Rewatched in preparation for an onstage conversation with RaMell Ross, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Jomo Fray as part of The Ankler’s new series with Letterboxd (yay!)
The first time I saw this, the scene where Ellis-Taylor’s Hattie visits Nickel and hugs the camera, which is the perspective of Elwood, I got tripped up thinking about the logistics of an actor hugging a camera operator. The second time I saw it, the scene ripped me open.
This is a movie that will grow and stick with you, especially if you read interviews with any of these three (there are many of them!) We will be talking about this one as long as there are movies.
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When I am done with this Minnelli viewing experience I’m going to rank his movies by the preposterousness of their plots and this one is going to be really high up there.
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I am famously not a fan of drug movies but I famously AM a fan of “getting the band together” movies which really tipped the scales here. The three lead performances from the actual band members are their own little miracles but man is it good to see Michael Fassbender going full scuzzball again. Bobby Sandals forever.
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The whole time I was thinking "That can't be Marion Cotillard, there's no reason for Marion Cotillard to be in this tiny role with no identifying characteristics whatsoever" and would you believe it, it's Marion Cotillard
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The running joke about the dancer who can’t stop pirouetting at parties but also has a football player son in Maine is basically the 50s version of the 30 Rock Reunion episode “I’m so mad all I can do is dance!” PLUS it culminates in a gloriously silly dance fight, released basically at the exact same time West Side Story debuted on Broadway. What a time to be alive.
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Vincente Minnelli using glorious sets to back up musical numbers is one thing, but Vincente Minnelli using glorious sets to express DEEP LONGING AND REPRESSION is a whole other ballgame.
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Somehow Kirk Douglas’s blindingly white teeth don’t quite sell “Van Gogh in the midst of a nervous breakdown”
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My father in law watched this while I did a puzzle, ideal rewatch circumstances.
It’s way more stylish than my memory gave it credit for and the score, frankly, rocks. The extremely quiet ending might make it too easy to forget how much of this is A+ DRAMA
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The face Chalamet’s Dylan makes while playing electric for the furious Newport crowd is the exact face my child makes when looking me in the eye and doing exactly what I just asked him not to do (complimentary).
Watched this a second time with my Boomer father in law, an absolute home run obviously.
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On top of everything else (and this movie really does have everything) it’s one of the most romantic movies ever made. George Bailey lassos the moon indeed.
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Actually a perfect movie. Bob Newhart and Ed Asner are a whole thing obviously, but the time given for random lines for Amy Sedaris (“Oh I don’t know, I’ve never declawed cats before… Eight??”) and Matt Walsh (“your eyes tell the story”) make it truly elite.
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If I were told I could write “Highway 61 Revisited” but that it would hurt the feelings of Pete Seeger, the nicest man alive… I think I’d keep that siren whistle in my pocket.
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The drama of this movie revolves mostly around choosing new drapes for a mental institution, which sounds petty but is exactly the kind of tiny dramas that explode in real life. You could remake this movie at a modern HOA meeting… but you couldn’t get a young Lauren Bacall alongside an older Lillian Gish so really what would be the point.
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I’ve spent the past 34 years with a clear mental image of that lady’s shoebox full of earrings… dangly ones…
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A movie that ends with someone rocking out while listening to headphones is always gonna win me over, especially when it’s done this beautifully.
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What a terrific movie! A grimy and darkly funny New York that Scorsese would be proud of, plus Sebastian Stan joining the pantheon of actors whose best work started once they outgrew youthful beauty and learned to play against it.
Renate Reinsve’s second act wig may truly be the only thing keeping this from 5 stars for me.
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Has everything 90s movies couldn’t get enough of: divorced dads and psychiatrist jokes.
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To my absolute delight, it’s a Christmas movie
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The subpar songs really aren’t so much the problem as the dogged insistence on repeating the first movie, from the beat-for-beat plot to references to even the most basic Moana lines like “the ocean is a friend of mine.” And the “boat snack upgrade” joke that my kids loved so much in the trailer is thrown in at the very end as an afterthought, why??
The Rock’s song is the worst but it’s not his fault, and thanks to him I have the perfect word to describe the newbies on the boat I did not care about: they are jabronis through and through.
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It had me by the end— I mean, of course it did— but mostly this was great performances and beautiful production design filmed in the most ugly, flat way possible. Not even enough of the very good dancing!
Also I’ve never seen the show — does it also introduce an extremely important book that’s key to the entire story after like 2 full hours?
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I feel as strongly about my kids knowing this as some people do the Bible: it’s essential for knowing how the world works.
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The kids loved the new Wallace & Gromit so much we dove immediately into this one, a first-time watch for all of us and yet another instant classic.
Ralph Fiennes perfecting the art of the “classy British actor going over the top in a cozy family movie” Paddington villain years before it was even invented.
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A Wallace & Gromit critique of AI and disruptive tech sounds like a terrible idea but it’s in fact so delightful
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This review may contain spoilers.
Second viewing before moderating a conversation with Brady Corbet and Daniel Blumberg, which ranged from the time Brady fell asleep on Daniel’s bed during pre-production to how a piano filled with screws made the score’s ticking clock beat.
The movie clicked even more into place for me on a second viewing, particularly the slower, sadder pace of the second act. I thought a lot of this time about the movie’s depiction of sex and power and how they overlap— it’s a bunch of love triangles that are actually just struggles for control. Even the heroin parts— my least favorite part of any movie! — made more sense this time.
You know who might be the stealth MVP of this movie? Joe Alwyn!
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Revisited and ready — eager, even! — to throw down the full five stars. A movie about absolutely everything and making it look easy.
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Got to show this to the kids at last, who were exactly as engaged and sometimes scared as I hoped. They have a lot of questions about why things happen in the movie that it very deliberately doesn’t answer, but I think they enjoyed their first experience of a film that is never going to explain itself to them. The mystery of cinema! For kids!
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Something about these rocky ass beaches makes people incapable of having proper relationships or real human emotions.
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The day before an election is actually the perfect time to watch an extremely silly movie about people who get to sleep for 100 years!
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Denzel Washington, accept no substitute.
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A terrific third act that tells the part of inspirational sports dramas that most movies leave out: what happens after the gold medal. Only other movie I can think of that even nods to that is… wait for it… the one the only…. Foxcatcher, baby.
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It is really something to see a movie inventing its own rules of cinema as you watch it.
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John Magaro and his giant 70s glasses, forever and ever.
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Honestly baffled that so many people I love and respect are indifferent to this movie, I was bowled over by it. Mother and son cinema at its finest.
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Watched on Thursday October 17, 2024.
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Watched on Saturday September 9, 2023.
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Call me crazy but in this extremely silly movie Minnelli is really on a roll, directing the absolute hell out of those comic set pieces. I love every part in his movies when a cacophonous group of real-seeming people just takes over the screen for a while, like in the impromptu housewarming party in this one. (see also: the wedding rehearsal in Father of the Bride, the dance hall in Cabin in the Sky)
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Extremely entertaining given that it contains almost zero conflict, and makes a surprisingly succinct case for the Lego gimmick that actually holds up for the entire run time.
Lego Gwen Stefani has abs, it feels important to share this.
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Is it ok to think Cyd Charisse is a phenomenal dancer but, uh, not a movie star? Or do we all just know this because the undeniable best scene in this, “Dancing in the Dark,” is entirely silent?
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Maybe the best joke in the movie is that it’s structured like a film noir, starting at the end with Spencer Tracy surveying the wreckage of his life and explaining via voiceover how things got to that point. The fact that Joan Bennett had started in a string of noirs makes it even funnier.
It’s hard to see Minnelli the stylist in this, except for the very funny rehearsal scene in the church— chaos via choreography.
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Beautifully done and also SO SAD
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Actually more coherent than I expected, and very clear in the purpose the musical numbers serve in the (extremely limited) narrative. But it sure would help if the musical numbers were well done— do they know fantasy musical numbers can happen somewhere other than an empty black box? — or if the plot was anything at all.
You know there’s a time-tested way to tell audiences that the Joker is Bad, Actually, and that’s if you put Batman in your movie. Did anyone ever think of that?
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An extremely important movie to me as a teenager that can feel understandably repulsive to modern eyes in some moments. But if you don’t laugh when Denise Richards glides across the stage with a wheeled cross I just don’t know what to do with you.
For all the excellence of the cast, the actress who plays dance teacher Chloris Klinghagen is my personal queen.
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Bob Hoskins giving one of the all time great performances, full stop.
Much like a real film noir I have never fully grasped the plot of this, nor have I ever cared.
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Essential viewing for understanding what Singin’ in the Rain is making fun of.
Gene Kelly’s thighs have NOT been oversold by other reviews here, but honestly the little mustache does a lot of work too.
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Imagine Rebecca but instead of the dead wife you become obsessed with your distractingly hot brother in law played by Robert Mitchum. You haven’t even met him but somehow the mere concept of Robert Mitchum being nearby is enough to wreck a marriage.
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Black Swan but make it aerobics.
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Stunning! You can imagine a young Martin Scorsese watching the scene with the truck driver listening to lonely late-night radio and building his entire cinematic vision of New York around it.
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I was hoping for a bit more meat on the bone but it’s very charming and well acted. Percy Hynes White’s long hair was my platonic ideal of a boy when I was in middle school, so actually pretty thematically on point.
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With all due respect to Olivia Newton John going “bad” at the end of Grease, Ethel Waters did it first and did it better. “I suddenly feel a musical urge” indeed!
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Apparently Bette Davis did not like this movie and blamed her CHILD ACTOR co-star for why it didn’t work. She’s not wrong but also look, a movie that’s against book banning somehow never goes out of style.
]]>A work in progress and not ranked, come on, I’m not there yet.
- Anora
- Challengers
- Thelma
- The Brutalist
- Daughters
- Sugarcane
- Good One
- I’m Still Here
- Hard Truths
- His Three Daughters
...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>- The Apartment
It really is possible to fall in love and play a game of cards in this cynical, broken world.
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- No
- WALL·E
- Arrival
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Apollo 13
- Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
- The Sound of Music
- It's a Wonderful Life
...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>These are the movies I saw at TIFF
- Flow
- Bird
- Daniela Forever
- The Apprentice
- On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
- Vice Is Broke
- The Life of Chuck
- Hard Truths
- We Live in Time
- Relay
...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
]]>Possibly my actual favorite genre. Accepting suggestions.
]]>I watched all of his theatrical releases— plus Bob Dylan: No Direction Home to make it an even 30– for the Screen Drafts Scorsese Month. May as well rank ‘em.
- The Wolf of Wall Street
Ask me another day and this slot goes to Goodfellas or The Age of Innocence
- GoodFellas
Ask me another day and this slot goes to The Wolf of Wall Street or The Age of Innocence
- The Age of Innocence
Ask me another day and this slot goes to The Wolf of Wall Street or Goodfellas
- Mean Streets
Astonishing to see De Niro give birth to not just an unrivaled collaboration with Scorsese, but an enduring Scorsese type: the guy who can’t help but cause trouble for himself and everyone around him but is constantly seeking redemption.
- Taxi Driver
I don’t love it the way so many do but it is so sui generis and THEN so influential that it’s undeniable
- The Departed
People who think this is bottom tier Scorsese don’t deserve to have fun at the movies
- The Irishman
I can’t deny it’s indulgent but it’s a colossal work, and with 4-5 performances that belong in the Scorsese hall of fame. Never put a fish in your car!
- Gangs of New York
Flawed masterpiece! The final shot is an absolute stunner
- Killers of the Flower Moon
Feels weird to have this so close on the list next to Gangs since they share so much DNA but what can you do
- Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
One of the most thrilling discoveries of this project. It’s such a warm, funny, surprising movie, obviously a work for hire job but with so much evidence of Scorsese’s skill for world building and directing actors. Obviously a movie about a mom and her son is gonna strike me to the core.
...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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- Perfect Days
- Anatomy of a Fall
- The Holdovers
- Sing Sing
- Hit Man
- His Three Daughters
- American Fiction
- The Zone of Interest
- The Teachers' Lounge
- The Boy and the Heron
...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.
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