September's mini filmery
the quantity of films, not the films themselves
.
Did not see a lot of movies this month but we started with The Apple Dumpling Gang and ended with Megalopolis so hoogolly did we cover some ground!
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Disney+
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)
For reasons I do not know, the 15yrold wanted to watch an '60s/70s live-action Disney movie and the 7yrold really wanted to watch this one. So we did.
It's not that bad. But it is kinda dumb.
This was one of the two or three movies my elementary school owned and so I saw it kinda regularly. That and Pete's Dragon. (And maybe Watcher in the Woods? Is that where that sense of terror was born?)
Anyway, the great thing about these movies is their lean into slapstick. More live-action for-families movies need to do that. Who is our Tim Conway? Who is our Don Knotts?
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Link+ dvd
Out of Sight (1998)
We just watched The Limey and so it seemed necessary to take a step back to Soderbergh's previous film, his career resurrector, the more loved Out of Sight. And it was pretty great. Hard to guess where this one is going. But holy smokes does it provide a blueprint for both Limey and Ocean's 11, the two that follow it. The chronology is very Limey; much of the visuals and music and even specific lines show up later in Ocean's. But it has the darkness of Limey but bit of the brightness that comes in Ocean's. It's like the badness of the badguys got laundered to create Danny Ocean and crew so we didn't have to stress so much about rooting for them.
Anyway. I guess it's a trilogy.
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Peacock
Good One: A Show about Jokes (2024)
This is a nice look inside someone's creative process but it's just about the first couple weeks of a years-long process, and so it necessarily feels incomplete.
I get that's probably part of the point, that process IS the point. And, as a creator myself, I do appreciate that. But it probably doesn't make for a beloved classic.
On the other hand, while it's long enough to qualify for this list, it's half the length of a normal on-the-short-side feature. So who can complain?
ELSEWHERE/HOME
Peacock
Monkey Man (2024)
I dunno, man. There's a lot of interesting ideas in here and cool shots and so forth. But it's so, so violent. And some of the stuff that happens are just because it looks cool or because the trope demands it.
I remember reading a review that said this is one of those first movies where the filmmaker is trying to cram in every idea he has—just in case. And it does feel like that.
But Dev Patel is as great on screen as he always is. And, you know what? I hope he gets to make aother all his own. I'd like to see what he can do now that #1's out of the way.
ELSEWHERE
Peacock
Abigail (2024)
It had a couple plot and rule holes but nothing egregious. Would have been fun to watch with an audience. Bummed I didn't get to the theater in time.
I did like some of the character actors quite a bit and some of the twists were solid.
But it's all a little weirder, maybe, when the monster looks uncannily similar to a little girl I once new....
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Peacock
Addicted to Fresno (2015)
Terrific cast doing good work and not as bad as I'd been led to expect but, honestly, it doesn't quite work. Is it script? Is it direction? Is it editing? I mean, yeah, probably. But film is alchemy.
Perhaps Steven Soderbergh could have had one of his magical afternoons and reedited it into a hit. Or maybe this is just as good as this material can be. Hard to say.
THEATER
Cinemark Century
Hilltop 16
Megalopolis (2024)
First, this movie isn't nearly as bizarre as I'd been led to expect. It's a weird movie, sure, but I've seen weirder. And weird that worked better. The Tree of Life and The Meaning of Life jump to mind. And those works, like Megalopolis, are largely sprung from a single intelligence. But those works are coherent in a way Megalopolis is not.
But I should rush to point out that Megalopolis is barely a story. It's more a collection of symbols arranged in deliberate fashion. It is compiled of multiple sources. I heard multiple Shakespeare references beyond the entirety of Hamlet's fourth soliloquy and more than one person is quoted explicitly, including Marcus Aurelius three times in a row. I almost missed it, but there was a section in the credits for sourced writers that also included Plato and Shaw and Wilder (who's done weird things himself). I'd love to see the whole list, but I'm not sure it's online yet.
The main flaw of the film, however, is its uncertainty. It's subtitled A FABLE and early on tells us that this story will tell how society's collapse when powerful men only strive to retain power. But the end of the film is all about the right powerful man retaining power and the rest either surrendering to him or getting lynched by the mob they sought to control. He, of course, is the artist. So, yeah. This is a film by a powerful artist about how only powerful artists should get to decide how we live. We've been here before.
There are other issues like this, but they tend to share root in Coppola not being 100% comfortable letting his symbols stand on their own. He wants to be sure the Most Important ones are clear. But that turns the audience from individual interpreters into a congregation. Which now how this sort of film achieves greatness.