crumbsroom wrote:

Baseball is the best sport to make movies about.

Oh, I see.  As soon as the Blue Jays are tied for the lead with the Yankees, all of the true colors spill out.

There is some dislocation involved in adapting Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, and subsequently one of this film's biggest surprises is in how little of an adaptation it turns out to be.  Given the shifting chronology, audiences will have to accept a fictitious alternate 21st-century America which had a militant left-wing revolutionary network operating roughly around the time of the Obama years.  It might just be easier to assume this film as entirely "near future", as the extremities of the political polarization, between social justice warriors on one side and anti-immigrant, um, Christmas nationalists on the other, is eeriely more prescient for our current moment than events some 16 years in the past.  But in this way, the film's two time tracks, separated by approximately a generation, seem to both overlap with our current social climate, and if you can shrug off this inconvenient anachronism it doesn't really alter or diminish any of the more pointed commentary on our current day and age.  Whether or not this will be seen as the best film of 2025, and it's surely a candidate, what's less contested is that this is the most 2025 film, and as great films should, it will be seen as a touchstone of the mood and tenor of this era.

Setting the historical incongruities aside, and simply enjoying the film as a tale, it is still a marvelous work.  All of the specifically American idiosyncrasies, the dogmas and the violence, are caricatured and sawed-off and largely rendered tragically absurd, a message for the youth (epitomized in an excellent debut performance from Chase Infiniti - her real name, I'm told) to avoid the "bullshit", the sins and pretenses of the past, a truly progressive incitement.  Our little Leo DiCaprio, has finally gotten as close as he can to summoning his inner Jack Nicholson.  And the most intense car chase sequence which doesn't even require a single turn of the steering wheels.  So much triumph.

And between this and Phoenician Scheme, Benicio del Toro better get his goddamn Oscar this year.  Who are we fooling, folks?
 

This seems like a very medicore effort from someone, Aronofsky, known for some pretty visionary work (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, Mother!).  The thrills are such cliches as the NYC confluence of ethnic syndicates (the tagline in the poster speaks for itself) or the post-John Wick trope of putting people's pets in danger, and, for safe measure, a handful of gratuitous stunt castings (the best being an unrecognizable Griffin Dunne), all intended to be vaguely familiar, lazily edgy, mildly amusing, but pretty forgettable.  This is Aronofsky cosplaying a low-grade Safdie Bros film while Austin Butler cosplays a low-grade Johnny Depp jabroni.

7/10
 

Much of my contrarianism, despite what it may seem, happens to be completely involuntary.  I don't know why.  I'm inclined to blame the more arbitrary fickleness of critics, especially those who are more committed to pop cultural relevance than artistic quality.  Pop culture, by definition, is as fickle as the weather and, as an arbiter of cultural significance (outside of sheer nostalgia), tends to be wildy inaccurate.  But FOMO keeps those with insecure discernment constantly focused on the sizzle and the flash, rather than the steak in the pan.  That those who most venerate pop culture are also fully committed to encouraging more erosive attention spans is probably not a coincidence.

Which is why it seems, to me, that many critics who were unimpressed with the latest John Candy doc must have spent the entire film staring at their phones rather than watching the damn thing.  Hey, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe they're just stupid.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that they're distraction addicts instead.  In any case, let me illustrate a number of critical inconsistencies in their reviews to make my case.

As I've long railed against the 'talking head' style of documentary, which has been the dominant documentary form for over a decade now, it wasn't lost on me that most film and TV critics were eagerly lapping them up, no crumbs, this whole time.  Hence my contrarian nature, per se.  But in those certain rare instances when a talking-head-template doc manages to keep its participants somewhat relevant to its subject - as opposed to bringing in a variety of 'pop culture scholars', or a small army of readily available C-list quasi-celebrities, or even some rando everypeople off the street to blandly reminisce and basically anything else to make the doc look more and more like a bad VH1 special - and I actually manage to find something insightful and illuminating and even emotionally engaging about the subject under discussion, these rare documentaries tend to be exactly the ones which conversely get short-changed by the same critics so enamored with the typical Netflix-style time-wasters.  Maybe, it could be, people are just slowly recognizing what I've been seeing all along.  Maybe such sharp satire, such as The Onion's recent Bad Pedophile, has made the fans of this same template of documentary, which has been so saturated in the culture for many years, slowly open their eyes to the utter artifice and inconsequentiality of the form.  But unfortunately, like all babes with newly opened eyes, they remain unable to discern the real from the artifice.  Like someone newly introduced to the fact of historical conspiracy, unable to judge whether Paul is dead or not.

I'll focus primarially on this awful AV Club review because it's an easy epitome of the problem, but I will briefly note this one take from someone over at RogerEbert's site who complains that "little to no interest is paid to Candy's considerable growth as an actor over the course of his career - particularly in the last few years of his life."  I'd argue that this critic paid little to no interest in watching the documentary closely, because the doc does indeed include a number of Candy's acting highlights, even finding his ability to bring a touching pathos to films like Splash and Summer Rental and The Great Outdoors, where such pathos was completely unnecessary to these slapstick-oriented roles, and with a special focus on his work with teens and children, culminating in his benchmark Uncle Buck (not a great movie, btw, but greatly elevated by John Candy).  And, obviously enough, a substantial amount of time is spent simply on Planes Trains and Automobiles alone, Candy's finest acting accomplishment.  And "particularly in the last few years of his life" is simply perverse, as John Candy did not have great screen success in these years (middling fare like Harry Crumb, Speed Zone, Nothing But Trouble, Only the Lonely, Delirious and the exceptionally unfunny posthumous Wagons East), but maybe this critic took special umbrage that the doc excludes a celebration of Cool Runnings (which, presumably, would be this critic's nostalgia overcoming their faculties).  But what this doc does show is how this late-career success was a burden on John Candy, who spent these years terribly concerned about his continuing professional viability.

Now for this AV Cunt.  Idiocy amok.  "John Candy: I Like Me doesn’t contain anything even remotely troubling about the Canadian comedy legend."  Oh really?  I suppose this twerp is strictly defining "troubling" in the "pop cultural feeling" of something potentially cancelable.  So, no, in this strictest sense, the doc doesn't reveal any bad behavior on Candy's part.  But what's more troubling is the revelation of John Candy's personal trauma, to which this critic seems casually callous.  "In fact, it doesn’t contain much at all aside from praise. Candy’s relatives, childhood pals, and famous comedy coworkers line up to glowingly reminisce about the actor."  Oh really?  None of these "relatives" especially had anything to say about their worries over Candy's self-destructive consumption, or the anxiety-inducing root of these compulsions?  Staring at his goddamn phone the whole time.

This set-up is appropriate: Aside from a basic biography and the kinds of personal details so broad as to be perfectly impersonal (His family home was filled with food and laughter? He had to make the hard choice to pursue performing instead of working a typical nine-to-five?), the documentary has little interest in psychological insight or the mechanisms of Candy’s approach to his work. It’s only worried about his legacy as a kind man and a good dad.

Such "broad", "perfectly impersonal" details like.....his father unexpectedly keeling over from a widowmaker heart attack on the morning of John's 5th birthday?!?  And the family making John go through the joyous motions of a birthday party in spite of this?  And the repression by his family to never discuss the event again?!?  ("Filled with Food and Laughter!!!")  Yeah right.  No insight whatsoever in how this childhood trauma which Candy had to keep closely clenched to his secret heart had any kind of bearing on Candy's "mechanisms".  What a fucking asshole.

"Sure, it’s mentioned that Candy’s own father died young..."  Oh, is that when you happened to look up from your phone, you cuntbagged son of a bitch?  Oh, sure!  Whateves!!!  "[T]his looming hereditary threat is skirted over just like the miniature histories of Second City, SCTV, and a stacked Toronto production of Godspell...."  Fwtw, John Candy did not take part in the Toronto production of Godspell, so there's absolutely no reason at all to have spent more time on it than this doc does.  And the rest of that is just pure lies, or negligence.  There's a large chuck of the first half of the doc dedicated to both the onstage Second City performances, and backstage camaraderie, and to the SCTV production.  Meanwhile the "looming hereditary threat" is a palpable subcurrent to the entire documentary, but especially and explicitly so while covering his final years.  Overlooking this obvious fact, this critic offers a more glib analysis: "the doc alternatively blames his weight for his failing health and shames interviewers for drawing any attention to it".  I think the latter had more to do with the shamefully mocking manner in which these interviewers broached the subject.  And also, in case you missed it, the doc spends at least as much time blaming things like alcohol and tobacco for Candy's failing health.  Either way, all of these things are symptoms to the true underlying cause which is clearly the very childhood trauma which, through no fault of the documentary, this critic failed to register.  Again, blithely: "this movie handles the topic off-handedly, brushing it away without much consideration to its effect on the psyche or the physique."  I don't know how this fool eats without stabbing his face.

What you’re left with is a bunch of famous faces sitting in separate rooms giving brief talking-head interviews about an old friend who died 30 years ago - a step down from a group in a bar raising a glass to a lost pal. This has a certain bittersweetness, to be sure, but it’s also not much to hang a two-hour documentary on.

I guarantee you that I can scan this bastard's film reviews over the past decade and find at least a handful of precisely the same kinds of talking-head docs which he has praised, and many of them will feature the more impersonal talking heads - the pop cultural VH1 template - which very well might be more digestible for someone inconvenienced by their "second screen".  (Oh, look, he loved Summer of Soul, which interviewed none of the performing participants, in lieu of purely nostalgic reminiscences.  Better for that "pop culture feeling"?)

But you have to have priorities, right?

Every so often, a story or a side interest will come up that’ll threaten to tug a curious thread in Candy’s personality. He was an investor in and avid promoter of Canada’s pro football league, and the team he co-owned won the Grey Cup (the Canadian Super Bowl equivalent) the very first year he was involved with them. That’s a whole movie right there. But telling that story would entail a lot more legwork than Hanks thumbing through his Rolodex and asking for a few minutes of time to wax nostalgic about Candy.

He cannot find a rest stop bathroom in which to go fuck himself fast enough.

"Anyone would be lucky to be remembered this way; most of us will merely get loving slideshows and a few choked-up speeches rather than 120 minutes of Amazon-hosted hagiography."

Aw.  You think you're John Candy now?  You think Candy deserves less of a documentary than "most of us"?  Or worse that Candy's success, or the love which his friends and family had for him, was due to LUCK?!??1?

Absolute asshole.  I envy the crypto-scam that will get him tossed in the streets.
 

Rock wrote:

These online critics love to whine about Roger Ebert as well, digging up every single opinion they disagree with as proof of his limitations, say what you will about the man but at least he could fucking write.

This does remind me.....I was thinking a while back about doing a thread similarly eviscerating reviews from Pauline Kael.  Of course, I admire Kael, especially as a writer and a wit, but equally of course where I disagree with her, I have some pretty strong disagreements.  Her antagonistic attitude towards Kubrick - it really was almost personal, as if maybe the two met once and Stanley said something awfully mean that she never recovered from.  

I really do have to vent a bit about this "second screen" phone business, because it's bad enough that these people who supposedly care so much about cinema that they expect to get paid writing about it can't be assed to actually watch the movies they're writing about.  And this isn't just me presuming their habits, these bitches are proud.  I've seen all of the excuses, "there's more than one way to watch a movie".  Yeah?  Worse!  There's worse ways to watch a movie, like being distracted with your phone the whole time.  And then they'll get offended when you mention it, like being on their phone is some kind of entitlement, like a hard won civil right.  "Who doesn't look at their phone while they watch a movie?"  ME!!!  I don't have time for this!  Especially when you're older and the prospects of multiple viewings are diminishing, you want to absorb as much as you can, especially if it's your job to judge the film and expect people to take your word seriously.  I actually like watching films, I prefer it.  What's your excuse?  One excuse after another.

And one thing about being called a "boomer", which is the resort of anybody who has exhausted their excuses and thinks that their youth will get them out of any uncomfortable realization.  I just want to point out, ftr, I am not a boomer.  Here's the thing: Millennials are boomers.  Zs are boomers.  These are baby booms which are on par with the post-war baby boom.  I am Gen X.  We are literally not boomers, we are, in fact, the only post-war generation which was not a baby boom.  You know the difference?  It's the boomers, from whichever era, who are most likely to take solace in the solidarity of the pretend significance of their peers.  That's why these people need spoilers.  They can't handle the solitude of their own private esoteric thoughts about a film without checking to see what other people might be saying on X or Reddit.

*Rock excluded, he's too old soul to be a typical millennial.

A massive nearly five hour dive into the life of Martin Scorsese proves to be appropriately dense for such an intensely determined and driven filmmaker.  While some amount of hagiography perhaps cannot be avoided, this documentary project is remarkably free of fluff, focusing on the culture, relationships and passions of the most committed cinema artist of his generation.  Each of its five segments covers roughly a decade - youth through the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and finally the 21st century.  This has some of the most in-depth coverage of Scorsese's childhood and the second generation Italian immigrant community in which he was raised, Scorsese's incipient obsessions with movies, music, women and his deeply-rooted spirituality.  Through frustrations and struggles - and the doc doesn't shy away from his notorious temper tantrums - to ultimate succeses....to more frustrations.  One thing the doc illustrates is how in spite of Scorsese's seemingly titanic stature and critical esteem he's consistently had to fight tooth-and-nail for everything from financing to final cut even to this day.  Perhaps this struggle is part of what makes Scorsese so great, as the doc also implies how he is fueled by his frustrations, and in times when he has enjoyed the freedoms of success he seems to respond with boredom.  It is something of a surprise that Scorsese is less than enamoured with King of Comedy, which seemed like a relatively stress-free shoot coming off the studio blessings of Raging Bull, as if maybe this film wasn't a sufficient enough challenge.  (Of course this view might very well be colored by the unfortunate sociopolitical circumstances surrounding the film which the doc lays out.)  Less surprising is his lack of enthusiasm for Cape Fear, a similarly smooth genre exercise coming on the heels of Goodfellas's success.  Marty likes to steer for the ditches, in Neil Young's terms, and many of the films which he found personally inspiring - Age if Innocence, Kundun, Silence - are among his least popular, and least typical.

Bringing Out the Dead may fall into that latter category as well, but the doc gives that film pretty short shrift.  Completely omitted, among all of Scorsese's features, is Hugo, although I'm not sure if this is truly reflective of Scorsese's own estimate.  Somewhat obviously, given various rumors, Scorsese does view Gangs of New York as a compromised muddle, given the creative interference from the Weinsteins.  The doc doesn't confirm the rumored existence of a possible 'director's cut'.  And speaking of alternate cuts, the prospect of a 4 1/2 hour version of New York New York is certainly daunting, but it suggests perhaps there could be a redeemable cut in there somewhere.  Scorsese is not one to look back though, and he doesn't seem in the least bit interested in doing any Coppola-esque revisionism.

But I do have to note my disappointment in the complete absence of mention of one of my very favorite Scorsese films, "Life Lessons", Scorsese's segment from New York Stories, because the work clearly has autobiographical significance, with Scorsese at the time entering his fourth marriage, and clearly reflecting the consumption between one's art and one's relationships which is a running theme in the doc through all of the interviews with the many women in Marty's life.  It is an unfortunate misjudgment to relegate this film as a minor work.

After approaching the fifth hour, some of the momentum does begin to unravel, and the ending seems rushed.  Maybe that's because Scorsese's story remains unfinished, and his drive remains intact.  Scorsese's recent film, Killers of the Flower Moon, is only glancingly referenced, likely because it wasn't yet finished when this doc was in production, and Scorsese has no fewer than six projects currently in the oven, even if most of them may go unrealized.  Scorsese is a man of industry, after all - "The sun compels me to paint!"

9/10