And it’s probably even easier to politely dismiss or shoulder-shrug Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things (Searchlight, 12.8), which, for the fourteenth or fifteenth time, is a sexual Frankenstein meets Barbie with the same confident and completist feminist imprimatur at the conclusion.

But like Maestro, Poor Things really gains during a second viewing. I can’t wait for viewing #3.

I hate to say this, but credit is due to Everything Everywhere All At Once (a movie that I mostly hate) for expanding the procedural boundaries of what a Best Picture contender can be. The younger Academy members who voted for it basically said “weird, imaginative, ouside-the-norm surreal content is totally approvable in this realm.” So in a sense EEAAO has done Poor Things a favor.

Times Picayune columnist and movie critic Mike Scott:

David Poland:

Time‘s decision to celebrate Taylor Swift as the Person of the Year is, of course, first and foremost a shallow commercial hustle.

The editors are basicallly saying “superfluousness is not a crime…it’s not so bad and in some ways is pretty great…all hail the island of leave us alone, we’re happy where we are, don’t puncture the bubble of insularity that so many millions of women (mostly younger) want to live inside…that bubble of complacency…that temporary (hopefully eternal!) shelter realm…success, simplicity of mind, in some instances (probably more so than we’d like to admit) the shroud of vapidity.

No offense to Taylor herself — she’s smart, capable, knows what she’s doing. But the Time guys are squeaking mice. There are more things in heaven and earth, guys, than are dreamt of in your marketing philosophy.

AI kingpin Sam Altman would have been an unsexy choice, but what he’s helped to unleash is obviously exerting thousands of times more infuence (and an infuential threat) upon our land, culture and souls than Taylor Swift.

If it has to be someone or something vapid in order to make Time into a bigger cultural thing, I would blend Swift with Barbie and Greta Gerwig and call 2023 The Year of of the Self-Celebrating, Wrapped in Commercial Glory Girly Girls Who Have Little Use For Men and Would Pretty Much Like to Cast Them Aside Except For The Sperm Donation Stuff….Barbie, Taylor, Beyonce…the whole commercial and cultural blitzkrieg of it all.

Two days ago Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted to having read the proverbial writing on the wall and more or less bullhorned the following “whoa, Nellie!” message to Disney wokesters, which I’ve conveyed here in HE-styled rhetoric:

“All right, enough, dammit…we have to face facts…the Critical Drinker has been right all along and we have to acknowledge the state of things, or at least I do…the new Disney law is “no more woke propaganda in our movies”

“We’ve clearly alienated Joe and Jane Popcorn in the parenting community and we really have to get back to being good old family–friendly Disney, and in case you’re not reading me, we’ll henceforth be re-assessing the advisability of using LGBTQIA and maybe even progressive femme-bot material in our animated features. We’ll be taking it one step at a time.”

Sidenote: All hail Le Monde’s Arnaud Leparmentier, whose 11.29 article laid the situation on the line in a way that Variety or The Hollywood Reporter would never do.

I’m not saying that yesterday’s sudden loss of control of the facial muscles on the right side of my face and my mouth in particular…I’m not saying I look like Charles Laughton in The HHunchback of Notre Dame (‘39) but half of my facial features, which were fairly top-of-the-line when I was younger and at least pleasant in recent years…my looks are pretty much gone now, and if I was scheduled to see Sutton today I would be worried about alarming her. In the space of 24 hours I have suddenly become a mildly grotesque figure…I am now Richard III…dogs bark and howl as I pass by.

Before:

After:

Bonus points for anyone who can identify which film the above monster-in-the-mirror images are from. No, it’s not Martin Scorsese’s The Big Shave.

You go into a Michel Franco film (New Order and Sundown are recent HE favorites) with an understanding that dysfunction, severity and obsession will be served, and that some kind of rug will be be pulled out at some point. Franco doesn’t traffic in compassion and heartfelt currents as a general tendency; he does radical and harsh.

But that’s what I like or at least respect about Franco. He keeps the viewer on edge, and therein lies the tension.

So I was surprised when I saw Memory the other night and began to realize that it would be dealing the cards without the usual “uh-oh…when will the ferocious stuff happen?”

It’s basically a kind of strange-but-tender relationship thing…an acting-exercise drama about two damaged 40somethings — Jessica Chastain‘s Sylvia and Peter Sarsgaard‘s Saul — who probably shouldn’t get too deeply involved with each other because they have turbulent histories and are both too fucked up…Saul especially.

Memory is set in Brooklyn and you can really feel those down-in-the-weeds Brooklyn vibes. It settles into two families for the most part, and nobody’s really happy or steady or swingin’ from a star.

But the acting is so good and true…I felt immediately held and fascinated. I’m trying to think of the last time I saw a sexual relationship drama that had me thinking “wow, this might not end well and neither party seems to understand that…in fact it might end really badly.”

And yet things…I won’t say but this is easily the gentlest Franco film I’ve ever seen.

Sylvia is a cautious and brittle mom who works at an adult daycare center (a gathering of bruised and traumatized types) while raising the teenaged Anna (Brooke Timber).

Sylvia is wary of whatever might be around the corner, and so naturally she gradually gets involved — at first guardedly and tentatively, with Saul, who is clearly a bit weird but not dangerously so — a gentle, socially awkard beardo who’s plagued by some kind of dementia, and can’t seem to remember anything from the past.

Right away you’re wondering what semi-responsible woman (particularly one with a troubled parental and sexual history) would let this guy into her life?

The bottom line is that Chastain and Sarsgaard are quite the penetrators and dig-deepers, and for this reason alone Memory (Ketchup Entertainment, 12.22) is worth a watch.

Question: Why would a film distributor call itself Ketchup Entertainment? What if a similar operation called itself Mayonnaise Distribution? Or Miracle Whip Ltd.? Or Steak Sauce International? Or the Mustard Brothers?

On Sunday, 11.19 HE will attend a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Man Who Knew Too Much — a 4K UHD restoration supervised by restoration guru Robert Harris.

It’s happening at the Bedford Playhouse at 1 pm.

Aside from the enhanced clarity and color, the presentation will also contain the original Perspecta stereo sound mix, which hasn’t been heard since the original 1956 release in first-run theatres. TMWKTM will be projected in 4K Super VistaVision. Bring the kids!

A q & a with Harris and Janet Maslin will follow the screening.