Genie In A Bottle Doesn't Answer My Wish For "Three Thousand Years Of Longing"
#191: "Three Thousand Years Of Longing," "Breaking," "Labyrinth," "Philomena"
Edition 191:
Hey movie lovers!
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In this week’s newsletter: We’ve hit a dry patch in the calendar while we wait for #AwardsSZN to begin in earnest. Two movies in theaters disappoint, but as always I can recommend some great streaming movies for your weekend. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” we get our first actual look at the viral Winnie the Pooh horror movie.
Three Thousand Years of Longing
September is traditionally the throat-clearing month on the movie calendar, after the summer blockbusters and before the fall prestige fare. It’s just that this year, the theatrical movie business is already suffering from a sore throat after a historically dry August. Case and point: this Labor Day weekend the top movie at the box office could well be Top Gun: Maverick, now over three months since its debut. (The year will be remembered, no matter what happens the rest of the way, as the year of Top Gun: Maverick.)
Bottom line, movie lovers are starved for something to get excited about. And, in theory, a new movie from George Miller should be all that and more.
Miller is best known as the creator of the Mad Max franchise, receiving transcendent acclaim (and an Oscar nom) for his 2015 effort in Mad Max: Fury Road, hailed as a tangible action blockbuster antidote to the incomprehensible Marvel CGI punch fests. He’s an auteur with a populist eye (after all, he’s also the guy who made Happy Feet).
That’s why I almost cannot believe my conclusion — the movie is bad.
Conceptually, that makes it even more interesting, because it’s bad in a surprising way. Most bad movies are either failures of intention or failures of execution.
Failure of Intention: If a movie is made for the wrong reasons — like, to maintain a brand (Marvel, DC) or service a star’s Instagram feed (Enola Holmes) or appease a foreign audience (The Wall or anything by Michael Bay) — or if it begins with just a terrible premise (last year’s Infinite comes to mind) then all the craft in the world can hardly save it.
Failure of Execution: On the other hand, making movies is really hard. Maybe there wasn’t enough time or money, maybe the director or actors weren’t up to snuff, or there were conflicting visions of what the end product should like.
Three Thousand Years of Longing doesn’t fit into either category. It’s an interesting enough premise, if not an entirely original one — a no-nonsense woman discovers a “djinn” (a genie) in a bottle and is given three wishes. Make the principal actors Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, and I can get sold on that story. Visually the movie looks fantastic, from the camera movement to the production design to the use of the fantastical elements. It’s impossible to deny that Miller’s vision was not rendered on screen.
It’s confusing then to think about why the movie didn’t work (for me, anyway…I’ve seen positive reviews elsewhere). It was a curious choice to set most of the plot in flashback, as Elba’s genie walks through his history serving different masters over the course of three thousand years, providing a window into ancient empires dating back to the Queen of Sheeba. Those events are captivating and far more interesting than the forward plot, following Swinton’s author to a conference in Istanbul and then back to London for what is essentially every day life. Of course, her wishes have unintended and tragic consequences, providing the material needed to pull off some third act drama.
And the movie has themes: love, loneliness, compatibility, fate vs. free will, and above all storytelling. The Joan Didion quote “we tell ourselves stories in order to live” is something of a thesis statement.
The real disconnect for me is that the story is told, explicitly, as a fairytale, leaving the audience to believe that the events of the story would exist as allegory for those themes, and yet as the narrative advances it actually becomes more and more specific to the characters. There are seemingly no lessons to be learned whatsoever from the story, and instead we’re meant to care deeply about the characters whose misery seems at least partially self-inflicted.
Needless to say, I won’t spend too much time thinking about this movie as the year winds towards awards season, which begins by my estimation on September 23 with the release of Don’t Worry Darling. Strap in, movie lovers, it’s about to be our favorite time of year!
Something New
Breaking (Theaters): A few weeks ago I commented on the trailer for this bank heist movie because it appeared lead actor John Boyega (best known from the new Star Wars trilogy) was seemingly doing a full-on Denzel impression in this real life story about a veteran who holds up a bank in Atlanta to demand his VA payment. The truth is Denzel would never get as vulnerable as Boyega is here, and the movie is a performance showcase more than anything else. In fact, it’s one of the least cinematic movies I’ve seen all year, taking place almost entirely in a couple of rooms and over the phone. That’s a surprising observation, considering just how closely this movie is copying Dog Day Afternoon, one of the best and most iconic movies of the 1970s.
The idea of a bank-robber-as-good-guy is nothing new, but there’s a particular acidity to this critique of American bureaucracy and law enforcement. In that way, it’s actually kind of strange to cast a British actor like Boyega in a story so specific to America — Iraq veterans, the veterans affairs department, and our particular brand of racism. So as an essay on what’s screwed up about America, it’s effective if a little depressing. As a movie, especially the last on-screen performance (as far as I know) of Michael K. Williams, it disappoints.
Something Old
Labyrinth (1986, Tubi): This movie is essential for several reasons, not the least of which is David Bowie’s insane hair as a sort of Captain Hook stand-in in this Peter Pan-like adventure about a teenage girl who must rescue her younger sister from a goblin-infested dream land. It’s a movie ostensibly for kids, though I know if I were a kid and saw this movie I’d be terrified of the puppets and creatures crafted for this world by director Jim Henson, famed creator of “The Muppets.”
I was drawn to the movie by Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, who plays the lead character looking very much like the 14 year old she was while filming — a somewhat disturbing fact in contrast to her Top Gun: Maverick co-star Tom Cruise, who starred in the original Top Gun this same year as a grown ass man. But what really captured me was how everything in the movie was tangible, which seems these days almost inconceivable for a story this fantastical or really any story geared toward kids. Goblins, fairies, wizards, and all manor of creatures were created and rendered in stunning quality without the use of CGI. Needless to say, filmmakers today could learn a thing or two.
Sidenote: this movie mentions (twice!) the word “hogwarts” a full 11 years before the first Harry Potter book was published, and at one point a character has to walk through what appears to be a solid wall, just as one does on the platform in Harry Potter (or so I’m told). Coincidence? I think not! JK Rowling owes Henson some royalties!
Something to Stream
Philomena (Netflix): This 2013 Best Picture nom is based on the real life story of a woman in Ireland who was forced to give up her child to adoption by a group of evil nuns, and then 50 years later sets out to find him. For fear of spoiling, I won’t give any more details about the crazy true story as it unfolded, but powered by the performances of Judi Dench as the titular character and Steve Coogan as the intrepid journalist who is aiding and documenting her journey, it’s a movie that succeeds on just about every level. It’s funny, in that sort of “aww that’s cute” sort of way, and rousing to consider the casual cruelty that actually took place in real life. By the end you’re in love with the characters, the ultimate accomplishment for any form of storytelling. If you’re in the mood for a proper feel-good drama, this is an A+ effort.
Trailer Watch: Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey
Everyone lost their minds a few weeks back when we found out that someone had made a horror movie starring the beloved childhood characters of Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Eeyore and the rest of the gang. Now we’ve got an actual trailer. This movie is really happening! And everything from its premise to its production value screams cult classic.
What do you think?