The Movies I Watched This Week, You Should Watch Next Week
#173: "Kajillionaire," "The Hand of God," "Beerfest," "Zoolander," "Rush"
Edition 173:
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: An honest accounting of all the movies I watched this week.
When I first started this newsletter, I imposed upon myself the newspaper axiom, “the paper must go out.” If I said every Friday morning, then it was going to come out every Friday morning, even if that meant staying up late…and even if that rule was pretty dumb for a project that doesn’t make me any money or have that much readership. The paper must go out.
So! On a week in which I had a friend in town staying at my place, limiting my time to work on this; my own mental headspace was dragging down in the dumps; and there weren’t any new exciting movie releases at the box office or on streaming…all I came up with for you all was an honest accounting of all the movies I watched this week. It’s a mix of high and low, comedy and drama, and my hope is that there’s a little something in there for everyone.
Anyway, you all certainly don’t subscribe for the woah-is-me soliloquy. You come for the movie recs, because Lord knows what you’d do with yourself if you didn’t get that Friday fix.
So here’s what I got.
Kajillionaire (HBO Max)
I was reminded of this movie last week from the Cinefix video I recommended to you all about heist movies. Their recs never miss! When you think of heist movies, you probably aren’t imagining a family working together to pull small time cons and thefts just to pay their bills, but this entry is one of those independent movies that’s small enough to be wildly creative, and writer/director Miranda July uses the medium to serve up something you’ve never seen before.
Evan Rachel Wood stars as Old Dolio Dyne (named after a hobo who won the lottery in hopes that he would leave his namesake some money), whose young adulthood is stifled by her manipulative parents, played brilliantly by Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger. That is until she meets a free-spirited rich girl played by a career-best Gina Rodriguez, who helps the family pull a series of “heists” to pay their rent.
It’s a very strange movie, in the best kind of way, keeping you guessing every step along its coming-of-age journey. It’s funny, tragic and heart-warming all at the same time. Definitely the best of the movies I saw this week.
The Hand of God (Netflix)
Those who don’t know me well may be unaware of the Italy infatuation I picked up during the pandemic. I really want to visit, and I really want to learn the language (though I’m coming to grips with the fact that daily Duolingo lessons won’t be enough). So I’ve been meaning to get around to last year’s Oscar-nominated É state la mano de Dio (which, ehem, translates literally to “it was the hand of God”). The title refers to a legendary sports moment (a controversial World Cup goal by Diego Maradona that should’ve been a handball), and the backdrop of the movie is 1980s Naples when the city regarded Maradona’s arrival at the local football club to be like a god walking on earth.
But the title has a double meaning for teenager Fabietto. As he tries to make his way into adulthood, his world gets rocked by events out of his control. Just as soon as a viewer thinks they understand what this movie is trying to be, it flips on its head and reveals more depth and beauty than any viewer could predict. It’s a rather slowly paced movie, and subtitles aside it’s not the easiest to watch, but the effect of the story builds over time until it completely overwhelms by the end. Besides, the visuals are gorgeous to look at and only deepened my yearning to experience the country for myself.
Beerfest (Netflix)
So the friend I mentioned who was visiting was Justin B., who has popped up sporadically as this newsletter’s official Bad Movie Correspondent. I’ve never met anyone who gets more pleasure out of rewatching a two-star movie for the 100th time than him. We celebrated his visit by firing up a movie I’d never seen, by the comedy troupe best known for making Supertroopers. To call their comedy style “juvenile” would be an insult to teenagers across the globe, and this movie has enough racial and gender stereotypes to program an entire human resources conference, but I’d challenge anyone to watch this movie without cracking up at least once.
The premise of a tournament is an undefeated B-movie concept (Dodgeball, Bloodsport, and Balls of Fury come to mind), and in this case a super secret beer drinking world championship serves as a perfect joke delivery system for a team of American underdogs to upset the dominant German team (which includes a truly unhinged and hilarious Will Forte). There has never been a more honest use of the term “dumb laughs.”
Zoolander (Netflix)
Nothing needs to be said for this stone cold 2001 comedy classic. Justin and I didn’t intend to watch this entire movie, but after getting roped in by Netflix’s preview (the funeral scene where Owen Wilson interrupts as Will Farrell says “Hansel, he’s so hot right now, Hansel”) we couldn’t stop watching until the night turned into a double feature. Ben Stiller directs and stars alongside a crazy stacked cast — Wilson, Farrell, Christine Taylor, David Duchovny, Milla Jovovich, Jon Voight, Vince Vaughn (without any lines!) and a million funny cameos including David freaking Bowie.
For a movie designed to be a joke-a-minute, with the utterly ridiculous premise that male models are actually trained assassin sleeper agents, it’s actually pretty clever and pulls off legitimacy in its storytelling amongst an avalanche of hilarious moments. You don’t need me to recommend this one but if you somehow haven’t seen it, watch it ASAP (whatever you do, don’t watch the sequel).
Rush (Netflix)
Netflix is so smart to snap up this movie as an extension of its wildly successful Formula 1 documentary series. That rush of interest is definitely what drew me to Ron Howard’s docudrama about an F1 rivalry in the 1970s, which is heavy on style and perhaps a little light on nuance. After all, this is a movie in which our hero, played by Chris Hemsworth, is introduced as a ladies man by walking into an emergency room with a stab wound and then stopping the nurse mid-suture to have sex with her on top of the operating table.
Still, Howard is the king of straight-ahead docudramas, and crafts a compelling narrative that keys on the fine line between brave and crazy that all high speed drivers have to dance. It’s a really solid movie, but I’ll be honest, once you’ve been exposed to the real thing in the documentary series, it’s impossible to capture the same high in any fictional context.
Thanks for reading, today and always. Very excited for this upcoming week, which brings The Northman and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Guess I’ll see ya at the movies!