'On the Rocks,' and what is comedy in 2020? Borat, Eric Andre and Sarah Cooper

No Content for Old Men

with Matt Craig

Hey movie lovers!

As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!

In this week's newsletter: I'm ditching the usual format, because we've got a whole slate of new movies and TV shows I watched this week and want to share. There's something here for everyone, from Oscar contenders to bite-sized mini-series and everything else in between. I want to hone in on the state of comedy in 2020 with a handful of new projects. And in this week's "Trailer Watch," Netflix is dropping the bag on a new space drama featuring George Clooney with a massive beard.

Word Count: 1,754 words total (main section 574 words)
Reading time: 7 minutes

On the Rocks (Apple TV+)

The most flattering thing I can say about Sofia Coppola, or any director, is that when you watch one of her movies you know unmistakably that it is a Sofia Coppola movie. Her directorial style is a vibe, a mix of impossibly cool and unbelievably angsty that you don't necessarily want to participate in (like, say, a Richard Linklater joint) but nonetheless want to spend time hanging around.

Her latest effort dives into the world of upper crust Manhattan, full of swanky bars and champagne problems. She gives center stage to Laura, played by TV stalwart Rashida Jones, here a writer-turned-housewife who's learning that children and rapidly approaching middle age are turning into a shell of her former self. In setup it's a movie about her marriage (to the best of the Wayans brothers, Marlon) being in trouble, but practically the movie is about her complicated relationship to a charming yet noncommittal father.

The real reason you're going to want to see this movie is because of who plays the aforementioned father. Bill Murray is unquestionably Coppola's muse, most memorably teaming with her in Lost in Translation, which won Coppola her screenwriting Oscar (also A Very Murray Christmas).

All respect to that endeavor but this is an even better Murray performance, the very best of his late-career turn toward wise old man roles. He's so essentially Bill Murray -- hilarious, charismatic, and loaded with ironic disregard -- while reaching new depths of emotion and empathy. Every second he's on screen is a must-watch.

It's impossible not to participate in the meta conversation here, both because Sofia's career will always exist in the shadow of her father, Francis Ford Coppola, and because her lead is the daughter of the legendary Quincy Jones. But I think the conversation is reductive, because Sofia Coppola is one of the only true female auteurs with the Hollywood cache to be taken seriously while telling female stories. Dudes have been telling sad sack stories about their own daddy problems for centuries, long before movies were even an idea in Thomas Edison's mind.

Murray's unique energy works best in support, and this is Jones' movie. She handles some really funny scenes with Jenny Slate just as well as the dramatic stuff with Wayans, a tightrope that could've spelled disaster if she did not walk it so adeptly.

There is perhaps no better endorsement I can give than the fact that I was wanting to rewatch this movie the day after seeing it the first time. As with most Sofia Coppola movies, it is a rich text. Though the plotting and stakes are pretty pedestrian, there's a lot of meaning hidden around the edges and packed into a tiny glance or gesture.

I think I may have elevated this movie into the tier of truly great under different circumstances. It's a very personal movie, and because I have not experienced juggling a career with raising children or failing to sustain attraction across a long marriage, I know I didn't connect as deeply as I could have.

Just as clearly as there is a Sofia Coppola Movie, there is a well-defined Sofia Coppola viewer. If you dig her vibe, you're going to love this movie. For everyone else, there's nostalgia for the communal life of pre-COVID New York City and the endless charm of Bill Murray. That's more than enough for me to place this movie in my top 15 for the year.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Amazon Prime)

I struggle a bit with cringe comedy. Okay, more than a bit. Sometimes I have to close my eyes while watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm." So I could only watch Sacha Baron Cohen's new prank movie in 10-15 minute increments. At times those segments produced some of the biggest laughs in any movie I've seen this year, and at others made me sad about the state of humanity.

But hey, he's back!

It's been 14 years since Cohen introduced the world to Borat, a Kazakhstan-y cloak and dagger deployed to expose and embarrass the worst aspects of American culture. In that time, those same crazy fringe radical-types lampooned in the first edition have risen to the highest offices in our country. I suppose that gives Cohen enough reason to dawn the mustache and afro once again, though in our current political climate his real-life stunts feel less like shock-and-awe comedy and more like political activism.

Part of that is Cohen's own doing. The English actor/comedian/stuntman was an unknown in 2006, and since has developed a reputation for his particular brand of comedy. Within that realm, the man is a genius. I truly don't understand how he's able to infiltrate these situations and draw out the most embarrassing behavior from his subjects -- which in this case includes but is not limited to getting an anti-mask rally to chant about "injecting Fauci with the Wuhan flu" and "chopping up journalists like the Saudis do."

This is not so much a movie as performance art, a series of stunts patched together with a fictional plot about Borat's daughter Tutar. The actress who plays Tutar, Maria Bakalova, is a revelation, capable of remaining incognito for stunts Cohen can no longer achieve due to his popularity. A grassroots Oscar campaign has begun for her in earnest, because I don't think anyone believed someone else could replicate Cohen's style of prank comedy. She's hilarious and also sentimental enough to make the movie's plot at least not distracting.

The butt of Borat's jokes is always the subject, unknowingly, and in that way the act comes off mean-spirited. At least when the subjects are nice, innocent people. But when it is someone like Rudy Giuliani in the film's climax...holy moly. When the credits roll on this movie you're going to want to take a shower, and if it were humanely possible, wash your brain out as well.

Yes, God, Yes (Netflix)

I really hope those who didn't attend a Catholic high school can appreciate the specificity and painful accuracy of this movie about a high school girl experiencing her sexual awakening at a retreat designed to repress that exact impulse. It re-contexualized my entire experience at Catholic school, right down to the fact that I attended a retreat exactly like this (same curriculum! same buzzwords!) and didn't realize that's what it was until now. I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned in there about the self-awareness of high school-aged boys...

The girl is played by Natalia Dyer (who many will know as Nancy from "Stranger Things") and features the comic stylings of Timothy Simons (known as Jonah from "Veep"), which provide more than enough talent to fill out Karen Maine's directorial debut (you might know her as the screenwriter of the indie darling Obvious Child).

Maine's views on religion are pretty clear, and pretty clearly negative, but she makes fun of the Catholic culture with a precision that could only be acquired by personal experience. That specificity produces some really hilarious moments, bolstering an extremely capable coming of age story. I recommend for anyone with the stomach for some adolescent sexual innuendo.

The Eric Andre Show (AdultSwim)

The difference between Borat and Eric Andre, another comedian specializing in shocking hidden camera comedy, is that Andre always designs the joke to be aimed back at him. His stuff is cringe-y, at times equally hard to watch, but ultimately it's just silly. He makes no grand statement about the world when he fake-pees on a napper on the subway, then tells an onlooker "I just drop a copy of 'The Catcher and the Rye' by their body so when they wake up the cops thing they’re crazy."

Season 4 of Andre's show comes more than four years after its last season dropped, and in that time Andre has leveled up in comedy stature, with a stand-up special on Netflix and a guest spot in a few shows and movies. Which means this time around, he has more money to play with and bigger name guests, though I'm not sure why any of them would agree to be on this absolutely looney bin of a show. If this is your first exposure it will be jarring, and probably take some time to acclimate, but if you stick it out you may have just found the funniest show on TV right now.

Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine (Netflix)

Sarah Cooper is not the first no-namer to achieve viral fame online for making fun of Donald Trump, though I'd be surprised if anyone who spends any amount of time on the internet has not seen or at least heard of her lip-synched videos pantomiming some of our president's more outrageous quotes. The difference for Cooper is the wide-spread popularity she gained amongst the ranks of the entertainment elite, from A-list actors to executives, obviously, because they opened up the check book for this one-off Netflix special.

It's hard not to compare this sketch show to "Saturday Night Live," which has met our unprecedented year 2020 by doing basically the exact same show they do every other year. Cooper steers into the 2020 skid, as most jokes are tinged with the absurdity and dread the year has produced. It's dark but relevant, taking part in the national dialogue in the way SNL has not. Plus, it sure helps when you can get a dozen big stars to pop in for cameos: Ben Stiller, Fred Armisen, Helen Mirren, Jon Hamm, Winona Ryder, Maya Rudolph, Aubrey Plaza, Marisa Tomei, Jane Lynch, Whoopi Goldberg. With friends like these...a 45-minute sketch comedy show is pretty simple.

Song Exploder (Netflix)

I was not aware of the "Song Exploder" podcast previously, though apparently it has been up and running since 2014, and my knowledge of the music-making process is minimal. Which is why this Netflix mini-series adaptation of the show was such a revelation. Each episode takes on a different hit song like a documentary short, deftly threading a breakdown of sonic machinations with biographical information about the artist. Obviously your mileage will vary based upon your investment in whichever particular artist is featured in a given episode, so it's no real surprise that the one I was attracted to was about "Wait For It" from "Hamilton."

Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of those rare kinds of creative geniuses who is able to bring common folk like us into his brain process, allowing us to experience his genius second hand. In explaining Aaron Burr's lament, further discussion reveals even deeper layers of meaning and resonance behind one of my favorite songs in the entire show. I would empty my bank account if they made a "Song Exploder" episode about every song in "Hamilton." But until that happens, I'll gladly watch whatever episodes they put out.

Trailer Watch: The Midnight Sky

It's very strange to find a movie that is simultaneously such a re-heat of every other space movie I've ever seen AND the most topical 2020 movie I've ever seen. Connecting with alien life has never not been used as a metaphor for connecting with family members, and movie characters are always searching for other inhabitable planets. But tying in the very real and accelerating climate change concerns, and the feelings of isolation that we've all been drowning in for most of 2020, and the movie feels very current.

Legendary silver fox George Clooney looks like he's grown a quarantine beard so fierce Mel Gibson is scared he might get replaced in Fat Man, and he's supported by an excellent cast including Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler and David Oyelowo. Clearly Netflix has dropped the bag for a movie that's grand in scale despite grounded ambitions. Over the Christmas holiday, I'm here for it.