'Armageddon Time' And The Downsides Of Hollywood's New Auteur Theory
#199: "Armageddon Time," "The Good Nurse," "Rosaline," "25th Hour," "The Darjeeling Limited"
Edition 199:
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!
The Cinephile Bucket List
For my subscribers, I’m selling a scratch-off poster with my best 100 movie recommendations on it, giving you a check list to complete if you want to call yourself a true movie lover. Your support on this project would mean the world to me. Plus, it’ll make a great Christmas present! Hit THIS LINK for full details.
Now on to this week’s movies:
Armageddon Time
In journalism school, professors loved to tell us students to avoid using first person in our writing.
“You are the least interesting thing about the story,” they’d say.
Soon after we’d be assigned to read the work of industry titan, like a Wright Thompson, who would inevitably lean heavily on first person. But he’d earned that right, they’d say, and he’d reached the status where readers actually cared about him as a character within his stories. Starstruck, I agreed.
The history of Hollywood shows a similar hierarchy. While every screenwriter has been compelled to “write what you know!” only a privileged few have been given permission (or at least a budget) to direct an explicit autobiography. Think filmmakers with one-name status: Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman, Spike, Baumbach, Woody (sorry), Crowe (not sorry).
In recent years the trend has accelerated and the privilege democratized — yes there’s Alfonso Cuarón (Roma) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza), but also Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), Lulu Wang (The Farewell) and Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) all making appearances during awards season.
“Auteur theory,” the idea that directors are ultimately the sole author of a movie, has never been more meaningless among commercial blockbuster movies — where scripts include “insert fight scene here” and hundreds of CGI artists deserve as much credit as the guy calling “cut” — and yet never more valuable among any movie claiming to be “prestige.”
As the purse strings of Hollywood get tighter, filmmakers pitching movies must answer the same questions I have to answer when I’m pitching a story to an editor. Namely, not just “is it a good story?” but also “why am I the right person to tell it?” Unfortunately in my pitch meetings the response “because I’m going to do a good job on it” has never been enough.
Add in the rise of identity politics and a healthy dose of skepticism about who has the authority to tell what stories, and you’re left with an environment where risk-averse production executives know no better than to greenlight someone’s own story.
This year alone there’s three entries: Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans (current odds-on Best Picture favorite), Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Bardo, and Armageddon Time, from and about the young life of James Gray.
Gray is a well-respected if not entirely celebrated filmmaker behind Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z and We Own The Night. In another era, he surely would not have been tapped to tell his autobiographical story about growing up Jewish in Queens in the 1980s.
But this is ostensibly a movie about America today, complete with appearances from members of the Trump family, commentary on the Ronald Reagan presidential election and more than enough casual racism to go around.
Gray deserves respect for not sugar-coating this period of his life, or his own avatar, our middle school-aged protagonist who is more or less a mischievous a-hole who is saved by his own white privilege. The movie seems to be about the unfair systems in place, then and now. He is told to “be a mensch” and treat those below him socially with respect, and in the next sentence “play the game” and suck up to those above him on the social ladder.
As an essay, it’s interesting. But as a movie I found it meandering and unable to be saved even by a star-studded cast that includes Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong as his parents, Anthony Hopkins as his grandfather, and Jessica Chastain in a one-scene surprise I won’t ruin here. They are strong, compelling and just as committed to their parts as you’d expect from that crew.
Above all, the movie is specific. The house, the clothes, the way people talk. Maybe too specific for those who did not live out a very similar experience to access (a podcast host I like called this one of his best movies of the year, but he also grew up on Long Island in the 80s). And there isn’t really an olive branch inviting the rest of us in.
That’s the common trait that I worry about if the trend of autobiography continues to expand. Not that specific stories can’t be used to powerfully connect with all of us, because I’ll take specific over broad any day, but that fragmentation might leave the majority of us out in the cold while the few in the know dismiss us as “not getting it.”
That leaves Armageddon Time, for me, as a well-made movie I simply didn’t connect to.
Something New
The Good Nurse (Netflix): This trailer gave off distinct B-movie vibes, which isn’t exactly fair to a movie starring Oscar-winning actors Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain as real-life ICU nurses in the early 2000s who become the center of a criminal investigation when several patients die mysteriously in their care. I myself have always been immune to the charms of these two, especially Redmayne, and their particular brand of extremely…effortful acting. But I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. It’s not a bad movie!
While its overly serious tone, limited budget and one-note villains feel more at home in a Lifetime movie than any sort of awards play, and there’s no mystery to the central thriller plot line, the depiction of the life of overnight ICU nurses feels grounded and authentic and honestly just really awful. As all of the hospital TV dramas through the years can attest to (19 seasons of “Gray’s Anatomy?!), it’s a fruitful setting for storytelling. It’s enough to get this movie to respectability, but not quite enough to get me excited.
Rosaline (Hulu): In Shakespeare’s original “Romeo and Juliet,” Rosaline was the girl who Romeo was madly in love with before he met his ill-fated soulmate. It’s quite a clever premise to retell the classic story from her perspective as scorned lover, and casting Kaitlyn Dever is (if you can’t tell by now) always a great strategy to make your movie supremely watchable. Personally, I’m getting sick of the faux-updated sensibilities of period costumes + modern dialogue thing, with a sassy protagonist who rolls her eyes at everything going on (Anya Taylor-Joy in Emma and Dakota Johnson in Persuasion), as it makes building any real drama impossible.
Luckily, this movie is going for more of a Netflix low budget rom-com sort of situation, with one of those cookie cutter plots and just enough cute or entertaining moments strung together to make it super enjoyable in a low-commitment sort of way. I still much prefer director Karen Maine’s last movie, Yes, God, Yes.
Something Old
25th Hour (2002, Tubi): Spike Lee confirmed his status as the bard of New York City in this post-9/11 drama starring Ed Norton as a busted drug dealer on his last day before he has to go to prison. His friends span the spectrum of early 2000s NYC life — a stock broker (Barry Pepper), a high school teacher (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), an exotic dancer girlfriend (Rosario Dawson), and an Irish bar owner father (Brian Cox).
The story itself is sad, a little slow, affecting and super compelling, anchored by strong performances and memorable lines of dialogue. But the real magic here is Lee’s reflections on the various neighborhoods and people groups of New York, and how they each hustle to get by in their own way. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw it. Great movie.
Something to Stream
The Darjeeling Limited (Hulu): This is the Wes Anderson movie that’s lost to history, somewhat, because of what is perceived by The Discourse to be a racially insensitive presentation of India, the setting for this story about three estranged brothers going on a cross-country spiritual journey. I can’t deny the movie is Anglo-centric, nor would Anderson, but I think the crosshairs of criticism within the movie fall squarely on the three rich white guys at its center, who trounce around the country with little regard or respect for what’s around them. It’s not always obvious, because Anderson’s movies (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom) are characterized by their whimsical tone, but it’s definitely intentional.
Buried within that pseudo-controversy is one of the best depictions of brotherly relationship dynamics I’ve ever seen in a movie. The brothers, played by frequent Anderson collaborators Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman, each have their own quirks and personalities but carry the weight of shared experience between them in a way that feels so real.
This was the last Anderson feature-length project I’d never seen, and with it I can confirm he’s near the very top of my favorite directors list. I’ll have to make one of those some day. Until then, here’s how I’d rank his movies (seriously, there’s not a single bad one on here): 1) The Grand Budapest Hotel; 2) A Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou - my personal favorite; 3) Moonrise Kingdom; 4) The Royal Tenenbaums; 5) Fantastic Mr. Fox; 6) Bottle Rocket; 7) Isle of Dogs; 8) The French Dispatch; 9) The Darjeeling Limited; 10) Rushmore
Trailer Watch: John Wick: Chapter 4
I highly doubt that anyone involved in the original John Wick movie eight years ago could’ve imagined that they’d be here making a fourth installment in what is now one of the signature action franchises of all time. In that first movie, the plot was so simple — thugs killed Wick’s dog, and he’s about to unleash righteous revenge. By movie No. 4, the story is mired in all kinds of what I call “blockbuster mumbo-jumbo.” You can either study for a graduate degree in assassin-ology, or sit back and enjoy the gritty, genre-redefining action set pieces and increasingly monied aesthetics surrounding Keanu Reaves, who has reached 100% approval rating status in the ranks of modern movie star.
Either way, mark this one on your calendars for 2023.