2023 Movies

I continue to be a bitter curmudgeon who is unimpressed with most of the movies. Still gonna make my list, still gonna try to find things I actually like.

Don't Care List:
The Holdovers: Maybe I'll watch this eventually. I don't have anything against Payne's movies. It's just not a top priority for me.
Maestro: Aside from biopics always being middling to me, there's something about this movie that makes me uncomfy.
Air: Something about sports? Or sneakers? I don't care.
Nyad: Two words: sports drama. I'm already asleep.
Wonka: This shouldn't exist.

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Movies I Loved:

Barbie: One of three films I actually saw in a theater this year and with my mom of all people; we both had a great time. It's smart, it's funny, it's perfectly cast, and I had fun while also having things to think about. Probably my favorite of the year.

American Fiction: Hilariously, what I said about Barbie also applies here: smart, funny, and perfectly cast. I clearly was not in the mood for overwrought dramas (even though the Academy loves them). I want more films like this: actually funny, solid family story, and biting social commentary.

Past Lives: I took forever to watch this because on my understanding of the themes, I figured it would be a really hard watch for me. It was. I literally had to stop in the middle to write a little. It's still great though.

Talk To Me: On the flip side, we have this year's good horror film. It's a horror film with great themes that's actually pretty scary. I imagine that hand is going to become iconic.

Sanctuary: The second film I saw in a theater. I am a sucker for two people in a room stories and power plays and that was basically the film. The cinematography was also beautiful.

Reality: I guess more like three characters in a room, but this was a really subtle political drama that was actually really gripping to watch. There were a lot of acclaimed crime study type movies this year, but this one was the one I was most invested in. I thought the censoring effect was very creative.

Bottoms: A movie that made me laugh, but replace the commentary with just wackjob surrealism. God, I appreciated fun movies this year.

Poor Things: While I don't order these specifically, I am deliberately putting this on the bottom of the loved list because I have reservations. I can't resist Lanthimos movies, this is just a fact about me, but this ranks on the lower end of his films for me and it's because there's something about the script that just gives me the ick. The costumes, setting, music, acting, and themes in general are all excellent, but something really didn't come together for me. The first hour is kind of hard to watch but intriguing enough to continue, then there's about a half hour where I LOVED this movie, and then the rest of it I felt this strange mix of positive but slightly conflicted feelings with it having a perfect ending. Perhaps I need to ruminate on this more.

Movies I Really Liked:

How To Blow Up A Pipeline: A environmentalism action movie that does a really great job of showing all the different angles of destructive capitalist choices that destroy both the environment and the people who have to live in it.

Polite Society: I hesitated to watch this film, knowing what it was about, but I'm glad I finally did because it was really fun and actually had a completely satisfying ending. I would have felt differently about this film if it had ended differently so they really made the right choice here. Major props for creating a "villain" who the main character can seem like she's overreacting to with unearned hate, while also making every woman in their late 20s and older go, "I think she's right, but for reasons she hasn't noticed." Super clever writing there, and I appreciate it.

May December: My struggle with this film is while I did really laugh at the black comedy of it, I found the story of Charles Melton's character so sad (and so well acted) that I had a hard time not feeling down the whole time. I really might have to watch this one again.

Godland: I think this film proves that I can like a Western, especially if it's not set in America. I loved the consistently bleak and violent mood of the film and seeing the downfall of the main character, who I ultimately never sympathized with. Iceland is the perfect setting for a Western; who knew?

The Night of the 12th: French crime drama #1. This one was actually my favorite of the French dramas. I love the way the investigation is never solved, and the way gender affects these investigations is explored. Although I kind of wish the film didn't just state its theme so blatantly.

Anatomy Of A Fall: French crime drama #2. I feel like this was a perfectly good courtroom drama, but I don't know why it's so acclaimed? I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it didn't feel like anything particularly groundbreaking.

The Blue Caftan: This movie was really unique. It's kind of billed as a romantic drama, but when it says romance, it definitely doesn't mean that in the way you think. This is a story that highlights very different kinds of love, the kind that are more likely to exist in a restrictive society. I honestly love the kind of stories that show how love can mean so many things.

Saltburn: I didn't hear about any of the "shocking" scenes until after I had seen the film. None of them had shocked me, but I'm a weird film person. Overall, I liked the movie and had fun watching it. Derivative? Sure. I don't care.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret: I read this book when I was ten, and this was such a good adaption. The time period is so well integrated, and it perfectly captures the feeling of being a preteen in any time.

The Zone of Interest: My issue here is that I think the movie is really good, but like the last Jonathan Glazar movie I saw, I was kind of bored. I am completely fine with slow movies, but with both films I felt like I was missing things because some aspects were almost too subtle. The mise-en-scene is incredible and the sound is brilliant, but I was annoyed that I had to keep looking stuff up because I could tell I was missing plot points.

All Of Us Strangers: The strongest thing about this film for me was the vibe. I wish I hadn't spoiled the dead twist for myself in the beginning, but I still liked it. There's ultimately a powerful metaphor for loneliness and grief in this film that really hits at the end.

Blue Jean: A nice little character study during an interesting time in LGBT history.

Blackberry: I liked it more than the Social Network. Fight me.

Nimona: A good adaption of the comic book.

No Accident: A former student recommended this one to me, and it was great to hear the whole depth of this case.

Milli Vanilli: A documentary about a well known music scandal that really shows the people at the center of it and the exploitation and blame they endured.

Pamela, A Love Story: Another great documentary about famous people that really gets to the heart of the person.

 
Movies I Liked:

Oppenheimer: Too Long Movie #1. I liked the movie just fine, not big on biopics overall but Chris Nolan is an engaging director, but way is it so long? Was the frame necessary? Can we just choose a theme and go with it? If people are just going to make movies this long, we need to bring back intermissions because I will never watch this length of film in a theater.

Killers of the Flower Moon: Too Long Movie #2. Someone stop these way too famous male directors. This one was almost four hours. Why? It's an important story to tell, but something is lost in the telling when I am halfway through the film and thinking, why exactly is Leo's character doing all this shit when he's married to an Osage women? Yes, cognitive dissonance racism and whatever, but the film didn't convince me that this made sense. It was too focused on the events and not the heart.

Priscilla: My attention was held by the story and the costuming was an A+. Mostly I avoid biopics but I saw some interesting discussion around biopics of women and that made me want to watch this one.

Saint Omer: French crime drama #3. I think this one resonated with me less than the other two for mostly personal reasons, so I can't really hold it against it for that. I think my main issue was that I couldn't really get the point: the writer relates to the defendant and . . . what?

The Burial: A fun legal drama about the funeral industry, one of my favorite topics. This movie felt like a film from the 90s, if that makes sense. Nothing too deep, just a solid movie.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes: I watched this before reading the book, was inspired to read the book, and then watched it again. I understand why the director didn't want to split it into two after feeling like he made the wrong choice with Mockingjay, but this book is over 100 pages longer and has a clear division. It would have really benefited from becoming a two hour movie and an hour and a half long movie. It moves way too fast in the beginning so two minutes in, I was lost. It did spark me to rewatch all the other movies and reread all the books though!

Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The third film I saw in a theater. This movie was fun. It's not amazing or groundbreaking, but I don't think it was trying to be. It was Guardians of the Galaxy but fantasy, and I had a perfectly good time.

Saw X: I can say with complete confidence that this is the third best Saw movie, having seen all of them from 1-6 and skipping 7, 8, and 9. I have always said that the original is the only one that's actually a good movie but if you watch 1, 2, and 10, you have a decent horror trilogy (and you have to watch them in that order even though this one falls between 1 and 2). I have definitely gotten more squeamish since I was a teen and could have done without some of the gore (people forget that the first one wasn't that gory), but this one actually followed the original Jigsaw logic without the campy nonsense of everything after the second one. 

Bama Rush: I find the topic insanely fascinating, but this documentary didn't really do it justice. The presence of the filmmaker's narrative didn't really add to the film, in my opinion, and I wondered after the fact if it had been added because of a lack of authentic footage of the process itself.

 
Movies That Were Okay:

Beau Is Afraid: Ari Aster, I see what you were doing there and yes, this movie did effectively make me feel like I was also having paranoid delusions, but that doesn't mean I had a good time. I get that it's an Odyssey-type thing, but did it have to be that long? This could have been an amazing two hour movie, maybe even two and a half hours, but no.

Money Shot: The PornHub Story: This documentary was fine but wildly unmemorable considering its topic. It reminded me of the Abercombie one from last year: it told me about a thing, but it didn't do it in an especially interesting or unique way.

Movies I Didn't Like:

Cocaine Bear: It just wasn't that funny. Too self aware.

Cade: The Tortured Crossing: Never change, Neil Breen.

2022 Movies

I have possibly never been so bored looking through the films nominated for awards. I also have had a really busy (see also: rough) year. One of if not the roughest of my life. I have genuinely struggled to even watch movies this year at all unless I have been lucky enough to have someone (usually Adam) who will sit with me and watch. This is made even worse by the fact that it seems like movies are getting longer? Bring back movies that are less than two hours!

In that spirit, my list is short and I'm bringing back the "Movies I Don't Care About" list because there are a lot of acclaimed movies that I simply don't want to bother with. I may watch Fire of Love, All The Beauty And Bloodshed, RRR, Till, or Saint Omar.

Movies I Don't Care About:
Avatar: The Way Of Water: I hated the original one; why would I subject myself to more?
Elvis: I think I'm functionally done with biopics. Just give me a documentary instead.
The Fabelmans: Every time I try to read the summary, I fall asleep. It's something about Hollywood so, of course, Hollywood loves it.
Top Gun: Maverick: It's just military propaganda, right?
The Whale: I was kind of interested in this but then I saw that there were a million think pieces about it and I just decided to walk away.
Blonde: See: Elvis.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Save me from superhero movies. Yes, Black Panther was one of the absolute best but Chadwick is dead and I don't care.
Babylon: Something else about Hollywood.
The Batman: The Batman universe was the only superhero universe that ever interested me and yet I am so done with superhero movies and DC's sloppy films. Just leave me alone.

Movies I Loved:

Everything Everywhere All At Once: This is the only movie I saw in a theater this year back in February and I spent the whole year saying it's the only movie worth seeing. Maybe not the only one but if you only see one this year, this is the one.

The Banshees of Inisherin: The other actually good award-nominated movie. I basically always love Martin McDonugh movies and plays, and this was a great study of adult friendship and significance in the face of mortality.

Glass Onion: The other other actually good award-nominated movie. Also, we were all about eating the rich this year, huh? I hope Rian Johnson continues to make Benoit Blanc films. It's great to see real mystery as a genre that also criticizes society.

Pleasure: I'll watch anything about the porn industry and this film is a good solid overview through the story of one actress.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: Remember when comedies were a thing? This movie actually made me laugh a lot. What a concept.

All Quiet On The Western Front: As an adaption this movie is technically a failure, but as a film in general it is well constructed, has beautiful cinematography, and its soundtrack will haunt me forever.

Pinocchio: I'm obviously talking about the Del Toro one. I cried a lot. I was not surprised by all the talk about ideas of conformity versus free thinking, but I was surprised by how much of a meditation on death it was.

Navalny: This documentary was more exciting than most movies released this year. In spite of it's serious subject, I also got a lot of laughs and hope from it.

The Janes: A documentary about underground abortion clinics. Really well done and interesting.


Movies I Really Liked:

Cyrano: I saw the stage show before the world shut down and really liked the music. The film is a decent adaption that made me cry my eyes out.

Triangle of Sadness: Eat The Rich #2. Like the director's other movie I know (The Square) this movie is a kind of slow burn, but it really pays off with style and message.

The Menu: Eat The Rich #3. I was actually pretty captivated by this film. Is the message obvious? Yeah. I still enjoyed the heck out of it.

Women Talking: I love any version of characters in a room having an intense conversation. I also love cults. This movie was an obvious win for me.

Tar: This movie was really good, but can we please stop making movies so long? I honestly lose detail when films are so long.

X: I can appreciate a good horror movie and, as stated, discussion of sex stuff is also an A+. The director did House of the Devil, so that was promising, and I liked this enough to also go watch Pearl.

Pearl: These two movies together are greater than either one individually. Watching them back to back is the right choice.

Living: In spite of having seen Ikiru (and read Ivan Illych for that matter) I still somehow wasn't prepared to cry. British Isles folk songs, man. But, you know, also meaning of life stuff.

Happening: This was basically the French, period piece version of that other abortion movie from a few years ago. I still liked it.

Petit Maman: A nice, little family movie.

Orgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste: A messed up documentary that is also about sex and cults? Sign me up. Wait. Don't.


Movies I Liked:

Nope: This was definitely the weakest of Jordan Peele's films but it was still a good one with an interesting message about taming nature.

The Woman King: The plot was super conventional but Viola Davis is always great and I love seeing women kick ass.

The Northman: The visuals in this film were an A and I liked seeing this Viking Hamlet, but I found something kind of off-putting about it. Although, this film may be part of the reason I decided to go to Iceland instead of Peru this year so thanks film.

Causeway: A quiet drama written by the woman who wrote My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I love movies about adult friendship.

Hellraiser: Perhaps controversially, I liked this movie. It had the freaky visuals I associate with the original film, but they added clearer lore on the puzzle box. It could have been better, sure, but I had a great time watching it with my friend Mecchi.

Turning Red: My students really liked this one. I thought it was cute and nostalgic, but nothing to write home about.

Our Father: I love a messed up documentary.

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing: And again, any documentary about fraud is good with me.

Movies That Were Okay:

She Said: I kept thinking of this film as "boring Spotlight." It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't memorable.

Emancipation: One of my students insisted I watch this. It's a slavery action film, basically. Not bad, but I'm just not that into action movies.

Where The Crawdads Sing: You could tell this was based off a really good book. Too bad about the film.

White Hot: The Rise Of Abercrombie: Interesting story, could have been told better.


Movies That I Didn't Like:

Falling For Christmas: A bad movie night pick that was mostly just boring outside of studying the curiosity that is Lohan's face.

I Believe In Santa: Genuinely the wildest movie I have seen this year. Maybe in a few years. I'd recommend it just so more people will have had the experience.

2021 Movies (Part 2)

I think an issue I'm having this year that's different from last year is a lot of confusion about when exactly movies were released. So many movies were expected to be released in 2020 but then held off until 2021. Some movies were released only in theaters, making them inaccessible to anyone being responsible about the pandemic, and some smaller movies seem to have been released at film festivals and nowhere else. As such, I'm probably going to be trying to finish this list for a while, and I really am not getting bogged down on release dates. Anything labeled with 2020 or 2021 is on here if I didn't talk about it last year.

I'm also making a change this year and titling this "2021 Movies (Part 2)," somewhat because time makes no sense over the last two years but also because my former titling system itself honestly makes no sense. These movies came out in 2021 even if they are getting reviewed in 2022.

Movies I Need to See (post will be updated as I do):
Cyrano: Probably going to watch this with Caroline whenever she's around. Possibly also West Side Story, which I am not motivated to watch on my own but will watch with someone else.
Dune: This is on Erik's movie list so I'll get to it eventually. I'm not super motivated to watch it when I know it's only the first half anyway.

Movies I Loved:

Nine Days: It took me a long time to watch this because I knew it was going to make me cry. And it did. The premise itself immediately made me think of Koreeda's After Life and, yeah, that. One of those movies that makes you cry because life is beautiful and complex.

Belfast: Kenneth Branagh finally made a movie I liked. The word I kept thinking while watching was "juxtaposition." Juxtaposition in the scenes, the shots, the music, the details. It was very thoughtful in its construction and engaging to watch.

The Lost Daughter: It seems a lot of audience viewers didn't like this film, and I don't get it. This felt like a very realistic portrayal of the occasional realities of parenting and how complex it is. I don't have children, and yet I found it deeply relatable. I really liked the subtle hand the film had.

Drive My Car: I find sometimes especially with really long and somewhat meditative films that I walk away with a positive response but nothing in particular to say. That's kind of how I feel about this movie. I think I'll have a lot of thoughts about it in like, three days, but for now I just know it was very good.

The Worst Person In The World: I'm putting this one right after Drive My Car because I feel like I had a similar feeling about it. It made me feel a lot, but I don't know what. I saw a review that said, "Nothing happens, but everything happens" and yeah, that's the film. Although I can say I found this movie kind of dreadfully relatable in some ways. To me it's a movie about trying to make the right moves in life and never quite being sure you're on the right path.

The Hand Of God: All the foreign films this year had this same feeling, I swear. I was immediately taken in by the cinematography, and subsequently unsurprised to see this was made by the director of The Great Beauty, but this movie was weaker than that one. The first half had some nice strangeness to it, but it felt meandering until the mid-movie plot twist. Then it came together for me a lot more as a very sad but pretty coming of age story.

Encanto: My favorite Disney Animation movie since Moana. The movie has a lot of things that were easy wins to me: magic powers, cultural stuff, amazing visuals, music that slaps. The theme of generational trauma was just beautifully done. I've watched it twice.

Tick, Tick . . . Boom: I was kind of blown away by this movie. Most movie musicals are okay to bad adaptations of the stage show but this was a superior adaptation of the stage show. It might be the only movie musical I would count better than the stage show. The show is fine but the way this movie used diegetic and nondiegetic songs, how it cut or reworked the songs from the show that weren't good, and how it showed the main theme was perfection.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth: My genuine thought when hearing about this movie was, "why" since we literally got a solid, newer Macbeth adaption six years ago, but I've got to give this movie props. The acting was memorably good, it was genuinely kind of scary, I loved the visuals (especially the liberal use of birds), and it really was an enjoyable take on a play I have seen many versions of.

The Humans: I found this movie captivating, but I don't know if I can explain why. It's a kind of claustrophobic family drama that was obviously a stage play. The crafting and tone was just so well handled that it really elevated it above other obviously-a-play-first movies.

Sweat: My life in no way resembles that of the main character of this film at all and yet, it was so damn relatable. Somehow it manages to be less of a commentary on social media influencers and more on just the universal feeling of loneliness and detachment people experience.

Quo Vadis, Aida?: Technically a 2020 film but not released in America until 2021 so it wasn't on last year's list. This movie kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time and then shouting at the screen when the final choice gets made. It's a heartbreaking action movie in the sense that the action is navigating bureaucracy to save your family.

Bo Burnham: Inside: This is more an art piece than a movie, but it is hands down one of the best things to come out this year. I've encouraged everyone to watch it. The social commentary is on point, the songs are addictive, and the directing is next level.

Come From Away: The stage show is amazing and this is just the filmed stage show so it's also amazing. The musical was robbed of Best Musical in 2017, and that's one of my strongest Tony opinions.

Poly Styrene: I'm A Cliche: Hot take: the only truly valid docs are about women in punk. I was completely rivetted by this documentary. That X Ray Spex album got me through quarantine, and I loved learning more about Poly Styrene's kind of sad life through her daughter and people who knew her.

Procession: Soul destroying but fascinating and cinematic documentary about trauma and coping.

Summer of Soul: I'm always a little skeptical of found footage documentaries because I sometimes wonder if they get praise just for unearthing something. This documentary really made the significance of the Harlem Music Festival clear on so many levels - politically, culturally, musically, etymologically - and it was engaging as hell.

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time: A great tribute to a great writer that really got into a lot of the complexity of him as a person and as a figure in literature.

76 Days: I think maybe this is more of an important documentary than a strictly good one, but it is still engaging as hell to watch.

Audible: A short documentary that packs a lot of story into its runtime. It's got really great technical aspects too it as well. I'm all for more cinematic docs.

Movies I Really Liked:

Passing: I was on the border of loved with this one. The style of the movie is impeccable and the story itself is really compelling with really well drawn and acted characters. I also really liked the ambiguous ending and thought it fit well with the themes.

The Green Knight: Aside from the director's appreciation for how beautiful Dev Patel is, I was impressed by how this tale was able to be massaged into an actual story with themes. There were a lot of moments that hit interestingly, the cinematography was beautiful, and I thought the ending was very clever and appropriate.

Dinner In America: This premiered in 2020, but I saw it this year so I'm putting it here. The first twenty minutes of this movie are honestly really hard to watch but after that it gets great. It's very punk, but also really cute? You grow to love it as you watch it.

Zola: This movie was so fun. Stressful but fun. You keep asking yourself what could go wrong next and then something does. This movie also had a lot of artistry in its cinematography and editing that made it nice to look at and paced well.

Shiva Baby: This movie is so stressful too but maybe not in a fun way. But that's what makes it great. It's watching as one young woman's entire world falls apart at a shiva where she doesn't even know who died. I also recall laughing a few times but not so much because something is funny but because it's a nervous response to another thing going bad.

Black Bear: This is one of those films that makes you feel things as a gateway to thinking about things. My interpretation is that it's about the lengths people will go to for the sake of art and the line between art and reality.

CODA: This movie is pretty fun while also being a serious look at family expectations in a unique situation. I see this movie described as a coming-of-age movie and it is, but it's the kind of story where you really feel the weight of responsibility that should not be put on a teenager. I also just really loved all the characters so much.

The Power Of The Dog: I have a tendency to enjoy Jane Campion's work but nothing can top The Piano. This movie ended up having amazing depth and was full of interesting themes in spite of feeling pretty spare. It unfolds well. I think I probably should love this one but I may have a specific bias against westerns.

Nightmare Alley: I always enjoy Del Toro films regardless of quality for their overall vibe. For him, this is pretty middle of the road which means I really liked it but I didn't love it. The message is simple but the psychology aspects of the film were really interesting and the moment I saw the ending coming I nodded at the pay off well done.

Titane: This movie was never what I expected it to be at any point. I had to look away a lot at the beginning but like Raw, the director's first film, I found a lot to like about it. This definitely feels more thematically complex, which is saying a lot considering 15 minutes in I said out loud, "She's going to have sex with that car, isn't she?"

Mass: I love Fran Kranz and his writing and directorial debut movie is so solid. I actually thought it might be a play because it's certainly written like it could be. Still, as a film it works great too. The complexity of the situation unfolding as it does is just heart breaking.

Spencer: Kristen Stewart really deserved that Oscar nomination. Wow. Filmwise, it's a lot quirkier than you would except from a historical drama, which I mostly enjoyed.

Malcolm & Marie: This is my candidate for underrated movie of the year. People seemed to really not like this film much and I disagree, perhaps because of my love of two characters in a room. I found the dissection of this relationship so interesting and well structed and the acting is on 10 the whole movie. 

Slalom: This movie was really solid and uncomfortable and showed a lot of potential from the director but also, the end felt a little unfinished? I saw what they were going for, but it didn't totally come through.

Red Rocket: While it's the weakest of the three Sean Baker movies I've seen, it was still a consistently interesting and beautifully shot film. I really appreciate just how real Sean Baker's characters are and how authentic his films are at showing a very specific demographic.

The Amusement Park: Released in both 1975 and 2019 but I only heard of it being accessible this year. This is a sadly still relevant metaphor for elder abuse. 

The Human Voice: Alomodovar and Tilda Swinton. Very visual. Interesting. Short.

Pig: This movie might be one of the strangest films I've ever seen, just because it feels like it's going to be about one thing but it's actually about something completely different. It's so weird, I had a hard time deciding what I even thought of it. Ultimately I settled on, it's really good.

Misha & The Wolves: Who doesn't love a good fraud movie? In the vein of The Imposter or The Woman Who Wasn't There, we've got someone lying but this movie also has some additional twists that make it more than either of those films.

Made You Look: Another fraud movie. I like how the movie really explored all the different angles of the story and how it was laid out so clearly. You walk away without clear answers, but I also found something interesting in this film about the broad concept of belief and how it manipulates.

Some Kind Of Heaven: This movie, along with Procession, was one of the most cinematic documentaries of the year and had a really interesting premise. It feels like this should be in the category above but clearly something didn't fully click for me. I'm not sure what. Maybe it was just that the community in question feels like my personal hell, but seeing all the different perspectives on this "perfect" community was thought provoking.

The Most Beautiful Boy In The World: As a fan of Midsommer, the story behind Bjorn Andresen is interesting to me and this movie was well directed and had a lot of depth to it. A really engaging personal story.

Flee: This was a good story and the use of animation was an interesting choice. Overall, it was really competent but kind of not memorable otherwise. Maybe I've seen too many stories like this.

Stray: It wasn't quite as good as its obvious counterpart Kedi, but it was still fun to follow around one of the stray dogs of Istanbul and get a whole different look at the city and poverty through the dog's eyes.

Final Account: This is a simple documentary in the tradition of interviews, but fascinating regardless. The film does a good job of showing how relevant this examination of collective guilt and compliance is in the modern day.

Assassins: I had vaguely heard about this incident, but I had no idea the complex story behind the murder of Kim Jong Un's brother. The documentary was structured in such a way that the plot is revealed kind of slowly which adds to the momentum, and it was nice to see all the different angles of this murder plot.

Skin: The History Of Nudity In The Movies: A pretty comprehensive look at film history. I kind of wish it talked a little more about the modern changes as opposed to just touching really briefly on them at the end.

Lead Me Home: A short doc about homelessness. I think I might replace Lost Angels with this one in my Marginalized Voices class since it's much more up to date.

Three Songs For Benazir: I wasn't sure how I felt about this short doc until the "four years later" moment. That was a real gut punch that really contextualized the whole film. Prior to that it's a sweet personal story, but it ends up a bit more by the end.

Movies I Liked:

Candyman: I watched this movie while high, and I was maybe doing a real disservice to it by doing so (unlike another movie in this category that I don't feel like I cheated). That's why it's first in this category. I never saw the original but this one felt like it had really decent social commentary and was pretty eerie overall. It's no Jordan Peele film, but it was definitely in the ballpark.

Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn: My feelings on this film are really mixed. I found part one really boring to the point where I looked up what I'm supposed to think of it and just found it poorly executed. Part two was unique but kind of unnecessary for the point. Maybe even a bit pretentious and overstuffed. The movie could have been just part three and the endings, which were pretty great. As a teacher, there was something very relatable about that interrogation and the director's points were clear enough in that scene without any of the other stuff.

King Richard: I watched this kind of on a whim since I'm not huge on either biopics or sports movies. Overall, it was engaging, which is impressive considering how long it was and a good story. 

The Eyes of Tammy Faye: This was another biopic whim. My review of it is pretty similar too. Engaging. Good story. Good lead.

Plan B: A good teen comedy. It's like the funny counterpart to Never Rarely Sometimes Always by way of Booksmart. Like Booksmart, I enjoyed it but I don't feel a strong drive to watch it again nor was it especially groundbreaking.

Last Night In Soho: The style of this movie is peak, but something didn't quite come together for me. I was really into it for a while but somehow the ending felt hollow? I'm not totally sure what didn't fully work because I liked so many things about it on paper.

The Last Duel: There were some things I really liked about this film (the Rashomon structured premise and how that was used to examine gendered perspectives) and some things I really hated about this film (the graphic rape wasn't necessary the first time; why did we see it twice?) so I settled on the "liked" category. One or two people with good strong influence on the production could have made this movie at least a "really liked." Also, thanks for making Adam Driver the star of my sexual nightmares again after quite a few years of me just being uncomplicatedly attracted to him. Ugh.

The Dig: A perfectly watchable British drama about archeology. The history nerd in me found it interesting and had one hand on Google to verify. It does try a little for some deeper significance about humanity being connected across time with dubious success but mostly it's just a decent but unmemorable film.

In The Heights: I have actually never seen the stage show, which is maybe why I didn't have a strong negative response to things being left out, but overall I feel like this film solidly falls into the category of "fine" film adaption. The best review I heard of this was, "It's nice to see a musical movie that isn't ashamed to be a musical" which is kind of true. It's very old Hollywood musical movie in that way.

Luca: I watched this movie while high which might be part of my issue, but overall I spent a lot of the movie frustrated by a lack of stakes and unclear motivations. The metaphor is the most obvious thing on the planet, but I do give the movie credit for being the gayest kid's movie ever. Wow, was this film queer. But considering that Pixar made Soul (existential but maybe a little unmemorable), Onward (personally delightful), and Coco (my favorite Pixar.) recently, this fell really flat to me.

Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal: This movie does a really good job of breaking down the scandal and how all the cheating worked. I think I maybe just really don't enjoy documentaries with "reenactment" scenes. It always feel kind of cheap to me when I want something more creative.

Pray Away: Important to document the topic for sure but this documentary really didn't stick in my mind at all. I just felt really bad for that transwoman who detransitioned, and that's the only thing I remember.

Movies That Were Okay:

Don't Look Up: This might be the most obvious satire I have ever seen. This director really peaked with The Big Short. I spent a lot of the film rolling my eyes.

Radium Girls: This movie was fine. Just fine. For such an interesting story and important historical moment, the film just doesn't do much (and is sometimes almost comically too on the nose). Reading the Wikipedia page on the Radium Girls honestly has the same effect as watching this film.

Dementer: Something about this movie really didn't come together for me. On paper it seemed like something I'd be into: a low budget horror film with a cult. And I was into it for the first hour but the conclusion didn't make sense to me, and I watched it twice. Compliments to the sound design though.

Moxie: I was hoping this would be good, what's not to like about riot girl feminism being revived by Gen Z, but something about this movie just didn't come together for me. I found it weirdly forgettable right after I finished it, and there were moments that felt unrealistic to me. I think in general teen movies that sacrifice realism for drama get knocked down a point or two for me.

Movies I Didn't Like:

Old: Surprisingly I didn't watch this at Bad Movie Night but actually with a friend in her neighbor's driveway. There were some definite laughs at the bad dialogue and weird moments but it wasn't quite funny enough to bring to BMN.

Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus: Even by Cool Cat standards this movie was lazy. Still, I hope Derek Savage keeps making them.

2021 Movies

It's the ten year anniversary of me doing these posts. I am so tired from this year that this post is literally taking me months to complete. This year has been really underwhelming anyway, but at least we have a really clear reason. Thanks, Covid.

Movies I Still Need To See:
Possessor Uncut

May as well * the Oscar nominees this year since there really weren't many movies in general.

Previous Years: 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011


Movies I Loved:

Promising Young Woman*: Honestly, this could be favorite movie of the year. I loved the ending, I laughed, I thought, I was surprised, I was into the aesthetic and the counterintuitive casting. The end was just so much. Leave me alone.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom*: The one play adaptation that didn't suffer from "play adaption syndrome." I loved basically everything about this movie: the acting was insane, the direction saved it from PAS, the writing was great (I mean, August Wilson), and obviously I'm a sucker for the aesthetic. Like the above film, I basically watched the last five minutes with my jaw on the floor.

Sound Of Metal*: If this movie doesn't at least win an award for audio, there's no justice. Love a good character story starring my husband, Riz Ahmed.

The Father*: If this movie doesn't at least win an award for production design, there's no justice. I actually had pretty low expectations for this movie, but the way it's structured and that dang production design is so incredible at creating a puzzle that you are trying to decipher. 

Minari*: This movie I had to sit on for a little while because slow family dramas aren't really my thing. Ultimately, I came down on thinking this one was really strong when I thought more about the themes and symbolism.

The Trial Of The Chicago 7*: A really engaging courtroom drama, made extra fun for me because I was watching it with Caroline's parents who kept fact checking it since they remembered the event.

Crip Camp*: This was one of the first docs I watched this year, and I immediately recommended it to my MV kids. This is such a fantastic documenting of the disability rights movement, and I learned so much.

My Octopus Teacher*: Yes, I will cry about an octopus. This will surprise no one.

Wolfwalkers*: The third Cartoon Saloon movie in the Irish mythology trilogy. Honestly, I didn't like it as much as Secret of Kells or Song of the Sea, but it's still great. I was pumped to hear "Running With The Wolves". 

Soul*: Existentialism in a kid's movie! I was kind of hoping for more jazz overall but I was still fascinated by the Inside Out breaking down of difficult concepts for kids.

Onward*: This movie got to me in a lot of ways. Family narratives in Pixar movies have a 

tendency to get to me (see: Coco) but I also loved the nerdy, fantasy elements being that I am a Tolkien nerd who plays D&D.

Palm Springs: I was dubious of the description, but this movie was so fun and the only kind of romantic comedy that is worth watching: a realistic feeling couple and actually funny.

His House: Love a social commentary horror movie with some culture sprinkled in. This is the kind of movie I like to discuss afterwards.

Hamilton: I feel like this doesn't count because it's just the fantastic stage show, but people keep insisting it's a movie.

What The Constitution Means To Me: I feel like this doesn't count because it's just the fantastic stage show, but people keep insisting it's a movie, part two. 

Dick Johnson Is Dead: Documentaries this year were really solid. This one was really creative and thought provoking.

Circus Of Books: Lots of family story documentaries too. The intersection of LGBT history with a family story was really touching.

The Booksellers: As a reader and former bookseller, this was a really fascinating look at a specific culture that I have barely brushed elbows with. 

A Secret Love: More family stories, in a way, but more focused on a couple.

Disclosure: This is the kind of doc I've been waiting for from a "wanting to know" stance. Instead of being more story-based, it's such a thorough breakdown of transgender representation in media as talked about by transgender people in media. 

Athlete A: Interview based breakdown of the gymnastics scandal. 

Feels Good Man: The history of Pepe did a good job of studying how the internet works.

Welcome To Chechnya: Another LGBT doc but now with much more depressing!

Movies I Really Liked:

Judas and the Black Messiah*: The direction and cinematography were so good but the editing bothered me quite a bit. I feel like I would have liked this one more if I had seen it before Chicago 7 because there's such time period overlap that they're almost competing.

Nomadland*: This movie was well made and an interesting study, but I think I wasn't in the right mood to watch it honestly. It has this very meandering feel, which is appropriate for the film but I got distracted a lot.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm*: I genuinely enjoyed this film and have already rewatched it. The gender commentary and Trump politics study is so good, but I also really laughed a lot.

Emma*: Solid Regency romance. It's up there with 2005's Pride and Prejudice in my opinion.

Da 5 Bloods*: This movie started off strong, but it started to lose me towards the end. I feel like the themes got a bit lost in the violence, and it was maybe a smidge too long.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: I need to watch this one again, but it was by far one of the most unique films I've watched this year.

Birds Of Prey: Man, this movie was just so joyous. It took the bad taste Suicide Squad left behind right out of my mouth. Finally, I get to see Harley as she should be.

The Old Guard: Another action movie that I just enjoyed in a really pure way. I'm happy to watch a sequel, but even as a stand alone I loved it. I think to make me care about an action movie, I need strong characters with a strong friendship or found family aspect.

Nighthawk: I wasn't sold on this movie for a while, but once it got into the imperialism themes I was on board. 

I Care A Lot: The aesthetics of this movie were flawless, and the plot was more engaging than I expected. Honestly, a decent commentary on "girl boss" culture, although I could easily see people missing the point.

The Assistant: I really loved the subtly of this movie. It's like "microaggressions" the film.

Swallow: I watched this one at around the same time so it was definitely a subtle, character study time. Representing feeling trapped by gender and class with pica was a good time.

The Half Of It: A very cute and slightly sad queer teen rom com that I really enjoyed.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: More subtle character studies. What sold it for me was the scene in the clinic and the one in the bus terminal when the whole background really comes out.

The Boys In The Band: Suffers a little from "play adaptation syndrome" but this one felt a less slow than others probably because it was so damn brutal. The pain in this movie really made it.

The Invisible Man: Another good thought-provoking horror movie. 

Weathering With You: It's not as good as Your Name, but it's still very well made and written.

You Don't Nomi: As someone who has seen Showgirls like 7 times, it was cool to see it talked about from so many different angles.

The Social Dilemma: My mom recommended this, and I realized I really am not a fan of reenactments in documentaries. Otherwise, it was interesting enough.

Rewind: I remember thinking this one was good, but I also don't remember it so it couldn't have been that good.

Mucho, Mucho Amour: The Legend Of Walter Mercado: This was a really interesting doc from a culture perspective and from hearing more about this mysterious guy.

Becoming: I mean, I just love hearing Michelle Obama talk about stuff and that's basically the film.


Movies I Liked:

One Night In Miami*: The movie suffers a bit from "play adaptation syndrome" and got a little dry in the middle but was impeccably acted and well done. Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke makes me cry every time.

Another Round*: Overall, I like Vinterberg movies, but I usually don't love them. This one is billed as a comedy, but I really didn't see it that way. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets: This is a "documentary" that I kind of feel like I should have liked more. I wonder if I watched it again at a different time I might be more into it.

The Other Lamb: I'll watch any movie about a cult. This one was good.

First Cow: This movie was so, so slow. Yes, it eventually comes together, but there needed to be some editing here.

Shirley: I loved the subtle brutality of this movie, and the absolutely fascinating complexity of the relationships.  This one and the one below I feel like I maybe didn't give a fair shake to since I watched them during a tense time.

The Personal History Of David Copperfield: I love Dev Patel and I love how Iannucci made the story feel fresh and unique.

Yellow Rose: I watched it for Eva, of course, and I loved hearing her sing and the commentary on immigration, but the movie felt unfinished.

Porno: This was a fun horror movie with some hilarious religious fear mongering. 

Movies That Were Okay:

Host: Basically it's Unfriended but decent.

The Trip To Greece: This is a comedy that didn't make me laugh, but I really liked looking at Greece again and getting the occasional mythology reference.

Uncle Frank: An LGBT family drama that I ultimately found kind of dry.


Movies I Didn't Like:

The Princess Switch: Switched Again: Watched this with the first one while drinking. I got a fair amount of laughs from the ridiculous premise. Can't wait to see Vanessa Hudgens play four characters in the next one.

365 Days: It is hard to shock me, but this movie genuinely shocked me by how abusive it was and how absolutely unaware it was. I searched the internet like crazy for commentary on it and I still eat it up when I find it. I want to write an essay on this movie.

A Recipe For Seduction: Watched this at bad movie night. It's kind of funny premise-wise and thankfully short, but it wasn't so funny I'd recommend it.

The Myth Of Persephone in "Mythic The Musical"

Most of these Persephone Project posts are for books or chapters of books so it’s always exciting and mildly anxiety-inducing to encounter a visual medium to write about. I’ve only done one musical in these Persephone Project write-ups and that was for my favorite musical, Hadestown. Now the myth of Persephone is underlying in that musical, which is part of what made writing about it a unique experience and I eventually expanded and edited my original write-up for the Hadestown Zine. But then my buddy Suzi told me about this musical. It took me a while to work up the nerve to listen to it as it’s a teen pop rock musical version of the myth of Persephone. If you couldn’t tell from me saying Hadestown is my favorite musical, I should say that teen musicals are not really my thing. I think “Heathers” is the only one I would cite as really liking. I wasn’t even into teen musicals when I was a teen. But in the interest of post consistency, I’m going to divide this into two parts: one where I specifically talk about the way the myth is done and one where I just talk about the show.

The Myth

In this version of the myth we get a lot of interesting character development for Persephone and Demeter that is happening concurrently throughout the show. Because of the “teen musical” concept the main theme is heavy on the ideas of growing up, finding one’s place in the world, and accepting your children’s adulthood.

To zero in on Persephone first, we find out somewhat repeatedly throughout the first three songs that she has lived her whole life on Earth and hasn’t really met the other gods but is motivated by a desire to find a place where she feels like she belongs. We get the sense that she feels smothered by her mother, a bit superfluous next her mother, and that while she’s okay with her life she hasn’t seen enough of the world to feel like she’s sure she wants to stay where she is. She wants her own purpose basically. The idea of shifting a focus to Persephone and giving her these motivations gets an A+ from me and is obviously a common feature of modern adaptions of the myth (I think this is most comparable to George O’Connor’s Hades comic).

She bumps into Aphrodite and convinces her to take her to a party Zeus is throwing for Athena (Aphrodite and Zeus are main characters numbers 4 and 5, by the way, and have their own motivations that I will get to). Seph says some not at all nice things to her mother before she leaves when Demeter tries to stop her. At the party Persephone doesn’t really have much fun and bumps into Hades who has come to yell at Zeus about a surplus of virgins in the Underworld. They chit chat a bit, she tells him he’s nice and he denies it, but this is an establishing of their chemistry. Another common trope in modern retellings: having them meet before going under.

Aphrodite then decides she wants to “stir shit up” and plans to do that by getting Hades to hook up with her. He shoots her down and as revenge she curses him to kiss Persephone (who I think is also cursed because she goes from “wow, my first kiss” to “take me to bed” in literally twenty seconds). Now the idea of their relationship starting from a love god’s influence is an interesting detail that is uncommon but certainly not unheard of. Ovid did it as was the case with Allison Shaw’s Persephone comic but I think both of those used Eros instead of Aphrodite. Either way, the force of their passion (or like, the force of Hades’ horniness at this point) leads to them going underground and Aphrodite is immediately sorry for what she did. We get this unique detail about how spells are broken underground which I’ve never heard before but kind of organically makes sense. Like, why would earth/sky god magic have any effect in the land of the dead? It works.

Once underground, they break apart and get awkward. I haven’t really addressed it yet but the interpretation of Hades in this one has elements I have never seen. First of all, his primary motivation in this one is just to be left alone. Persephone asks him to take her home and he tells her he can only go above ground once every six months. This six months rule I have really never heard of but I guess it does set the audience up for six months being an important concept later on and provides a reason for him to not help her. I mean, that reason could have been a lot of other things but it’s a reason. He then tells her to just go away and stay out of trouble and when they meet up later he apologizes for getting her stuck down there but basically says there’s nothing he can do. Overall, his characterization at this point reads as someone who is trying very hard to be perceived a certain way (a “deep, dark damaged soul”) but is actually just kind of socially awkward and not in any way bad.

Alone Persephone basically decides to go around sprucing up the Underworld through interactions with Charon, Ascalaphus, and Minos. Hades gets annoyed about it (annoyance is kind of his primary emotion) and after he thinks about locking her up over it, they have a heart-to-heart about his daddy issues and this reputation he never wanted. It’s kind of their starting to fall in love moment. Persephone then gets attacked by furies and Hades saves her. They have another actually falling in love moment where Persephone convinces him that the Underworld is actually kind of great and he believes her.

This should clinch things for their relationship but then Aphrodite shows up in the Underworld to try to fix things (a thing that definitely never happens and also kind of can’t) and Hades tells Persephone to go with her because he seems convinced that his feelings are still a part of the spell or something. Persephone refuses and basically tells him off that she likes it here and runs away. Then she chooses to eat the pomegranate mostly for personal reasons but one seed is definitely for “the guy I love”. The whole interaction is curiously hostile. It leaves me in this weird place of wondering if I should even be supporting this relationship.

After eating, Demeter shows up (again, a thing she probably can’t do) and she and Persephone make up and offer some tearful goodbyes since Persephone can’t leave now. Hades comes after hearing about the seeds, apologizes, offers to make her Queen of the Dead, and they kiss or something. Then Aphrodite and Zeus show up (WTF) for some Zeus Ex Machina that doesn’t work. Persephone gives Demeter back her powers since she’s Queen, which she lost going underground I guess because of the established curse rule but it’s kind of flimsy, and Demeter sets the six months rule since she is the maker of fruit anyway. While this ending feels sloppy in a lot of ways, I like the idea that Persephone and Demeter did these things for each other. I just wish Demeter’s decision didn’t come off so self serving and this probably could have been solved with a tip from, of all things, the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys interpretation where Persephone says outright that she doesn’t want to be forced to chose between them. At least it’s better than Zeus setting the rule, which is how it is in basically every other telling (except like, Hadestown).

In Demeter’s concurrent plot, her primary motivation is find Persephone, of course, but to do this she has to get over this fact that everyone thinks of her as a lesser goddess without any real power. This was really strange to me, but that set up does pay off. She takes down a cyclops, confronts Zeus (a thing from most myths!), and then destroys the crops on hearing what happened to Persephone (also good). So her story is actually fairly in line with a lot of myth retellings except for this inferiority thing. Where does this come from? Well, that’s where her plot rubs up against Zeus (and also Aphrodite and implicitly Hades). Zeus’ primary motivation is to stay in charge and part of how he does this is by belittling everyone else. The Act 2 reveal for Demeter is that Zeus was lying about her weakness, and she’s only been operating on half a tank forever. Effectively, Zeus is the antagonist of the story. Kind of interesting since in a lot of versions of this myth, Zeus approving Hades suit of Persephone or alternatively offering Persephone to him, is the catalyst to the rest of the story, but this is seen as a neutral thing.

Overall, there were some interesting choices in adapting this myth to a musical for a teen audience. I feel like the Demeter plot works really well and that the Persephone plot works pretty well too. The problem I have is with how the Hades and Persephone aspect of this story is handled. It has a lot of great notes to it, but it doesn’t really come together because of the need for frequent denials and a sort of uncomfortableness with Hades character. From a strict story perspective, the concept of Hades and how his relationship to Seph develops is one of the weakest things about the book.

So that leads me to…

The Musical

This musical is, uh, kind of a mess.

As I said before, the ending is really sloppy and the book handles Hades’ character and his relationship with Persephone really poorly. Aside from eliminating or reframing some of those million times he denies her, I think the musical could have really benefited from a song or a dialogue scene where Hades is the main character. Persephone and Demeter have really well developed motivations and personalities because they have a lot of moments where they are speaking more to themselves than anyone else and we can see what they really think and feel. Aphrodite gets a few moments of this in act one and a whole song (that I dislike so much I can’t even listen to it) in act two. Zeus has a whole song explaining his drive. But every Hades song is in the context of him speaking to Persephone with the exception of a very brief moment in “Summer All The Time” where we get an initial vibe for who he is. A moment in act two when we can actually see his real thoughts and feelings towards Persephone would do a lot for making their relationship (and maybe even his denials of her) make sense. I really like the two songs they have together but the utility of those songs is different from actually showing what Hades really feels.

There are other weird book issues, the relationships between Zeus, Hades, and their father springs to mind, but I gotta move on.

To talk a bit more about the music and lyrics, this musical has a lot of cringe. Like, a lot. I have a whole document of the cringiest lines in it and it’s much longer than my lists of “ridiculous but great” lines and “just great” lines. There are so many failed attempts at being hip that I physically cringe when I listen to the soundtrack and after 20+ times I’m still cringing. I get that it’s directed at a teen audience, but I work with teenagers. I know they would cringe with me. The lyrics that aren’t cringe have a tendency to be kind of trite or unmemorable. I think Demeter’s songs are the least cringe, but they’re also some of the least interesting musically. The music overall is kind of blandly enjoyable really. The songs are fun mostly and I do really like some of them (”My Own Place In The Pantheon” is cute, “Mess Around” makes me want to dance, “Dark, Damaged Soul” is so cringe that it loops back around to fun pop punk, “Rebellious Children” makes me laugh, and both “Not A Chance In Hell” and “Beauty In The Darkness” give me some feelings) but none are a brilliant work that I would send to my non-musical friends as purely a good song.

So about the acting and singing. Well, let me be clear that I did not see either the London or the Montreal productions (although tragically I think the London production was running at a time I was in London and Montreal is a long but not in any way unreasonable drive from my house so I’m not pleased to discover this musical so late). My opinion is based on the London soundtrack and an audio bootleg of the Montreal show (which is how I know all the dialogue bits too).

• I think London Persephone has a better voice but Montreal Persephone makes better acting choices (pitches her voice down a bit so she sounds a bit more mature, reads lines in much more reasonable ways, etc). 
• Both Demeters are good singers but I think Montreal Demeter makes better acting choices. She feels more authentically Demeter to me by mitigating the coward aspects of London Demeter. 
• Between Hadeses there is no contest. I love London Hades’ voice. As a Hadestown fan I was skeptical of a tenor Hades but his voice has this very beautiful sound in the lower notes (he doesn’t sound like Michael Arden but Michael Arden’s voice also has this quality and I love it) and it’s very powerful and he has just the right vibe to sell it. Montreal Hades has a very reedy voice and overall gives off a distinct whiny teen vibe that is just all wrong. Young Hades I am totally fine with in a story like this but he has to be mature to compensate. 
• Both Aphrodites are great. The character of Aphrodite is a type, and I’m fairly certain you will always be able to find a good Aphrodite. 
• The Zeus situation is weird because the interpretations of Zeus are wildly different in both productions. London Zeus has a nasally voice and a kind of guido look and vibe that I think works great. He’s really slimy. I feel like he’s going to pull out a wad of cash to make someone sleep with the fishes. Montreal Zeus is more big personality gospel singer and is styled accordingly. It doesn’t feel right for the character as written but it’s a fully integrated performance. 
• For our minor Underworld characters, they were all male in London but Montreal made Ascalaphus and Minos women, which I wholly cosign but I think Minos should have been an alto. Also Alecto is in it but male which is weird because Alecto is female. She’s a fury. Basically they genderbent everyone but Charon, I guess. Okay. 

If you’ve got a choice of which to listen to (like if you have a Montreal hook-up) I still say go with London overall. It’s on YouTube.

So finally, I’m going to talk about the aesthetic. Both shows seemed to have really minimalist sets, which I’d kind of have to see in action to understand. It seems like an odd choice but it might just be a cost effective one. Every image from London looks more like a concert than a show (by product of the success of Six, maybe?) but the Montreal shots look a bit more “acting-y.”

As for costumes, oh boy. Let me present an image of our mains from London:

So let me ignore the obvious for a second to say that Demeter in both shows is very hippie.


You can see a similar idea in both of these "Sweet Summer Days" images when you look at Demeter. She has other outfits too. The London show has a blue still-hippieish dress that I think is her act two look and the Montreal show has her clothes change entirely to this kind of biker look when she goes underground, which was definitely an element of that show. Not sure if the biker look is the best translation from an original hippie look but okay.


To look at Aphrodite (domming Hades during "Mess Around"):


Aphrodite is always blonde and wearing some kind of shiny silver thing. It works perfectly well.

The Zeus’ as I said before are very different but tailored to the performance being given and both are wearing very loud outfits.

Now, um

A list of responses from my musical-going and myth-aware friends about this picture:
* That is NOT THEM.
* Oh no.
* Looks like the costume designer was really inspired by American Idiot.
* This takes me right back to high school in 2003.

For the reference this is Persephone’s underworld look specifically but since her above ground look is a black t-shirt, jean shorts, fishnet tights, and Converse it’s not much of a change. I think both shows adopt this idea that the Underworld changes your wardrobe.

This mid-2000s pop punk styling is just a weird choice all around (although you could argue that Hades is actually more classic punk while Persephone is very specifically mid-2000s but still). On a more minor note, what’s with the hair? I mean there’s nothing saying you can’t have a blonde Persephone but why do this when you already have two other blondes in the main cast? Usually Persephone is a redhead or has brown hair and that would have been nice. With Hades hair I don’t even know what to say aside from why? I’m not going to say that Hades should only have dark, grey, or white hair depending on age (I’m gonna think it though) but this was a really curious choice. Also, the facial hair. Is that a John Waters mustache or am I losing my mind?

Montreal did a lot better here.

Hades’ look is solid. I like the warlock coat and how it’s kind of a fast track to intimidating. I like how without it he’s kind of at an intersection of art student and goth. It’s all good. I don’t even mind the hair because at least it’s not silly.

Persephone’s look is fine. I’m a little ruined by my friend pointing out that her above ground outfit is really 70s, but I’m trying to forget it. It’s better; I didn’t say it was the best they could do. Her underworld look is a great idea but that dress looks really unflattering to me. Maybe something like a black leather-y obi belt would really improve the shape and bring a bit more underworld to the look. Not sure what’s going on in the middle picture unless she has two underworld outfits but it looks fine. The barrettes were definitely a choice. Was flowers too obvious? Flowers would be better.

Also, Ascalaphus is adorable.

So in conclusion, someone hire me to red pen this musical so it can be good enough to continue its life after covid. I have a special place in my heart for flawed musicals that need a good red penning.

The Three Criteria of Art

As someone who enjoys museums and has wandered into my fair share of modern art museums, I am pretty accustomed to hearing people looking at modern art and decrying it as nonsense (or praising something that seems like nonsense to me as genius). I frequently drag friends to modern art exhibits and for my friends who are less into the experience, I have a theory that I turned into something of a game in order to make art critics of anyone.

People like to claim that art is such a spiritual thing that it’s indefinable, but I don’t think this is true. Art is made by human hands, not a message from the gods, and should not elude definition. I once heard modern art described as the intersection of I-could-do-that and but-you-didn’t, but while this may describe some modern art, it doesn’t actually define what art is.

So here’s my theory. In order for something to be considered art, you must be able to answer yes to one of these questions:

1.      Is it aesthetically pleasing to someone?

2.      Did it require a great amount of skill to create?

3.      Does it mean something symbolically?

Now, you can obviously answer yes to more than one of these questions and I could actually argue that the more yeses you get, the less likely you are to have the artistic merit of something challenged.

But I’m sure you can see a bit of a hitch in this theory: all the questions are subjective. Correct. Art is, at its core, subjective and thus the questions defining it will also be. If you genuinely don’t believe in any standard of taste whatsoever, you might find the answering of these questions to be completely impossible. But in order to actually get anywhere with applying this theory, you need to at least be able to accept that your taste may not be the taste of others and you should at least have some small background in critically reading visual media. This is the baseline you need to start from.

The first potential requirement is aesthetic pleasure. This is the one that most requires a divorcing from personal taste. Just because you might not enjoy looking at something, does not mean that everyone will not enjoy looking at it. Of the three requirements, this is definitely the most subjective but there are some examples I can use to try to get at how an art piece can fail this requirement. I once saw a painted canvas in an art museum. It was a single square canvas painted one uniform color. It was not part of any other piece; that was the entire work. Even if you enjoy that color, it seemed safe to me to say that there was nothing specifically aesthetic pleasing about this single colored canvas.

The second requirement of technical skill is probably the least subjective. It is not hard to look at something and determine that it is something you could not do without a great deal of acquired skill in painting, sculpture, metal work, crafting or what have you. The one real fault to this criterion would be an ego on the part of the viewer who wildly overestimates their own skill or who lacks any kind of knowledge of what creating a piece entails. Notably though, there are a lot of modern art pieces that do fail this requirement (hence the previously mentioned I-can-do-that idea).

The last requirement of meaning is somewhat subjective but is definitely the requirement that asks the most of the viewer. Most people can answer the first two questions quickly on a gut instinct from having lived in a world of senses and experiences, but this last one requires not only contemplation but also a measure of reading comprehension. Modern art especially is often not meant to be taken at face value in the way traditional art it. Aesthetics and skills are usually very apparent in traditional art where priority was placed on creating something that would be difficult for anyone else to make and which would fetch a high price for its decorative purposes. Sometimes traditional art doesn’t have a meaning outside of it being something skillfully made and nice to look at. Modern art, however, is commonly determined on this criterion alone, which is why modern art is vastly more mocked and underappreciated. Modern art that doesn’t quickly pass the test with the first two requirements will find itself beholden to the interpretative capabilities of the viewers.

It seems safe to say that modern art that fails the first two tests always has a meaning intended by the artist. What you are actually determining is whether a meaning is being conveyed. You are judging not the ambiguous intention but the communication. Sometimes at art museums there will be a little plaque next to a piece that will explain the meaning to a confused viewer. Sometimes the meaning explained will justify the work just fine and you will look back at the piece with an, “Oh” of understanding, if you decide that the author’s purpose was clearly conveyed and also that it matters. Sometimes you will look back at the piece and think that the justification isn’t in any way clear in its representation and you have truly found something that is not art. Sometimes there’s no plaque at all and you are left up to your own devices and you really need to be mentally flexible to try to pull out a meaning. This is where having a friend along is helpful for bouncing ideas off of. Maybe you can’t read the piece as well as your friend can. If a meaning isn’t coming through or an explained meaning is still unconvincing after explanation, the piece is not art.

A prime example of something I have considered not art would be Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, the now famous banana taped to a wall. Let’s run the test:

1.      Is it aesthetically pleasing to someone? I would have to say no. Perhaps you do find a banana aesthetically pleasing but the juxtaposition of a banana and duct tape isn’t reaching any real level of composition to create something interesting to stare at.

2.     Did it require skill to create? A big no there. While it might be kind of difficult to do without crushing the banana if it’s quite ripe, this is something most people have the ability to do.

3.      Does it mean something symbolically? After staring at it for a while, I got nothing concrete. The artist has stated both that it represents “global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor” and that “it’s supposed to be a banana.” Basically it means everything and nothing. When I first saw it I made some joke about how it represents the duality of man and the battle between intellect and the beast and it turns out my phony art critique impression was just as valid as the artist’s actual explanation. You could try to argue that the point is its silliness, bolstered by the title, but I really don’t think there’s enough actual creative mental lifting here to make this piece worthy of being called art.

Amusingly, Chipotle made a social media post as a joke of a burrito taped to a wall after the banana from the piece was eaten. My brother pointed out that the social media post actually does qualify as art because it has a very clear meaning determinable by anyone with a basic understanding of the piece it’s responding to: it’s a parody. I would also argue that if the person who ate the banana claimed it was an act of performance art, I would completely stand behind the banana eating as art. The meaning is clear: it’s an act of showing the insignificance of the original piece. Or possibly it’s just adding legitimacy to the Comedian title. I can see an old comedy show where a bumbling joker accidently eats something that was part of an art piece and gets in trouble for it by the art world elites. It’s life imitating art.

So while the subjective world of art cannot totally be demystified, this is a good place to start. I often find that when others employ this method for the first time, they find themselves appreciating art in a way they hadn’t before and become overall less dismissive of the pieces they don’t understand.