But if you lick it, it costs a quarter.

Saturday Night — 2/5

There's an excitement running through the thing, a constant threat that something good might happen. But there's a paper thin line separating anxiety from excitement, and only in the last 15m does it finally cross over into the latter. For the rest of the movie, it's just an Aaron Sorkin riff, and friends, Aaron Sorkin isn't funny. And despite what the movie wants to do, when we tune in to watch a movie about the first episode of Saturday Night Live, we expect there to be humor. But, you know, real life, and too many people are miserable dicks (though at least some of the impressions were notable). I think the movie's main mistake is placing the narrative burden atop the shoulders of Lorne Michaels. As much as he plays himself as mysterious, I think it's just a cover for how less interesting he is than the world around him. His smarts, and his success, is recognizing that he isn't the star. I think Garrett Morris would have been a more interesting focal point; someone who didn't belong, but was there, watching the chaos unfold and figuring out what part they played in it.

Every time you find yourself here, it's because you chose to come back.

Severance S1 (rewatch) — 4.5/5

When a piece of art feels too overly designed, too much a director's vision, I get turned off (a decent amount of Wes Anderson, for example). Here, for whatever reason, I don't have that problem. Here, let's examine that: it feels the design goes all the way down, deeper than just a pretty still. There is a compelling mystery built on top of compelling characters who feel peculiar to their core. To my point about 'Wicked,' that movie dressed up the edges in fantastical costumes and hairdos to ascribe peculiarity, but as with the original 'Wizard of Oz,' this show features characters who have distinct, familiar characteristics but also have an uncanny unfamiliarity. They're not exactly the person they are on the show when they leave the set, but they are still someone. They don't need to try to be; they are. And their peculiarity helps to create a believable world that feels like our own, but more interesting, but colder. They feel like perfectly slotted puzzle pieces. And the show's central mystery is a puzzle where you don't have the full picture, just the corner you're working on. Each episode reveals new pieces, which only confuses you more as to what picture is being assembled. I think a good mystery feels like a maze. You know there's a center but you can only ever see the walls in front of you. Each turn could lead to a blank wall or illumination. The show has the feeling of the first season of Westworld, which itself was built around a maze, of human consciousness. I think similar work is being done here, just, unlike that show, I hope it can sustain its feeling of importance beyond the first season. And with two episodes into the new season, it thus far remains entertaining!! But also my hope is that it goes beyond human consciousness into spiritual consciousness. Here are people playing at God, creating new lives beneath old lives. What we learn down here might help us learn something about what's up there.

I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular to boot.

Bring It On — 3/5 (rewatch)

Watched it many years ago and hated it, but the cultural discourse always suggested to me that I was wrong. I was! It's a fun, trifling thing. It's cheesy, but knows it's cheesy, and leans in to it. It's halfway poorly made, but with enough genuine star power and interesting bits to elevate it beyond what it could have been. Towards the end, as we get to a wider view of the competitive cheering world, it opens up in a wonderful way that could have lent itself to a 'Drop Dead Gorgeous' or 'Best In Show' vibe, but I'm comfortable with just the hint.  And to the larger cultural expose I'm doing on why I love 'Not Another Teen Movie' so much, and building on the point I made in the 'Can't Hardly Wait' review, the success of NATM rests on not making fun of bad things, but making fun of good things. With that in mind, and with this movie added to the pile, you can see NATM as much a parody as a pastiche movie—somewhere between 'Willy Wonka' and 'Scary Movie.' It's all the best parts, laid out before you.

You can't escape from yourself.

The Substance — 2/5

I think this is the signal we're in a new era, friends. Every frame is potential for some other director's future pitch treatment. It's all overdone, highly stylized to the point of not needing an actor's performance to carry the story as the camera and hyper-pop set design will communicate the feeling and editing will piece it together in post. Nothing can be boring, let there be no rest. I'm half-disappointed in myself for disliking this movie because the premise is fun and it's devolution into body horror should be fun, but at 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's mostly just tiresome. Demi and Margaret are good enough in their roles, but there's nothing to them, they're mostly empty shells, no interiority. In many ways, the movie feels like a 1920s silent movie in how BIG everything is. You don't need words to understand who the bad guys are, the visuals and wild gesticulations tell the story. And much like Emerald Fennell, the movie points you towards 'the male gaze is bad', creating an exciting villain for the leftists, only to not much do anything with that and instead focus on how women will defeat themselves in order to chase love and adoration.  "The executioner's willing citizens." They're not wrong, but the denouement could have brought those two threads together towards epiphany vs. gross-out humor. Like 'Death Becomes Her,' it'd rather be silly than say something.

Everybody does it in America.

A Fish Called Wanda — 1/5

I find the whole thing mean-spirited. Stutter jokes, gay jokes, everyone lies to each other. Does this make me a prude? I've always held Kevin Kline up to be an actor I enjoy, but this movie makes me wonder if I only want to like him.

Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose.

Somebody Somewhere S3 — 3.5/5

As Sam grows, the show grows less interesting. Sam is often left alone, left by herself to navigate the world. She wants to live in a world without romantic love, which is difficult when that's the world everyone else wants to live in. As Sam's entourage gets busier with seeking the other parts of their selves, they leave her behind—and there's a difference in choosing to be alone, and being left alone. And that second option only comes into being when you introduce people into your life. By the time she finds someone, I can't tell if it's because she wants to, or because she has no other choice but to give in. The show, at its best, is about the gentle pull of friends into a wider world, and this season felt more like a shove. That's also necessary, but in this final season as with the last season, the show separates us from the chemistry that makes the show spark. Eh, I'm nitpicking. I believe the best compliment to give someone is to miss them when they're gone, and I will now miss this show now that it's come into my life and gone.

The Coliseum is closed.

Squid Game S3 — 4/5

What a fun show to watch!! I think what the games allow for, more than a typical drama, is for you to explore the extremes of a person very quickly. Most entertainment work up towards scenes of catharsis, of character exegesis, and here they are, thrown into intense situations where they must quickly reveal who they are. Desperate, afraid, coward, decent, awful. And still more of them to discover in the rollout from there, confronted now with those things. The first couple of episodes of the show, I was worried that it couldn't retain the highs from season 1. Gi-hun does that thing that I fucking hate which is a character you love becomes dramatically different the next time you see them. Usually you see it in kids aged up, like in Slumdog Millionaire or Cinema Paradiso, the latter half of the movie showing young men with only a faint outline of the previous version you once loved. Here, similarly, he's dark and depressed, far removed from the desperate silliness he once was. But, while the show spends maybe too much time trying to find the island, once there it quickly enough introduces new people to surround him, each unique and interesting, and in only 7 episodes manages to successfully build a new world atop the old one.

And though, of course, that's not important to me, all right, why not?

Wicked — 3.5/5

A perfect 3.5/5 movie. Very flawed, but with extreme highs that make for great repeat background viewing. It's highs: Ariana's a gifted physical actress, and the handful of songs that really pop. The flaws: nothing wrong with Cynthia's performance, but Elphaba is a boring character. She's only interesting in everyone's reactions to her. In trying to pinpoint why she's boring, I think it's this: she doesn't change. In the beginning, she's a strong character. At the end, she is the same person she was then. The movie tries to make her feel bad for who she is, but she never shows anything but strength and resilience, even if just spite. The movie, briefly, tries to change her to make her more popular, but as soon as that four minute song is over, her love interest tells her she doesn't need to change. Okay! Thanks! It's a movie about acceptance, and movies about acceptance aren't about how the main character changes, it's about how everyone around them changes. Ahhhh! It was us all along! I understand why people get attached to notions like that—the world is wrong, not me. They're not wrong! But also, maybe, they're not right. And the curse of life is that you will never know which is true. The story and the music don't tell the story of Elphaba being pushed down, and thus needing to retreat from herself. But it needs that in order for the final number to work on an emotional level. The ending—the song drawn out to a dramatic 15 minutes—is a sequence that I both love, and also doesn't work dramatically. She has to have felt the weight of gravity dragging her down before she can, uh, you know.
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I WILL ALSO ADD that, top to bottom, the original Wizard of Oz is filled with characters. Not just people who look funny, but who seem to be peculiar to their core. Here, it's funny costumes and hairdos that are made to do the work of creating a character.

Remember this feeling. It's like the first time you fell in love.

Somebody Somewhere S2 — 4/5

This show always hints at a wider world—who is Holly, where did Sam go before she came back—and while they are tantalizing mysteries, the show has zero interest in exploring them. I like that about the show! It becomes about the low-stakes gambles of day-to-day life, the easy chemistry of hanging out. It's the difference between calling up a friend and asking them to tell you everything they've been up to the past six years (and them not knowing where to start), and just wondering what they're up to today. Things will reveal themselves in pieces until eventually it forms a whole. It's casually funny and it's sad in a way that sneaks up on you. And the show, for drama's sake, feels the need to break your heart. I love when a piece of art builds up a point (friendship can save us) only then to undo that point (one person alone isn't enough to fill the god-sized hole), and this season worked towards those purposes. However, core to that attempt is breaking up the foundation of the show, which is the incredible chemistry between Sam and Joel—and thus, in parts, the show loses the true spark of why it's special. But in her hurt, you see Sam grow, because change is the only way to keep from losing something this beautiful.

Art isn't for everyone.

It's for one person.

How are you so strong!

Shrinking S2 — 3.5/5

Man, as much as I want to push against it, I fucking love Bill Lawrence's brand of schmaltz. Everything works out well for everyone! If we only made room for new people, they can expand our heart. How lovely. This season, Ted McGinley's Derek stood out as the center of the show. Always genial, always understanding. He is an everyday version of Jason Segal's Jimmy—not forcing people out of their shell, but gently coaxing, pushing here and there, a casual introduction, a piece of advice. If everyone had a Derek, they wouldn't need a therapist. Extending outwards from there, the larger cast continues to come into their own, and it's particularly become a joy to watch Harrison Ford look like he actually enjoys being there.

Ain't I a stinker?

Hundreds of Beavers — 3.5/5

I don't know if I like this movie as much as I admire it. It's so fucking silly, and the force of mind to create something so silly, so throwback, so borderless—and to do it for the length of an entire movie—is a force I admire. I will admit that I got tired of some of the hijinx, in the same way I might have tired of Bugs Bunny beyond a 10 minute segment, but the movie kept me watching out of pure appreciation for what they were doing, and then I was rewarded with a final 20 minute set piece that kept escalating the silliness further and further until I, finally, was able to give in to it totally. It feels bold to claim that a movie with a 1920s sensibility can exist and prosper in a modern climate, and here it is! All art from all time is still applicable. Glory be.

Welp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A total acceptance of things you can absolutely change.

Who's afraid of the big, black bat?

Batman Forever — 3/5 (rewatch)

I left the theater when I was 12 years old thinking this was my favorite Batman, and cultural commentary from the schoolyard indicated to me that that was the wrong opinion to have. Here, now, retribution. If you can go full in, embracing Joel Schumacher's 1930's serial vision: it's stupid, and it's fun. This is a fun movie. It's built like an amusement ride and serves its purposes to that end. It, like Mortal Kombat, is the boyhood id, separated from the need to make it worthwhile for adults as well. Why do we like our Batman serious? Because we are adults, and adulthood is for serious people who need to rationalize their childhood interests. It's not a great movie, but it is a playground brawl, smooshing action figures together to see who comes out on top, each figure clearly articulated. Val Kilmer's got the lips, Riddler's got the costumes, Chris O'Donnell's got an earring. Everyone plays their part, though notably I'll call out Tommy Lee Jones for the thing that works the least. He's having fun—the point of the movie—but conveying fun isn't just laughing maniacally; it's taking the role seriously. As anyone who plays with kids knows—childhood games are serious business.

As sick as our secrets.

Juror #2 — 2/5

Once again, I am here to tell the American people that their opinion is wrong. What is the fucking interest in this movie, holy shit. Compelling story synopsis, to be sure, but what lack of artfulness in its creation. No tension, bland performances on top of thin characters, no case to be made for a person's worth or lack thereof. This movie is a surprise to people who haven't watched the past 20 years of Law and Order so think they've found something novel. It's a fun movie to watch and say 'oh, what would you have done?' and I would suggest you go do that instead. Or go instead watch the much superior 'Paranoid Park.' All apologies to Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult who I continue to enjoy 🙏