Rant Recommendations: Movies

A Few Films You’ll Find More Filling Than Popcorn

Any time someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I draw a blank.

To Kill a Mockingbird??? Naw, way too cliché an answer. The Godfather??? Okay...but is it, really, that great a movie? Citizen Kane??? Casablanca??? Eh...I think it might be more the idea of old black-and-white films that pushes some kind of nostalgia-based adoration button in us. Schindler’s List??? A head-kicker, for sure. The Dark Knight??? Now you’re talkin’! Get Out!? That’s not only a great movie, but maybe a perfect film.

In other words, I don’t know what my favorite movie is. I’ve seen lots of great movies. All of them great for different reasons, at different times, and in different ways. But naming a favorite movie is not the point here. The point is recommending some movies I’ve seen recently that left a mark on me. That had me feeling and thinking about them the next day—and when I sat down to write this post.

Filmic escapism certainly has its purpose and place. I enjoy a good mindless romp. A popcorn flick. Very therapeutic. But, every once in a while, you need to come away from a movie with your mental and emotional wheels spinning. Feeling more unsettled than sated. Below are five current movies that piqued me in just that way.

And, never fear, there are NO SPOILERS involved in my recommendations. Just a few good reasons why you might want to watch these films.

The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet

I love starting a film and discovering that it’s going to be what I think of as a real movie. That is, not some formula piece where you know instantly all the plot turns, who all the characters will turn out to be, and that you’re heading for a pre-known conclusion because, well, you’ve seen this kind of movie SO many times before.

Most films today are tried-and-true genre flicks—because the industry knows they sell. Horror, rom-com, superhero, spy thriller, space opera, detective procedural, feel-good, and so on. And that’s fine. Hollywood has to turn a buck.

But the mark of a real movie, for me, is surprise—NOT giving me anything I expect.

From its opening shots, I knew The Brutalist was going to be a real movie. I didn’t know where I was, who these people were, or what they’d all wind up being and doing by the end of the film. I was on a ride to watch things unfold—not to anticipate the generic inevitable. And lots of interesting things unfold during this wide-arcing movie.

The story is basically historical. A tale of post-World War II America, of refugees and burgeoning American capitalism. In this way, The Brutalist has a bit of a Citizen Kane vibe to it. Maybe even elements reminiscent of one of Ayn Rand’s shitty novels. But you’re not going to see formula when watching this movie. The plot and the characters go where they want to, not where a genre dictates.

And I was more than happy to follow along.

At this point, if this were a movie review, I’d launch into specific analyses and assessments of The Brutalist. In other words, I’d do my best to spoil your fresh viewing to the film. But this is not a movie review. It’s a movie recommendation. So I’ll finish broadly.

Some critics complain that the movie “loses its way” in its final third. That it doesn’t wrap up our moviegoer experience into a neat and satisfying storyline bow. But I say: So what? If you want neat filmic bows, watch a Marvel movie. (Which I heartily enjoy, by the way.) We can certainly afford to—and likely need to—see a movie every now and then that takes a big swing. That delivers big ideas. That shows us what we’re not used to seeing.

Oh, yeah. One last thing. If for no other reason, you should watch The Brutalist for the performance Adrien Brody delivers as the Hungarian-Jewish architect, László Tóth. I am not one to gush, but: Oh. My. God.

Anora, directed by Sean Baker

Every once in a while, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gets it right and awards Oscars to people and films really deserving it. Thus, just as Adrien Brody richly deserved to be named Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in The Brutalist, so too did the film Anora roundly deserve to be named Best Picture.

In my estimation, it’s another real movie.

Anora doesn’t give you what you might expect going in or after watching the first few minutes. Instead, this film takes you in some surprising directions, eventually arriving at poignant moments you couldn’t have anticipated.

Most of the credit for this unexpected journey goes to the screenwriting and directing of Sean Baker. About halfway through the film, what appears to be a minor direction in the plot turns into the main storyline. And characters you took for flat and ancillary become full-blooded and key. The effect is amazingly refreshing—and thus so appreciated.

Equally, heaps of praise must go to the young, relative newcomer actor, Mikey Madison, in her leading role as Ani. She’s a Brooklyn stripper who hopes she’s making her escape from a dead-end life by marrying the charmingly impulsive son of a Russian oligarch. Madison’s performance requires a remarkable range of tragic naïveté and raw sexuality.

And, once again, somehow, the Academy got it right. The Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role went to Mikey Madison.

The extraordinary character of Madison’s Ani and the quirky plot line of Baker’s script lead Anora to a final scene I found simultaneously unique, heart-breaking, baffling, and deeply disturbing. The next day—upon reflection—I realized it also made perfect, miserable sense.

Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis

This movie likely works best for a mature audience. And, by mature, I mean mature. The 60+ crowd. Anyone prone to engaging in what gerontologists call “life review.” I’m sure this film would have made a very different impression on me had I seen it in my 20s or 30s—even 40s.

But Here isn’t just a heartstring tug for us geezers. (Although it packs quite a yank.) It stars two superb actors, Robin Wright and Tom Hanks (and Paul Bettany ain’t bad), and is directed by one of the most skillful auteurs around, Robert Zemeckis of Back to the Future fame. This film has invention and intelligence and pluck to spare.

And while, basically, the storyline is that of a family growing up in their family house, that’s where anything mundane about this movie ends.

The movie contextualizes this family’s history within the history of, well, the planet. More weird, it does so by anchoring the action of the film in one spot—that is to say, the eponymous Here.

Yup. There’s only one camera shot for 99.9% of the movie. And it shows us everything from dinosaurs to Native American lovebirds to the living room of a house with a long series of captivating inhabitants. So, Zemeckis ignores the one thing film does best. The main attribute film was invented to do. The single most amazing advantage film has over other visual narrative forms.

The ability to go anywhere and show audiences anything in what seems like real time.

Instead, as viewers, we’re stuck in one spot, looking at one location, for 1 hour and 43 minutes of the film’s 1 hour and 44 minutes runtime.

After the first couple of minutes of Here, once I realized what was going on, I thought: This is never going to work. After another couple minutes, I was absorbed. At the end of the movie, when finally the camera goes on a tracking shot, I was stunned.

Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis

If Here is unique because the camera doesn’t move, Flow is unique because not one word is spoken during this animated movie. Not one. For that matter, neither is anything ever explained about just what in the heck is going on in this film. Not one thing. Not a clue. Nothing.

And so, so much is going on in Flow.

There’s a cat. Maybe we can think of this cat as being named “Flow.” Probably it isn’t. Who knows? Anyway, we follow this cat (a black one, of course) around as it strives not to drown in a sudden flood of apocalyptic proportions. A flood that’s much more likely, come to think of it, to be the “Flow” of the title. But, again, who knows?

Other animals appear. Boats are involved. So are deserted cities looking to be—maybe?—in Thailand. Who knows?

The eclectic animal cast of main characters includes dogs (most portrayed as a stupid pack but one Golden Retriever that wants to play), a capybara (docile and sleepy), ring-tailed lemurs (jittery kleptomaniacal hoarders), secretarybirds (a mean flock but one that’s nice), and a whale (kind of grand and noble). The cat we follow is solitary, justifiably mistrustful, and wants nothing to do with any of the others.

But at some point an odd brand of creature cooperation breaks out. Inexplicably, needless to say.

That’s not to say that these animals are necessarily being anthropomorphized—as is typical of animated films involving non-human characters. These animals don’t talk or wear clothes or behave within human social organizations, such as kingdoms and the like. These animals remain animals.

But they’re also forced by the dire circumstances of the massive flood to get along. Even to help one another to survive. And maybe that’s some kind of point to the movie?

(Who knows?)

Yet the real point of Flow seems not to be knowing, but experiencing.

In film theory terms, the figure of this movie—that is, the felt experience of the movie triggered by cinematographic techniques—is swaddling. The animation is sumptuous. The soundtrack, the sound effects, even the silence is tactile. The imagery shushes our ever-yammering inner monologues. As a result, the ground of the movie—that is, the world of the film entered by the viewer—is immediate and unmediated. A lived story. Flow creates a texture of feelings, moods, emotions, and passions that make us forget we’re watching a movie—even one that’s animated.

In sum, no need whatever to do drugs before watching this film. And if you can catch it now somewhere on The Big Screen, buy tickets immediately. And, oh yeah, one last thing: Flow won the Oscar this year for Best Animated Feature Film.

Mickey 17, directed by Bong Joon Ho

I’ll admit that I have a soft spot for the films of Bong Joon Ho. They bend genre, shift tone suddenly, use plenty of dark humor, and—most important to me—delve into agitating social and class themes. One must be on one’s political toes when watching a movie by Bong Joon Ho. And, of course, his most recent film, Mickey 17, is no different.

And why it made my list of Rant Recommendations.

Similar to Ho’s 2013 film Snowpiercer, Mickey 17 takes us on a grim, dystopian, near-future romp. But this time it’s into outer space and far more tongue-in-cheek.

Life on earth seems to be in really bad shape, so a down-and-out guy named Mickey—charmingly played by Robert Pattinson (maybe to make amends for all those Twilight movies)—signs up for a voyage to colonize a new planet. Sounds exciting, yeah? Well, except the expedition is headed up by a shit-for-brains politician named Kenneth Marshall (played by Mark Ruffalo) who is driven by narcissism, fueled by religiosity, and sustained by a horde of moronic ass-kissing followers.

Getting the political drift of this movie?

Worse still, Mickey signs up for a particularly horrifying job position on this journey. A job that situates the humor of this movie in a decidedly gallows vein. But fear not. Unlike Snowpiercer, there’s uplift. Affable aliens get involved. And, in one key scene, the admirably tough character of Nasha (played by Naomi Ackie) reads the riot act to the blowhard politician.

That is, to his face, Nasha tells Marshall (Ruffalo always pursing his lips to look like Donald Trump) what a shit-for-brains he is, how nobody really believes all the stupid shit he spouts, and how everyone is really laughing at him behind his back because he is such a pathetic, self-centered loser.

That’s worth the price of a ticket right there.

HAPPY WATCHING!!!

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