Reading, Watching, Listening 7/5/2024
Reading, Watching, Listening 7/5/2024
A few words about Quiet Places
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Quiet Places and Kitty Cats
Normally I’d write about a movie I watched in the “Reading, Watching, Listening” section down below, but this week I wanted to make special mention of A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel to John Krasinski’s fine-but-overrated creature-horror series. This one is written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, who previously helmed the beautiful and surprisingly affecting film Pig, starring Nicolas Cage. A Quiet Place: Day One is no different. Lupita Nyong’o stars as a woman with terminal cancer who gets caught in the middle of an alien invasion while out with her group home at a show in Manhattan. While most survivors scramble to get to boats off the island, Nyong’o decides to head up to Harlem, to eat pizza. Along the way she is accompanied by her support cat (the greatest cat actor I’ve ever seen!), and eventually she meets a British guy who’s been attending law school in New York, played by Joseph Quinn. Together, they make their way up to Harlem, avoiding the series’ hearing-only monsters, with very little dialogue throughout.
I have to admit, I was pretty blown away by it. I didn’t mind the previous films in the franchise. This one is different, though. Sarnoski brings the same skills he displayed in Pig for crafting intense action sequences, in this case with a flair clearly influence by Steven Spielberg’s great War of the Worlds. The initial attack on New York is handled masterfully, and from there I was absolutely locked in. Even more impressive is that Sarnoski also carries over the tender emotions of Pig. Between the cancer story, and the burgeoning respect and love between the two leads, the movie finds real emotion. There were people crying at my IMAX screening by the movie’s end.
In Pig, Cage delivered one of his finest, most committed and heartfelt performances in years. We all know Nyong’o is one of the best actors we’ve got, but it’s remarkable to see her do maybe her very best work in a Quiet Place prequel of all things. Then there’s Quinn, who many will know from the fourth season of Stranger Things, but I didn’t watch that season, so I was unprepared. I don’t know what he’s like on that show, but here he delivers a performance so fine-tuned and delicate, so without ego, I was gobsmacked. His is a supporting performance in all senses of the word. Doing what he needs to lift up scenes, but always in furtherance of Nyong’o’s journey through the film. (Special shoutout to Alex Wolff, who takes a pretty small role as the nurse from the group home, and makes the character feel utterly real, rather than stock.)
Part of why I wanted to talk about this film up top, though, besides my love for it, is that I was shocked to go on Letterboxd afterward to discover people mostly giving it about three stars, or less. Me, I don’t give movies star ratings. I don’t put much stock in such things. That said, I was surprised to see my reaction be so in the minority, particularly among friends and peers. I suppose it’s true, that once you understand who the characters are, the film follows an almost entirely predictable plot, full of the series’ usual contrivances surrounded what exactly the aliens can an can’t hear at any given time. I suppose the emotion of it may read as schmaltz to some. But so what? Sometimes a little schmaltz is what we need in our lives. Have you seen the world out there? Do you want to just be a sad sack cynic all the time? But I suppose what surprises me most is seeing some react to the movie as though it’s just more diminishing returns in a popular horror franchise. I’m sorry, but the previous films were not like this one. They aspired to less and did less. They certainly didn’t have these performances, which I would put up there with the best I’ve seen in a good while. Every now and then, a blockbuster Hollywood movie will come along, and there’ll be a reaction of relative critical indifference that just baffles me. Not just in the “how can they not see what I see?” sense, but also on the level of, what more do you want?
It’s not exactly uncommon for the snobby movie buff circles I’m a part of to complain about the usual movies-by-committee that studios like to put out. When something like A Quiet Place: Day One comes along, I would think it’d be celebrated as an achievement within the bounds of that kind of studio filmmaking.
Or maybe the movie just caught me on a good day, or spoke to me personally, or maybe it was just the size of the IMAX screen and the fact that I was a little high. But no. I keep thinking about scenes from the movie, both the action and the drama. It’s staying with me, I can feel it. I’d urge anyone who hasn’t yet seen it to go give it a try, you may be as surprised as I was.
Reading, Watching, Listening
As I explained last week, this is the space where I’ll be sharing some of the things I’ve been reading, watching and/or listening to that I didn’t discuss in the rest of the week’s posts.
“Bells and Whistles”, by Bright Eyes, is the new single from another band that’s been with me since high school. Back in May, I wrote about The Decemberists, and how their consistency over decades has made them what I called “a living band” for me. Rather than a nostalgia act, they remain fresh, putting out new music I enjoy and regularly listen to. The same could be said, in a way of Bright Eyes. The key difference is that after The People’s Key in 2011, the band went on an extended hiatus. In that time, Conor Oberst put out plenty of great solo work, as well as a wonderful album with Phoebe Bridgers under the name Better Oblivion Community Center, but it took until 2020 for him to get Bright Eyes back together for Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was. That album, though not reaching quite the heights of earlier work, was very good, and I’ve listened to it plenty. Late last month, Bright Eyes released the first single, “Bells and Whistles”, off their upcoming album Five Dice, All Threes. Once again, I’m quite stunned by the consistency. The song sounds just like Bright Eyes, but somehow without feeling derivative. It’s simply a song that could have fit as well on 2007’s Cassadaga, one of my favourite albums of all time, so that’s pretty good!
Person of Interest, a show I’ve had my eye on for years, finally got my attention this week when I saw someone mention it for the umpteenth time on Twitter. I had dismissed the show when it first premiered in 2011. The Jonathan Nolan of it all didn’t much interest me, and I think I was mostly out of the network TV headspace at that point, aside from The Good Wife. But over the years, I just kept hearing about how good it was, certainly better than it had any right to be. Now, I say this with the stipulation that I’ve heard it gets even better as it goes, but I watched the pilot episode, and I’m hooked. Jim Caviezel as a super-trained ex-Special Forces guy who gets roped into helping Michael Emerson stop people’s murders with the help of a terrifying mass surveillance system? Great stuff. Even better is the way they make Caviezel’s character into a hilariously efficient shooting machine. I have no idea where the show is headed, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to recommend the iconic QAnon Anonymous podcast episode about Caveziel and his wacky politics and even wackier personal conduct on the set of the show.
The Power Broker, by Robert Caro, about the infamous American urban planner Robert Moses and the corruption of New York politics, has been one of those great projects I’ve eyed for years. I finally decided to start reading (or listening, rather, in audiobook form: it’s 66 hours long!) to the book, and let me tell you, it is gripping right off the bat. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to complete, but I’m with it right to the end. If you’ve been sleeping on this one, it’s become a bit of a thing these days, and there’s clearly good reason for that. It’s a biography that feels more like an instructive text about all the ways in which politics, particularly local politics, continue failing today across North America, and probably the world.
Thanks everyone for reading, and once again, consider subscribing if you can.