“Sound of Metal” is one of the best movies of 2020 full stop

"Sound of Metal," "Sylvie's Love," "Wonder Woman 1984," "Cool Hand Luke," "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"

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 wipe the egg off my face for published my year-end movies list without including the superb Sound of Metal. Add to that a pair of late 2020 releases, one starring and produced by a former NFL pro-bowler and the other starring Gal Gadot. I'll let you decide which title is more impressive. Plus a couple recent Netflix additions that you definitely need to watch, and in this week's "Trailer Watch," I come to grips with the changing definition of the word "movie."

Word Count: 534 words
Reading time: 3 minutes

Sound of Metal

(Amazon Prime)

Sometimes a movie delights. Sometimes a movie disappoints. Sometimes a movie can even impress, as in the layered brilliance of Mank or the poignant incisiveness of Mangrove. But very rarely does a movie totally take your breath away, as it did in Darius Marder's directorial debut Sound of Metal.

The totality of the viewing experience is akin to a run on the emotional treadmill, but moment-to-moment the story forges such unexpected paths that one cannot possibly anticipate where it's headed, leaving the viewer vulnerable to blindside attacks that produce both triumph and despair.

Each rise and fall draws us deeper into the psyche of protagonist Ruben, a drummer in a metal band whose sudden hearing loss throws his life into chaos. The powerful effect of silence is wielded just the right amount, more for perspective than as a gimmick in something like A Quiet Place (which needed it to carry the movie). Still, as one might expect this is a very interior film, and much of it takes place inside of Ruben's mind.

We aren't granted access to his thoughts, exactly, but the subtle yet masterful performance of Riz Ahmed broadcasts the full spectrum of human emotions across his face and in the way he interacts with those around him. Ultimately, the movie succeeds because it creates a character with which we empathize deeply even while he makes decisions that we ourselves would not consider. That push/pull of surprise and understanding is a gold mine.

Along for the ride is Ruben's girlfriend Lou, the band's lead singer, colored in with a worthy performance by Olivia Cooke (who I've been a particular fan of since Me and Earl and the Dying Girl). A lesser movie would've used the Lou character only as a backstop to bounce everything back to the protagonist, but here she gets an arc of her own which intertwines with Ruben's without being wholly dependent.

Which is to say that Marder, who also has a screenwriting credit on the very underrated The Place Beyond the Pines, created a fully realized world, the corners of which have rarely been explored in movies and most people know little about (idk maybe it's just me and you all are experts on hearing-impaired drug rehab facilities and grunge metal concerts?).

It's a shame I put off watching this movie until after I published my 2020 movies list, because Sound of Metal belongs firmly inside the top 10 (I currently have it No. 8, which may be too low). It's no casual flip-on-the-TV background entertainment though, so pick a night and treat yourself to a breath-taking, emotional rollercoaster.

Streaming Suggestions!

Something New

Sylvie's Love (Amazon Prime): I'm a sucker for old school production design, particularly when the gauzy studio backlots of L.A. stand in for the gritty streets of New York, just as they did in the romantic comedies of old. This was a particularly interesting case for me, because the movie not only stars but was produced by former Pro Bowl NFL cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. He's a wholly capable romantic lead here, and managed to wrangle a pretty impressive cast: Tessa Thompson, Eva Longoria and briefly Lance Reddick. The story beats are pretty well-worn here for fans of the genre -- career vs. relationship, art vs. commerce -- but it's yet one more reminder how the simple perspective shift toward telling Black stories can breathe fresh life into tired tales.

Wonder Woman 1984: Movie? Ha. It's an incomprehensible piece of brand management that manages to not even deliver on the promise of fun diversionary entertainment, unless you're the type that's susceptible to whimsy and follows every plot MacGuffin with the attention of a goldfish (your favorite movies include Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). That will do little to stop Warner Brothers from rushing another sequel into production, because the corporate overlords at AT&T demand it and because Gal Gadot is the type of cinematic force of nature that must be harnessed on the big screen (I recently heard her compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger and I don't hate it).

Something Old

Cool Hand Luke (1967, Netflix): "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." It's one of those lines that has permeated the American vocabulary beyond the influence of its source, though in its time that line was a big reason why George Kennedy won an Oscar as the foil for Paul Newman's lovable convict in this prison drama. The reason you need to watch it is the legendary charisma of Newman, the type of movie star that simply cannot exist in our current IP-centric film landscape. Make no mistake, there would be no Shawshank Redemption without this movie about a man whose spirit refuses to broken by his dire circumstances.

Something to Stream

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Netflix): Another recent Netflix addition was this star-studded 2011 David Fincher thriller. Bottom line, you need to watch every David Fincher movie. This one is dark, graphic, downright brutal to watch at times, but it's also an expertly crafted mystery loaded with suspense and propped up by magnetic performances in seemingly every role: Daniel Craig as detective (sans Knives Out accident, unfortunately), Rooney Mara as hacker, Christopher Plummer as patriarch (another Knives Out precursor), Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright, and no less than a half dozen "that guys." Nobody is more detailed and precise in craft than Fincher, and that attention to detail always translates into wholly engrossing experiences on screen.

Trailer Watch: Underground Railroad

2021 will be the year in which I take a good, long look at how I'm defining "movies" in this newsletter. Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" felt like a crossing of the Rubicon moment, but it's far from the first self-contained mini-series to use the market forces of television to effectively tell a cinematic story (note to self, this is worthy of an entire newsletter unto itself, but off the top of my head "The Night Of," "Chernobyl" and "Watchmen" could've been considered among the best movies of their respective years).

The conversation reaches a breaking point in the coming months with the release of "Underground Railroad," written and directed by Barry Jenkins. The man behind Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk is unquestionably one of the great filmmakers of the new generation , and has been a champion for the feature film art form. His turn toward the mini-series format, coming to Amazon Prime, signals a true embrace of the format among quote-unquote "serious" auteurs.