🎬 "That's politics ... I think."

This was the first week since early July in which I didn’t watch at least six movies … only five! I must be slipping.

Also: Yesterday was my birthday! In lieu of presents, I’m asking everyone reading this to do one thing for me: Go to your favorite social media app and tell your friends there to go to bit.ly/ESJmovies and subscribe to this newsletter! Or if you don’t use social media, then just tell someone you know IRL to sign up.

Thanks! <3

The Godfather is beautiful movie about ugly truths. No matter how civil or patriotic or reasonable or nice someone may seem, there is in each of us the potential for cruelty, violence, betrayal — in a word, corruption.

Francis Ford Coppola‘s masterpiece, a crime epic with one of the best casts ever assembled — including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and James Caan — is practically perfect in every scene. It runs three hours long but feels much shorter because the pacing is just right, an editing miracle.

Some of you who have been reading for a while may be wondering, didn’t I review this movie in the newsletter already? If you thought that, you’d be right. Back in September 2019, I mused that film-making is like the boisterous wedding that opens the film: It requires people to come together en masse, and The Godfather, I wrote then, is “an incredible unification of creative professionals at the top of their game.” What a movie! Recommended, of course.

I watched The Godfather on Blu-Ray, but it’s currently streaming on fuboTV.

There’s so much I want to like about (500) Days of Summer.

In concept, this Annie Hall-esque deconstruction of romantic comedies is exactly my sort of movie, and I think its intentions were good, but it only half works for me.

As in the Woody Allen film that clearly inspired it, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays an unlikable obsessive jerk in love. The big difference, though, is that while Annie Hall satirizes Allen’s lifestyle and invites the audience to dislike Alvy Singer, (500) Days of Summer takes the side of Gordon-Levitt’s adorkable character Tom 9 times out of 10.

Zooey Deschanel‘s character Summer, meanwhile, is painted as a heartbreaker, and the film doesn’t give her enough of a chance to rebut that characterization. Summer is supposed to be a parody of the “manic pixie dream girl,” but in my view the movie becomes what it is trying to mock rather than transcending the trope. Summer’s nuances are buried under layers of style, which this movie has in abundance.

About that style: I love the soundtrack and the many creative sequences, even if they complicate my feelings about the movie overall. My favorite scene in the whole movie is the exquisite “Expectations vs. Reality” sequence, and that is but one of the reasons that, despite my misgivings, I’d still recommend that people see (500) Days of Summer. If nothing else, you’ll walk away ready to have a good conversation.

I watched (500) Days of Summer on DVD, but it’s currently streaming on Starz and DirecTV.

All I really knew about The Hidden Fortress going in was that it had influenced a young George Lucas while he was in film school. The parallels with Star Wars are easy to spot: An epic war seen through the eyes of two nobodies, a headstrong princess on the run, a mysterious older general, and — my favorite catch — frequent “wipe” transitions that I have long thought of as peculiar to Lucas.

Separating his work from this one, however, I still found The Hidden Fortress to be a very enjoyable ride. Director Akira Kurosawa executes some set pieces that would be impressive by today’s standards, much less 1958’s, and the tense showdown between the general and a former foe indisputably belongs in the fight scene hall of fame.

I didn’t care as much for the theatrical acting, which involves a lot of grating voices and shouted lines that didn’t need to be shouted, but eventually I settled into the movie’s rhythm and stopped noticing those habits so much. Recommended.

I watched The Hidden Fortress on Blu-Ray, but it’s currently streaming on Kanopy, HBO Max, and the Criterion Channel.

High Anxiety has its moments, but it’s the weakest Mel Brooks film I’ve seen to date.

An extended parody of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, and liberally borrowing plot points from Vertigo and Spellbound in particular, it stars Brooks as a psychiatrist who gets wrapped up in a murderous plot that entails mistaken identities, swarms of birds, sudden orchestral stings, and of course a climactic showdown in a vertigo-inducing place.

The gags miss more often than they hit, unfortunately, but the standout scenes come thanks to frequent Brooks collaborator Madeline Kahn, seen here warming up for her later scene-stealing turn as Mrs. White in Clue. Another pal, Harvey Korman, is here and always fun to watch, and I admire Brooks’ commitment to the bit. All that being said, I can’t recommend that most people — except maybe Brooks/Hitch obsessives — spend the time to watch this one.

I watched High Anxiety on Blu-Ray, but it’s currently streaming on Starz and DirecTV.

OK. Wow. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes terrifying, and always compelling, Boys State is the best new movie I’ve seen all year.

It’s a documentary about a decades-old annual summer camp where more than a thousand Texas boys are divided into two political parties and have a long, sleep-deprived week to hammer out political platforms, run campaigns, and vote for their leaders.

It’s all a game (the winners don’t actually do anything, as an early scene makes clear) but the kids take it seriously, and so do the filmmakers. I loved this movie in large part because it discreetly keys into the ridiculous moments that reflect our political reality. Each of the main characters is fascinating in his own way, and each is given a chance to articulate what he stands for — or, at least, what he’s pretending to stand for in order to win more votes.

My only criticism of the film is that it appears to be an exclusive to Apple TV+, which is one of the less talked-about streaming services. I hope that Apple eventually makes this movie free for non-subscribers to watch, or allows it on other platforms, to encourage more people to watch it. Highly recommended.

Boys State is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

(new additions in bold)