Warning: There will be a discussion of the following movies, that may contain spoilers, in this post and/or the comments. The OP will be light on actual spoilers, but I know how people get, so I don't want any complaining:
Rebel Ridge, I Saw the TV Glow, Civil War, The Iron Claw, Love Lies Bleeding, The Zone of Interest, The Lighthouse, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
I retired the streaming power ranking series, but I thought I'd do something streaming-adjacent that caught my interest recently. Over the last several days, I enlisted a hardy group of compatriots (some of whom were not pets) to watch our own film festival of sorts; specifically, to go through the A24 movies we haven't all seen on Max. Then, because it's been getting some serious buzz in various podcasts and trade journals, we also added in Rebel Ridge, the new and popular Netflix movie, as a comparator, to see how Netflix original movies stack up. Because, well, everyone is saying it's really good.
Also? At the end, as a bonus, a VERY BRIEF streamer power rankings.
A. A24 on Max
For those of you don't know, A24 is a film production company that has its own, fairly loyal, fanbase. A24 is known for making "good," or at least, "interesting" movies. Given the audience here, I think it would be best put like this- remember when a certain famous Goodfellas director was all like, "Boy, I wish people would make more REAL CINEMA and less comic book movies"? Well, A24 is the company that makes the types of films he was thinking of.
Max (which is the terribly named streaming service that David Zaslav is trying to run into the ground, best known as the home of HBO and indulging Zack Snyder) has a deal to carry a bunch of A24 movies- it doesn't have all of them, but it has a decent selection of them. For this ... um ... seriously independent and small film festival I organized, we did not watch some of the "big ones" that they carry, because every person had already seen them. So if you're looking for Uncut Gems, Midsommar, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Lady Bird, The Witch, The Florida Project, and some others, well, sorry.
The movies that we ended up choosing are: I Saw the TV Glow, Civil War, The Iron Claw, Love Lies Bleeding, The Zone of Interest, The Lighthouse, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. All of them have at least something to recommend them, and I will get into the merits and the watchin' in part C, infra.
B. Rebel Ridge and Netflix
For those of you who have been hiding under a rock recently, Netflix has been pumping out original series and movies with abandon in an attempt to become a utility service, as ubiquitous as electricity and water. If you have been paying more attention to the offerings, you might have noticed that The Algorithm (blessed be its name) seems to be driving Netflix to be making more Is this Cake? series and more Generic Action Movies with a Star You Might Have Heard Of, Maybe J-Lo or Millie Bobby Brown. In other words, Netflix has realized that we, the viewing public, say that we like the good stuff ... but most of us, most of the time? We like trash.
For those of you who remember Ye Olden Days, when Netflix was a DVD service, this might seem familiar. You would order three DVDs. Two of them would be popular comedies, or action movies, or whatever. And then you might get one of a movie that you knew was good, and that you knew you should watch. Maybe ... Alphaville, the 1965 black & white French noir by Jean-Luc Godard. And you'd come home from work, and you'd watch the first two movies because they were easy. And return them, and get two new movies. But you just never could start Alphaville. It would sit there, for days, weeks, sometimes months, as a silent rebuke to your habits as you cycled through your other DVDs.
I may have had an Alphaville in my past, but I genuinely like difficult and interesting movies. So Netflix's turn to pumping out popular movies (as opposed to the weirder stuff they used to do (like Apostle) has been disheartening. So when I kept hearing from various sources that they had a genuinely interesting action movie called Rebel Ridge (people made claims that it was like Rambo: First Blood, that it was similar to early John Wick, that it was a "thinking man's" action movie) I decided to add it to the movie festival to see how Netflix originals compared to what A24 was pumping out.
C. The Battle is Joined, and It is a Rout
I don't hide the ball, so I'm going to get this out of the way at the top. The A24 films we watched were varying in quality, from all-time great to "flawed, yet interesting." But every single A24 movie on that list was a much better movie that Rebel Ridge. Not to get Scorsese on this, but the A24 movies were cinema, and the Netflix movie was ... well, it was a bad episode of Reacher.
So let's start with Rebel Ridge ("RR"). To say that I didn't get the hype ... the discourse ... about the movie is an understatement. In fairness, we watched it 2/3 of the way through the A24 movie-thon, so the faults were more glaring. Even so, it just isn't very good. Before getting into that, let's talk about what was good! Don Johnson, chewing scenery, playing a baddie? Always good (see also the much better The Watchmen series on HBO). The very brief lesson about civil asset forfeiture? I'm down for that. The perfectly-played opening that brings in the element of race into policing and how those interactions are naturally fraught, and put the viewers into the headspace of the protagonist? Well done!
The bad? Everything else. The plot didn't make sense. The acting was ... all over the place. The sets and design felt cheap, like a TV show. The cinematography was non-existent, and the action choreography rarely threatened to be mediocre. I went in wanting to like this show (and I do love a good action and a good revenge film) but there was nothing to hold my attention. As I said before, it was like a bad episode of Reacher- but that show has better action and some humor (both intentionally and unintentionally). This was a slog. Other than the gleefully malevolent Don Johnson, there was almost no life in this movie. I am sure that someone in the comments will tell me what I missed, but it just felt like a rote exercise in churning out content. Which, again, is too bad. The opening (which I enjoyed, was well-done, and tense) really had me hoping that this would be more.
Which brings us to the comparators. Every single one of the A24 films was so much better than RR it's not even funny. Look, in some cases it's not a fair comparison- The Zone of Interest is an absolute masterpiece, and comparing action schlock to one of the most powerful films I have seen about the Holocaust isn't a fair comparison. But even the truly flawed films at least had so much more to recommend them. So I guess it's time to do a quick review of the films I watched on Max?
D. Quick and Dirty Ranking of the A24 Films
This is a subjective ranking; I would recommend all of these films and I enjoyed them all. Although ... the last one? Eh.... you'll see.
1. The Zone of Interest. Absolute masterpiece. If you haven't, um, heard of the film, you need to go see it. Look, I get it. No one wants to see a movie on this subject. But the message is not just about then; it's about now.
2. The Killing of a Sacred Deer. This is a recommendation with a caveat. I happen to think that Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most important and interesting directors working today. If you watched The Lobster, and thought it was brilliant, this is similar- the peeling away of how social norms and rules work, by applying rules that aren't quite the same as ours. It is a slow burn that will stick with you for a while.
3. The Iron Claw. The most "normal" movie on the list, it's a biopic (of sorts) about a wrestling family in Texas. It features amazing performances, and a story that I won't spoil. I will say this- this is one of the few times where a movie actually fictionalizes things to make them more believable than what actually happened. But it's a powerful story about family relationships and the drive to succeed.
4. I Saw the TV Glow. Absolutely mesmerizing, and absolutely devastating. I loved this movie so much. It's the type of movie that you wish certain people could watch and understand, but then you realize that the people who most need to see this movie are the people least capable of understanding it.
5. The Lighthouse. Okay, so this has been kind of like "Alphaville" for me. I've been meaning to watch it forever, but then I'm like, "It's almost two hours. It's black & white. It's a film with two actors. Eh, maybe I'll watch Succession." I loved the other two films by the directors (Eggers) - The Witch and The Northman. And I'm excited to see Nosferatu. So I added this to the festival. And? It was good! It was enjoyable ... I mean, for values of enjoyable that include "a slow burn of watching someone lose their mind ..." Good film, well done. No notes. I mean, other than "Willem Dafoe is a credit to all that is good in our world. Now, we need to get him in some stuff with Walton Goggins."
Actually, I wanna case Dafoe, Goggins, Jesse Plemmons, and Ben Mendelsohn in something. Maybe Jon Bernthal as well, but he's more specific. We need to make this happen.
6. Love Lies Bleeding. I enjoyed this movie, especially as it started to go off the rails. I would recommend it. I did ... well, I did have questions regarding a certain magical realism element, but I prefer a flawed movie that takes big swings than a "color-by-numbers" bit.
(BIG GAP)
7. Civil War. Ummmmm.... so this is a beautifully shot movie. And the cameo by Jesse Plemons? He is doing his thang. But fundamentally, this movie just doesn't work. I get it- this is actually a movie about war journalism, not about ... the Civil War. But the underlying issue (you know, an American Civil War) is so resonant that it makes the actual topic of the movie seem like a distraction. This was just a poor choice. I have been interested in movies about war journalism ever since Salvador, and we could use a good one. But there is a fundamental flaw in the premise- I assume that the director wanted to abstract away from "whatever the actual conflict is" to focus on the journalism, but by making it this topic, the entire movie instead is just frustrating because the viewer is constantly looking for more information about the actual conflict. Lots of beautiful scenes in service of a movie that at its most basic level is misguided.
E. Brief Streamer Power Rankings
1. Netflix. (2022: 1, Apr. 2023: 1, Summer 2023: 1, Fall 2023: 1)
Netflix exists to eats eyeballs and excrete shareholder value. While the other streamers struggle with various issues, Netflix has, for lack of a better term, won the streaming wars. They are profitable, and they can make their own content. In addition, other streamers (Disney, Max, etc.) are putting their shows on Netflix.
It's good to be king.
2. Disney+. (2022: 2, Apr. 2023: 5, Summer 2023: 2, Fall 2023: 4).
I am as surprised as you are. Look, this isn't a bet on just Disney qua Disney. Sure, parents of young children still have to ante up, but ... I have questions. The two major tentpoles of the main streaming service (Marvel and Star Wars) aren't exactly looking great right now. So why are they number two?
Simple. They have finally turned the corner to (barely) making a profit. They have a deep and well-regarded bench of IP. And with Hulu, ESPN, and ABC, they have the ability to offer prestige adult programming, live sports, and some news. Finally, while they still have the legacy cable stuff to worry about, they also have other streams of income (parks!) to let them get through a few rough patches. It's not great at the House of Mouse, but it looks like they have survived the bloodletting.
3. TIED!
AppleTV+. (2022: 3, April 2023: 3, Summer 2023: 3, Fall 2023: 3)
Prime. (2022: 6, April 2023: 6, Summer 2023: 4, Fall 2023: 5)
I will cover these two at the same time, because they have the same strength and weaknesses. First, the difference- Amazon prefers the firehose of content, some good, most ... not so good. Apple prefers to make fewer quality shows. But both of them have one huge advantage; they don't care about streaming. It's a hobby and money sink for them. But that great advantage is also the possible source of real weakness; the DOJ (and others) have been sniffing around, filing suits, and generally being unhappy with BigTech and their dominance. At some point, these services might get cast off or no longer subsidized due to regulatory scrutiny. And Apple and Amazon are certainly going to think twice before they engage in any massive deals to enlarge their footprint in this area.
5. Peacock. (2022: 7, Apr. 2023: 8, Summer 2023: 6, Fall 2023: 6)
They have the Olympics, some sports, and most importantly? Comcast doesn't seem to want to let them fail. Still a minnow, but a minnow that won't quit.
6.HBOMax (2022: 8, Apr 2023: 2, Summer 2023: 5, Fall 2023: 2)
The great Zaslav plan has, um, not been going well. I love the content, but the simple problem with Max is this- debt is killing them. They are forced to sell some of their best shows elsewhere (this is why you see so many HBO shows on Netflix). Other than paying Zaslav lots of money, it's unclear what strategy will work for Max going forward. It's difficult to see them doing anything other than eventually getting sold.
7. Paramount+. (2022: 6, Apr. 2023: 7, Summer 2023: 7, Fall 2023: 7).
If there was a lower spot, Paramount+ would be in it. I love Star Trek. So it pains me to say that the precarious position of the streamer was dire before the sale (and issues) with the parent company. This is the streamer that looks at the problems at Max and says, "Hold my beer."
Rebel Ridge, I Saw the TV Glow, Civil War, The Iron Claw, Love Lies Bleeding, The Zone of Interest, The Lighthouse, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
I retired the streaming power ranking series, but I thought I'd do something streaming-adjacent that caught my interest recently. Over the last several days, I enlisted a hardy group of compatriots (some of whom were not pets) to watch our own film festival of sorts; specifically, to go through the A24 movies we haven't all seen on Max. Then, because it's been getting some serious buzz in various podcasts and trade journals, we also added in Rebel Ridge, the new and popular Netflix movie, as a comparator, to see how Netflix original movies stack up. Because, well, everyone is saying it's really good.
Also? At the end, as a bonus, a VERY BRIEF streamer power rankings.
A. A24 on Max
For those of you don't know, A24 is a film production company that has its own, fairly loyal, fanbase. A24 is known for making "good," or at least, "interesting" movies. Given the audience here, I think it would be best put like this- remember when a certain famous Goodfellas director was all like, "Boy, I wish people would make more REAL CINEMA and less comic book movies"? Well, A24 is the company that makes the types of films he was thinking of.
Max (which is the terribly named streaming service that David Zaslav is trying to run into the ground, best known as the home of HBO and indulging Zack Snyder) has a deal to carry a bunch of A24 movies- it doesn't have all of them, but it has a decent selection of them. For this ... um ... seriously independent and small film festival I organized, we did not watch some of the "big ones" that they carry, because every person had already seen them. So if you're looking for Uncut Gems, Midsommar, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Lady Bird, The Witch, The Florida Project, and some others, well, sorry.
The movies that we ended up choosing are: I Saw the TV Glow, Civil War, The Iron Claw, Love Lies Bleeding, The Zone of Interest, The Lighthouse, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. All of them have at least something to recommend them, and I will get into the merits and the watchin' in part C, infra.
B. Rebel Ridge and Netflix
For those of you who have been hiding under a rock recently, Netflix has been pumping out original series and movies with abandon in an attempt to become a utility service, as ubiquitous as electricity and water. If you have been paying more attention to the offerings, you might have noticed that The Algorithm (blessed be its name) seems to be driving Netflix to be making more Is this Cake? series and more Generic Action Movies with a Star You Might Have Heard Of, Maybe J-Lo or Millie Bobby Brown. In other words, Netflix has realized that we, the viewing public, say that we like the good stuff ... but most of us, most of the time? We like trash.
For those of you who remember Ye Olden Days, when Netflix was a DVD service, this might seem familiar. You would order three DVDs. Two of them would be popular comedies, or action movies, or whatever. And then you might get one of a movie that you knew was good, and that you knew you should watch. Maybe ... Alphaville, the 1965 black & white French noir by Jean-Luc Godard. And you'd come home from work, and you'd watch the first two movies because they were easy. And return them, and get two new movies. But you just never could start Alphaville. It would sit there, for days, weeks, sometimes months, as a silent rebuke to your habits as you cycled through your other DVDs.
I may have had an Alphaville in my past, but I genuinely like difficult and interesting movies. So Netflix's turn to pumping out popular movies (as opposed to the weirder stuff they used to do (like Apostle) has been disheartening. So when I kept hearing from various sources that they had a genuinely interesting action movie called Rebel Ridge (people made claims that it was like Rambo: First Blood, that it was similar to early John Wick, that it was a "thinking man's" action movie) I decided to add it to the movie festival to see how Netflix originals compared to what A24 was pumping out.
C. The Battle is Joined, and It is a Rout
I don't hide the ball, so I'm going to get this out of the way at the top. The A24 films we watched were varying in quality, from all-time great to "flawed, yet interesting." But every single A24 movie on that list was a much better movie that Rebel Ridge. Not to get Scorsese on this, but the A24 movies were cinema, and the Netflix movie was ... well, it was a bad episode of Reacher.
So let's start with Rebel Ridge ("RR"). To say that I didn't get the hype ... the discourse ... about the movie is an understatement. In fairness, we watched it 2/3 of the way through the A24 movie-thon, so the faults were more glaring. Even so, it just isn't very good. Before getting into that, let's talk about what was good! Don Johnson, chewing scenery, playing a baddie? Always good (see also the much better The Watchmen series on HBO). The very brief lesson about civil asset forfeiture? I'm down for that. The perfectly-played opening that brings in the element of race into policing and how those interactions are naturally fraught, and put the viewers into the headspace of the protagonist? Well done!
The bad? Everything else. The plot didn't make sense. The acting was ... all over the place. The sets and design felt cheap, like a TV show. The cinematography was non-existent, and the action choreography rarely threatened to be mediocre. I went in wanting to like this show (and I do love a good action and a good revenge film) but there was nothing to hold my attention. As I said before, it was like a bad episode of Reacher- but that show has better action and some humor (both intentionally and unintentionally). This was a slog. Other than the gleefully malevolent Don Johnson, there was almost no life in this movie. I am sure that someone in the comments will tell me what I missed, but it just felt like a rote exercise in churning out content. Which, again, is too bad. The opening (which I enjoyed, was well-done, and tense) really had me hoping that this would be more.
Which brings us to the comparators. Every single one of the A24 films was so much better than RR it's not even funny. Look, in some cases it's not a fair comparison- The Zone of Interest is an absolute masterpiece, and comparing action schlock to one of the most powerful films I have seen about the Holocaust isn't a fair comparison. But even the truly flawed films at least had so much more to recommend them. So I guess it's time to do a quick review of the films I watched on Max?
D. Quick and Dirty Ranking of the A24 Films
This is a subjective ranking; I would recommend all of these films and I enjoyed them all. Although ... the last one? Eh.... you'll see.
1. The Zone of Interest. Absolute masterpiece. If you haven't, um, heard of the film, you need to go see it. Look, I get it. No one wants to see a movie on this subject. But the message is not just about then; it's about now.
2. The Killing of a Sacred Deer. This is a recommendation with a caveat. I happen to think that Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most important and interesting directors working today. If you watched The Lobster, and thought it was brilliant, this is similar- the peeling away of how social norms and rules work, by applying rules that aren't quite the same as ours. It is a slow burn that will stick with you for a while.
3. The Iron Claw. The most "normal" movie on the list, it's a biopic (of sorts) about a wrestling family in Texas. It features amazing performances, and a story that I won't spoil. I will say this- this is one of the few times where a movie actually fictionalizes things to make them more believable than what actually happened. But it's a powerful story about family relationships and the drive to succeed.
4. I Saw the TV Glow. Absolutely mesmerizing, and absolutely devastating. I loved this movie so much. It's the type of movie that you wish certain people could watch and understand, but then you realize that the people who most need to see this movie are the people least capable of understanding it.
5. The Lighthouse. Okay, so this has been kind of like "Alphaville" for me. I've been meaning to watch it forever, but then I'm like, "It's almost two hours. It's black & white. It's a film with two actors. Eh, maybe I'll watch Succession." I loved the other two films by the directors (Eggers) - The Witch and The Northman. And I'm excited to see Nosferatu. So I added this to the festival. And? It was good! It was enjoyable ... I mean, for values of enjoyable that include "a slow burn of watching someone lose their mind ..." Good film, well done. No notes. I mean, other than "Willem Dafoe is a credit to all that is good in our world. Now, we need to get him in some stuff with Walton Goggins."
Actually, I wanna case Dafoe, Goggins, Jesse Plemmons, and Ben Mendelsohn in something. Maybe Jon Bernthal as well, but he's more specific. We need to make this happen.
6. Love Lies Bleeding. I enjoyed this movie, especially as it started to go off the rails. I would recommend it. I did ... well, I did have questions regarding a certain magical realism element, but I prefer a flawed movie that takes big swings than a "color-by-numbers" bit.
(BIG GAP)
7. Civil War. Ummmmm.... so this is a beautifully shot movie. And the cameo by Jesse Plemons? He is doing his thang. But fundamentally, this movie just doesn't work. I get it- this is actually a movie about war journalism, not about ... the Civil War. But the underlying issue (you know, an American Civil War) is so resonant that it makes the actual topic of the movie seem like a distraction. This was just a poor choice. I have been interested in movies about war journalism ever since Salvador, and we could use a good one. But there is a fundamental flaw in the premise- I assume that the director wanted to abstract away from "whatever the actual conflict is" to focus on the journalism, but by making it this topic, the entire movie instead is just frustrating because the viewer is constantly looking for more information about the actual conflict. Lots of beautiful scenes in service of a movie that at its most basic level is misguided.
E. Brief Streamer Power Rankings
1. Netflix. (2022: 1, Apr. 2023: 1, Summer 2023: 1, Fall 2023: 1)
Netflix exists to eats eyeballs and excrete shareholder value. While the other streamers struggle with various issues, Netflix has, for lack of a better term, won the streaming wars. They are profitable, and they can make their own content. In addition, other streamers (Disney, Max, etc.) are putting their shows on Netflix.
It's good to be king.
2. Disney+. (2022: 2, Apr. 2023: 5, Summer 2023: 2, Fall 2023: 4).
I am as surprised as you are. Look, this isn't a bet on just Disney qua Disney. Sure, parents of young children still have to ante up, but ... I have questions. The two major tentpoles of the main streaming service (Marvel and Star Wars) aren't exactly looking great right now. So why are they number two?
Simple. They have finally turned the corner to (barely) making a profit. They have a deep and well-regarded bench of IP. And with Hulu, ESPN, and ABC, they have the ability to offer prestige adult programming, live sports, and some news. Finally, while they still have the legacy cable stuff to worry about, they also have other streams of income (parks!) to let them get through a few rough patches. It's not great at the House of Mouse, but it looks like they have survived the bloodletting.
3. TIED!
AppleTV+. (2022: 3, April 2023: 3, Summer 2023: 3, Fall 2023: 3)
Prime. (2022: 6, April 2023: 6, Summer 2023: 4, Fall 2023: 5)
I will cover these two at the same time, because they have the same strength and weaknesses. First, the difference- Amazon prefers the firehose of content, some good, most ... not so good. Apple prefers to make fewer quality shows. But both of them have one huge advantage; they don't care about streaming. It's a hobby and money sink for them. But that great advantage is also the possible source of real weakness; the DOJ (and others) have been sniffing around, filing suits, and generally being unhappy with BigTech and their dominance. At some point, these services might get cast off or no longer subsidized due to regulatory scrutiny. And Apple and Amazon are certainly going to think twice before they engage in any massive deals to enlarge their footprint in this area.
5. Peacock. (2022: 7, Apr. 2023: 8, Summer 2023: 6, Fall 2023: 6)
They have the Olympics, some sports, and most importantly? Comcast doesn't seem to want to let them fail. Still a minnow, but a minnow that won't quit.
6.
The great Zaslav plan has, um, not been going well. I love the content, but the simple problem with Max is this- debt is killing them. They are forced to sell some of their best shows elsewhere (this is why you see so many HBO shows on Netflix). Other than paying Zaslav lots of money, it's unclear what strategy will work for Max going forward. It's difficult to see them doing anything other than eventually getting sold.
7. Paramount+. (2022: 6, Apr. 2023: 7, Summer 2023: 7, Fall 2023: 7).
If there was a lower spot, Paramount+ would be in it. I love Star Trek. So it pains me to say that the precarious position of the streamer was dire before the sale (and issues) with the parent company. This is the streamer that looks at the problems at Max and says, "Hold my beer."
