Seen in August

Never look a gift horse in the mouth… look in the belly.

Summer brings the sun, the lightning, the bugs, the ice cream, the hay fever, the bike rides and the movies.

The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s imagining of the classic 2000-year-old story of Odysseus as told by Greek poet Homer is suitably epic. It apparently took over 12 hours for Homer to recite his poem, so critics should excuse Nolan for leaving some stuff out. While the original poem touched on themes of homecoming, longing and resilience, this modern take depicts “the cunning” Odysseus (Matt Damon) as a softened, damaged war veteran. The visual experience of the film is hard to deny, but there are moments of dialogue that sound a bit like a first draught. It’s very believable that Nolan writes his film chronologically in one sitting - perhaps without rewrites. Despite that, there are scenes, such as warriors hiding in a wooden horse, the depiction of Circe’s (Samantha Morton) witchcraft, and the vision of Cyclops that were wholly new and powerful. Odysseus’ stay with Calypso (Charlize Theron), however, as others have said, felt more like a beach holiday resort. I actually prefer The Return with Ralf Fiennes as a rumination of the effect of war on those touched by it, but there’s no denying Nolan’s monumental achievement regardless of how much it may be praised or criticized.

A holiday never looked hotter.

La Piscine (The Swimming Pool)
Criterion Channel
I’m not sure a sexier cast has ever been assembled for this French thriller/sexual drama. Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marianne (Romy Schneider) are enjoying a sunny St. Tropez summer holiday in a fantastic villa with a beautiful pool when Marianne receives a phone call and casually invites her ex-lover Harry to join them. Harry (Maurice Ronet) appears with his teenage daughter. The flirty interactions with Harry and Marianne put Jean-Paul’s nose out of joint. It doesn’t help that Harry’s daughter, Penelope, is the striking Jane Birkin, who draws Jean-Paul’s gaze. There are some dated sequences and maddening plot turns that may put off some viewers. Yet, it’s the measured pace that gives this film its summertime vibe and adds tension between the characters. A recent remake (or film inspired by) with Tilda Swinton and Ralf Fiennes, A Bigger Splash, injects a lot more tension and viability to the whole proceedings in my opinion, and it’s also got a great summer tone set on an Italian island instead of the French Riviera.

Pluribus S01
Apple TV+
Imagine a zombie/alien invasion film where the zombies and aliens turn out to be really nice. The premise of this series is that an alien virus has turned most of the world’s population into a very pleasant hive mind, which is to say everyone is really just one. Except for a dozen people with natural immunity, including our protagonist and the rest of Earth’s antagonist, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn). This is my favourite kind of sci-fi. There are no laser battles, lovable green aliens or artificial gravity, but the story keeps trying to address the “What if?” questions that get murkier and murkier.

Peter Hujar’s Day
Kanopy
To many people, this is a very dull film. It involves a day-long conversation between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall). The conversation was intended to be a book by Rosenkrantz consisting of interviews with her artist friends about how they spend their days. What is funny to me is how Hujar describes a pretty productive day, describing a business meeting about licensing his photos, a photo shoot of poet Allen Ginsberg for the New York Times, and an afternoon of making prints as part of a series of images he was working on. Yet, he feels it was mostly a waste of time and not really advancing his own artwork. When Virginia Woolf said a writer needs a room of her own, she also meant not just a place to work, but the time and freedom needed to create that work. As Leonard Cohen said, when someone reads a published work, they are only seeing the mountaintop and not the mass of work that went into creating it. To me, this is a contemplative work on the nature of creation, perhaps in the vein of My Dinner with Andre, but to most it would be an incredible bore where you wait for something to happen when nothing does.

La vita Tucci.

Tucci in Italy S02
Disney+
If you feel you missed out on summer, don’t worry, Stanley Tucci will make you feel worse. In this series, Tucci visits various regions of Italy to discover unique local cultures through their cuisine. No one is living la dolce vita the way Tucci is. I enjoyed living vicariously through this American actor and have been on occasion inspired to try something new in the kitchen. If you think you’d like seeing a charming guy enjoying delicious meals in beautiful parts of Italy, then this is for you. Consider it “travel by couch”. On the other hand, if you think this would put your envy in overdrive, please avoid.

No Hard Feelings
Netflix
A rare thing these days: a ribald and juvenile sex comedy. I can’t remember why I watched this other than seeing Jennifer Lawrence try to coerce a young man, Andrew Barth Feldman, out of his shell with sex. Maybe it was seeing Matthew Broderick as a libertine dad, or seeing a fun cover of Hall & Oates’ Man-eater. The version on Netflix has a runtime about 4 minutes shorter than it should have, which indicates to me that Netflix asked to cut some of the more “adult” punchlines, which took a lot of the air out of the tires on this already low-to-the-ground comedy. Maybe the reason we don’t see these comedies anymore is that Hollywood has lost its nerve to make them.

Will they, or won't they… destroy the originals.

The Christophers
Prime Video
As a palate cleanser, The Christophers is an excellent amuse bouche. Two siblings, children of a once highly considered painter, Julia Sklar (Ian McKellan), ask a talented forger, Lori (Michela Cole), to “complete” a series of their father’s works to ensure their inheritance. Sklar discovers the scheme and decides to destroy the incomplete canvases. What is this film about? An aging entitled artist punching down on a younger one? The ridiculous valuation of art and how that can demean it? The schemes of lesser talents hoping to capitalize on greater ones? Who cares? It’s great fun to see Cole and McKellan spar in yet another great late-career little movie by Steven Soderbergh.

Nine to Five
Disney+
With Dolly Parton’s passing, we craved to catch a little of her magic again in this 1980 comedy co-starring Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Each woman has a reason to dislike their misogynist boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), and it’s that hatred that pushes them to take extreme action. To be honest, I had forgotten about 50% of this film and entirely forgotten the plan to deal with the despicable boss. Seeing it now, it seems more like a madcap comedy caper from the 70s, but I guess it marked a turning point in attitudes. The solutions the women come up with, flex-time and daycares, are a lot more commonplace since the pandemic. It only took 40 years. Still, the best things about the film remain the onscreen chemistry of the leads and Parton’s catchy hit theme song.