Hi there! It’s 45 degrees and I forgot to bring a hat on my walk but I did see a robin, which means spring is spranging.
Speaking of robins…I saw THE BATMAN last week with Izzi and Nat! It was a very gloomy, rainy afternoon. The three of us were supposed to fly to New York but all of our flights were cancelled so we staycationed in Chicago and this was part of our big not-in-Brooklyn weekend. We even got a large popcorn.
I’m not sure how many superhero reboots I’ll see in my lifetime—so far I’ve been alive for eleven (ELEVEN!) Batman and Batman-adjacent films. That’s a lot! Too many, maybe! This most recent take, starring Robert Pattinson, is pretty good though. I really liked it. It’s dark, in the way that superhero movies now are dark, with moodiness and itchy ethics and probably a lot of direction to “brood.” Pattinson is full ‘90’s emo Bruce Wayne, with stringy hair and bad posture and no friends but plenty of pent up feelings and Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” soundtracking his every moody motorcycle ride. Zoë Kravitz is hot, reckless Catwoman, Colin Farrell is unrecognizable, unnecessary, and Italian (in a HOUSE OF GUCCI kind of way) as the Penguin. John Turturro is always wonderful to watch. Perfect Paul Dano is perfect as The Riddler.
The movie is a little too long (three hours, jsyk) and full of dialogue so dumb it’ll make your eyes roll, but it also spends a lot of its runtime reckoning with the franchise’s (and the genre’s) own legacy. The villainy here is very disturbing in its reflection of true modern terror, specifically that of incels, mass shooters, and insurrectionists. The lack of imagined dystopia is unpleasant, unsettling, and effective.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: grunge, feeling terrible about American politics, hot people, Batmen
Now playing in theaters
Ella picked out WESTWOOD: PUNK, ACTIVIST, ICON, last week. We love a good fashion documentary, but we’ve also learned they can run the gamut, quality-wise. For every UNZIPPED, illuminating the brilliance and personality behind a movement and a designer, there is a DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL, illuminating how deeply out of touch the industry can be.
This doc, by Lorna Tucker, is a bit of both. The filmmaking isn’t anything special, but Vivienne Westwood certainly is. All I knew about her before watching this was that she is generally credited with bringing punk to fashion and into the mainstream. Through interviews with collaborators, family, and the designer herself, we learn the ways in which Westwood has had to swim upstream for her entire career. She’s an independent designer, wrestling with how to be ethical and sustainable in the time of climate change, and to grow a business that properly supports its employees and maintains artistic integrity.
I most appreciated footage from an English talk show in the ‘70’s, where Westwood was interviewed and literally laughed at by a studio audience, who found her designs ridiculous. Her composure while being made a fool was inspiring, and her ability to maintain her point-of-view for a decades-long career even more so.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: fashion, weirdos and underdogs, British punk vibes
Streaming on Prime
I watched PASSING the other night, having missed it when it came out last winter. I didn’t have the highest hopes, I think I was expecting a something overwrought, self-serious, or too full of historical drama tropes.
But! In fact, the film was tense and thrilling. Rebecca Hall directs in luminescent 4:3 black and white, and the cinematography captures perfectly the taut, unsettling story.
Ruth Negga plays Claire, a black woman passing as white and married to a white man (Alexander Skarsgard). Tessa Thompson is Irene, her childhood friend who lives a well-to-do but unsatisfying life in Harlem. They have a chance reconnection, and Claire persistently inserts herself into Irene’s community, throwing the latter’s world out of balance and bringing questions of colorism, ownership, and regret into both of their lives.
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself,” Gordon Parks photography
Streaming on Netflix
Hannah got free tickets to an early screening of the new A24 movie from directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (a.k.a. Daniels), EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, and oof, it was a doozy! Action-packed, totally thrilling, and deeply moving—I guess you could say it was….everything…everywhere…all…at.once. :)
Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn, a woman who finds herself in literally the worst timeline of the multiverse. Her family hates her, she might just hate her family, she’s poor and being audited by an unsympathetic Jamie Lee Curtis, and her intolerant, difficult father is visiting for Chinese New Year.
But then: it turns out she just might be the last great hope for saving the aforementioned multiverse from ultimate ruin. All she needs to do is access the skills of all the other Evelyns, without being seduced into leaving her terrible timeline altogether.
Through a barrage of surprising, absurd, funny, and expert scenes, Daniels take us on a journey that mutates into a life-giving family drama about generational trauma, high expectations, and love. Hannah wept so hard her mask was wet. Bless.
Feels good to see something that feels different and catches you off guard. Also worth noting the cast is perfect. Michelle Yeoh is incredible in what feels like the role of a lifetime. And I’d never seen Ke Huy Quan in anything, but apparently he was a child star in Indiana Jones and hasn’t been in much since, but…oof. He stole my heart. Beautiful performance. Wow!
WATCH IF YOU LIKE: music videos, unlikely heroes, actors who do their own stunts, comic books, crying
Playing in theaters soon!
That’s all for now! Enjoy your weekend! Oh, and enjoy the Oscars!
-Nina
Hoping to see Everything Everywhere All At Once this weekend! Cool that you got to see a screening!
I appreciated the 'noir-y' parts of The Batman, when the titular man was actually doing some detective work -- loved the scene where he was looking through Zoe Kravitz's contact lenses. Also, a picture of Paul Dano performing as Pierre in BBC's War and Peace is my current desktop background, so his Riddler was an easy sell.
Hoping to see Everything Everywhere All At Once this weekend! Cool that you got to see a screening!
I appreciated the 'noir-y' parts of The Batman, when the titular man was actually doing some detective work -- loved the scene where he was looking through Zoe Kravitz's contact lenses. Also, a picture of Paul Dano performing as Pierre in BBC's War and Peace is my current desktop background, so his Riddler was an easy sell.