What A Week! "The Northman," Nick Cage and New Céline Sciamma
#174: "The Northman," "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," "Petite Maman"
Edition 174:
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: Some massive news in the streaming world brings new hope to the cineplex. What’s old is new again! Plus an incredible week of new releases, from epic action to absurd drama to an emotional gut punch. We’ll give them all the space they deserve.
Let’s Talk Netflix
It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of the bomb dropped on the entertainment world this past week during a Netflix earnings call, when the company expecting to report 2.5 million new subscribers instead admitted to losing more than 200,000 during Q1 of this year. Share prices dropped 35% and the company lost $50 billion in market cap in a day, leading to more than a few doomsday headlines for the longtime industry leader.
Netflix’s response did little to calm the panic. It plans to crack down on password sharing (harsh but long overdue), and more drastically, backtrack on its foundational commitment to ad-free streaming by announcing a lower-priced subscription tier full of commercials. There’s also talk they could walk back their “binge” model, due to the success of week-to-week shows on HBO Max and AppleTV+. So basically, you cut your cable cord to pay for a streaming service that will now serve you new content only on their schedule, interrupted by commercials you don’t care about. Hmmm…sounds familiar.
Understandably, the media outlets that cover this stuff are freaking out. When combined with the news of CNN+ getting shut down after just three weeks, many are calling this “the end of the golden age of streaming.” While that may be overly dramatic, it does seem like the era of care-free spending could be coming to an end (Netflix spent $13.6 billion on its content in 2021).
If the future does indeed end up looking more like the past, could that lead to a box office revival? Obviously, that financial reality is dependent on kids movies and superhero blockbusters that aren’t mentioned in this newsletter. However, if mature adult stories stop being financed at record rates and packaged as mini-series on streamers, could they return to feature film? It’s possible, and this week’s bounty of appealing options show what a best-case future might look like.
The Northman
Remember that show-stopping moment in the trailer for The Northman where our viking hero, played by an absolutely shredded Alexander Skarsgård, catches a spear thrown at him in mid-air and fires it back in one smooth motion?
That return-to-sender kicks off one of the best cinematic action sequences of the century. Skarsgård and his squad of mercenaries — all clad in wolf skins and foaming at the mouth after performing a ritual to conjure wolf spirits within their bodies, naturally — scale a giant wall using nothing but axes and elbow grease before unleashing feral destruction on the camp. At one point, our hero knocks a man off a horse and jumps on top of him to take a big ol’ bite out of his neck, wolf style. It’s sheer brutality, captured in extended, fluid, beautifully choreographed shots.
Interest in this kind of barbaric violence will obviously separate out those who would be interested in this movie and those who wouldn’t be (and helps to explain the movie’s slow but steady box office take). But it also sells a false vision of what writer/director Robert Eggers has created. He is, by his own admission, not a commercial filmmaker, as evidenced by the small but fierce fanbases for his first two movies The VVitch and The Lighthouse. So if you’re expecting something like, say, Gladiator, you’re going to be disappointed.
This movie fits in well with his body of work: painstakingly researched period pieces, meticulously crafted and shamelessly weird. Eggers has drawn comparisons to David Fincher for his attention to detail, both historical and cinematic, but where Fincher might obsess over serial killers it seems Eggers prefers mystics and shamans.
It plays right into A24’s signature these days, shifting in recent years from coming-of-age identity dramas (Moonlight, Ladybird, Waves etc.) to now heavy use of pagan imagery (Hereditary, Lamb, The Green Knight, or the forthcoming Men) as a short cut for creepy tone and spiritual depth to otherwise simple stories.
It’s hard to think of a story more familiar than the revenge tale — especially this one, which is a retelling of the 13th century Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, eventually the basis for Disney’s The Lion King. It’s this simple: viking boy Amleth sees his uncle kill his dad and take his crown, so he won’t rest until he takes his revenge.
Eggers colors in that sketch of a story with Norse mythology, his true interest in the material. For all the crazy kills, and believe me there are some CRAZY kills, there are twice as many creepy fireside rituals going on.
This cavalcade of sorcerers move the plot along like “quests” in a video game. After the wolf raid, a shaman-ess sends him to a mountain cave where he talks to the severed head of his dad’s friend, telling him to go to this temple and retrieve a magic sword by defeating a stone giant, and on and on we go.
It’s not a hard movie to follow in a macro sense, which is good because the density of the dialogue is quite hard to follow within scenes. The use of old Norse words definitely sacrifices clarity for the vibes.
I guess that’s kind of the point. Plot, or story, is only one small part of what Eggers cares about in his movies. In terms of creating a world, from production design to cinematography to the pounding, percussive score, he is proving to be a master (in all his movies, but this time he had the budget to take it to the next level).
The world is then filled with interesting characters, and he gets fantastic performances out of the actors who embody them. Here he re-teams with Anya Taylor-Joy, who he gave her first big break in The VVitch, as a love interest with the “cunning to break men’s minds.” There’s Ethan Hawke, briefly, as the father king, killing it as always. Nicole Kidman is the mother, in a performance far better than her recently Oscar nominated turn as Lucile Ball. Plus Willem Dafoe as a sorcerer, and though I’ve never seen him before, Claes Bang as the murderous uncle who ends up earning unexpected depth and empathy. None of this is to mention Skarsgård, who in addition to transforming into a physical force of nature carries every scene with both his presence and his grasp of character.
All of this adds up to an experience that totally overwhelms a viewer. You don’t so much feel like you’ve watched a movie as lived as a viking for a couple of hours. Of course, it’s up to you all whether those are shoes you’d enjoy trudging around in or not. I know I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can watch that wolf raid on YouTube like a hundred more times.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
By making dozens of movies of wildly varying quality at a rapid clip over the past decade, Nicolas Cage has taken an “only way out is through” approach to his escape from Hollywood purgatory, finally confronting his own reputation head-on as a sort of final boss in his journey back to stardom.
Now, Nick Cage is back.
A dozen or so years ago, back in the days when Cage was one of the most bankable stars on the planet, a movie like this one would’ve been a straight-ahead action adventure caper about a celebrity who gets invited to a mysterious rich person’s birthday party on a different continent and stumbles into a high stakes search-and-rescue mission.
But this is 2022, and nothing can be done earnestly anymore without more a couple winks and nods at itself, so that celebrity played by Nick Cage is actually just Nick Cage. Not since Being John Malkovich has an actor offered himself up for such an open heart surgery, and though fictionalized, much of the commentary rendered upon the character is thinly veiled (as when Cage complains to his therapist about people telling him he makes too many movies).
Thankfully, Cage is game to present himself as the world class weirdo that he is, which provides fertile ground for laughs both with him and at him. The plot of the movie becomes secondary to the referendum of Cage himself, punctuated by imaginary versions of his former characters materializing to speak to him, people referencing his movies in conversation, him watching old scenes of himself, to walking through a literal museum of props from his career.
It’s simultaneously the biggest ego trip and ego crucifixion of all time, and a testament to Cage’s truly outstanding charisma and talent that he’s able to nail that balancing act.
While the movie truly is all about Cage, it must be mentioned that Pedro Pascal arguably steals the movie as the aforementioned mega rich super fan. Most of the funniest moments and lines in the movie are his, and what amounts to a plot would not be possible without his ability to convince audiences he could be good or bad simultaneously. He’s electric.
That said, the movie itself doesn’t quite hold the…dare I say…unbearable weight of Cage and Pascal’s massive talents. It’s funny, hilarious even in absurd moments that would surprise any viewer, but falls into the trap so often laid by this 2022 “meta” humor sensibility.
Which is to say that if you laugh at yourself, how can you expect others to take you seriously. A movie that through two acts treats its story with an ironic detachment cannot suddenly ask audiences for genuine buy-in when things get serious.
Not that every movie needs to be taken seriously. Yes, I personally preferred his subdued gravitas in Pig, which I thought was a vastly superior movie, but this movie is best enjoyed as the ridiculous, absurd showcase of a screen acting legend who will be remembered for always turning it up to 11. Here’s to hoping he maintains the momentum.
Petite Maman
When you make a movie like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, you’ve earned “season ticket” status from me for future projects, until you prove otherwise. French writer/director Céline Sciamma used that caché on a 72-minute movie that’s really more of a thought experiment. What would happen if an 8-year-old version of you met an 8-year-old version of your mother?
In a world where every story now takes 8-10 hours to tell, it’s quite easy to appreciate the economy of this project, which doesn’t have the time nor feel the need to explain every side character’s backstory, or how the magic of the world works. It’s simply a beautiful exploration of the mother-daughter relationship across three generations. The childlike faith to accept what’s happening is celebrated here as the kind of optimism too easily beaten out of people as they mature into adulthood.
Petite Maman is a simple movie, yet its charms are irresistible. It belongs in the same category of sweet, sentimental family dramas as CODA. And I’ll certainly never think about the way I say “au revoir” the same way again.
Trailer Watch: On The Count of Three
It’s been a good 16 months since I saw this movie at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, but the timing really couldn’t be better since director/star Jerrod Carmichael just released his splashy and critically acclaimed stand-up special on HBO Max, did the talk show rounds and even hosted SNL.
Like his stand-up, Carmichael appears very interested in exploring the least funny topics possible through his semi-comedy. In this case, his character and his best friend (played by the ascendant Christopher Abbot) agree to shoot each other on the county of three as a form of co-suicide because their lives suck, a fact the movie goes great lengths to remind you. The movie is a black comedy, but it’s brutal, and its themes are definitely dark. Still, the performances are great, both from Carmichael and especially Abbot, with bit parts played by Henry Winkler, Tiffany Haddish and J.B. Smoove. It’s the kind of proof positive that Carmichael is the type of multi-hyphenate who will be in our lives making stuff for the next 20+ years.
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!