may is the cruelest month
IS GOD IS, a few less-seen heist movies, and some other filler content while i work on bigger and better things
Sorry for not writing anything last week. Something I sometimes forget is that I have a job. Usually it only exists for eight hours a day, but this time of year it tends to ramp up and eke into my mornings/evenings/weekends/sleep. When I decided to write about movies I forgot that it also require watching movies. It’s sort of hard to do both and maintain some semblance of a life, which I guess is why some people demand they get paid for it.
I wouldn’t be wasting your time complaining if I was going to provide anything worth reading this week, so I’ll quit beating around the bush: I’m two weeks behind with nothing to share for it. I’ve been working hard on a piece about Blue Heron that probably won’t be done for a minute - maybe that will show up here eventually, or maybe it’ll end up somewhere else if I can convince someone to publish it. I’m also working on some material for the 2026 movie bracket (there are a slew of MOVIES ABOUT STEALING coming out in the next couple weeks - get ready), as well as some travel-themed content for some upcoming trips I’ll be taking this summer. So a decent amount of racket coming down the pipeline, but nothing very much done.
Until then, here are some bits and bobs floating around in my brain to tide you over.
Aleshea Harris, Is God Is (2026). This didn’t do much for me, but maybe you’ll like it. Is God Is is Harris’s first venture outside theater, and her film debut plays it very much at the scripted surface, to the degree that the dialogue taps across the screen like it’s Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. It’s unsurprising that a playwright adapting her own play is going to hang onto her words, but I wish someone else in the room could have convinced her to let go of them. Harris opens her movie with a voice-over that says “Twins; Twins are burning” - and then we see two twins rubbing ice on their burn wounds. You can do poetry or you can do symbolist imagery, but you can’t do both. Maybe I’m quibbling. The visuals are interesting. The action scenes don’t quite work. Kara Young is worth paying attention to. Janelle Monae bugs me. There’s a lot of blood. There is maybe even more peeing. I guess in the end YMMV.
I think I’m pretty done with revenge movies - there’s not a lot left of this particular brand of suppressed id that needs to be exposed through cinema. The only place vengeance can possibly go is everyone either dead or bad/unsatisfied, a theme that was pretty well established by Cain and Abel and hasn’t been further developed since. Harris hits on more nuance than most people and ends up in a place where there’s some sort of redemption, but much of the power of her film comes from the simultaneous satisfaction/disgust of someone you sort of like bashing in the head of someone you don’t like with a rock. It’s one way to bring about instant catharsis, but it’s a movement we’ve seen so many times that I wonder if we’ve run our course trying to intellectualize it.
Brian De Palma, Femme Fatale (2002). Sort of like Mulholland Dr. but hornier and less coherent (!). The two were clearly talking to each other, but we spent too much time listening to one side and missed out on the world’s most fascinating conversation. Femme Fatale starts with the topless reflection of Rebecca Romijn in a TV screen playing Double Indemnity, jumps into a nonsensical heist at Cannes that pauses for over a minute to watch a guy scrub honey off his keys, and then veers into a double-identity plot that includes overflowing bathtubs, long-take split screens, and Antonio Banderas playing 2000s-movies gay best friend. In other words, probably De Palma’s magnum opus. This shouldn’t exist anywhere other than a scratched up DVD with a Blockbuster sticker on it, but it’s currently available on Plex for 100% free. A must watch.
Mario Monicelli, Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). Kind of like Ocean’s Eleven for losers, or if Good Time was actually a good time. If the heart of the heist movie is the escapism of watching highly competent people transform realism into an escape, Big Deal on Madonna Street is what happens when you and your dumb friends try to do the same thing. Monicelli takes on bombed-out neorealist Rome and proposes that a crew of scrubs can make it into a romp - and then lets ordinary stupidity bring them back down to the rubble. It’s great to see your friends pull off the perfect job, but there’s something even warmer about seeing them spectacularly fail.
Sam Peckinpah, The Getaway (1972). The only film that dared to bring a camera inside a working garbage truck. It’s unbelievable that these things roam around our cities grabbing stuff and crushing it. I’ve never considered what would happen if I got sucked into one, and though I don’t think I’d handle it quite as well as Steve McQueen, I have to hand it to Peckinpah for depicting the experience with unflinching realism. It’s not quite as harrowing as The Brave Little Toaster, but it’s close.
Louis Letterier, Now You See Me (2013). Fascinatingly bad. Essential viewing if you want to understand heist films - the nadir of a descent from realism that begins with Entrapment and The Thomas Crown Affair. I can’t believe I missed this in 2013. I think it would have activated something in me.
Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects (1995). Also pretty bad! Did adults like this when it came out or is it just something fourteen-year-old boys thought adults liked? Stephen Baldwin sucks. BDT even kind of sucks. If you’ve been thinking “fuck Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer, but . . .” for the past ten years, I recommend a re-watch to absolve yourself of any guilt you’ve held for thinking that this movie was good.
Podcasters saying “the [blank] of it all” (2026). Where did this tic come from? It’s even infected Producer Ben on Blank Check, one of the few voices of reason in this industry. “The Renée Russo of it all.” “The Condé Nast of it all.” “The Grogoo of it all.” What does this mean? Is this happening outside film podcasting? It simply must stop.
The Pensieve Papers (2023). Since I’m not putting out anything worthwhile this week - Florine recently reminded me that I’m responsible for this collection of content that still exists on the internet. I checked my bank statement and discovered that my website license auto-renewed this spring, so I guess I’ll put it out here to make its money’s worth. If you’re anxious for new Harry Potter content and can’t wait until Christmas, or if you just can’t get enough questionably accurate government file drops, or if you just count on this newsletter to provide you with ten minutes of content a week, this is for you.
I’m hopeful I’ll have something worth sharing next week. If anyone can inform me how to see Lifehack without leaving the state of Minnesota, send me a message. Until then, I guess please remember to like, comment, share, and subscribe. It’s worth it sometimes, I swear.