What Have I Been Watching?

+ a movie diary for the new year

First, I wrote an essay for Bright Wall, Dark Room about something that has annoyed me for years: the idea that movies exist to teach us empathy for others. I talk about the reappearance of moral scolds who want to see wholesome values depicted in movies (paging the “there are too many sex scenes in movies” crew)—and how that same moral scolding has been consistently validated. I use the framework of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, so spoiler warning I guess, but I’m proud of this one so check it out.

I’ve been wanting to make a movie diary a regular newsletter feature. I considered making a recommendation guide to go with it but I had too many caveats to make it usable. “Go see this so you can tell me your thoughts about it” did not feel like a particularly useful metric. 

Rather than give everything a thumbs-up and reveal myself as the dullest Pollyanna, I’ll let you judge what sounds worth your time. No spoilers here and, as always, the comments are open for your hot takes.

Nanny, Nikyatu Jusu (streaming on Amazon Prime)

Aisha (Anna Diop) has recently started nannying for a wealthy white family when mysterious visions of her mother country, Senegal, begin to torment her.

After a stunningly atmospheric first act, the movie slowly collapses under a pile of elevated horror clichés. “Did you know the past haunts us?” The movie asks. Yes, I’ve seen any other horror movie.

Couldn’t find a still of the real scariest scene: the crisper drawer full of wilted vegetables

Aftersun, Charlotte Wells (in theaters, available to rent)

Sophie (Frankie Corio, older Sophie played by Celia Rowlson-Hall) remembers the joyous summer she spent twenty years ago with her father, Calum (Paul Mescal).

Sophie sees Calum from angles—do we ever see our parents straight on? He exists only in reference to her: his reflected image lingers in the glossy surface of a table, the corner of a mirror, the surface of a pool. “I’m copying you,” she says to him, their mimicry slow and languorous across a summer, across two decades. In that rapturous, final dance I see a queer daughter embracing her lost father, cradling him in a place where he thought he was alone.

If Mescal wins the Oscar he should have to do Tai Chi on stage

M3GAN, Gerard Johnstone (in theaters and available to rent)

Roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) finishes her passion project, the unsettlingly life-like M3GAN doll (Amie Donald, Jenna Davis), for her recently orphaned niece, Cady (Violet McGraw). 

Everyone except Gemma and Cady is slightly creeped out by M3GAN, so when she goes feral, no one is that surprised. It’d be like getting mad when you finally get proof that your phone has been listening to you—no one forced you to text from the toilet. Another genius script from Akela Cooper (Malignant) where every line of dialogue is a revelation, and what bliss to be free of the Chucky references and the “so that just happened”-isms that litter most slashers. 

Dual, Riley Stearns (streaming on Hulu)

Sarah (Karen Gillan) learns she is terminally ill and undergoes a controversial cloning process to save her distant husband (Beulah Koale) and judgmental mother from grief. When the clone steals her life, she enlists the help of a personal trainer (Aaron Paul) to reclaim it.

The Art of Self Defense is one of my favorite movies and I can’t help but feel hostile to Karen Gillan for not being Imogen Poots. Eventually we unite when we both turn on her do-good dopplegänger. How much are we willing to sacrifice to make others happy, Stearns asks us. How much do we ask the women in our lives to surrender? 

Worth seeing for the dance scene alone

Infinity Pool, Brandon Cronenberg (in theaters)

A failed writer (Alexander Skarsgård) and his publishing heiress wife (lol) (Cleopatra Coleman) meet a bewitching stranger (Mia Goth) at a luxury resort in a foreign country with a bizarre justice system.

The little Cronenberg’s first movie, Possessor, remains a personal fave and the first 25 minutes of this feel promising. In the end, Infinity Pool is a short story—and it did remind me a lot of “Returning” in Ling Ma’s Bliss Montage—it has a compelling note, and it hits it pretty hard, but it’s ultimately just one, very long, note. It’s not helped by Skarsgård’s uniquely unsubtle acting. I’ve said it before: he is not even one of the better actors in the Skarsgård family. How is he consistently booking? This is really just a less successful Dual, again, streaming on Hulu.

Skinamarink, Kyle Edward Ball (in theaters, coming to Shudder)

Two children discover their father has disappeared, along with the door and windows of their home, in this very experimental thriller.

After seeing (and loving) Jeanne Dielman at the Brooklyn Public Library last week, I’ve started to wonder if there is any movie too boring for me to enjoy in a theater—so far, not yet. Skinamarink is deliberately and unsettlingly tedious to the point where I’d tell most people not to bother, especially in home streaming. A static—in both senses—evocation of a feverish childhood nightmare that Letterboxd users will probably call a “tone poem.”

Babylon, Damien Chazelle (in theaters)

The story of the birth of the talkies, told through a litter of Hollywood types who see their careers change rapidly as the moving pictures clean up their act.

See my bit about how male directors prioritize sex appeal over period accuracy

Boogie Nights smashed with Singin’ in the Rain, influences which are referenced over and over and painfully over. I was charmed by Diego Calva, happily impressed by Margot Robbie, and completely unsurprised by Brad Pitt’s utter lack of conviction.

Elvis, Baz Luhrmann (streaming on HBO Max)

One of our most Australian directors brings us the story of a duplicitous music manager (Tom Hanks)—if you look closely, you might also get a glimpse of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler)!

Just when something delightful starts to creep out from this two and a half hour fancam, Hanks starts warbling in a way that can only be described as Adam Sandler playing Bartok the Bat.  

Plane, Jean-François Richet (in theaters)

A commercial pilot (Gerard Butler) teams up with an extradited prisoner (Mike Colter) to fight off an army of violent separatists when their plane crashes in a remote island nation.

If you like this image you will like this movie

Plane, like Infinity Pool, might indicate the future of these oh-so-trendy “eat the rich” narratives—what if the central conflict is driven not by humdrum American class resentment but by a legacy of neocolonialist violence? Questions of who bears guilt for global poverty are, appropriately for a Gerard Butler picture, sidelined to showcase a top-tier villain (Evan Dane Taylor) who is one wet tank top scene away from international underwear modeldom. An old-fashioned Jan de Bont style barn burner (80s racial politics and all) for anyone who has ever woken up and thought, “Man, I wish there was a sequel to Commando.”