Great review, Sam. I haven’t seen the movie but don’t really watch much contemporary cinema for the reasons you mention. There’s just too much good stuff from the past, and especially international cinema, that I’d rather watch. I was recently dragged to go and see “House of Dynamite” and it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, yet it has 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie made me so angry in its stupidity. The last time I was that angry was when I saw “Vice,” another middlebrow movie considered art. Anyway, I’m glad you pissed some people off here. We need people willing to articulate their aesthetic vision and stand behind it.
It's like the situation with contemporary litfic. The NY Times or similar organ screams that a book is a masterpiece. I read the book and think: "Well that was OK, maybe even pretty good, but nothing special." And of course in literature, the weight of past accomplishments is vastly heavier than in cinema.
Once you've seen the hype machine at work, you become suspicious of any form of establishment criticism. I agree on "Vice." Dick Cheney is certainly a worthy target, but the film was just silly and sophomoric. (BTW, another stupid movie on a serious topic was "Don't Look Up.")
I never watched "Don't Look Up," probably because I was scarred after "Vice" (same director). I did like "The Big Short," but as you say, not a masterpiece, just a good, enjoyable movie. I think it was helped by explaining some financial things I didn't understand, whereas with "Vice" (and maybe Don't Look Up?) it was talking about stuff we all knew, if we paid any attention at all to politics, but acting as if there were bombshell revelations. That said, The Big Short was 10 years ago, so who knows what I would make of it now.
Re "Don't Look Up": I think if you're making a movie about the end of the world, the most effective approaches are 1) comic/absurd ("Dr. Strangelove"); 2) realistic horror ("Threads"); 3) creepy and poignant (I'm thinking of the Night Gallery episode "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes," which haunted my childhood). I suppose you could also do it in an epic, Book of Revelation kind of way, but I can't think of any examples of that.
"Don't Look Up" didn't take any of these approaches. It was a light social satire, which left me thinking that the end of the world wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Adam McKay is, in my view, an utter and complete hack. He writes/picks lazy, condescending, painfully on-the-nose scripts (all the best parts of his comedies are on-the-set improvs), he has awful casting instincts (esp Lawrence and DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up, and Carrel was a huge misfire in TBS), he shoots everything like it’s for TV (lots of flatly overlit medium shots), and his editing style favors either frenetic montages or weirdly slow dialogue scenes. Most of all I think he just has a general contempt for his audience. He think we need our hands held and our heads beaten with his dorm-room-level political ideas.
I got about half an hour and breathed a sigh of relief thinking 'thank god, it really is good, it really isn't another overhyped critic's darling...' but at the same time I found myself wishing it wouldn't *try so hard*
Indie movies are something I favor in theory, but in fact they often fall short. Such is life (and art); like everything else, they are subject to Sturgeon's Law.
I do want to put in a good word for Kelly Reichardt, whom you didn't mention; I've enjoyed several of her films. All dog lovers should see "Wendy and Lucy."
I agree with you: most "indie" films take fewer risks than great movies of the past. I disagree, though, that Eggers represents an exception to this rule insofar as he strives to make "classic" films and then does so. I found Nosferatu so painfully disappointing; it's a product of almost no ambition beyond a boringly reverential and ultimately conservative desire to recreate a historical object. I wound up editing a 30-minute version of the film that I hope highlights the daring and profound core of the project and jettisons the rest. If you're curious, you can find that here: https://kenbaumann.substack.com/p/nos
I was very happy to see *Train Dreams* in a theater. I do love that Malick lyricism when I see it. Also, you're not wrong about prettiness, sanded edges, empty conventions, risk aversion, cliché. Your review reads like one that Richard Brody might have written, in fact: you have the same distaste for films that have a horror of getting their hands dirty. Perhaps you do offer a hint or two in this direction, but it'd be interesting to read how you would have filmed a story of this kind. You're handed Johnson's novella and asked to make a film of it: give an example or two of how *Train Dreams* would have looked in your version.
"You know," she said, "the words for its tricks and the things you tell it to do."
"Just say some of the words, Glad." It was dark and he wanted to keep hearing her voice.
"Well, fetch, and come, and sit, and lay, and roll over. Whatever it knows to do, it knows the words."
In the dark he felt his daughter's eyes turned on him like a cornered brute's. It was only his thoughts tricking him, but it poured something cold down his spine. He shuddered and pulled the quilt up to his neck.
All of his life Robert Grainier was able to recall this very moment on this very night.
Such a sad, jaded review. Seems like writer showed up with this critique of the culture and tarred and feathered the moving film that got in his way. Train Dreams may not be Malick, but it’s well worth seeing.
Are we still using the word “middlebrow”? We are, I guess. Anyway, I read about half of this “review” until it was obvious that the author was just using it as an excuse to engage in snotty highbrow masturbation.
Lyricism is so over-played in indie films. It overwhelmingly comes across as phony to fit grand emotions into short, unambitious packages of ordinary characters.
Yes, I largely agree with your review of Train Dreams. I suppose I could say it was an exercise in despair for an era of despair, but not much else can be said for it. As you noted, there were more interesting characters whose stories I yearned to hear - "Dynamite Man" and "Forest Ranger Lady" - that somehow got drowned in the "toilet flush" of despair that permeated this film. Like you, I wonder about the film's intention, beyond portraying a bleak, empty life that mirrors our current bleak times.
Train Dreams was ... fine. But it was only just fine! Aggressively, middlingly ffffine. It's funny to talk about it as though it were hugely ambitious in its pretention though. I mean.. it WAS ambitious in that way! But it also barely developed any plot or characters or .. y'know.. a story about anything. In that way it was maddeningly timid and inconsequential. It was fine.
I wasn't a fan of the film either because of how it under-represented the book, gave short shrift to its humour, and reconciled the ending by changing it into a vapid, happy one. The book is tiny, only about 100 pages, and I'm surprised that the reviewer at a lit/culture mag didn't have the wherewithal to read it. Middlebrow movie, middlebrow review
It would seem that reading Denis Johnson's novella, upon which the film was based, would be a good strategy in writing an interesting review of the film...
Very few movies add narration and live to tell the tale. I haven't canceled my Netflix sub yet, nor have I seen this, but it sounds like a hard pass or DNF.
Great review, Sam. I haven’t seen the movie but don’t really watch much contemporary cinema for the reasons you mention. There’s just too much good stuff from the past, and especially international cinema, that I’d rather watch. I was recently dragged to go and see “House of Dynamite” and it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, yet it has 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie made me so angry in its stupidity. The last time I was that angry was when I saw “Vice,” another middlebrow movie considered art. Anyway, I’m glad you pissed some people off here. We need people willing to articulate their aesthetic vision and stand behind it.
It's like the situation with contemporary litfic. The NY Times or similar organ screams that a book is a masterpiece. I read the book and think: "Well that was OK, maybe even pretty good, but nothing special." And of course in literature, the weight of past accomplishments is vastly heavier than in cinema.
Once you've seen the hype machine at work, you become suspicious of any form of establishment criticism. I agree on "Vice." Dick Cheney is certainly a worthy target, but the film was just silly and sophomoric. (BTW, another stupid movie on a serious topic was "Don't Look Up.")
I never watched "Don't Look Up," probably because I was scarred after "Vice" (same director). I did like "The Big Short," but as you say, not a masterpiece, just a good, enjoyable movie. I think it was helped by explaining some financial things I didn't understand, whereas with "Vice" (and maybe Don't Look Up?) it was talking about stuff we all knew, if we paid any attention at all to politics, but acting as if there were bombshell revelations. That said, The Big Short was 10 years ago, so who knows what I would make of it now.
Re "Don't Look Up": I think if you're making a movie about the end of the world, the most effective approaches are 1) comic/absurd ("Dr. Strangelove"); 2) realistic horror ("Threads"); 3) creepy and poignant (I'm thinking of the Night Gallery episode "The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes," which haunted my childhood). I suppose you could also do it in an epic, Book of Revelation kind of way, but I can't think of any examples of that.
"Don't Look Up" didn't take any of these approaches. It was a light social satire, which left me thinking that the end of the world wasn't such a bad thing after all.
Adam McKay is, in my view, an utter and complete hack. He writes/picks lazy, condescending, painfully on-the-nose scripts (all the best parts of his comedies are on-the-set improvs), he has awful casting instincts (esp Lawrence and DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up, and Carrel was a huge misfire in TBS), he shoots everything like it’s for TV (lots of flatly overlit medium shots), and his editing style favors either frenetic montages or weirdly slow dialogue scenes. Most of all I think he just has a general contempt for his audience. He think we need our hands held and our heads beaten with his dorm-room-level political ideas.
And don't look it up either!
'The Brutalist succeeded despite its ambitions' - 100%
I got about half an hour and breathed a sigh of relief thinking 'thank god, it really is good, it really isn't another overhyped critic's darling...' but at the same time I found myself wishing it wouldn't *try so hard*
I liked the movie. But I did not demand that it carry the weight of the future of film as art on its shoulders.
Indie movies are something I favor in theory, but in fact they often fall short. Such is life (and art); like everything else, they are subject to Sturgeon's Law.
I do want to put in a good word for Kelly Reichardt, whom you didn't mention; I've enjoyed several of her films. All dog lovers should see "Wendy and Lucy."
Thank you for this, Sam.
I agree with you: most "indie" films take fewer risks than great movies of the past. I disagree, though, that Eggers represents an exception to this rule insofar as he strives to make "classic" films and then does so. I found Nosferatu so painfully disappointing; it's a product of almost no ambition beyond a boringly reverential and ultimately conservative desire to recreate a historical object. I wound up editing a 30-minute version of the film that I hope highlights the daring and profound core of the project and jettisons the rest. If you're curious, you can find that here: https://kenbaumann.substack.com/p/nos
I haven't seen "Nosferatu," but I found "The Northman" crude and offputting, with some cartoonish visual effects.
I was very happy to see *Train Dreams* in a theater. I do love that Malick lyricism when I see it. Also, you're not wrong about prettiness, sanded edges, empty conventions, risk aversion, cliché. Your review reads like one that Richard Brody might have written, in fact: you have the same distaste for films that have a horror of getting their hands dirty. Perhaps you do offer a hint or two in this direction, but it'd be interesting to read how you would have filmed a story of this kind. You're handed Johnson's novella and asked to make a film of it: give an example or two of how *Train Dreams* would have looked in your version.
"How many words, Gladys?"
"You know," she said, "the words for its tricks and the things you tell it to do."
"Just say some of the words, Glad." It was dark and he wanted to keep hearing her voice.
"Well, fetch, and come, and sit, and lay, and roll over. Whatever it knows to do, it knows the words."
In the dark he felt his daughter's eyes turned on him like a cornered brute's. It was only his thoughts tricking him, but it poured something cold down his spine. He shuddered and pulled the quilt up to his neck.
All of his life Robert Grainier was able to recall this very moment on this very night.
Such a sad, jaded review. Seems like writer showed up with this critique of the culture and tarred and feathered the moving film that got in his way. Train Dreams may not be Malick, but it’s well worth seeing.
Wow, your commenters are irritated, Mr. Jennings.
I appreciate the challenge to demand formal quality from any artistic medium. But that can't happen without viewers who know how to appreciate it.
Are we still using the word “middlebrow”? We are, I guess. Anyway, I read about half of this “review” until it was obvious that the author was just using it as an excuse to engage in snotty highbrow masturbation.
Anora vs. Klute, that's a brutal comparison and yet a very accurate one.
Lyricism is so over-played in indie films. It overwhelmingly comes across as phony to fit grand emotions into short, unambitious packages of ordinary characters.
Yes, I largely agree with your review of Train Dreams. I suppose I could say it was an exercise in despair for an era of despair, but not much else can be said for it. As you noted, there were more interesting characters whose stories I yearned to hear - "Dynamite Man" and "Forest Ranger Lady" - that somehow got drowned in the "toilet flush" of despair that permeated this film. Like you, I wonder about the film's intention, beyond portraying a bleak, empty life that mirrors our current bleak times.
Train Dreams was ... fine. But it was only just fine! Aggressively, middlingly ffffine. It's funny to talk about it as though it were hugely ambitious in its pretention though. I mean.. it WAS ambitious in that way! But it also barely developed any plot or characters or .. y'know.. a story about anything. In that way it was maddeningly timid and inconsequential. It was fine.
I wasn't a fan of the film either because of how it under-represented the book, gave short shrift to its humour, and reconciled the ending by changing it into a vapid, happy one. The book is tiny, only about 100 pages, and I'm surprised that the reviewer at a lit/culture mag didn't have the wherewithal to read it. Middlebrow movie, middlebrow review
*movie critic
It would seem that reading Denis Johnson's novella, upon which the film was based, would be a good strategy in writing an interesting review of the film...
Very few movies add narration and live to tell the tale. I haven't canceled my Netflix sub yet, nor have I seen this, but it sounds like a hard pass or DNF.