for reels: November 2021
A monthly look back at my Letterboxd diary.
Welcome to for reels, a monthly look back at my movie diary on Letterboxd // Today, I’m looking back at November 2021 //
Hey hey, been a minute. November was a real low-power month, wasn’t it. Weather changing, October hangover in full swing and all that. Let the whole damn thing go by without typin’ so much as a word outside of day job stuff. No biggie though ‘cause like most months I managed to watch a fuckton ‘o movies, plus these days I feel mad content in my role as professional underachiever, “takin’ ‘er easy for the rest of ya” ;)
Anyway, let’s get back into the swing ‘o things with some fake awards for 10-ish notable joints from my November movie diary.
Best New Movie: Licorice Pizza (2021)
It was a killer month as far as new releases go (October weren’t too shabby either). Liked pretty much everything I saw in theaters. Spencer was good, House of Gucci was a fuckin’ blast (more on that down the road), hell, I even found myself vibin’ with that new Ghostbusters movie more than I thought I would. The clear standout though was the new Paul Thomas Anderson joint. Hell yeah movies are back baby!
Critical consensus imbues Licorice Pizza—PTA’s ode to showbiz and the San Fernando Valley circa 1973—with a “laid back,” meandering, relaxed-fit quality. There’s an inherent breeziness to it, for sure (largely due to the episodic coming-of-age format and “lower stakes,” I guess) but all the strange, sinister, uncanny, and surprising elements of your typical PTA picture are in the deepest grooves of this one. One of the best things about Anderson’s movies is you always get something deliciously askew from the bill of goods originally sold. Like, a “movie based on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology” becomes the comic, homoerotic new-age acid trip through the fractured post-war American psyche that is The Master, or a “movie set in the fashion world of 1950s English Couture” becomes the immaculate yet imminently meme-able, twisted romcom/Rebecca remix that is Phantom Thread.
Licorice Pizza is no different in that regard. It’s a dense, vivid, devastating trip, but it’s also full of breezy cinematic pleasures and pure fun. A real have-yer-cake-n-eat-it-too situation know what I mean? About midway through the movie there’s this ecstatic, mesmerizing long shot of young star Cooper Hoffman running past a seemingly endless line of cars (victims of the gas crisis) shouting “It’s the end of the world!” with David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” blaring as the whole scene slowly fades into the next shot, and that was the moment I realized it was kind of inevitable that this would be my favorite movie of the year.
Best New-to-Me Movie: Downhill Racer (1969)
I’m one of those mfers who loves a good sports movie despite not giving a shit about sports otherwise. Can’t remember which podcast it was on but somebody brought up this Olympic skiing movie from 1969 starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman and I was like “fuck, how have I NEVER heard of that?!!” So I rented it a couple weeks later and, like, it didn’t change my life but it’s pretty fuckin’ rad and absolutely beautiful to look at. Redford’s in top form as a handsome prick with raw athletic talent and Hackman’s goddamn solid as always. All the skiing scenes are not only gorgeous but incredibly dynamic and propulsive, and all the human stuff in between feels uncannily downbeat and lifelike. Definitely worth a watch if you like sports movies, Robert Redford, New Hollywood shit, or all of the above.
Trashterpiece of the Month: House of Gucci (2021)
Man, y’all be sayin’ this shit wasn’t campy enough and I gotta say the House of Gucci I saw was camp city. I dunno maybe it’s a little too self aware to be authentic, full-on camp but also this was me in the theater for the entire 2hr 40 min runtime:
To me this one felt like a 2021 Amadeus of sorts. It’s long but prepetually engaging, and there’s a ton of acting and period-piece dress-up going on among the cast, all big and brash but all different in style and affect. What can I say it just worked for me. Super entertaining, deliciously garish, and indelibly pristine in top-shelf Ridley Scott fashion.
Current Mood: Little Murders (1971)
Caught this excellent little pitch-black comedy on The Criterion Channel. Hadn’t heard of it before but had to check it out ‘cause Elliot Gould is my guy. What a gem. As 2021 draws to a close, it’s kinda wild to look at the movies of the early ‘70s and see how similarly stagnant and apocalyptic everything felt. 50 years later, we’re still a bloated, vicious, fake country in shambles, filled with desperate folks driven mad by powerlessness with nothing to hang onto except the disintegrating remnants of whatever passes for American culture, class, and societal pressures. Fun, ain’t it!
Underrated Sequel: Magic Mike XXL (2015)
Speaking of unconventional sports movies (if you consider stripping an athletic pursuit I dunno what to tell ya), saw this was on HBO Max and couldn’t help but fire it up for the sheer pleasure of it. All respect to the great Steven Soderbergh’s original Magic Mike, a truly great film, but Magic Mike XXL is defs my favorite. Great road movie and a killer ensemble piece cut like a diamond. Nothing I’ve read summarizes what makes this thing cook better than Matt Christman’s Letterboxd review so I’ll drop that here:
I think the thing I appreciate most of about Magic Mike XXL is the movie that it ISN'T. There's a version of MMXXL where Mike needs ten grand to keep his business going and the Myrtle Beach convention has a fifty grand prize for the best stripping team and there's another team full of jerk strippers vying for it and Matt Bomer's resentment of Mike simmers until the third act where it has to be dealt with before it costs the team a victory. That movie sucks. This movie rules.
By the way, how blessed are we to be getting a Magic Mike 3 with both Chaning Tatum and Soderbergh returning? Almost makes you feel excited to be alive again amirtie?
Shit Holds Up: Dumb and Dumber (1994)
Hadn’t seen this one in probably a decade. Not much to say except it’s still fucking hilarious. Jim Carrey’s manic living-cartoon persona was never fresher, especially when paired with Jeff Daniels who I swear creates a whole new type of comedic persona before your eyes. True lightning in a bottle type stuff here.
Seasonal Mega-Rewatch: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Lord of the Rings is sorta annual holiday viewing ‘round my house. This year we opted to watch the theatrical versions of the first two movies and the extended edition of Return of the King ‘cause I’d never watched it. Can confirm it’s the one of the three where the theatrical version is better. There isn’t that much in the added scenes to justify its 4 hour 23 minute runtime. But I also walked away feeling like Return of the King was still my favorite of the three. It’s both the most metal and most ethereal of the trilogy, which are the things I dig most about these movies. Anyway, next time I watch these I’ll probably take the opposite approach, hit the extended editions of the first two and settle for the 3 1/2 hour theatrical cut of Return of the King lol.
De Palma Corner: Obsession (1976) and The Black Dahlia (2006)
Brian De Palma is my favorite filmmaker at this point so I’ve been tryna smash through the remaining movies of his I ain’t seen yet. Clocked some solid De Palma hours in November, started with an Untouchables rewatch, then rented Obsession later in the month and caught The Black Dahlia on Prime Video right at the end. Obsession is arguably the most overt of De Palma’s many remixes of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which checks out seein’ how it originated with De Palma and writer Paul Schrader going to a screening of Vertigo in LA, then shootin’ the shit afterwards like “damn, isn’t Vertigo the best? We should do a Vertigo.” But also it’s those two guys so the end result is like unreal creative and far from mere homage. I’m perpetually fascinated by the relatively few directors who’ve really tried to experiment with the visual grammar that Hitchcock invented, and Obsession is a both sublime and deeply perverse in its Hitchcockian reconfigurations and ruminations.
The Black Dahlia, based on the infamous crime novel by James Ellroy, is a slightly different story. Still a joy (for me, at least) to watch but clearly bogged down by a last-minute cut from three to two hours. Because the film is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel, it’s really easy to get lost in the plot and feel the absence of everything left on the cutting room floor. But like every De Palma joint there are some choice suspense sequences and endless visual devices that make it feel more vivid and dynamic than like 99% of modern movies. I recall film critic Adam Nayman noting on a podcast recently (mad paraphrasing here) that there’s a palpable diminished quality to De Palma’s late-period work, but that “diminishment” is yoked in a singular, uncompromising creative focus. Maybe it’s just the fanboy in me talking but I feel that shit every time I watch a De Palma joint from the last 20 years, and I certainly felt it watching The Black Dahlia.
Obsession is available to rent on Prime, YouTube, etc, and you can stream The Black Dahlia on Amazon Prime.
That it’s it for now, folks! Hoping to get a couple plugs and an end-of-year list in before 2021 comes crashing to a close. Thanks for stickin’ with me and stay tuned…
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