AARON BILGRAD MOVIE AWARDS 2023

BEST MOVIE WITH THE MOST JAMMED IN LOVE STORY IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA:  TOP GUN MAVERICK

In the “nostalgia” era, when making a sequel to a movie that was released in the 80s, it makes sense to give the audience what they would expect and want to see (i.e. what they enjoyed, and, more notably, what they remember about the first movie).  Top Gun’s sequel didn’t take any chances — they bridged these two films perfectly.  Just so it was fresh in my mind, I re-watched the original Top Gun the day before I watched Maverick.  There were many symmetries and tethers to the original.  To name a few:  The same opening credits; same opening theme music and Kenny Loggins hit; Goose’s little boy, who we saw for 30 seconds in the original movie sitting on top of the piano as Goose jammed out to “Great Balls Of Fire”, becoming a fighter pilot just like his Dad (even though his Dad died squarely because he was a fighter pilot — guess this didn’t make an impact); Goose’s now grown son, Rooster, who wears the same mustache as his dad, not only learning how to fly F-18 jets, but also now also can play the piano; the new generation of Top Gun pilots tossing Tom Cruise out of the bar, only to realize the next day that he would be their instructor — including the same shot of the the feet walking to the front of the room (the inverse of when Tom Cruise hit on Kelly McGillis at the bar in the original and she turned out to be the professor); the same emotionally charged, feel-good ending that makes you cry, even though you’re not sure why.  However, back in 1986, I’m certain the producers, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, said, likely chauvinistically, “planes, yes, yes, yes, but the women also want to see a love story with the hunk Tom Cruise”, leading to shots like these:

 

 

 

 

This, of course, makes it more of a traditional date movie, where, for casual dates in the 80s, where both guys and girls got to see what the producer thought they wanted to see from a stereotypical lens.

But after watching the beloved original Top Gun, which everyone understandably remembers for all the dogfighting plane action — if you really pay attention and keep track, one will notice that roughly 50% of the scenes are dedicated to the Tom Cruise/Kelly McGillis relationship.  He practically flirts or courts her anytime he’s not in the air or getting a lecture from Michael Ironside or Tom Skerritt.  But nobody remembers it, almost like they chose to erase it from their minds when thinking back on the original Top Gun.  This makes sense — it’s simply not what the movie is known for.

So, more than 35 years later, it’s curious that the producers decided to jam in another love story, this time with Jennifer Connelly in the role of telling Tom Cruise (something to the effect of) “think again, hot shot”.  But people bought a ticket to ‘fast-fast-plane-plane’, not to watch Cruise go sailing with Connelly.  Call me an inattentive film watcher, but I couldn’t detect who this new love interest was supposed to be.  Story wise, at minimum, Connelly was a rebound for the inevitable crumbling of the Kelli McGillis fling back in the 80s.  But it seemed as if Jennifer Connelly’s role in the movie was to, essentially, make Tom Cruise’s life harder than it needed to be.  Think of all this guy has to accomplish:  Trying to repair a fractured relationship with his dead best friend’s son, save the life of that same kid, and frequently fight enemy planes while reaching dangerous levels of ‘mach’.  Does he really have time for Jennifer Connelly’s rejections?  And when Connelly’s 14-year-old daughter says to Cruise, “Don’t break her heart again”, is he really carrying that moral anxiety when flying just 100 ft above ground at a billion miles per hour?

BEST MOVIE THAT MADE $18 SHY OF $2,923,000,000:  AVATAR THE WAY OF WATER

At a media conference in 2009, I saw a preview screening of a 10-minute clip from Avatar with the 3D Glasses.  Myself and the whole audience were blown away.  Everyone could feel that this movie was going to be a massive hit, squarely because of the enhanced 3D technology.  To no surprise, Avatar came out and made a fortune.  The movie was so successful that any movie that advertised as “In 3D” was also a smash hit (Recall:  Everybody spent way too much money on the live action, 3D Alice In Wonderland Johnny Depp vehicle that came out one month after Avatar.   It made over a billion dollars that it surely didn’t deserve.)  Many other blockbuster movies were also exhibited in 3D hoping for a revenue bump, even though they were not intended to be seen in 3D according to the film’s directors — who nobody understandably listened to or cared about (e.g. “wah-wah, Godzilla isn’t supposed to be 3D”).

But most people who saw the original Avatar shared a very similar review of the film:  “Mind blowing visuals with a dumb story, but that’s ok because of mind blowing visuals”.  And sometimes it’s ok for a film to just look cool, and we don’t have to worry so much about the main characters having sex by connecting tails.  However, when James Cameron, an extraordinarily talented filmmaker and storyteller (Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, True Lies, and of course Titanic), decided that he was all in on making numerous Avatar sequels to build out a rather ridiculous Avatar “universe”, it made me sad (and annoyed). This was his arrogant misunderstanding of why people liked the original movie.  There is regular selling out, when an artist sacrifices or compromises their artistic desires to make a buck — and then there is selling out when you are ALREADY A BILLIONAIRE!  It’s selling out because it’s not an artistic challenge.  Had Cameron decided to make a different visually stunning movie with a NEW original story and universe, that would have been cool.  Could he strike gold a 3rd time?  In the same way that a wildly successful author, like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, decides to write with a alias just to see if people will buy and enjoy their writing without the strong brand name persona.  But Cameron didn’t — he concluded that people wanted to delve deeper into the world of the Na’vi people.

For various reasons, production on the Avatar sequel was stalled throughout the last decade for various reasons, and James Cameron failed to interpret these disruptions as the devil’s last chance warnings to reconsider (Satan is also, like most people, a huge fan of Terminator 2 and hoped to salvage Cameron’s artistic soul).  In another plague-type biblical warning from God, James Cameron had to miss the big Hollywood premiere of Avatar Way of Water, a movie he worked on for 13 years, because he caught a bad case of Covid.  But somehow, Cameron thought all these signals were all just a coincidence and still decided to release the movie.

Of course, people all over paid to see the movie (because they remember liking the visuals, not the Na’vi).   The movie made an enormous fortune, thus perpetuating the fraudulent narrative that people want more of the Na’vi universe.  Even though I still eat at restaurants that are known for their cruel animal practices, I decided to boycott Avatar The Way of Water on the principle of its very existence.   And no matter what financial records the movie breaks, it will always be $18 short.

BEST MOVIE THAT GETS PARDONED FOR BEING BAD BASED ON THE IDEA THAT THE WRITER/DIRECTOR IS PROVIDING A SUBTLE “COMMENTARY”, AND I MUST BE STUPID IF I DON’T REALIZE IT, AND THE REASON I DON’T LIKE THE MOVIE IS IRONICALLY THE VERY POINT OF THE COMMENTARY, AND THEREFORE THE MOVIE IS GOOD, EVEN IF IT WAS BAD:  NOPE

Nope is the third film in Jordan Peele’s “I’m a genius” series.  I wrote about Jordan Peele’s 2nd film Us HERE.  After Get Out, a smart allegory, but a rather silly movie, Jordan Peele was dubbed the founder of a new genre:  Horror/Sci-Fi Movies that are making sharp, important commentaries on society, even though the movie itself is not good.  Critics love this genre because it allows them to ignore the standard items in which they judge a movie (i.e. characters, narrative, structure, tone, mood, 3rd act resolve, etc) and focus on what the filmmaker might be trying to say.

The premise of Nope is rather simple:  There is a spaceship hiding in a cloud and characters are trying to take a picture of it.  Not a bad premise, but also a bit goofy in its execution.  Despite having very strong actors involved (Daniel Kaluuya, Steven Yeun), the characters are pretty lifeless and some even feel unnecessary (the security camera guy), the movie feels quite disjointed at times, and the visuals aren’t exactly that interesting.  Funny enough, artists and audiences have grown tired of studio interference with a filmmaker’s vision, but, in this case, I think the studio should have asked for some rewrites of the script before green lighting this movie with an enormous marketing budget.

I commend Jordan Peele on making something original and putting his vision out there, but it’s also ok if audiences and critics call his vision a failure.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  Most critics shared a similar response to my relatively negative assessment of the film, but they excused all of it in favor of their determination of what Jordan Peele was “trying” to say.   Read any review of Nope, and the critic will salivate how Jordan Peele is trying to show us how looking up at the spaceship is a metaphor for America’s unhealthy obsession with celebrity culture, shocking violent events, political media spectacles, etc.  Some even go so far as to say that if you watched the film and didn’t like it, then this is what Jordan Peele WANTED.  He “intentionally” wanted to make you feel uneasy and confused watching the movie, just as the characters suffered the fate of death by watching the spaceship.  In essence, the critics have concluded that Peele wanted you to look away from the movie (by becoming disinterested), just as we should look away and protest the meaningless spectacles we see in the media.

I know all of this reads confusing and quite meta in nature, but I have never seen a filmmaker reach a level of perceived prestige where their artistic shortcomings are transformed into intentional strengths.  The filmmaker did his part to paint an allegory and make me think, and that his very point is for me to miss the point?  Thus, even though I didn’t like the movie and thought it was stupid, I need to dunk my head in water and realize that the movie Nope is great, and I am stupid.

BEST MOVIES WHICH INDICATE THAT STUDIOS WILL SOON HAVE AN A.I. COMPUTER WRITE ALL MOVIES:  ADAM SANDLER’S ‘HUSTLE’ AND SMILE

If you are Netflix subscriber, you should be familiar with Adam Sandler’s NBA star-studded basketball movie, Hustle, that came out around mid 2022.  It was the #1 movie on Netflix’s top movies chart for quite a while.  When Netflix started making original movies, Adam Sandler’s production company signed a deal with Netflix to make 7 movies, and then, due to his success, in 2020 they renewed Sandler’s deal to make an additional 4 movies.   That means we get 11 pieces of shit.

The best one-word description of this movie isn’t “good” or “bad” — it’s “watchable”.  But what exactly does “watchable” mean?  Hummingbirds are also “watchable”, as are Amazon workers delivering packages.  Basically, watchable means that you are willing to watch and complete the 117 minute piece of content that is Hustle.  The movie’s duty to be a distraction away from your own life is functioning well, but you are not necessarily stimulated or entertained — you’re just watching it.

Hustle clearly began as a marketing premise — what if we packed a bunch of NBA player cameos into a movie.   Adam Sandler plays an NBA scout that searches for the next big star and finds it in Bo Cruz (played by real life sub-par NBA player Juancho Hernangomez) in a scraggly small European town.  Then, the movie is basically a mixture of a seemingly 55-minute training montage, stunt casting of Philadelphia Sixers 4th best player, Tobias Harris (who nobody wanted to see), and NBA stars filming their part on zoom to make the movie feel real, saying, “Whoa, where did they find this Bo Cruz guy — he’s great!”.

Again, the movie is not bad — it just doesn’t need to exist, and is only a fleeting attempt by Netflix to make you think you are getting great new movies that can only be seen on Netflix.  The movie is a perfect example of everyone involved just not trying very hard.  For example, take this narrative error:  Bo Cruz is seemingly very good at staying calm when being trash talked and physically threatened in his hostile home town in Spain, but then gets super rattled when another young star trash talks him in America (played by former NBA #1 draft pick Anthony Edwards).  Anthony Edwards says, “Your mama and I are gonna shack up.  I think I would make a good step-father to you”.  Bo falls apart emotionally and can’t hit a shot, but this is only so it serves the narrative that he will predictably rise up and triumph over Anthony Edwards in the end.  A computer trying to write a formulaic movie likely would have made the same narrative inconsistency.

In Smile, another super successful movie built on its marketing concept, “Once you see someone smile, you’re dead!” (yikes, intense), the movie is largely a series of startle fest jump scares and nothing really makes sense.  It’s all reliant of imagery of unnerving smiles, but all of the jump scare and creepy moments are random, arbitrary, and unrelated to the premise (e.g. there is a scene where Kal Penn, playing a doctor, rips his own face off.  Why?????).  The film feels like what would happen if the movie pre-sold just on the marketing premise alone, and then the writer and director had 48 hours to put a movie to it (which a computer or Chat GPT could do faster and cheaper). It’s so uneven, but… it’s watchable.  I watched it.

This isn’t just a knock on Hustle or Smile, it’s a criticism of movies becoming dangerously too ordinary.   And ordinary movies can still be popular.   They get watched precisely because Netflix tells you to watch them.   You still hear about good movies, but nobody talks about bad movies too often anymore.  It used to be fun to witness a real train wreck of a terrible movie, but in order for things to get that bad, studios need to take risks and fail.  Netflix and most studios no longer take any risks — in fact it’s just the opposite.  They use data to ensure that nothing fails artistically.  The movie can be disliked, but it still has a minimum floor ROI.

The point is — in the new age of ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence, we will likely see a movie soon released by Netflix that is written completely by a computer.  The only creativity will be in determining an intriguing marketing premise, then AI will take it from there.  The movie will follow formula, adhere to what Netflix’s data indicates that people like, and similar to the movies mentioned, feel very awkward in parts as if the computer suffered a glitch.

The irony is that this AI generated movie won’t be bad, and people will likely be ok with it… because it’s watchable.

AND HERE ARE THE BEST MOVIES I SAW THIS YEAR IN DESCENDING ORDER (#1 Being The Best)

13) BARBARIAN
This movie was lauded for “reinventing the horror genre”.  I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly was a gripping set up for the first hour.  If you are a fan of horror movies, but desire more of a fresh structure and depth to the characters and their motivations, this is the movie for you.  It’s better going into this movie not knowing anything about it, as it will put you in the perfect spot of ‘not knowing what to expect’ that the writer/director intended.  Plus, this is far better than the empty sloppiness of the horror hit of the year, Smile (HBO Max)

12) STUTZ
Jonah Hill decided to make a documentary with his therapist, Phil Stutz, who is dubbed the therapist to the power elite in Hollywood.   While that sounds awful on the surface, Phil Stutz’ ideas for self-improvement and growth are quite original, beneficial and likely outside of what you read in a standard psychology or self-help book.  The documentary is at its best when Stutz is sharing his creative ideas on how people can cope with the true challenges of life (e.g. being hard on yourself, frustrations with other people, lack of direction or purpose, etc)  and at its worst anytime Jonah Hill says anything.  (Netflix)

11) TAR
A solid character piece with Cate Blanchett playing Lydia Tar, a revered composer and conductor who abused her power to get sexual favors in the past.  But the greatness of the movie lies in its (very) subtle nature when handling this character.  While it can be a little tiring at times (which is why it’s up here at #11), the movie refreshingly doesn’t focus on plot and is more interested in the audience inhabiting the mind of this character.   The audience sees the world only from Lydia’s point of view — how she presents herself to others a sophisticated prodigy who may or may not be lying at times — and how she tries to use her gravitas to get everyone in her life to do exactly what she wants.  The ending of the movie satisfies in a big way that will make you think about the character differently than your experience throughout the film (Rent on Amazon).

10) TOP GUN:  MAVERICK
This movie isn’t that great on its own merit, but I think the joy of this movie, and its associated financial success, is simply due to the utter nostalgia and memory of easier times flowing through it.  It was, ironically, the perfect movie to bring people back to the theaters — where many people saw the first movie in 1986.  A time when everybody was charmed by Tom Cruise, the popcorn blockbuster movies were only fun and not too into themselves (like the Marvel, DC, New Star Wars, or Matrix pretentious universe mythologies), and you could root on real people doing real things (as opposed to unrelatable mutants with superpowers fighting supervillains from other dimensions).   Seeing a very ill Val Kilmer come back for a cameo also felt good.  So I’ll admit I liked it, not because of the merits of the film, but more because of what the movie symbolized for an audience, myself included, craving an emotional feeling in a blockbuster movie that we haven’t felt in a while. (Rent on Amazon)

9) EMILY THE CRIMINAL
This little gem walks you through the experience of a woman, Emily (a strong performance from Aubrey Plaza) struggling to get a job because of a crime that appears on her background check.  Her co-worker at a food delivery service tells her about a way to make easy money, and enters the world of credit card fraud.  While the suspenseful scenes in the film are unique and excellent, the movie’s best strengths are the character’s realistic approach to dealing with the circumstances.  Even while she is in the criminal world, she still has ambitions of a getting a “real job” and this leads to some of the most uncomfortable and hilarious job interview scenes — the best of which is a media maven (played by Gina Gershon) trying to convince Emily to take an unpaid internship.  That scene alone makes this movie a must watch.  (Netflix).

8) EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE
I, like most, was very ‘impressed’ by this movie.  Yes, ‘impressed’ is the right word.  And nostalgically, it was cool to see the kid from Indiana Jones and Goonies make a tremendous comeback.  However, while the acting, story, and especially editing were quite stellar, after the movie ended, I felt joy, but I still wasn’t sure if I watched something great.  It was largely a kung fu movie, which I like, and I embraced all the sci-fi, dimension jumping elements and even the sweetness of the movie, but did the movie’s frenetic and creative nature fool me into thinking this is a great movie?  I still can’t tell, and I’m sure I will think about it for years.  But as of the time of this writing, I have decided it was pretty good (Amazon Rental or Showtime)

7) SPEAK NO EVIL
This Danish movie has a fantastic set up premise for a horror/thriller.  A Danish couple and their daughter takes a trip to Tuscany, where they meet another nice couple from the Netherlands.  They share meals, have some laughs, and say they should get together again — a perfectly normal circumstance that happens to people on vacation.  A few weeks later, the Danish couple gets a letter from the Netherlands couple saying that they should come and visit.  The Danish couple are understandably uneasy about going to see relative strangers in another country that they just met, but decide to be adventurous.  What transpires on their stay in Holland is a delight to watch, especially because of the brilliant and devilishly creepy, but hilarious performance of the Dutch father (Fedja Van Huet) who joins the pantheon of all time ‘fun-to-watch’ characters in movie history.  Just be warned that this movie does get extremely disturbing — so watch with caution (Rent on Amazon).

6) WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COSBY
This documentary, produced and directed by W. Kamau Bell, examines the Bill Cosby sexual assault saga in a truly compelling way.   Everybody knows Bill Cosby as a comedian and of course the star of The Cosby Show, and now everybody is aware of the horrible abuse that Cosby inflicted on many women for several decades.  But this documentary does an excellent job of thoroughly examining Bill Cosby’s history through an objective lens — how he reinvented his persona each decade, and how he nefariously used his formed reputations to manipulate, abuse, and destroy women in each decade. One particularly fascinating section talked about how and why Cosby got his honorary doctorate from a university, as I, and likely many others, was always confused why society started calling him “Dr.” Bill Cosby.   The movie also talks about the idea of how heroes we lionize as pillars of the community are not who they seem, and the emotional effect that can have on the people that looked up to them.  Hence, the title of the documentary.  (Showtime)

5) ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
This was one of the few books I liked in my “I hate to read” High School era.  It’s been made into a movie several times, but this year’s German version is outstanding.  The movie is seen from the vantage point of several young German soldiers excited to enlist to fight in World War I.  And, needless to say, they quickly regret it.  The visuals are stunning, the war scenes are unbelievably graphic/terrifying/disturbing, and the movie does a fantastic job of making you feel as if you are right there in the trenches.  It’s basically the feeling you get from D-Day scene in the first 35 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, but more like 2 hours of that.  Of course, the movie is largely a commentary on the ridiculous and pointless nature of fighting a horrific, close combat ground war where thousands were killed to gain control of a territory not much larger than a few football fields.  A strong and gripping movie from beginning to end. (Netflix)

4) PEPSI, WHERE’S MY JET?
Wait, wait — hear me out.  This is a sharp and highly entertaining documentary, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I actually watched it twice and it’s about 3.5 hours.  The documentary details the story behind Pepsi’s popular “Pepsi points” ad campaign from 1995 to get people to buy a lot of Pepsi products.  In a memorable commercial, they said, without a disclaimer, that if you collected 7 million “Pepsi points” you could win a harrier fighter jet (similar to the ones in Top Gun).  Well, one teenager from Seattle called their bluff, and along with an older businessman friend he met on a hiking trip, figured out a way to get the 7 million Pepsi points.  Of course they wanted their jet as the commercial foolishly promised (valued at $23 million).  From there, the documentary is a fascinating story about a major corporation trying to unwind itself from this error and dives into the game theory between the legal arguments on both sides, and the cover ups made by Pepsi at the time.  The story takes some ugly and crazy turns, including the team hiring now disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti to work on the case (long before his Trump and Stormy Daniels days).  If you want a great and highly likable story, watch this immediately. (Netflix)

3) THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN
This is a simple and quiet movie, but also brilliant in its execution.  In a small Irish village in 1923, the interesting premise comes early.   Colin Farrell goes to see his best friend Brendan Gleeson, but this time, his best friend shockingly says he no longer wants to be friends with Colin Ferrell any more — because time spent with Colin is wasted time in a short life.  This of course hurt’s Colin Farrell’s feelings and a feud begins between the two.  The movie is so well done, and refreshingly smart in its casual unfolding of the war between the two men.  The movie is also heartbreaking in many ways, but a truly poignant allegory for the chaos of both the Irish Civil War and the perils of senselessly fighting with others in our modern society.  (HBO Max)

2) TRIANGLE OF SADNESS
While Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is getting all the praise for being the “creative vision of the year”, that mantle should belong to Triangle Of Sadness.  The movie initially centers on a male model and his model girlfriend who decide to take a cruise to try and mend their relationship.  That’s really all you should know going into it, as it’s far more enjoyable not knowing what to expect from this movie.  The film is unconventional in structure, and every scene has performances and dialogue that you will watch with a smile.  Hopefully, Triangle wins, at least, Best Original Screenplay Oscar, as the movie has an incredible wit and sense of humor, and is a masterful commentary on classism today.  A must watch.  (Amazon Rental)

1) CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD:  AN EMOTIONAL HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD
Every now and then, a movie comes along that changes my world view and forces me to think differently.   This artful, brilliant, and heavily researched BBC documentary by Adam Curtis (in 6 parts) rejuvenates the entire point of watching good movies.  Sure, movies like Top Gun are supposed to entertain, but art’s purpose is to provoke emotion in the individual, which may lead to them looking at matters differently and potentially cause them changing their behavior in a positive way.  The documentary is a history lesson of approximately the past 60 years.  However, instead of normal documentary style (i.e. interviews and B-Roll), the movie doesn’t interview anybody, but instead uses imagery from every era to put you in that head space, as, the narrator (the filmmaker Curtis) explains how society was feeling and thinking at every point from the 1950s all the way until present day.  The film posits that various countries’ government actions, business practices, technology reforms, bizarre conspiracy theories and people’s individual behavior  were largely driven by their sudden and complicated emotional reaction to events.  And these emotional reactions compounded overtime in the hopelessness of the individual, which eventually led to the type of on-edge, frustrated, and distrusting society we live in today.  Frankly, it’s hard to describe everything this movie is trying to accomplish in a paragraph, but if you are hungry for an incredibly thought-provoking, stimulating, and ingenious documentary (which admittedly requires significant patience and attention, especially as you get used to it during Part 1, so take your time), then you should definitely watch this film.   It’s the best piece of art I’ve seen in a while, connecting the cultural ideas of the past in a way that it may change how you felt about any given big news story from the past 50 years.  Fortunately, the entire 6-part BBC documentary is available on YouTube in the link below, and this movie will satiate your nostalgia-craving in a far more sophisticated way than Top Gun.

Link To Can’t Get You Out Of My Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-DMH_myil8&list=PLbPZYrS_g_At_AciykufZokPrN53wyZ0w

To read Aaron Bilgrad Movie Awards from past years, click HERE