🎬 "Have you seen this chicken?"

As if 2020 wasn’t enough already: On Wednesday, the sky turned orange. On Thursday, it was a hazy, sickly yellow.

Other than bad air quality, I’m not in any immediate danger here in San Francisco; the fires roaring up and down California and across the western US are a surreal “out there” sort of threat, a reminder that climate change is disrupting all of our lives, albeit unequally. I’ve been in a depressive funk most of today (I write this newsletter on Thursday), but I can only imagine what it must be like for someone living in the fires’ path.

Once again, I feel privileged to have the luxury of escaping for hours at a time to the movies in this newsletter, of thinking about something else. But please join me in taking the time to do what we can: Register to vote, request an absentee ballot ASAP, and vote early for Joe Biden. A vote for anyone else is a vote for more orange skies.

- Eric

The Lives of Others is an excellent, tense, politically resonant drama about privacy, freedom of expression, and the potential for change.

It’s not showy in any particular way, but mesmerizing performances and a damn-near-perfect script carry it all the way. In 1984 East Germany, Ulrich Mühe plays an officer of the secret police (the Stasi) renowned for his interrogation skills, who is tasked with snooping a successful playwright, only to find himself involved in the playwright’s life in a way that no one would expect.

Every single scene here matters, and we learn just enough information to keep the stress level up and the stakes interesting. Without giving anything away, this is also one of the best “what would you do if …?” movies I’ve yet seen, offering numerous implicit invitations for the viewer to try and empathize with the film’s many well-realized characters. Highly recommended.

I watched The Lives of Others on Blu-Ray, and it’s not currently streaming anywhere, but here’s where you can rent/buy it.

A typical Woody Allen stand-in protagonist, played by Owen Wilson, goes on an especially fantastic adventure in Midnight in Paris, which I rewatched this week for the first time since it came out.

While visiting Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her family, Wilson goes out alone at night and repeatedly finds himself in the 1920s, which he imagines to be the city’s golden age. The people he meets are, almost to a person, super-duper famous and played by famous actors from our time. The surprises of who’s next are fun for first-time viewers, but on this viewing, I was less enchanted.

We’re told that Wilson loves the past and hates the present, but his feelings about the latter are badly communicated, lacking the specificity that defines Allen’s best work. Our hero never seems to have much of an issue with actual Parisians or the way they live their lives; the story would be stronger if Wilson spent more time with non-famous people in both past and present. Nevertheless, this quick, oddball film has enough great moments that I still recommend it.

Midnight in Paris is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

I’d never read a Tom Clancy novel or seen any of the movies based on his books, but I had a vague sense that a Jack Ryan story would be a balls-to-the-wall cheesy action adventure. I was pleasantly surprised to find that The Hunt for Red October is more cerebral and political than I expected.

Don’t get me wrong: There’s still a healthy serving of cheese and some odd-but-ultimately-validated casting choices. Sean Connery plays a rogue Soviet submarine commander who largely speaks English in Connery’s Scottish brogue (the film handwaves this away with an admirable audacity). A shockingly young-looking Alec Baldwin is Ryan, the CIA Analyst trying to use what he knows about Connery’s character to prevent WWIII.

I was skeptical, initially, of the decision to intercut between the American and Soviet ships throughout the hunt, but the reasons for that creative decision quickly get clearer, and I liked Baldwin’s ability to make Ryan both a believable badass and a total dork when called upon. The climactic final action scene was a little too jerkily paced for my liking, but overall, this was a very good hunt. Recommended.

I watched The Hunt for Red October on Blu-Ray, but it’s also currently streaming on fuboTV, Showtime, and Sling TV.

I liked Hustlers when it came out last year, but I didn’t fully appreciate then how good it is. I liked it even more on a second go-round this week.

The film follows Constance Wu as a young woman working at a strip club in New York City, and Jennifer Lopez (in a role that absolutely should have earned her a Best Actress nomination) as her partner in crime, as they set out to grift NYC’s worst people (finance bros).

Hustlers is written and directed by a woman, Lorene Scafaria, which I call out only because it’s immediately evident that this is not a movie about strippers that will be defined by the “male gaze.” Scafaria, in extended homage to Martin Scorsese, constructs here a sympathetic crime drama with charming, believable characters and several surprisingly heartwarming scenes between JLo and Wu.

I also loved the perfect needle-drop-driven soundtrack, which situates every scene in time as the story progresses from 2007 to 2014. Recommended. 

I watched Hustlers on Showtime, but it’s also currently streaming on fuboTV.

Ice Age is one of the first movies I remember seeing in theaters as a kid and concluding, “I didn’t like that.”

For most of my childhood, I saw anything and liked everything, because children are stupid and more easily impressed than adults; this leads to a glut of family-friendly entertainment where the creators don’t try as hard as they could — an apt descriptor for this movie.

The premise is promising enough: Three mammals and a baby have to travel some long distance to reunite the human kid with its family, and along the way they all learn more about each other. But the whole script reeks of “punch up” notes from the studio, because their progress is frequently interrupted for dull slapstick and poop jokes.

There are, eventually, some surprisingly touching scenes that hint at this film’s possible Pixar-esque aspirations, but the characters don’t really earn those moments. Skip it.

I watched Ice Age on Vudu, but it’s currently streaming on Starz and DirecTV.

I will always have a place in my nostalgia-ridden heart for Wallace and Gromit, and particularly for The Wrong Trousers, their second and favorite-by-popular-consensus adventure.

Clocking in at only 31 minutes, it’s more of a short film than a movie, but I decided to highlight it here because it’s my newsletter and I make the rules. Also, owing in large part to the time-consuming nature of stop-motion animation, The Wrong Trousers checks all the right boxes for me: It’s packed with funny details, there’s not a wasted moment, and the creativity is off the charts.

I’m resisting the urge to talk about the story because it’s a simple little tale that’s fun to see with fresh eyes. Just go watch it. Recommended.

The Wrong Trousers (and the other original Wallace and Gromit shorts) are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Because I watched it about 10 times when I was younger, I knew The Incredibles was good — but I had forgotten just how good it is.

This would be a top-5 Pixar movie if the studio hadn’t churned out so many other masterpieces (my 5: Inside Out, WALL-E, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, Coco). Like all of those films, The Incredibles is propelled by a clever script and winning set of characters, with the added spice of some surprisingly good action scenes — a first for the studio.

It’s hard to remember back to 2004, when we only had a couple superhero movies every year at most, but it’s to writer/director Brad Bird’s credit that this film still holds up now, dozens of spandex spectacles later. I also have to shout out Michael Giacchino’s instantly-recognizable score, a brassy homage to James Bond and other 1960s spy films. I’d watch this movie with all the dialogue and sound effects muted — the score and visuals alone would be enough. Recommended.

The Incredibles is currently streaming on Disney+.

The action scenes in The Incredibles 2 are even better than the first film’s, and it’s immediately noticeable how much better animation got in the 14 years between the two movies.

For the most part, the characters we knew and loved in the original are back in good form, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that there’s something a bit … off about their chemistry. The central conflicts don’t criss-cross in this movie as much as they did in the Incredibles, making the story feel more like a very long (but very good) TV episode with an “A” plot, a “B” plot, and so on.

Conceptually, though, there’s a lot to like about this sequel: The villain(s) are intriguing, the new characters are fun (albeit distractingly weird), and we get several great scenes with the best character in the Pixar canon, Edna Mode. Recommended.

The Incredibles 2 is currently streaming on Disney+.

(new additions in bold)