Walt Disney, part LXVI: Disney Princess enchanted tales

ENCHANTED

2007

Directed by Kevin Lima

Written by Bill Kelly, Rita Hsiao, Todd Alcott, Bob Schooley, and Mark McCorkle

Spoilers: high

Reviews from gulag: Down with the Oscars (this isn't about the Oscars)

But I will indulge myself a moment, because today I watched Robert Zemeckis's Here—the boldest Goddamn movie of the year, in its way, just a real achievement, and one that deserves a full review—but perhaps just as importantly, I also watched I Saw the TV Glow, the third feature (second anyone's heard of) from Jane Schoenbrun, the follow-up to their torturously boring and bad We're All Going To the World's Fair; and, in tandem, they very briefly restored my faith in the state of cinema, one being a fearless late-style swing from a tottering master that does some truly new shit, the other being the kind of redemption I genuinely want to see from a filmmaker who might've burned me terribly in the past, but is willing to evolve towards good, exciting work.  And this feeling was shattered, because 2024 now bears the ineradicable stain of producing Anora as America's putative Best Picture of the year, and now it's all just a bunch of morbid considerations about that whole "state of cinema" thing: the possibility that Zemeckis might never make another movie (because hardly anybody's seen Here and I do not think its reputation will grow going forward); the possibility that Shoenbrun's literal physical well-being could be jeopardized, let alone that of their career; and the certainty that Sean Baker is going to go on to keep making the worst motherfucking movies in the world for decades and decades to come.

Anyway, we'll get to I Saw the TV Glow, but I also watched Marielle Heller's Nightbitch, and now they're together, because they're both obtuse horror movies or something.  I'd say it's because they're both about nighttime, but I believe Nightbitch takes place mostly, like at a 3:1 ratio, during the day.  Oh, whatever, it's fundamentally arbitrary.

NIGHTBITCH

It's not clear whether it was Nightbitch source novelist Rachel Yoder, or its writer-director Marielle Heller, or its coterie of producers, but clearly it was decided that what women needed was their own 1994's Wolf, though I certainly can't tell you what all these women thought women must've done to deserve that.  And, somehow, the results are even less impressive: both Wolf and Nightbitch are using a story of canid transformation as a means of actually pursuing a fantasy about middle-aged rebellion and rejuvenation, and, as we weigh each film against the other, Nightbitch ought to have an advantage, because it's at least not embarrassed of being a fantasy movie like Wolf was; yet it's counter-intuitively interested in being a fantasy movie even less; and while Wolf is surely not good at "being a werewolf movie," and does not deliver on the genre pleasures which a movie about Jack Nicholson playing a werewolf has blatantly promised, at least it did have Jack Nicholson fucking a woman half his age and pissing on his corporate rival's shoes, whereas Nightbitch isn't concerned with the genre pleasures of either the werewolf movie or those of the middle-aged rebellion story.  For the long, repetitive middle half the most Amy Adams's (oh boy) unnamed mother (credited thusly, though I could've sworn she received a name) ever gets out of being a human dog, or a rebellious middle-aged woman, is... well, I guess let's just say that Heller must actually hate cats, but at least the storytelling in the corresponding sequence of Can You Ever Forgive Me? suggested she understood the concept of not hating cats.  Her movie's "nighttime" photography isn't as risibly bad as Mike Nichols's.  Let's give Heller that much.

Opie on Opie

HILLBILLY ELEGY

2020

Directed by Ron Howard

Written by Vanessa Taylor (based on the book by J.D. Vance)

Spoiler alert: man, this guy is doin' fine

So now when the aliens come, they're going to talk to Donald Trump, and maybe you should just think about that for five seconds if you didn't vote for Clinton on Tuesday, you stupid, useless fuck

ARRIVAL

Well, you can't say it doesn't try, and there are wonders to be found here.  It's impossible to fault Arrival for its ambition, only for its execution; but, God, that execution sure does turn into something lousy in the end.

2016

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Written by Eric Heisserer (based on the short story "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang)

With Amy Adams (Dr. Louise Palmer), Jeremy Renner (Dr. Ian Donnelly), and Forest Whittaker (Col. Weber)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Yes, he died for your sins, too (but, if we're being honest, mostly Batman's)

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Well, let's leave aside the fact the sole good thing to come out of this movie's hilariously awful name is the subtitle of a Deadpool miniseries currently being published by Marvel ("The V is for VS"!).  Let's also leave aside all the grating little issues that seek to tear down the towering edifice of this film, one brick at a time.  Because if we do leave that aside, it's certainly the best superhero film of 2016 so far (including the one that came out today)—and by no small margin, too.

Directed by Zack Snyder

Written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer (with a lot of distant assistance from Frank Miller, Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern, amongst others)

With Henry Cavill (Clark Kent/Kal-El), Ben Affleck (Bruce Wayne), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Gal Godot (Diana of Themyscira), Jeremy Irons (Alfred Pennyworth), Laurence Fishburne (Perry White), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), and Jesse Eisenberg (Lex Luthor)

Spoiler alert: high

Content warning: this one clocks in at about 2900 words, because three years later, and I still can't talk about Superman at a length that wouldn't make any cognitively normal person run for the hills; does it help any if I say that it's also a long movie?

From my heart and from my hand, why don't people understand my intention?

HER

Hard science fiction intersects with legitimate romance under the careful direction and only slightly less careful script of one Spike Jonze, and the result is one of 2013's best.

2013
Written and directed by Spike Jonze
With Joachim Jaoquim Hadouken Joaquin Phoenix (Theodore), Scarlett Johansson (Samantha), Amy Adams (Amy), Chris Pratt (Paul), Rooney Mara (Catherine), and Olivia Wilde (The Blind Date)

Spoiler alert: high

The Jasper Johns of tonally confused tae kwon do

AMERICAN HUSTLE

You see, because his compositions were vivid but muddled and stupid too.

2013
Directed by David O. Russell
Written by Eric Singer and David O. Russell
With Amy Adams (Sydney Prosser), Christian Bale (Irving Rosenfeld), Bradley Cooper (Richie DiMaso), Jennifer Lawrence (Rosalyn Rosenfeld), Jeremy Renner (Carmine Polito), and some bullshit stunt casting

Spoiler alert: mild