I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Impression: Oh, where do I begin. I like Charlie Kaufman‘s films. A lot! I’ve seen all the ones he has directed and all the one’s he has written. They are quirky and mindbending and definitely the most creative thing coming out of mainstream Hollywood. So, this movie. It’s a relatively simple set up, a woman is going with her boyfriend to his parents house for the first time. At first it seems like a fairly normal movie about 2 hipsters driving to a dinner, having some pseudointellectual conversations on the way. Slowly some weirdness creeps in. First she talks about a biology paper, then she’s apparently a poet, and recites a super long quite powerful poem, at some point she is a painter, then a waitress. Stranger and stranger things keep happening and you realize there is this dark undercurrent, but this is not a horror film, things are just off, and no one seems to realize it.

The point of the movie seems to be that it’s all performance: they are all just going through the motion (the dance?) of saying something to keep conversations going, and what they say is unimportant. Whether they are talking art or science or film, all that matters is that the other person doesn’t quite agree and keeps the conversation going. It’s a little weird to make a very talky movie where what they talk about is completely irrelevant. The characters never notice that their conversations are non-sequiturs or that the stories they tell to each other about themselves change or that who they are talking to ages or changes clothes or that sometimes they are a totally different person. They just keep talking. Sometimes the characters get emotional for no reason. Behind the endless talks there are possibly some truths about anxieties of modern life, but there might as well not be. It seems like none of that is the point.

After finishing watching the movie, I felt I needed to know a lot more about the musical Oklahoma (I know nothing more than it exists) to understand the plot. But instead I got sidetracked and read about the novel on which it was based, and it seems to have been pretty true to it, and there was no mention of the musical in the plot of the book, so maybe it’s not so central.

I don’t know, it’s a film that makes you think, and it looks good. But… did it really need to be 2 hours 14 minutes long to make you think about the purpose of conversations, about how we relate to each other and how well we really understand each other? I would argue it would have worked much better as a short film.

Facts: A couple on a surrealist road trip through snow and windswept Oklahoma.

My Buddhist reading:  Idle chatter is one of the 10 non-virtuous actions in Buddhism. The film uses a lot of idle chatter (which passes for deep conversation) to illustrate the pointlessness of it.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Impression: I saw ‘In the Loop’ some years ago, and I remember feeling kinda meh about it. It was marketed as a comedy, but it really wasn’t. So when I saw the ads for this movie when it came out, I was intrigued, but a bit hesitant. My SO really wanted to see it at the time, but we never did. Well we finally ran into it searching around on Netflix the other night.

It took me some talking and thinking about it to put my finger on what I think of Armando Iannucci‘s films. At the end, I don’t think I am a fan, but I can get why others would be. They are marketed as black comedies, but the two I have seen (In the Loop and this one) are basically films with an absurdly dark, perhaps funny premise, but not much in terms of laugh out loud specific content. It’s not exactly a comedy if you only chuckle twice during the entire movie.

I would group him with Tarantino, and say he has a similar premise, but places it within the realm of political film. And now having seen two, I don’t believe his movies are comedies.  He basically creates very similar characters, thuggish, brutal humans with foul mouths, but instead of placing them in plots where they play criminals and outlaws (like in Tarantino’s films), he places them in political roles. And it’s jarring and absurd to see, and I get he is making a point, and I can perhaps even appreciate the point he is making, I am just bothered by the label comedy which to me feels false. I love dark comedies, but I don’t find Iannucci’s films funny.

In this one you have a bunch of British and American actors playing members of the Central Committee around the time of Stalin’s death. They all yell at each, curse each other out, and say the most absurd things. When they are not ordering people shot or personally torturing prisoners, that is. But I guess the point he is trying to make is, what else do you do in those absurd situations, when hundreds of thousands of people are being killed and tortured for not being loyal enough? Is Iannucci’s dialogue really that crazy, considering the situations they find themselves in. Still, it’s quite brutal” they get “bad doctors” to start dissecting Stalin’s brain right in a shed, in front of everyone, Beira is shot and set on fire with a cigarette butt. But I guess I can see the impulse to show the banality of the brutality.

Also both of his films feel very dude-y. Nothing wrong with that, but just kind of a feeling I get. Still, not seeing much humor in it, it’s kind of a rough movie to watch.

Facts: Stalin’s death and immediate power struggle following it told in as ostensibly a black comedy.

My Buddhist reading: Possibly the least Buddhist I have ever seen, everyone is just a horrible person in a horrible world, no amount of meditating would save this lot. 🙂

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Impressions: When watching a movie on the plane, there is a lot of stopping and starting, and people moving around, so I feel it’s not the same attention you give a movie in the theater or at home. So I should note I watched this one on a very long flight. That said, it still felt disjointed and  slapstick. It felt like a bunch of clever gags put together without anything holding them together. What exactly is the point of this movie? That Hollywood loves itself and thinks it’s more important than it is? That Hollywood is frivolous? That people in general are shallow and frivolous? I am not sure, but all of those ring hollow.
And I have loved a number of Coen brother movies: Raising Arizona has always been a favorite, as has Hudsucker Proxy, and many others.
That’s not to say there were no funny moments in Hail Caesar, because there were: the priest and rabbi bit made me laugh, as did the whole concept of George Clooney dressed as a Roman soldier being kidnapped by communists. The plot follows going-ons at a 1950’s Hollywood studio  where a bunch of genre films are made in a strict genre fashion: a ridiculous western with horse stunts on one lot, a Busby Berkeley-type musical
extravaganza on another, a melodrama on a third, and a biblical epic on the fourth. The actors are interchangeable But the point of all of them is just to attract viewers, and it’s all shallow and cliche.
I am not sure if the Coen brothers recently had some kind of fallout with a Hollywood studio, and this is a form of payback, but that’s the extent of the plot. Some comic relief gets thrown in when actors, who are also portrayed as not-too-bright start getting political ideas. The main character is a head of the studio who has to balance all these people he manages, and his personal life, and the press who wants to get the tabloid scoop.  Maybe it’s all meant to  be a clear dig at particular people in showbiz, but maybe it’s just supposed to be a silly comedy. I feel like it is not completely successful as either. So just a so-so grade for this one

Facts: A bunch of silly Hollywood films, very much in strict genre fashion are being produced in 1950s Hollywood, with a subplot of the main star being kidnapped by communists.

A Bigger Splash (2015)

Impression: I really don’t get Luca Guadagnino! I remember watching his other highly acclaimed film I Am Love during what was probably the best week of my life and feeling underwhelmed. While it was beautifully filmed, and I knew that it was critically acclaimed, I just didn’t get it. It seemed somehow empty, nothing really happened (and I’ve watched many movies in which nothing happens, and been fine with it), and I did not care about the characters. So it took Tilda Swinton in the lead role as an aging rock star who lost her voice and high placement on quite a few best-of-the-year lists to lure me into another Guadagnino film. And…. Same exact result: beautiful people, gorgeous setting, but no plot, and no connection to the characters. Sure, no one can pull off a lead role in which they don’t speak quite like Tilda Swinton, and the awkward dancing by Ralph Fiennes alone was worth the price of admission, so it was not a complete waste of time. But I am still intrigued by what it is Guadagnino’s movies are trying to say that I am just not getting.  This one has the female rock star and her younger boyfriend taking it easy on the Italian coast, when her ex-lover and his daughter show up. There is some sexual tension and dislike between almost everyone in the foursome, and eventually one of them ends up dead. Towards the end of the movie it turns into a bit of a thriller, dealing with the cover up of the murder.  In the background, the European refugee crisis is taking place, and is related to the plot only tangentially. In general, the story seems to be about rich people living completely inside their bubble and unaware and unconcerned about the world around them.  If this is the point, I am sure I must be missing the depth of the insight the film is going for.

Facts: An aging rockstar loses her voice and relaxes on the Italian coast with her boyfriend, when an ex-lover shows up with his daughter and someone ends up dead.