'Palm Springs' is the movie we've been waiting for
No Content for Old Men
with Matt Craig
In this week's newsletter: The most fun movie of the year, Palm Springs, is here! At a time when I think we all need it badly. Plus a perfectly decent action movie The Old Guard.. Then I've got a couple really really good streaming suggestions. And in this week's Trailer Watch, I pass along a hilarious story I heard about Bruce Willis.
(FYI! This was a crazy week for new movies. I only got around to these two, but in the coming weeks you'll be getting thoughts on A24's First Cow, Tom Hanks' Greyhound, and Seberg.)
Word Count: 700 words
Reading time: 4 minutes
Palm Springs
Andy Samberg holds a pretty singular place in American pop culture. Everyone recognizes him, everyone likes him, yet by and large, nobody really respects him as the heir apparent to the comedy throne. Why? My personal theory is that he came about a few years too late, when acting like a goofy manchild (like predecessors Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell) was no longer the formula to become the funniest man on the planet.
Samberg has certainly created his own brand of juvenile hilarity, beginning when he pioneered the "SNL Digital Shorts" as part of the comedy trio "The Lonely Island" in early viral hits like "Threw it on the Ground" and "Dick in a Box," then fronted straight-ahead comedy Hotrod and clever mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, while starring in the long-running sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."
In his latest project, Hulu exclusive Palm Springs, he's finally calibrated his shtick to perfectly fit our moment in culture. As protagonist Niles, the movie opens at the point when he's moved past anxiety and depression into full-on apathy. Confined to a time loop where he relives the same banal destination wedding over and over for all eternity, Niles has totally given up (a familiar feeling to the millions of us stuck in quarantine seemingly living the same stressful day over and over).
In a studio's hands, that kind of premise would be stamped out into a formulaic knock-off of Groundhog Day, the time loop movie from whose shadow Palm Springs must try desperately to escape. Thankfully, this movie is the product of a first-time screenwriter and first-time director, fresh from film school. They've found a handful of interesting wrinkles and twists within the genre, which keep the movie balancing on a knife's edge between silly comedy and deep human drama. At the Sundance Film Festival, Neon (and their partners Hulu) certainly thought so, acquiring the movie's rights for a festival record $17.5 milllion.
Starring alongside Samberg is the criminally underrated Cristin Milioti and supporting cast hall-of-famer J.K. Simmons. If you're going to be trapped hanging out in the same day over and over, you'd be hard pressed to find a more fun crew than these three.
It all amounts to the rarest of movies: one that's super fun and accessible, easy to watch and begging to be revisited countless times, yet also artistic and profound. I've got it as the third best movie of 2020 I've seen so far, but that's a bit of a misnomer. Hamilton is a filmed stage production and Portrait of a Lady on Fire was technically released in 2019 (very limited, and it came out on Hulu in 2020 so I'm counting it). So it's no exaggeration to say Palm Springs is one of the best movies of the year so far, certainly the best of the quarantine. What are you waiting for?
The Old Guard
Charlize Theron has stealthily climbed up pretty high on the all-time action hero pantheon. Think about it. Italian Job, Prometheus, Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blonde, The Fate of the Furious, and now, The Old Guard. This movie may look like just more A-lister Netflix action movie schlock, and Lord knows we've had plenty of it, but director Gina Prince-Bythewood puts together a highly competent high concept story (adapted from some obscure graphic novel because there's no other way to secure a large production budget).
The mythology here is a little hokey and certainly not original -- a band of mercenaries who can regenerate their wounds and live forever -- but thrusting Theron and Kiki Layne (from If Beale Street Could Talk) front and center in hero parts that don't focus on their femininity was something I'd never really seen before. There's an evil tech billionaire who wants to steal their power, because of course, but the action sequences here reveal story instead of just blowing crap up, and the character development and relationships feel real in a way that previous Netflix entries 6 Underground and Extraction could not touch.
If you're in the mood for an action movie, this one is really solid. I'll include my ranking for the year (No. 18 of 2020), since I know you all like that.
Streaming Suggestions!
Something New
Zerozerozero (Amazon Prime): I recommended this show to you all a few weeks ago, but now that I've finished its first season I just want to come back with an even bigger endorsement. The story spreads out across multiple continents and characters, but comes together to tell a coherent and compelling tale that unpacks criminal enterprise from several angles. It's stylish and clearly well-moneyed, but the hokey Hollywood touch is refreshingly absent from this international co-production, giving it an unpredictable edge that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Something Old
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Starz): I'm assuming you've already seen Groundhog Day, and a half-dozen other time loop movies (my favorite of which is below). So I picked the movie that most reminds me of Palm Springs, exploring the concept of memory instead of time though a similar existential crisis. It's one of the greatest screenplays ever written, though it's definitely a deeper and more emotionally intense movie than the whimsical Palm Springs. I guess that what happens when you take feel-good movie stars like Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet and turn them over to the bizarre genius of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.
Something to Stream
Source Code (TBS, TNT): I have no idea what streaming services are being referred to as "TBS, TNT," but since the movie seems to be in the Warner Media family I think it will pop up on HBOMax at some point. It's my favorite time loop movie, orginating from a simple yet powerful premise. A soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal) keeps waking up on a train with eight minutes to find out which passenger is about to set off a bomb (which blows him up after time expires). The movie then elevates to a whole other level with plot twists and turns, propelled by fantastic performances from Gyllenhaal as well as Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright. This movie doesn't get the credit it deserves.
Trailer Watch: Hard Kill
I heard a great story about Bruce Willis this week that I'm going to share now, because I don't really care to talk about another cookie-cutter old man action movie he's predictably starring in.
Filmmaker Kevin Smith tells a story about being called in to do script re-writes on the fourth or fifth Die Hard movie (who can remember). Willis thought the script was too jokey, and one speech in particular he wanted Smith to make him sound more heroic and bad ass. So Smith rewrote the speech and showed it to Willis, who loved it but needed to send the pages off to the studio for approval. While they waited, Willis basically through a barbecue outside his trailer, and had his personal chef grill some chicken. Then when the phone call came, Smith heard this half of the conversation.
"Hey, did you get them?
...
"Yeah but you don't understand man, that other stuff is too silly. This is important man it's leading into the third act."
...
"Because the world is ending!"
...
"Yeah we know that but the rest of the world, as far as they know the whole world is coming to an end, we're going to sit around and make some jokes about goth girls and Myspace? What he wrote is good now it makes sense."
...
"Uh huh...."
...
"Alright."
...
"Wait wait, let me ask you a question."
...
"Who's your second choice to play John McClain?"
...
"Okay then."
click.