Midweek Update: For Your Consideration: Summer Goofballs

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard,” the actor Edmund Gwenn supposedly said on his deathbed. And yet, come awards season, comedic performances are almost away an afterthought. If you can scrape out a nomination like Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids or Maria Bakalova for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, you’ve succeeded. But comedy is so much harder than drama, and if you disagree, try to make a total stranger laugh. You may be popular with friends and family who know your personality, but to get a laugh out of someone you don’t know and who doesn’t know you? It’s borderline miraculous.

However, the Oscars steadfastly believe that they can only be taken seriously if they recognize “serious” performances no matter how laughable the seriousness of that performance may be (e.g. Jared Leto in The Little Things). The Golden Globes are a scam, but at least they have the good sense to split off some categories into comedy/musical to try and recognize films and performances that aren’t deadly serious. While this isn’t always successful (over in TV, The Bear seems to land in comedy because episodes are a half-hour even though the jokes are mixed with emotional gut punches and Succession is a drama even though it has some of the best one-liners you’ll ever hear), it at least leaves room for performances that go for a laugh rather than tears.

The Venice Film Festival starts next week, which means we’ll be in awards season, and everyone will be looking at the crop of films making the rounds through the festival circuit as potential contenders. Some will make a splash and others will sink, but the Academy would do well to consider some work from this summer’s crop of films. They should strongly consider two guys from summer movies for Best Supporting Actor: Jason Momoa for Fast X and Ryan Gosling for Barbie.

I am not a big fan of the Fast & Furious movies. I think they’re fine, but also largely forgettable. But dammit if Momoa didn’t kick down the door and do a thing as Fast X’s villain Dante Reyes. My friend and fellow critic Liz Shannon Miller described him as “genderqueer Bugs Bunny” and I think that’s pretty spot on. It’s unusual for an actor to come into a long-running franchise and completely steal the show, but that’s exactly what Momoa did with a performance that was as bombastic as the action surrounding him. Nothing in these movies is particularly real (as one character notes about the characters, “If it breaks the laws of physics, they did it twice,”) so why not go full-on banana-pants? I couldn’t really tell you all the details of Fast X’s plot, but I’m not going to forget Momoa’s performance anytime soon.

Over in Barbieworld, a nomination for Ryan Gosling’s Ken seems far more likely since Gosling has already been nominated twice before and Barbie is the biggest film of the year. While Margot Robbie also deserves recognition (and I wouldn’t be shocked if Barbie picks up a Best Picture nomination), Gosling is delightfully game for Ken. It would also be a great way of acknowledging that while Gosling made his name in dramas like Half-Nelson, The Believer, The Notebook and Blue Valentine, he’s a brilliant comedian as seen in The Big Short and The Nice Guys. Barbie is a continuation of that comic genius and while the film has many different Kens, the tortured desperation of Gosling’s himbo Ken is a wonder to behold.

While the nominations themselves wouldn’t necessarily change the careers of these actors (they’re going to be A-list stars either way), it would be a way of the Academy acknowledging that the cinematic landscape is stronger when we recognize that laughter should be a part of it. I’m sure there will be some powerhouse dramatic performances in the films coming this fall, but let’s not forget the ones that had us laughing our heads off in the theaters this summer.

Recommendation

Three goofy Stallone movies for $9? That’s a steal! Demolition Man, Over the Top, and Tango & Cash are a blast, and worth adding to your collection.

What I’m Watching

On Sunday, August 27th, theaters nationwide will offer tickets for only $4. That’s because that Labor Day weekend (or the weekend before Labor Day) tends to be among the slowest at theaters, so theater chains invented “National Cinema Day” offering cheap tickets, which is better than selling no tickets at all.

If you make your way out to the cinema, I recommend checking out Cory Finley’s new movie Landscape with Invisible Hand. It’s a strong satire about aliens who invade Earth in 2037, but rather than using their advance technology to annihilate us, they just use it to take all of our jobs and then demand gratitude for it. It’s a barely veiled critique of our oligarchic present, but what makes Finley’s movie shine (as well as his previous movies Thoroughbreds and Bad Education) is that as dark as the storytelling gets, there’s a kernel of warmth at the center. His characters aren’t bad as much as they’re hurt or misguided or trying to make the best of a bad situation. That underlying empathy is what powers Finley’s movies, and makes Landscape with Invisible Hand worth your time.

I also saw Blue Beetle, and it’s fine. I think it’s a film that exists awkwardly as interest in superhero movies starts to wane. It’s great that the movie embraces Latino representation, and the family dynamic is one of the film’s strongest assets. But its plotting is about as tepid as it gets with yet another superhero story about a hero and a villain who have similar armor/abilities. There’s also the question of whether Warner Bros. Discovery should have even bothered taking the film off HBO Max and putting it into theaters. Yes, that gives the film more visibility, but I don’t know what kind of box office projections they were getting that said this movie could possibly be a hit in mid-August especially after The Flash flopped so hard in mid-June.

Anyway, there are only two superhero movies left in 2023—The Marvels (November 10th) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (December 20th). While greenlighting these sequels made sense (Captain Marvel and Aquaman each made over a billion worldwide), they’re coming into a harsh new reality where superhero burnout is very real, and only the biggest names (e.g. Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman) have a chance of being hits.

What I’m Reading

I’m still making my way through Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, but I’m absolutely loving it. I find myself slowing down because I’m savoring the writing and characters, which hasn’t happened for me with a work of fiction in quite some time.

In other reads:

The Bradley Cooper “Jewface” Controversy Isn’t Really About That Nose by Mark Harris [Slate] - When I first saw the image of Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, I admit I cringed a bit because it’s just a gut reaction to seeing a gentile actor put on a big nose to play a Jewish person. But Leonard Bernstein did have a big schnoz! I mean look at that thing! This isn’t caricature! I also think Harris hits upon several good points here including that this is a real person, not some generic Jew, so if his own family is like, “Yeah, that’s what our dad looked like,” then who am I to say different? Also, as Harris points out, while things like yellowface and blackface were used to keep minorities out of Hollywood by giving those roles to white actors, it’s hard to make the case that Jews have been systemically kept out of the entertainment industry. Anyway, I know online our default is set to to “outrage” because that’s how websites harvest clicks and stay afloat, but I appreciate Harris’ levelheaded approach.

Can’t Hear the Dialogue in Your Streaming Show? You’re Not Alone. by Brian X. Chen [The New York Times] - I guess this is a thing now? On the one hand, there probably should be some standardization process, but I’m not even sure what that would look like considering that streaming has to go through far more devices and deal with far more audio channels than we ever had in the days of network and cable. I sympathize that trying to get a mix right across multiple devices and various compressions is a major technological hurdle, and I don’t have an easy answer to solve it. And if you feel like you need subtitles, then so be it. It’s hard for me to badmouth subtitles considering I need them for every non-English film I’ll ever see. But I’ll also say that the problem described here hasn’t affected me as much because I have a 5.1 surround setup. Obviously, that’s not a solution for everyone, but apparently soundbars can also be a solid fix.

Good Luck, Morons: Lazarus Lake and His Impossible Race by Sara Estes [The Bitter Southerner] - As someone who has no interest in ever running an ultramarathon, I found this feature on The Barkley Marathons so good that it led me to watch a documentary about the same subject. Basically, the race is so punishing not only because of the distance (100 miles) but also because of the elevation (it’s the equivalent of scaling Everest twice) and the terrain (which will tear you up). Since the race was established in 1986, only 17 people have ever finished it. Anyway, more power to anyone who even attempts the marathon, but reading about it made be feel very good about my recreational choices.

What I’m Hearing

I’m hearing it. You’re hearing it. We’re all hearing it. Nominate it for Best Song and have Gosling perform it at the ceremony.

What I’m Playing

I’ve finally made my to Hitman III, but this past week I was doing the Sniper Assassin missions, and they’re so good. I wish IOI would release more of them. I know that the Sniper Elite series is out there, but I like the arcade-style of the Sniper Assassin mission and the way you can manipulate the environment as well as change the routines of the targets. I’ll probably go back and complete all the Himmelstein challenges just because I like the mode so much.