#30: I saw the big famous movies (not you, Moana)
Death By Consumption
11/26/24 - 12/2/24
Just my opinion, but I don't think Thanksgiving should be allowed to happen that late in November. You're eating turkey one minute, and suddenly it's December? No. I reject it. And then what's next, January? Death? Even worse, the emails — they just keep coming! (Am I part of the problem? No, I reject that as well.) Don't these people know that it's too late, the year is already over? Nothing any of us do in the next couple of weeks will change anything, so we should all agree to just let it all come to a screeching halt for a few weeks. Fuck it! You'd think somewhere in Project 2025 those Christian fundamentalists would have included something about giving everyone all of December off to properly celebrate the birth of Christ, but nope, can't let us have even a little fun.
Anyway, between all the eating and having psychotically strange conversations with toddler nieces and nephews all week, I managed to see both big new movies. That's nearly 6 hours of movies!
Wicked (2024) — at Marcus Cinemas Oshkosh
Disclaimers before we get started:
- I am bravely coming out as a gay man who has never seen Wicked. I wasn’t familiar with the story, I never listened to the music (but I was familiar with “Defying Gravity”; I’m not a fucking animal). I understand if this disqualifies my opinions for you.
- I saw the movie at 9am the morning after Thanksgiving. Going straight from coffee to ingesting an edible and then a 3-hour musical was a bewildering experience, one I imagine could tip a person on the verge into full psychosis. This may or may not have colored my overall opinion of the film.
Once Wicked started, it took a while for me to get used to the whole, you know, musical aspect of it. Not the singing, but more the general musical theater vibe. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone’s smiles are frighteningly big, and a character can undergo a massively important emotional shift between, like, the chorus and a verse. This is a movie in which the key emotional stakes are expressed via interpretive dance, you know? An interpretive dance that makes people sob in their movie theater seats! So for a curmudgeon, the whole thing was a real shock to the nervous system.
Once I settled in, though, I was, I will admit, charmed! Ariana Grande is a skilled comedic actress, it turns out. (Should she have played Lucille Ball in that insane movie a couple years ago where Nicole Kidman played her? Something to ponder!) And Cynthia Erivo is very talented, which explains why she gets to act like such a diva all the time. She's earned it, leave her alone! Jonathan Bailey is hot and charming, which is great because the role he is playing is “hot and charming guy" and, frankly, he knocks that shit out of the park. And Ariana’s weird Spongebob boyfriend was there too! Everyone did great in this film, although I will say that Kristin Chenoweth shows up for only a brief moment, but long enough for me to think: oh wait, I really want to see her as Glinda instead of Ariana — but that's more a me problem. Millions of people have already had that experience. I'm sorry, I didn't know about this world until right now! I'm very much listening and learning.
A lot has been made about the strangely flat cinematography, and it really was baffling. Why is everyone backlit?! I’m no cinematographer, nor do I pretend to be one like everyone likes to these days on social media, but it is such a strange choice throughout, one that’s especially frustrating because the set design is so good — remember practical sets, you guys? The design of the film... man, it felt so good to see a movie where they spent some real money. (This was especially refreshing after the early-2000s CGI floppage of Gladiator II, which we will get to.) So the film is very beautiful, but sometimes you really have to squint to be sure.
And the “to be continued” of it all — okay, sure! I’ve heard a lot of defending it that’s like, “Well, they had to let you go out on a high with ‘Defying Gravity’,” as if we haven’t been watching movies in which things keep happening after the climax for, like, a century. I promise no one would have died if the movie had continued after Cynthia sang that note that's like "AAWHAAAWHAAAAAAAA." We can handle it! And yes, there was a lot of plot, way too much for even a nearly 3 hour movie. So I get it, I do. But, really, a half-movie is a half-frustrating experience, and it’s hard to not feel like it was simply a cash grab rather than an artistic choice. That said, I’m extremely happy the absolutely psychotic Wicked press tour will continue for another year, so, sure, let’s keep it going, who cares. Can't wait to find out which of these characters are gay! (I suspect all of them?)
Gladiator II (2024) — at Marcus Cinemas Oshkosh
You may think it’s a good idea to watch Gladiator before going to see the sequel. This would be a huge mistake. And that's not just because Gladiator II starts by recapping the entire film in a very long series of strange digital paintings that feel like bad AI. It would be a mistake because it will make it obvious that Gladiator II is just Gladiator I, again, but worse.
This feels like a Hollywood sequel in the worst way — the movie tries to hit the exact same narrative beats as the first film, even when it doesn’t make sense with the story. Paul Mescal spends a lot of time being furious at [spoiler redacted], only to flip emotions in a split-second and suddenly love that character, simply because the narrative structure demands he now should fight for this person rather than against. At least when the characters in Wicked flipped their emotions on a dime, we got a little dance number about it.
And the CGI… oh boy. Was this movie made on a laptop? I knew we were in trouble when the movie starts with ships at sea in what looks like an Assassin’s Creed cutscene, but things really got dire once Paul Mescal has to fight CGI… well, I think they were supposed to be baboons, but they may have been some sort of zombie alien species. Hard to be sure. And the soundtrack! I mean, I genuinely don't know how you follow up the absolutely iconic Gladiator soundtrack, but if you're already rinsing and repeating so much of the first film, why not just bring the soundtrack back, rather than giving us a cheap imitation?
This is all to say, after ripping it apart for paragraphs: I actually enjoyed it! Just turn your brain off and go on the stupid ride. And, really, we're all mostly here for Denzel, who absolutely delivers everything you want him to. They did not advertise this as a Denzel Washington movie, but this is a Denzel movie, make no mistake. I have never seen a person enjoy wearing togas more than Denzel, who completely eats up every scene he’s in. At one point he does this thing where he, like, caresses the emperors’ thrones for some reason, and those couple seconds are more entertaining than all seven episodes of Disclaimer (I will never stop complaining about that show). Paul Mescal is also good, though his pecs kind of stole the show more than his acting talents, sorry to objectify him like that but it's true. And the two mad emperor brothers are fun, especially Caracalla, played by that weird little guy who played the freaky brother in season 1 of The White Lotus (you know the guy!).
But, look, I’m not going to go full Neil deGrasse Tyson here, but we do have to talk about the history of it all. The first Gladiator was obviously not historically accurate, most egregiously (to me, at least, and here is where I will obnoxiously state I did major in ancient history with a focus on Rome, which I know is stupid to even mention 20 years after graduation, but also it had to be done) the fact that the first film ends with the suggestion that Rome is about to become a republic again. Which, spoiler alert: never happens. I understand why they did that, for Hollywood happy ending reasons, but going into the sequel I was like… how are they going to deal with the fact that they kind of have to undo their own ending in order to start this new film? Turns out, they just didn’t address it at all! Rome is not a republic, the boy from the first one that Russell Crowe says was safe wasn’t actually safe, and Russell Crowe's character died for no reason. Moving on! Sorry about that! It’s an awkward and destabilizing way to start, having to kick the knees out from under the ending of the previous, extremely famous film — it's as if James Cameron made Titanic 2 and started it with Rose for some reason on a new sinking ship. (He actually should do that, though.)
It's this mixture of breaking from real Roman history but also breaking from the history of the first film that makes it all feel very strange and, in a way, without any stakes at all. I know Ridley Scott gets pissed at historians who criticize the accuracy of some of his films, but I think most (non-annoying) would forgive inaccuracies if they at least made sense within the context of the movie we’re watching. But when you make inaccurate choices for unclear reasons, you’re probably going to get a lot of criticism! (Okay, I did have one Neil deGrasse Tyson moment when I laughed at a man in a cafe reading a printed newspaper, 1500 years before the printing press was invented.) The plot just kind of happens, historical accuracy or characters’ emotions be damned, so you spend a lot of time with the general vibe of just: huh??
What’s most frustrating is that Roman history is extremely fascinating on its own, with plenty of plot twists and nefarious, inscrutable characters, so why the need to invent basically everything whole-cloth? Take, for example, the Year of Five Emperors, which is the absurd year that immediately follows the death of Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix's character in Gladiator). This would be a messy and complicated movie to try to plot out, but that year alone has more than enough drama to sustain a full movie — the emperor is assassinated, so another guy claims the throne, only to be assassinated by his own guards a few months later, who then auction off the throne to the highest bidder, which then starts a three-way civil war. Can we get 5 Hollywood heartthrobs on the phone to play the 5 emperors and make this movie, please?? Get me Barry Keoghan in a toga trying to kill Timotheé STAT. There is so much to mine from the history if we want movies with crazy ancient sex and homosexuality and drama and chaos, so maybe we should set the made-up Gladiator universe aside for now.
And we haven't even talked about the scene where sharks eat dudes in the Colosseum! Those sharks were so fake I expected Tara Reid to appear on screen at any moment. Gladiator II is the only SyFy Channel original movie starring Denzel Washington you'll ever get to see, and for that I guess I should be thankful.
Conclave (2024) — on Apple Movies
After tallying the votes, we sent white smoke up the chimney and declared a verdict: we simply had to watch Conclave again. This movie remains perfect, and it's just as much fun on the second go-around, especially watching with first-timers, to see them follow the same arc you went on: at the start everyone's like, "Are we really going to watch a 2-hour movie about the Pope" and 30 minutes in they're saying stuff like, "When the Pope dies should we start a fantasy draft???" Is Conclave my favorite movie of the year?