The film follows fictional versions of Matt Johnson (who is also directing) and Jay McCarrol (who also serves as writer alongside Johnson) as they attempt to book a gig at the Rivoli for their band, Nirvanna the Band. To give you an idea of tone right off the bat, the pair don’t appear to have ever actually contacted the bar’s management, but instead opt for increasingly elaborate plans to force the bar’s hand. These range from hanging posters advertising gigs they haven’t booked yet, to BASE jumping into baseball stadiums. Naturally, one of these plans inadvertently leads to time travel and our duo finds themselves back in 2008, when their past selves had just formed Nirvanna. From there it’s a matter of finding their way back to the present, and seeing if they can’t make a few small tweaks along the way.

That setup may not sound as fresh and original as implied at the beginning of this review, but Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie sets itself apart with its execution. In any given sequence, it might mix true hidden-camera crowd work with scripted bits and paid actors, and then pair it with footage filmed for the web series back in 2008, but not before altering the archival clips to include our characters’ current/future selves… with obligatory stuntmen for the aforementioned BASE jumping sprinkled in of course. Somehow, the film stitches all these disparate elements together seamlessly. It’s wildly impressive and worthy of an extensive behind the scenes documentary of its own.

The inventive filmmaking combined with Johnson and McCarrol’s off-the-wall brand of comedy just works. If you’re able to see this in a theater, do it. The film engages crowds from start to finish, with non-stop laughing and multiple uproars at my own showing. Hearing a full house gradually key in on a joke is so much fun, and is something Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie continuously sets up so well. Whether it’s riffing off changes in socially acceptable language or going full send with Chekhov’s Gun, the film knows how to deliver a punchline.

While Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie may be hard to describe, it’s not hard to recommend. It’s rare to see such an obvious passion project, at this budget, executed so successfully. At any given moment the film could collapse under the weight of its own ambitious construction, but it doesn’t. It instead relentlessly delivers joke after joke, landing way more than any film has a right to. Find a packed room or theater, grab some popcorn, and kick back and listen as Nirvanna brings the house down.

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No Other Choice follows Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun, of recent Squid Game fame), a long time paper industry professional. After 25 years of loyalty, his company abruptly lays him off and casts him off into the world to fend for himself. As his homemaker wife Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), teenage step son Si-one (Woo Seung Kim), and young neurodivergent cello prodigy daughter Ri-one (So Yul Choi) start to notice their carefully cultivated lives fray at the edges, Man-su realizes he’ll have to take his job hunt (*wink wink*) to the next level. With his Pulp Man of the Year award not doing the heavy lifting he had hoped it would, Man-su shifts from trying to out-class his competition, to trying to out-last them instead. Of course, what kind of man would he be if he didn’t try and hurry them along?

One of the first things you’ll notice on a craft level with No Other Choice is that Park Chan-wook considers every frame. Shots are grand and filled with vibrant color, and the camera has tremendous confidence in letting the perfectly choreographed scenes unfold. No Other Choice is consistently and beautifully shot.

Its leading man, Lee Byung-hun, also turns in a commendable performance as Yoo Man-su. He brilliantly captures the psyche of a man teetering on the edge, with just the right amount of darkly comedic flair sprinkled in. Tagging along with Man-su as he glimpses into the personal lives of his soon to be victims is a delightfully voyeuristic adventure and is immediately gripping.

Those peeks into lives beyond Man-su’s are where No Other Choice really finds its footing and begins to shine brightest. Those are the moments when the film first starts to peel back the curtain on its world, and offer a fresh perspective on what you’ve been watching. It’s the first time you truly get to see the full extent of the cognitive dissonance on display, as everyone – everyone, does what they “need to do” to survive. Whether that’s laying off their friends, stealing phones, seducing the neighbor, assassinating the competition, having an affair, drinking away their sorrows, or any other vice under the sun. And while it might be cleaner and more satisfying to simply blame this all on capitalism or any single economic system, the overwhelming variety of vice points to something much larger – that this is a fundamentally human experience. It’s a coping mechanism for survival that can lead even the best down a dark and winding path that just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense by the end. And it can do that because, people at least believe they have no other choice.

While No Other Choice is enamoring on both technical and thematic levels, it does lack some of the moment-to-moment bite that makes Park Chan-wook’s most well known films stand out. Make no mistake, this is no Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden, or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The buildup to No Other Choice’s crescendo is much more drawn out, and while all of the pieces fall into place by the end, there are several noticeable points in the second act where it starts to drag. It never approaches “unenjoyable”, but it doesn’t emotionally escalate like Park Chan-wook’s best works.

While No Other Choice might not have as much bite as the Vengeance Trilogy, it’s not fair to make a man do the same trick for the rest of his life… even if it’s a really good trick. That goes for directors as well as paper professionals. No Other Choice still delivers in spades when it comes to its characters, cinematography, and overarching themes, and is definitely worthy of inclusion in Park Chan-wook’s stellar filmography. So when you have a moment of peace in your life as you look out from the mountaintop, remember to take a deep breath and maybe give this one a watch, as you never know how long you’ll be up there or what you’ll have to do to make it back.

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Bugonia follows our two protagonists, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), as they kidnap and torture Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a high-powered female CEO. They operate under the belief that Michelle is not just a cold and calculating corporate elite, but that she is actually an alien from Andromeda intent on destroying the Earth. Her and her brethren supposedly brainwash the masses, manipulate individuals through their baser instincts, and wage ecological warfare through honey bee colony collapse disorder (CCD). In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, Bugonia takes aim at the seemingly ever growing and prominent class divide in modern society. The twist, of course, is that those “elites” might really be from another world.

As you might imagine, two conspiracy obsessed recluses attempting to torture a “confession” from a corporate executive inevitably results in a tug-of-war, where each side attempts to present their case. This back and forth is where Bugonia predictably has the most to say. On one hand you have the elites, overworking and exploiting their historically obedient and dutiful worker bees, and on the other hand you have the abused working class, who realize something is wrong, but resort to the most farcical of conspiracies to explain their suffering. Regardless of who you sympathize with, when these two groups sit down at the proverbial and quite literal kitchen table, conversation grinds to a halt. One side sees the other as predestined losers and the other quite literally fails to see the humanity in their opposition. Instead of finding common ground, corporate jargon and hallucinatory ramblings fly back and forth. Progress stalls, the queen languishes, and the worker bees fall further into disillusionment. The colony teeters on collapse.

While the opening act does a commendable job of introducing us to our outlandish cast of characters, and the last third truly goes off the rails in the most delightful ways (including a gratifyingly poignant conclusion), the core of the film does wear on. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons deliver the performances required for such a dialogue heavy film, but Lanthimos leans too much on repetition. Seemingly in an effort to retain some of the pure zaniness of the original South Korean outing, the film repeats jokes (usually with Don, to poor effect) to fill space while the second act takes its time to dryly move the narrative along. While a certain level of deadpan is expected in a Lanthimos production (and by certain level, I mean a tremendous amount), he fails to find the right cadence in Bugonia.

With Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos sets out to remake one of South Korea’s true dark comedy cult classics, Save the Green Planet!. On nearly every technical level, Lanthimos succeeds. And even beyond the craft, Bugonia delivers its message in a much more impactful and timely manner. It thoroughly explores the unending conflict between queens and worker bees, and doesn’t stop at simply noting that the social contract between the two has deteriorated. It casts aside the notion that the colony is failing for mysterious, unexplainable reasons, but instead asserts that no one has any realistic interest in saving the hive. While some second act pacing issues hold it back, and Don could probably use another re-write, Bugonia is another strong entry in Lanthimos’ rapidly growing catalogue.

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The following essay contains spoilers for The Big Sleep (1946), The Reckless Moment (1949), and The Big Lebowski (1998).

The Big Sleep​ introduces us to Detective Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) in a scene where Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) almost immediately throws herself at him. Not too much further into the film a woman working at a store follows suit after talking to Marlowe for all of two minutes. As the stoic, powerful, and isolated male detective, Marlowe attracts the attention of nearly every female character in the film. In doing so, ​The Big Sleep​ illustrates the command Marlowe has over the situation at all times. That is in conjunction with his actual investigative abilities, which receive near equal screen time. If he is not flirting, he is probably making an incredible deduction so casually that you can’t help but be impressed. Marlowe’s character is the blueprint for classical film noir detectives, a mentally sharp and silver tongued man, capable of overcoming any obstacle.

The companion to any such character is the femme fatale. In classic noir, the femme fatale is the detective’s other half, and often serves as one of his greatest mental hurdles in solving the case. Although initially mixed in with all of the other women the detective may encounter, the femme fatale quickly stands out. Oftentimes she will be the one doing the seducing and lead the detective astray. She will have a power and strength of her own, but it will only serve the narrative in regard to the main detective. Over time he will learn to conquer her independence and become immune to her poison. In ​The Big Sleep,​ Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) fulfills this role, and does just as previously described. She seduces Marlowe, leads him into trouble, he overcomes it, and finally they ride off together.

Then comes ​The Reckless Moment,​ a film that begins to challenge the genre’s foundational approach. With her husband off at war, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) must play the role of a protective mother and try to rectify the problem her daughter, Beatrice “Bea” Harper (Geraldine Brooks), creates when she accidentally kills a man. The Reckless Moment​ strips much of the agency away from the male characters. The one doing the investigating is a woman who currently has no husband figure in her life to lean on. She does the negotiating on her own behalf, deals with the police, and tries to scrounge up enough money to satisfy an attempt at blackmail. ​The Reckless Moment​ changed the classic noir structure to allow women to be the ones in control of the narrative.

The Big Lebowski​ further dilutes the original noir style and injects its own changes. Now the male detective has lost his motivation and wit, merely stumbling upon the correct answers. Maude (Julianne Moore) controls her father (introduced as a wealthy figure) through an allowance and uses The Dude (Jeff Bridges) to get herself pregnant. She does all of this without serving the plot, only acting as another attraction for The Dude until the film’s conclusion, where nearly no real progress has occurred since the opening scene. In this iteration of the noir, the male detective has lost his edge, the femme fatale only serves herself, and there is no grand reveal or prize at the end of the mystery.

Over the years the Classical Hollywood film noir has undergone many alterations. Once a genre near solely dedicated to showing off impressive male characters and their glory, it has now opened up. Women are detectives, male sleuths are lazy and bumbling, femme fatales are independent from the investigators, and the big reveal at the end takes a back seat to the journey. None of these changes completely replace the original format, but they open the genre up to a wider variety of stories, allowing more voices to shine and for greater artistic flexibility in the way films tell these tales.

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The Suicide Squad (2021) primarily follows six of DC’s… lesser known villains, brought together by the government’s formidable Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Their mission, with no option to reject it, is to journey to the inhospitable island of Corto Maltese and sabotage the secretive scientific experiments taking place there. Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (voiced by Steve Agee), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), and Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) find themselves kept (sort of) in line by Col. Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). While the marketing material may showcase a slew of other fun and quirky characters, the film’s title should give you a hint of how that goes.

For the most part everyone fills their designated ensemble role quite well. Idris Elba serves as the stable patriarch figure of the group. John Cena delights as the deranged protector of peace, willing to kill as many women and children as it takes to uphold it. Margot Robbie slides right back into her fantastic portrayal of Harley Quinn, only faltering when the script lets her down (more on that later). Rounding out the baddies, Daniela Melchior provides a serviceable emotional through line for the team and David Dastmalchian is the celebrated new addition. Polka-Dot Man’s depressed sense of humor and unexpected running gag make him the easy standout. The only character that falls apart is Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller. Just like in the last iteration, she comes off as a frustrating bureaucrat instead of a towering threat. This time the film itself even undercuts her presence when the plot demands it.

One of the large improvements previously referenced is that this version of The Squad dives right into the action. It quickly moves past all of the stage setting the 2016 version has to deal with. With no time wasted, our characters are on a beach ready to kill in the most gruesome and entertaining of ways. However, this insistence on jumping right into things is a double-edged sword. By spending so little time on setting up the cast before throwing them into the fray, the film lacks emotional and dramatic weight. At times it is as if a child has grabbed all of his or her action figures and smashed them together, declaring it a battle of epic proportions. The results are undoubtedly entertaining, but hallow nonetheless. The Suicide Squad (2021) tries its best to feed the audience reasons to care about a number of its characters as it goes on, but these sequences are too little, too late.

The next and most important improvement (that guess what, is another double-edged sword), is Gunn’s sense of humor. Whether it’s hitting or missing Gunn swings for the fences every time. An impressive kill-off between Bloodsport and Peacemaker left my theater in stitches. Harley Quinn also delivers some terrific laughs when the film embraces her psychosis and has her fall in love with Corto Maltese’s Presidente General, Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto… noted Nick Wright look-alike). She also serves the biggest groans, with poop and 69 jokes headlining. Additionally, some squad members with less spotlight, like King Shark, quickly have their tropes worn out. Although the R-rating lets the film flex with entertaining physical and violence-based comedy, it is hard to walk away from The Suicide Squad (2021) not thinking that PG-13 ratings have previously forced Gunn to be more creative with his writing.

Focusing in on the filmmaking itself, the island setting proves a bit dull. Moving from generic location to generic location results in a visually bland affair. The film does give Harley one colorfully stylized battle (highlighted in the trailers), and it’s probably the most impressive of the bunch. Another scene worth mentioning is a fight that starts off in the reflection of a certain polished helmet. I only wish the film had the confidence to let the shot linger a smidge longer. The soundtrack is also typical upbeat Gunn, but nothing as noteworthy as Guardians of the Galaxy’s.

The Suicide Squad (2021) accomplishes what it sets out to do. It hits the tone of the source material much more faithfully than the first adaptation (by actually providing a plausible reason for villains to make up the team, even though it still redeems our baddies a bit too much at the end) and it more than successfully revitalizes the brand for DC Films by injecting the lovably evil squad with James Gunn’s trademark energy and humor. Unfortunately, it injects so much of both that the film cannot always sustain itself.

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The following essay contains spoilers for The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), American Psycho (2000), and Fight Club (1999).

Martin Scorsese’s ​The Wolf of Wall Street​ showcases the story of real life stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio). It illustrates his acquisition of wealth and the subsequent destruction of his empire, quickly followed by him dodging any substantial punishment. Released in 2013, ​The Wolf of Wall Street​ can be read as a direct response to the Great Recession beginning in 2007. With the help of a number of Scorsese’s filmmaking techniques, the film’s visuals directly appeal to the crowd hit hardest by the failing financial systems. Instead of responding to the destruction of Belfort’s life, audiences latch onto Belfort himself due to the spectacle inadvertently replacing the message.

As the film opens and Belfort describes how he,

“…gambles like a degenerate…”, “…drinks like a fish…”, and has “…three different federal agencies looking to indict [him]”,

Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

the audience gets to watch a medium close-up of him doing cocaine off of an attractive woman’s butt. So while the film’s dialogue details a life teetering on the edge, the visual is much more engaging and desirable to a stereotypical male audience. Much like American prescription drug commercials, the potential horrors are audibly listed off while accompanied by eye candy.

Not only are the undesirable portions of Belfort’s life overshadowed, but the desirable pieces are paraded across the screen. When celebrating a week’s earnings, the office transforms into a dazzling house of debauchery. Marching band music plays, the band members march through the halls in their underwear, and then the servers and strippers follow close behind. Quick cuts between medium shots of two groups of strippers charging at each other fill the frame, with a strobe effect turning the whole scene into a dream. A close up of Belfort’s face appears near the end, as he pridefully watches over what he has created. Numerous scenes of this scale appear throughout The Wolf of Wall Street​ and they all end up distracting a sizable segment of viewers from the morally reprehensible nature of Belfort’s business and his looming demise.

The film presents all of this as easily accessible to the audience as well. According to the film Belfort’s only qualification is that he decides to move to Wall Street because of his love for money. He quickly finds himself working up the ladder as a stock broker and when that fails due to circumstances out of his control, he immediately pivots to penny stocks and experiences almost immediate success.

Finally, the film ends with Belfort proclaiming that for a,

“…brief fleeting moment, [he’d] forgotten [he] was rich”.

Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

At this point the film notes that despite all of his crimes, all of those he hurt along the way, and even the destruction of his own personal life, he would not be paying a hefty legal price. It gives audience members the illusion they could experience the three hours worth of hedonistic depravity as well, at little cost. Further driving this point home, the real Jordan Belfort appears in a cameo in the final scene to introduce Leonardo DiCaprio’s character version of himself at a get-rich-quick seminar. Not only did Jordan Belfort dodge consequences for his actions, he now gets to appear in a Hollywood film directed by legendary director Martin Scorsese. In the final seconds of the film, the camera pans over the audience in a medium close-up at eye level, a metaphor for the real audiences’ aspirations to achieve Belfort’s supposed success.

Thomas Salek notes,

“…the film’s cultural reception demonstrates a public ambiguously mesmerized by a wealthy individual and his ‘get rich quick’ philosophy.” Following the Great Recession, “In a 2013 political poll, more than half of U.S. adults said they did not think the government and financial industry had done enough to prevent future financial crises”. Yet, “…they are hesitant to impose any form of regulation on financial markets”. ​

Thomas Salek

The Wolf of Wall Street​ released at a time when many Americans were economically struggling, but also refusing to punish the individuals who put them in that position, possibly out of the hope that one day it may be them on top. ​The Wolf of Wall Street​ showed the disillusioned audiences how that may be possible for them. In the United States where money is so tightly intertwined with power, the men who felt emasculated by the recession now had an outlet of escapism. ​The Wolf of Wall Street ​said by fighting their way out of poverty to reap the rewards of capitalism, men could regain their masculine identity and the rewards that accompany that (mainly women and power). Society will not simply hand out this identity, but instead it will only award it to those willing to struggle against their current socioeconomic condition.

Much like ​The Wolf of Wall Street​, Mary Harron’s ​American Psycho ​found itself released during tumultuous economic times. It reached theaters in the year 2000, with the dot-com bubble having recently burst. ​American Psycho​ follows investment banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) as he strives to maintain an impeccable image for his yuppie colleagues, acquaintances, and fiancee. As the film progresses we watch as Bateman lures in and brutally murders numerous women. It concludes with Bateman being denied the condemnation he seeks by his peers, and the other characters merely continuing to focus on their own lives.

Similar to how ​The Wolf of Wall Street​ parodies the excessive lifestyle of Jordan Belfort yet the pure spectacle of it all still carries the audience away, ​American Psycho​ shows the monstrous side of Patrick Bateman but offers no in-universe condemnation of his character. Bateman’s closing monologue over an extreme close-up of his eyes states,

“My punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself”.

Mary Harron, American Psycho

This lack of a clear condemnation from other characters allows the excesses of his life to outshine the horrors for those already looking to ignore them.

As Peter Deakin points out,

“Bateman becomes so fragmented and de-individualized (in addition to being defined) by his insane consumerism and his hyper-yuppie vision that, composed entirely of ‘inauthentic’ commodity-related desires… he ​cannot​… exist as a person.”

Peter Deakin

This explains how the film itself, but not the characters within the film, does condemn Bateman. However, it also describes how his masculinity and monetary goals are interconnected. He sees every financial conquest as a means of increasing his desirability in a world he perceives to be constantly attempting to rip it away. ​American Psycho ​may mock this notion by showing how all of the yuppies mix up each other’s names due to a loss of individuality, but it is this same rampant materialism that allows Bateman to live in a fantastic apartment, make more money than he knows what to do with, sleep with beautiful women, and ultimately face no consequences for his actions. To the men directly hurt by the economic downturn of 2000, Bateman may come with a lot of baggage (the brutal killing of innocent women is no small thing), but he also represents a lost lifestyle that is waiting for reclamation. A lifestyle only available by fighting against the economic forces of the time.

So once again a film presents a conventionally despicable character and depicts his failings, yet the character’s lifestyle causes audiences to use his material possessions as a goal to guide their lives in troubled times (even though the film itself condemns this). For a country that sees,

“Achieving financial prosperity [as] tied to the American dream”,

Thomas Salek

characters that provide a blueprint for that are highly valuable since,

“…most Americans [now] contend that it is harder to become wealthy and there is little chance they will achieve financial prosperity”.

Thomas Salek

Counter to both ​The Wolf of Wall Street and American Psycho​, David Fincher’s ​Fight Club​ released just prior to the dot-com burst, during an economic peak. It depicts its disillusioned narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) as they form the titular Fight Club, a place for aimless men to let loose their growing aggression. Increasingly fed up with a materialistic world, the members set out on a number of vandalism related plots, ultimately culminating in the destruction of numerous buildings housing countless debt records.

Fight Club​ parodies brands and corporations, and men’s increasing tendency to use them to define their lives. Mark Ramey states,

“The film is a powerful critique of a superficial consumer culture and the moral vacuum created by consumers who buy into that superficiality.”

Mark Ramey

Fight Club claims a generation without a war or depression to fight has it too easy and becomes effeminate as a result. It goes on to say men on some level crave violence and to fight and feel pain, feel themselves, and feel masculine. These men must fight to form their individuality and in death they will have a name. Their struggle gives them identity.

Of course much like the preceding two films which either depict their characters’ fall from grace and/or condemn them for their actions, ​Fight Club​ denounces the outright anarchy it depicts for much of its runtime when it has the narrator shoot out the part of his brain responsible for projecting the image of Tyler Durden, thus killing his aimless cravings for anarchy. But by depicting a lifestyle free of needless consumerism prior to this point, ​Fight Club​ offers an explanation to the men who feel like their lives lack purpose when their economic conditions are just too good. ​Fight Club​ tells these men to reject their financial bounties and instead embrace the primal nature of their identities. Toss out the comforts of modern life to get in touch with who you really are and what you truly desire. Those who stand in the way of this progress fail as men and (in the film, quite literally) find themselves castrated. Although this time Hollywood is not telling men to fight to climb the socioeconomic ladder, it is still telling them to fight, just this time to tear it all down.

These films expect men to pursue materialistic goods, but once they have acquired them they have either lost their individuality or have been so thoroughly consumed by their drive they have lost true autonomy. Films then encourage these same men to rebel against the broken system to tear it all down. And then films once again encourage them to strive for greatness because, without anything you are nothing, not desirable nor a real man. Throughout the years this cycle of societal and Hollywood based expectations has endured. A man must always be fighting in one direction or another to maintain his virility. To give in to the system, no matter which end of the spectrum the system is currently leaning, is a loss of decision making, agency, and therefore masculinity as often portrayed by American cinema.

Works Cited

• Deakin, Peter. “‘I Simply Am Not There’: American Psycho, the Turn of the Millennium and the Yuppie as a Killer of the Real.” ​Film International,​ vol. 14, no. 3–4 [77–78], 2016, pp. 85–101. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1386/fiin.14.3-4.85_1.
• Harron, Mary, director. ​American Psycho​. Lions Gate Films, 2000.
• Fincher, David, director. ​Fight Club​. 20th Century Fox, 1999.
• Ramey, Mark. ​Studying Fight Club​. Auteur, 2014. ​EBSCOhost​, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000tna&AN=828933&site=eds-live&scope=site.
• Salek, Thomas A. “Money Doesn’t Talk, It Swears: The Wolf of Wall Street as a Homology for America’s Ambivalent Attitude on Financial Excess.” ​Communication Quarterly​, vol. 66, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 1–19. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1080/01463373.2017.1323767.
• Scorsese, Martin, director. ​The Wolf of Wall Street.​ Paramount Pictures, 2013.

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Whether jumping between ships, diving into a river, knocking out a policeman, or running for his life Buster Keaton peppers every scene with numerous punchlines. The narrative itself takes a back seat to the visual comedy. The audience knows the two young lovers will eventually connect, but the thrill resides in anticipating what wacky situations will temporarily derail that plot. Steamboat Bill, Jr. even features what many call Buster Keaton’s most dangerous and must-see stunt: fitting perfectly through an open window in a house’s falling facade. Keaton supposedly even told his director to keep the camera rolling no matter what. Valuing these stunts and visual marvels over the story is what makes Steamboat Bill, Jr. resemble the “cinema of attractions” more than a narrative focused film.

My particular showing of Steamboat Bill, Jr. also included live piano accompaniment by Philip Carli, which simply added to the sense of “attraction.” Now not only did the film itself want to draw the audience’s attention away from the plot and towards the technical craft of the stunts and gags, but the theater also added its own additional artistry to the experience. Even though we remember Buster Keaton for fusing his stunts with more than serviceable story, between him and Philip Carli the narrative did not stand a chance.

Of course all of this applies to a silent film from 1928, but how does it apply to modern cinema? Well, over the years it naturally progressed from Keaton (who was already fusing action with narrative) to franchises that dominate our current theaters. If you look at Marvel or the Fast & Furious franchise, these films draw in audiences with the promise of spectacle. Of course there is an interesting through line across the films, but the action remains the primary draw. Even as budgets and technology have skyrocketed, the principals found in Steamboat Bill, Jr. still hold true today.

Once you do away with the facade and superfluous story, whether it is Fast & Furious or pornography, in the end, you’re just there for the explosions.

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Usually, studios provide theaters with roughly 90 days of exclusivity before releasing films through other means. With Universal Pictures now defying that norm, this could potentially lead to long term issues for theaters. Will moviegoers want to give up the convenience of their own home? After all, home theater set-ups have improved substantially and it seems harder and harder to find a venue with patrons not on their phones or talking to one another.

After a few months of social distancing, new habits will form. Once loyal theatergoers may begin to shun going out for the latest films and embrace a simpler and more personal experience. Home set-ups may never truly match the screen and sound quality of a decent theater, but how good is good enough? Is the pure spectacle of it all still a strong draw? Or are Universal’s actions another nail in the traditional theater system’s coffin?

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The following scene analysis contains spoilers for Some Like It Hot (1959).

Back beneath the table, Wilder packs the frame tightly, producing a sense of claustrophobia and anxiety. A pole runs in front of our view of Joe, a tablecloth takes up a quarter of the frame on either side, and Wilder films both Joe and Jerry with a medium close-up shot. But perhaps most importantly, Spats’ trademark shoes reside on the left-hand side of the frame, just behind Joe and slightly out of focus, but prominent enough to remind us of the danger of the situation.

The film routinely introduces the primary antagonist, Spats Colombo (George Raft), with a close-up shot of his distinct shoes. The film then either cuts to his face or employs an upward pan (tilt) to reveal the entirety of the menacing man. This process of association takes place repeatedly throughout Some Like It Hot. So by the time Joe and Jerry find themselves underneath the table, the audience understands the dramatic weight of the shoes sharing the frame. Tensions peak when all of these elements come together for a brief few seconds, and then momentarily dissipate when the unmistakable shoes slide out and go limp for the last time. That is, until we and our protagonists realize an even larger threat just effortlessly inserted himself into the chase.

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Jojo Rabbit follows one of Adolf Hitler’s biggest fans, Jojo. Jojo’s social awkwardness and general isolation (save for his second-best friend, Yorki, played by Archie Yates) lead to him adopting Hitler himself as his imaginary friend. However, Jojo’s blind nationalism finds itself challenged when he discovers a Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding away in his attic, who his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) invited.

For such a bleak and dire setup, Waititi manages to make the comedy work. Often times political satire can get a little too on the nose to work, but all of the jokes hit the mark in Jojo Rabbit and none stand out as significant duds. Stephen Merchant shines as Captain Deertz, a member of the Gestapo. His pivotal scene was one of the funniest in the movie and included a hysterical deconstruction of formal Nazi introductions (à la “Heil Hitler”).

Scarlett Johansson received less screen time than one may expect based upon her Oscar nomination for the role, but she gave a heartwarming and endearing performance nonetheless. Archie Yates as Yorki was the obvious scene-stealer and got some of the biggest laughs out of the theater. His failing-upwards style and charming naivety played excellently alongside Jojo’s much more serious and focused innocence. At the emotional turning point of Jojo Rabbit, Roman Griffin Davis delivers the knockout punch of the film. Juxtaposed against the jauntiness of the preceding scenes, watching Jojo come to terms with the revelation about his core identity and worldview is incredibly powerful.

Jojo’s revelation leads to the core message of Jojo Rabbit: that the young and emotionally vulnerable are easily susceptible to indoctrination when looking for a place of belonging. Extremists can lead these groups down morally reprehensible paths without them questioning or realizing it. They do not see the bars of their own cage. Although, this can all change when forced to confront the object of their manufactured hatred. When Jojo meets Elsa, the years of propaganda slowly but surely lose their hold on him until the human connection prevails. Jojo Rabbit also acknowledges this approach may not work for the most ardent Nazi supporters and promptly showcases an alternative method.

Jojo Rabbit has heart and delivers a powerful message wrapped in a witty and humorous coating. Taika Waititi fuses an abhorrent tragedy with political satire (that has an admittedly modern bent), to great success. Jojo Rabbit may not make the most unique or crushing observations, but it makes them in a wholly unique way. Plus, with the growing polarization of contemporary politics, these messages bear repeating.

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