If you haven’t already, stop what you’re doing and go watch the new South Park episode. If you’re not doing it like they’re doing it, adjust. We need more of this. 27 years into the show, their week included trashing Skydance, Paramount, CBS, and Trump publicly in a way others have been terrified of. Then leveraging $2+ billion dollars out of the group for only a five year term. Then dropping the most wonderful + insane episode eviscerating all of them. Then winning an award at Comic-Con while speaking freely about the whole thing to their loving fans. Most importantly, the episode is excellent. Great work trumps all. Reminder, these guys are 27 years into the show. Beautiful stuff.
Topically, and even as the subplot of the episode, 5 minutes of Eric Cartman screen time in this episode said more about woke culture than Eddington did in 2.5 hours. Not to dis Eddington. I liked it. But it doesn’t distill nor even examine further than we’ve all done for ourselves and shouted from the rooftops for five years. We already know everything the movie tells us. So while it’s fun replaying it actually, we’re no wiser nor stronger from watching. And I do think art should achieve that. More on Eddington and Pedro Pascal’s bleh-ness at bottom.
The A-Frame comes out today and here’s my pod conversation with writer/director Calvin Reeder. It’s playing at Film Noir Brooklyn and Lumiere Santa Monica.
Calvin Lee Reeder Conversation
I met Calvin Lee Reeder years ago at what became a formative SXSW Midnight Shorts program. I talk about it as a kinda template for what I try to do with Reunion. It was special to me first because the films were excellent—including Calvin’s The Rambler
Events this last week were amazing. I was nervous because I put so many in a row, but everything was standing room only, it was heart warming. Saturday I got to watch Peter Rinaldi’s adaptation of By Morning. We didn’t do the talkback because it was that really hot night, and it was really hot in there with a full crowd, and a buncha old people we didn’t want to murder. So we just went to karaoke. Dilaria was sold out too, but nobody mentioned we were doing the talkback, so 90% of the crowd left and we did the talk for like 10 people. It was nice anyway. Funny though, we walk out, and there are 100 girls waiting outside for Chris Briney. They did not care in the slightest about listening to us talk about the dramaturgy. They just came for the dreamy boy. Good for them. Good for the youths. Monday Neuehouse was really nice. Ben Zimmer, Johnny Gaffney and Ruby Rodgers surprised the crowd with a performance of Punch-Drunk Love to celebrate PSH bday. And the movies played really nicely together. I was charmed after that most of the feedback I got was about David Ling’s film. Tuesday my heart was full beyond measure with the turnout for David’s memorial. We did it our friend Dexter Mabutas’ place, and while we were setting up, Dexter and I remarked that it will either be ten people, or this place is going to be overflowing onto the sidewalk. We ended up with speeches covering Dave’s entire life from high school to the last few months. Half the room was high powered lawyers, half was the entire nightlife staff of NYC, with a sprinkling of film industry and old friends. David was a Harvard law school graduate working at Davis Polk, and going out every single night of his life to clubs. He didn’t do drugs, and rarely drank. He just loved people, loved to socialize. He also graduated from USC film school. It was so fun watching the entire room meet for the first time, and come to understand this person they thought they knew had so many other facets. I kept repeating that I wished this was his birthday party rather than his memorial. We showed a short of his on Monday, and did a reading on Wednesday of Muldoon, a short he sent me last year he never made. The reading was the highlight of the night on Wednesday at Salmagundi. It’s such a wacky script, encompassing every genre ever. I’d say the last night was the best night of the week of events, as we interwove evenly short plays and movies for the first time. We somehow ended up going for 2.5 hours, and the room remained full. I totally underestimated the time of the plays, but it all flowed. It was a joyous night of art and lots of people I love. The feedback after was first just that the entire program was amazing. Then a lot of people highlighted Sam Roebling’s short film that had yet to screen anywhere else, as it says some very important things about our cultural moment and Judaism. Actor Dan Perlman got stopped in the street about it the next day, someone telling him how much they loved it. Last, we all had drinks and talked about Muldoon and Dave and what his mind must have been like to write something like that. He was a great guy. I took pleasure and sadness in telling the audience he’d have been here with us if he were still around. I will remember him forever. Very grateful to have had him in my life, and so happy I took this week to solidify his memory.
— Sean Glass @sdotglass
EVENTS (reunion.eventive.org )
NEWS
The important stuff on the important stuff. TL;DR + links if you want more.
NYFF Announces Opening Night and Centerpiece Films [NYFF]
Asian American International Film Festival Unveils Full Lineup for 48th Edition [AAIFF]
Ike Barinholtz In Negotiations To Play Elon Musk In Luca Guadagnino’s AI-Themed Artificial [Deadline] This was a must. Glad this happened.
Google Has Quietly Begun Developing Tech-Positive Movie and TV Projects to Help Shape Public Opinion [Collider] wattba
The Settimana Internazionale della Critica unveils its 2025 Lineup. [Full List] Big Venice lineup in all categories this year. Very exciting.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Pumped Transformation From Borat To Marvel’s Mephisto [Deadline] Funny they're even writing this in this way, I figured we're out there enough in society that this is allowed to be positioned as a post-divorce situation. We can just say it.
How ‘Dopamine Culture’ Rewired Fashion [BOF]
‘South Park’ Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone Battled Comedy Central Over Showing Trump’s Genitals, Refused to Blur His Penis [Variety] wattba
Johnny Depp Joins ‘Hyde’ Graphic Novel Series From Ridley Scott and Mechanical Cake, Will Create Title Character [Variety] Can’t believe I’m saying this, but this sounds like a cool thing from Johnny Depp.
Want to Make Films That Don’t Sell Out? Rick Alverson Has a Class for That [IndieWire]
Katie Holmes To Star In, Write & Direct Happy Hours Film Trilogy; Joshua Jackson Co-Stars In ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Reunion [Deadline] Wild situation here.
‘The Last of Us’ Video Game Scripts to Be Released in New Book From Creator Naughty Dog, Dark Horse [Variety]
‘E! News’ Canceled After 32 Years on Air [Variety] What is this in baseball terms?
SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATIONS
WATCH
The Fantastic Four: First Steps [Wide] Kinda like when Trump got elected first time, when all the people around me were saying whoooo voted from Trump, I litrally don’t know aaaaanyone who voted for this guyyyyy?!?! If I tried really hard, I doubt I could find a person who sees this movie. Same with Jurassic Park 23. I don’t know any primary sources for either of these movies.
Oh, Hi! [Wide]
Eddington with Ari Aster in person this SAT [Village East]
Gene Hackman: A Week with the Gene Genie series, through July 31 [Film Linc]
Diciannove, with filmmaker in person + special Luca Guadagnino appearances [Angelika]
2000 Meters to Andriivka [Film Forum]
Kill the Jockey [Film Forum]
Kurosawa in 4K series [Film Forum] Some great stuff still playing.
TONIGHT: The A-Frame [Film Noir Cinema] Pod with Calvin Lee Reeder coming later. Also check out my favorite short of his from back in the day The Rambler.
Monk in Pieces w/ special guests [IFC]
Folktales w/ filmmakers in person [IFC]
Shoshana [Quad]
Sunshine State, Still Life, Heaven Knows What, Wind Across the Everglades, Bonjour Tristesse, Dream of Light, and Suspiria—in 35mm and more [Metrograph]
Minority Report, West Side Story (2021), Collateral, and War of the Worlds [MoMI]
JULY 30:
Psycho Beach Party, 25th anniversary with special guests [IFC]
JULY 31:
See it Big: 70mm series [MoMI]
AUG 1:
Leos Carax: Modern Loves series featuring a new 4K restoration of Lovers on the Bridge [IFC]
AUG 8:
An Officer and a Spy U.S. premiere [Film Forum]
AUG 15:
Scary Movies XIII series, click for full lineup [Film Linc] Love this. Will be there.
AUG 29:
ON OUR MIND
Francis Ford Coppola surprises an audience at Hearts of Darkness at Film Forum.
THOUGHTS ON EDDINGTON AND NO MORE CHANCES FOR PEDRO PASCAL
I enjoyed watching Eddington. It was like a very capably executed romp through the insane period of time we experienced. It’s cool to get a recent history movie on a level like this. Most of the pandemic movies aren’t just low budget, but very partially baked. Well, actually, this movie is half baked too. It’s just a very well executed half-bake. I’d said all week that we’ll need space, maybe 5-10 years to reconsider Eddington later, but as I type this, I think not. Because it’s Ari Aster. He’s a beautiful devout cinephile, and he’s created maybe the best sequences of movies of his contemporaries. But all in all, I don’t think anyone gains any understanding from watching his work.
The first 40 minutes of Hereditary is the best horror movie of its time. Certain set pieces of Beau are in the pantheon of anxiety cinema. Midsommar is entirely whatever, all fine, nothing really important about it, nor thought provoking. A run of the mill A24 thing. Strange Thing About the Johnsons is his best and most complete work. Hereditary can be turned off after the parents find out the thing. Beau is really just a compilation of set pieces, but doesn’t necessarily embody a complete thread, and will lose any viewer even the most in synch (I love Beau to be clear, but it’s limited).
We focus on Ari Aster so much just because he’s the only auteur fully backed by a studio (even if the studio is an indie technically). There used to be tons of him, but we lost that infrastructure. Ari Aster is just an OK storyteller. He’s obsessed with certain ideas that don’t serve his stories, and they end up distracting him and dragging down the impactful aspects, which he’s brilliant with.
So I watched Eddington and was constantly like…oh yeah that was funny…because he accurately and dynamically illustrated a moment I experienced in a way I resonated with. That’s cool. It’s not such a big deal though. It’s not revelatory. I don’t know more about it now. If anything it’s a reminder, a compilation of a lot of things we experienced during 2020, such as freaking out about murder hornets, then forgetting about them promptly upon the next threat assessment coming in hours later. That happened. It was wild. I knew all of this already, and Eddington just reminds us. Do I need the reminder? I haven’t forgotten. We talk about it all the time. I guess it maintains I’ll not forget for longer? I don’t know. I don’t know what the movie’s utility is other than fun.
People have different philosophies on storytelling. I believe story = change. I believe a story does one of two things. It either asks and answers a question. Or it asks a question in a more profound and thought provoking way than the audience was able to prior. The movie is a deeply considered work that a person and team spend soooo much time on. We wander into the theater having spent none of that time considering, and now we reap the rewards of the filmmaker’s consideration.
What did Ari Aster teach us about 2020? What did he help us consider about 2020 that we hadn’t prior? I don’t know. And it’s possible I’ll identify that upon reflection when 2020 and this movie are even further in our rear view. Perhaps he has vision I do not identify yet.
But he’s also the guy who derailed his own Hereditary into nonsense devil worship (now known to be) A24-core. Midsommar is exclusively notable for casting Tadzio. Beau is wonderful but a self-described compilation of anxious thoughts put to film. And Eddington is just a presentation of the way 2020 impacted us. Johnsons even was made to see how far he could push the envelope of producing an AFI thesis film. Was he interrogating anything about family dynamics, race, or sexual violence? I don’t know. It was just a blast. It was so wacky. So insane of an idea.
I don’t think Aster has anything deep to say about 2020. I think he just has the same things many of us do, and he happens to be an incredible technical filmmaker in complete control of his paintbrush.
For as constantly out there and constantly in movies and TV shows as Pedro Pascal is, and even for as arguably lovable as Pedro Pascal is…why do we love him? What’s he done? What’s he given us?
He was great in that one scene of Game of Thrones...solid support in Narcos...fun in the Nicholas Cage movie. All supports. He's fine in Eddington too. He's never lead anything I don't think. And he's never really had anything memorable nor defining. He just seems like a cool guy who has done iterations on his cool guyness in a few situations where it works. He may be the most exposed and prolonged constantly doing stuff actor I remain entirely indifferent to. I don't dislike him. I just barely recognize him as an actor. His talking about memorizing lines circulates on social media a lot, and that feels like it. He's a cool guy who is entirely professional, and it's nice for the culture for this guy to both check the box of diversity and maintain white audience people's white gaze.
He's OF all the things Eddington explores, rather than examining it. He's sorta like a Keanu reeves in his empty projection vessel - ness. But Keanu wasn't really the product of a culture. He was a weird unique person who happened to be alive in this period of time, and things were created around him. Pedro Pascal is an avatar of the times. I don't think he's disingenuous with anything, I think it's more that the industry made him a product of the culture, and after years of striving, he just moved in the directions that were offered. I don't think it's contrived at all. I think he's just working. Filmmakers cast him because he's famous and also totally fits the roles...and he remains ever-present in culture because he's in these films. For someone so famous and part of so many major things, it's wild how little we can talk about him. He's a placeholder, he satisfies this aspect of stories where the meat of the stories are played against him. He's never the story. He's the thing that happens in the story. Or the one the story is told to. His story as a person isn't even his story, his story is how he perceives and interacts with the culture and industry. Nobody has any feeling about Pedro pascal as a person or performer. Not necessarily in a bad way. I like him. It's just wild how little we can think about him even if we try.
After I wrote that, stuff got pushed to my social media about how he’s totally playing the culture and actually pretending to be kinda gay because its trendy, have anxiety in order to get closer to actresses, and affects his accent to be diverse when it serves him. So basically that he’s another straight white guy looking for his cake and eating it too. I don’t know. I don’t really dislike him. It’s more that I’m done with him, he’s had SOOOO many chances to do something, and he’s done nothing. After watching Materialists, Eddington and (not watching) Fantastic Four all in about a month…this guy should have landed somewhere in my psyche. If he can make those three movies and still mean nothing, get outta here. I’m done with you. I don’t care if you’re real or fake.
