There's no place like home (viewing) for the holidays
Yes, I’ve seen Spider-Man: No Way Home and I think it’s pretty great. No, I don’t think its success means the death of cinema at all, although I long for the bygone age of 2019 when movies like Knives Out, Ford v. Ferrari, 1917 and Little Women could all be theatrical hits. Now, no thanks to the pandemic, Hollywood and much of the moviegoing public thinks of titles like these as only for streaming.
So how have the streamers fared with their offerings for the holiday? Highly variably.
BEING THE RICARDOS (D: Aaron Sorkin)
Most of the drama surrounding this movie, streaming now on Amazon, has revolved around whether Nicole Kidman was the right choice to play Lucille Ball. Yes and no. Kidman is best when she’s playing the character Lucy Ricardo, well channeling Ball’s legendary comic chops. She’s less convincing playing Lucille Ball in the behind-the-scenes material, especially in close-ups that betray the prosthetics. It feels as if Kidman tried so hard to capture the beloved TV personality Lucy, the more grounded, less heightened scenes don’t always land. Aaron Sorkin’s expository dialogue is particularly clunky, particularly when it tries to provide historical context the characters in the scene would already know. Redeeming the movie are the strong performances of the rest of the cast, including Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz and especially JK Simmons, who absolutely aces William Frawley. They help the movie get by, but the movie made me wish I were watching a documentary instead. Thankfully, there is at least an audio documentary, thanks to TCM’s oustanding podcast. FINE
DON’T LOOK UP (D: Adam McKay)
I saw this movie in a theater, where some of my fellow moviegoers started debating the quality of the film right after it was over. One person said, “I thought that was a pretty good show.” Another person replied, “Really? I thought it was terrible.” Unfortunately, I agreed with the second guy. Audiences streaming this on Netflix (starting December 24) might find it passable if they half-watch it, frequently pause it and marvel at all the stars on display. Leo! J-Law! Timothee! Meryl! Cate! Jonah! Ariana! That guy in Dunkirk! But taking it in all at once, I found the satire of our divided, reality-denying culture painfully toothless, heavy-handed and on the nose. This two and a half hour slog makes its points with all the subtlety of a lead pipe, with all the insight of a crackpot YouTuber, and with all of the Professor Obvious humor of a back-end Saturday Night Live sketch that beats its joke into the ground. Adam McKay’s ongoing turn from goofy comedy to political satire curdles with an absolutely breathtaking waste of talent. I half-laughed once. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel lousy. AVOID
THE POWER OF THE DOG (D: Jane Campion)
Jane Campion’s masterful psychological thriller blindsided me in the best possible way. At first, I thought the battle of wits and wills between the sadistic Benedict Cumberbatch, the fragile Kirsten Dunst and the reserved but quietly intense Kodi Smit-McPhee seemed to be heading in an obvious direction, and then the last act threw me for a loop from which I’m still dizzy. At first, I thought the movie was powerful but opaque, and then the more I thought about it, the more I realized how nefarious and twisted it really was. It’s an absolute master class in acting, filmmaking, and in unsettling, thanks largely to Jonny Greenwood’s nerve-jangling score. MUST SEE