'Barbarian' Delivers The Best Theater Experience Of The Year
#193: "Barbarian," "Chef's Table: Pizza," "Breathless," "Blade Runner 2049"
Edition 193:
Hey movie lovers!
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In this week’s newsletter: There’s not too much to say about the insane, highly spoilable Barbarian, but I’ll try my best. Then a wildly varying list of streaming recommendations for you, from French New Wave to hardcore sci-fi to…pizza. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” my guy Damien Chazelle makes an appearance with a cocaine-fueled fever dream.
Barbarian
One of the most electric movie theater moments of my entire life occurred this week, when in the course of a couple of seconds a packed out crowd gripped their seats with tension, shrieked in horror, then went totally silent, started murmuring with confusion, then laughed in absurdity.
Restrained as I am by my desire to provide spoiler-free reviews to you all, there’s not a whole lot more I can say about that moment of absolute cinematic brilliance, or the highly spoilable movie that contains it, other than to assert that Barbarian has the “audience on a string” quality that is exceedingly rare during the course of any movie year.
You know that moment during Parasite (spoiler alert, but I’m assuming you’ve seen it) where we discover there’s a third level down below the basement? That feeling like the mental construction of the movie has suddenly shattered into a million pieces, like we as viewers have been pulled out into the deep ocean with no safety net?
Barbarian has about five of those moments. This twisty, mind-blowing new horror thriller from writer/director Zach Cregger is one of the most viscerally exciting movies of the past handful of years, constantly defying audiences’ expectations as it toggles between traditional horror, horror comedy, thriller, and action seamlessly.
I would recommend — even beg — you to go see it in a theater, preferably a full one. Go see it even if you’re the type who traditionally avoids horror movies (my only caveat is if you’re easily grossed out, because there are some gross scenes).
The less you know about this beforehand, the better. The only thing I’m going to tell you is that it’s about a woman travels to Detroit for a job interview, and arrives on a rainy night to her Airbnb. Turns out, there’s already a man inside, who says the house must be double booked. (Ironically, the same premise as the Netflix rom-com Love in the Villa we covered a few weeks ago, but to much MUCH different ends.) Things descend from mildly creepy to downright batshit crazy.
The woman is played well by relatively unknown Georgina Campbell, and the guy a charming Bill Skarsgård, who is best known as having played the Pennywise clown in the IT movies…if that tells you anything. Somewhere along the way, we’re introduced to Justin Long (best known as the wimpy kid from Dodgeball and Accepted), who takes over the movie as a self-obsessed actor who just got #MeToo’d.
If you want to take a deep reading of the movie, there are themes to be explored. There’s societal questions to be chewed on. For the Reddit sleuths out there, there are some unexplained rabbit trails that should provide plenty of fodder for investigation. But ultimately this movie is a thrill ride, grabbing your attention and never letting it go across the entire 102-minute run time.
Perhaps the highest compliment I can give in this review is expressing how badly I want to talk about this movie with anyone, with everyone (with you all!) while deeply hoping you have the same untainted moviegoing experience that I had this week. So there’s not a whole lot else I can say here. It’s a top five movie of the year for me and my favorite theater experience.
If you do go and see it, please email me so we can discuss!
Something New
Chef’s Table: Pizza (Netflix): Well here’s just about the easiest sell I’ve ever had to make. It takes all the beauty and discovery of the long-running culinary documentary series, which at times can skew a tad grandiose, and brings it to the most common and unpretentious food group in the world.
During the pandemic, this show was my “virtual tourism,” and once again it takes us around the world to Rome, Caiazzo (outside Naples), and Kyoto, and around the U.S. with Phoenix, Minneapolis and Portland. It’s cultural examination and artistic discovery through what is essentially, on a base level, just food porn. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. Watching it, I was practically drooling.
Something Old
Breathless (1960, HBO Max): The films of French master Jean-Luc Godard tend to feel for me a bit like homework, admittedly. He’s probably the person you’re thinking of when you think of pretentious foreign arthouse films. And yet, I don’t think a cooler and more stylish movie has ever been made than this one, about a guy on the run in Paris after impulsively murdering a police officer, trying to convince an American girl (played by Jean Seberg) to run away with him. If nothing else, I promise you’re going to want to live inside the world of effortlessly cool people and beautiful settings he created here.
Rest in peace to Godard, who died this week at the age of 91. One of the things I try to do with the newsletter recs is push you outside your comfort zone, and if you’ve ever been curious about the heavily influential “French New Wave” cinema (this movie is a huge inspiration for this year’s The Worst Person in the World), this is a great way to try it out. It’s simply an iconic entry into movie history.
Something to Stream
Blade Runner 2049 (HBO Max): I remembered loving this movie when it came out in 2017, even though it received mixed reviews and doesn’t hold a reputation as one of the great movies of the past five years. A re-inspection this past week confirmed my feeling that is just that. In terms of world-building, I’m not sure there’s been five movies in the history of the medium that have so fully realized a universe of this scale, down to the tiniest and most human details. It’s massive, wildly sci-fi and insanely beautiful but feels real and lived in.
The story, which many felt was vague if not entirely incomprehensible, actually made a lot of sense to me this second time around. Ryan Gosling shines in the lead role as “replicant” police officer tasked with hunting down older models, one of which is Harrison Ford (star of the 1982 original film). He learns that Ford’s character has had a baby with a replicant, thought to be impossible, causing all replicants to believe in their own sentience, perhaps even their humanity. It’s not as existentially deep as the original movie, but there’s enough emotional content there to chew on between exciting action set pieces and total immersion into this gorgeous world. The movie is long (2hr44min) but worth every second. I really really loved it this second time around.
Trailer Watch: Babylon
Damien Chazelle is well on his way to becoming my favorite filmmaker on the planet. Whiplash, La La Land and First Man are among my favorite movies of the past 10 years. So at this point, any new project he puts out is a mega event for me, and subsequently for this newsletter.
But come on, who wouldn’t be excited about this lavish-looking epic starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie about the golden age of Hollywood? That has Oscars gold written all over it.
Sidenote, speaking of Oscars gold. I want to make you all aware of the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s new movie The Fabelmans, which is getting rave reviews on the festival circuit and looks like the kind of old school capital “C” Cinema that we’re going to love around here. Check it out!