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There’s a problem with modern movies. Well, there are a lot of problems—terrible CGI, a general lack of trust in the audience, an unwillingness to take bold chances. There’s a lot that Hollywood needs to improve. There is, however, one problem that stands out above them all. One problem that makes older movies tower above the modern sensibility: Today’s directors have a fear of earnestness.
We pick up this week where we last left off, with Mark Scout and Reghabi in Mark’s garage directly after a reintegration flash. Mark is telling Reghabi about what he saw, and she tells him that she doesn’t know what exactly is going on, but clearly Gemma is “essential” to Lumon, and perhaps Mark should consider letting her speed up the reintegration process.
I watched Babygirl the way God (A24) intended—through some grainy, shaky, likely–illegal cam coverage. The latest entry in A24’s unhinged female protagonist cinematic universe, Babygirl isn’t a girlboss redemption arc or a carefully crafted feminist statement. It’s about a woman in free fall, clinging to whatever scraps of control and validation she can find. If the 2010s gave us the “cool girl” (Gone Girl) and 2020 gave us “girlboss” (Promising Young Woman), we are now deep into feral goblin woman cinema, where the messiness is not just emotional but physical, visceral, and deeply uncomfortable.
As of a few days ago, Down with Love, 2003’s overlooked masterpiece of a rom–com, has become my most rewatched movie. This recent addition to the Criterion Channel is a perfect picture, and that’s no exaggeration. Or, well, maybe it might be, just a little. It would have been even better were it a musical, and it’s shocking that it isn’t, considering it stars Renée Zellweger straight off the heels of Chicago, and Ewan McGregor fresh from Moulin Rouge!.
'Trojan Horse' begins with some ominous whistling. A man is taking a cart to the export hall, and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is setting the tone for the rest of the episode.
The episode kicks off with that dolly zoom that we’ve all come to know and love, flipping a switch on Irving Bailiff and turning him into Irving B.
I’m only being a little dramatic when I say that Severance should get an Emmy for best editing for the last two minutes of season two, episode three alone.
The second episode answers some of my questions, and asks a lot more. It kicks off right where the first season ended, with Mark interrupting a book party his sister, Devon (Jen Tullock), and his brother–in–law, Ricken, were hosting, shouting that Gemma is alive.
A little while back, I got the chance to write 8,000 words worth of a recap of a television show that tackled corporate greed, the liminality of living in a cold, small town, and the most complicated love square known to man, all while being gorgeously lit and creatively shot. But now that Riverdale has gone on to the great Chock’lit Shoppe in the sky, I need to get my fix of those things somewhere else.
Awards shows care about being cared about.
The bright hues emanating from your laptop light up your dark living room, casting highlights across your face. After ten minutes of browsing Netflix, you finally choose a new show to binge–watch over the weekend. As you cozy into the couch, your phone vibrates. A Snapchat notification pops up and as you start to reply to your friends, a two–minute distraction slowly transforms into four episodes’ worth of scrolling, replying, and messaging. But the catch? You haven’t missed anything that is happening on the show.
If seasons one and two of The Sex Lives of College Girls were a long term relationship, Season Three is a series of meaningless hookups after a life changing breakup. The show follows four roommates—Bela, Leighton, Kimberly, and Whitney—as they navigate their first few years at a fictional Ivy League–esque college. It was announced in July 2023 that singer and actress Renée Rapp, who plays Leighton in the show, would be limitedly featured in season three with an eventual departure from the show. This prompted significant outrage from fans, who see her as the most compelling storyline and are sad to lose the queer representation.
Although it is still early in the year, I can hardly wait for summer. The frigid winds are traded in for cooling breezes, long days spent in classrooms turn into beach days that extend from sunrise to sunset, and the television series that stream year–round are replaced by seasonally topical content. One of the most anticipated releases this summer happens to be Season Three of the guilty–pleasure romantic comedy show The Summer I Turned Pretty: a show about friendship, coming of age, and a teenage love triangle that leaves audience members on the edges of their seats.
In a small mall in Brazil, a movie theater buzzes with life as a long line snakes past the popcorn stand, the ticket office, and all the way out to the theater's exit. Among the crowd, teenagers stand side by side with their grandparents—groups rarely drawn together by modern films. But the 2024 Oscar–nominated drama I'm Still Here has become a unifying force in Brazilian cinema, a phenomenon the country hasn't seen in years.
My Street friends know that I am an Emilia Pérez apologist. Well. Maybe just a non–hater. Despite the mediocre soundtrack and colossal insanity of Jacques Audiard’s vision, the concept and performances and chaos just work for me. That being said, I don’t think it deserves anything close to a repeat of its run at the Golden Globes; I’d happily give it Best Editing, maybe Cinematography. Best Actress? Let Demi Moore have her Globe, but Sean Baker didn’t write the character of Anora with Mikey Madison in mind for nothing, so please lock in for me, Oscars judges. I will most likely want Best Director for Baker too, while we’re at it. Jeremy Strong was snubbed Best Supporting at the Globes, so I hope he gets it this time for his masterful and almost—but not quite—sympathetic portrayal of Roy Cohn. The Apprentice being snubbed so hard in general was surprising to me; it’s a great film and obviously topical for the year it was released. And it seems like watching The Brutalist, A Real Pain, and Conclave has become my homework before March, so for now, jury’s still out on Best Picture. My little Anora heart might still pull for it, though.
It’s never been easy to put Steven Soderbergh neatly into a box. From his extremely varied filmography to his incredible yearly culture diaries that document all the media he consumes year–by–year, Soderbergh has always been one of the most unique figures in Hollywood. With the release of Presence, his 35th(!) feature film, Soderbergh proves he’s still as vital an auteur as ever.
It’s been three years since we last saw the inside of the Lumon office building, and, according to Mr. Milchick, the newly–promoted head of the severed floor, it’s been five months since Mark S., Helly R., Irving B., and Dylan G. have, too.
It’s not hyperbole to say that David Lynch changed my life. There are those precious few artists whose work hits you at precisely the right moment in your life that forever alter its course. Through the perfect combination of circumstance and substance, they literally expand your field of view. They show you what art can be, and immediately your life is never the same. David Lynch did that for me and for so many others.
When you think of a superhero movie, you are probably thinking of bright supersuits and dramatic action scenes with even more dramatic villains. In today’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, you probably think of snarky one–liners, less saturation than you would traditionally imagine, and a balancing act between gritty darkness and fun action. Perhaps after all this time, the movies and television shows sort of blur together with some standing out but most falling into a tapestry of mediocrity. We have been long overdue for a show that takes a new angle on a classic story.
I’m going to be honest, I almost fell for it too. Big Ridley Scott Haters almost got me.
Solutions by The State News