2022 Movie Log: November

1st: Game Night – John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein (2018)
Sneakily one of the best comedies of the last few years. The Jesse Plemmons stuff just kills me. Also, nothing funnier to me than people being in actual danger and thinking they’re not.
Grade: B+

2nd: Girls Trip – Malcolm D. Lee (2017)
Put Tiffany Haddish in every movie! The New Yorker had her role in this film among their ‘best performances of the 21st century’ list and I do not disagree. Also, the candle gag in this movie is an all-timer. 
Grade: B-

9th: Badlands – Terrence Malick (1973)
Did you know that Bruce Springsteen named his 1978 song “Badlands” after the title of this film, even though its lyrics have nothing to do with the actual movie? Meanwhile, his 1982 song “Nebraska” does nothing to anticipate the 2013 film of the same name but instead recounts the narrative and images from the film “Badlands.” Now, these are just a few of the many fun facts you will learn while watching a movie with–hey wait, please don’t go, I’ll stop, I promise!
Grade: A

13th: Meet Me in the Bathroom – Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern (2022)
The only thing that made me feel older than this doc was the time earlier this year when I got sick for a week from partying too hard at an Interpol show. Also, hate to pull this card, but go read the book. Nothing was probably going to live up to that mark anyways, but this was still a pretty poor effort in my opinion. 
Grade: C

14th: Swann in Love – Volker Schlöndorff (1984)
A surprisingly good adaptation! To me, it seems like Proust’s humor and vulgarity comes through for the most part, which, if you’re going to adapt his work is really the crux of it. I guess it’d be interesting to see if the film makes any sense to someone going in blind. But really, the only issue I had was the film deciding it needed to add some invented details into the last scenes to make the ending more poignant, which honestly kind of offsets the meticulous tone of this entire section of this book.
Grade: B

15th: Fresh – Mimi Cave (2022)
Sneakily one of my favorite movies of the year so far. Thought this was genuinely fun and surprising. It does a remarkable job at hitting just the right tone, to the point where in lesser hands I could see myself really hating this. The dancing sequence, for example, is a moment I really wanted to/expected to dislike, and yet, I must admit I found it delightfully charming.
Grade: B+

16th: La Captive – Chantal Akerman (2000)
Simultaneously impressed and perplexed by this, both as a standalone film and an adaptation. The Captive is by far the novel’s weakest section, which makes it especially interesting as one of the only Proust films. As such, Akerman takes a decent amount of liberties with it, changing the time period, characters’ names, and most importantly, the ending. Strangely enough, it all comes out to me as a mixed bag. There are aspects that Akerman keeps from the book that are marvelous (the casting of Albertine/Ariane is perfectly done). And yet, there are aspects from the original work that I don’t understand why she kept (this film, for instance, does little more than the novel in giving Albertine/Ariane any internal life or POV). Meanwhile, the changes Akerman makes are mildly puzzling to me. I’d like to reiterate again that this is the weakest part of the novel. In general, I have no problem with making changes to the book and, in fact, was hoping that Akerman would do just that in order to breathe new life into the story. Instead, I’m kind of left to wonder what her changes accomplish. One of the greatest aspects of the novel is its setting (in a specific time and place). Akerman still makes a period piece but sets the film decades after the Belle Époque. Likewise, much of Proust’s singular depravity and humor is removed from the film and in a weird way this change kind of makes Marcel/Simon more sympathetic (albeit slightly more pathetic). Akerman even arrives at the same ending as the book for this section but changes the specific circumstances. To what end, I’m not really sure. If anybody is still reading to this point, I would like to just say that I’m sorry. I know you don’t care! And also, I need to iterate that I love many of the specific bits of filmmaking in this. In general, I’m really excited to watch more of Akerman’s films and even to revisit this after I have more familiarity with her work. The film also just makes me wish for more adaptions of In Search of Lost Time. Clearly, there are endless possibilities for what you could do with it. Netflix should honestly give Luca Guadagnino ten hours to do it. Or let like seven directors make their own version of one of the novel’s seven volumes as an anthology!
Grade: B-

19th: John Wick – Chad Stahelski (2014)
Me watching this movie: twitter.com/OnlyZans/status/1569416356839280640?s=20&t=OAqfZa0VHshDyzELhLTLDw
Grade: B-

19th: Jungle Cruise – Jaume Collet-Serra (2021)
Watched the way god intended: on a bus from Boston to Maine. Listen, I do mind a silly little romp now and again. And I must admit that I found this movie charming enough to enjoy it. But this was really stretching the limits for how nonsensical a big-budget movie can be. 
Grade: C

25th: Ant-Man and the Wasp – Peyton Reed (2018)
Concord Coach Lines’ movie selection stays unbeaten. Love Paul Rudd. Especially loved the relationship with his daughter in this. But, like Jungle Cruise, this really stretches how much stupidity a viewer can take in one movie. 
Grade: C

25th: Triangle of Sadness – Ruben Östlund (2022)
This is a movie that’s going to suffer from preconceived notions about it being the palme d’or winner. But, if you can manage to watch this as a more typical European film about class, it’s delightful! I’m not sure it always has something insightful to say but, again, if you can just watch it as a comedy/satire, it’s a lot of fun.
Grade: B

26th: Cheavlier – Athina Rachel Tsangari (2015)
The letterbox’d reviews for this movie prove that users on this site don’t have a sense of humor and I’m mad about it.
Grade: B+

26th: The Menu – Mark Mylod (2022)
People who are saying that you can’t enjoy a movie and also think it’s not very good, go watch The Menu.
Grade: C+

27th: Fire of Love – Sara Dosa (2022)
The footage in this is honestly unbelievable. It makes me want to watch the volcano docs that this couple made. I also generally dug everything else about the film (the illustrations, narration, tone).
Grade: B

28th: X – Ti West (2022)
Feel like this is potentially a tricky one for me to review. To be clear, I really, really did not like it. Now, whether that’s because it’s a well-made horror movie that disturbed me or because it’s a bad film I guess is up for debate. But, I must admit that I kind of lean toward the latter. I don’t want to say that horror movies need to have a larger message or be more fun to work, but I guess I’m struggling to see the point in this one besides the fact that it’s gross?
Grade: C-

29th: Zodiac – David Fincher (2007)
Robert Graysmith: Born to detect, forced to cartoon. What can I say at this point? It’s pretty much just my favorite movie. 
Grade: A

30th: Confess, Fletch – Greg Mottola (2022)
I feel like however I write this, it’s going to come out as a backhanded compliment, which is unfortunate because I did really like this move! But I feel like 9/10 times these days, something like this would get turned into a miniseries and it would probably be pretty good. But, in all honesty, I was just delighted by the fact that this was a fun, simple, good, 90 minute movie. Sometimes that’s enough!
Grade: B-