Q3 Report on the Cinema
We’re burning down the candle of 2025. Can’t wait to take the little waxy puck of this year and chuck it out the window.
But before that: the cinema…How did it fare in Q3?
Biggest Ws
First and foremost, let me say that the Hollywood cinema tradition is corrupt and meaningless. American mainstream cinema as a rule is anti-human. Did I see any of the big movies that came out this quarter which generated buzz and enthusiasm and might disprove my grandiose generalizations? Absolutely not. I have never previously let ignorance stop me from making pronouncements and I won’t stop now.
The best film I saw this quarter was Sergei Bondarchuk’s four-part adaptation of War and Peace. No notes. While the film cut several of my favorite parts of the book, I understand and respect the reasoning behind the cuts. The exceptional craft displayed in the sequences Bondarchuk & Co. chose to bring to the screen overwhelms the senses and causes one to enter a state of divine cinemadness. I screamed out loud from shock at the intricacy of Bondarchuk’s long takes. I became delirious at the wonder and beauty of his fancy dance sequences. He manages to visualize some of the most emotionally intricate and interior sequences I’ve ever read, and he visualizes them not in a cheesy fashion, but with genuine aplomb and an appropriately Tolstoy-ian reverence for the natural beauty of the Russian countryside. Thanks to the glories of Communism, you too can watch all four parts subtitled in English (or Spanish, if you prefer) on Mosfilm’s YouTube channel.
The other exceptional film I watched this quarter can also be enjoyed for free, as it’s streaming on America’s cinematic Agar growth plate, Tubi. If you’ve wondered what regionally-specific American cinema might become once we all live on collective farms/puppet colonies in the Northeast, check out Magic Spot, the 2022 New England-crafted fantasy-comedy from the crazy crew at Motern Media. I had previously screened Motern’s wacky horror-thriller-comedy, Freaky Farley, and looked forward to seeing star Matt Farley take on a less Jughead-core role. Magic Spot delivered all the heartwarming hometown cinema charm I sought, and several musical numbers on the side. If you love community theater (which you should) and you love magical rocks with the power to teleport people through time (which you should), you must investigate the Magic Spot of Tussleville, New Hampshire.
Biggest Ls
I’ve already written at length on my experience of James Gunn’s new Superman movie. I shan’t harp on my harp any further, except to say that if kindness were actually punk rock, it would be a lot easier to reconcile the early life principles taught to me by my parents with my commitment to Quaker-esque pacificism.
I’m depressed about how bad the reviews are for Kogonada’s new movie, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Kogonada directed one of my very favorite films, 2017’s Columbus, but since then has insisted on making multiple films with my nemesis Colin Farrell. Colin Farrell, to be clear, is a very talented actor, I just fucking hate his screen presence. I’m sure he’s a lovely person in real life. He’s good at his job. I just don’t like being confronted with him. It’s a me problem. Anyway, even Richard Brody at The New Yorker hated A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and he died on a hill with me at the Battle of Megalopolis. This is a harsh and enormous L, and I shall bear it like the cross. Unlike Christ, I shall complain the whole time.
Hot Takes
The 51st State, an intensely forgotten early 2000s action flick starring Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, and Emily Mortimer, is a good movie. Not in the sense of being spiritually enriching, intellectually engaging, or otherwise uplifting to the human condition, but in the sense of being dumb and funny. Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle feed a bunch of dumb skinheads laxatives and the skinheads poo themselves nearly to death. Meatloaf plays an evil crime lord. Robert Carlyle and Emily Mortimer have an indescribable sex scene in a bathtub. Samuel L. Jackson wears a kilt and EVERYBODY tries to get a look at his dick. Whatever. Either you like when a movie is full of baffling surprises, or you live in one of those puzzles my grandma likes to do of pink-and-white china sets. It’s on Tubi where all the lit shit is, so if you don’t believe me, just watch.
In conclusion, god help me I hope some good movies come out before the end of the year. Or at least that I can get someone to go with me to see One Battle After Another.
