Deep Water (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

A Hulu exclusive? Ugh, I'm getting tired of this streaming frenzy. I get that Disney owns everyone now, but if they're going to financially back movies for adults, why do they have to dump the releases unceremoniously on Hulu?

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I really liked Deep Water, the poorly titled new erotic thriller from Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Jacob's Ladder, Indecent Proposal). I thought Lyne had retired or something, but thankfully the master (of sorts) is back in form after, what, a decade or more? I confess to loving a solid erotic thriller, and the subgenre has been considered dead for a long time now. Of the most recent ones that come to mind, Fatale was a bit disappointing, Acrimony was pitifully misled, and I actually really enjoyed Careful What You Wish For. But that's about it in the last decade or more! I love movies like this, where the sexual tension is palpable and laced with murderous intent; the actors are usually gussied up to look like glamorous off-duty models and the drama is forced, uncomfortable, and delicious.

This story, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel (Highsmith's work always gets high scores in my roster), concerns Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple with a young daughter Trixie and absolutely no love between them. We're not sure why they're together, except maybe for Trixie's dubious benefit, as in the opening sequence we see Melinda actively cheating on her husband as he watches. He later corners her new lover at the same party to quietly warn him that he killed Melinda's previous extramarital partner. Ben Affleck plays Vic in a powerful performance so understated we're never really sure what he's capable of doing. And that's okay, because the point is made loud and clear. He could be killing off her partners, and that's what matters for their relationship.

Ana de Armas plays Melinda with a cool, sexy suavity engendered by disillusionment. She's unexpectedly amazing in this role, and she seems to be having a lot of fun with it. De Armas and Affleck together have an unlikely chemistry, and Lyne films them in stunning clarity, emphasizing their physical connection in counterpoint to their mental games. She seems to know what he's capable of, to the point that when yet another of her lovers ends up dead -- at a party they are still present for -- she is utterly convinced Vic did it. A nosy acquaintance at the party (played by Tracy Letts), who writes for a living, takes a keen interest in their dynamic and the murderous potentiality of Vic's behavior, starts poking around after Melinda's accusations find purchase in his mind. It's then that the plot really gets going.

This isn't a mystery. It's also not a standard drama. You have to know the subgenre to appreciate a movie like this, and if you do, there is a lot here to admire. The performances are all great, and the writing gives them some juicy stuff to gnaw through, though it stops short of the kind of spectacle you might expect. Utterly earnest as it is, it brilliantly plays everything deadly serious, keeping the psychosexual tension humming like in Gone Girl or others (I thought of the Fincher film because Affleck is playing a similar character, with a few notable changes). I wanted a bit more dialogue to flesh out some more heady concerns of the screenplay, such as the ways in which most characters attempt to commodify and use each other for selfish purposes. Especially near the end things get really dark really quickly, and I wanted more of that. But thankfully this is a feature film, not a miniseries, and we need to maintain the value of not drawing things out needlessly.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

Score: 3 / 5

One of the strangest movies of the year has to be The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the debut of writer and director Joe Talbot. Semi-(auto)biographical, the film tries to capture the life of one Jimmie Fails, who plays himself, as he navigates a changing world while clinging to his own identity. He and his friend Mont (a mesmerizing Jonathan Majors) spend most of their time skating and busing around San Francisco as the city undergoes drastic change. Vague themes of racial and gender identity, integrity and truth, history and future, and hopes and fears swirl around this movie, but its essence is that of romance.

I don't say it's a romantic story, though, because there is almost no story. Jimmie is in love with a house. A beautiful Victorian house nestled in a Bay area neighborhood is his beloved, and it was apparently built by his grandfather in 1946 before being inherited by Jimmie's father. As his childhood house, it holds powerful sway over Jimmie's sense of identity and purpose, which is why he is unable to stay away. Often trespassing on the current owners (white folk, who are annoyed and tired of trying to fend him off), he paints the house and trims the plants and generally tries to upkeep the exterior to his own standards. When they leave after a tragedy, Jimmie and Mont seize the opportunity to squat.

But the movie's commentary on problematic housing legalities is only a passing fancy. Its themes of gentrification and of the invasion of outsiders similarly pass from conscious intellectual curiosity into a sort of aesthetic sensibility. These themes don't concern the story so much as the feel of this movie, and the movie only really makes sense with full understanding of these elements. If there is such a thing as themes being in the mise-en-scene, this is it. Similarly, we're subjected to a curious exploration of toxic Black masculinity and the violent ways young men cling to and relate to each other. Again, while this does influence what little story we have here, it's more impressionistic than anything, leading to a climax and denouement that you don't understand so much as feel.

Which is probably why I mostly didn't care for this movie. It's undeniably beautiful, and a clear introduction to an auteur in the making who controls odd visuals, offbeat pacing, uncanny humor, and sickly sentimentality to fascinating if inaccessible effect. Due to the film's intoxicating sense of place -- there isn't a moment I don't feel where I'm meant to be, though I've never been to California -- I nevertheless felt that much humor and sadness was lost on me due to the almost masturbatory insistence on "for these people, by these people." At one point, a naked man sits on a bench next to Jimmie and the two calmly discuss the changing city. Clearly there is a joke here (naked social philosophers must be a fixture in any major city) but it's so grounded in sadness that my half-choked gasp of laughter quickly died to an almost sickened awareness of my own privilege (of what? Perhaps mental health, a supportive job, healthy masculine bonding, enough money to possess clothes?) But why? There's nothing relatable for me to feel shamed for, and yet there I sat.

I prefer, generally, something a bit more streamlined in scope and accessible in, well, every other way. Perhaps it's just one of those movies I don't "get", like An American in Paris or A Christmas Story, and that's okay. I really wanted to get it, and maybe my earnestness made the film's most accessible elements dull. A movie about a man who loves his childhood house -- even though his connection to it is tenuous and may be built on untruths -- is just not something I'm terribly interested in. (Frankly, there are many other movies about "home" I'd rather watch again.) But I hope you are, because it's lovely to look at and feel, even for a passing fancy.

Judy (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Rocketman may have been the feel-good musical biopic of the year, and a brilliant gaddam bit of cinema, but Judy has the heart, soul, and enough nostalgia for this gay musical-lover to steal his heart. In what is essentially the real-life version of A Star is Born, we're subjected to the absolute evil that is showbiz fame. Here we see the monstrous aftereffects of Old Hollywood and exactly why it had to die. It also makes the #MeToo movement feel all the more justified, for those viewers who perhaps thought it was a "popular" or incendiary smear campaign.

Judy attempts to capture the final months in Judy Garland's life. Ravaged by the drugs she was given and the food she was denied, her frail and failing body and mind are forced into extreme situations to make money. She is forcibly separated from her children, sent overseas, and obligated to perform in order to stay afloat and, hopefully, return to her family. The film takes us within her mind, where her children are the only things that matter anymore, and she just can't get to them. The drugs make sense in this context, along with the booze and the men she tries to love.

Some parts of Judy's real-life story are, of course, blurred here. Mark Herron, her fourth husband, is entirely absent from the proceedings. We're introduced to her third (Rufus Sewell) and fifth (Finn Wittrock) in turn, however, and we see the dangerously abusive interactions between them. Judy is not blameless here, but the frequent flashbacks to her own childhood abuse spark compassion and understanding if not justification. The relationship she shares with her oldest daughter Liza is beautiful but only onscreen momentarily, while her professional relationships are as volatile as those she shares with her husbands. What makes its mark, however, are the relationships she shares with her fans. One especially poignant scene depicts her enjoying an evening with two gay superfans, a lovely bit of fan service to her legions of gay supporters and enthusiasts. "You won't forget me, will you?" are Judy's final lines in the film.

Rising majestically above the already strong biopic itself, Renee Zellweger returns to the silver screen with her most accomplished performance yet. Unbelievably technical in execution, the calculation and physical work she put into becoming the celebrity is palpably exhausting. And yet it never once distracts, never once disappoints, and never once reveals the facade. Zellweger is Garland onscreen, in the smallest of twitches and in the grandest of swigs from the bottle. She even sounds uncannily like Garland in her later years, belting out classics onstage and crooning "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from her leisurely pose on the floor.

I wept through the entire movie. Sure, I laughed a few times and smiled through my tears, but by the end I was utterly dehydrated. By the time the final text appears -- L. Frank Baum's "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others" -- I completely lost it. Be prepared with tissues, a hanky, and a water bottle.

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

It's a nearly perfect film from the man who made last year's perfect film Moonlight. Barry Jenkins has done it again -- although, in my view, not quite as successfully -- with If Beale Street Could Talk, adapted from the James Baldwin novel.

Tish and Fonny are in trouble. Having been friends their whole lives, they eventually become lovers. Now she's pregnant with his child, but he's been framed for raping another woman. Tish must tell her truth to their families and plan how to support herself, her child, and Fonny's defense. Told in nonlinear episodes, the film weaves a mesmerizing tale of love through lovers, family, faith, and of course New York City.

Like his earlier film, Beale Street works best as a sensory exercise. Its impossibly beautiful score -- by composer Nicholas Britell -- sweeps your heart away while gorgeous photography of New York life -- by James Laxton -- steals your sight. Though the cinematography isn't as evocative as in Moonlight, here it does do well in focusing our attention on the human faces struggling for love. We're kept tight on various visages, daring us to investigate the souls of those whose lives we're intimately invading. It's exactly the kind of technique so alien to our culture of screens and speed and ironic distances; to be kept in often silent proximity with the windows to the soul of another human.

The screenplay here is a bit more articulate than in his earlier film, and while I didn't quite like it at first, it's hard to ignore the powerful voice of James Baldwin bleeding through. Further, while all the actors are uniformly doing excellent work -- they shine often when saying and doing nothing at all, only looking -- they manage to make the heightened dialogue sound not only normal but absolutely pure, wrapping their voices and our minds around weighty concepts and layers of meaning with each utterance.

The film's slow, melancholic visual and aural approach to storytelling may be too deliberate and cerebral for some, but it belies a surprisingly complex, detailed story. Timely and deeply disturbing, the romance set amidst contemporary race relations, gender dynamics, and grave injustice is also, at its core, a time-tested dramatic form in new trappings -- new color, if you will -- as a tale of pure hope in the face of evil society.

I personally didn't care for the intrusive use of stock photos depicting historical race relations, and I'm annoyed that Regina King didn't get more to work with in her role. Frankly the film didn't mean as much to me as the groundbreaking queer romance Moonlight did, but all these are just personal preferences. So while it's not my favorite example of the unbelievably beautiful craft of its director, Beale Street deserves all the praise in the world. Go see it. Go love it. Let the sounds and sights wash over you, and fall in love all over again. It's an amazing thing to experience.

The Big Short (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

It's a strange thing to enjoy a film but have no idea what's happening. The Big Short is all about the housing market, Wall Street, and the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Basically, a lot of things I don't expect to ever really understand. But the film works precisely because it caters to those of us who share that bewilderment. Of course, it also caters to people who do understand the crisis and vilify the villains behind it.

Hell, I even got angry with them. I didn't always know exactly why I felt that way, but director Adam McKay (in what might be the first film of his I've ever seen) shares his outrage so bountifully that even his kinetic directorial style here serves to heighten the anxieties and tensions at work. We flit from brokers and bankers to salesmen and victims with such fervor that we feel vexed not only by the duplicitous and voracious money-mongers, but by the filmmakers and their fierce understanding -- and criticism -- of the crisis.

If that makes sense to you, you're already a step ahead of me. But the primary way McKay caters to us know-nothings is by breaking the fourth wall in periodic, stylized exposition monologues. We have Ryan Gosling delivering voiceovers, trying to help us understand the forces at work. When even he needs help, he presents us with celebrities in various comical situations who then explain in hilarious and somewhat less-than-totally-enlightening terms a particular concept or construct. The logic, I suppose, is that Margot Robbie in a bubble bath can explain something as dull as subprime mortgages (??) in an entertaining and pleasant way, while maintaining a sort of aloof, satirical manner. Similarly, Selena Gomez stacking chips in Vegas can explain synthetic CDOs (??) about as well as Anthony Bourdain can make fish chowder out of three-day-old fish while explaining something else. It's a sly move.

It's also one that laughs at us as much as we laugh at it. I mean, isn't part of the problem with these complex business concepts that the majority of Americans really have no idea what's happening? I think it's one of the characters early in the film who decries Wall Street for coming up with big words and complex procedures simply so that its grip on international finance remains firm. So whereas McKay and his team seem to know what's going on, and while he seems willing and able to share it, he does so by condescending to a populace that only really cares about "reality" television, breaking down the fourth wall on celebrity life, and sipping champagne in a bubble bath.

It's a damning judgment of a couple institutions, to be sure. And all this has been to say nothing of the biting dialogue, razor-sharp and with more wit than it can sometimes handle. We see young men calculating their way into the field from their garage, and we see those same men later lounging in their commercial offices while the financial world collapses. Their performances -- particularly those of Christian Bale and Steve Carrell -- are stunning, even (and perhaps especially) when they prove to be less than heroic. Of course, this is movie almost exclusively concerns white men, but then I suppose that's a bit of a statement in itself, even with the likes of Melissa Leo in supporting roles. And by the end, they all work together, through perfect timing and flawless dark comedy, to infuriate the audience.

This movie isn't a drama thriller that carries a warning, like Margin Call. This is a white-hot, scathing indictment against all kinds of things I just don't understand. And it's one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. And that's exactly the point.

IMDb: The Big Short