Oscars 2024

 What a great rebound year for movies. Barbenheimer has a cultural phenomenon. A bunch of our greatest living directors (Scorcese, Nolan, Gerwig, Payne, Fincher, to name a few) put out new movies, and all of them were good. And once again, I succeeded in seeing all ten Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. And unlike last year (looking at you, Triangle of Sadness and Women Talking), there wasn't a single one I disliked. Here's my ranking in order of how much I enjoyed them. 

10 - Maestro - I didn't dislike Maestro, but what was it really about? A good biopic, like any story, needs a central conflict that defines a person's life, and for Leonard Bernstein, I'm not totally sure what that conflict was. If you put his wife at the center of the film, the conflict - her ambivalence about a man whom she loves but who constantly embarrasses her with his homosexual affairs - becomes clearer. Maybe she should have been the protagonist? The performances was incredible. We haven't properly celebrated Bradley Cooper - and we definitely haven't given due credit to Carey Mulligan, who matches him every step of the way with that transatlantic accent.

9 - Zone of Interest - There is nothing conventionally entertaining about Zone of Interest, which is of course the point. It's a film about the banality of evil, told through the lens of the Hoss family, who lived next door to Auschwitz during the years of WWII. Rudolf Hoss, the family's patriarch, was the commandant of Auschwitz. Everything about this movie is off-putting, from the noisy, atmospheric music, to the natural lighting, to the filming style, which stays away from close-ups, to the random fade to red at a certain point in the film. But its best choice is the radical decision not to show any of the actual suffering of concentration camp victims. The viewer sees smoke in the distance - presumably from the crematorium - and hears distant shouts and gunfire, but that's it. It's strange, upsetting, and ultimately very effective - and I never want to see it again. (Also, I just learned that its director Jonathan Glazer did the "Rabbit in Your Headlights" video, which is one of my all-time favorites. So that's cool.)

8 - Anatomy of a Fall - And the award for most memorable needle drop of the year goes to... an instrumental version of "P.I.M.P" from a French film about the investigation of a mysterious death in the Alps. I'll admit I did not see that coming. (The YouTube comments on the video are hilarious, by the way, especially if you've seen the movie.) I love a good cerebral murder mystery (accidental death mystery?), and this one had a lot going for it. It had the best explosive argument between spouses (just beating out that scene from Maestro). It had a fantastic performance by a child, and another by a dog. It had an interesting glimpse inside the French court system, which I'm not sure I've seen portrayed on film before - plus an excellent performance by the prosecuting attorney, in what was basically a thankless role. (The actor is Antoine Reinartz, and his character doesn't even get a name!) Hell of a year for Sandra Huller, between this and Zone of Interest. The similarities to The Staircase, a great multi-part documentary, later adapted into a very good show on HBO, are striking.

7 - American Fiction - I liked American Fiction, but I wanted to like it even more than I did. It's basically a mash-up of two movies: a biting satire about racial dynamics in literature and a sincere family drama. The family drama scenes were sweet and sometimes poignant, but it was hard for me not to feel a little impatient, hoping the movie would get back to the satire. What I'll ultimately remember about this one is Monk Ellison, aka Stagg R. Lee (played by the great Jeffrey Wright), and his Great American Novel, My Pafology - later changed to something even better. The scene when he and his agent are on the phone with the publishing company is priceless. Ditto for the We's Lives in the Ghetto book-reading scene. The rest was, for me, just all right.

6 - Oppenheimer - Here was a Big Movie about Great Men and Big Ideas. Oppenheimer is overwhelming in every way, but it's also a really important story and a fascinating history lesson. In its entire three-hour run time, I think the scene that sticks with me the most is Oppenheimer's meeting with President Truman, played by a heavily made-up Gary Oldman, who tells the scientist in no uncertain terms that his creation (the Bomb) is no longer his. Speaking of Oldman, what a flex by Christopher Nolan to cast three recent Oscar winners for Best Actor (Oldman, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck) and give them a combined five minutes of screen time. Again, it's a lot. Did there really need to be this many characters? But I can't help but admire the scope.

5 - Poor Things - On its surface, Poor Things is insane, but underneath it all, it's kind of a traditional fable about a woman (albeit, a mutant baby-woman) gaining independence from a society that wants to limit her options. I generally have pretty conventional tastes, and I don't always like weird for weird's sake, so I wasn't sure I'd like this one. Plus, I have mixed feelings about the other Lanthimos films I've seen: I liked the first half of The Lobster, and The Favourite sort of left me cold. This one was good wacky fun, though. Emma Stone is an unbelievable talent. Mark Ruffalo, whom I already liked, played his pathetic loser character to perfection. Also, this was the best Unethical Brain Transplant movie since Get Out.

4 - Barbie - No film on this list was as creative, original, clever, and crazy as Barbie, save for maybe Poor Things, with which the movie actually has a lot in common thematically. Who would have thought? The first twenty minutes especially - the whole introduction to Barbie World - is fantastic, but really the whole movie is good. There was a whole conservative talking point last summer that the movie was anti-men. I don't know about that, but I do know that the supposed anti-men scenes in the second half made me laugh the most. The one Ken who explains The Godfather to the Barbies? Fantastic. And the scene on the beach, when all the Kens are singing Matchbox Twenty might have been my favorite scene of the year. As someone who used to use my guitar to get attention from the opposite sex, I felt seen.

3 - Past Lives - Such a sweet, sad film. It unfolds like a short story. Films are getting increasingly long and increasingly big: my top two picks both log in at three hours or more, and are populated by a cast of thousands. I love that a small film like Past Lives, with its simple plot and its cast of essentially three characters, can make such an impact. It speaks to anyone who has a "one who got away" - or even anyone who wonders what might have happened if they ended up with so and so... That long take at the end, just the two would-be lovers looking at each other for a full minute, is every bit as affecting as the Trinity Test.

2 - The Holdovers - Like Past Lives, The Holdovers is a drama on a human scale. No car crashes, no explosions: just great actors portraying complex characters. Paul Giammati was great as the curmudgeon professor that reminded me a little of Ignatius J. Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces: a brilliant misanthrope who's repressing some deep regrets and insecurities. And Dominic Sessa, a complete unknown, goes toe-to-toe with him in every scene. And Da'Vine Joy Randolph is like the movie's beating heart. That scene at the end, when Hunham confronts the kid's parents, is my favorite. "I don't give a shit." I have yet to dislike an Alexander Payne movie.

1 - Killers of the Flower Moon - Speaking of important stories, here's a dark chapter from American history that, prior to David Grann's book, almost no one knew. The story of the Osage massacre is brutal, and it presents white people in the most unflattering possible light, and that's what makes it important. Yes, it's long - like really long. Whatever. This is a great film - and besides, people routinely binge-watch multiple episodes of Netflix shows that amount to a much longer length of time than the run time of Killers. Lily Gladstone has gotten a ton of press for this movie, and she may well win the Oscar. No complaints here - she's great. But what I think has been lost is that this is one of Leo's best ever performances, which is truly saying something. He plays a greedy moron with few redeeming qualities. Credit to him for willing to go so unglamorous. De Niro is great too - and has a better Oklahoma drawl than I would have given him credit for.

Other Notable Movies I Saw This Year:

May December - Loved this one. The subject - a woman's affair with a boy twenty-three years her junior - is just so lurid. Charles Melton, whom I didn't know before, really carries the second half.

Saltburn - A goddamn mess. Goes in hard for shock value, and ultimately doesn't have much to say. But still kind of fun as a guilty pleasure. That tub scene. Holy shit.

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse - The animation is dazzling. The plot is just so convoluted. My son was thoroughly confused. Even I was hanging on for dear life. But it has some cool ideas, and it's just such a spectacle.

Nyad - Pretty basic Hollywood movie about a really difficult woman who did some really unbelievable things. Annette Bening and Jodi Foster are both outstanding as usual - especially Foster.

Rustin - Kind of a pedantic history lesson about the Civil Rights Movement. But with an amazing performance by Coleman Domingo.

The Killer - Stylish story of a highly meticulous hitman, played by Michael Fassbender. I usually like David Fincher, and Fassbender too for that matter, but this movie had a weirdly detached quality that left me cold.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - All this time, I thought I didn't like Wes Anderson. Turns out maybe I just didn't like his feature films. This adaptation of an obscure Roald Dahl story is a lot of fun - and, at forty minutes, just the right dose of Wes Anderson.

"The After" - I can't believe this exploitative, manipulative short film was nominated for an Oscar. Avoid it. David Oyelomo is a great actor, though.

Some Thoughts on the War between Israel and Hamas

On 9/11, 2001, I had just started my sophomore year of college. It was a Tuesday morning and I didn’t have class until 11 AM. I woke up in my dorm in the heart of rural Ohio, I checked my email, and I saw someone had sent something about a plane flying into a building. But I was tired and I needed to grab a cup of coffee before my class started, so I didn’t read the e-mail.

It wasn’t until a little later - when I obliviously crossed through the common room and saw dozens of kids huddled around the tv, watching the latest coverage - that I began to realize the full magnitude of what had happened that day.

In some ways, my experience on Saturday, October 7th reminded me of my morning on 9/11. I picked up my phone to check the weather forecast. (I had tickets to the Orioles play-off game at 1, so I was crossing my fingers that the rain would hold off.) Someone had posted a map of Israel on Instagram along with some text, but I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and I was in a rush to get up and make breakfast for my kids, so I didn’t give the post much of a look.

Only when my parents called and asked me if I had heard the news about Israel that it began to dawn on me that something truly terrible was happening.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a series of coordinated attacks from the Gaza Strip into bordering territories in Israel. In a single day, more than 1200 Israelis were murdered. The attack was deliberately carried out on a day of two Jewish holidays: Shabbat, the Day of Rest, and Simchat Torah, an ordinarily joyous celebration of Jewish holy scripture. Many, including President Joe Biden, observed that October 7th was the bloodiest day in Israel’s history and the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust.

If you aren’t Jewish, or if you don’t have any type of relationship with the State of Israel, I understand that Saturday, October 7th may have been the same as any other day. You may not have given the situation a second thought. I get that. After all, terrible things happen every day, in every country in the world.

But for most observant Jews, like myself, the news was absolutely devastating. As I learned the details of what had happened, I began to feel something like what I felt twenty-two years ago on September 11th. Let me try to explain why:

When I was about six or seven years old, I started attending Hebrew School, and I would continue to do so for the next decade, until well after my Bar Mitzvah. In Hebrew School, my classmates and I learned how to read Hebrew, we learned bible stories, we learned prayers, and customs. And we learned about the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, a tiny nation in the Middle East, roughly the size of my home state of New Jersey, that was the Jewish homeland. Constantly, our teachers “hyped up” Israel to us. We learned about its beautiful scenery and its historic cities. We sang its national anthem, “Hatikvah,” every day. 

And as I grew older, I was increasingly exhilarated by the idea of a country governed and populated by Jews. I grew up in a suburban town that was overwhelmingly white and Christian (both Catholic and Protestant). At school, I was always one of just a handful of Jewish kids in my grade. Even though I liked many of my peers, I always felt vaguely like an outsider. Not many of my peers knew anything about the customs or the culture that made me who I was. But somewhere, half a world away, there was a wonderful country full of people just like me. And it was just waiting for me to visit some day.

When I was six years old, our Hebrew school teachers took us on a mock trip to Israel. Over many days, we prepared for the trip, crafting passports out of construction paper and cameras out of cardboard. The teachers transformed each school room into a different destination in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea. On the day of our trip, they arranged chairs into two straight lines so we could pretend we were sitting on an airplane. I still remember how excited I was just to pretend to travel to Israel: to me, it might as well have been the Land of Oz.

When I was eighteen years old, I was lucky enough to travel to Israel for real - via the BirthRight Program, which for years has been offering free trips to Israel to young Americans. With a contingent of other college students, I toured many of the country’s major sights, from the Golan Heights in the north down to the Dead Sea, the world’s lowest lying point, which makes up part of Israel’s eastern border with Jordan. Instantly, I felt a sort of bond with everyone I met in Israel. Everyone was Jewish - from the guy at the pita and falafel place to the bus drivers to the soldiers to the beggar who approached me to ask for spare change so he could buy a challah for Shabbat. This was the special place I had heard about since I was a child.

I’ll admit that I still have a hard time looking at Israel objectively. When I hear it criticized, it’s hard for me not to react emotionally. It has taken me time to see Israel not as some sort of magical utopia but as a country, like any other country, subject to questionable leadership and objectionable policies. It has taken me time to realize that one can be critical of a nation’s leadership and policies, and still feel deep love for that nation. After all, that’s how I feel about the USA: over the years, I’ve often questioned the choices we have made as a nation, and sometimes I’ve despaired for our future. And yet, despite my misgivings, I always come back to a deep and abiding feeling of patriotism.

I don’t agree with all of its decisions and I don’t support all of its leaders, but I love the USA and I want to see it thrive. I feel the same way about Israel.

Love for a country, just like love for another person, doesn’t mean blind acceptance of its every flaw: it means steadfast support through difficult times, and the undying hope that it can someday become the best version of itself.

In order to feel heartbroken on 9/11, I didn’t have to agree with America’s every policy. Nor do I have to endorse Israel’s every move to feel devastated by the events of October 7th.

But right now, I’m just not in the mood to debate, or to talk about anything as abstract as political policy. Right now, I’m too busy grieving for the thousands of Israeli men, women, and children - as well as thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians - who have lost their lives over the last few weeks.

Every day for the past three weeks, friends and relatives of mine have posted the pictures of Israelis who recently lost their lives. They look so normal, so happy, and full of energy. Some of them remind me of the Israeli counselors who worked at the Jewish summer camp I used to attend. Every time I see one of their pictures, it stops me in my tracks and I think all over again about the senseless loss of human life.

Since October 7th, several of my non-Jewish friends have reached out to extend their sympathies and ask how I’m feeling. I appreciate their thoughts. And every time I hear from one of them, I am reminded of the connection I feel to Israel.

One of the lines from Hatikvah, the Jewish National Anthem, is “od lo avda tikvateinu,” which translates to “our hope is not yet lost.” In spite of years of conflict, my hope is not yet lost that the land I love can one day be a Land of Peace.

Don't Go to Louisiana in Late June. Don't Go to Bourbon Street at All. Otherwise, New Orleans is Great!

             I know people who are obsessed with New Orleans. A guy I used to work with would go there roughly once a year with his wife. “There’s no place in the world like it,” he would tell me. Last week, my wife and I paid a visit for a few nights to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. It was my second time in New Orleans, although the first time was Mardi Gras 2002, just before I turned twenty-one. Since I spent most of my time then trying to navigate an obscenely packed French Quarter, the first trip feels like it barely counts. My wife’s first trip doesn’t count in a different way: she was born in nearby Mandeville and lived there until she was six. Sometimes, she and her family would venture into New Orleans, but most of her memories of the city are a little fuzzy. So really this was both of our first visits in our adult lives.

My old friend was right: there’s no place like this city. We like to talk about the weirdness of Baltimore – and it is weird, in comparison to DC, its closest big neighbor. But if I’m being honest, Baltimore’s general vibe isn’t all that different from that of Philadelphia, or Boston, or Richmond. They’re all in the same ballpark at least. New Orleans, meanwhile, is just a different breed from Houston or Atlanta. Its weirdness is off the charts. The only city that, to me, feels anything like New Orleans – maybe its little cousin? – is Savannah, which has a similar swampy creepiness to it. (I say that having spent only a couple hours there, a few years back, so I may not be the authority on this: I’m going off my own subjective impression.)

For better or worse, it’s a unique place. It has its own regional cuisine that’s largely confined to the city. Its inhabitants have their own regional accent that’s clearly distinct from the southern accent at large. (They don't say "ya'll," I'm told.) Its French quarter boasts a style of French-inspired architecture I’ve never seen anywhere else.  Walk into one of the endless knickknack stores in the French Quarter and you can buy a t-shirt or some other tchotchke emblazoned with a quote from Tennessee Williams: “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” There’s probably some truth to that, even though there are plenty other American cities I like just fine – including Cleveland. I think the point though is not that every other city in the country sucks: it’s that most cities are homogenous. Chicago is cool, sure, but it’s kind of just Dallas with a different climate. Columbus and Indianapolis are basically the same city in consecutive states. Phoenix is alright, but it’s about as generic as they come. New Orleans, though, is hard to confuse with anywhere else.

By no means does that mean that New Orleans is paradise. My wife and I had a wonderful time, and I say this with all due respect: parts of New Orleans suck. Specifically, Bourbon Street, one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world, is very close to my vision of what hell must look like. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, it’s dumb, and holy shit is it loud. Every block on Bourbon Street features one of those hurricane places, where sugary mixed drinks are dispensed from machines into tall, colorful plastic cups shaped like grenades or palm trees. Into the streets, these joints blast air conditioning (which, to be fair, is appealing), and deafening music (which is not). On our obligatory walk through Bourbon Street on Saturday night, we saw: a woman peeing in the street, another woman more than sixty years old lifting her top in exchange for plastic beads, and, most depressingly, a third woman taking a selfie with a homeless man who had passed out on the street. The last of these took place just outside Galatoire’s, the venerable old French-Cajun restaurant that still requires men to wear blazers in the main dining room. The contrast was striking.

The problem with Bourbon Street, I think, is that it has become a victim of its own popularity. It’s exactly the same phenomenon that transformed Manhattan’s Times Square from the Crossroads of the World to An Insufferable Shitshow to be Avoided at All Costs. With each wild Mardi Gras, the legend of Bourbon Street grew and grew, until it achieved a practically mythical reputation. I haven’t formally researched this, but I believe half the frat boys in the country have a metal “Bourbon Street” sign somewhere in their dorm room. More and more idiots keep flocking there in search of the biggest party they’ve ever seen, and local vendors are glad to oblige. Now what’s left is straight up insanity – a brand of insanity I hope I never experience again in my life. One of my memories from Mardi Gras 2002 is that at the end of three nights on Bourbon Street, a friend of mine summed up the experience: “I was really excited for this,” he said, “But this place is evil and I hate it.” It took me about ten minutes to reach the same conclusion this time.

Let’s be clear, though: I don’t hate parties. I used to be a frat boy myself, after all. On Sunday evening, we wised up and walked over to Frenchmen Street in Marigny, which abuts the French Quarter. Now that was a party. A big brass band played on a corner (outside a used book store, incidentally), causing the audience, a diverse array or black, white, locals and tourists, to spill into the street. We watched for a bit and then paid a cover to enter The Spotted Cat, a jazz club, where we watched an effortlessly brilliant combo. Those dumb hurricane dispensaries were nowhere to be seen – but I did have an excellent local microbrew.

On Monday, we returned to Bourbon Street and found a relatively quite bar that offered cool atmosphere and free popcorn. “Maybe this place is different on Monday night,” I said. We walked two more blocks. Nah, it was still terrible.

I’m not trying to dump on the city of New Orleans, which is so cool – not because of, but in spite of, the heart of the French Quarter. A short list of what I appreciated in three and a half days includes:

o   The Hotel Monteleone, which is straight old-world class. The carousel bar is pricey, but absolutely one-of-a-kind.

o   Streetcars

o   Beignets

o   Café Au-Lait

o   Incredible Brass Bands composed of people who frankly look like they live on the streets

o   Domilise’sPo-Boys (Roadfood steered me in the right direction yet again.)

o   Frenchmen Street

o   Lovely residential neighborhoods

o   Basically all cajun food, but especially my Shrimp Etoufee from Galatoire’s

o   Random lizard sightings

I’ll return some day – not in late June, though. I’ll never do that again. It’s a cool city and like most cool cities, some of its best features are tucked away off the beaten track. On my next trip, I’ll be savvy enough to avoid the city’s most famous and least appealing parts.

My Wife took this awesome picture of one of the brass band dudes in front of a chicken place.

Oscars 2023

I'm starting to worry I might not like movies any more. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed some of what I saw in 2022, but more often that not, the movies that came out in the past year - even the most celebrated ones - just left me cold. The most enjoyable media I consumed was tv, and it wasn't all that close. I don't want to turn prematurely into one of those old guys who insists, "They don't make 'em like they used to." But what can I say? I enjoy what I enjoy, and I didn't particularly enjoy this year's crop. Not as much as I've enjoyed prestige tv lately. Not as much as I enjoyed the best movies of 2013, 2008, 2003, etc.

Why aren't movies as good as they use to be? There are probably numerous think pieces on this, but I have a few ideas. The main one is that huge franchises are killing the industry. The biggest movies of the year are all franchise movies. You have to go down to #6 on the list of highest domestic box office earners to find a stand-alone film. And it's Death on the Nile, which A) sucked and B) will soon be disqualified from this category, as it already has a sequel planned. So it seems like the days of the solid stand-alone movie are essentially over. Which is not to say there's no good content out there - it's just that what was once a good idea for a movie is now developed into a ten-episode series on one of the streaming services.

That leaves us with a list of ten Best Picture nominees that are either franchise movies (Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick), or small, esoteric indie pictures (everything else). In the year 1980, the fourth highest grossing movie was Kramer vs. Kramer. And that tells you everything you need to know about how the industry has changed. In the year 2023, that movie is probably either a Netflix series or a critically acclaimed indie movie that almost no one sees.

Still a combination of obsession and FOMO drives me to watch as many of the Oscar nominees as I can. This year, I watched all ten Best Picture nominees. Here are my rankings. (Spoiler alerts for all.)

#10 - Triangle of Sadness

What was this movie actually trying to say? It was a satire of the super-wealthy, but I'm not sure what it said about them, beyond that they are out of touch, oblivious, and entitled. Everything this movie tried to do, White Lotus did better. Part of the problem was a lack of cohesion. The movie intermittently follows a couple (a model and a social media influencer, both of whose names I forget), but it doesn't seem to care all that much about them, and neither did I. A few strange and interesting scenes stand out: the rich Russian lady demanding that the cruise attendant take a swim (heck of a performance by that cruise attendant, by the way), the drinking game between Woody Harrelson and the Russian Guy, the donkey scene. (Actually, I could have done without the donkey scene.) But mostly, this is an extremely messy movie with a lot of gratuitous puking, and nothing much to say. 

#9 - Women Talking

Too drab. Too talky. Too many characters. The color in this movie is so washed out, it looks black and white. I get that it's a stylistic choice to illustrate the drab lives of these Mennonite women living in a remote settlement, but it makes for a downright oppressive viewing experience. No one can accuse this movie of false advertising: there are indeed a lot of women talking here. Like Twelve Angry Men, one of my all-time favorites, the entire film is composed of people arguing with each other in a single location. So why did I like Twelve Angry Men so much more? Not sure, to be honest, but I know I did. I will say the central question - Should the women respond to an epidemic of sexual assaults by leaving, confronting the men or remaining silent? - was actually pretty compelling. I only wished I was watching a play or reading a novel instead of watching this movie.

#8 - Avatar: the Way of Water

I wrote about this one right after I saw it and I don't have much to add. Avatar is a visually stunning, immersive experience, but in the end it's also a three-hour epic about blue aliens. I didn't hate it, but I was happy when it ended. Side note: if we're going to nominate franchise movies for Best Picture, can we give them better titles? Enough with the two-part titles with colons in the middle. Just call it Avatar II or call it The Way or Water. The sequel to Star Wars was Empire Strikes Back, and no one seemed to have any trouble remembering what franchise it was part of.

#7 - Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

I swing wildly back and forth on this one. On the one hand, you have to applaud the deep creativity. This movie is audicious and bizarre, downright insane, and just bursting with ideas. Racacconie. Hot dog fingers. The Everything Bagel of Nihilism. Even if you don't love this movie - and I didn't - you have to at least appreciate it. That said... It's a sensory assault that sometimes thrilled me, sometimes alienated me, and sometimes made me feel like I was a million years old and that cinema itself had passed me by. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer a movie that slows down and lets me soak it in, rather than grabbing me by the shirt collar. But man, these filmmakers have got some guts. I get what the fuss is about, even if it isn't totally my thing.

#6 - Elvis

Speaking of hyperactive movies that won't let you chill. Damn, Baz Luhrman... calm down. All of his movies are frenetic and over-directed, so I wasn't surprised that Elvis was consistent with his style. The movie eventually calms down a little, but the first hour or so needs to take a Xanex. It has to be said there's an amazing Austin Butler performance at the center of this movie. Tom Hanks, in heavy makeup, using a heavy accent as Colonel Tom Parker worked for me less. The last half hour or so, which uses the first line of Elvis' song "Suspicious Minds" as sort of a mantra, is pretty haunting. The big "woke" talking point here is that the film glosses over Elvis' pillaging of black artists. I'm sure there are think pieces that comment intelligently on that issue, but I don't have much to say about it.

#5 - TAR

Another one I'm torn on. Both the character and the movie could be so pretentious and offputting. Who starts a movie with full five-minute credits, followed by a full New Yorker interview? But despite some really slow stretches, there's a really interesting story here. By the second act, I found myself caught up in Lydia Tar's inevitable downfall. What was finally going to take her down? How would her fall from grace play out? How would she react to being "cancelled"? Everyone seems to be talking about the masterclass scene, which was great, but I find myself turning over that ending, in which she's conducting video game music somewhere in Southeast Asia. I can't say I loved TAR - I'd love to have seen a cut that was about a half hour shorter - but there's a compelling story in here, and of course an incredible Cate Blanchett performance.

#4 - The Fabelmans

I didn't love it, but I definitely liked it. The family stuff was compelling. Everyone has been praising Michelle Williams for his performance as Stephen's (sorry... Sammy's) mother, but I found a little of that character went a long way. I was actually more interested in Paul Dano's performance as the father, who didn't encourage Sammy's pursuit of the arts, but managed to come off as supportive and sympathetic anyway. Plus, it was kind of fun to see Dano dial it back a little. This is the guy who made his bones playing Eli Sunday, the weird kid in Little Miss Sunshine, and the Riddler, remember. The movie-making scenes were great - especially young Sammy directing his buddies in a homemade war film.

#3 - All Quiet on the Western Front

DUH DUH DUHHHHH!!! Seriously, what an incredible score. It's three notes and it's absolutely chilling. This is on the short list of the most visceral, terrifying war movies ever made, almost (but not quite) as good as 1917, which came out just a few years ago. The jaw-dropping battle scenes demand to be seen on the big screen - which makes it sort of a shame that the movie was released on Netflix. My colleague in the history department pointed out to me that it's unlikely a single WWI soldier would have had such a tumultuous and action-packed war experience: this guy does just about everything a soldier could have done in that war. He's the Forrest Gump of German soldiers. Fair point, but it didn't affect my experience. Nor does the fact that this film is only loosely based on the famous novel by Remarque. It's riveting - and of all the nominees, the one I most want to see again as soon as possible.

#2 - Top Gun: Maverick

My wife likes to remind me that she was the one who got me to see Top Gun: Maverick in theaters. That's true. I have no real connection to the original Top Gun, which I think is super corny, and had no interest in seeing the sequel. But it hung around in theaters, and word of mouth kept building, and then awards season hype started building, and it finally wore my down. Damn, I'm glad I saw this one in the theaters. It was a total thrill ride. (You were right again, Honey.) Tom Cruise is as charismatic as ever - and I'm generally not even a big Cruise fan. Jennifer Connelly is gorgeous and appealing. Miles Teller is a total movie star, and evokes the spirit of Anthony Edwards in an almost uncanny way. I don't care at all about high-speed planes. Doesn't matter. The plot, especially the bit about Tom Cruise breaking Mach Ten, is patently ridiculous. Who cares? When a movie is this fun, you just give yourself over to it without overthinking things. Oh, and the Iceman scene might have been the best single scene in any movie this year. Don't @ me, as the kids say.

#1 - The Banshees of Inisherin

Do I need to leave some great piece of art behind in order to feel I've lived a worthwhile life? Or is it enough to simply spend my time hanging out with friends at the pub? And do I need to cut off a finger or two in order to feel something? The questions at the heart of Banshees are ones I think about a lot. (Well, except for the last one.) And that's probably why this movie landed with me. Farrell and Gleeson are brilliant in this anti-buddy movie, just as they were in In Bruges, which I also loved. And the overhead shots of the Irish countryside are green and brilliant - until they turn dark and creepy. Banshees actually reminded me most of one of my favorite movies, The Last Picture Show, another story about simple people doomed to live out their days in a remote, provincial place. Both of them left me sad, and unsettled, and haunted.

Some Thoughts on Avatar, the Way of Water

I'm not the target audience for the Avatar franchise. I'm not a sci-fi fantasy guy, or a superhero movie guy. I've seen four Star Wars movies (the original three plus Episode Two), a handful of Marvel movies - none in theaters - and the first Lord of the Rings. I basically liked all of these just fine, but I didn't feel the need to crawl down any of their well-traveled rabbit holes. (Curiously, I did get really into Game of Thrones for a while. Haven't seen House of Dragon yet, and I may not. But from about 2011 to 2016, I was one of the biggest fans I knew. Not sure why, except that it always felt the most adult of the major fantasy franchises - not just because of the sex and violence, but because of its political themes and its subversion of fantasy tropes.)

So why did I make a point of going to the Cinemark last night to see Avatar, the Way of Water? A few reasons:

1 - I'm an Oscar "collector," meaning I like to see as many nominated films as I can in advance of the ceremony in March.

2 - Avatar is part of the cultural zeitgeist. The first one was the highest grossing film of all time, but more importantly, it was just a film you had to see in order to take part in any pop culture conversation in 2009. The second one may not be quite as culturally important, but I'm getting some of the same vibes. So basically, FOMO was a driving factor here.

3 - The sheer spectacle. Almost in spite of myself, I really enjoyed the first Avatar. The concept was sort of silly, the plot was cliched, the dialogue was clunky. But the movie was such a sight to behold that none of that other stuff really mattered.

Plus, I have fond memories of actually seeing the first movie, memories that are now pretty much inextricable from my thoughts about the movie itself. In February of 2010, a massive snowstorm hit the mid-Atlantic. And a few days later, before we had barely begun to dig ourselves out, another one followed. Everyone in the region remembers the twins blizzards as "Snowmageddon." I saw Avatar hours after the first storm, an evening on which an eerily quiet DC felt almost as otherworldly as the planet Pandora. It was a perfect night to give myself over to James Cameron's lengthy epic vision. Of course, the circumstances under which I saw the sequel weren't nearly so notable, but that's alright. Sequels usually aren't as good.

I haven't actually said anything about the substance of the movie yet. That's often how the conversation surrounding Avatar tends to go. There's a running joke about how little people actually remember about it. "Name one character from Avatar," the critics say, "I bet you can't do it." That was actually true for me about the first one, and almost the second one, too. There's Jake Sully, whose name I now confidently remember after almost six hours of content. There's his Na'vi (had to Google the spelling) wife, whose name starts with an N. There's the bad guy, Colonel Quidditch. (That's not actually his name, but it's something like that.) There are a bunch of kids, too. You know, Big Brother, Middle Brother, Girl, Little Girl. The only other character I can confidently name is Spider, the human kid who is adopted by the Na'vi. Probably because he isn't a blue alien, and because he has a little bit of personality.

Almost no one has seen the first Avatar movie within the last decade, I'm fairly certain. And I'd imagine that many viewers of the second movie took to Wikipedia to refresh their memories. Because no one had a spare two hours and forty minutes to watch the first one. And even if they did, it doesn't look that good on your home tv. I really wish I had spent a little more time on Wikipedia, because Way of Water hits the ground running. No time to catch you up on movie you saw thirteen years ago. Once the house lights dim, you're back in Pandora and you better keep up.

But honestly, who cares about story when you're watching spectacle like this? At its best, Avatar turns you into a kid, staring wide-eyed at at the screen. Way of Water had plenty of those moments - not as many as the first, but still plenty. The underwater sequences, especiallything with that whale (a Tulkun - I just looked it up) are worth the price of admission. Same goes for the naval battle in the last hour of the movie. The whale flops onto the boat and smushes the bad guys? Count me in. The evil poacher sea captain guy gets his arms severed? Hell yes.

And then there are quieter moments that fill you with wonder - like one late in the movie in which a body is enveloped by strands of a flourescent plant.

All that said, I can't really say I enjoyed the movie. It is, in the end, a three-hour saga about blue space aliens. I'm only ever going to care so much. Frequently, I found myself checking my watch. Frequently, I wanted to return to Earth. Still, I find I can only be so cynical about a movie like this. For all of its failings, it's pretty incredible. And perhaps most incredible is its ability to bring crowds of people back to the movie theater, in an age when ticket prices are outrageously high, COVID is still a concern, and most movies are still viewed on laptops and phones. If that's Avatar's legacy, who cares about such trifling matters as characters' names?

The Tulkun is the absolute MVP of this movie.

We're All Just Faking It in Grad School

Each year at my school, certain stellar students are initiated into the Williams Scholars Program, an honor that comes with a sum of money to be earmarked for some off-campus academic pursuit. At the annual assembly celebrating new Williams Scholars, it is customary for a faculty member to speak about his or her own academic pursuits. That year, I was that faculty member. Here's my speech, which I delivered two weeks ago before a full house of students, faculty, and parents.

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Every year, Williams Scholars use their scholarships to pursue their academic passions. But the pursuit of academic passions doesn't have to stop just because you've grown up. Today I want to tell you about my own experience, not as a teacher but as a student.
 
Because I'm an English teacher, everyone assumes I've always been good at English. But that's not entirely true. It's true that I've always enjoyed reading, and that I've always had a passion for stories dating back to the ones my parents read me when I was little. And I like to think I've always been a decent writer too. But I also took plenty of lumps in English over the years. When I was in high school, I did so poorly in English 10 Honors that I was demoted to a regular-level class for my junior year, which at the time was the biggest slap in the face I could imagine. English was supposed to be my best subject. And if I wasn't good at that, well then what was I good at?
 
(I blamed my teacher at the time, by the way, but it’s clear to me now that it was my own fault. My work just wasn’t up to an honors standard.)
 
In my last two years of high school I recovered somewhat, and when I got to college, I majored in English, along with a third of my classmates. Kenyon College, which has always been known for its writing program, attracted some of the best young writers in the country. It was humbling to be in class with peers who were clearly more accomplished than I was.
 
I made it through college with mostly B’s, but my love of literature was well intact, and a couple years after I graduated, I first tried my hand at teaching.
 
Once I became an English teacher, I developed a serious case of imposter syndrome. That’s the feeling that you don’t really deserve to be in the position you’re in. I didn't feel like an avowed expert in my field; I still felt like the high school sophomore who got a C+ in English, or the college student who struggled to finish every assigned reading, and earned a steady string of average grades. But I kept on teaching anyway, while doing my own reading and writing on the side.
 
Five years into my teaching career, I heard about a graduate program geared towards English teachers, called the Bread Loaf School of English, a division of Middlebury College in Vermont. Students took intensive courses for four summers, and after that, earned their Master's Degree in English Literature. (Among the program's famous alumni are Upper School English teacher Liz Hopkins, who had graduated before I got there, and former Middle School Head Brandon Mollet who was a "senior" when I was a "freshman." We met once at a party. We would meet again two years later in 2012 when I started working at Boys' Latin.)
 
Anyway, I applied to Bread Loaf and was accepted, and in the summer of 2011, I drove myself deep into the Green Mountains of Vermont to read and study with fellow nerds from all over the country. I was excited. But once I got there, I felt that same old feeling from undergrad and from high school: everyone was brilliant except for me.
 
My first graduate class – on Romantic Poetry – intimidated me fiercely. It seemed like everyone in class already knew everything about Byron, and Keats, and Shelley. One of my classmates had all of William Blake’s poems committed to memory, or so it seemed to me. Surely, I couldn’t compete.
 
Imagine for a second that you are just starting to get into lifting weights. Now picture entering a gym in which everyone is effortlessly benching three hundred pounds. The experience I’m describing is the book worm equivalent.
 
I wasn’t sure I belonged, but what could I do? I wasn’t about to turn around and head back home. Bread Loaf already had my tuition money. And besides, the program had accepted me, hadn’t they? Someone must have seen my potential.

So I started grinding. I pushed myself to speak up in class, even when I didn’t want to. I gave myself pep talks, and forced myself to believe that my insights about poetry were just as good as anyone else’s.
I got a B on my first paper, on William Wordsworth’s “The Prologue,” and the old doubts started to creep in. A B was ok, but how did that compare to what my classmates got? Did teachers even give grades lower than a B in grad school, where everyone but me seemed to be a super genius?
If one of my students had come to me in my situation, I would have advised him to meet with his teacher, so that’s exactly what I did. In anticipation of my final paper for the class, I had a conference with my professor, a brilliant scholar from a prestigious university in London, and she gave me a few tips as well as a little encouragement.

I kept reading, I kept writing. During the week leading up to my final paper, I practically lived in the Middlebury College Graduate Lounge, where for every page written I rewarded myself with a slice of mediocre pizza. I finally submitted my work - a fifteen-page paper about three poems, written by three obscure Romantic poets. I ordered one last celebratory slice of pizza and I waited.

Now comes the part of the story where I have to brag a little bit. Apologies in advance. In high school, it can be common to share your grade with a friend. In grad school, they tend to be top secret. But then, I'm not in grad school any more.

I got an A+ on the paper. An A+! In all of college, high school, maybe even middle school, I don't recall getting a straight A on a paper. I once got an A+ on a story I wrote when I was in fourth grade about a snorkeling trip with my family. That's how long it had been. 
 
As it turned out, it was the first of a bunch of A's I earned over four summers at Bread Loaf, though admittedly the only A+. The grades were nice of course, and so was the small scholarship I received from the school for my good grades. But the best result of my experience was the confidence it helped me to build. Everyone needs validation, whether they're in lower school or in graduate school. The validation I received at Bread Loaf helped me to feel I was a worthy student, and a worthy teacher.
That fall, I walked back into my classroom with my head held high. Maybe I was pretty good at this English stuff after all.

Bread Loaf School of English: a beautiful campus in the Green Mountains of Vermont, perfect for lounging in an Adirondack chair with a cup of coffee and a book of poetry.

It intimidated the hell out of me.

Overdressed

 For the rest of your life, would you rather be chronically overdressed or underdressed?

For the first six years of my teaching career, I taught at Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland. It was there I came across a boy named Mack Hollins. I taught his older brother Brian in my AP Lit class, but I can't say I knew Mack well. Mostly, I noticed him for two reasons: 1) he looked a lot like his brother, and 2) he wore a suit and tie to school every day and carried his papers in a briefcase. The attire was especially unusual for a public school, where a t-shirt and jeans were generally par for the course. Maybe he started his tradition ironically, but to see that kind of a joke through for all of high school takes some serious commitment. If I had to guess, he wore a suit because it helped him to take school seriously. It helped him to differentiate himself from the other 2500 odd kids at his school. And I imagine he was confident enough not to let anyone's smartass comments bother him.

It helped that he was good at football. A few years later, when he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, scouting reports noted his sartorial habits as kind of a charming quirk, and evidence of good character. Apparently, he's also handy with a Rubik's Cube, though I don't remember seeing him with one at Wootton.

It's impossible to imagine Mack having had the same success had he been perpetually underdressed, rather than overdressed. Whether fairly or not, he would doubtless have been seen as a slacker, someone with a questionable work ethic and maybe a problem with authority. It's probably not impossible to succeed while being chronically underdressed, but it has to be a lot more difficult.

If you show up to every event in a three-piece suit, you risk being subject to mockery and confused reactions, but people may assume you are an overachiever. If you show up dressed like a bum, people will assume you are one. I'd rather be overdressed. It seemed to work well for Mack.