Hello, friends!

We’ve now aired three episodes of the When We Were Young podcast, which means it’s officially time to start uselessly ranking things.

That’s right — because I am a millennial (barely), I am obsessed with ranking things that are not terribly similar in any way, and chances are, you are obsessed with it, too. (Thanks, Buzzfeed!) So I am keeping a running tally of which of the movies, TV shows, albums, and other pop culture artifacts from the 80s and 90s hold up best.

Is it completely arbitrary to compare, say, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. to the 90s catalogue of Britney Spears to the entire run of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air? Of course it is! That’s what makes it such a meaningless waste of time!

RANKING 80s & 90s POP CULTURE, FROM BEST TO WORST:

1. Election

2. Twister

3. The Blair Witch Project

That’s my ranking but I’m also curious about how you would rank them. Pick your favorite in the poll below:

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My rankings list will be updated accordingly following each episode of the podcast. The poll will also be refreshed with new options as we cover them. You can vote once a week, so if your answers changes when we introduce a new topic, that’s fine!

Listen to the podcast here.

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A competent, ambitious, and some-might-say-chilly blonde who thinks she’s got this election in the bag goes up against unlikely opponents who are unqualified and uninformed, but hold an anarchic appeal to a certain deplorable fan base that’s fed up with the establishment. When the rubble is cleared, some careers will be ruined, some hearts will be broken, and one very controversial woman will rise to power, sweeping aside a few questionable tactics along the way.

Oh, and did we forget to mention the myriad sex scandals?

In our third episode, the When We Were Young podcast tackles Alexander Payne’s 1999 film Election, a high school satire that has absolutely zero relevance to anything going on in the American political system today. Listen here or subscribe here.

“When I win the presidency, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Lots and lots and lots of time. President and advisor. Harmonious and productive. Close and special. You… and I.”

Election was released on April 23, 1999, just a few days after the Columbine massacre, which might be the reason audience weren’t in the mood for a dark and biting high school satire. The film grossed only $14.9 million on a $25 million production budget (which seems strangely high for a low-key high school comedy), though it did sweep the Independent Spirit Awards, winning awards for its screenplay, direction, and Best Feature, and also received an Oscar nod for its script by Jim Taylor and Payne.

Here’s the range of what critics said at the time of release:

Desson Thompson, The Washington Post: “The satire of the season, a hilarious, razor-sharp indictment of the American Dream.”

Christopher Brandon, TNT RoughCut: “Dumb, dumb, dumb.”

(I question the validity of a critic working for TNT RoughCut who thinks this movie is “dumb,” but it was one of few bad reviews I could find.)Election has held up well over the years, especially for introducing Reese Witherspoon as an actress with serious dramatic and comedic chops. Prior to Election, she was one of a slew of actresses in teen films who could be forgotten in five years, but the role of Tracy Flick cemented her as a real leading lady, showing she could pick smarter-than-average material and rise to the occasion in carrying it.

I appreciated Election when I saw it on home video at the time, but I’ve come to appreciate it more and more in subsequent viewings, and especially now that we’re seeing so much of it come to life with our first serious female candidate for the nation’s highest office.

In the podcast, we discuss the complex sexual politics of the film, how it compares to our current national nightmare of an election cycle, and find ourselves divided on how much we like and admire Miss Tracy Flick (which may or may not line up pretty nicely with how we feel about Hillary Clinton). Give it a spin, and if you like what you hear, please leave us a review (5 stars would be nice!) or pledge $1 to help us defray costs of producing the show.

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It’s impossible to ignore the year 2016 when talking about Loving, a film that takes place between 1958 and 1967 and depicts the lives of the titular couple at the center of one of the Supreme Court’s landmark cases of the 20th century. So let’s talk about 2016.

Movie-wise, the year began with the “Oscars So White” controversy, which highlighted the unfortunate fact that none of the major nominees in acting categories were people of color. “Oscars So White” highlighted a very real problem that is only partially the fault of the voting body of the Academy. There were, of course, some terrific kudos-worthy performances from non-Caucasian actors including Michael B. Jordan in Creed, Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, and Mya Taylor in Tangerine, but the reason these performances weren’t nominated has at least as much to do with star power, awards campaign budgets, and genre as it does with race, if not more. The truth is, very few Oscar-caliber films from 2015 had racially diverse casts that could even be nominated. The Academy has shown, most notably of late with 12 Years A Slave, that it will heap honors upon a more diverse film when it comes along, as long as it’s of a certain quality. That shouldn’t necessarily “excuse” the voting body for a lily-white year like 2015, but it does show that the problem has many more shades than “all those old white dudes are racist.” To nominate a more diverse slate of films for the Oscars, the Academy will have to make them first.

Then the 2016 Sundance Film Festival offered a (too) early beacon of hope in Nate Parker’s audaciously titled The Birth Of A Nation, which made headlines for the largest sale in the festival’s history, and was only half-jokingly declared the Best Picture winner 0f 2017 a whole year before the ceremony. The Birth Of A Nation was released in October with a thud, due largely to old rape allegations against the filmmaker that resurfaced with a vengeance.

What happened between January and October, you ask?

Well, 2016 happened.

Looking back at it now, the “Oscars So White” backlash feels quaint compared to the controversies that plagued the rest of this year, most of them brought from a simmer to a boil by the presidential campaign of one Donald J. Trump. This isn’t the place to rehash the year’s many traumas, but it’s hard to set the scene for a film about the Loving v. Virginia case without examining the environment in which it’s being released.

On the one hand, the Loving case was decided so long ago that it’s jarring to remember that interracial marriage was illegal in some states just 50 years ago. On the other hand, we’ve made shockingly little progress in these past 50 years if someone like Donald Trump is embraced as the mouthpiece of a disturbingly large segment of this country. In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested and jailed in their home state of Virginia for the crime of being married. (The license was granted by Washington, D.C., where interracial marriage was already legal.) The Lovings were ordered to leave the state with the understanding that if they returned together at any point over the next 25 years, they would be imprisoned. If Loving had been released just a couple years earlier, say, in 2014, we would have been able to distance ourselves and say, “Well, it’s a good thing our country’s not like that anymore!” But in 2016, thanks largely to the Republican party’s rollercoaster endorsement of Donald Trump, a straight white rich man with the audacity to suggest that the system is rigged against him, I’m afraid we have to grapple with Loving in a very different way.

Loving stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the Lovings, an American couple with the simplest of ambitions: Richard wants to provide for his family, Mildred wants to raise it. They both want to do this in the Virginia community they were raised in, where their families still reside; where they are happy. Most people, black and white, are openly accepting of the interracial relationship, though some are reluctant about the way Richard pushes the boundaries of the law by making the union official. The local law enforcement makes a show of arresting the couple more than once, making it clear that their marriage won’t be honored or welcomed by the state of Virginia. Richard and Mildred are forced to move to Washington, D.C., where they raise three children until they are contacted by Bernie Cohen (Nick Kroll), a lawyer from the ACLU who wants to represent them in a case he hopes will be taken all the way to the Supreme Court, believing the illegality of interracial unions can be repealed across the nation.

There’s little suspense in whether or not the Lovings’ series of appeals ends in success for interracial couples in America — 2016 audiences should be well aware of the results of Loving v. Virginia, even if they don’t know the case by name. (This film may change that.) Loving spends relatively little time on the court proceedings, instead focusing the bulk of its time on the loving between the Lovings themselves, and that’s a good choice. The film is directed by Jeff Nichols, who has built his career on humane dramas about the American heartland. Nichols released Midnight Special earlier this year, which failed to blend the spectacular and the mundane quite as shrewdly as Take Shelter did, but Loving shows the filmmaker bouncing back with some of his finest work to date. Both lead performances are extraordinary (my early favorites of 2016, actually), with Negga and Edgerton matching the subtlety of the script with quiet but powerful command of these characters. (Despite the grand themes, there’s really no showiness in this story.) It’s too early to say for sure, but I expect both of them to be nominated for Oscars for Loving.

I don’t want to hijack Loving‘s central focus on racial issues at a time when that is so crucial, but it is worth noting that the Loving case was instrumental in more recent marriage equality rulings regarding same-sex couples. That’s definitely a part of this film’s subtext. Some of the same people who leave the film wondering how America could ever have been so backwards to not allow interracial marriage might also fail to support marriage equality of a different form. It’s just another way in which Loving isn’t just another film about a relic injustice that shakes its head at previous generations; it is unfortunately resonant in 2016, inviting us to continue shaking our heads until this sort of prejudice is really, truly gone.

I mentioned the stillborn Birth Of A Nation earlier, a film that had the misfortune of being released in Donald Trump’s America. (A period that will, God willing, span only 2016, rather than another four years.) Parker’s failure to quell the bad buzz about his past might have happened in any year, but the fall of 2016 was a particularly bad time to be a man accused of “getting away” with sexual assault, and an even worse time to be unapologetic about it. Many critics also struggled with The Birth Of A Nation‘s historical inaccuracies, in addition to the role of women in the film itself. (Disclaimer: I neglected to see the film myself.) Perhaps it’s unfortunate that The Birth Of A Nation isn’t a more widely seen and widely talked about film, but 2016 has been such a feel-bad year, I suspect Academy voters will be more likely to nominate and award films that have a more positive vibe to them.

The Birth Of A Nation may have sputtered, but that’s not the end of the story to make the Oscars Less White next year. Fortunately, in 2016, we’ve got more than just one black beauty in the race. Loving could do very well when nominations are announced this winter, and better yet, it isn’t the only film carrying the torch for black Americans in the coming awards season. Even without the Academy’s efforts to diversify this year, it’s impossible to imagine that the 2017 Oscar lineup won’t be significantly more colorful than 2016’s. It’s been one hell of a year, yes — but come January, I do believe a number of good things will happen.

Titled after the almost-too-perfectly named couple who dared to challenge the system, Nichols’ film is a celebration of love and equality and progress, coming at a dark and dangerous moment in history when all of those things are at risk. Loving is the perfect film to remind America that we’ve come a long way, baby — released at just the right moment to prove we’ve got a long way yet to go.

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The “coming out” film has been the cornerstone of queer cinema for at least a couple of decades. For all the progress the LGB… (sorry, I’ve lost track of how many letters are supposed to be attached to that alphabet soup) movement has made in shifting from the niche to the mainstream in that time, movies about these people haven’t changed much.

On the one hand, that makes sense. As much as homosexuality has become a relative norm in more progressive Western cities across the globe, the coming out process is still a chore for many, fraught with anxiety and occasional peril. Coming of age tales about heterosexual characters are popular because so much in them feels universal; their gay cousins, the “coming out of age” tales, have a similarly broad appeal within their respective demographic.

(Let me take this moment to state for the record that I’m not a fan of the “in the closet” metaphor, nor use of the word “out” in this context — they are relics of another time that still connote shame and secrecy. It’d be best to do away with this “hiding in the closet” comparison altogether. Unfortunately, there’s not really another accessible term for it at present.)

For numerous reasons, most of the best queer cinema still seems to be made abroad — Weekend, Blue Is The Warmest Color, the films of Pedro Almodovar and Xavier Dolan. The United States has produced only a handful of great gay films, particularly ones that are celebratory of different sexual orientations rather than punishing. Last year gave us two strong American dramas featuring LGBT characters that were uplifting, for a change — Carol and Tangerine. It might be a signal that filmmakers are finally able to tell gay stories outside of the “coming out of age” norm.Let us begin with Moonlight, one of the best-reviewed films of this year (or any year), and a major success so far at the box office, with the highest per-screen average opening of 2016. Based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the story is a triptych about a boy named Chiron, checking in with him at three distinct moments in his life, and examining how his relationships evolve with a few key figures. In the first segment, Chiron is known as “Little” (played by Alex Hibbert). We meet Little as he’s running away from some bullies from school, which is no anomaly. Being picked on will, unfortunately, be a major determinant in the direction of Chiron’s life.

Chiron is rescued by Juan (Mahershala Ali), who buys him some food and gives Little a place to crash for the night, thanks to the boy’s utter silence about where he lives or who might be waiting for him. Juan’s girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe) takes a special liking to the boy, and from here on, this place will serve as Little’s home away from home. The reason this is necessary is that Little’ mother Paula (Naomie Harris) is somewhere in the early stages of a crack addiction. She loves her son, but she’s beginning to love her crack a little more, and she’s ill-equipped to deal with Little’s biggest problem, which is that he’s a gay black boy growing up in a tough neighborhood of Miami. We, like Paula, sense that things are going to get a lot worse for Little before they get better.I won’t go into detail about plot specifics after this point, because the joy in watching Moonlight is in how it skirts cliches in favor of more genuine, heartfelt surprises. We check back in with Little twice more, first as a high school student who demands he be called Chiron, instead of Little, here played by Ashton Sanders in a heartbreakingly perfect performance of teenage angst. The bullying has only grown worse, along with Paula’s addiction, and Chiron is now more acutely aware of how he’s “different from other boys.” All of what I’ve just written makes Moonlight sound like a more typical, predictable film than it is; certainly, it has the trappings of any other coming of age movie, as well as any other “coming out of age” movie, but it doesn’t dwell on them or over-dramatize that. It presents Chiron’s life matter-of-factly and highlights beauty and kindness as often as pain and squalor, if not more.

In the final segment, Chiron is once again known by a new name, this time played by Trevante Rhodes. All three actors who portray Chiron are stellar, as is every actor in this film. (The Best Supporting Actor category could be filled entirely by the cast of Moonlight.) The meat of the final chapter takes place in a Miami diner, depicting Chiron’s interaction with a cook named Kevin (André Holland). That’s all I’ll say. Following the second chapter’s dramatic conclusion, the first moments of this third section had me very concerned that Moonlight was going down the wrong path and becoming the crime story that it is always threatening to be on its fringes. It doesn’t. There’s a hint of menace throughout Moonlight, and there are ways in which it strikes. But what makes it so extraordinary is how it depicts the mundane and everyday, making them universal. Gay audiences will recognize what’s gay about the movie, black audiences will identify with what’s black about it — these things are specific and precise. But none of it is compartmentalized in such a way that it feels like we’re peeking into another world. As different as so much of it is from the experiences of the audience that’s watching it, Chiron’s life is relatable and totally accessible to us, his experiences universal. It is impossible to imagine anyone watching Moonlight and not recognizing themselves in Chiron at all three stages, despite how different his life may look on the surface.

Moonlight was written and directed by Barry Jenkins. It is his second feature, and it’s an extraordinary piece of work, standing up against the very best cinema of the 21st century. It draws inevitable comparison to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, my favorite film of 2014, mostly because of the ways it captures very specific moments and makes them feel so universal. Boyhood accomplished the amazing feat of using the same actor, growing up before our eyes over twelve years, while Moonlight recasts the role and makes more significant time-jumps along the way. But Boyhood was the tale of a straight white boy, a type we’re all incredibly familiar with seeing on the big screen. The fact that Jenkins can achieve the same effect with a gay black man is, in ways, even more impressive. For most of us, Boyhood was a movie about ordinary experiences we’re familiar with, rendered profound by the way they were captured and stitched together in cinema; Moonlight is about an experience far fewer of us are familiar with, but is equally universal anyway.Yes. I, like many reviewers, am falling into the particular pit of difficulty that is describing what’s so extraordinary about Moonlight. We don’t see enough great black films, and we don’t see enough great gay films, and we certainly don’t see enough that are both. There’s a danger in praising Moonlight that the film’s uniqueness is relegated to the surprise we feel at identifying with this impoverished black boy living in a bad neighborhood, as if we’d never before considered such a thing. And it is true that a part of what makes Moonlight so extraordinary is the way it shows us a world many of us are not privy to, and makes so much of it so relatable. But it’s more than that. Jenkins’ filmmaking is so immersive, it’s like crawling into these peoples’ skin. That’s an accomplishment outside of the film’s worthy subject matter.

For those who didn’t think Boyhood lives up to the hype (you’re wrong, but that’s an argument for another review), worry not — the comparison to Moonlight is only so apt; Moonlight doesn’t share Linklater’s frill-free observational filmmaking style, except in a couple of key scenes. Just as often, the cinematography calls attention to itself with lots of movement and colorful fantasy interludes. The filmmaking grounds us in Chiron’s point-of-view, whether he’s remembering his mother screaming at him in a particularly beautiful, heightened way, or visualizing his buddy’s bragged-about sexual conquest with a classmate. The filmmaking is attention-grabbing in appropriate moments and maturely subdued in others, which serves to keep us guessing. We never know if the next scene will be splashy or soulful, or maybe a mix of both. In every moment, Moonlight is more vibrant and alive than most movies even attempt to be.Though aspects of Boyhood certainly came to mind while I watched Moonlight, afterward there was another #1 film that lingered in my mind — Steve McQueen’s Shame, which featured Michael Fassbinder as a sex addict trying to make sense of his queasily complicated relationship with his sister. In most ways, they’re very different — Moonlight has some of the most moving and romantic sex scenes I’ve seen, and they don’t contain nudity or actual sex, while Shame‘s sex scenes are graphic and intentionally unappealing. But we are locked into Chiron’s point of view so immersively, just as we were in Brandon’s. Both men are secretive about their sexuality, for very differing reasons, and we must read their sphinx-like faces for clues as to what they’re feeling. These characters tell us next to nothing with words, but the filmmaking tells us everything.

An independent drama about a gay black man is unlikely to Oscars by the fistful, unless it’s as good as Moonlight is. Due to rapturous reception thus far, Moonlight is certainly a contender for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, and Best Picture nominations. (Of course, it’s too early to be sure how much competition it faces, though there are a handful of equally beloved films in the pipeline.) As mentioned in my review of Loving, Oscar buzz was heaped onto The Birth Of A Nation way too early, and it seems that didn’t pan out. But in a much quieter way, Moonlight may be even more revolutionary and monumental than Nate Parker’s slave drama, and it’s not impossible to imagine it walking away with a few Academy Awards in February. Last year’s other frontrunners for Best Picture, The Revenant and The Big Short, were divisive, while just about everyone could agree that Spotlight was solid. Praise for Moonlight is even more glowing; I have a hard time imagining why anyone wouldn’t like it (though as with any well-reviewed work, there’s sure to be a backlash). I have a very different film in mind as my prediction for Best Picture, but wouldn’t it be great if two films ending in –light took Best Picture two years in a row?On the other side of the spectrum, perhaps, is Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster, in some ways as typical a “coming out of age” story as there is. Queer cinema certainly isn’t hurting for stories about cute middle-class white boys whose fathers disapprove of their sexual orientation, nor about gay teens with crushes on a comely “is he or isn’t he?” cock tease. Closet Monster checks all the boxes of your most basic “coming out of age” tale, but it has more in common with Moonlight than it may at first appear. Both films begin with a look back at the protagonist at an impressionable young age, experiencing something that will have a profound impact on the direction his life takes. Both have genuinely romantic moments that are peppered with the protagonist’s fantasies, with the threat of violence underlying everything.

Then again, only one of these movies has a talking hamster named after Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that’s Closet Monster.

Buffy the Hamster is voiced by Isabella Rossellini, which is perhaps the most perfect voice casting possible — if it couldn’t be Sarah Michelle Gellar. (I do wonder if she was approached. I like to think she’d be up for it.) She enters young Oscar Madly’s life at a critical point, just as his parents are separating. Oscar is left with his father Peter (Aaron Abrams), who is mostly loving and attentive but also prone to explosive outbursts of anger. Then, one day, Oscar witnesses something truly grotesque, and is forever changed by the experience.

The film skips ahead roughly as far as Moonlight does between its first two chapter. As a teenager, Oscar has become an artist with a love of the macabre — notably, special effects makeup with a fantasy/horror element. (Perfect for a boy who named his hamster Buffy.) His best friend Gemma (Sofia Banzhaf) might have a little crush on him, but she isn’t deluding herself about Oscar’s attraction to guys. Peter is, though — believing Gemma is Oscar’s girlfriend and tacitly disapproving of his son’s gayer tendencies.

Oscar gets a rather butch job as a clerk at a hardware store, where he meets the handsome and enigmatic Wilder (Aliocha Schneider), who is European enough that it’s impossible to tell whether he’s gay, straight, or somewhere in the middle. By and large, the rest of the film follows a predictable path — Wilder and Oscar grow closer without any confirmation of Wilder’s sexuality; Peter is gradually clued in to Oscar’s orientation and does not take it terribly well; conflict threatens to wedge Gemma and Oscar apart.

On the other hand, though, Oscar continues to have dark fantasies about the terrible event he witnesses as a child. Violent images threaten a full embracing of his sexual identity at every turn, and we’re not sure how this will manifest with the growing external crises Oscar is facing. Buffy the hamster is along all the way to give Oscar her best rodent advice, but that may not be enough. Stephen Dunn’s writing and, in particular, his stylish direction elevate Closet Monster above most other “coming out of age” stories. The film certainly owes plenty to Dunn’s fellow Canuck, Xavier Dolan — especially Heartbeats, which features Aliocha Schneider’s very similar-looking brother in practically the same role. But Closet Monster has a darker edge than most of Dolan’s work, with a level of menace more reminiscent of Gregg Araki’s fantastic Mysterious Skin. It’s certainly an accomplished enough first feature to suggest that Stephen Dunn’s further work is something to consider.Which brings me to two other recently released films featuring gay protagonists, neither of which deals so heavily with coming out. The first (and superior of the two) is Other People, another first time feature, written and directed by Chris Kelly. Kelly is a head writer of Saturday Night Live, but Other People is a far cry from sketch comedy — the film centers on a comedy writer’s relationship with his terminally ill mother. Despite that grim premise, the film is a comedy, though a rather dark and humane one.

Other People stars Jesse Plemons as the son and Molly Shannon as the mother, both terrific. (The film may be too little-seen to garner serious Oscar buzz for Shannon, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.) After a major setback in his screenwriting career and a breakup with his boyfriend, David moves back to Sacramento to spend time with Joanne, who has probably only a matter of months to live while losing a nasty battle with cancer. David is visibly uncomfortable around his father, Norman (Bradley Whitford), who it turns out doesn’t really approve of his son’s sexual orientation. (Like I said, it’s a common theme in such movies.)

Other People contains a handful of tremendously sad scenes, but refuses to wallow in the misery of its subject matter. Mostly, it treats Joanne’s mortality as a matter of fact and continues to examine the fraught family dynamics, which would be interesting with or without the cancer. Some of the best scenes take place between David and his buddy Gabe (John Early), the two having heart-to-hearts about the cruelties of life and silver linings. (Plus some pretty fun gay stuff.) While some of the father-son dynamic veers further into melodrama than it probably should, most of Other People is refreshingly honest and free of the usual deathbed weepiness we expect from such a movie. It’s well worth a viewing.And then there’s King Cobra, the ostensibly true story of teenage porn star Brent Corrigan’s rise to internet infamy, leading to the murder of his mentor and benefactor, Stephen, played with real nuance by Christian Slater. Slater’s performance is worthy of a better movie and one of few redeemable aspects of King Cobra, which, like Moonlight, Other People, and Closet Monster, was written and directed by a largely unknown filmmaker, Justin Kelly. Garrett Clayton stars as Corrigan, and it’s a fine performance for an underwritten role, though it’s Keegan Allen who nails the right concoction of optimism, narcissism, and flat-out stupidity these characters really should display in a soapy thriller like King Cobra. James Franco, on the other hand, is in half-cocked Spring Breakers bonkers mode as the auteur behind a rival gay porno empire. We also get brief appearances by Molly Ringwald as Stephen’s concerned sister and Alicia Silverstone as Corrigan’s concerned mother. Both do well with what they’re given, but the stunt casting is missing the point.

King Cobra skips over any opportunity for character development, portraying Corrigan as a vapid but more or less well-meaning opportunist who lucks into his porn fame. He doesn’t really do anything in this story, to the extent that we have to wonder why he’s placed at the center of it, when everyone else on screen is more fascinating. Franco’s performance is a little unhinged and, throughout, the gay sex is as unconvincing as you’re likely to see anywhere, but the unhealthy dynamic between the “bad” porn stars gives us our only nibble of anything to chew on in King Cobra. What could have been a fascinating exploration of the power dynamics and sexual politics at play in such a sex-driven culture instead jumps from idea to idea, never landing on an overarching theme. It’d be fun if Corrigan was a manipulative minx in the style of To Die For‘s Suzanne Stone, or if the film examined the psychoses of 2000-era gay porn performers the way Paul Thomas Anderson did for their straight counterparts in the 1970s in Boogie Nights. Ultimately, King Cobra can’t decide what it’s about or even who it’s about — even the sex is surprisingly sterile, more Cinemax than cinema. Despite a few promising moments and Slater’s better-than-it-needed-to-be portrayal of the murder victim, King Cobra is unfortunately toothless in all the ways that count.

And just so we don’t end on a down note, I’ll mention one final recent release that, like the others, is the work of a singular writer/director, but this time is focused exclusively on heterosexuals. (Aww.) That would be Complete Unknown from filmmaker Joshua Marston, concerning a myserious dinner guest (Rachel Weisz) who arrives at the birthday party of a man named Tom (Michael Shannon). When Tom spots Alice, it’s quickly clear that he thinks he knows her; we’ve been privy to some of Alice’s previously sketchy behavior, so we think he just might. Alice is the “plus one” of Clyde (Michael Chernus), Tom’s business partner. The birthday party sequence unfolds deliberately slowly, fleshing out the supporting characters and gradually teasing out Complete Unknown‘s true game in a way that remind me of 2014’s low-key, talky sci-fi thriller Coherence.

As it turns out, Complete Unknown isn’t a science fiction story, but in a way it could be. Its opening moments show us Weisz in a number of scenarios that don’t seem to fit together. Are these meant to all be the same woman? Is this woman a secret agent? A time traveler? We don’t know. Ultimately, Complete Unknown settles down for a more straightforward story exploring Alice’s psyche, and how other characters react to the choices she’s made in her life. Alice is an unconventional woman, living life by her own terms against the rules that have been dictated from on high — some judge her harshly for that, others are more open-minded and even curious.

Many moviegoers can probably identify with Alice’s desire to live a life untethered to the past, but few have truly lived through this kind of redefinition. In this way, Complete Unknown feels like a film made specifically for me, leaving some viewers cold. Though I don’t expect too many people to react to it the same way, I found it riveting from start to finish. It may end up as one of my personal favorites of the year.

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“But there are no cats in America
And the streets are paved with cheese.
Oh, there are no cats in America
So set your mind at ease…”

Hey, kids! Do you like cartoon mice? Catchy songs? And lots and lots of death? If your answer to these questions is “yep, yep, yep!”, then have we got the podcast for you!

When We Were Young’s 5th episode is all about a super talented guy who created an animated mouse you know and love. No — not that guy, and not that mouse. We’re talking about that other cartoon mouse maestro, Don Bluth, a former Disney animator gone rogue whose lifelong rivalry with the Mouse House makes for one fascinating tale. He brought us such beloved rodents as Feivel and Mrs. Brisby, as well as dead dogs, dead parents and a dead Russian whose corpse is still causing mayhem — ‘cause yeah, there is a lot of death in the work of Don Bluth!

Today, November 21, is the 30^th anniversary of An American Tail. So let’s reminisce about the forgotten link between VHS tapes and fast food, ponder why so many kiddie flicks revolve around being violently orphaned, and see how old faves like The Secret Of NIMH, An American Tail, Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and Anastasia hold up against Disney’s 80s and 90s offerings. (Hint: the Bluth films have much more poverty and murder.)

She remembers how hot the sun was in Dallas, and the crowds — greater and wilder than the crowds in Mexico or in Vienna. The sun was blinding, streaming down; yet she could not put on sunglasses for she had to wave to the crowd.

And up ahead she remembers seeing a tunnel around a turn and thinking that there would be a moment of coolness under the tunnel. There was the sound of motorcycles, as always in a parade, and the occasional backfire of a motorcycle. The sound of the shot came, at that moment, like the sound of a backfire, and she remembers Connally saying, “No, no, no, no, no…”

In my Top Ten list from last year, I acknowledged that the experience of seeing a movie weighed heavily in one’s response to that movie. I loved the offbeat indie comedy Mistress America, my unlikely favorite film of the year, and I have rewatched it several times since then and loved it just as much. But I also love my memory of first seeing it, on a rainy afternoon at the Starlight Theater in Port Townsend, Washington. I love them equally: the movie and the memory.

One’s experience of seeing a film shouldn’t be the only qualifier in how one responds to that film, but art is subjective. We can’t expect experience to not be a part of loving or loathing a movie. What were we tasting, feeling, smelling at the time? How did that affect what we were seeing and hearing? In a perfect world, maybe we tune those things out, pay attention wholly to the film itself. But I don’t know that we’re capable of that. Our response to a movie depends on when we see, where we see it, how we see it, who we see it with… maybe even why we see it. All of these must factor in, at least a little.

The world is a different place than it was twenty years ago. I am a different person in it, because of what happened in the world, and what happened to me. And so I see films differently now than I would have then, even if it is the same movie. Try as we might, we can’t separate the art from the experience, and we can never know fully if it just hit us the right way in the right moment. That’s the beauty of it. So I’ll never know what I would have thought of Jackie twenty years ago, or forty years from now, or in a more sensible world where things had turned out differently in this country.

I can only imagine my response to Jackie in the alternate reality where we awaitthe inauguration of Hillary Clinton. How interesting, I’d say, to see a movie about a First Lady brushing up against bureaucracy, carving out an important slice of history from a position of little authority. Look how far we’ve come. Witness a woman who started as a First Lady, just like Jackie, a subject of gossip and criticism she may or may not have deserved. A woman who lacked a certain amount of agency despite her vaunted position of power. A woman who had to smile for the cameras no matter what her husband did; the woman who was left to pay for his sins, and then some, and did it all with poise and grace. Look, look, at this woman, becoming the President of the United States.

But we don’t live in that world, do we?In such a world, I may have liked Jackie; I may even have loved it. We’ll never know. But in this reality — a crueler, more disappointing world — I was transfixed by it. Director Pablo Larrain is not an American; of course, he is not a psychic, either. He directed Jackie with no knowledge of what was to come in this dark, disturbing, and quite likely doomed chapter in American history. Noah Oppenheim wrote the script with blinders to the future, too. Yet, as if by magic, the two have managed to capture something that reaches through time and space and celluloid to grab us by the hearts… and stop them. That’s how I felt, watching Jackie — deeply touched, and fatally ended. There is no single better image to sum up 2016 than a First Lady covered in her husband’s blood, stalking through the White House like a zombie. Jackie is the perfect funeral dirge for America in 2016.

Jackie takes place a few days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, with brief flashbacks to his time in office and that fateful afternoon in Dallas. Natalie Portman plays the iconic Jackie, flawlessly mimicking her unique accent and mannerisms in the year’s most transcendent performance. Larrain’s film jumps nimbly, sometimes jarringly, through space and time, between Dallas and Washington and a post-assassination interview conducted by a character credited as “The Journalist,” who in real life was Theodore H. White, one of history’s most esteemed political journalists.This is the kind of framing device you’ve seen in a lot of biopics, though in Jackie, it’s barely a framing device at all, because Jackie is no biopic. It’s a tone poem, and that tone is dreary and depressed — appropriately so, for both November 1963 and December 2016. The bulk of the film depicts Jackie’s grief over her husband’s violent, horrifying death, as she struggles with how best to make funeral arrangements for the leader of the free world and copes with her sudden irrelevance in the White House. She drinks, she smokes, she cries, as you’d expect; she also decides to spin a narrative that casts her late husband as the American hero he never quite was, less to glorify the Kennedy name than to give the American people something to believe in in their darkest hour. At least, that’s what she says. Was this Jackie Kennedy’s true intent? I have no earthly idea, and neither does anyone else at this point. I believe the screen version of Ms. Kennedy when she says so, though the film trades in ambiguities and you can draw your own conclusions.

Jackie tells the Journalist to liken John’s term to King Arthur and the noble knights of the Round Table; to Camelot. In a sense, this is ridiculous iconography to attach to a modern President of the United States, especially one who infamously cheated on his wife incessantly. In Jackie, though, it plays as curiously heroic; maybe because Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, is a president we tend to hold in much lower regard, maybe because nearly any human being on the planet would be a more desirable president than the one we’re about to get. John F. Kennedy wasn’t perfect, but Jackie reminds us of an era in which the leaders of our country were worthy of respect, a time that lasted from the foundation of this country through 2016, a time that’s about to come to a screeching end. What Jackie knew in 1963 is something we have recently, tragically forgotten. The American dream can only persist if it stays alive in the collective consciousness. For this reason, Jackie knows, presidents have to be remembered as a little better than they were. For current and future leaders to strive to be their best, they and we must believe these American legends. In Jackie, we mourn JFK, but really, we mourn every president who came before and since, because all of that is being buried now — our belief that our leaders, though flawed, will have our best intentions at heart. That they will set aside ego and self-interest for the good of this nation. Jackie believes Camelot died with John, but as we watch from 2016, we feel it dying just now, all around us.

Goodbye, Camelot.

There are so many links between this story set in 1962 and the one unfurling now in 2016, so perfectly ironic that they must have been planted purposefully — except they couldn’t have been. Importantly, Jackie becomes the first First Lady to bring TV cameras into the White House, creating a new relationship between the American people and the presidency. Now, we can look at this as the beginning of the end, because in 2016, America voted to put a TV star in the White House. As Jackie shows off her opulent home for the TV viewers of the 1960s, we now feel it as the first domino falling, and hear the echo from way out here in 2016.

The 1960s felt like an apocalyptic moment in American history, due in part to several shocking assassinations and rapid cultural upheaval that bucked social norms left and right. The world was changing faster than we could reckon with it. The same thing is happening now — or maybe a very different thing. It’s too soon to tell. JFK’s assassination raised questions about Russian interference in American politics. The Cuban Missile Crisis made it feel as if nuclear war was imminent, something we’ve haven’t had to worry much about since (until now?). Kennedy began the embargo on Cuba in 1961; as if on cue, Fidel Castro died a couple weeks after this year’s election put a similar nationalist in charge of the United States. The Kennedy administration was a long time ago, but its repercussions are acutely felt in 2016, moreso than some of the administrations that came afterward.

They say history repeats itself. Let’s hope.

Even aside from its eerie connections to the war-torn 2016 political landscape, Jackie is about much more than just a First Lady mourning her man. It’s about how history is shaped; how legends are born. Jackie weeps, not just for her lost love, but for a country she believes is falling to pieces around her. (If only she knew how much worse things could get!) We easily join her in shedding those tears. We can relate. We all create our own legends in our minds, based on what we remember and how we remember it. The same is true, in a larger sense, of how our history is remembered. Had Jackie reacted differently to her husband’s death, we may have an entirely different understanding of JFK’s short but poignant reign.

Jackie unfolds as memories do, out of sequence and without logic; often, we see conversations unfold while jumping through multiple locations, but is this how they actually occurred or just how Jackie remembers them? It doesn’t matter, because I don’t think much of what occurs in Jackie’s recent past is meant to be taken literally. It’s what she remembers. It’s her history; regardless of whether it’s truly true, it’s true to her. We can pretend that some version of these events is the “real” one, but in fact, everything we know about history has been told to us, filtered through one subjective lens, or a dozen, or a hundred. That’s how history works — it happens, and then it’s shaped and reshaped. Jackie remembers the horror or her husband’s death, but also the man who lived before it. She knows he was a womanizer, but she loves him. She loved dancing with him.

She was, like so many of us, hoping things would turn out better.

Jackie passes astonishingly quickly. An hour and forty minutes felt like about half that length. I suspect there’s plenty of footage that wound up on the cutting room floor, which may be for the best, given how expertly Jackie is crafted — though I’d happily watch a three hour cut of a film like this. Produced by Darren Aronofsky, the film feels a lot like one of his movies in both style and tone. It’s a requiem for a different kind of dream. The similarities to Black Swan are most acute, as Larrain’s camera follows Portman’s Jackie through the White House, often from behind, the way it stalked Portman’s Nina in Black Swan. It’s impossible to believe that Aronofsky had no influence in this. Director of Photography Stéphane Fontaine frames so many shots so beautifully; though Moonlight gives Jackie a run for its money, I’m not sure any film from 2016 looks as gorgeous as this. Technically, the film is an A+ across the board, from the costuming to the production design and especially the distressing score by Mica Levi. For about a half a second, the strings in Jackie‘s score sound lush and hopeful, then suddenly they slide downward and everything takes a turn for the worse. It’s the perfect accompaniment for a rotting American dream.

And yet, as good as it all is, I don’t expect many audiences to connect with Jackie the way I did; it’s divisive, far from the unqualified critical darling that Moonlight deservedly is. Jackie is a strange, sad, unconventional movie; a lot of people will probably see it because the trailers and posters show Natalie Portman wearing some amazing, iconic outfits, expecting a more straightforward biopic. They’ll leave confused, bothered, and disappointed. I wouldn’t have it any other way, really; I wouldn’t want this one to be more palatable, or go down more easily. At this moment in time, I want a film that sticks in my throat, that forces us to reckon with it.If Jackie has any weakness (and I’m not sure it does), it’s found in the scenes between Crudup and Portman, which give us little context for the tenor of the relationship between this journalist and the widowed First Lady, or what precisely is going on here. Brushing up on the history behind this encounter after the fact lent them a lot more weight, though I might wish Jackie clued us in a bit more to the dynamic between the two to eliminate the guesswork. It might come off as a weak gimmick to those who don’t know. Aside from the Journalist, Jackie also makes important confessions to two other figures throughout the film: a priest, played by John Hurt, who helps her grapple with the intense emotional pain that threatens her will to live, and Bobby Kennedy, played by Peter Sarsgaard, who rages after his brother’s death. Again, what we know of the future adds crushing sadness to what plays out on screen; we know this Kennedy, too, will be shot soon enough. Seeing a very young John F. Kennedy Jr. is even more heartbreaking. You certainly can’t blame Larrain for Jackie‘s oppressively somber tone.

Caspar Phillipson plays the man himself; the resemblance is uncanny, its effect haunting. Many filmmakers would have been skittish about showing us JFK at all, but that would have been cheating in a film that’s all about Jackie’s tortured memories about life and death of the man she loves. But Larrain doesn’t give us too much JFK, either: that would have been an easy crutch to fall back on, too. Meanwhile, Beth Grant and John Carroll Lynch play the incoming First Family, the Johnsons, and Greta Gerwig portrays Jackie’s BFF Nancy, but these are brief appearances. This is Portman’s show through and through, and she plays the hell out of it. She’s almost sure to get an Oscar nomination, though the film is probably too off-putting to secure her a win, especially considering that she won already for Black Swan. But the performance will live on as one of her best, if not the best.Is Jackie a great film? Out of context, I don’t rightly know; I’ll have to see it again, and even then, I can only view it knowing what I know and feeling what I feel about what’s happened to America. And in that context, I suspect it’s a masterpiece. The themes of the film are elusive, unless you’re willing to look for them and bring some of yourself to the experience. Jackie touches upon many ideas and then quickly moves on, leaving you to think about them more, if you want to, or not. It is not a crowd-pleaser; it’s a fucking bummer. As well it should be. As any film about American politics released in 2016 should be.

If you dare to look for hope here, take comfort in Jackie’s belief that Camelot ended in 1962, that life was not worth living after that. She moved on, and so did we. America had some shining moments in the moments to come. It recovered from Kennedy’s death, and even thrived for a good portion of that time. It may have seemed like the end of everything, but it was not.

We are now asking ourselves the same questions Jackie asked then, at a moment that seems just as dark and just as dire. Maybe Kennedy’s death wasn’t the end at all; maybe it was the beginning… and now it’s finally ending. Maybe this is it.

It’s hard to be hopeful. It’s difficult not to fear the worst, when everything you know and feel suggests that the best of it is gone now. Jackie may have been wrong about that, but that doesn’t mean we are wrong. I suspect, as Jackie did then, that it’s over. But only time tells such tales.She said it is time people paid attention to the new President and the new First Lady. But she does not want them to forget John F. Kennedy or read of him only in dusty or bitter histories:

For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.

And now there’s not.

*

Hello, Sidney.

Do you like scary movies?

What’s your favorite scary movie?

If you grew up in the 90s, there’s a good chance your answer to that question is Scream. In Episode 7, we plunge bone-deep into the millennial teen horror craze with the film that (re)-started it all, the meta horror-comedy written by a then-unknown Kevin Williamson and directed by shocker maestro Wes Carpenter… err, Craven. We all agree that opening scene starring an ill-fated Drew Barrymore is as iconic as they come, but does the rest of Scream hold up? And how about those sequels?

So burn some popcorn, lace up your generic black boots, and prepare to see what your insides look like, because we’re about to discuss why the Scream movies are the ultimate slut shame and bicker about which movie has the best Gale Weathers hairdo. (It’s definitely Scream 2.) Then, in an ironic “gotcha!” twist, you’ll discover that this is all just a podcast within a Stab movie within a Scream movie that Tori Spelling is listening to.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to go investigate a strange noise. We’ll be right back!

In the meantime, check out the latest episode here or get it on iTunes.

Scream

Budget: $14 million
Domestic Total Gross: $103 million
Worldwide: $173 million
Opening Weekend: $6.4 million
Release Date: December 20, 1996
Metacritic: 65

Scream has always been a favorite of mine, and as I explain in the podcast, is one of the biggest influences on my own writing. Kevin Williamson and Joss Whedon got to me at just the right moment. Though I’m not overly fond of horror in general, the ways Scream and Buffy The Vampire Slayer turned tropes inside out and blended meta humor with real teen angst and character development always hit that sweet spot for me. (I talk a lot more about my history with the late 90s teen horror craze here.)

I know Scream inside and out and have loved the series for a long time, despite its decline in the later entries, but doing the podcast was the first time I really considered the franchise as a whole, watching the movies more or less back-to-back. What came into focus overall was how much the four films are about trauma, explored through the character of Sidney Prescott, who is more integral to the Scream series than any other Final Girl I can think of — unless maybe we count the Alien series as straight-up horror. (And even then, they did eventually bump Ripley off.)

MTV has obviously tried to extend the Scream brand beyond Sidney (and even Ghostface), and though there’s plenty of meta-juice in the horror-comedy hybrid that isn’t character specific, in a way it’d be a shame to see a Scream film without Sidney because she so anchors these movies. From that very first iconic opening scene, murder matters in the Scream universe. We get to know Casey Becker for only a few minutes, but her death is brutal and terrifying, not just because of the carnage, but because we’re sorry to see her go. Rubbing salt in the wound is something you rarely see in a slasher flick — honest-to-God grief from Casey’s horrified parents, who discover their daughter gutted and hanging from a tree. Yes, it’s a gore-fest worthy of any other slasher movie, but in this one it’s actually a sad sight, too.

That sadness is echoed in the way Sidney mourns her mother, Maureen, murdered one year earlier. Sidney is in denial about her mom’s widely rumored promiscuity, “flashing her shit around town like she was Sharon Stone.” Sidney’s boyfriend Billy is semi-patiently awaiting Sidney’s readiness to “go all the way,” but Sidney won’t let herself go there yet. She’s still clinging to innocence, to a pure and unspoiled vision of her mother, unready to accept the complications and disappointments of adult life. In this way, Ghostface represents the haunting past, the truth Sidney can’t face. There’s a version of the Scream story in which there is no actual killer; Sidney is merely haunted by the “ghost” of her mother, unable to accept or forget the truth.

This is the first instance of Ghostface embodying trauma… it’s no wonder then that the boy who wants her to “open up,” so to speak, is the one who ends up being the killer. Billy wants to penetrate Sidney — sexually, and with his weapon of choice, that hunting knife. But he’s also penetrating her sense of safety, the cocoon she’s attempted to build for herself. Of course, in true Final Girl fashion, Sidney gets the upper hand, even going so far as to stick her finger in Billy’s wound near the end, essentially penetrating him right back. Sidney isn’t a virgin anymore at this point, because Scream allows its women to transcend that tired cliche. Sidney herself is guilty of perpetuating the “madonna/whore” myth, unable to see her mother outside of these dueling stereotypes and accept her for the complicated woman she is. But by the end of the movie, both Sidney and Scream itself have accepted that women aren’t just one or the other; unlike in most horror movies, the women in Scream are more than just virgin survivors or slutty chum.

Scream 2

Budget: $24 million
Domestic Total Gross: $101.4 million
Foreign Total Gross: $71 million
Worldwide: $172.4 million
Opening Weekend: $32.9 million
Release Date: December 12, 1997
Metacritic: 63

Nobody expected Scream to quite hit the zeitgeist the way it did, grossing over $100 million, which still ranks it as the #1 slasher movie of all time. Scream 2, released just under a year later, was hugely hyped, by contrast. It had a red-hot cast and all kinds of internet-fueled fandom, including a major leak of the script, which reportedly had Kevin Williamson change the identities of the killers. (For the better… the original ending was pretty senseless.)

Siskel and Ebert split on the original Scream, with Siskel giving it a thumbs down. He took a liking to the sequel, however, with both critics giving Scream 2 a solid thumbs up. I agree, of course — in many ways, I prefer Scream 2 to the first Scream, though of course the original is the more iconic and groundbreaking film. I find the character work in Scream 2 slightly superior to the original, thanks to its core cast of returning survivors, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Jamie Kennedy. I also think it contains some of the best thriller sequences in the series. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s terrorized sober sister at Omega Beta Zeta is a nicely played echo of the Drew Barrymore opening in Scream. (Seeing her in a previous scene as a sassy, cinema-savvy sorority girl cements her as one of the silver screen’s all-time greatest heroines, but I’m willing to admit that I’m biased on that.) The scene in which Sidney and her BFF Hallie have to shimmy past an unconscious Ghostface in a cop car is totally nerve-wracking (and not at all undermined by the fact that Williamson wrote a similar scene into I Know What You Did Last Summer, too). My personal favorite is Gale and Dewey’s chase through a college classroom, particularly when Gale watches in horror through glass as Dewey is stabbed and apparently killed (only to be revived for a second time in the film’s closing moments). It’s beautifully tragic and haunting, perhaps the best “death” scene of the entire series, outside of Drew Barrymore’s. (Catch my ode to the horror blondes who got raw deals here.)

As great as all that is, what really makes Scream 2 sing is the way it manages to elevate the first film’s meta quality. Scream brilliantly opened with a teen girl making popcorn, getting ready to watch a scary video. It immediately put us in this girl’s shoes, since that’s exactly what we’re doing. Scream 2 shows us another classic movie-watching ritual — going to the theater to enjoy being scared out of our wits in a dark room with strangers. Not only that — Heather Graham appears as an actress who lacks the chops of Drew Barrymore, playing Casey in a just-slightly-off-kilter recreation of Scream‘s now-legendary opening. It’s ironic, that the scene that worked so well in Scream could play as so flat and cliche in Stab, the movie-within-the-movie. Casey Becker’s death was haunting, and even seeing her badly portrayed by Graham reminds us of how powerful that sequence was. Yet seeing all these plastic-knife-happy college kids in the audience reminds us also how far we’ve come, how easy it is for us desensitize ourselves to violence. Scream 2 doesn’t let us forget that.

Jada Pinkett, playing Maureen Evans — another of my favorite movie heroines, if only for the fact that she reads her Entertainment Weekly and knows her shit — calls out the morbidity of watching people getting slide and diced for hijinks. Of course, the tables turn on Maureen, and soon she’s the one everyone’s watching getting stabbed to death. We see the truth dawn on the faces in that crowd, as the “fun” horror of the horror movie becomes true horror in real life. Scream is always concerned with that thin line between frightening fact and fun fiction, and it is perhaps never better explored than in this moment. Why do we like this? Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson seem to be asking. Do you really enjoy this? That’s a bold inquiry coming from a guy who made a living off of cinematic killings, and a guy who worships him. And for all involved, the answer is, disturbingly, yes. We do enjoy this.

Scream 3

Budget: $40 million
Domestic Total Gross: $89.1 million
International: $72.7 million
Opening Weekend: $34.7 million
Release Date: February 4, 2000
Metacritic: 56

The Scream movies have been blamed for real life killings, further blurring the line between what is real and just a movie. In 1999, the Columbine massacre shocked America and forever changed the ways teenaged psychopaths are framed in cinema. For a while, Hollywood got awfully skittish about mixing high school and violence, even though Scream had just kicked off a major wave of films that did just that — from The Faculty to Urban Legends to Halloween: H20 and so on and soforth, a lot of which were written by Kevin Williamson and starred a who’s who of WB stars filming during summer hiatus. By the time Scream 3 rolled around, Bob Weinstein was less enthusiastic about depicting teen horror on screen, preferring to play up the series’ comedic elements.

That’s partly why Scream 3 mostly fails at the pathos so adeptly displayed in the first movies. The other reason is that Kevin Williamson was basically the hottest writer in Hollywood at the time, and became too busy to rewrite his Scream 3 treatment according to the Weinstein’s notes. (Or maybe he just didn’t want to.) Writing duties went to Ehren Kruger, who most infamously inflicted the Transformer sequels upon us. Perhaps this is why we get a lame visit from the late Randy’s never-before-or-again-seen sister, played by Heather Matarazzo, or cameos from Jay and Silent Bob, of all people. (Carrie Fisher’s cameo is better, if equally random. Did we forget this was a horror franchise?)

We know we’re in trouble with Scream 3’s lame opening, which doesn’t kill off a hot Hollywood actress like Drew Barrymore or Jada Pinkett, instead centering on Cotton Weary and his girlfriend, Christine. Unforgivably, Scream 3 abandons the Scream staple of having iconic openings that are all about the ritual of watching horror movies. Why not begin the movie with a scene from Stab 3, since that film becomes so integral later? What if Ghostface first struck by popping up on set of the movie, killing off an actress while filming? (Particularly if it was the actress playing Sidney?) The casting of Scream 3 is also off. In contrast to the hot cast of the first two films, Scream 3 gives us Jenny McCarthy and Patrick Warburton? A lot of these actors are perfectly talented in their own right, but aside from Posey, the new characters are duds across the board, and become what other Scream movies mocked: cardboard cut-outs who exist solely to be knocked off. We’re not sorry to see them go.

Scream 3 has its pleasures, particularly Parker Posey as Jennifer Jolie, an actress playing Gale Weathers in Stab 3. This is thanks almost entirely to Posey’s performance, since the character as written is only so-so. Sidney’s trauma is also competently carried over. Scream 2 saw Sidney struggle with whether or not she could open up to another man in her life, after the epic emotional abuse Billy put her through; her inability to trust Derek gets him killed. (Though I’m sure Mickey would have killed him anyway.) Scream 3 picks up with Sidney alone and in hiding, a very sensible place for her to be after no fewer than four psychos have attempted to kill her through two separate killing sprees. She spends her time counseling women in trouble over the phone, a nice reversal of the menacing Ghostface does using that very same device. It’s like Sidney is “undoing” all the damage Ghostface has done — or at least is taking a solid go at it.

Moreso than the other Scream movies, Scream 3 is all about a haunted past. Unfortunately, Kruger decides to take this literally, having the ghost of Maureen Prescott haunt Sidney through dreams and fantasies, and possibly through the lame voice-changer used by the killer. Scream 3‘s killer turns out to be Sidney’s illegitimate half-brother, after Scream‘s mastermind was the son of the man Maureen had an affair with, and Scream 2‘s was his wife. This makes the Scream trilogy the ultimate slut-shaming, pinning dozens of murders on Maureen’s indiscretions — and making her daughter pay for them. I don’t entirely mind this aspect of the story, but in both Scream 2 and Scream 3, the unmasking of the killers is by far the weakest link, devolving into camp.

That’s true to an extent in Scream, too, except for the eerie resonance that the buddy-buddy stabbings have with real-life teen slayings, most notably Columbine. Like its creators, I don’t believe that Scream could inspire anyone to kill who wasn’t already going to, but it certainly explores the “movie-freaked” minds of people who do in an intriguing fashion. I somewhat enjoy Timothy Olyphant’s “freaky Tarantino film student” villain Mickey in Scream 2, since his motive is bonkers, but the Loomis and Maureen Prescott-connected killers always end up feeling like a reach. (Gotta love Laurie Metcalf for trying, however.) It isn’t until Scream 4 that we get another murderous motive to rival the first Scream.

The most brilliant sequence in Scream 3 has Sidney return to Woodsboro via the Stab 3 set, where she is chased by a killer in a mirror of the first movie. In this way, Sidney literally revisits the past and gets haunted all over again, literally, via another Ghostface attack, and figuratively. But it’s also another clever hall-of-mirrors effect that Scream excels at, adding a layer of Hollywood artificiality on top of a real life crime scene. It’s all aces, until Sidney’s dead mom shows up to beat us to death with a metaphor that was already working perfectly.

It’s useless to try and add a literal ghost to Scream 3, since Ghostface serves that purpose already. The masked killer and the sexy-slasher voice he uses to terrorize his victims are consistent throughout the Scream movies, even though the killers are not. Most major horror franchises have the same killer rise from the dead in each movie — Jason, Michael, Freddy, Chucky — but in Scream, its more like the spirit of horror itself infuses its victims with an urge to get meta and start stabbing. The Scream movies don’t deal with the supernatural, but you could read them that way — and, in a way, it makes them more believable. Ghostface is the embodiment of trauma, which Sidney can’t escape. It isolates her, killing off the people she loves one by one, causing her to mistrust anyone who appears in her life. Sidney is stuck with Gale Weathers because, at least, she knows Gale has been through this enough that if she was going to snap, she would’ve done it long ago. (Having any of the core Scream cast turn out to be a killer would be a massive mistake in exchange for a lame “gotcha,” one I’m very glad every movie avoided.)

Even if most actual trauma victims aren’t targeting by the same kind of tormentor over and over, they can often feel like they are, or might be. This is why I’m dismissive of those who are dismissive of the Scream series, who see it as merely shallow and jokey. Whether fully intentional or not, the Scream series, like all the greatest horror films, has a hell of a lot of subtext and speaks volumes about the things that actually scare us — like sexuality, like trust, like the past coming back to haunt us. It’s a hell of a feat for a series that is also so funny, frightening, and entertaining.

Scream 4

Budget: $40 million
Domestic Total Gross: $38.2 million
International: $59 million
Opening Weekend: $18.7 million
Release Date: April 15, 2011
Metacritic: 52

Scream 3 was a more modest hit than its predecessors. The series wasn’t revived again until 11 years later, when new blood could be injected into the premise. Unfortunately, Kevin Williamson again came into conflict with Bob Weinstein, meaning that Ehren Kruger once again put his stamp on a Scream movie. I can’t say so with certainty, but it seems pretty easy to tell which pieces of Scream 4 belong to Williamson (the good stuff) and what we can thank Kruger for. I can’t imagine Williamson penning Anthony Anderson’s “fuck Bruce Willis” line (after this character has been stabbed through the forehead), or the incessant banter about Marley Shelton’s lemon squares.

Scream 4‘s script is a significant improvement over Scream 3, particularly when you watch the deleted scenes and learn how much smarter the movie was before Bob Weinstein hacked it to pieces. Both versions begin with a double-header of Stab fake-outs that recall the brilliant meta openings of Scream and Scream 2, revamped for 2011. It’s delicious overkill. Then, the real killing in Woodsboro is serviceable, but the cut scene is infinitely better — with a teenager watching her friend get stabbed to death, rolling her eyes because she thinks it’s just another prank. It’s a brilliant exploration of how desensitized we are to violence these days, but Bob Weinstein apparently thought it wasn’t scary enough. Whatever, Bob. I go into a lot more detail about what was cut, and why it was so wrong, here.

Despite these unforgivable edits, Scream 4 more or less gets the job done, with a terrific supporting character in Hayden Panetierre’s Kirby (who, let’s hope, doesn’t actually die) and a genuinely clever twist as we reveal the identity of the killer to be Sidney’s cousin, Jill, who wants to emulate Sidney and become a celebrity victim. (The scene in which Jill injures herself is both a brilliant recall of the original Scream, and darkly funny in its extremity.) I wish the film made better use of Gale Weathers, who as portrayed by Courteney Cox in the first two films totally slays. Does Kruger just not know how to write her? One thing the Scream movies never get enough credit for is the way they depict the media as the twisted sister of Hollywood horror. Gale Weathers’ true crime reportings are just as glossy and manipulative as any slasher flick.. There are three layers in every Scream movie — the truth, the media’s take, and then the Hollywood version, each with a diminishing connection to reality. Gale’s conflict in Scream 2 — trying to stay impartial and do her job after she’s literally become the news — is a fascinating arc, but she’s basically comic relief in the next two movies. (And her hair isn’t as good, either.)

Scream 4 failed to revitalize the Scream franchise, and Scream 5 remains up in the air while the series’ name lives on on MTV, even though that show has little to do with the movies. Given that Wes Craven passed away last year, it’s probably wisest to leave it well enough alone; I don’t trust Bob Weinstein to hand the reigns to someone worthy of the Scream legacy. (Unless he hands it to me? I am available.)

I’m always amused when I recall Owen Gleiberman’s review of the first Scream in Entertainment Weekly, in which he declares, “I seriously doubt that Scream will spark a splatter-movie revival, but anyone who has ever shuddered into their popcorn at the sight of a kitchen knife dripping Karo-syrup blood will have a fine time watching Wes Craven, who has turned out almost nothing but duds since A Nightmare on Elm Street, rediscover his craft with this inspired wink at the cliches he helped invent.”

So much for foresight, right? Scream did, in fact, spark a splatter-movie revival — with a vengeance. Scream was more influential on pop culture than virtually any other movie in the 90s, revitalizing the entire horror franchise and kicking off a whole wave of teen films — not just slasher flicks, either. Almost any teen film from the late 90s owes something to Scream, as it reframed the way teenagers speak in movies and made casting these hot, young WB-ready stars bankable. Of course, Scream‘s parody, Scary Movie, set off a whole (bad) genre of its own.

As much as I’ve dug into why I love Scream here and in the podcast, I could go further and further. There are endless layers here, just as there were designed to be, when Kevin Williamson first penned a movie that was all about the way we watch and think about movies — about the ways our lives reflect them, and how they reflect us. It’s no accident that the first script I ever wrote had me inserting myself into a Scream movie — adding just one more layer of meta to the mix. I credit Scream with inspiring my first screenplay, and maybe, then, the trajectory of my whole life.

As the tagline says, “Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far.” I’m happy to admit that it was me.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Scream!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, shows, and more hold up now.

You can help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include purchasing movies/shows/etc to review, imbibing enough sedatives to take down an elephant, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio Studio in Los Angeles CA, by donating to our Patreon account, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes!

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In the movies, if not so much in life, 2016 has turned out to be a very good year for the ladies. While the Best Actor race is suffering from a dearth of truly exciting performances in 2016, the Best Actress race is stacked. You could fill the Best Actress category twice before you come across five male performances that have the fire and finesse displayed by the women this year. The clear frontrunners are Natalie Portman in Jackie and Emma Stone in La La Land, with Annette Bening’s work in 20th Century Women also expected to pick up a nod. That leaves two slots open to a wide swath of women, from Amy Adams in Arrival to Ruth Negga in Loving — both deserving, though perhaps not showy enough to stand out this year.

First and foremost, I’m betting on an appearance from Isabelle Huppert. French-language performances aren’t unheard of in the big race — Emmanuelle Riva was nominated for Amour, while Marion Cotillard was nominated for Two Days, One Night and won for La Vie En Rose. Huppert is a highly respected international actress giving a hell of a performance in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle, fearlessly commanding a difficult role that many actresses would be hesitant to play.

Elle‘s opening scene certainly grabs out attention, beginning the film with a startling act of sexual violence, then immediately bucking our expectations of what will happen after. Huppert’s Michèle doesn’t call the police, nor have a nervous breakdown, nor call a friend for support. She goes about her routine, remaining completely composed. It’s not that she has no reaction at all — she takes relatively small precautions against further intrusion, and eventually she does get around to talking about what’s happened. But mostly, she goes to work, sees her family, lives her life, as usual.

Gradually, we learn that this is because Michèle’s life has already been, shall we say, unconventional, so there’s nothing conventional in her response to a violent sexual crime — or anything else, really. Michèle is a fascinating character, though not necessarily a woman many will find endearing. She’s suffered a lot in her life and continues to suffer, though she does so beneath an icy, often provocative facade. A few characters voice what Michèle “should” do after being attacked in her home, probably the same things the audience would suggest. But Michèle has her reasons for not heeding this advice. On the surface, at least, Elle is most fascinated with Michèle’s relationships with the many men in her life. One of these is a masked rapist we meet in the opening scene. Neither we nor Michèle know his identity, but nearly every man in her life exhibits some behavior that makes us think: it could be him. These men include Michèle’s ex, Richard, who appears to be one of the gentler and more considerate men in her life, until we learn that the reason for their split is that he hit her; Robert, a married man Michèle is having an affair with; Patrick, Michèle’s married neighbor, whom she develops an attraction to; Kurt, an employee of Michèle’s, who undermined her authority at every turn; and Vincent, her son, who takes advantage of his mother’s money but fails to heed her advice about Josie, the emotionally unstable mother of his child. (Or, maybe, not his child.)

The canny thing about Elle is that each of these men violate Michèle in some way over the course of the movie, with varying degrees of severity. Michèle’s married paramour carelessly uses her for sex, not caring whether she’s on her period or injured as long as he gets off. Michèle’s son is merely selfish, entitled, and oblivious, though there are some red flags in his relationship with Josie that could trigger not-so-nice behavior down the line; still, given all his mother’s been through, it wouldn’t kill Vincent to consider her feelings for a change. Michèle’s neighbor Patrick enjoys subtle flirtation with her right under the nose of his religious Catholic wife. Michèle’s employees at the video game company she co-founded display misogynistic behavior. Richard has a video game idea he pesters Michèle about developing at her company, even though she frequently tells him no. And then there’s the rapist. These men all use Michèle for some form of selfish gratification; as presented in Elle, the rape is just one more violation to add to the list, not necessarily better or worse than the rest. Casting a shadow over all of this is Michèle’s father, who is spoken of more than seen, a depraved figure who violated Michèle first and most severely. (But not in the way you may think.) The consequence of his actions have darkly colored Michèle’s present life. In a way, everything that happens her is because of him.Elle is not the kind of movie to make a blanket statement about the ways men treat women, however; nor vice versa. It’s certainly not as overt as you might expect from Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, which dealt with sexuality and sexual violence in ways that could never be accused of being too subtle. Elle is the anti-Showgirls, all subtext and nuance. It would be easy to portray Michèle as a mere victim of male violence coming at her from every angle, the way she’d be portrayed in a Lars Von Trier movie. But in Verhoeven’s film, Michèle is no innocent. She, too, inflicts violence — emotional violence — upon other women, specifically.Michèle’s dalliances with married men may or may not be purposeful in their aggression toward their wives; she seems to take some pleasure in the subterfuge, at the very least. Michèle is also frequently antagonistic toward her mother, who’s spending her twilight years (and her money) on young hunks and plastic surgery. (As we learn later, this woman has also been through a lot. Maybe Michèle should cut her some of the slack they both deserve.) Michèle certainly disapproves of her son’s shrill baby mama, Josie, and makes no effort to keep quiet about it. She makes a point of hunting down her ex’s new, young girlfriend, going so far as to invent a holiday party just so she can spend more time with the girl (and slip a toothpick into her meal). Michèle isn’t necessarily a cruel person, but whether intentional or not, her behavior is reckless enough to cause harm.

In a way, Elle is as much about female relationships as it is the dynamic between men and women, even if the latter bears the brunt of the dramatic weight. Despite living through far more than her share of trauma, Michèle is no ordinary victim. Most films portray victims of rape in either one of two ways: as a helpless damsel in need of rescue by an avenging (male) angel, or as a femme fatale in a rape-revenge thriller. Elle does not go very far down either path, because Michèle is no archetype. She’s a flesh-and-blood woman who enjoys sex and seduction — yes, even after being raped.

Michèle is not a different person after this act of sexual violence. Shockingly, we get the sense that nothing for her has changed at all. By the time we meet her, Michèle has faced enough adversity and trauma for one lifetime; a masked man may be able to overpower her physically, but he has little control over the emotions and mental state of a woman who has been so deeply traumatized. Elle is interested in far more than the repercussions of rape; in some ways, it is a classic whodunit mystery, but it also takes plenty of time to explore the kinds of unconventional relationships you’d only find in a French drama.In so many ways, Elle is a clever, under-the-radar drama that only occasionally veers into lurid erotic thriller territory, eschewing most of its broader trappings. Then again, the film does open on a close-up of a cat, and coming from the man who gave us Elizabeth Berkeley licking a stripper pole and Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs just so, that inescapable euphemism may not be an accident. To say that the film is about “pussy power” would be reductive; all Elle does is ask us not to make assumptions, not to put these women in any particular box. Rape has been used time and time again to render female characters either helpless or superhuman, with few options in between. Elle reminds us that a woman who has been raped is still a person with agency. She still has a life to live and choices to make. In its own shrewd way, Elle reclaims the power that (mostly male) filmmakers have stripped from women in so many movies. It’s not that Michèle’s rape has no consequence — but it doesn’t define her, either. Nor does it determine the direction this story is headed.

Elle is not an American movie, thus no coincidence with American politics can be looked at too deeply. But at a time when sexual assault against women is, well, both very much an issue and not an issue at all in this country, it is refreshing to see a film that treats rape as more than just the end-all be-all for a female character, centering on a heroine who refuses to wear the scarlet letter society would prefer to brand her with. Elle sets up most of the typical rape-revenge thriller trappings, then sends the next two hours handily avoiding them.

Without giving anything away, Elle‘s final scene is not at all what we’d expect from a movie set up like this, and I suppose there’s plenty of room for interpretation. My takeaway is that women can find solace in each other against the mad, sometimes violent world of men. Elle is a strikingly mature piece of work — and feminism — coming from a filmmaker like Verhoeven, one that should be dissected and discussed for years to come. After haunting spring’s Louder Than Bombs with her portrayal of a doomed photojournalist and secretive mother, Huppert stars in a third notable 2016 release, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things To Come. To say Things To Come is a gentler film than Verhoeven’s is practically a joke — Hansen-Løve is known for understated French dramas like last year’s Eden, and Verhoeven is known for RoboCop and Starship Troopers.

In Things To Come, Huppert is Nathalie, a philosophy teacher who finds some central relationships in her life transforming at an unexpected time. Nathalie’s anxious mother is growing increasingly unable to take care of herself, and her husband has been philandering and fallen in love. At the same time, a former pupil returns to Nathalie and challenges her ideals. Things To Come is short on plot movements, preferring to stew in the finely drawn details of Nathalie’s daily life. It’s about a woman who finds herself suddenly freer than she ever expected or even wanted to be; what she chooses to let go of, and what she keeps.

If there’s any justice in this world, Huppert will nab one of the Best Actress slots, and if we assume Stone and Portman are locks, then that’s two to split between Bening, Negga, Adams… or someone else. Of course, we can never underestimate the power of Meryl Streep, who gets nominated more often than not these days, even in films of middling quality. (Hell, she won for The Iron Lady, one of the worst films she’s ever starred in.) In Florence Foster Jenkins, Streep is once again a songbird, but unlike her turn in Mamma Mia, she sounds pretty wretched. That’s because she plays a wealthy old lady who has the cash and influence to get herself on stage, no matter how many eardrums she shatters in the process. Streep amuses in the role, and Simon Helberg steals scenes as the pained pianist who accompanies her along the way, but this may be a year in which Academy voters decide there’s too much good work out there to give Streep a cursory nod once more.

One last performer who can’t be totally discounted is Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane, playing the titular lobbyist in John Madden’s glossy drama about the dicey issue of gun control in America. Chastain’s Elizabeth Sloane has a reputation throughout Washington for her ruthless cunning; she is approached by the leader of an NRA-like group to help guns appear “friendlier” to female voters. Sloane doesn’t take a liking to this tact, and soon is offered a position under Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), the “boutique” lobbyist playing for the other side. Sloane’s questionable ethics cause alarm for her own team, which includes Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a survivor of a school shooting. It’s up to Sloane and her hard-working teammates to convince a number of congressmen to vote for a bill that would sensibly require background checks on firearms sold in the United States. Sloane and her new team go up against Sloane’s former employers, played by Sam Waterston, Allison Pill, and Michael Stuhlbarg, with the usual what-goes-up-must-come-down tension between antagonists who are constantly gaming each other. Sloane plays hardball and makes several new enemies over the course of the film’s running time, but she’s never less than fascinating to watch.

Miss Sloane is a slick studio drama of the “they don’t make ’em like that anymore” variety, with the notable twist that the prickly but brilliant Sloane is allowed to be flawed in ways that males in comparable films have been for years. Not only is she tough-as-nails and willing to break the law and betray her colleagues’ trust, but she’s also got a pill-popping addiction and partakes in the occasional discrete hunky escort on the side. Chastain plays a slightly more fleshed out version of the tenacious, workaholic CIA agent she portrayed so superbly in Zero Dark Thirty. Here, she’s a shade darker, with a glossier veneer, though at the core she’s still a woman willing to make moral compromises for the good of her country — and one who’s not afraid to stand up to the men who wish she’d behave more like a lady.

While some folks head to movies like La La Land for escapism in the dark, waning days of 2016, I prefer my escapism to be a bit more targeted, and Miss Sloane delivered in spades on that front. Many of its plot machinations are either predictable or preposterous, with a script that’s a little too didactic and pleased with itself to register as high art. (Calling it “liberal propaganda” wouldn’t be entirely unjust.) But Madden’s film hits a nice sweet spot for anyone feeling especially burned by American politics in 2016. In Miss Sloane, we watch an icy, imperfect woman go up against Washington’s most corrupt players, fighting for one of the most divisive issues in the nation. Earlier this year, Miss Sloane would have played as highly implausible; in December 2016, it’s utter fantasy, but one I welcomed eagerly. Call me crazy, but few movies lately have put such a smile on my face.

Alas, despite being as good as she’s ever been, Chastain has only the slightest of shots at an Oscar nod, given the film’s unfortunate box office performance. (For Miss Sloane‘s intended audience, watching a powerful woman fight for a liberal cause in Washington probably feels like a slap in the face right about now.) An actress with even less of a shot is Krisha Fairchild, the star of a film called Krisha, in which she plays a character named Krisha — and no, that isn’t a coincidence.

Krisha was shot in nine days in a single location, at filmmaker Trey Edward Shults’ family’s home in Texas. Most characters are played by his family members, who are non-professional actors, and the film was 30% improvised on a tiny budget. Shults stars as a major character himself.

Sound like an amateur hour recipe for disaster? Yep! Miraculously, though, Krisha is a masterful piece of filmmaking, telling the story of an addict coming home for Thanksgiving, determined to make things right with the family she’s wronged so many times. This alone is not a terribly original premise, and for a while, it’s unclear just what kind of movie Krisha is. The most predictable route would be a heartwarming dramedy in which Krisha makes her amends slowly but surely, all in time for a happy family meal to fade out on. But Krisha isn’t that movie.

Parts of Krisha are shot like a horror movie, which is perfectly appropriate for this character’s fragile state of mind (and sobriety). There are fragments of moments with all of the large supporting cast, so that we get to know them as a family just as we might if we were a surprise guest at Thanksgiving dinner. Few of the characters get much solo screen time, yet every performance feels lived in. This is largely because many of them are playing versions of themselves, but it’s amazing how good they are for non-actors. Billie Fairchild, as Krisha’s mother, has Alzheimer’s in real life and was not entirely aware that she was in a film, yet manages to tug heartstrings on multiple occasions.Krisha Fairchild, on the other hand, is a professional actress, in addition to being Shults’ aunt. In the film, she plays Trey’s biological mother, who abandoned her child to relatives while she grappled with her addiction. Her performance is riveting from moment one, and only gets better as the film unfolds. The film isn’t really a story about addiction; we get the sense that Krisha’s substance abuse is more a symptom of some larger problem. Something isn’t right, and hasn’t been for some time.

Krisha won the Audience and Grand Jury Prizes at South By Southwest and picked up several other prizes since. It is too small a film to register for the Academy, though Fairchild’s commanding performance belongs alongside Stone, Portman, Bening, and Huppert in the big race.

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Your first crush. Detention. The prom. That time your entire extended family was horrendously racist toward a foreign exchange student. In Episode 8, When We Were Young takes you back to simpler times (and a song from Simple Minds) with a Molly Ringwald teen trifecta brought to you by the legendary John Hughes.

From the panty-sniffing hijinks of Sixteen Candles to the shattering teen angst therapy of The Breakfast Club to Duckie’s heartbreaking snub in Pretty In Pink, we’ll discuss the many highs and lows of Hughes’ comedy stylings and marvel at Ringwald’s sweet but short-lived star power.

Consider this your trigger warning, because we also examine offensive cultural stereotypes, homophobia, and an explicit endorsement of date rape… and that’s just in the first movie!

Check out the latest episode here or subscribe on iTunes.

Sixteen Candles
May 4, 1984
Budget: $6.5 million
Box Office: $23.7 million
Metacritic: 61

Unlike many in my age group, I had not seen any of the films in John Hughes’ “Molly Ringwald teen trifecta” (as I like to call it) prior to doing this episode. I caught scenes from The Breakfast Club as a kid on cable TV, which is more than I can say for Sixteen Candles or Pretty In Pink.

Of course, I was well aware of who Molly Ringwald was. I felt like I had seen her in some movies, even if those were just a handful of roles in later films that played on her former star power (like Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Not Another Teen Movie). From being pop culture savvy, I also knew that there was something offensively racist (but probably overblown) in Sixteen Candles and that Molly controversially did not choose Duckie at the end of Pretty In Pink, which many fans regard as a mistake.

As it turns out, I had underestimated just how offensive a 1980s teen comedy could be — Sixteen Candles was shockingly racist for a movie released in my lifetime, mostly thanks to the gong that sounds nearly every time the Long Duk Dong character appears on screen.

We still have a ways to go when it comes to depicting all races with equality on screen, and Asian cultures still get some of the worst of it, but man oh man have things changed since 1984, at least. Many critics rightly called Sixteen Candles out at the time, so it’s not like everyone was so tone deaf at this time, but it still takes a moment to process just how bad this movie is to that poor exchange student. Nearly as problematic is the film’s shruggy endorsement of date rape; it’s also a bit stunning to hear the word “faggot” dropped so casually by characters we’re meant to like.

The Breakfast Club
February 15, 1985
Budget: $1 million
Box Office: $51.5 million ($45 million in U.S.)
Metacritic: 62

It’s a shame, because Sixteen Candles is an otherwise sensitive portrayal of teen angst. It’s a great debut for Ringwald, who commands the screen admirably for someone who really was about 16 upon its release.

The Breakfast Club holds up so much better, remaining a landmark teen movie, if not the landmark teen movie. After being cast as a likable outsider in Sixteen Candles, Ringwald gets to play “the princess” here, and she makes the character completely relatable.

The entire cast is pretty stellar — it’s hard to imagine the movie without any of these characters, or claim that one is more iconic than the other. They’re meant to represent stereotypes we know well, and then transcend them — and they do. Ringwald had maybe the toughest job, however, as the most privileged and spoiled character of the group, maybe the one who — as written — could have come off as least sympathetic. Hughes typically didn’t give popular girls much nuance in other movies, hence the bimbo types who populate the other movies discussed here. The wrong casting could have thrown this whole thing out of whack. Instead, Ringwald shines and so does the movie. It’s full of indelible moments, even if Ally Sheedy’s final makeover remains an unfortunate cop out.

Pretty in Pink
February 28, 1986
Budget: $9 million
Box Office: $40.5 million
Metacritic: 59

I enjoyed Pretty In Pink as well, particularly the friendship between Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer, which I recognize now as emulated in so much teen fare from my youth — like Xander and Willow in Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Dawson and Joey in Dawson’s Creek. Most of the teen stuff I loved back then couldn’t exist without the trail John Hughes blazed. Buffy couldn’t break that mold if John Hughes hadn’t made it.

Unfortunately, Pretty In Pink‘s ending lets us down the same way the other two movies do. The Breakfast Club at least has four other characters we care about who don’t totally sell themselves out, but it’s kind of a shame to see Ringwald once again end up with a dreamy but generic stud. Yeah, that’s a little more realistic than the “geek gets the girl” angle we might have gotten if she chose Duckie, although “geek girl gets the hunk” is just as much a fantasy. Fortunately, Pretty In Pink has a lot less misogyny and racism than Sixteen Candles, with about the same level of highlights.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed filling in this blind spot in my viewing, and learning plenty more about Hughes and Ringwald in the process.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, shows, and more hold up now.

You can help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include purchasing movies/shows/etc to review, imbibing enough sedatives to take down an elephant, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio Studio in Los Angeles CA, by donating to our Patreon account, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes!

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In the mid 1990s, Hollywood was inundated with an exciting new class of independent filmmakers who would change the movie business as we knew it. People were really paying attention to films with low budgets and unique visions — but only one of those films featured a dead baby crawling on a ceiling.

Trainspotting (1996) is one of the most provocative, intoxicating films to come out of the 90s indie scene. But 20 years after its release, has the high worn off? Take a jump into the Worst Toilet in Scotland (it’ll be worth the trip) and join us as we discuss whether Danny Boyle’s surrealist joyride into the world of heroin addiction still holds up.

Listen here or subscribe on iTunes.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now.

You can help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include purchasing movies/shows/etc to review, imbibing enough sedatives to take down an elephant, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles CA, by donating to our Patreon account, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes!

“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

We’re getting further and further into the 21st century, but a number of the year’s best dramas have been rooted firmly in the century before. One of them is even named after last century.

20th Century Women isn’t particularly mired in a historical moment — the same story could take place now, more or less — though the airing of Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech takes a prominent role, resonating with eerie accuracy for these modern times more than 37 years later. 20th Century Women is writer/director Mike Mills long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s Beginners, which was was semi-autobiographically based on Mills’ father, who came out as gay late in life. The portrayal won Christopher Plummer a much-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Dorothea, the driving force in 20th Century Women, is loosely modeled on Mills’ mother and fabulously portrayed by Annette Bening, who is also likely to get an Oscar nod for her troubles. (It’s a crowded race this year, however.)

Like Beginners, 20th Century Women bucks genre conventions to tell a humane story about realistic people. There’s less quirk here than in Beginners (which had a subtitled dog performance) and a little less plot, too — Dorothea is a single mother raising her teen son Jamie (played by Lucas Jade Zumann) in a house she also rents to two subletters, William (Billy Crudup) and Abbie (Greta Gerwig). Meanwhile, Jamie is engaged in a will-they-or-won’t-they teen friendship with Julie (Elle Fanning), who is already quite sexually experienced for her age but doesn’t want to complicate her relationship with Jamie by giving in to his carnal desires. Early in the film, Jamie engages in some stupid teenage behavior that nearly gets him killed, awakening Dorothea to the fact that Jamie may need more guidance in life than he can provide. She enlists Abbie and Julie to help her keep an eye on her son.

That could be fuel for a lot of nutty plot contrivances in a broader film, but in 20th Century Women that setup hardly matters. Abbie takes it upon herself to educate Jamie using feminist literature and teaches him all about the clitoris, resulting in some very funny conversations (and an equally amusing brawl with a peer). Julie doesn’t do much in the way of watching out for him, as she has her own turmoil to deal with. Mostly, the film is a series of vignettes about these characters interacting with one another. Abbie is dealing with the fallout of a battle with cervical cancer, and tries out a friendship-with-benefits on the free-spirited William. Julie has unprotected sex and worries about the consequences. Jamie goes on a spontaneous road trip or two, causing Dorothea to fret further about his safety. None of these plot elements are terribly novel in their own right, but the way they’re spun together, they’re utterly compelling.

20th Century Women uses several characters’ voice over and period photographs to set us in a time and a place — Southern California, 1979, to be exact. Using dialogue, it flashes forward to tell us what will become of certain characters, including when and how they will die in some cases. This expands the scope beyond the rather intimate dramedy we see, encapsulating the past and future as well as the present, so that the movie becomes about these people’s rich, full lives. The title is something of a misnomer, since Jamie is the central character, and William is given roughly equal consideration as Abbie and Julie are. Two-fifths of the cast is male, including the protagonist — yet it is the trio of females who become the most striking figures in the movie.

Bening is sublime as Dorothea, a woman not easily defined, who is written simultaneously as overprotective and underreacting. (The fact that she’s based on Mills’ mother feels right, since it’d be difficult to create a character this complex and contradictory out of thin air.) Gerwig shines (as she always does) as Abbie, the scarlet-haired punk and the woman in this film who feels the most prepared to break out of the 20th century and enter the 21st. But I was also surprised at Lucas Jade Zumann’s portrayal of Jamie, who on paper sounds like the sort of precocious teenage boy we’ve seen in countless coming-of-age dramas, and yet feels fresh as written by Mills. Though he causes some minor havoc and has certain self-serving proclivities, he’s an inherently good soul underneath, providing a compelling anchor for the movie. What emerges is a unique film that feels both personal and universal, containing very few big moments but a collection of perfectly captured small ones that linger in the mind the way little memories of our own lives do.

By contrast, Hidden Figures is about as down-the-middle as they come as far as historical dramas go — for once, that isn’t such a bad thing. The film stars Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae, and Octavia Spencer as a trio of NASA employees who helped get Americans into space for the first time. Katherine (Henson) is a math whiz, the first African-American called up to the Big Boys’ office; Mary (Monae) dreams of becoming an engineer, but finds segregated schools getting in her way; Dorothy (Spencer) can’t get the promotion she deserves and takes it upon herself to learn how the program’s first computer operates.

Hidden Figures co-stars Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, and Kirsten Dunst as white folk who have varying degrees of blinders on about what things are actually like for black women in a place like this at that time, and how capable these women can be at their jobs. (Moonlight‘s Mahershala Ali and Everybody Wants Some‘s Glen Powell round out the cast as Katherine’s studly love interest and the hunky, charming astronaut John Glenn. It’s a stellar cast all around.) The script and direction are both slightly hammy in moments, and the whole film is very broad, allowing us to bear witness to injustice without ever really feeling the true shame and horror of race relations in Virginia at this time the way a film like Loving does. But you know what? That’s perfectly fine. Hidden Figures is more entertaining than it probably ought to be, given how pat and predictable it can be, preferring an empowering, 21st century portrayal of three women who are well-deserving of having their story told. As an audience member, it’s easy enough to go along on this ride, even if it all feels a bit too neatly packaged to do the real drama of this moment justice. Sometimes, a feel-good drama is enough.Christine is Hidden Figures‘ direct opposite — you could easily dub it the “feel-bad movie of the year.” It, too, tells the story of a real life woman who made a notable impact in the second half of the 20th century. Christine Chubbuck was a news reporter in Sarasota, Florida who suffered from severe depression. It’s the second of two 2016 releases centered on this tragic figure, and though most reviews give away “the ending” of the movie (certainly, the only reason we’re watching a movie about this woman in the first place), I won’t. Suffice to say, it isn’t pretty.

Christine follows Nightcrawler‘s lead in examining the exploitative “if it bleeds, it leads” bloodlust of the nightly news, with a protagonist who is equally as off-putting as that film’s sociopathic protagonist, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal. And like Nightcrawler, Christine contains a fantastic lead performance that really ought to be garnering more attention for Rebecca Hall. Christine isn’t an easy film to watch, especially as its subject spirals more and more out of the bounds of socially acceptable behavior, at one point predicting the advent of reality TV decades before it actually happened. (And look how that turned out.) Christine co-stars Tracey Letts as Christine’s gruff boss (in a similarly sympathetic antagonist role to the one he played in Indignation), Michael C. Hall as the news anchor Christine unrequitedly crushes on, J. Smith-Cameron as Christine’s concerned mother, and Maria Dizzia as a friend who attempts to help Christine out of her doldrums. It also contains a downbeat and wonderfully ironic utilization of The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song.

All three films are impressive in their own way, though they range from broad studio dramedy to quiet, pleasant indie to deeply disturbing drama. And all are anchored by compelling performances from the actresses who bring these characters to life, giving some 20th century women new life in the 21st.

*

Another year, another awards season.

But this was no ordinary year.

Where to begin, when we speak of 2016? Most years, I just pick my favorite films, and that’s it. But this year, it felt important to really think about these choices, and what they expressed about my feelings this year. That’s not to say I picked a bunch of films I didn’t like as much just because they were “important.” Not at all. But I also know that when I look back at what cinema offered in 2016 many years from now — provided we’re still all in one piece by then — I do want it to reflect the turmoil, the despair, and the utter, unspeakable horrors inflicted upon so many of us over the course of the last year.

So, uhh, no. La La Land will not be my pick for Movie of the Year.

Naturally, every movie released in 2016 was completed before the results of the election were clear. Not a single film was actually made in response to the events of 2016, because it hadn’t happened yet. Yet if we look at the movies, we can see so much of what we grappled with over the course of the past year:

A witch hunt (the literal kind) carried out against a woman who deserved far better in The Witch; the aimless, restless, reckless youths that the white collar world forgot in American Honey; the desperation of two lower-class outlaws who’ve been screwed by The Man in Hell Or High Water; the inconsolable working class grief of Manchester By The Sea; the angry young white men of the fiction-within-the-fiction of Nocturnal Animals; not-too-terribly distant battles over marriage equality in Loving; true tales of notable, questionably heoric Americans like Snowden and Sully; the gunman with a grudge taking it out on Wall Street in Money Monster; the fearless liberal lobbyist taking down corrupt, gun-loving right-wingers in Miss Sloane; the murderous white supremacists of Green Room; the insatiable bloodlust of the media in Christine; the racially charged bloody vengeance of The Birth Of A Nation; and two biopics centering on a certain young black would-be president, Netflix’s meditative drama Barry and the charming Barack-meets-Michelle romance Southside With You.

Looking over such themes, it’s hard not to see that 2016’s sinister soul was bubbling in that stew all along, even if we didn’t quite know it until late last year. Granted, we were distracted — by superheroes of all kinds, the good (Captain America: Civil War), the bad (Batman v Superman), and the sassy (Deadpool); by lackluster summer sequels; by escapism. And, then, as we watched helplessly, our own world became stranger than any movie.

In a way, it is pointless to try and assign any meaning to a group of movies from any given year. Some scripts may have been written a decade ago, or be based on material that was written even further back. Filmmakers come from all over the world; they’re of different ages, and have vastly different viewpoints. I don’t consciously select my favorite films because they fit in any one category, yet I can’t help but notice certain themes emerge — like how my favorite films of 2013 spoke about largely the American economy, or the twin streaks of violence and childish innocence running through my 2014 list, or how last year’s picks all explored complicated, unconventional women.

What emerged amidst my 2016 picks was a sense of the passage of time — its ability to heal wounds, or its failure to. Moreso than most years, my favorite films of 2016 spoke to me on a deeply personal level, some reminding me of various moments in my past, others raising anxiety about the present. Like many, I’m more concerned than I’ve ever been about the future. That’s in this list, too, somewhere… but we’ll have to go back to the past to get there.

Let’s go back.

10. EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!

“Well, boys, we came for a good time, not for a long time.”

Four of my Top 10 films of 2016 fall under the broad umbrella of a “coming of age” film, though they’re very different in other ways. This is the first, made by a filmmaker who wrote and directed two of the greatest films ever made about adolescence, 1993’s Dazed And Confused and 2014’s Boyhood.

Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some (I will hereafter leave off the two titular exclamation points for simplicity’s sake) was pitched as a “spiritual sequel” to Dazed And Confused, which makes sense, since both films draw on Linklater’s own past and are set in eras he “came of age” himself. But Everybody Wants Some also picks up about exactly where Boyhood left off, with a young male getting his first taste of college life — and in its own subtle way, its storyline plays more like an extension of Boyhood‘s boy-to-man arc than a follow-up to his 1993 teen comedy.

Like Dazed And Confused, Everybody Wants Some kicks off with a hit period tune playing out of a cool period car’s stereo. Both films are essentially plotless, taking place in a fixed amount of time (Dazed And Confused on the last day of school in 1976, Everybody Wants Some counting down to the beginning of college classes in 1980). Both mire us in party culture that feels very authentic to its characters, its scenes very much about “just hanging out.” But like Dazed And Confused, Everybody Wants Some has a little more on its mind than meets the eye. Whereas Linklater’s earlier hit captured teens’ various levels of boredom or satisfaction about the present along with some stray anxiety about the future, Everybody Wants Some is about finding and shaping one’s identity once that future has begun.

This movie’s protagonist is Jake (Blake Jenner), who moves into an off-campus house for baseball players at a Texas university, which is for all intents and purposes a fraternity house. With his baseball buddies, Jake attends a disco, a country western bar, a punk club, and a performing arts party, finding that all have something to offer him (often, a comely young lady), but none manage to define him completely. Like all its central characters, Jake is a jock, but Jake is still searching for an alternate place in the world, aware that professional baseball is an unlikely future for all except the very best. Jake fits in easily with the other ball players; he makes friends easily and charms women, but he also seems to want a little more than what’s being offered by the macho posturing and bro camaraderie of his teammates.

Critics of the film complained that the jokey jocks didn’t offer a “way in” to this film — some couldn’t identify with these guys, whose primary preoccupations are sports, getting drunk, and getting laid. (That’s no different than Dazed And Confused, except that it focuses exclusively on the athletes.) I can understand why that might be the case, but as a former fraternity boy myself, I’ve never seen another film that so perfectly captures the carefree early days of college life, days that are all about exploration and finding an identity for oneself. Relationships made in this time are tenuous — how many of us are exactly the same person coming out of college as we were going in? Yet the people we meet at this time become an important part of our personal history, sharing the bond of a very special moment. That is, I believe, why Linklater chose to make a film that’s a tribute to them. The memories of these days are about as golden as they come, which is what makes Everybody Wants Some so fun and buoyant.

It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the film ends on Jake taking a snooze in class, emitting a small smile. Everybody Wants Some is a rare movie about contentment, about a brief window of time in which life is worry-free and full of possibility. We know the future holds plenty of conflict for these immature jocks, but this movie doesn’t take us to that point. I can identify with those detractors who find Everybody Wants Some too slight, finding fault with this easy, breezy narrative. Me? I was perfectly content to “Let the Good Times Roll,” as the Cars song playing over the credits urges.

In 2016, a difficult year for so many of us, many filmgoers sought refuge in the nostalgic escapism of La La Land. And that’s fine. Consider Everybody Wants Some my equivalent — the most optimistic and light-hearted film amongst my favorites of the year by far. It’s a film that takes me back to better times and lets me live there for an hour or two; to what seemed like the dawning of the brightest possible future.

9. COMPLETE UNKNOWN

“You don’t understand the feeling. I went to Portland, and in Portland I was a whole other person, and I felt reborn. But then after a while, it started to feel too familiar, and I realized I could just step out of it. I could just start again.”

Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like to be somebody else?

Almost certainly, you have. But not many have ever done it. Complete Unknown is a tribute to those who have, exploring the consequences of seizing complete control over one’s identity.

Every film in my Top Ten list deals with a search for identity in some sense, but the one that grapples with it most directly is Joshua Marston’s Complete Unknown, the story of a woman named Alice who shows up as a plus one to a dinner party and proceeds to fascinate the guests with her tales of adventure in Madagascar and a recording of a newly discovered species of frog. The problem is that the host of the party, Tom, believes that he knows this woman from the past, going by a different name.

The nifty thing about Complete Unknown is that it captures a science fiction premise and unleashes it in the mundane world. Tom is more or less happily married to Ramina, though their union is headed toward a rocky patch because she wants to move to California and he’s hesitant to leave his work behind. But in Tom’s past, there’s a woman named Jenny he broke up with long ago, and there’s a part of him that’s always wondered what happened to that girl, and if maybe he would’ve been happier with her. We all wonder what might have happened if our lives had gone in different directions. In Complete Unknown, Alice and Tom explore such possibilities over the course of one evening.

See, most people accept who they are early on. Their names, their history, where they live, what they do. Their identity — there’s continuity. To do anything else? Well, that would be crazy!

That’s why Complete Unknown shows us a number of characters reacting to what unfolds in exactly that way — as if they’re dealing with someone dangerous, someone insane, someone who deserves to be demonized simply for shaping her narrative in defiance of the one that has already been shaped for her. You can certainly see this side of things — a person’s sudden absence causes confusion, sadness, fear. Is it still wrong to deceive people if the fib feels like the truth?

Complete Unknown deals with morally complex situations, such as a sequence in which Tom tries another life on for size, helping an injured woman by pretending he’s a doctor (at Alice’s urging). We see the temptation in adopting a new life. But such a gambit is hardly for everyone, and comes at a high cost of loneliness. Alice isn’t immune to ordinary feelings — which is what brings her to see Tom in the first place. She has begun to wonder if she might not have been happier in her original life.

Complete Unknown is a small-scale drama featuring evocative performances by Michael Shannon as Tom and Rachel Weisz as the fascinating Alice. Its setup suggests a bigger mystery than the one that is ultimately explored, which is more about one person’s unique response to an identity crisis, and how another person comes to understand that that’s okay. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, nor does distance — sometimes, we need to seek out and confront our pasts in order to gain closure.8. CLOSET MONSTER

“It’s going to be super dangerous, and super scary.”

The second “coming of age” film in my Top 10 is also a “coming out” film, a genre I’m rarely very fond of. These tend to be predictable, artless affairs, but in the hands of 27-year-old Canadian Stephen Dunn, this overly familiar old material is given fresh style and a welcome touch of the macabre.

Closet Monster isn’t an overly dark story. It has some welcome comic relief in a hamster named Buffy, voiced by Isabella Rosselini, because why the hell wouldn’t she be? It is the story of Oscar (Connor Jessup), who crushes on Wilder (Aliocha Schneider), a French boy of ambiguous sexual orientation, while pretending that he’s dating his best friend Gemma (Sofia Banzhaf) to keep up appearances for his homophobic father. None of this breaks new ground for a coming out film on paper, except that Oscar is haunted by a violent incident he witnessed in his youth, carried out against a young gay boy.

Most gay films depict the emotional turmoil that accompanies an acceptance of one’s non-hetero sexuality. Few go much darker, but Closet Monster is peppered with nightmarish visions of what Oscar is grappling with in his mind, heart, and soul — because, for many, the coming out process involves more than just “he loves me, he loves me not” anxiety. It can be a violent, even deadly reckoning.

Closet Monster is about a young man struggling to find his identity, just as Everybody Wants Some is. The difference, of course, is that Everybody Wants Some‘s jock Jake is someone “everyone wants”, while Oscar stands to lose the affection of everyone he holds dear. (Except Buffy the Hamster… she’s open-minded, naturally.) There’s a looming threat of bloody rage simmering throughout Closet Monster, threatening to come to a boil and destroy Oscar himself, or perhaps someone close to him. Most coming out stories end with acceptance — time does tend to heal the gnawing agonies of our youth — but not all of them do. Throughout, Closet Monster threatens not to. There’s no guarantee of survival.

For all the strides LGBTQ people have made this century, 2016 made clear that the battles are far from over. From the unfathomable Pulse massacre to the election of Republican leadership that seeks to snatch back everything we’ve achieved in the past eight years, being gay is still dangerous. Our first, most vicious attacker is often oneself, and if we survive that, there’s still a whole other world to reckon with.

I appreciate Closet Monster for splattering some bright red blood across a tired genre — it’s the coming out film that most resembles my own personal experience. But it also has arresting visuals, appealing teen characters, one of the best soundtracks of the year, and — never forget this — Isabella Rossellini playing a hamster named Buffy.

7. ARRIVAL

“If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?”

Of all the films I saw in 2016, no film will be branded into me quite the way Arrival was, by pure happenstance. Arrival is the first film I saw in theaters following the devastating election results of November 8, a point in time that felt very much like the end of the world. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s eerie, otherworldly score is the perfect accompaniment to that mind-blowing moment, which felt very much like everything we knew about our future and our place in the world had just imploded.

Arrival is surprisingly optimistic and life-affirming for an alien invasion story, one in which the government at least attempts some friendly contact before opening fire on our extraterrestrial visitors. (Aliens, if you’re out there, please wait at least four years before touching down on Earth, okay? Trust me, it’s for your own good.) You can tell the film was written during the Obama administration, a time when science was valued and communication between nations was deemed essential in a crisis. The somewhat level-headed response of government officials in Arrival now just feels… quaint.

Arrival is the story of a linguist named Louise who finds herself the most sought-after scientist when mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe. We get only a minimal glimpse at the world’s reaction to this phenomenal event, but we’ve seen plenty of that in other films. Arrival is primarily concerned with Louise and fellow scientist Ian’s process in interpreting the aliens’ strange graphic language in order to ascertain why they’ve showed up on Earth. Time plays an important role in the film, less as a healer of wounds than as a necessary component of them.

As usual, Denis Villeneuve’s arresting filmmaking style transcends what we’d normally get from a genre piece — he depicts sci-fi events we’re familiar with as we’ve never quite seen them before. The film is bookended with Louise’s emotionally fraught personal story involving a daughter she lost to cancer, which turns out to be both emotionally powerful and intellectually ingenious in how it dovetails with the extraterrestrial elements. Arrival goes for both the heart and the head at the same moment, and nails both.

The film’s message about transcending the superficial barriers that isolate us from one another is more crucial now than ever, though I’m afraid it’s one that’s already been lost on this country. In Arrival, humans and aliens bridge the wide divide between species using patience, trust, and communication; in 2016, Americans had no such patience, acting in opposition to their best interests, spitting in the faces of those who want to help them, preferring to just blow the whole thing up.

I don’t know what it means when an alien invasion story contains more measured reason than the real life headlines. But here’s to science. Here’s to communication. Here’s to a woman who tried her best to build bridges across a great divide and save a planet in peril. Too bad it’s just science fiction.

6. ELLE

“There’s a nut job out there. Nut jobs are my specialty.”

If you’d told me a year ago that Donald Trump would be president and a Paul Verhoeven movie would be one of my Top Ten films of 2016, I don’t know which I would have found more ridiculous. But that’s 2016 for you.

Complete Unknown, Closet Monster, and several other films on this list feature protagonists who struggle with self-destructive tendencies that threaten to alienate them from loved ones. Chop them up and toss them in a blender, and you’d still need to add an extra scoop of emotional damage to get you to Michèle, the heroine of Elle — and that’s before she is violently raped by a masked assailant.

In 2017, there’s still a national debate about what claim men can make over women’s bodies. A presidential candidate was caught on tape bragging about his ability to get away with sexual assault, and it didn’t make him any less popular with his constituent. He was elected anyway. Elle isn’t exactly the “fuck you” to men you might expect from a film with its premise, but it does challenge our preconceptions about what should and should not happen following a sexual assault. Do you dare cast judgment on Michèle? You’d better take a long, hard look at the world around you first.

Elle begins with that shocking rape, which is calmly observed by Michèle’s cat. When he’s finished, her attacker leaves and Michèle carries on with her life. Over the course of the next few weeks, she does a few things you might expect her to do — buy a gun, investigate potential suspects — and quite a few things you wouldn’t. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t call the police. She doesn’t shave her head. She doesn’t become a hardened badass.

In my original review, I dubbed Huppert’s Michèle the “Trauma Queen,” and the more I think about it, the more I consider this character the epitome of traumatized females of the screen. (Second only to Sidney Prescott, perhaps.) We’re used to seeing one of two narratives play out when a woman is raped in a film: either she helplessly allows the male hero to avenge her, or she does it herself (usually through a less-than-convincing transformation process). There’s nothing inherently wrong with the female fantasy of a rape-revenge thriller, except that it bears little resemblance to the aftermath of such trauma in real life. These films inherently suggest that a woman is “ruined” by rape. Elle cannily bucks all audience expectations with its unpredictable heroine, who alternates between being sympathetic and off-putting throughout the movie. There’s a mystery in Elle, beyond the identity of the rapist — it’s the horrors of her past, a level on unimaginable anguish that, in some ways, prepared her for this attack. One traumatic blow is more than enough for one person, but life doesn’t dole out suffering so equally. Michèle deals with more than her share of shit coming at her from all angles. She’s not invincible, the way the heroine of your typical wronged-chick-makes-things-right thriller can be — but she is strong, in the most believable way.

Elle deals with some heavy subject matter, to be sure, but the film is also a stylish, twisty thriller with unexpected bursts of comedy from a vibrant supporting cast. Elle is the kind of film you could watch a dozen times, and come away with a different interpretation in each. Huppert’s brilliant performance never gives away exactly what this woman is thinking, and doesn’t exert any extra effort in making her endearing. Time cannot heal wounds that run so deep and so nasty as Michèle’s, but it can build them into a sort of armor. In Elle, its fascinating to watch her fend off the next wave of terrors, in part by using her own past as a weapon. You’ll never meet another woman quite like Elle.

5. KRISHA

“Well, hello, Richard. Yes, I’d like to leave a message. I want to say I hope you’re very happy. I hope that you really like the way this all turned out. When you didn’t return my phone calls, when you told me to need you. ‘Call me if you need me, baby. Be vulnerable. I’m your big man, right? I got your back.’ Well, it’s too late now, okay? All my hard work. It’s too late. Because not one fucking person on the planet would answer the phone when I called them for help. So you know what? Fuck you. You are dead to me.”

And now we’ve arrived in the Top Five.

Homecoming is a common theme in films set around Thanksgiving. But not many have the concept so thoroughly baked in as Krisha. Filmmaker Trey Edward Shultz, who, like Closet Monster writer/director Stephen Dunn, is in his 20s (damn you!), filmed Krisha in nine days at his family’s home in Texas, using mostly his real family as actors, including his leading lady. That sure sounds like a recipe for unwatchable disaster, but you know what? Krisha turns out to be one of the most compelling films of the year, the rare family drama that plunges us so deep into conflict, it threatens to become a horror film in certain moments.

Krisha (played by Krisha Fairchild) is somewhat new to being sober, and though we don’t learn many concrete details about her past, we can sense just by the way everyone walks on eggshells around her that this family has been through it. She shows up on Thanksgiving day with her dog, missing a finger, and insists that she be the one to prepare the turkey. This gesture is important to her: a reparation. Gradually, we learn that Krisha’s “nephew,” Trey (played by the writer/director himself), is actually Krisha’s abandoned son, and more than anything she wishes to reconnect with him.

This setup might suggest a heartwarming family dramedy, but — well, Krisha is not that film. As with the protagonists of Everybody Wants Some, Complete Unknown, and Closet Monster, Krisha is still searching for an identity. Unfortunately, in her case, she’s already got one — she’s the drug-addicted, alcoholic mess who turns everything she touches into chaos. As determined as she is to escape this role, it won’t be easy. It may not even be possible.

In my estimation, Krisha is not a story about substance abuse — it doesn’t seem that Krisha has chosen any one drug as her poison. Rather, she’s addicted to being a mess. To fucking up, over and over. Her better self rails against it, but there is something dark deep within her that always drags her away from those who are poised to love and forgive her. Krisha is the villain of the horror movie that is her mind. No matter how languid and idyll the family around her is, there’s always something sinister looming in Krisha’s mind, threatening to take control and alienate her from the family.

Krisha is painful to watch, because we know how much is at stake and sense that this is Krisha’s last chance to make amends with her family. The turkey’s not the only thing that’s slowly roasting through the second act; over the course of the film, Krisha reaches a point of no return. Shults’ camerawork, alternately frenetic and observant, depicts a family gathering for a holiday in a wholly believable way rarely captured on film. The non-professional performances work perfectly alongside those from more experienced actors, including Billie Fairchild as Krisha’s mother — both the character and the real woman playing her have Alzheimer’s, lending the scene a remarkable poignancy. At times, Krisha is reminiscent of Boyhood in its homemade verisimilitude, though it clocks in at half the length and contains some showier cinematography, particularly in its doom-tinged final act.

Ultimately, Krisha does become a sort of horror film — one in which Krisha is both the victim and the perpetrator of her resurgent evils. The holiday plays out to its inevitable conclusion — one all of these characters, including Krisha, sensed was coming all along.

They hoped for better. What they got was history repeating itself. More often than not, that’s how things go for women like Krisha.

4. INDIGNATION

“There are reasons you die. There are causes. A chain of events linked by causality. And those events include decisions that you have personally made. How did you end up here, on this exact day, at this exact time, with this specific event happening to you?”

The third coming of age film on my list is by far the bleakest. A far cry from the easily assimilating jocks of Everybody Wants Some, Indignation is all about what happens when you’re not a part of the alphas.

Indignation begins with two scenes, seemingly disconnected from our main narrative — the first, set in a nursing home in present day; the second depicting a Korean soldier who meets a tragic end in the 1950s. This is the first half of 2016’s best cinematic bookend.

We meet our protagonist, Marcus Messner, at the funeral of a friend, a Jewish boy sent off to die in the Korean War, as so many young men were. Marcus is bound for a different fate. He’s a straight-A student who dreams of a career as a prominent lawyer, standing in front of the Supreme Court. He’s destined for great things, everyone knows, because he’s a smart boy who works hard and avoids trouble. How could a good kid like Marcus not have a bright future ahead of him?

Well. Marcus is a part of the Jewish minority at the Ohio college he attends, far from his comfort zone in Newark, New Jersey. He falls for Olivia Hutton, a comely blonde from a good family, but soon learns that she, too, is an outsider at this school. An act of oral sex, in part, sets in motion a chain of events that will seal the fates of both characters.

Thematically speaking, there’s a lot to unpack in Indignation that feels freshly relevant in 2016, from the way America has periodically been reckless with young men’s lives to the double standard slut shaming young women faced at this time. Primarily, the film deals with perils of non-conformity — Marcus leaves his safe Jewish neighborhood for a community in which he’s a minority; he declines an invite to join the Jewish fraternity, preferring the company of his two Jewish roommates. Soon, Marcus finds himself ostracized even by these two. Marcus has the pride and arrogance of an intelligent youth — he’s perfectly willing to go it alone, if he has to, not realizing how vulnerable this makes him should things take a turn for the worse.

The 1950s are often remembered as an idyllic era. It is often forgotten that, at this time, being an outsider could be very dangerous for anyone who didn’t subscribe to cultural norms. Now, in 2017, we are once again dealing with a movement to whitewash diversity, a threat to those who dare to think and live differently than the majority of Americans do. We still haven’t escaped the potential for oppression from a white Christian majority.

That makes Indignation sadly more relevant than it was ever intended to be, more relevant than it was during its theatrical release last summer. The film’s villain is the college’s Dean Caudwell, a white Christian whose mouth says everyone is free to practice a religion of their choosing while his policies fail to back that up. Sound familiar? The Republicans who have risen to power in 2017 will still say America is a safe haven for all comers, but their actions won’t back that up — not by a long shot. Marcus is an independent thinker — an atheist who challenges his professors in the classroom and rails against Dean Caudwell’s policy of forcing students to attend mass. It’s easy to imagine American conservatives in 2017 condemning Marcus the way he’s condemned in Indignation, railing against the smugness of intelligentsia. Indignation is a caustic reminder of what, historically, has often happened to those who dared to be different.

At once theatrical and cinematic, Indignation is anchored by riveting performances across the board, including one 12-minute powerhouse scene between Marcus and the dean. Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon perfectly play the young lovers caught up in forces greater than their unlikely romance. Though based on a Philip Roth novel, James Schamus’ film makes Olivia Hutton far more than just a tragic sex kitten — she’s mature and vibrant, and if any girl is worth what Marcus ends up paying for her, she’s it.

Indignation makes effective use of floral wallpaper to stir nostalgia in an old woman who, otherwise, appears to be emotionally vacant. So much time has passed that only a faint whisper of the past still echoes. But it does linger — even when it is unkind, time does not completely erase the memories of our better days.

3. OJ: MADE IN AMERICA

“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Here’s a question I don’t have to ask of my Top Ten very often: is OJ: Made In America even a movie?

Critics are divided. OJ: Made In America was produced by ESPN for their 30 For 30 series. It can currently be streamed in five pieces on the ESPN website, and each segment has opening and closing titles. Sounds like TV, right? OJ: Made In America also played in some theaters, despite its colossal running time (467 minutes — nearly 8 hours). Most of this would lead me to the conclusion that it is a documentary miniseries, not a movie, and therefore should illegible for my Top Ten, which is why I originally discounted it for consideration. Add to that the fact that I’ve stopped including documentaries in my year-end lists at all, since, as a rule, I find them rather incomparable to narrative films. Making a documentary is about working with existing pieces — interviews, archival footage, available information. That’s not to say documentary filmmakers can’t be incredibly creative in how they present this material, or that their point of view isn’t heavily influential in what they make. But as someone who approaches filmmaking first and foremost through the lens of storytelling, I find this to be an entirely different set of skills than sitting down with a blank page and creating action and dialogue. (Though many of the more original documentaries out there blur this line by hiring actors to portray their subjects.)

But then I actually watched OJ: Made In America, and even though I watched it in the comfort of my own bedroom on a very small screen, afterward I could not escape the feeling that I had just had a cinematic experience. Like the greatest movies, its scope reaches far beyond its subject matter. Every minute of OJ: Made In America is necessary to tell the story of football legend turned pariah OJ Simpson, yet the film is also one of the best ever made about race relations, the city of Los Angeles, and American culture in general. While it deals explicitly with these themes in pieces, it reaches far beyond anything that is actually said or depicted in the film cumulatively. OJ: Made In America doesn’t moralize or even sum up what it’s trying to say, yet its many messages are crystal clear. To sum up what it’s “about” would be reductive and, ultimately, impossible. OJ: Made In America is essentially a movie about America itself, a thousand subcategories contained within it. Race, justice, fame, ego, identity, corruption, legacy… any one of these would have been enough, but somehow, OJ: Made In America contains them all. And then some.

OJ Simpson was never much of an actor, but somehow he ended up being the second biggest star of 2016 (following a certain other vain, rich prick who seems primed to get away with murder). It is very strange that the OJ Simpson trial had such a moment in 2016, with the success of the equally lauded The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story. But 2016 was no ordinary year. I watched OJ: Made In America recently, post-election, which made its depiction of systemic injustice and deadly narcissism particularly impacting. We are living in a moment when the bad guys win in the biggest of ways, when our values have been shaken to the core, when everything we thought we knew about our fellow Americans has been decimated. America has proven itself to be a dumber and uglier place than we would have believed. The reasons OJ Simpson got away with murder are direct precedents to the election of our new president, and both are shockingly unfair — and yet, OJ: Made In America traces the path of the former so precisely that we can see how it was inevitable. Maybe in 20 years, a filmmaker as brilliant as Ezra Edelman can help us make sense of what the hell happened to us in 2016. For now, I look at OJ: Made In America as a prequel, of sorts, to that movie. OJ: Made In America contains such multitudes that, for me, at least, it is essential to call it cinema, and laud it as a necessary component of 2016’s legacy in film.

I said before that my Top Ten of 2016 struck a deep personal chord, and while it may seem strange to see much of myself in a documentary about an African-American athlete who was tried for murder, I did go to USC, like OJ did, and have lived most of my adult life in Los Angeles, which is such an integral part of this story. The OJ Simpson trial is one of the first news stories I can remember — Marcia Clark, Johnny Cochran, and Robert Shapiro were celebrities of my childhood, indistinguishable from more legitimately famous figures. A lot of Simpson’s experience is nothing like mine, but I know what it’s like to want to break free from one’s roots. Even tangentially, I’ve lived in OJ’s world enough to know that this documentary captures it with eerie, skin-crawly accuracy.

If the past year has taught me anything, it’s that the bad guys win big sometimes. Despite the infamous 1995 verdict that was almost certainly a miscarriage of justice, OJ: Made In America does end with OJ where he probably belongs — behind bars. It’s a somewhat comforting ending that may restore our faith in the American process. Perhaps justice does arrive in this world, even if it often shows up late. Can we expect the same now, in 2017? Time will tell.

2. JACKIE

“A First Lady must always be prepared to pack her bags. It’s inevitable.”

I debated over this year’s #1 film more than any other year I can think of. My gut tends to tell me what my favorite movie of the year is, and it’s rare for more than one movie per year to punch me in that very same place.

But, like I said before… 2016 was no ordinary year.

If I had to pick one film that screamed “2016!” at the top of its lungs, it would be Jackie. That might seem unusual for a film set in 1963, which shows us both how far we’ve come since then, and how far we haven’t. The JFK assassination was a deep American wound that never healed completely, and now it’s been ripped back open.

Jackie takes place in the week following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, a man who is generally respected and admired as one of the great politicians of the 20th century. His death is one of the most famous murders in history, and one of the most iconic — the motorcade, the president and his wife waving and smiling in the backseat, and of course, Jackie’s iconic pink Chanel dress, which would be stained with blood before the day was over.

The president’s widow spends most of Jackie grieving what she’s lost — not just a husband, but a whole way of life. She believes that Kennedy’s legacy is important, much more important than the man he really was, an infamous philanderer. She wants him remembered like a knight of Camelot, fighting the good fight. It may not be entirely true; nor is it entirely fiction.

But Jackie is more than just a funeral dirge for a fallen figurehead. It depicts the first television broadcast from the White House, nearly 55 years before a man known primarily for his reality TV show would be sworn in as president — having defeated a former First Lady in the election. When Kennedy is killed, Soviet interference is suspected. Jackie shows us a nation in crisis. People are wondering what the hell is going on, when will this madness end?

Though it was never intended to be, Jackie is a requiem for the American dream, which has rarely been in as much jeopardy as it is now, in 2017. The Kennedys would be horrified to learn what has become of this country, and Jackie is a fascinating time capsule that helps us observe the ways in which American politics have always been a frightening and blood-soaked affair, and the ways it used to be more dignified and directed toward a common good. It took over 50 years for the melancholy madness of JFK’s execution to reach its logical conclusion, with a public that has lost faith in its leaders, that is both terrified and desensitized to acts of mayhem, that expects a presidential election to play out like a reality TV show, with a leader who cares only for his own fragile ego. John F. Kennedy fought for Civil Rights. Our current president would prefer to strip them away, after more than half a century of progress (in fits and starts, of course). Russia is again one of our most feared enemies. Jackie Kennedy turned to the press in order to carry on her slain husband’s important legacy; now, it’d be dismissed as “fake news.” Do you think Jackie obsessively counted how many people attended her husband’s funeral procession, and exaggerated the figures by two or three times?

As Natalie Portman’s Jackie mourns a dead husband and the shattering end of the glory of Camelot on what might be the darkest day of the 20th century, I grieved along with her for what we have lost more recently. And I also envied her, for not knowing what was coming… how things would get even darker, still, in the 21st. Jackie’s shell-shocked walk through the White House in a blood-stained pink Chanel suit is, without a doubt, the defining cinematic image of 2016 for me. It exquisitely captures exactly how I’ve felt since November 2016. And I have taken solace in the comfort the priest played by John Hurt offers to the widow, who no longer has much will to live: God ensures that every day contains just enough hope, just enough reason for us to keep on keeping on.

It took Chilean director Pablo Larrain to cut through the artifice that coats most biopics and just show us a widow on a mission, a First Lady who has one final job to do before she’s irrelevant. Larrain’s camera practically stalks Jackie through the White House, in good times and very bad; Jackie is artful to the point of being alienating to impatient modern audiences, weaving back and forth through time and memory. Portman is astounding as Jackie, embodying the woman absolutely, and Mica Levi’s unusual score is hauntingly sublime. Jackie may have narrowly missed being my #1 film of 2016, but it is certainly the film that best depicts how it felt to live through it.

Ever since November, I keep thinking about an “alternate fact”: Hillary Clinton just became President of the United States of America, a former First Lady risen to the leader of the free world, and we all feel really good about it — safe, and secure, and equal. That’s the way it was meant to be. I’m so sure. I still can’t really believe that the world won’t right this terrible wrong and restore order. And that’s only the first stage of grief: denial.

For one brief shining moment, there was Camelot.

And now there’s not.

1. MOONLIGHT

“At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you’re going to be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.”

Films don’t exist in a vacuum. Movies are created based on the history that has come before; alternate histories would create different movies, and a different response to them. I believe that Moonlight was the best movie released in 2016, qualitatively, while Jackie was the best movie of 2016.

What the fuck does that mean?

It means that I really, really wanted to kiss-off 2016 with a film about a First Lady who literally shaped history. With the trauma of an assassination. With a blood-soaked widow stalking through the White House. A big part of me wanted that to be 2016’s cinematic legacy; the legacy it deserved. Fuck you, 2016… here’s Jackie!

But in the end, I just couldn’t. The reason why is Moonlight.

Moonlight is the fourth and final “coming of age” story in my list, though only the middle chapter really qualifies. It is at once specific and universal, telling the story of a boy named Chiron, played alternately by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. Chiron lives in Miami, raised by a single mother in a rough neighborhood. The world doesn’t expect much of him. To most, he’s a nuisance, a target, or a problem waiting to happen. He might end up being another statistic; another drug addict, or another drug dealer. But there are two key figures who see a little deeper into Chiron throughout the course of the film — two men, who see him for who he is. The first is Juan, played all-too-briefly to perfection by Mahershala Ali. Juan merely offers the boy what little help he can — which both isn’t much, and means everything. This is the kind of cliche that has been explored in countless films, but in Moonlight, feels freshly illuminated. A simple act of kindness, of compassion, of love, can alter the course of a man’s entire life.

The film’s three chapters are each titled after the name Chiron goes by at that moment in his life, showing that he assumes at least three different identities along the course of his life. But Moonlight isn’t about a search for identity, so much as it is about a young man who knows his identity, but is unsure how that can reconcile with the circumstances he’s been born into. No one and nothing in Chiron’s world is telling him that it’s okay to be attracted to other boys, until he meets Juan. As a straight black man whose occupation is dealing drugs, Juan is an unlikely candidate to preach self-acceptance to a young gay boy, but that’s just the first way writer/director Barry Jenkins manages to buck our initial judgments and show that every one of us is unique and unpredictable. We look at Chiron’s childhood, at his mother, at his neighborhood, at the color of his skin, and think we know what will become of him. But we don’t. It’s not that he avoids every trap that’s been set for him — it’s that, even when he falls in, there’s a lot more to this young man than meets the eye. To prejudge him would be doing a disservice to ourselves, moreso even than to him, to rob us of the experience of getting to know him.

The film I most regret having to leave off my Top Ten is Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, which is also a coming-of-age story, and one that is also about the impact people we just happen to meet through our lives have on who we become as a person. In a way, it makes a nice companion piece to Moonlight, and several other films on this list. (Consider that an honorable mention.) Moreso than in other years, I am moved by the fates of these characters, at the points at which each of their respective films leave them. Jake the jock, newly infatuated with a pretty girl, in the very early dawn of “finding himself” in college in Everybody Wants Some; Alice in Complete Unknown, walking away from her past once again down a busy sidewalk, on the hunt for a new name and occupation; Closet Monster‘s Oscar, having wrestled the demons within, ready to take on life as a gay adult; Louise, deciding that life is worth living to the fullest despite the emotional agony that requires, in Arrival; Elle‘s Michèle finding solidarity in female friendship, a safe haven in a man’s world; Krisha in Krisha, helplessly succumbing to darkness, unable to quell her destructive impulses and appetite for chaos; Marcus, learning the hard way that going against the grain can come at a high cost, in Indignation; the unlikely superstar who rose from a humble upbringing to transcend low expectations and stark racial boundaries in OJ: Made In America, only to become the ironic embodiment of everything that was fucked up about race relations in the 20th century, and ultimately incarcerated after all; Jackie in Jackie, shaping the narrative of her husband’s legacy for a greater good, wishing she didn’t have to carry on without him, but putting on a brave face for her fatherless children because it’s the proper thing to do. And Chiron. Chiron’s fate at the end of Moonlight is more ambiguous than many of these — like Everybody Wants Some‘s Jake, his polar opposite in my #10 slot, we get the sense that whatever’s coming is just beginning, and we’ve barely seen any of it.

Some of these people suffer much more than others. Some are privileged, some are not. Some have everything, and yet some self-destructive impulse within them destroys it. Some are born with everything against them. Some face unspeakable evils, and yet manage to find a way to carry on. Some make grand gestures that alter the course of history; others just live their lives as humbly as they’re able. Some dream of greatness, but a crueler fate cuts them down to size before they’ve ever had a chance to get there. Some flee their own identities, refusing to accept the rulebook the world has written for them. Some have their whole lives ahead of them. Others don’t.

That’s the most sense I can make out of 2016 at this point. Random chaos and cruel fate, avoided by a lucky few. It is tempting to despair. 2016 was the gloomiest year to come in a long time, and by most standards of measurement, the immediate future looks pretty bleak. It is very difficult to choose a film that doesn’t reflect that as the best movie of 2016 — and perhaps that is why it is all the more important to do so.

Moonlight is a story of hope. It is a story about a young man who grows up with everything against him — no father, a drug addicted mother, poverty, bullying, homophobia. One man reaches out to him as a child and offers what little assistance he can provide — temporary shelter, a hot meal prepared with care, and most importantly, a sympathetic ear. Juan listens to Little and, in his own way, tells the boy it’s okay to be who he is.

That alone isn’t enough to set Chiron’s life on the path of the straight and narrow. He’s still got to get through high school, where he faces the torment of bullies who seize upon the fact that he’s different. Before Chiron has fully accepted and embraced his own identity, the bullies recognize who Chiron is and punish him for it, the same way his mother does, in lesser ways. Juan is gone now, though his kindness resonates through Teresa (Janelle Monae), the girlfriend he left behind who still provides Chiron a home away from home. And that’s enough.

Chiron doesn’t initially choose a path we want to see for him. He follows Juan’s footsteps, earning a living in a way that is dangerous and destructive — at least, for now. But in the film’s final act, as he is invited into another man’s home, offered another hot meal prepared with care, it again offers hope that Chiron can and will make better choices. That, against all odds, he’ll get through this.

Jackie mourns for the past — a perfectly acceptable response, given what’s happened in the present. Moonlight is about moving on. Carrying forward. Moonlight gives us reason to hope for the future.

In the end, I had to choose that — hope and change, and all that. Because what else is there? We live in a nation led by men who want to hold Chiron back — for being black, for being gay, for being poor. They want us all to sit back, while they move forward. If Chiron can avoid all the boody traps that have been set for him and find love in a hopeless place, maybe we can all get through whatever we face… but I don’t know for sure, because Moonlight is just a movie. Still, it won’t hurt to take Moonlight’s lesson to heart. Let’s help who we can, however we can, when they need it. Let’s make things better for each other instead of worse.

Let’s hope.

(Original reviews can be found by clicking film titles.)

The Top 10 Films Of 2015

The Top 10 Films Of 2014

The Top 10 Films Of 2013

The Top 10 Films Of 2012

The Top 10 Films Of 2011

The Top 10 Films Of 2010

The Top 10 Films Of 2009

The Top 10 Films Of 2008

The Top 10 Films Of 2007

The Top 10 Films Of 2006

The Top 10 Films Of 2005

The Top 10 Films Of 2004

The Top 10 Films Of 2003

The Top 10 Films Of 2002

The Top 10 Films Of 2001

“Think I’ll go for a walk outside now,
The summer sun’s calling my name…”

In the latest episode of When We Were Young, Seth, Becky, and Chris discuss what made us laugh the most growing up. If you thought The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996) were the funniest (and most quotable) movies ever made, you’re in good company (with two of our hosts, at least)!Twenty years later, do either of these satirical sitcom adaptations stand the test of time and still make us laugh? Or are they as stale and unfunny as the TV show they’re based on?

Throw on your Sunday best, kids, we’re talking the Brady Brunch movies!

(Listen here or subscribe on iTunes.)

“Search for the Stars is looking for fresh young musical acts. First prize is exactly twenty thousand dollars. Hmm… too bad I’m not a musical act.”

The Brady Bunch Movie
Released: February 17, 1995
Budget: $14 million
Box Office: $54.1 million
Tagline: “They’re back to save America from the 90s.”

So, yes. In junior high I did have a shameless obsession with The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, the fish-out-of-water sitcom adaptations from the mid 90s. It would not surprise me if I’ve seen these movies more than any single other film ever made. Seriously.

Fortunately, I am not alone in my Brady nerdiness, for my co-host Becky shared my nostalgia for all things Brady. (Okay, not all things. It’s not like we got that into the original TV show — except to go back and laugh at all the scenes they mocked in the movies.)

I remember seeing The Brady Bunch Movie in theaters with my mom and sister. (At least, I think I remember this — my caveat for this and every episode of the podcast is that I might be recalling some of the those hazy 80s and 90s memories slightly wrong.) I believe the time-warp of the very 70s Bradys popping up in the 90s particularly appealed to me. I still love a good fish-out-of-water comedy, particularly when there’s a time travel-ish element involved. (I can’t remember the last time I saw a decent movie that actually had such a premise. They’re mostly a relic from the 90s.)

Of course, at the time I wasn’t even quite a teenager yet, which meant that a lot of the movie’s more mature gags went over my head. Still, this was one of the first more “sophisticated” comedies I latched onto — “sophisticated” may seem like a strange word to apply to the spoofy Brady Bunch Movie, but I do think this brand of comedy operates at a fairly high level. (Aside from the Home Alone style physical violence gags I reference in the podcast.)

It would take a while to go over everything I adored about this film — we didn’t even get to everything in the podcast — but in particular, I’ve always enjoyed the hilarious relationship between Marcia and Jan. Their sibling rivalry is relatable, even if exaggerated, and one of the easiest targets to lampoon from the original sitcom. As much as I had a thing for Christine Taylor at this time, Jennifer Elise Cox is the standout comedienne in the cast — her Jan is one of the best comic characters of the 90s, holding her own against any character Chris Farley or Adam Sandler played. She’s both the goofiest Brady character and the soul of the story. Jan is the protagonist of the movie, made clear when the climax hinges on her brief stint as an Afroed teen runaway. (“The new Jan Brady” is, apparently, black.)

But back to Marcia. (Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!) I love that Marcia is both the butt of so many jokes — “she’s harder to get into than a Pearl Jam concert” — and genuinely popular, in her own way. It’s totally believable that she would have a shot with the “big man on campus,” and yet still be as wholesome and naive as the rest of the Brady clan. That brings me to what I truly love about these films, and other favorite mid-90s comedies of mine, including Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion and Clueless. The characters are ridiculous — we’re laughing at them, and the world at large is making fun of them in the film — and yet they exist in a happy bubble, blissfully unaware of how absurd they are. The Brady Bunch may not fit in very well with grungy, mean-spirited 90s Los Angeles, but it’s actually the world around them that needs an attitude adjustment. They’re doing just fine on their own.

A lesser comedy wouldn’t have been able to pull that off. It would have made it seem like there’s something wrong with the Bradys, not something wrong with us. As warped as they seem, the Brady’s loyalty and family values are sort of nice. Maybe we don’t aspire to be exactly like them, but wouldn’t it be nice to have five brothers and sisters, two devoted parents, and even a kindly maid who all have your back?

“Oh my God… I’m tripping with the Bradys.”

A Very Brady Sequel
Released: August 23, 1996
Budget: $12 million
Box Office: $21.4 million
Tagline: “The more everything changes, the more they stay the same.”

I went into the first Brady Bunch Movie merely hoping to enjoy it, and came out a Brady maniac. After the film was released on VHS, I’m pretty sure my sister and I watched it nearly every day one summer. (That was probably the summer of 1996, leading up the release of A Very Brady Sequel.) We also rewound the tape constantly to catch little gags we missed. In retrospect, it’s kind of a marvel no one smothered us in our sleep.

A number of my friends at the time also got into the Brady Bunch movies. Eventually, we’d move on to (slightly) more mature offerings, but this was a nice gateway drug into “adult” humor. A Very Brady Sequel pushes this even further than the original, particularly with the Greg-and-Marcia pseudo-incest plotline. (“Yes, Greg?”) Some small part of me wanted to lip sync one of the Brady songs with 5 friends at a school talent show, even though the rest of me definitely knew I’d be beaten up for it.

“Sunshine Day” and “Keep On” are two delightful numbers from the first movie, but I have to say, A Very Brady Sequel‘s musical moments just barely top them. “Time to Change” is an absurd romp through Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, which is even better than the whole gaggle of Bradys bopping down the escalator at Sears. The real highlight is “Good Time Music,” though, with the Bradys amusing themselves by performing a full on song and dance on an airplane bound for Hawaii. This is the best fish-out-of-water moment in the sequel, which (as pointed out by co-hosts in the podcast) is not as much a feature of the sequel as it was in the original.

Yes, The Brady Bunch Movie is a stronger film overall, while A Very Brady Sequel often feels like a very long episode of an actual sitcom. But it also gives us more of everything that was right in the first film, with less of the physical violence gags that take its predecessor down a notch. That includes Marcia’s ever-more-inflated ego (“I’ll go first ’cause I’m the prettiest”) and Jan’s fake boyfriend, George Glass. (Marcia thinking to herself, “This is all Jan’s fault” is also the perfect summation of their relationship, as is her plea to their faux father: “Take Jan!”)

Everything I loved in The Brady Bunch Movie is repeated and/or turned up a notch, from the music to the RuPaul cameo to the spoofing of ridiculous storylines from the sitcom. Also, it’s notable that both of these films were directed by women (Betty Thomas and Arlene Sanford, respectively), which is pretty rare in 90s comedy.

These remain some of my favorite and most quoted comedies, even though loving them now is slightly embarrassing. The less said about The Brady Bunch In The White House and Growing Up Brady, the better (except in the podcast that I mistakenly said Adrien Brody played Barry Williams/Greg Brady in the latter, when I meant Adam Brody. I would definitely have kept watching if it was Adrien.) Finally, I will direct you to “A House To Die For”, the only episode of Wings I bothered to watch (thanks to some very Brady cameos), and this truly baffling piece of pop culture, which I don’t trust myself to even describe.

Now, if you’ll excuse me… something suddenly came up.When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, shows, and more hold up now.

You can help us defray the costs of creating this show, which include purchasing movies/shows/etc to review, imbibing enough sedatives to take down an elephant, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio Studio in Los Angeles CA, by donating to our Patreon account, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes!

It’s just about Oscar time again — though for once, the Best Picture race isn’t exactly the most disappointing contest I’ll witness over the past year.

At times like these, the Academy Awards feel somewhat frivolous. It’s possible that some likely winners — The Salesman, Mahershala Ali, The White Helmets, OJ: Made In America, and even Zootopia — will have a political charge. We can certainly expect at least a few winners at the podium to speak out against the GOP’s onslaught of intolerance. Still, the main narrative of this Sunday’s Oscars telecast is shaping up to be about escaping these horrors rather than confronting them. I’m finding it difficult to celebrate that.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with escapism — the whole point of going to the movies is to have a good time, whatever that may mean to you — but, for all Tinseltown’s flaws, the powers and persuasions of Hollywood are one of few tools capable of getting messages of diversity and inclusion to the masses (who, we’ve learned increasingly in recent months, so obviously need them). Wouldn’t it be nice if, this year of all years, Hollywood did something besides masturbate to itself in the mirror?

I’m not picking on La La Land, a well-intentioned and intermittently charming film that would be a lot less egregious a Best Picture winner if it didn’t follow a whole slew of other Best Picture winners that might as well have also been titled La La Land. The sum total of recent self-congratulatory Best Picture winners — Argo, The Artist, Birdman — are not a good look when compared to the Best Picture winners that are about something besides the noble sacrifices of filmmakers. Spotlight, 12 Years A Slave, The Hurt Locker.

Most years, this is merely irritating. This year, it’s a true shame.

It doesn’t feel like a great time to stick our heads in the La La sand.

That said, the crop of nominees from 2016 is, overall, a respectable bunch. An encouraging number of people of color were nominated, compared to the “so whiteness” of the past couple years. Three films in the Best Picture race are solely centered on African-Americans, while another is about an Indian-Australian. Women play prominent roles in many of these movies. One of the most nominated films of the year is a stirring homosexual romance. That’s progress, when compared to the overwhelming straight white maleness of the past couple of years.

As usual, my personal picks have a fair amount of overlap with the Academy’s in certain places, and almost none elsewhere. Certain 2016 nominees feel fresh and exciting and progressive — Moonlight, Hell Or High Water, Arrival, and in some ways (and certainly not in others), Hidden Figures — while others feel like throwbacks to another era, a world we may have left behind. Some are clinging to the Hacksaw Ridges and La La Lands and Lions, films that remind us of movies we’ve seen before, movies have already won Oscars. A movie like Moonlight has never won a Best Picture Oscar, and it doesn’t look like it will this year, either. But the fact that it got close — while no real consolation — means we can hope to still get there next time, or the time after that.

While Hollywood tends to be a pretty progressive industry, at least in comparison to the country as a whole, the split we see between traditional picks and those that push boundaries is reminiscent of the national mood. I don’t want to hang too many politics on a bunch of filmmakers voting for their favorite movie of the year, but like the United States as a whole, the Academy doesn’t seem quite ready to move on from what used to be “great.” A lot of people want to proudly embrace the diversity represented in Moonlight, but not quite enough.

It reminds me of a certain other disappointing vote this year.

And on that cheerful note, I give to you my Not-Oscars for the film year 2016! (You can check out my Top Ten here.)

BEST ACTRESS

Natalie Portman, Jackie
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Tilda Swinton, A Bigger Splash
Krisha Fairchild, Krisha
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women

Honorable Mention: Ruth Negga, Loving; Rebecca Hall, Christine

I have bestowed kudos upon seven actresses in total above, and still it was painful to not include three others amongst them. (Here’s lookin’ at you, Amy Adams and Jessica Chastain and Sally Field!) I was also a fan of Emma Stone’s likely-to-win work in La La Land, moreso than I was a fan of that film as a whole.

The year’s most dismaying snub was Annette Bening in 20th Century Women, who does some of the best work of her career as a mother struggling with her son’s fitful transition into a man. Mike Mills’ previous film won Christopher Plummer an Oscar for playing a prototype of his father; Bening should have at least scored a nomination for playing a version of his mom. (Did Meryl really need that nod for Florence Foster Jenkins?) Krisha introduced me to Krisha Fairchild, a dynamo who goes on quite the emotional journey one Thanksgiving; the part was written for her by her nephew, the film’s director, who surrounded her with fellow family members to act opposite of (and it worked!). Less of a revelation was Tilda Swinton, of course, because she’s always excellent, but A Bigger Splash brought out a new side, as Swinton’s rock star encounters laryngitis and therefore mimes or croaks most of her performances. It’s good stuff. Huppert scored a nomination for a role that easily could have proved too much of a turn-off for the Academy — a “victim” of rape in name only, who has a very unconventional response to the attack. She’s icy and intimidating, but also vulnerable enough that we worry she could still be in jeopardy. It’s a rare female part that doesn’t subscribe to any particular genre tropes.

Truly, each and every one of these is an award-worthy performance. But the one that looms over them all is Natalie Portman’s haunting transformation into Jackie Kennedy. There are those out there who find the performance overcooked; this may be because Jackie’s own role as First Lady — perhaps her whole identity — was a performance, and was also overcooked. Portman has her work cut out for her just nailing that strange, strange accent, but she doesn’t stop at mere imitation. There’s a well of anger and sadness under this grieving widow, as well there should be — not just because she lost her husband. The pain of her marriage is in there, too. Portman’s Jackie is both elusive and emotionally raw. It is easily the best of the year.

If Portman didn’t have an Oscar already, she’s probably win it this year. Having won recently, it will almost certainly go to Emma Stone.

BEST ACTOR

Andrew Garfield, Silence
Denzel Washington, Fences
Jesse Plemons, Other People
Logan Lerman, Indignation
Connor Jessup, Closet Monster

Honorable Mention: Ethan Hawke, Born To Be Blue; Joel Edgerton, Loving

To be honest, I could have filled the Best Actress category twice before I got to any lead male performers I felt as passionately about this year. Some years, you get Bruce Dern in Nebraska and Chiwetel Ejiofer in 12 Years A Slave and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf Of Wall Street all at once (all deservedly nominated — and none of them even won). Other years, great lead performances slip past the Academy’s radar altogether, like last year’s Michael B. Jordan in Creed or the previous year’s Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler.

Any of those performances would have easily topped my list had they come in 2016, but instead this year easily belongs to the ladies — which isn’t to say the men didn’t do solid work. Joel Edgerton said little but held the screen a lot in Jeff Nichols’ understated Loving, infusing a simple man with quiet dignity. Ethan Hawke embodied the tortured jazz musician Chet Baker (blowing Ryan Gosling’s hipster wannabe in La La Land out of the water); in Born To Be Blue, his Baker struggles to stay clean and re-learn the craft that made him a sensation after a devastating injury makes it unlikely he’ll ever play the same way again. For a while, I figured I should put these acclaimed performers in the main list above younger newcomers, but then I remembered that this is my list and I can do what I want.

Connor Jessup plays a conflicted gay teen who may or may not be driven to commit an act of violence in Closet Monster, as well as in Season Two of ABC’s American Crime, which also aired in 2016. The characters are similar enough that it almost feels like one performance, though the stories go in starkly different directions. Is this my way of sneaking a TV endorsement into a post about the Oscars? Maybe kind of! Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing what Jessup does next.

Logan Lerman impressed playing the headstrong Jewish college student in Indignation, a difficult role to make endearing (to the audience) but off-putting enough to the film’s antagonist, a Christian dean who unfortunately bears a lot of resemblance to politicians we’ve seen take the national stage recently. It took two viewing of Other People to fully appreciate the stellar work Jesse Plemons does there — Molly Shannon, as his dying mother, has the showier role, but Plemons injects the gay comedy writer who sits by her side with humor and pathos that feel utterly true-to-life. His freak-out over where to find the laxatives in a drug store is awards-worthy all on its own. And Denzel Washington, a likely winner for the actual Best Actor statue, can’t be written off for his towering portrayal of a flawed father in Fences. Washington won a Tony for the same role, and you can tell — it would be impossible to deliver a performance this lived-in without months of practice.

Ultimately, though, my favorite lead male performance of the year is Andrew Garfield’s — but not in Hacksaw Ridge, the one he’s actually Oscar-nominated for. (He’s good there, but it’s a very simple character.) Martin Scorsese’s Silence is a long meditation on complex issues of faith, one I found only intermittently engaging. But to the extent that it worked, it did so because of Garfield. Garfield commits utterly to his characters’ unwavering faith, bringing across the necessary depths of passion his missionary must feel about his religion — then, the agony and torture of watching innocent people die for those same beliefs. Garfield’s luxurious, Jesus-like locks cast him as a perfect protagonist for a spiritual drama. I even believed he could be Portuguese.

The actual Best Actor race comes down to Washington versus Casey Affleck. I liked Affleck well enough, but Washington’s command of the screen in his most intense scenes was more impressive.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Ashton Sanders, Moonlight
Trevante Rhodes, Moonlight
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Honorable Mention: Lucas Jade Zumann, 20^th Century Women; André Holland, Moonlight

I was impressed by Lucas Jade Zumann’s anchoring performance as an angsty teen in 20^th Century Women, holding his own opposite such formidable talents as Greta Gerwig and Annette Bening. I also delighted in Michael Shannon’s slightly scenery-chewing work in Nocturnal Animals, playing a gritty Texas detective. It’s very similar to the role Jeff Bridges was nominated for in Hell Or High Water, which I also enjoyed — but I gave the edge to Shannon because he also starred in one of my favorite films of the year, Complete Unknown, and went unfortunately unrecognized last year for 99 Homes also. I was certainly tempted to pick Ralph Fiennes’ truly magnificent work in A Bigger Splash, if only for all the kooky dancing. As we learned well in Schindler’s List, Fiennes’ plays a slimeball to perfection, and though his music producer character in A Bigger Splash is several shades less monstrous than a trigger-happy Nazi, we can tell he delights in driving a wedge between his ex-girlfriend and her sober beau, who seem otherwise quite happy. (That, and he seems to be perving on his own teen daughter, which again has an unfortunate echo in today’s White House.)

Yet despite plenty of solid performances elsewhere, I honestly could have filled this entire category with the male cast of Moonlight. Even with three Moonlight actors in my Top 5 supporting performances and one more in my honorable mentions, I still had to leave out solid work from such performers as Alex Hibbert (who plays Little in the film’s first section) and Jharrel Jerome (the second Kevin).

I’m incredibly hopeful that Mahershala Ali manages to win in this category at the Oscars — the Moonlight cast deserves at least one Academy Award amongst them. (Sorry, Hidden Figures, you were delightful — but that SAG Award really belongs to this ensemble.) Ali sets a wonderful tone for the story that follows in his brief but gripping turn in Moonlight. If this character didn’t work, for some reason, the whole movie wouldn’t. However, I was ever-so-slightly more impressed by the actors who played the protagonist in the film’s last two segments. Trevante Rhodes is a very good-looking man, and when we first glimpse him in the Moonlight‘s third chapter, I was like, “Wait — what?” It’s a jarring transition from the awkward, scrawny boy we’ve been following. I was devastated that Moonlight had taken such a sharp wrong turn.

But within moments, Rhodes had me back on board. Despite his good looks and charisma, he’s believably vulnerable as a gay man who is concealing his full identity for reasons we don’t entirely know. Is it because of his work? His mother? Or is he just waiting for “the one” to come back into his life? The answer is suggested by Rhodes’ performance in the final act, which feels very much like an extension of Sanders’ and Hibbert’s performances despite the physical differences between them.

For money, I found Sanders in the film’s second chapter to be the most compelling Chiron of all. He carries the film’s most outwardly emotional scenes — quietly mourning his departed father figure, figuring out how to manage his crack-addled mother, experiencing his first love and first betrayal in heartbreaking succession, and allowing his anger to make a decision with massive consequences for him. Sanders does all this with so little dialogue, carrying it all on his face, behind his eyes, in his body language. I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted to reach through a movie screen and give a character a hug more than I did with Ashton Sanders’ Chiron.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Molly Shannon, Other People
Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women
Riley Keough, American Honey
Viola Davis, Fences
Sarah Gadon, Indignation

Honorable Mention: Janelle Monáe, Hidden Figures; Rachel Weisz, The Lobster

The clearest frontrunner in the entire Oscar race is Viola Davis for Best Supporting Actress. Anyone betting against her is, quite simply, nuts. (This is largely due to the fact that she has approximately 400 times as much screen time as Michelle Williams in Manchester By The Sea, and legitimate doubt about whether she should have been run as a Best Actress.) I can imagine plenty of actresses making that role in Fences feel like a supporting part — but not Viola. She acts the shit out of every moment, because that’s what she does. When thinking about Fences, we sometimes have to remind ourselves that the movie isn’t all about her. Maybe it is a supporting part; maybe it’s just that they got a lead actress to play it.

No matter — credit where credit is due. Viola Davis is a phenomenal actress, and it’ll be nice to see her get the Oscar she should’ve nabbed from Meryl for The Help. (Not because The Help was such a great movie, but because The Iron Lady was such a bad one.) My other favorite supporting actresses went unrecognized by the Academy. That includes Sarah Gadon as Olivia in Indignation, who at first seems like the kind of banal love interest we expect in a period romance, but gradually reveals deeply layered complexities and an admirable level of pride. (She has an anachronistic but appropriate response to being slut shamed.) It’s hard to ignore a woman in a Confederate flag bikini, and that’s exactly the kind of performance Riley Keogh gives in American Honey — she’s a scene stealer, a total delight in every moment, a businesswoman we both respect and mistrust. Greta Gerwig makes my Not-Oscars list for the third year running, following Frances Ha and Mistress America with a multifacted role as a 1979 feminist punk-loving cancer survivor and photographer. She plays the character so well, you sometimes wish the whole movie were about her. (But that’s true of everyone in that film.)

Only one of these performance felt like a true revelation, however. Last year, an actress known primarily for comedic TV roles was overlooked for a bravura performance as a mother fighting a losing battle with cancer, a performance that showed a level of range from her we’d never seen. That was James White‘s Cynthia Nixon, and this year it’s Other People‘s Molly Shannon. (Both women were honored with an Independent Spirit Award nomination, at least.) It’s not a shock that Shannon can be very sad, in addition to being very funny — I’ve seen her do that in Year Of The Dog and HBO’s Enlightened. But, like Swinton in A Bigger Splash, Shannon does a lot of her acting here without much of a voice. Between these women and Moonlight, it was clearly a very good year for the soft-spoken.
BEST DIRECTOR

Pablo Larrain, Jackie
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Denis Villenueve, Arrival
Trey Edward Shults, Krisha
Mike Mills, 20^th Century Women

Honorable Mention: Luca Guadagnino, A Bigger Splash; Andrea Arnold, American Honey

Again, it was a tough call between Moonlight and Jackie for me. And since I crowned Moonlight my #1 of the year, I decided that Pablo Larrain gets the edge as Best Director. This is partially because he delivered three films that opened in the United States last year — one of which, Neruda, was quite beautiful and stirring in its own right, even if it doesn’t come together as masterfully as Jackie. (I haven’t seen The Club.) His Darren Aronofsky-like stalking of a bloodstained Natalie Portman through the White House is chilling, portraying this American tragedy in fragmented snatches of memory that come across almost like a horror movie. He’s the filmmaker I discovered in 2016 for whom I most looking forward to seeing what comes next.

That shouldn’t discount the marvelous Barry Jenkins and his achievement in Moonlight. Something about Moonlight is so intimate that it almost feels more like live theater than a movie, even though Jenkins’ cinematography is strikingly beautiful and cinematic. There’s no question that a masterful storyteller had to be behind Moonlight in order to get everything so right. I have been a major fan of Denis Villeneuve for the past several years — his films have made my Top 10 list three years in a row — and, in contrast to 2014’s unsettling Enemy and 2015’s sinister Sicario, Arrival is a beautiful and hopeful story that I saw in a moment I needed it most. It shows that Villeneuve can do optimism as well as despair and moral murkiness, which means he’s the closest thing we’ve got to the Next David Fincher.

Big ups to Trey Edward Shults, who I’ve praised a lot for his curiously good achievement in Krisha, directing a cast of his family members in their own house for a mere 9 days and coming out with something as original and compelling as Krisha. I loved the quiet yet epic balance of tone Mike Mills managed to convey in 20th Century Women, which gave us both the little details of some ordinary lives as well as a big picture macro view of where these characters might end up. Luca Guadagnino’s style was on full display in the splashy A Bigger Splash, which veers between genres haphazardly but remains utterly watchable throughout. Andrea Arnold’s American Honey is long and messy and somewhat rambling, and yet I haven’t been able to shake the film’s characters and spirit from my mind. It all feels so true and lived-in, it might as well be a documentary.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Moonlight, Barry Jenkins and Tarrell McCraney
Arrival, Eric Heisserer
Indignation, James Schamus
Elle, David Birke
Hello, My Name is Doris, Laura Terruso and Michael Showalter

Honorable Mention: Nocturnal Animals, Tom Ford; The Handmaiden, Park Chan-Wook

Nocturnal Animals is a curious story-within-a-story that doesn’t totally pay off, but I loved the daring ending and Tom Ford’s overall writing. Park Chan-Wook’s tricky The Handmaiden certainly took some careful crafting. The Academy’s rules once again get in my way, because Hello, My Name Is Doris is considered an adapted screenplay even though it is based on a short film by Laura Terruso, which is an original story. Oh well. This light comedy is a pure delight from start to finish, one of my favorite escapist entertainments of the year. Elle grapples with some dreary, dark subject matter and keeps us constantly guessing, managing a nimble, almost comedic tone in spite of the material. Adapting Philip Roth novels hasn’t been easy for Hollywood, which is why James Schamus’ fascinating take on Indignation is all the more impressive. It’s both perfectly cinematic and novelistic, with one 12-minute scene between hero and antagonist that is largely lifted directly from the book. I nearly chose Eric Heisserer’s Arrival as my favorite because of the degree of difficulty of writing it — it hinges on a mystery and plays with time in interesting ways, and the fact that it packs such an emotional whallop despite that is a sign of a great storyteller.

But no surprise here: Moonlight pops up again, despite some confusion about how “adapted” it really is (based on McCraney’s unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue). In many scenes, the script’s dialogue is spare — which is what makes the gems, like Mahershala Ali’s monologuet that invokes the film’s title, all the more shimmering. Every word counts — the lead character through all three segments is not what you’d call a chatty Kathy, but when he does speak, it’s so heartfelt and honest and meticulously crafted. Arrival is a more ambitious story and a showier achievement in screenwriting, but the biggest challenge for a screenwriter is to allow your characters to say everything while actually saying very little. Jenkins and McCraney chose their words carefully, and they chose all the rights ones. I can’t think of a single moment in Moonlight‘s screenplay I’d want to polish. (And that’s saying a lot, coming from me.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Other People, Chris Kelly
20th Century Women, Mike Mills
Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade
Everybody Wants Some, Richard Linklater
Hell Or High Water, Taylor Sheridan

Honorable Mention: Jackie, Noah Oppenheim; Born To Be Blue, Robert Burdreau

I always have a bit of a bias when it comes to Original Screenplays. Well-known stories, even if not specifically adapted from a book or another work, have a certain amount of their characters and story structure in place before the writer even begins, which has more in common with an adaptation than a truly original screenplay. That’s largely why Noah Oppenheim’s Jackie, one of my favorite films of the year, doesn’t rank a bit higher. (Ditto Born To Be Blue, though that took a few more liberties with its fiction.)

That’s why, for my own awards, I decided to celebrate full-on originality. Hell Or High Water was a perfectly calibrated Western thriller with compelling characters on both sides of the law. As a big Linklater fan, I appreciated the easy camaraderie he managed to build into all the bro bonding of Everybody Wants Some. Toni Erdmann is one of the most original films of the year. Its script is shaggy and overlong, but comes up with such wonderfully hilarious ideas that it can’t be discounted. 20th Century Women is at once a deeply personal story and a universal one, with subtle moments beautifully crafted by Mills.

My favorite this year, however, has a bit of a bias — I read the script long before seeing the film and connected to it immediately. As directed by the writer, Kelly’s Other People easily lives up to that strong screenplay, with a perfect blend of light-hearted comedy and crushing sadness. This mix alone isn’t necessarily novel, but it gets the balance just right, with a hilarious supporting character in the flamboyant gay pre-teen as well as one of the year’s most touching bits of dialogue, as David’s friend Gabe explains his attachments to birch trees. (It’s also Gabe who makes the astute point that gives this film its perfect title.)

Other People is currently streaming on Netflix, awaiting your discovery. Get to it.

BEST ENSEMBLE

Moonlight
Everybody Wants Some!!
Krisha
A Bigger Splash
20^th Century Women

The comedic ensemble of Everybody Wants Some is pitch perfect (save one overcooked character who comes across as a tad too broad to be believable). Krisha uses a cast comprised largely of non-actors to surprisingly great effect — including one with Alzheimer’s who may not have even known she was giving a performance. The central quartet of A Bigger Splash is a delight — Dakota Johnson, Matthias Schoenarts, Tilda Swinton, and Ralph Fiennes imbue the project with steamy, sexy intrigue. And the 20th Century Women are joined by a couple very capable men for a quintet that is just sublime.

But there was no contest about which cast rises far above the rest. Moonlight isn’t just the best acting ensemble of 2016 — it is, quite frankly, one of the best acting ensembles I’ve ever seen in a movie, which is all the more impressive given that I was familiar with almost none of these actors before seeing the film. I’d seen Mahershala Ali and André Holland before, but I wouldn’t have been able to name them. I knew Janelle Monae as a musician, but had never seen her act. The only cast member I was really familiar with was Naomie Harris. Yet in all three sections of the film, I was constantly blown away by how much I connected to the characters on screen. I’ve praised this cast enough above — no need to go into another Moonlight love fest. But what a cast.

BEST SCORE

Money Monster, Dominic Lewis
Arrival, Johann Johannsson
Jackie, Mica Levi
Moonlight, Nicholas Brittel
Knight Of Cups, Hanan Townshend

The score and cinematography of Knight Of Cups are so incredibly beautiful that I have an urge to strip out the dialogue and leave it playing in my home 24/7 as a piece of video art, just forgetting entirely that it’s supposed to be a movie. Moonlight‘s distinct and haunting score sets a gorgeous tone for that gorgeous story — it’s almost impossible to imagine the movie without it. I love Mica Levi’s offbeat compositions for Jackie, which immediately clue us in that this is no biopic even before we’ve seen the first image of the film. For a split second, the strings are upbeat and optimistic — and then it all goes horribly downhill. Arrival was unfortunately shut out of the Academy’s nominations due to the fact that some of its “score” was an existing piece of music (also used in Shutter Island, incidentally); that’s too bad, because the part of the score that actually is original is as original as a film score can be. As mentioned before, it’s the perfect “WTF is happening?” soundtrack for 2016.

But if we’re being honest, the film score I’ve listened to the most, over and over, is Dominic Lewis’ score to Jodie Foster’s hostage thriller Money Monster. A great movie? Money Monster is not. (A guilty pleasure, at best.) But its energetic score is riveting — it’s become one of my go-to “get it done” soundtracks.

BEST POLITICAL FANTASY

Miss Sloane
Arrival
The Witch
Neruda
Zootopia

BEST POLITICAL REALITY

Jackie
Weiner
13th
Southside With You
Barry

WORST POLITICAL REALITY

All of 2016

BEST DOUBLE FEATURE

Barry & Southside With You

BEST MOTHER

Amy Adams, Arrival
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Molly Shannon, Other People
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans

WORST MOTHER

Kate Dickie, The Witch
Krisha Fairchild, Krisha
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Linda Emond, Indignation
Laura Linney, Nocturnal Animals

BEST FATHER (OR FATHER FIGURE)

Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Peter Simonischek, Toni Erdmann
Ron Suskind, Life, Animated
Michael Shannon, Midnight Special
Gabriel Byrne, Louder Than Bombs

WORST FATHER (OR FATHER FIGURE)

OJ Simpson, OJ: Made In America
Ralph Ineson, The Witch
Aaron Abrams, Closet Monster
Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash
Casey Affleck, Manchester By The Sea

BEST PET

Buffy the hamster, Closet Monster

WORST PET

Black Phillip the goat, The Witch

BEST KISS

Moonlight
Hello, My Name Is Doris
Closet Monster
La La Land
Southside With You

BEST FUCK

American Honey
A Bigger Splash
Julieta
The Handmaiden
Hell Or High Water

WORST FUCK

King Cobra
The Neon Demon
Elle
Sunset Song
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

MOST AWKWARD OR UNFORTUNATE HOOKUP (OR ATTEMPTED HOOKUP)

Weiner
Indignation
Maggie’s Plan
The Edge Of Seventeen
Manchester By The Sea

BEST MUSICAL MOMENT

“The Greatest Love Of All,” Toni Erdmann
“City Of Stars,” La La Land
“Equal Rights,” Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
“Drive It Like You Stole It,” Sing Street
“Rapper’s Delight,” Everybody Wants Some

BEST FAKE POP/ROCK STAR(S)

The Style Boyz, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Baby Goya & the Nuclear Winters, Hello My Name Is Doris
Sing Street, Sing Street
Marianne Lane, A Bigger Splash
Chet Baker, Born To Be Blue

WORST FAKE POP/ROCK STAR(S)

The Messengers, La La Land
Florence Foster Jenkins, Florence Foster Jenkins
Destiny’s Child, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
The Ain’t Rights, Green Room
The Joker (?), Suicide Squad

THE 2016 ROSTER

Here’s every movie I saw from 2016, ranked by how much I liked them.

1. Moonlight
2. Jackie
3. OJ: Made In America
4. Krisha
5. Arrival
6. Indignation
7. Elle
8. Closet Monster
9. Complete Unknown
10. Everybody Wants Some!!
11. 20th Century Women
12. A Bigger Splash
13. Other People
14. Born To Be Blue
15. American Honey
16. Toni Erdmann
17. Christine
18. Miss Sloane
19. 13th
20. Manchester By The Sea
21. Hell Or High Water
22. Hello, My Name Is Doris
23. Silence
24. Loving
25. Nocturnal Animals
26. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
27. The Witch
28. The Handmaiden
29. The Lobster
30. Weiner
31. Southside With You
32. Maggie’s Plan
33. Louder Than Bombs
34. The Neon Demon
35. Lion
36. Hidden Figures
37. Sing Street
38. La La Land
39. Fences
40. A Man Called Ove
41. Sully
42. The Edge Of Seventeen
43. Captain America: Civil War
44. Sunset Song
45. Neruda
46. The Light Between Oceans
47. Love & Friendship
48. Zootopia
49. Barry
50. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
51. Julieta
52. Things To Come
53. 10 Cloverfield Lane
54. The Meddler
55. Life, Animated
56. The Nice Guys
57. Deadpool
58. The Birth Of A Nation
59. Hacksaw Ridge
60. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
61. Eye In The Sky
62. The Hunt For The Wilderpeople
63. Snowden
64. Aquarius
65. The Fits
66. Midnight Special
67. Captain Fantastic
68. Green Room
69. Money Monster
70. Florence Foster Jenkins
71. Knight Of Cups
72. Demolition
73. High-Rise
74. Triple 9
75. Hail, Caesar!
76. Bad Moms
77. Equity
78. King Cobra
79. Swiss Army Man
80. Suicide Squad
81. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
*

The Not-Oscars 2015

The Not-Oscars 2014

The Not-Oscars 2013

What a night!

Leave it to a telecast celebrating the films of 2016 to have a shocking surprise in store at the end. Last year, the modest Spotlight bested the bombastic The Revenant in the Best Picture race, even after Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won Best Director. This wasn’t a total shocker, because The Revenant was a more divisive film than Spotlight, which everyone pretty much agreed was at least good. But I predicted The Revenant in my Oscar pool because I was being a realist — and also because I convinced myself that predicting the movie I wanted to win would mean it wasn’t going to. Ju

This year, like most prognosticators, I predicted La La Land, taking the same strategy. Again, the film I actually wanted and hoped would win did.

Apparently, there is something to my theory after all.

You’re welcome, Moonlight.

All kidding aside, tonight feels historic — not only because of the unprecedented blunder of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway receiving the wrong envelope. Much is being dissected about that snafu, which was possibly one of the most thrilling televised moments I’ve personally ever seen. (I don’t watch sports. The Oscars are my sports. Just imagine a game-changing 9th inning touchdown, or whatever.)

I certainly don’t need to get into the envelope mix-up here, as everyone is already buzzing about it. What I want to talk about is what will matter when this story dies down — Moonlight, winning Best Picture.Since this past November, many of us have felt unsettled. Our understanding of what is even possible in this country has been challenged and defied. We can expect plenty more of the same coming down the pipeline for the next few years.

This year, in particular, it was difficult to hope another high-stakes vote would turn out the way I’d like to. Of course, I know who is elected the leader of our country has a lot more consequence than which movie wins Best Picture at the Oscars. Would I rather live in a world where Hillary Clinton is president and La La Land wins Best Picture? You bet.

But still. Now, of all times, it feels very important that it’s Moonlight.

Had Moonlight been called as Best Picture straightaway, without the erroneous La La Land win stealing its thunder first, it would have been a wonderful moment. But the fact that La La Land was announced as Best Picture, as we expected — and we were midway through the acceptance speeches when there was a flurry of strangeness on stage and Jordan Horowitz had to make it clear that no, actually, Moonlight was winner — well, it felt like fate intervening, saying, “Hey, wait a second… that isn’t right. Let’s correct this.”It’s particularly ironic, coming during the coronation of a film which ends with a flash to an “alternate universe” where Seb and Mia end up happily in love, for fate to have that ripped away and present us with a more bittersweet reality. That’s exactly what we saw play out on stage — history going the way we expect it to go, according to schedule — and then it just stopped, and something better happened.

I wish fate showed up a few months earlier and chose its contest more selectively. A “Gotcha! It’s Hillary!” would have been so right, so satisfying. So many of us were in denial that the election went the way it did, for weeks and months after, it seemed like surely something would come along and save us before inauguration. Revelations about Russian interference? Jill Stein’s recount? The electoral college deciding not to vote for that creep after all? It’s still shocking that things turned out the way they did.

Moonlight is the first Best Picture winner centered on gay characters, and the first about black people that isn’t explicitly about slavery, Civil Rights, or race in general. It cost less than $2 million, and was clearly made with genuine passion and heart. Moonlight is based on an unproduced play that is semi-autobiographical, directed by a filmmaker very few of us had heard of a year ago. Hardly anyone in its cast was a recognizable name to most moviegoers last year. Not everyone loves it, but few have anything truly disparaging to say about it. It’s one of the most critically acclaimed films released in ages. So you can’t attribute Moonlight‘s win to any of the usual scapegoats — Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood being out of touch, huge awards campaign budgets, Academy voters loving to see themselves reflected on screen, a former nominee being awarded for a lesser work. This one is based purely on the quality of the movie.Moonlight had to be a fucking incredible film to get as far as it did, and it is. You don’t make a movie about gay black men thinking you’ll be a hit at the box office. You don’t make a movie like Moonlight thinking you’ll ever win an Oscar for it, or even that most people will ever hear about it. That’s why Moonlight‘s victory is so victorious — it is really, truly earned. It’s a fantastic Best Picture winner.

Some may consider Moonlight‘s win a political statement against the current White House, an over-correction for the last couple years’ #OscarsSoWhite controversy. But if that’s all it is, why Moonlight? Why not Fences or Hidden Figures, which had bigger budgets and bigger stars and a hell of a lot more marketing? Many voters probably considered the fact that this was a film that honors both African-Americans and LGBTQ people before filling out their ballots, but I don’t buy that as the primary reason the Academy went for it. Voters should take a pause and think about what kind of statement they’re making when they select the winners.La La Land plays into some of the worst stereotypes about Oscar voters — the voting body that chose The Artist, Argo, and Birdman, none of which are, on their own merits, true artistic classics. Hollywood has become one of few voices standing strongly against the actions of the current president and his administration, and it would have been a shame to see Tinseltown award such a nostalgic throwback (“Make musicals great again!”) at this moment. Those of us on the right side of history need to celebrate all the diversity we can, as loudly as possible. For all its charms and merits, La La Land doesn’t do that.

So when fate intervened and literally ripped those golden statuettes out of the La La Land producers’ hands, it felt like a belated righting of all the wrongs we’ve witnessed over the last few months. My jaw dropped. I was confused, but ecstatic. It was like a genie had appeared to grant a wish right before my eyes. Like magic.

I felt like I’d won Best Picture.

No, Moonlight winning Best Picture doesn’t actually do anything for us in the here and now. But as long as there are movies, people will see its name amidst some of the most popular and beloved films of all time. This win will get people who would never watch Moonlight to watch Moonlight. I don’t know that one film alone can change anyone’s mind about politics, but if one can, Moonlight isn’t a bad bet. It’s about empathy, about understanding the life of a man who, on the surface, is very different from most of us, yet relatable to nearly all in the way his story is presented.

I don’t expect the Rust Belt to rush out and buy up all available copies of Moonlight. I don’t expect hearts and minds across the nation to suddenly shift, all thanks to Barry Jenkins. But more people will see Moonlight now, plain and simple, and that’s a good thing. Producers and studios will look at that win, and maybe decide it is worth taking a chance on making more films about black or gay people — or black and gay people. Through no fault of its own, necessarily, La La Land didn’t have the message Hollywood and America needed to send out to the world in 2017. Moonlight did.But let me be clear: La La Land is not the Donald Trump of movies. This year, that would have been something with far fewer redeeming qualities, something brash and obnoxious like Batman V Superman or Suicide Squad (which, unfortunately, really did win an Oscar). Damien Chazzelle’s depiction of Seb as the self-proclaimed white savior of jazz isn’t great, and the problems of the film’s central dreamers pale in comparison to — well, every other Best Picture nominee, frankly.

As a Best Picture winner, La La Land would have been in trouble, subject to a legacy of vitriol that currently gets spent mostly on Crash. (I remain a fan of Crash, for the record, and still like it better than Brokeback Mountain, though the latter would have been a perfectly worthy Best Picture winner, too.) As a Best Picture loser, La La Land is free to go back to being a pretty okay original musical with a lot to like about it.

In fact, after the Oscars telecast and Moonlight‘s stunning victory, I was struck by an inexplicable urge to watch… yes, La La Land. Maybe because Jordan Horowitz and his team handled the eleventh hour defeat with such grace, and I found myself feeling a lot of unexpected sympathy and respect for them. Suddenly, La La Land was the underdog — you had to feel kind of bad for those guys, experiencing the greatest triumph of their careers, then learning that they actually hadn’t — live on television in front of millions of people. La La Land is a much better underdog than it would be a Best Picture winner. It’s a movie about the setbacks and disappointments that accompany a life of reaching for the stars. Having rewatched La La Land just now, I can tell you that those setbacks and disappointments play a lot better when the film itself a loser.

(A loser that killed at the box office, is admired by many critics and audiences, and won six other Oscars, that is.)

Moonlight‘s Best Picture win allowed me to forgive La La Land‘s shortcomings and just enjoy it in a way I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. I imagine the same will be true for many others who were somewhat underwhelmed by the film and cursed its likely win. I honestly believe that losing Best Picture is the best thing that could possibly have happened to Damien Chazelle and La La Land in the long run.

Despite the fuck ups, the net effect of the Oscars telecast was simply beautiful. Viola Davis is an incredible actress who deserves at least one Academy Award. Casey Affleck was quite good in Manchester By The Sea, if not so great in real life. Emma Stone did so much to enhance La La Land’s strengths — she made us feel for her in a way that her male counterpart did not. (Perhaps because of the writing, perhaps because of the acting — most likely, because of both.) And Mahershala Ali is a revelation to many of this year — can you imagine how his career path will change now? I hope there are more great things in store for this charismatic actor.

OJ: Made In America may or may not be a movie, but obviously the Academy and I agree that it can be. I didn’t love the way every single category panned out, but I can honestly say that looking down the list of the night’s winners makes me really happy. It’s the most satisfying the Oscars have been in quite some time.

These are hard times for anyone who isn’t a heterosexual white Christian, and for those who care about people who don’t happen to fit in this narrow box. We needed a victory right now. I needed a victory. This is important, not just because my favorite film of the year won Best Picture, and not just because Moonlight, in some ways, represents me in a way that no other Best Picture winner ever has.

Many people out there in the world need to know that, for all the recent setbacks and problems we have yet to solve, diverse voices still can rise up out of nowhere and end up being broadcast to the entire world. I’m so happy that message got out there, despite under the weirdest and most dramatic of circumstances. Moonlight is the kind of movie I want to see more of and the kind of movie I want to make. It gives me great hope that such a thing has been so celebrated by the industry’s foremost artists and professionals.

I don’t equate my own struggles with any other group — African-American, or Muslim, or women. We’ve all got our own problems, some more serious than others, all worthy of being heard. Yet in the past few months, I’ve felt a swell of solidarity with everyone else out there who is vulnerable under this administration, and everyone who supports us. Last year, Moonlight was the film that best spoke to that, in its own simple and understated way. I’m always glad when diversity is deservedly rewarded, but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt I truly shared one of those awards, until now. Not to undermine the achievements of the incredible talent that actually did the work of making an incredible movie, but a Best Picture Oscar for Moonlight feels like a Best Picture for all of us.

Here’s to the fools — the straight white male ones, and all the rest, who have to dream even harder to make it.

*

“Is there nothing that can permeate that impervious puss?”

Just in time for Easter, we’re taking a trip back to visit every kid’s second (or third, or fourth…) favorite bunny!

Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) effortlessly blended live action and animation in a cinematic experience never seen before (and rarely since). It was also a colossal hit for Touchstone Pictures (AKA Disney) and managed to delight children, adults, classic cartoon fans and noir thriller aficionados — no small feat!

The When We Were Young hosts originally saw this comedy-mystery hybrid blockbuster as little kids; now that we’re old enough to have a complicated appreciation of Jessica Rabbit’s heaving bosom, we decided to head back into Toontown to see if the groundbreaking flick still holds up today.

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My memories of Who Framed Roger Rabbit are rather vague. Unlike other major family-friendly blockbusters, in many ways it feels like this film has been erased from pop culture, at least to me. It’s rarely discussed. It’s barely quoted. I never saw it again. When compared to other blockbusters released around this time — Home Alone, Indiana Jones, E.T., and Zemeckis’ own Back To The Future franchise — it doesn’t feel like Roger Rabbit exists quite in the same space. Even Toon Town at Disneyland seems more preoccupied with Mickey and friends than the movie that provided its namesake.

That could be my own bias, though. I remember very little about the film from my early childhood viewing, which was probably  in 1989 or 1990, except that I was mildly disturbed by the insertion of real actors into cartoon violence. (That steamroller scene tripped me out.) My overall memory of  Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of mild displeasure, but then I mostly forgot about the film until it came time to do the podcast.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was well-reviewed by critics, beloved by audiences, and earned a killing at the box office, in addition to six Oscar nominations and three wins. I turned it on expecting to find a lot to like, figuring the humor had gone over my head during my original viewing.

As it turns out, even at age 6, my sense of humor was too sophisticated for Roger Rabbit.

Beyond some impressive special effects (for that era), I have a hard time grasping the appeal of this film. Roger Rabbit is an obnoxious character who is neither endearing nor particularly funny. He lacks the dry wit of Bugs Bunny or the likability of Mickey Mouse. Sometimes, rude and crude  cartoon characters can be funny — The Simpsons, to provide the most obvious example. But The Simpsons is a clever, often biting take on current pop culture and societal norms. Even its most outrageous characters have moments of relatable humanity. I never once connected to Roger Rabbit, or any other character in this movie.The animation-laden spin on old film noir feels super stale, even in 1988, given that Looney Tunes had done this endlessly for decade up until this point. Who Framed Roger Rabbit doesn’t put a new spin on that oft-parodied genre. I enjoy the idea of Jessica Rabbit as the cartoon twist on a typical femme fatale, but I wish the film had been more subversive in how it utilized her. She ends up being a pretty typical damsel in distress. Both the major female characters exist solely to moon over the men in their life. Maybe that’s inevitable from a family film from 1988, but it definitely puts the special effects far ahead of the screenwriting in terms of being ahead of their time.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Probably the ominous-looking guy dressed all in black we meet a few minutes into the movie.

When I have a particular grudge against a movie, it’s usually because I can imagine a version that is much better (for me, at least). I love the idea of cartoon characters interacting with a gritty film noir world, but it doesn’t work for me when the world the humans inhabit is as flat and cartoonish as the animation. I find the cartoon cameos totally pointless, on the whole, as they are in many bad comedies that try and substitute recognizable faces for actual jokes. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse cameo together in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which is wonderful in theory, except that they serve literally no function. They could be replaced with any other cartoon characters and the scene would play out exactly the same way. So what’s the point?

Wouldn’t it be funny if Bugs Bunny was a rival of Roger Rabbit’s? Maybe Roger is always aspiring to be like Bugs, but he can’t because he’s so doofy and off-putting? Is there any hierarchy in Toon Town? It’d be amusing if the Disney characters were all treated like royalty, and the other toons all envied them. As it is, there’s no differentiation between the Looney Tunes and the Mouse House and all the rest. These are properties that have decades of familiarity, and they bring none of that baggage. The personalities we’ve grown to know and love over the years are barely present. And in my estimation, Roger Rabbit is no substitute.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is clearly not my cup of carrot juice. I don’t particularly judge anyone who finds the movie whimsical or delightful — I just experience none of that while watching it. To me, the film’s major flaw is in its uninspired screenplay (written by the duo that brought us such other gems as the misbegotten and forgotten Will Smith vehicle Wild Wild West and How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. I find the writing in Who Framed Roger Rabbit exactly on par with those titles. I also don’t see much to set it apart from other live-action meets animation titles like Cool World and Space Jam, although the special effects are probably better. (I haven’t revisited those, either.)

So far on the podcast, I’ve found value in everything we’ve revisited. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill isn’t really my jam, but I appreciated its originality and the craft that went into it. In a way, it was refreshing to find something that I just didn’t like at all. But since picking on a beloved family film from the 80s just makes one sound like a grump, I suppose I’ll leave it at that.

“Hey, everyone — Sandy Frink just landed in a helicopter!”

Is that an earthquake? In honor of the 20th anniversary of their 10 year reunion, we join the Madonna twins and a big giant girl who smokes and says “shit” a lot to revisit 1987 and 1997 in Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion. Watch out, Tucson!

Chris and Seth have a special place in their hearts for this teen comedy made specifically for the C-Group (and anyone else who ever had their hamburger stolen by a deludanoid), and mutually agree that this is the cutest the When We Were Young podcast has ever looked. Meanwhile, Becky (the obvious Rhoda of this episode) comes to the scarf-folding fun with a fresher perspective to examine how this cherished cult hit holds up against today’s comedic standards. The WWWY gang is also joined by special guest Chelsea, inventor of Post-Its, to discuss her fancy-schmancy formula for glue.

So grab your flip phone and your huge notebook, because When We Were Young is doing Tucson (for a business thing), and we’re not stopping until our shoes are overflowing with blood. If you hate throwing up in public, you’ve come to the right podcast!

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I like a lot of movies, but it’s hard to think of one that makes me quite as happy as Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion. As much as I enjoy The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel (recently covered by this very same podcast), those films are ever-so-slightly marred by some goofier slapstick bits aimed at a younger audience. Romy And Michele, however, is Rated R and therefore lobs all of its jokes at an adult audience. (Granted, an adult audience that’s prone to laughing at Lisa Kudrow thrusting her tongue at the window to scare a little boy.)

I also find Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion the most insanely quotable movie of all time. I honestly don’t think there’s a single line you could say to me that I would not recognize, particularly when delivered in these characters’ distinct voices. (“I thought so!” isn’t a terribly memorable line… except the way Mira Sorvino delivers it.)

The first iteration of Romy and Michele was a 1988 play entitled Ladies Room, starring Lisa Kudrow and a bunch of other Groundlings, based on two women writer Robin Schiff really did encounter in a Los Angeles restroom. Sciff was also a Groundling, and that attention to character-based comedy is definitely what makes this film stand out. Ladies Room takes place at the Green Enchilada, a Mexican restaurant in LA, featuring a cast of 9 characters, and according to the original LA Times review, characters “range from the middle-brow women from the ad agency a few suicidal floors up to a pair of totally awesome Valley girls (Christie Mellor and Lisa Kudrow), vapidly looking for guys with good jobs (it makes them sexier).” Romy and Michele also appeared on a TV pilot written by Schiff called Just Temporary, where they were named Nicole and Torie.

Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion

Release Date: April 25, 1997
Domestic/Worldwide Total Gross: $29.2 million
Opening Weekend: $7.4 million
Metacritic: 59

In 1997, Friends was in Season 3 at the height of the Ross and Rachel romantic drama, so Kudrow was already a household name, though she had yet to carry a feature film. Mira Sorvino was an Academy Award winner, thanks to her role as a goofy prostitute in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, beating formidable talent like Joan Allen and Kate Winslet. She was a mid-90s “It Girl,” known for dating Quentin Tarantino, but was by no means a bankable box office draw, either. Janeane Garofalo was the biggest movie star in the cast, having already proven herself in The Truth About Cats And Dogs and The Cable Guy. (At the time, it felt a little strange that she was playing second-fiddle to Kudrow and Sorvino in a studio comedy.)

The film co-starred Alan Cumming, Julia Campbell, Elaine Hendrix, Camryn Manheim (of The Practice), Jacob Vargas, and a then-unknown Justin Theroux — a stellar cast all around. The film was directed by Simpsons writer/producer David Mirkin, who later directed Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt in another female buddy comedy, 2001’s Heartbreakers. (It’s no Romy And Michele, but I have a soft spot for it anyway.)

Here’s what the critics had to say in 1997:

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone:

“The affably airheaded Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion won’t silence her detractors, though Kudrow’s Michele is a deadpan delight as she joins fellow misfit Romy (a deliciously funny Mira Sorvino) at their 10-year high school reunion. The trailer alone is wittier than the entirety of McHale’s Navy and Jungle 2 Jungle, two ’97 comedies driven by TV stars. Kudrow and Sorvino have a ball in this babe version of Dumb and Dumber.”

Todd McCarthy, Variety:

“Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion looks like a peroxided Clueless wannabe straggling along to the party two years after it’s over. Desperately uncertain in tone and able to generate only sporadic laughs, pic decks out its meager story of revenge and comeuppance with a vulgar, flashy shimmer that will no doubt attract teenage girls, or the core Clueless audience. Some good early returns are therefore likely, but the film’s own legs don’t reckon to be nearly as long as those of its statuesque heroines.”

There was no way Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion wasn’t going to hold up for me — I’ve watched it several times since my early fandom, though it had been a couple of years, at least, since I revisited it. This may have been the first viewing where I was looking for more than just a good time, though, and on that level, Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion is surprisingly potent.

Schiff’s script is truly smart in the way it addresses high school anxieties. It presents a tiered system of outcasts, which is definitely accurate — even most kids who consider themselves rejects are still cooler than someone — and it rightly separates the smart nerds (like Sandy and Tobey) from the dumb nerds (Romy and Michele) from the might-be-smart-if-she-gave-a-fuck nerd (Heather Mooney). It also grounds its characters in vulnerability — not just Romy and Michele, who make up a ridiculous lie about Post-Its to impress their former classmates, but Tobey, Sandy, and Heather, too. Tobey Walters could easily be a joke character the movie laughs off as easily as Heather does, but instead she gets a moment to explain how Heather’s harsh words hurt her, and we feel for her. Even Heather, as blunt and mean as she can be, is clearly acting this way defensively. Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion goes above and beyond most high school comedies in portraying the nuances of high school drama. Its much more complicated than the typical “jocks and homecoming queens versus the math club” that we usually see. Even the popular crowd is thought-through — yes, Christy Masters is pretty much the stereotypical bitch villain of every high school comedy ever made, but we definitely sense that her quest for external perfection has left her hollow inside. And there’s obviously something going on in the A-group between Christy and Lisa, which we get only a taste of in this movie. This is relatively rare in a studio comedy — the sense that every single one of these characters truly has a life outside the walls of this movie.On the podcast, we mention that Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion feels ahead of its time — perhaps not as a mainstream movie, but certainly in terms of its nuanced character work. This movie seems unlikely as a major release in 2017 — at least, not without some Bridesmaids-style raunch thrown in — but it’s easy to imagine these characters existing in a sophisticated cable or streaming comedy, the likes of which didn’t exist in 1997.

As much as I’ve always loved this film, it wasn’t until doing this podcast that I realized why I love it so much — not just because it’s hilarious (which it is), but because it has memorable, original characters and a smart, thoughtful message about several rites of passage in our lives. Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion understands that some, but not all, of who we are is evident in high school, and spreads that all-important message to the outcasts out there: “It gets better!” At the same time, it is realistic about the ways our high school insecurities linger far longer than it makes any sense for them to, evidenced most cleverly in Michele’s dream, in which just about every aspect of high school is still haunted by the domineering Christy Masters.

If we’ve left town and moved on from out high school lives, it certainly shouldn’t matter what a few people we happened to go to high school with think. But it does. In ways that are generally far less dramatic (or hilarious) as depicted here, high school reunions do give us a chance to get that closure — to face our old demons as the people we are now, and finally put them out of our minds. The lesson learned in Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion is one I learned at my own high school reunion, too — that everyone was and always will be dealing with their own shit, and most likely, no one ever was actively trying to make your life a living hell.

I’m not entirely sure I would have ever learned that lesson if Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion hadn’t primed me for it, almost 15 years ahead of time. So, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of this film, I have to say a truly heartfelt “thank you” to Robin Schiff, Lisa Kudrow, Mira Sorvino, David Mirkin, and the rest of the cast and crew of this movie. I probably wouldn’t have said this before sitting down and truly contemplating what this film means to me, but Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion is really, truly a great movie.

Okay?

*

“We’d better get back, ’cause it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night… mostly.”

Encounter the xenomorph in our ickiest episode yet! First, the gang discusses their own personal experiences with body horror, including bruised ears and slivers in places there should definitely not be wood. Then, it’s time to get all face-huggy and chest-bursty with Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise, beginning with Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi/horror classic and moving on to James Cameron’s rock-’em sock-’em sequel. Have countless rip-offs dulled these classics, or are they still capable of making your jaws-within-jaws drop? Then, we quickly touch on David Fincher’s regrettable Alien3 and the campy Joss Whedon-penned Alien: Resurrection.

This is a mostly comprehensive look at one of the most influential horror franchises ever made… mostly. So strip down to your most retro panties, climb into the nearest available power-loader, and GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH! Because in space, no one can hear you make fun of the way Becky describes her history with the Alien franchise.

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This episode goes back further than we’ve ever gone before on the podcast, way back to the summer of 1979, which saw the release of the first of many Alien films. (The franchise loomed large throughout the 80s and 90s, so it definitely warrants an episode of this podcast.) The film had a seismic impact on the cinematic landscape, with many imitators over the years. The first three films are directed by three of the most notable mainstream filmmakers of the past 40 years, Ridley Scott (Alien), James Cameron (Aliens), and David Fincher (Alien3). (Alien: Resurrection‘s Jean-Pierre Jeunet, best known for Amelie, is no slouch, but he’s not quite at their level of influence.)

In 2012, Scott returned the franchise with the semi-prequel, Prometheus, and this month returns again with Alien: Covenant, the eighth alien film overall (not that those Alien Vs. Predator movies really count). As so many James Cameron joints do, the first Alien sequel also features a memorably hammy turn from the late Bill Paxton, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in February, which also made this a timely episode.

My first encounter with Alien occurred as a teenager. I don’t recall exactly what led me to the franchise, though I strongly suspect it was my interest in James Cameron following the colossal success of Titanic. I read a biography of Cameron and went back to catch many of his films I’d missed, given that they were generally too mature for me at the time of their release. I became a big fan of all of them — except Piranha 2, which I still haven’t seen, as Cameron would probably prefer. Eventually, Aliens became a prized piece of my beloved Fox Widescreen collection, along with two other Cameron films, The Abyss and True Lies. I used to play the opening vignette, explaining the crimes of “panning and scanning,” for friends to try to convince them that letterboxing was the way to go. It never worked.

(With the rise of DVDs and widescreen TVs, I am finally vindicated.)

ALIEN
“In space, no one can hear you scream.”

Release Date: May 25, 1979
Metacritic: 83
Budget: $11 million
Opening Weekend: $3.5 million
Domestic Gross: $80.9 million
Worldwide Gross: $104.9 million

Alien has one of the all-time great horror movie taglines, which is appropriate for one of the all-time great horror movies. I’d seen Alien many times over the years, including the 2003 Director’s Cut in theaters and more recently on the Blu-Ray I bought. There was never any danger that the film wouldn’t stand the test of time for me.

However, reviewing for the podcast does give me an opportunity to think about such a classic in a new context. One thing that struck me were the negative reviews calling out the film’s violence, as well as James Cameron’s sequel. The special effects in Alien are still pretty disgusting, and are rarely topped by modern horror movies for squirm-inducing effect. This has little to do with the effects themselves, and more to do with the story — when the tiny xenomorph bursts from John Hurt’s chest, it’s a genuinely shocking moment. It is as unexpected from these characters as it is from the audience. Whether on purpose or accidentally, most horror movies today often telegraph what’s coming, but nothing we’ve seen so far in Alien tells us, “Oh, hey, I’ll bet a little alien baby’s about to burst out of his chest.” But because we already built up plenty of suspense with the face-hugger, it also makes perfect sense.

It’s no revelation to state that Alien is not just a landmark in science fiction and horror, but also for female action heroes. Ripley is still probably the all-time greatest action heroine ever to grace any screen (and I say this as a die-hard Buffy The Vampire Slayer devotee). No one quite has her mix of smarts, cool, confidence, courage, brawn, and vulnerability. Perhaps this is only because the character was originally written genderless, and easily could have been played by a man instead. I don’t think the series would have had nearly the same impact, though. Maternity is so thoroughly baked in to the Alien series that it has infinitely more resonance when our protagonist is a woman, even if, as in this first film, we know almost nothing about her. The potential trauma of giving birth is nicely flipped by the creature that bursts from a man’s chest this time. It is often joked about that men would freak out at going into labor; this joke is nicely given a horrific twist in Alien. But if that were all this movie was, it wouldn’t be the classic it is.

The Alien films were never planned as a series, of course, but moreso than almost any other film franchise, each entry feels entirely unique, with themes and mood all its own. Appropriately, Alien is the film most concerned with the human body itself, as it introduces the odd (but eerily plausible) mechanism through which the xenomorphs are “born.” Writer Dan Bannon created the creature wanting to make audience — primarily men — uncomfortable. The alien can be interpreted as a stand-in for many things throughout the series — cancer, AIDS, rape, the “miracle” of birth — but one thing that tends to be consistent is our biology betraying us.

To me, Alien is most universal as a metaphor for puberty — our body doing strange, new things we can’t understand, as we are forced to “become” something else (whether we like it or not). This is brought out by the callous computer program named Mother, which Ripley must break away from in order to survive. There is a moment for many of us in our teenage years where some aspect of our body feels alien to us — we discover something new and unexpected, often even frightening. We may try to ignore it and proceed as if everything is normal, but it will not be ignored. “Life finds a way,” as it is put in another very good sci-fi/horror thriller.

The potency of this first Alien film is how broadly it can be interpreted. The alien is frightening in its own right, but what’s truly terrifying is the way it uses our own bodies against us, and how little power we have over our own physicality once the process has begun. As humans, we are all susceptible to the whims of biology. We consider our bodies to be “us,” but ultimately, have no say in what they’ll do to us. More than a monster movie, Alien is a film reaffirming that our greatest enemy is the skin we live in. We can’t predict its moves or fight against its will, any more than the crew of the Nostromo can outwit or outmatch the xenomorph.

ALIENS
“This time, it’s war.”

Release Date: July 18, 1986
Metacritic: 87
Budget: $17-18 million
Opening Weekend: $10.1 million
Domestic Gross: $85.2 million
Worldwide Gross: $131.1 million

The tagline called out the fact this sequel to the relatively small-scale Alien was going to be bigger and more action-focused than its predecessor. If Alien was a haunted house movie in space, Aliens is more like a war movie, with the sides slightly more evenly matched. That doesn’t stop most of them from being dispatched rapidly, but you can’t say they weren’t warned.

I have virtually nothing negative to say about either of the first two Alien films, and could gush about each for hours. Alien is the true original, a sci-fi/horror classic that left its mark on cinema in a major way. It’s still the most spectacular and original creature design I can think of, especially for extra-terrestrials. Aliens, on the other hand, is a perfect morsel of popcorn entertainment — not just because it gets the action and special effects right, but because it has an honest emotional core and treats its audience like adults. (Even though the movie spawned action figures aimed at kids — oddly enough, for an R-rated gore-fest.)

After The Terminator, which created Sarah Connor (but didn’t yet make her a true badass), James Cameron took the reigns of the inevitable Alien sequel, re-purposing a script he’d already written entitled Mother. In his Director’s Cut (the superior version of the film), Ripely learns that the daughter she left behind before her 11th birthday has died of old age in the 57 years she’s been in hyper-sleep. How strange it must be, to see your own daughter grow older than you are now.

James Cameron doesn’t get quite enough credit for how femme-forward his action-packed oeuvre is. Every one of his films has a female character who is as interesting and complex as the male “hero,” if not moreso. She’s never a mere damsel, either. The Terminator’s Sarah Connor may spend most of the movie needing rescue, but by the sequel she’s learned a thing or two and then some. True Lies’ Helen Tasker is played as a bumbling housewife, but she gets to (comedically) kick ass a couple of times, too (and Jamie Lee Curtis makes the most of the role). Even Titanic’s dainty Rose proves herself pretty capable once the ship is going down.

Aliens remains Cameron’s most female-centric film, however, finishing what Ridley Scott started in making Ripley the greatest action heroine to ever grace the screen. Ripley remains professional and cool under pressure, but Aliens adds depth to a character left purposefully vague in the first film. Ripley finds a surrogate daughter in Newt, the sole survivor of the alien attacks on the recently colonized LV-426. Weaver earned the first ever Best Actress Oscar nomination for a sci-fi, horror, or action film, and remained the only nominee in these genres until Sandra Bullock’s Gravity nod. Given how iconic Ripley has become, in large part thanks to where Aliens took the character, it is well-deserved.

The first Alien can be interpreted in many ways. For me, it’s best looked at as a tale of adolescence — breaking away from “Mother,” facing strange new biological happenings, and proving oneself capable of surviving on one’s own. There’s less gray area in interpreting Aliens, which is clearly focused on maternity. Not only do Newt and Ripley become each other’s surrogate daughter/mother, but the showdown at the end is against the Alien Queen who is similarly aiming to protect her young. The movie certainly passes the Bechdel test — even the classic line, “Get away from her, you bitch!”

If James Cameron got Ripley so right in 1986, it’s a wonder that we haven’t seen a true rival to this character since. (Sarah Connor might be next in line on that list.) Even a woman being known by her last name, rather than her first, is a rarity. (Hillary Clinton, who came close to becoming the most powerful woman in the world, is generally called “Hillary” rather than “Clinton.”)

Aliens is as entertaining as it is because, like Alien, it is intelligent and has real depth beneath its more superficial pleasures. In it, a lot of typically “male” elements — military machismo, corporate greed, technology — brush up against biology, maternity, and reproduction. The masculine side of the equation gets its ass thoroughly handed to it. No amount of artillery or money is a match for Mother Nature. The men all fail against the aliens, leaving it up to Ripley to save the day.

The Vasquez character manages to be even more butch than Ripley, and still avoids being a stereotype. (Her retort to being asked if she’s ever mistaken for a man is priceless.) Bill Paxton’s performance is pretty hammy — he’s the tough guy who ends up being not-so-tough when faced with killer space monsters — but the character manages to be endearing, anyhow. (Cameron has a way of making the slightly goofy work.) Despite a bigger budget, cast, and scale, Aliens remains true to its roots by keeping the action pretty contained and retaining the focus on the survival of a few core cast members. It’s easily one of the best action films — let alone sequels — ever made.

ALIEN 3
“The bitch is back.”

Release Date: May 22, 1992
Metacritic: 59
Budget: $50 million
Opening Weekend: $19.5 million
Domestic Gross: $55.5 million
Worldwide Gross: $159.8 million

 That tagline is perfectly suited for the dreary, pitch-black third installment in the Alien franchise.

Otherwise, Alien 3 is the biggest misstep in the franchise, by far, and I see no cogent argument for any of the other installment being worse. (Still not counting anything that also has Predator in the title.) The film is joyless, fumbling badly where the first two films soared — in getting us to root for the characters’ survival. We don’t care about anyone in Alien 3 — not even Ripley, because she isn’t very keen on surviving herself. Alien 3 also kills Hicks and Newt off-screen, which renders Ripley’s triumph in Aliens completely moot. (I have a beef with franchises that kill off main characters from previous films carelessly.) By the time another alien wreaks havoc in Alien 3, Ripley has outlived everyone she’s ever known, including her own daughter, then failed to save her surrogate daughter and a potential love interest (or at least, a friend). What’s left for Ripley to want now? Well, she wants to eradicate the aliens. That’s about all we can hope for here.

Alien and Aliens were certainly dark films overall, but the interactions between characters had a certain light-heartedness. Alien 3 is portentous, elaborating on a bizarre story by Vincent Ward that saw a planet of monks battling the xenomorph, believing it is the second coming of the Black Death. Using a prison as the setting doesn’t endear us to these characters, and the all-male supporting cast just feels wrong for the franchise that previously had two or three great female characters in each film. Even David Fincher has virtually disowned this movie. (It is his first and easily his worst, the only true misfire of his career… though the direction is the least of its problems.)

Alien 3 does have a few interesting ideas, like Ripley’s near-rape (a chilling echo of the xenomorph’s rapey reproductive process). With Alien telling a story about adolescence (says me) and Aliens about motherhood, Alien 3 is very much about death and accepting one’s mortality. Ripley’s climactic sacrifice might have been moving in a film that set it up better. Alien 3 reminds me of the ways this franchise follows the Scream series — with the first film being a bold and truly frightening original, the second upping the ante but remaining emotionally truthful, the third striking the wrong tone completely, and the fourth moving back in the right direction while falling far short of the original two installments. Like Scream, the Alien movies can easily be seen as a metaphor for trauma — Ripley survives once, and in the second film, survives again — mostly for Newt’s sake. By Alien 3, she’s too traumatized to have any hope for survival this time around (and who could blame her?).

Admittedly, Ripley’s shaved head is the perfect look for Weaver in this gritty third film. (She gets a little more butch in each installment.) But ultimately, there’s very little pleasure to derive from an Alien 3 viewing. It might have sounded good on paper, but in execution, it’s a drag.

ALIEN: RESURRECTION
“Witness the resurrection.”

Release Date: November 26, 1997
Metacritic: 63
Budget: $75 million
Opening Weekend: $16.5 million
Domestic Gross: $47.8 million
Worldwide Gross: $161.4 million

“Witness the resurrection”? That’s a marketing department that’s seriously bankrupt on ideas.

Alien: Resurrection may over-correct for Alien 3’s dourness — it is silly in moments, bordering on campy, which is not terribly surprising given that it was penned by Joss Whedon. This is the only Alien film I actually remember being released, though I didn’t know the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer had written it then, or I would have seen it sooner. (I don’t know exactly when I caught this one, but I have owned it on DVD for quite a long time.)

Alien: Resurrection has far more interesting ideas on its mind than Alien 3 did — mainly, that Ripley is a clone of her former self, and xenomorph DNA has mixed with her own to make her not quite human. She has some memories from Ripley’s past, but poignantly can’t remember Newt’s name. (Leave it to this film to mourn Newt when Alien 3 killed her but couldn’t be bothered to do anything more than give us an icky autopsy of the poor girl.) The scene in which Ripley discovers many failed attempts at cloning her in a lab — one who asks for a mercy killing — is appropriately disturbing.

The “Newborn” (the white, somewhat humanoid alien we meet at the end) is a bit ridiculous — the original xenomorph and Alien Queen are much more frightening villains. The series wisely never asked us to feel any sympathy for these killing machines… until this moment. (The Newborn is kind of… cute?) But the action works well, and Whedon’s script has a similar wit to Alien and Aliens. (“It was in my way” as Ripley’s justification for killing her “kind” rivals her Aliens retort: “They can bill me.”) It also positions Winona Ryder as a heroine similar to Ripley in the first film, which is particularly interesting given that she ends up being an android. (Alien 3 ignored the “man versus tech” angle that’s so crucial to the other films.) Neither Ripley nor Call is fully human… and once again, it’s the women who are left to survive.

I wouldn’t say Alien: Resurrection speaks to any stage of human life the way the first three films do, though the Ripley clone nicely embraces the “not giving a fuck” mentality many of us hit at some point in our old age. It’s nice to see Ripley have a little fun for a change.

The Alien films not only hold up as well as they did upon their release — they’ve actually gotten better with age, especially in comparison to all the lesser creature features we’ve seen since. (Not you, Alien 3. Your CGI is atrocious.) Even the special effects are still great, far more convincing than the computer generated monsters we see these day. Many critics were put off by the gore in the first two films, though they’re both rather restrained by today’s standards. Now, it’d be difficult to find a critic who would argue that the first two films are classics.

Even with one truly bad entry and one that’s merely competent, this series’ batting average is still pretty stellar. There’s still enough juice left in the series to get me interested in Alien: Covenant — not bad, for a series that’s going on 40 years old.

*

This just in: WOMEN can direct MOVIES.

Despite their menstruation and inability to lift heavy things, females are either as capable or even more capable than men at making films that involve punching and kicking!

Still with me? Okay! As it turns out, women, who are not historically known for either punching or kicking, can make action blockbusters just like men, who are statistically more likely to punch and kick.

At this rate, who knows? We may even get a female president someday!! I’ll pause to let you wrap your head around that impossible concept for a second.

After unloading Man Of Steel, Batman V Superman, and Suicide Squad into theaters recent years, Warner Bros. apparently decided to switch things up this summer by offering filmgoers an actual movie rather than a flaming pile of nonsense garbage.

Here’s another newsflash: it turns out that audiences prefer a well-written story and heroes we actually like to an incomprehensible, emotionally numb dumpster fire.

Even when it is directed by a woman, and not a man. Hollywood, take note!

(Forgive my sarcasm, but the biggest wonder surrounding Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman is that we still need to be astonished that women can, like, accomplish things.)

Okay, now for the real review. At long last, a Wonder Woman feature film has lassoed its way into theaters. The fact that it centers on a woman is only a small miracle — we’ve seen “superhero”(-ish) films like Elektra and Catwoman… that just so happened to suck (independently of the fact that they were about women, of course — lots of male superhero movies at that time sucked, too!). More recently, hit blockbusters like The Hunger Games and recent Star Wars offerings have also made a killing off of worthy heroines. It’s not news.

But I guess it is news that Patty Jenkins is the first female to direct one of these movies, and that Wonder Woman is the first Marvel or DC offering in the current canon to center on an action heroine. The Marvel movies have been relatively female-friendly — Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is arguably the emotional centerpiece of the Avengers films — but did we get a Black Widow movie? No. Instead, Black Widow was second banana in movies named after men, as in the sequels to Iron Man and Captain America, even while being one of the most dynamic and relatable characters in the entire franchise.

The case has already been made for female action heroes. Go back to Ellen Ripley in 1986’s Aliens, or Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, for a couple prime examples. It should not surprise anyone that Wonder Woman performed comparably to other recent superhero titles. Nor, after Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win for The Hurt Locker, should it be news that a woman can direct an aces entry in a traditionally male-dominated genre. Are we meant to be shocked that Wonder Woman marks the biggest opening weekend for a female director, ever? Well, that’s dumb, because Wonder Woman is a superhero movie, and superhero movies make lots of money. A woman could have directed a successful superhero movie at any time, and it didn’t need to have “woman” in the title for it to work.But it did. Wonder Woman‘s success seems especially obvious given how dismal the DC “universe” has been in its latest incarnation, (no) thanks to Zack Snyder, whose bone-headed take on these beloved characters defies logic. Last year’s one-two whiff of Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad gave us the two worst movies I saw in 2016. The movies have all been box office hits, but that’s inevitable. Audiences were lukewarm, and critics seriously hated them. Short of setting fire to the entire Warner Bros. lot, Jenkins could have done anything with Wonder Woman and it’d still look good in comparison.

Wonder Woman really only had to be halfway watchable to be declared a success, and to be the biggest femme-helmed film of all time. It’s a little better than that, though.

Early on, Wonder Woman feels like a Disney princess tale on steroids — what would happen if Moana decided to fight in World War I? The all-female Amazons in Wonder Woman evoke a fun, Xena: Warrior Princess-esque vibe, with Robin Wright providing the gravitas as the badass general Antiope, Diana’s aunt. This world is rich enough that it could sustain an entire film on its own — it’s almost a shame when Steve Trevor, the spy played by Chris Pine, drops in and beckons Diana to the outside world.For a spell, Wonder Woman becomes an Amazon-out-of-water comedy as Diana adjusts to polite society in the “modern” world, and interacts with Etta, Steve’s wryly amusing secretary (Lucy Davis). Then the film introduces us to a ragtag team of sidekicks and gets back into superhero mode, with some James Bond-esque spy hijinks along the way. (The climax takes a page from the Season 5 finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, by the way.) It all moves along nimbly, and hangs together merely because we like Diana and Steve and their friends, and believe in what they’re hoping to accomplish. This would seem obvious, except that it’s been entirely missing from Wonder Woman‘s three DC predecessors. Did anyone truly like Henry Cavill’s Superman, or Ben Affleck’s Batman, or anyone in Suicide Squad besides Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn?

Gal Gadot was the only watchable presence in Batman V Superman, and Margot Robbie was Suicide Squad‘s saving grace. So, again, let’s not register too much surprise that women are the sole saviors of DC’s lineup. I’m not ready to declare that Wonder Woman bests any Marvel movie thus far, but it’s up there. Jenkins gifts the film with both heartfelt resonance and a nimble comedic touch, which only the top tier of Marvel’s offerings manage to balance. The emotional beats in Wonder Woman land in a way that is rare in blockbusters these days. (For all the heavy-handed sobriety of, say, Batman V Superman, we don’t actually feel a thing as that dreadful, dumbfounding story unfolds.)My preferred brand of superhero movie will probably always be Tim Burton’s Batman, but comparing the delightful gothic camp of Batman Returns to what DC is serving up these days is pointless. As far as today’s comic book superhero adaptations go, Wonder Woman is as good as it gets — it’s hard to imagine a major studio letting Jenkins (or anyone) take greater narrative risks. (As much as I’d love to see a superhero drama with the complexity of Monster.) In Wonder Woman, Jenkins knows exactly what kind of movie she’s making, and she does it better than just about anyone in the past decade. It’s all the more impressive that a credible Wonder Woman film is not an easy thing to make — skimpy costume, golden lasso, invisible jet? This character has major cheese potential. The fact that this Diana is a certified badass is all the more commendable.

Wonder Woman has a slew of compelling female characters, from the Amazons to Etta to the creepy Dr. Poison, played by Elena Anaya. The male villains are boring, but the good guys are a pretty solid bunch, too. Though he’s not a superhero, Steve Trevor is as developed as Marvel’s Steve Rogers is. Wonder Woman is not a great film in its own right — it is still too beholden to the tropes and ticks that have plagued every single Marvel and DC movie after 2008’s Iron Man and The Dark Knight. The script by Allan Heinberg is more serviceable than transcendant — the fish-out-of-water scenes are amusing, if a bit obvious (and reminiscent of gags in Thor and Captain America), and the more earnest stuff is par for the course. Wonder Woman has its over-the-top touches, particularly in the flashy, effects-heavy third act. It falls victim to the same climactic pomposity all superhero movies these days succumb to, though Wonder Woman sticks the landing better than most.

Remember six months ago, when Deadpool had Best Picture buzz? That was ridiculous, but Wonder Woman has a shot at getting there. (I wouldn’t bet on it, but it’s better equipped than any other DC or Marvel release in recent memory.) Wouldn’t it be kind of great to see Jenkins do what Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder could not? If any superhero film since The Dark Knight deserves Oscar lovin’, it’s Wonder Woman. Compared to others of its kind, it may as well be a masterpiece.

While Wonder Woman centers on an Amazon exploring the world of man during World War I, another recent film takes the reverse approach — centering on a man exploring the world of the Amazon during the same period. (It is also released by Amazon Studios, for some added Amazon oomph.)

Based on the bestseller by David Gann, The Lost City Of Z is the true story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his belief in a lost civilization in the Amazon rain forest. At the time of Fawcett’s first foray into the woods, Machu Picchu had not yet been discovered and there was severe doubt from Britain’s “Royal Geographic Society” that anything greater than savages could exist in the region. Fawcett, in turn, believes these people were more capable and advanced than turn-of-the-century Brits are giving them credit for.

I entered The Lost City Of Z knowing only that it was based on a nonfiction bestseller and took place in the Amazon. I knew nothing about Fawcett himself, nor how his quest concluded. This turned out to be a very good thing for my enjoyment of the film — it contained more suspense for me than it might to someone who read even a brief description of the film or book its based on. I was surprised, for example, that The Lost City Of Z depicts not one, but several journeys into the jungle, returning with Fawcett back to England between quests and exploring how his lengthy intercontinental jaunts are affecting his wife and children.The Lost City Of Z is reminiscent of Heart Of Darkness, of course, particularly in its theme of obsession with an unknown, untamed jungle. Gray doesn’t get too caught up in the ensuing madness like Francis Ford Coppola did in Apocalypse Now, however. Fawcett is preoccupied with his pursuit, but the movie isn’t so tunnel-visioned, remaining at a distance that is more reminiscent of classical Hollywood stories than most contemporary ones. The film uses visual symbolism and fantasy sparingly, presented with a stiff-upper-lip reserve that feels appropriate for the setting and period (early 20th century and beyond World War I). The Lost City Of Z has learned many things from great man-versus-nature adventure stories that preceded it, without being too beholden to any one of them.

There’s a hint of Jaws in the relationship between Fawcett (played with maximum Brad Pittness by Charlie Hunnam) and Henry Costin (a very bearded and distinctly un-heartthrobby Robert Pattinson). Brody’s belief in the killer Great White that is initially ridiculed and ignored by the higher-ups certainly feels like the cinematic model for Fawcett’s quest, and though Hunnam sells it, the reason why this particular fixation hits this particular character is vague. We know Fawcett seeks the glory that a major discovery like this could bestow upon his name, but Fawcett’s fascination grows more urgent and we never quite learn why. It feels like the answer should have come up in the bond between Fawcett and Corbin, which is more suggested by the screenplay than felt. Costin’s character is underdeveloped — the dynamic between these two men is never as compelling as Brody and Hooper’s partnership in Jaws. The story might have been even more poignant if we believed more that this fixation on the City of Z was a shared madness of both men, and then one of them gradually woke up from the spell while the other succumbed further to fantasy, eventually substituting his son as a replacement for Corbin. (That is the story we get, more or less — but we have to dig a little to get to it.)

This isn’t so much a flaw of Gray’s film as it is an afterthought about how it might have been even more gripping than it already is. Gray doesn’t seem to want us to feel or identify with Fawcett’s Amazon obsession. At many points, it asks us to pause and reflect whether Fawcett’s quest is worth the sacrifices he’s making at home. As Fawcett’s wife Nina, Sienna Miller gets a meatier role than we expect from the wife of an adventurer. Fawcett’s lengthy trips into the wild frustrate Nina and their children, but rather than make Nina the naggy spouse begging her hero to “come home,” both she and Fawcett’s son Jack long to become a part of Percy’s adventures — a far more compelling choice. (Jack is played by Marvel’s once and future Spider-Man, Tom Holland.) This focus on Fawcett’s family is another Spielbergian nod to Jaws, and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind even moreso. The story is at least as much about what Fawcett is giving up back home than it is his adventuring.

The Lost City Of Z might have been a pointed “be careful what you wish for” tale, but neither the film nor its characters condemn Fawcett for his quest. We are left to conclude for ourselves whether or not these pursuits are worth the perils they put us in. Like David Fincher’s Zodiac, another masterful tale of men’s shared obsession with an enigma, The Lost City Of Z both does and does not solve its central mystery, presenting us with a likely answer while raising enough doubt in our minds that we question such easy answers. Gray’s film is deceptively simple and straight-forward in its storytelling, but thematically gnarled and complex. The final shot alone demands that we pause and reconsider what this story is really about.

The film sheds little light on what actually does await these explorers in the Amazon, and doesn’t instruct us how to feel about that. The jungle and its inhabitants remain as ethereal and unknowable at the end of the film as they are in the beginning. That’s the right choice, even if it’s a rather unsettling one in terms of Hollywood epics. Gray’s daring in concluding this film in such an abstract way — more Malick than Spielberg, more Lynch than Lean in the end — elevates the film above what could have otherwise been just another sturdy historical drama. The Lost City Of Z is both episodic and epic, with a reach that exceeds its grasp in the best way possible, suggesting themes that linger in the mind, even though they’re barely nodded to in the film’s text. Though it came and went from theaters with little fanfare, I hope Amazon Studios finds a way to get the film the attention it deserves.

*

“It was a mistake. I didn’t hate her. I wasn’t disgusted with her. I was afraid. At that moment, I felt small, like… like I’d lacked experience, like I’d never be on her level, like I’d never be enough for her or something like that, you know what I’m saying? But, what I did not get, she didn’t care. She wasn’t looking for that guy anymore. She was… she was looking for me, for the Bob. Butby the time I figure this all out, it was too late, man. She moved on, and all I had to show for it was some foolish pride, which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away. So, I’ve spent every day since then chasing Amy… so to speak.”

After a careful examination of the evidence, I’ve come to a conclusion:

Kevin Smith is not even supposed to be here today.

Back in 1990s, the New Jersey-born amateur auteur made Clerks, which — along with a handful of other titles — was a game-changer for independent cinema, and perhaps for comedy itself. Clerks was not the first film to put a couple of not-so-bright slacker dudes front and center. By this point, we’d already had two servings each of Bill And Ted and Wayne’s World, and other nerd-glorifying titles.

But Bill and Ted and Wayne and Garth were the butt of the joke in their comedies, whereas Kevin Smith positioned his protagonists as laid-back heroes, of a sort. Smith isn’t afraid to call his characters out on their shit — in fact, that’s what the majority of the running time in his films consists of. And since most of Smith’s central characters are proxies for himself, he’s really just doing a lot of self-therapy and bringing us along for the ride.

This was fine — novel, even — in the 1990s, but pop culture grew up in the interim. Kevin Smith mostly didn’t. More than 20 years after the release of his auspicious debut, and exactly 20 years after the release of his most widely-praised movie, Smith is still more or less doing what he always did, with diminishing returns.

To be fair, Smith has stepped off his beaten path a time or two — witness Red State and Tusk (the latter of which I haven’t seen… but I think I get the gist). But to the degree that these represent a maturing of Smith’s stylings, they also still feel mired in juvenile obsessions and “see what I did there?” fan service, at least in concept.

In a perfect world, Kevin Smith’s early efforts might be quaint, charming signs of a greater talent to come. They seemed that way at the time. Instead, the “View Askewniverse” films like Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma are still pretty much the sum total of what Smith has had to offer over a nearly 25-year career. More often than not, his subsequent films have been riffs on the same ideas, often featuring some of the same characters, if not direct sequels.

I know Smith himself is involved in plenty non-cinematic efforts — podcasts, comic books — and I imagine they please a number of his fans. I don’t want to make any assumptions about Kevin Smith the person, nor condemn his overall value to pop culture. Here, I am looking only at his films — the three overwhelmingly considered to be his best films, at least historically — and making a personal judgment about how they hold up for me:

They don’t.

(Mostly.)

CLERKS

• Release Date: October 19, 1994
• Budget: $27,575 + $230,000 (post-production)
• Domestic Total Gross: $3.2 million
• Metacritic: 70

I’ll admit, this is a bad moment in history for me to be looking at a body of films that rather unimaginatively examine the psyche of the straight white male. A straight white male viewpoint is as valid and worthwhile as any other, of course. I know many straight white males. (Don’t we all?)

But the straight white male majority has asserted a rather cartoonish stronghold over our nation in 2017, somehow, and if there’s one thing we don’t need more of in our culture right now, it’s the “heterosexual Caucasian with a penis” perspective.

That isn’t Kevin Smith’s fault, of course. He made Clerks and Chasing Amy as a reaction to the cinematic heroes that dominated the big screen in the 80s and early 90s — Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name a few. There was still a lot of celebration of machismo in mainstream culture at the time, to the extent that these bromances sometimes bordered on homoerotic (something Smith really likes pointing out in his films). But in the years since, we’ve seen the rise of Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow, amongst so many others. The lazy, not-so-bright, unremarkable white dude who somehow lands a supermodel by the end of the movie… through no action of his own, usually, but because an unremarkable white dude also wrote the screenplay.

In Clerks, we’re meant to sympathize with Dante and Randal, even if we aren’t supposed to condone everything that comes out of their mouths. Smith considers other points of view, sort of, but ultimately he’s siding with the titular clerks, because they’re him. Dante’s ex is so traumatized by an appalling sexual experience she goes catatonic, but she’s just the butt of a joke here. He wants to get back with her until that experience, at which point he decides to go back to the other woman who is too good for him in this story. Dante (and Smith’s) incredulity  that his ex might be better off with a smart, sensitive, successful Asian guy is problematic, too. In Smith’s View Askewniverse, average-looking guys with no money and dim prospects for the future deserve hot women because… umm… why?

Yes, Smith points this out in hid humor. He knows these guys aren’t worthy of these woman, but in the end he shrugs and gives them what they want anyway. It’s not that plenty of other filmmakers haven’t done this (and worse, like the date rape endorsement in Sixteen Candles). It’s just that Smith’s entire oeuvre rests upon this kind of entitlement. There was probably plenty of room to have fun with the “geek gets the girl” archetype back in the 90s, but in 2017, it’s grown tiresome to see a beautiful woman’s affection used as a reward… especially when the protagonist has done nothing to earn it.

As a debut feature and a time capsule, Clerks is absolutely fine. It’s still pretty amusing, for all its shagginess. Too many Kevin Smith wannabes have made films that look and sound like this in the interim, and technology has advanced enough that most amateur efforts these days are a lot more polished than Clerks ever was. Today, Clerks feels like a B+ effort from a sophomore in film school, and it’s difficult to think back to 1994, when so few were doing this sort of thing, and Smith would get an automatic “A” for being the only guy who showed up.

That’s a pretty good way to start a career, as long as the next effort has a little more polish…

CHASING AMY

• Release Date: April 4, 1997
• Budget: $250,000
• Domestic Total Gross: $12 million
• Metacritic: 71

“A little movie with big truths, a work of such fierce intelligence and emotional honesty that it blows away the competition when it comes to contemporary romantic comedy.” 

— Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas (perfect score)

“Whatever Miramax was hoping for when it decided to bankroll films by Kevin Smith, it surely wasn’t Chasing Amy, the awful third installment of his ‘two guys hanging out’ trilogy, begun with the over-praised Clerks, and followed by the ludicrously bad Mallrats. The words ‘written and directed by Kevin Smith’ are now an instruction to run very fast out of the theater. Do not pay money to see this movie. Do not rent it when it comes out on video.”

—Washington Post, Eric Brace  (worst possible score)

I tried to watch Mallrats. It didn’t work out. That might be for the better, since I’d already watched four Kevin Smith films (and two episode of the Clerks animated series) in preparation for the podcast, and a little View Askewniverse goes a long way.

Clerks still has its charms, in large part because Smith’s stories align better with shoddy camerawork and low production value than they do with a more ambitious budget. When the scope of Smith’s stories gets bigger, his writing typically stays at the same small-scale level, and it just feels… off. And that’s apparent in Chasing Amy, which keeps the low-key vibe of Clerks but attempts a more emotionally ambitious storyline.

The 90s were an unfortunate moment when it felt like gay characters needed to be acknowledged in cinema, but every straight character had to steadfastly assert that he was not gay whenever the topic arose. Smith was far from the only straight white guy to use this to comedic effect, but I’m not sure anyone else dipped into to that well more often over the years. It’s forgivable in Clerks, but grows more problematic through Chasing Amy and Clerks II, the climactic set piece of which involves a leather-clad gay man having sex with his donkey.

In isolation, Smith’s gay jokes are harmless enough. In aggregate, it starts to feel like the guy has some issues he needs to work through privately before he unleashes them on us. This brand of comedy stopped being funny before Smith stopped abusing it, and what’s left is pretty aggressively obtuse by today’s standards.

Alyssa, played by Joey Lauren Adams, is an intriguing character. Smith obviously spent some time considering her point of view, and the way he renders her emotional dilemma is interesting. I’m on board for stories about fluid sexuality, whether those characters identify as gay or straight (or don’t identify either way). The problem with Chasing Amy is not that Alyssa, who identifies as lesbian, falls in love with a man — it’s that she falls in love with Kevin Smith.

Ben Affleck plays Holden, the Kevin Smith proxy we get in almost every one of his films. (In addition to the actual Kevin Smith, who plays Silent Bob in so many of them.) Like Dante from Clerks, Holden is a pretty simple dude with a love of comic books who’s most significant relationship in life is with his also-simple, also-white, also-comic-book-loving best friend, who is exactly like the protagonist except less sensitive and more of an outspoken jerk. But in Clerks, Randal was funny and good-natured underneath it all. Jason Lee’s Banky is an atrocious monster.

Part of this is 1997. Part of this is Jason Lee’s performance. Part of this is Kevin Smith. Banky was meant to be homophobic and misogynistic in 1997, but ultimately likable. The empathy hasn’t aged well, however. Using words like “bitch,” “dyke,” and “faggot” frequently and derisively, Banky’s behavior is pretty inexcusable, even if we’re meant to believe that this is due to his repressed homosexuality. The film itself does very little to convince us that this is the source of Banky’s anger — Smith had no problem imagining a rich sexual history for Alyssa, but stops short of considering what Banky’s sexuality really feels like. It’s not that we come away from Chasing Amy thinking Kevin Smith hates gay people — far from it. It’s nice that he tried, but his reach exceeded his grasp in Chasing Amy. He explores the straight male fantasy of girl-on-girl action, with a fleeting nod to male homosexuality.

Once again, the Kevin Smith proxy lands the woman who is hotter, smarter, and more appealing in just about every way. But this time, she sacrifices her entire sexual orientation to be with him! Why? What is it about Holden that drags a gay woman back into the closet? I can imagine a decent version of Chasing Amy about the Alyssa character falling in love with an entirely different man — one who doesn’t remind us of Kevin Smith. But the way it plays out here is so obviously a wish fulfillment fantasy on Smith’s part that it defies plausibility.

I admire Smith’s aim to include gays and lesbians in his Askewniverse. Hooper is a refreshing, worthy addition to this otherwise familiar cast of characters. In 1997, it was hard to find stories that represented these people well. But now that we see lesbians and gay men telling their own stories more often, Smith’s attempt to squeeze them into his rather limited worldview feels clumsy. Ultimately, both Alyssa and Banky’s sexualities are primarily used as obstacles for the Smith-like protagonist to reckon with, and he ends up alone because… that’s too much work for him? Smith’s discomfort with female sexuality is raised again, more seriously and less comedically than in Clerks. He gives Alyssa a fair shake, but did we need another story about a guy who can’t deal with the fact that the girl he likes wasn’t a pure and innocent virgin before they met.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the one scene I truly liked is the one that Holden doesn’t figure in — Alyssa, having to tell her (gay) friends that the new love of her life is a man. Smith works best when he gets out of his own way — imagine if the whole film had been proxy-free?

DOGMA

• Release Date: November 12, 1999
• Budget: $10 million
• Domestic Total Gross: $30.7 million
• Metacritic: 62

Dogma stands apart from a lot of Smith’s movies for having a real plot, even though the juvenile sense of humor remains intact. It also features a more talented and diverse set of actors than any View Askewniverse movie before (or since?). Alan Rickman, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock, and Linda Fiorentino bring a little something different to the sameness of Smith’s previous movies. (It’s amazing what you can do when you cast real actors, isn’t it?)

The execution is still pretty shaggy — the film makes a $10 million budget look pretty cheap, and the dialogue is rambling and exposition-heavy. In Dogma, Smith wrestles with his Catholic upbringing the same way he wrestles with sexual insecurity in Clerks and Chasing Amy, but the former lends a little more mileage to a feature screenplay.

In my eyes, Dogma is still Smith’s best effort at doing something “different.” He assembled the best cast he’s ever worked with, wrote a story with actual stakes, and managed to represent a spectrum of competent, empowered women who weren’t first and foremost romantic/sex objects pretty well in the process (for what I’d venture to say was the first and only time). It’s telling that Jason Lee’s apocalypse-craving demon Azrael seems somehow less evil than his Banky character in Chasing Amy, and Matt Damon easily bests Ben Affleck in the Matt-and-Ben scenes, as you might expect by pitting Talented Mr. Ripley-era Matt against Forces Of Nature-era Ben. Overall, the film is a funny, entertaining ride with just enough gravitas to sustain Smith’s cruder comedic beats. (I could do without the shit monster, though.)

Following Dogma, Smith fell down the Jay-and-Silent-Bob rabbit hole again by giving them their own movie, in addition to a Clerks sequel and a Clerks animated series. He also made hit-or-miss titles like Jersey Girl, Cop Out, and Zack And Miri Make A Porno. (Cop Out, the first movie he didn’t write, sadly remains his biggest box office hit.) It was around this time that Smith probably became more notable for his podcasts, comic books, books, and other endeavors than his filmmaking output. Films like Red State and Tusk have been interesting departures from the View Askewniverse, but box office success has eluded him, even when filmmakers who capitalized on his brand of slacker comedy went on to make blockbuster hits. He was also long-rumored to be involved in a Superman movie, long before the current wave of superheroes continually smashed box office records.

Smith’s films are reminiscent of a halcyon time before comic books dominated the pop culture landscape. It’s hard to remember an era when being a “nerd” was actually nerdy. Keeping this in mind, it’s a little easier why Dante, Holden, Jay, Silent Bob, and the rest of these guys are so glorified in Smith’s films. At the time, they weren’t the dominant force in pop culture.

But now they are. Reality TV became popular in the years after Smith’s debut, and now we’re inundated with stories about unambitious, unremarkable people doing poorly in their humdrum jobs. Many of the biggest comedians of the 2000s are also dead ringers for Clerks‘ Dante — like Seth Rogen, and just about every character he’s played. Of course, we now also have web series, many with the rambling dialogue, low production value, and juvenile humor Sundance deemed cinema-worthy in the 90s. Smith was bold in 1994, showing that just about anyone can make a movie about anything. (His movies are, in a way, a less skillful version of Seinfeld, the “show about nothing.”) Now, we live in a world where everyone is filming and showing off their very average lives via social media.

In the 90s, Smith was a chill white dude making movies for other chill white dudes, and it worked — he grew a devoted fan base, and for a brief moment, seemed poised to take Hollywood by storm. He was the It Slacker. But then he kind of slacked on that. The various sins of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma would be easy to shrug off if Smith had gone on to bigger and better things afterward. Unfortunately, so many of his movies seem tethered to Smith’s own limited world view — which, contrary to his branded “View Askewniverse,” is basically the very opposite of askew at this point. The titles of his books, like My Boring Ass Life, could easily be reality TV series. Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good could be the autobiography of our current president. It’s not Smith’s fault that what once was niche is now so mainstream… or is it?

Smith makes movies about guys like him, hanging out with the same handful of characters, many of whom are his real-life friends. That’s fun for him, and occasionally the audience. But I, for one, have lost interest in Smith’s shtick, at least until pony learns a new trick. I don’t know if any filmmaker’s entire body of work has ever aged so poorly in such a short time.

I still like Dogma, though!

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