of several successful novels. While she is trying to enjoy an interview with a female student, her husband Samuel (Samuel Thels) plays 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P” instrumentals with deafening volume. They have to quit the interview. Their visually impaired son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner, who has to move his bangs so he can read that again!) goes on a walk with his dog, Snoop (yes) in the Grenoble wilderness. As he returns, there’s a body on the floor: his dad’s. The autopsy is unclear on whether it’s a fall or a murder; a trial awaits Sandra. Assisted with her old lawyer friend Vincent (Swann Arlaud), the question is: did she kill him? No. Seriously. This author, who has taken his idea, who is the more successful one, the cheating one. Did she kill him?
An incredibly gripping film... past the first hour mark, that is. First of all, the documentary-style filming in which Triet will swap the camera for a handheld or clearly worse digital cameras brought out a certain playfulness, a sharpness to the narrative that stops being about the fall and more about Sandra: her position in this society as a sexually active, more successful, less parental woman. It’s as subjective as the movie itself, which becomes a battle of fictions. Sandra being a novelist and talking about blurring reality, not just in her novels but also in the way she brings out and omits certain things (a less-than perfect moment between her and her husband, for instance), made matters quite murky. The way the trial worked with these reveals was almost an excavation of Sandra’s psyche – but as I type this, I want you to know that this isn’t, like, Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s a genre film through and through. From the first hour on the cross-examination gets pretty terse, and while the conclusion might seem foregone, it’s the way it ends – this implication, here and there, that Daniel taps into the world of adulthood too early by coming up with fictions himself – was bone-chilling to me. An incredibly intelligent film. Sandra Hüller will almost certainly be brought up in Best Actress Oscar conversations.
Caramel
2005, dir. Nadine Labaki
This movie follows four hairdressers that run a beauty salon in Beirut, Lebanon; the caramel, here, is what Layale (Nadine Labaki) uses for waxing. Layale is in love with a man who is already married; Nisrine (Yasmin Al Massri) already had sex, but is set to marry someone; Rima (Joanna Mourkazel) has the most sensual hair washings with another woman ever; Jamale (Gisèle Aouad) wants to be an actress, but is worried that she is old and ugly; and Rose (Sihame Haddad) is the tailor from across the beauty shop who takes care of her sister and has fallen in love with Charles (Dimitri Staneofski).
This is a slice of life film. I loved the choice of music, and I really enjoyed hearing the language; Lebanese Arabic is a unique constellation of Arabic, English, and French, and just hearing it is a joy. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I was fully there for all the dramatic moments, I thought the comedic ones were better, but it’s a very warm movie and who am I to say no to one centering women as much as this one?