The Notebook - My Wife’s DVDs

This is the kind of movie my wife had in mind when I started doing this. The fact that I have never seen The Notebook has come up a few times, so I finally broke down and watched it. I thought it was fine, but it’s just not my type of movie, which is why I never watched it to begin with. Not to be a basic bitch dude, but I just don’t find love stories all that interesting. At least, movies that are only about love stories; I need something extra in there. Bram Stoker’s Dracula comes to mind. That movie is essentially a love story, but there are vampires and blood and in-camera special effects, and it just looks cool. The Notebook has very little going on beyond the central relationship and one of the strongest attempts to make an audience cry that I can remember (for the record, I didn’t cry; more on that in Random Thoughts). Still, there are some crazy elements to The Notebook, and all of it happens in five minutes.

A Wild Five Minutes

For The Notebook to fill out a full running time, it’s essential to break Gosling and McAdams up for most of the film. It’s set up that her family thinks he’s trash, and things fall apart when they whisk her away back home, leaving Gosling heartbroken. Gosling decides to write her a letter a day for a year to see if she truly loves him. McAdams’s mother intercepts all these letters, leading Gosling to believe it’s over and time to move on (more on that in Random Thoughts). This starts off a crazy five minutes of story.

It starts with Fin (E from Entourage) messing things up between McAdams and Gosling for no reason. McAdams comes by the lumber yard while Gosling is off on a job somewhere, so she talks to Fin. Fin inexplicably tells her it’s over, and she just needs to leave Gosling alone. Why does he say this? McAdams reluctantly leaves, and Fin tells Gosling what happened, leading Gosling to drive off to find McAdams, but he’s too late. Clearly Gosling was not over McAdams, so why did Fin tell her this? 

I got vibes from Fin that he actually had feelings for McAdams the whole time to the point that I expected Fin to play a bigger part in the relationship later on. That ended up not being the case, but am I crazy for thinking this? Either way, it was a dick move to tell McAdams that Gosling was done with her.

So Gosling writes the letters, thinks they are ignored, and decides to move on. He and Fin move to Atlanta, but then America enters WWII. They both enlist, and Fin dies in battle (that’s what you get for cock-blocking your best friend!). McAdams becomes a nurse and meets her future fiance (and future cuck) James Marsden.

This all happens in five minutes of running time. I get that the movie has to keep things moving, but it seems like a little more time could have been spent during the war or something. I would’ve liked this a lot more if there had been a moment between Fin and Gosling with Gosling becoming angry with Fin for the McAdams stuff. While angry with each other, Fin could die, leaving Gosling feeling guilty for not patching things up with Fin before he died. This would also make Gosling’s transformation into a crazy person later make a little more sense. 

I didn’t expect to come away from this movie being more interested in what was going on with Fin, but this five minute segment just brought up so many questions for me. Perhaps that’s my biggest problem with The Notebook: I’m so uninterested in Gosling and McAdams’s relationship that I find E from Entourage more interesting. 

Why My Wife Likes It

First off, I think all women were legally required to like this when it came out twenty years ago (feel old?). Beside that, she said she liked how direct Gosling was with McAdams. Sure, he threatened to kill himself for a first date, which is a bit of a red flag. But it was clear where he stood. I did argue a bit with this because I think a direct move would have been to actually go to McAdams’s house in Charleston instead of writing a letter every day like a romantic lunatic.

Random Thoughts

So about the crying. The reveal that the old couple was Gosling and McAdams’s characters was pretty predictable. Her suffering from dementia is definitely heartbreaking, but somehow it didn’t get to me enough to produce tears. And I’m a guy who cries like a baby at movies now that I have kids (at least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m reduced to a blubbering mess after watching Coco or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Speaking of Button, that’s another love story that has more interesting things going on. Anyway, this ending is extremely depressing with her breakthrough followed by her immediate regression. And just thinking about a lifelong relationship ending this way is heartbreaking. Them dying in each other’s arms is sad, too, but also a nice ending since she does seem to remember again right before they die. I can see why this brings the tears, but I just didn’t connect to the characters enough for it to get to me. Part of it might be the casting; I just don’t buy that Ryan Gosling becomes James Garner. I almost wish they had just used old age makeup on Gosling and McAdams or something, but I guess that would ruin the “surprise” of who the characters are even though I think everyone knows immediately who they are, but whatever. Anyway, I appreciate the effort to make people cry, but this is the rare occurrence of it not working on me.

The letter writing stuff just doesn’t work for me. First off, throughout an entire year, Gosling never thought to just make a trip to Charleston to see why she wasn’t responding? It’s not like she was moved to a hidden location; he literally had her address. I just wish there was some reason given for him not being able to make a trip to Charleston, especially since he has no problem going there later in the movie to get building plans approved. Are building plans more important than the love of your life? And how did the mom keep 365 letters away from McAdams? McAdams didn’t get the mail one single time in a year? Was her mom just waiting out there every single day? Look, I know I’m nitpicking here, but this should have been addressed in the movie. I just think the writer loved the romantic idea of someone writing a letter every day for a year and didn’t think about the logistics of it. Just like with the Fin thing, this wouldn’t bother me if I was more invested in the main relationship of the movie. But I wasn’t, so I focus on nitpicky things like this.

The foundation for any good relationship: threatening to kill yourself for a date and lying in front of traffic.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to hate her dad. I mean, he's wearing a smoking jacket like an asshole, and he has the mustache of the dude who ties ladies to train tracks in old timey movies, but I just don't know if this is a bad rich man.

So you can go to Charleston to get building plans approved but not to see why the love of your life hasn't responded to 365 letters?

And you just knew Noah was sad and troubled because he grew a drama beard.

Dudes don't like this movie because of the unrealistic expectations it creates for a man: “Why can't you be impossibly handsome, fight in WWII, rebuild a plantation mansion by yourself, and turn into James Garner and read to me until I die of dementia?”

What a strange niche part James Marsden has perfected with this and Cyclops: decent guy who doesn’t deserve to be cheated on but the audience is okay with him being cheated on.

Oppenheimer - "Can You Hear the Music?"

 

“Can You Hear the Music?”

I am an admitted Nolan fanboy (Tenet was my favorite film the year it came out), so I was extremely excited to see Oppenheimer this past July. After leaving the theater, I appreciated how great it was (the acting, music, sense of scope, etc.), but I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I had the same reaction to Dunkirk (which I need to rewatch, since I like this film more each time I see it). I just thought that I preferred Nolan when he stays in the fully fictional world; his true stories were too limited by history. 

A few months later, I was able to watch it again at home, and again, and again…I’ve watched it eight times now. Initially, I only watched it a second time because it’s Nolan, and seemingly everyone had declared the film a masterpiece. I just wanted to see if what I missed would suddenly click. And it did.

My relationship with this movie is best summed up by the scene between Niels Bohr and Oppenheimer early in the film. He asks how good Robert’s mathematics skills are, and when he hears they aren’t great, he says, “Algebra’s like sheet music. The important thing isn’t, “Can you read music?’ It’s ‘Can you hear it?’ Can you hear the music, Robert?”

This perfectly sums up what I have loved about Nolan’s past two films. I will never understand the science behind what’s going on onscreen, but I love the feeling and experience created in the films. Nolan has caught shit for his sound mixes being so loud that dialogue cannot be understood, but that’s the point. Hearing specific details about how inversion works in Tenet or quantum physics works in Oppenheimer would be completely wasted on my dumbass. But an amazing score set to riveting visuals I can understand and enjoy. I can hear that music.

Speaking literally about music, this is something else that has been vital in his past two films (although almost all of his work features prominent scores). Tenet utilized a complex score that incorporated backwards music, and helped set the tone for a grand, serious story about saving the world. Likewise, Oppenheimer’s score is equally complex (in ways that I don’t completely understand due to my lack of musical knowledge) in how it shifts seamlessly from important moments of history to foreboding tones of what this work will lead to while also featuring softer moments of the human relationships established throughout. The cliché is that a score should be enjoyed but not noticed, but with Ludwig Göransson’s Tenet and Oppenheimer scores, it is clear that the score can be an integral and noticeable aspect of a great film. Hans Zimmer may have made Nolan’s most famous (and copied) scores, but Göransson has made the best and most complementary ones. 

With Tenet and Oppenheimer, my first viewings left me a bit confused and not exactly blown away, but thanks to Nolan’s reputation and visuals along with an interesting score, I knew I needed to revisit these films. Because of this, my appreciation of both films only grows with each new viewing. And this has led to Oppenheimer becoming the most watched film for me in Nolan’s filmography. I don’t fully understand what’s going on here, but I can hear the music, and that’s all that matters.

Small Moments in a Big Film

While Oppenheimer is this big film essentially about the end of the world filled with huge moments and lengthy and dense dialogue scenes, it’s a film filled with little moments that I love that bring me back to the movie again and again. I just wanted to mention them here.

First is the “Can you hear the music?” scene I went into detail about above. I have nothing to add there aside from that I’ve seen a YouTube clip of this scene posted by someone at a screening that featured a full orchestra performing the score live, and I am extremely jealous.

The introduction of Groves is great. Damon isn’t getting enough credit for his performance here, providing some drastically needed humor to this serious film. And I love it when he sends Dane DeHaan off to dry clean his jacket.

This is also the first time you hear the theme that plays signifying the friendship developed here that reappears a couple more times later on.

I was worried about Einstein being in this movie at first because he’s become more of a character than an actual human at this point in history, but the scene in which Oppenheimer tells him about the possibility of igniting the atmosphere put my fears to rest.

Casey Affleck showing up to be a creepy bastard.

The way the score starts to incorporate Geiger counter noises as they get closer to completing the bomb…er…gadget.

The Trinity test, of course.

The crux of the film, and the most effective individual moment, for me is Oppenheimer’s speech after the bomb had been dropped. The sound design of this moment puts you right into Oppenheimer’s mind as he wrestles with this celebration of death he feels responsible for, but the standout moment is when a scream is isolated from the cheering crowd. Within a jubilant, patriotic assembly, such a scream would just blend in; but isolated from it, it sounds more like someone’s response to witnessing a nuclear weapon destroy the world around them. I get chills every time I watch this scene, and I’m getting them as I write about it.

Truman calling Oppenheimer a cry baby.

Oppenheimer snubbing Strauss’s loser son and fiancée. 

Matthew Modine’s righteous anger at the closed hearing: “Excuse me, gentlemen, if I become stirred. But I am.”

Oppenheimer realizing Groves had Pash transferred.

Groves’s nod to Oppenheimer as he leaves the hearing. And, “But I don’t think I’d clear any of those guys,” and Jason Clarke’s dickhead smile in response.

Emily Blunt’s takedown of Clarke: “‘Cause I don’t like your phrase.”

Downey, Jr.’s angry meltdown at the end, during which they should have just had young Han Solo hand him an Oscar.

Emily Blunt’s response to Teller’s attempted handshake.

The final scene revealing the conversation with Einstein, and that perfect ending moment, conveying the guilt Oppenheimer will carry with him for the rest of his life.

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes

As a lifelong resident of Indiana who grew up playing basketball, it’s hard to associate the sound of people stomping on gym bleachers in a negative connotation.

With each rewatch, I enjoy the old man (John Gowans, who was first credited as an old man in 2003) in the hearing more and more. It’s great when he laughs along with Emily Blunt, but his best moment is when Oppenheimer tells them that Berkeley only had the leading physics department once he had built it, and the old dude nods like, “That’s right, motherfuckers.”

It’s nice watching young Han Solo and old Iron Man be slight dicks to each other for the whole movie while Jeff from American Dad! just kind of hangs out, eating soup and whatnot.

The same dude who brought Michael Myers his mask in Halloween (2018) is the same dude who suggests treason to Oppenheimer. This fucker needs to just leave people alone.

Oppenheimer putting on his high-waisted pants and dorky hat and grabbing his pipe is treated with the same reverence as the first time Batman puts on the Batsuit.

James Urbaniak was brought in to say one line about trees with a German accent.

Before his standout moment near the end in his testimony at the hearing, Oscar-winner Rami Malek’s main role is to have writing implements taken or smacked away by Oppenheimer.

Dane DeHaan has aged to become the perfect wormy guy in a movie.

It took me eight watches of this to finally notice that someone was playing the bongos two different times at Los Alamos: at the Christmas party/Niels Bohr surprise and after the Trinity test. With very little research, I found out it was Richard Feynman, and he really did play the bongos.

“Birth control is a little out of my jurisdiction, General.”

Groves, seeing a pregnant Kitty: “Clearly.”

“I worry about an America where we do these things and no one protests.”

The isolated scream during the pep rally speech gives me chills every time.

“You shook his fucking hand?” Why did he tell her that he shook his hand?

“...but I don’t think I’d clear any of those guys.”

The score takes on a softer tone when Groves leaves the hearing and gives Oppenheimer a nod. It’s the little moments like that that stick with me.

In fact, that part is actually a little theme that plays during another moment when Oppenheimer realizes that Groves had Pash transferred. It’s the “Groves was really my friend” theme.

“Only a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else’s relationship.”

I now believe that Lewis Strauss was behind the JFK assassination.

Emily Blunt deserves a nomination just for that look she gives Teller when he goes to shake her hand.

Top Ten of 2023

This year started slow for me. Up until July, my favorite movie of the year was Dungeons and Dragons. Nothing against that movie (it’s still in my top ten), but I was getting worried about how I was going to fill up a list of ten. But then all the heavy hitters started coming out, and I could have easily made this a top twenty, which I kind of did by including ten honorable mentions. Aside from the top two films, I could see this list being completely different every time I write it, so this is just what it is today. There’s something about all of these movies that I loved, and I thought this was one of the better years for film in recent memory. As always, I want to remind the twenty or so people who read this that these are my favorite films of the year, not the “best” films. Finally, there were a few movies I wanted to watch that I didn’t get to yet, but I can’t put off this list any longer. They are: Godzilla Minus One, Saw X (I will get to this one and update my rankings for the whole franchise, too), and Thanksgiving. There’s a ton of stuff I didn’t watch, but these three are the ones that I felt could possibly make my list. 

Oh, and I’ve done this differently from year to year, but the last few I’ve been starting with the number one film and working down from there. I think most people do more of a countdown style, but I don’t for whatever reason. Anyway, here you go:

1. Poor Things

I’ve already written a full review of this, so I’ll just add this: every year there’s a movie that is seemingly universally beloved that doesn’t click with me. Some stuff just isn’t for me, no matter how well made it is. That’s nothing special. What is special is when something like Poor Things comes out, because it’s one of those movies that I immediately love so much that I simply cannot understand how literally every one who sees it doesn’t think it’s the best film of the year. Normally, I come away from a film I love thinking, “Well, I liked it a lot, but I’m a weirdo.” With this one, I think you’re the weirdo if you don’t love this movie. 

2. Oppenheimer

I wasn’t crazy about this the first time I watched it. I knew it was good, but it didn’t click with me. I thought it was like Dunkirk for me, a movie I know is good, but I didn’t love. Then I watched Oppenheimer five more times. The acting, the structure, the mood, the music, it all just came together for me. It’s like when Niels Bohr asks Oppenheimer if he can “hear the music.” At first I couldn’t, but now I’m hearing it, in typical Nolan too loud fashion. In any other year, this is my number one, but the sheer joy I get from watching Poor Things changed that. Still, this is a movie I love, and maybe after watching it four or five more times I’ll feel prepared enough to write a full article about it.

3. Killers of the Flower Moon

It’s Scorsese, and it’s a big sweeping story about horrible things people do in the name of greed. Of course, I’m going to love this movie. And I’m really enjoying this later stage in his career in which he makes sure no one can claim he’s glorifying any of the terrible behavior of the criminals in his films. These are horrible people and are presented as such. What made this stick with me long after watching it was how successfully Scorsese was able to show how these people didn’t even consider the Osage as fellow humans. This is a terrible moment in history, and Scorsese presents it as such.

4. The Zone of Interest

No other movie on my list has stuck with me after a single watch as much as The Zone of Interest has. Initially, I thought the idea of the movie was more effective than the movie itself, but that’s not true because it stuck with me so strongly. It’s not a movie that I would typically want to watch again, but I feel like I have to because it keeps popping up in my mind, and I feel the need to watch it again. Much like the title of writer/director Jonathan Glazer’s previous film, this one just gets under your skin.

5. The Iron Claw

This is another one that stayed in mind long after watching it. The tragedy of this wrestling family is compelling, and the performances are great across the board, but it’s the mood of the film that worked most for me. The wrestling is treated with such seriousness, despite the innate silliness of the profession, that it creates the perfect tone. 

6. John Wick: Chapter 4

Enough with the miserable stuff, the John Wick franchise is a perfect example of what I want from action movies: a good time. This is somehow still fun four movies in and nearly three hours long. This is a fitting swan song to the most dependable action franchise in recent memory.  

7. The Holdovers

This was going to be in the honorable mentions, but I watched it again the other night, and it made its way into the top ten. Giamatti is great as always, but I mainly appreciate that a story that could easily delve into weepy melodrama stays funny and touching throughout.

8. The Killer

I’m a Fincher fan, so this was right up my alley. It’s also quite funny, as Fassbender keeps repeating rules like a mantra throughout despite breaking every one of them. Good stuff.

9. Barbie

Next to Poor Things, I found this to be the funniest movie of the year. The sequence in which the Barbies conspire to take down the Kens cracked me up and also hurt with how accurate it was (fun fact: I would be the type of Ken who could be distracted by asking me about The Godfather).

10. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Next to Poor Things and Barbie, the funniest movie of the year. I had to watch it again to make sure I legitimately enjoyed this movie and it wasn’t just that I enjoyed it because I was expecting it to be garbage (thanks to the disastrous previous live action adaptation). But this is just awesome, even when you don’t compare it to crappier versions of it. The talking to the dead soldiers sequence put me over the top with this one.

Honorable Mentions - I also really liked all of these, and I’ll explain why in one sentence or phrase or name for each.

The Boy and the Heron - Miyazaki is a blindspot for me, so maybe this isn’t as good as his best, but I wouldn’t know, so I loved it.

20 Days in Mariupol - Should be required viewing for people like me who tend to ignore the news because it’s too depressing; yeah, it’s depressing, and the least I could do is be aware of it.

Leave the World Behind - I know this one made a lot of people big mad with the ending or whatever, but I had a lot of fun with it.

Napoleon - I am so happy that Ridley Scott is still out there making classic epic action movies with a touch of weirdness; looking forward to the director’s cut.

The Promised Land - Mads fucking Mikkelsen growing potatoes.

Robot Dreams - The most delightful surprise of the year for me.

Dream Scenario - Amusing metaphor for fame in our shitty digital world.

Beau Is Afraid - This one is wild, but it makes the list for the perfect encapsulation of anxiety exhibited in the first act.

Smoking Causes Coughing - So weird, so funny.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom - Saved this for last because people would probably stop reading if they knew this made my list, but fuck it, I love these stupid, crazy movies; I’m sick of superhero movies for the most part, but if they’re willing to be this goofy and weird, then I’m in.