'Boys State' is absolutely the movie of the year

No Content for Old Men

with Matt Craig

Hey movie lovers!

Earlier this week, if you've subscribed to the podcast on Apple or Spotify, you noticed I dropped another edition of my "Review Rewind" this week! Talking about the most underrated movie of last year...Waves. Check out the pod, check out the movie. You can expect full length reviews from my archive on Tuesday's for the foreseeable future.

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Another cool story I wanted to pass along from this week was stumbling across the production of the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie (PTA is unquestionably one of the modern masters. Boogie Nights, The Master, There Will Be Blood, etc.).

Only in Hollywood, right?

Err...well, in this case Encino. PTA's new movie was shrouded in secrecy, at least up until he dressed a stretch of Ventura Blvd in 1970s period decor and brought out Bradley Cooper in an all-white 70s outfit with long hair and a beard. Honestly, I didn't even recognize Cooper from my perch across the street next to a handful of paparazzi cameras with a giant Fat Sal's sandwich in my hands (the real reason I was there). But there he was, filming a scene in which he hops out of a truck and threatens a guy with a gas pump, all in one long tracking shot operated by PTA himself behind the camera (serving as his own director of photography). It was a surreal moment, so I guess it's no surprise that when I took a video of them shooting the scene, I looked down at my phone and realized I never pressed record. Fail. Anyway, here's a photo from the scene. Can't wait to see it on screen!

In this week's newsletter: The best movie of the year is a documentary about teenage politics. Wow. Then I'm back on my recommendation game with some really strong streaming suggestions, and in "Trailer Watch," yet another take on Sherlock Holmes.

Word Count: 752 words
Reading time: 4 minutes

Boys State

Have you ever met a single person who is a fan of polarized politics? Seriously. The national conventions of the past few weeks only underscore this point. No matter what someone believes, we can all agree that this blind antagonism between parties is counter-productive. Right?

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that this polarization is a product conjured by devious men in back rooms and stoked by manipulative media outlets. That it's some evil master plan. Who am I kidding, I believed that.

And then I saw Boys State. The documentary follows a group of young men going through the "Boys State" program in Texas (though it exists in many states), where every year they hand-pick 1100 high school boys from every corner of the state to gather for one week in Austin and simulate the political process from start to finish. They divide into two purely fictional political parties, and are tasked with creating a platform and running campaigns against each other for office.

The list of Boys State alumni is formidable: Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Neil Armstrong, Cory Booker, Chris Christi, Rush Limbaugh, Tim Cook, Tom Brokaw (and some hilarious ones like Jon Bon Jovi, Skip Bayless, Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Saban and James Gandolfini).

As soon as the parties assemble, no spoilers, let's just say it gets "Lord of the Flies" up in there VERY quickly.

The best laboratory in this country could not create a better experiment to test the hypothesis of political parity. And these innocent kids, with the best of intentions, descend into the same political madness we're seeing play out on the national stage this year.

It goes without saying that this drama makes for great entertainment. At many points, the movie crackles with the electricity of a reality show, combining the unabashed honesty of "confessional" interviews with incredible "how did they get that?" verité footage. No scripted show can match the hilarity or the cringe of reality when it is captured in such a raw way. No screenplay could create scenes so vivid and surprising.

And because the subjects are teenagers, the heat of competition is not dulled by discussions of policy that fly way over the heads of most viewers. The year before this documentary was filmed, for example, the Texas Boys State congressional delegation voted to secede from the United States. So what I'm trying to say is the whole thing watches like candy even as it sustains like vegetables, carrying profound messages about the state of our nation that are equal parts haunting and hopeful. This is not like a train wreck that draws you in because of impending doom, it just as powerfully displays the good the next generation of Americans is capable of.

That contradiction, haunting vs. hopeful, arises from the casting, which is the astonishing and historic achievement of the film. Each young man fits a compelling archetype -- the savvy win-at-all-costs manipulator, the airhead front man, the optimistic underdog -- but the color and complexity added to them explodes far beyond the boundaries of some paint-by-numbers characterization.

Simply put, I was blown away by this movie. There are a few show-stopping moments that I still cannot believe took place in real life. It soars to heights that I don't think are capable in fiction, while still dutifully checking all the boxes of narrative film. Its cinematography and production design set a new bar for cinematic nonfiction storytelling. And I would not be shocked at all if one specific young man featured here became a future president of these United States. Honestly, I hope he does.

All told, this is the kind of movie that anyone who reads this newsletter lives for. It's streaming now on AppleTV+. Find a way to watch it as soon as you possibly can.

Streaming Suggestions!

Something New

The Stunt Double (Apple short, online free): You all might know Damien Chazelle as the boy wonder behind Whiplash and La La Land and First Man. You may know him as one of (if not absolutely) my favorite filmmakers. But what you may not know is that Apple gave the Oscar-winning director a giant bag of money to make a short film shot entirely on the iPhone in vertical dimensions. Chazelle made the absolute most of it, hopscotching across movie history to tell the story of a stunt double witnessing his life flash before his eyes. It's incredibly stylish, wildly inventive and has that dash of saccharine Chazelle touch. Definitely set aside 10 minutes to watch the short, and I highly suggest taking another five to watch the behind-the-scenes featurette. The future!?

Something Old

The War Room (1993): I listened to a podcast interview with the filmmakers behind Boys State, and one of the films they cited as a foundational text for them was this 1993 documentary about the Bill Clinton presidential campaign. This was back in the day when documentaries were less narrative feature and more repository for unbelievable real life footage. Which this has in spades. Featuring "The Ragin' Cajun" James Carville and George Stephanopoulos (lovable ABC host now?), cameras follow the Clinton campaign from its earliest primaries through election night, capturing all the political machinations and games played through every scandal and attack on the way to the White House. Though the craziness of the early '90s may be considered tame by today's standards, when Carville tells his team near the end "we changed the way campaigns will be run in this country," one cannot help but agree in a way far different than Carville means it.

Something to Stream

Safety Not Guaranteed (Netflix): My love for the Duplass brothers is well documented here, so it's no surprise I'm recommending this 2012 indie drama that they produced, starring Mark Duplass alongside Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson. The movie's director, Colin Trevorrow, was part of that class of filmmakers who jumped immediately from tiny indie to massive blockbuster (like my fav petulant man-child Josh Trank). Trevorrow's next movie was 2015's Jurassic World. It's not hard to see his appeal. This movie has all the charm of a good indie, pairing the semi-ridiculous premise of a journalist responding to a classified ad from a man seeking a partner for time travel, with the deep human investigation of loneliness and being an outsider. It's got a little comedy, a little heart, and a little suspense. What more do you want in a streamer?

Haywire (Netflix): It's been a while since I recommended a good action movie. Frankly, it had been a while since I'd seen a good action movie. Somehow this one was hiding in plain sight, from acclaimed director and newsletter fav Steven Soderbergh. One thing Soderbergh has never been afraid to do is experiment, and it's pretty crazy that he just decided to make basically a James Bond movie that saunters along with the same easy confidence of his Ocean's Eleven, featuring A-listers Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender yet starring unknown female mixed martial artist Gina Carano. In 2020, this movie is a mega-hit, guaranteed. It's a globetrotting spy adventure on-par with the Bourne movies, though completely different in tone and ambition. Check it out this week.

Trailer Watch: Enola Holmes

I've made peace with the fact that Millie Bobby Brown is going to be an A-list actress for the rest of my lifetime. She's super famous. I just can't figure out what the age cutoff is before child actors have to develop other traits besides precociousness. And I thought that was going to be my biggest gripe with a new Sherlock Holmes adaptation stretched so thin its rear is showing. But then, THEN, I learned that Henry Cavill, the walking Abercrombie & Fitch manikin, is supposed to be playing the world's SMARTEST detective? Stop, stop, it's too much.