Finally tapping into the coveted “Action Movie-Goers Ages 55-64” demographic is _RED,_ the first movie to fully recognize that the bad-ass old guy is the most bad-ass bad-ass possible. For that matter, I think I am not exaggerating when I say that, by and large, the older the practitioner, the more raw the feat. I dare you to name one thing that’s not raw as hell when done by a dude or lady of years. Doing push-ups. Chopping firewood. Yelling at Koreans. Speaking to a nation. Chugging a beer.
There is always an interesting tone to the buzz around the release of a new Wes Anderson film. People wonder if the new film will stick closely to Anderson’s unique style in order to satisfy his cult following or if it will lean more toward the mainstream in an effort to garner more fans and more box office success. These are valid questions and concerns.
Every year I try to watch the films nominated for the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Last week, I saw one of these, Philomena, starring Judy Dench and Steve Coogan and directed by Stephen Frears. The film is about Philomena Lee (Dench), an old Irish woman who is searching for the son that the Catholic Church forced her to give into adoption fifty years prior.
“There’s power in not having to care. As Inez Guzmán remarks, the film Oppenheimer can leave New Mexico just as its subject did: apparently without a second thought. But there’s also power—more ambivalent, yes, but also more lasting—that comes with needing to pick up the pieces.”
One day this summer, sitting in a blank white apartment that was not mine, I felt a strange weariness. This apartment was full of more books than I will probably ever read and I had fellowships to apply to and emails to write and the whole Internet in front of me and all of New York City clamoring outside.
But in Choke, Victor’s hapless flounderings through sex and love are more reminiscent of the simple comedy that gets Judd Apatow films good ratings, and perhaps that’s some indication that a protagonist’s quest for a fulfilling relationship is more than enough of an issue for any film to tackle.
“My first draft of this review started with a disclaimer saying that, whatever my opinions of Crazy Rich Asians may be, its all-Asian cast is worth celebrating as a landmark for representation. Then my editor sent me an article explaining how the movie’s depiction of Singapore is analogous to a depiction of America only featuring white people, and now I don’t know what to think. In the context of Hollywood’s shameful history of white actors playing Asian characters, this still feels like a step in the right direction, though it’s hard to forgive the ignorance of Singaporean racial diversity. This stuff is complicated and there are two sides to every issue. Anyway, Crazy Rich Asians is awful.”