Tick, Tick...Boom! - Cheap Thoughts

There’s always this fine line when it comes to telling the story of a struggling artist. It’s an easy lifestyle to romanticise and glorify, creating this unhealthy ideal that for someone to succeed as an artist they have to be poor, depressed or socially exiled. Tick Tick…Boom loves to play on that line like it’s the string to a violin and yet never trips over to the other side thanks to some delicate decisions within the script. It’s safe to say a decent amount of credit to this can be given to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s own personal struggles in building his career as a theatre icon. Mind you, that’s is a blatant guess, having done no research into Miranda’s own history, it could entirely be that his career was an easy and fluid transition, in which case even further kudos can be given to him accurately being able to represent the struggle of trying to create art while trying to survive in an overwhelming money ridden corporate world. There’s a particular scene at Larson’s daytime job working the brunch rush at a diner that hits very close to home for anyone who’s worked in customer service.

For a directorial debut while Miranda may have played it safe with the story and choosing a tale he is no doubt very familiar with, he doesn’t play it safe with his camera. TTB is a musical adaptation of the life of Jonathan Larson (Played by Andrew Garfield) and Miranda clearly has enough experience in front of the camera to understand the power it can hold in elevating a film versus a staged production where his origins lie. There is such an energy and purpose to his shots, giving them life and emotion, while there is no big show-stopper production with flashy effects and bombastic dance numbers, each sequence is filmed appropriately to convey the emotions present in the song.

Above that he knows to give the majority focus to Garfield, the stand-out performance within the film. He provides such charisma and purposeful decisions behind every movement and facial expression. He is a character with such an explosive energy it leaks out constantly even in the humblest of moments and so when the film allows for him to fully express himself through the musical numbers and dramatic moments, he alleviates himself by giving everything to it. There is already much talk about a potential Oscar nomination for this performance which he certainly deserves and would definitely be preferred over self-indulgent dramatic performances full of nihilism and rage that usually takes hold of the Oscar voters. If there is one emotion that charges Garfield’s performance, it’s love.

There was another paragraph meant to discuss Larson’s real-life career and legacy, specifically that of his most famous work Rent but it felt mostly tangential and critical of external work. It didn’t feel right to harp on about it, but it also didn’t feel right to ignore it entirely as this whole film is a build up to his big break with Rent as his magnum opus and yet it feels disingenuous considering the reputation of Rent has only lessened over the years. It’s understandable the film wouldn’t address this, arguably it never needed to, especially when that’s not in Miranda’s style to analyse the complications of a person and instead focus on the legacy they left as a whole. Yes this is another Lin-Manuel Miranda piece about legacy what were you expecting?

-Danny

The French Dispatch - Cheap Thoughts

In someways this might be the “Most Wes Anderson” movie he has made, your mileage may very on whether that is a positive or a negative, but it does feel astute. Wes Anderson as a filmmaker is so comfortable in his style and in it’s hard to fault him for it, while it’s absolutely understandable if he’s not your preferred cup of tea, there’s a prescence to him that is hard to replicate despite what some may believe. It’s not just a matter of being simetrical, but his films have a comfort to them. 

They are stylistic and quirky, sometimes funny but never laugh out loud funny, and above all charming. He creates environments you want to spend time in, characters you enjoy listening to, though the narratives are often what lets him down and where his weaker aspects as a writer begin to divide audiences. Strange a description as that may seem, even contradictory consider the film’s clear love of the written word, and for writers and storytellers of all forms.

The French Dispatch structure as an anthology film helps to hide most of these, designing itself as a visual component to a fictional magazine, each piece emphasises character and style above all else, most of which are told to the audience through Anderson’s frequent collaborators. In a sense this then leads to the film falling into the faults of the anthology structure itself rather than Anderson’s own, mainly being you walk away having your preferences, some stories are weaker than others and when the time is divided unevenly you risk the lesser of the stories taking up the majority screentime.

In truth there is little that needs to be discussed about The French Dispatch, it is simply another Anderson picture. If you are already a fan, you will enjoy this one all the same, if you are not, it is certainly not the piece to convince you otherwise, and if you have never seen an Anderson picture before, do not start with this one. Anderson & Co have finessed their formula down to the perfect detail with little desire to deviate, and in an age where the average audience’s diet consists of grey-goo like blockbusters with little subtance or presentation, if you have a delicious meal that succeeds in both why would you wish to deviate? No it is not going to be a dish for everyone, but frankly that’s not a bad thing. Anderson & Co will keep on creating work that appeals to them and if it appeals to you along the way then good for you, if not, keep on moving, you’ll find your dish eventually, just don’t ask them to change their’s to match your preferences.

-Danny

Eternals - Cheap Thoughts

Without a doubt, best Power Rangers film there is. That’s only partially a joke. Eternals genuinely has more in common with that franchise than it does The Avengers. A group of diverse super powered beings united by the power of a godlike being instructing them to protect Earth from alien monsters, even down to their human clothes being consistent to the colour scheme of their superhero outfits. Of course the only thing that’s missing if the over the top comedic nature of Power Rangers, which yes, is ironic to say for an MCU film though not entirely unwelcomed.

Eternals is certainly the least like an MCU film we’ve had in a while and has very minimal to do with the franchise outside of an odd reference here or there, and yet it’s in an interesting placement as it could not exist without it, and not just because it’s the 26^th film in the franchise. Eternals being well aware of where film audiences stand with superhero stories allows it to skip through the majority of the origin and simply show audiences the highlights, even jokingly showing that these immortal demi-gods will have no desire to hide their secrets depending on the person because they live in a world with superheroes, it’s just the status quo at this point.

Where it gets more interesting is when it delves deeper into the philosophy of these beings. A dozen beings who were brought to Earth with specific purposes in mind and yet naturally their time there will change them, make them question their orders, their history, their relationships. What are these people willing to sacrifice and what do they gain from being here? They all go on to live very different lives and have different experiences, they are not always going to agree and when the film sits down to talk about it is when it becomes the most interesting, and not just because the fight scenes are all so very boring.

This is where the whip of Marvel comes striking down because when the film needs to fold into this suffocating mould the film is dull, aiming for the most obvious jokes, the least compelling fight scenes and ending with some of the most obvious, unnatural and annoying sequel bait this franchise might have ever seen. If a film with absolutely zero connections to the rest of this universe can’t escape this overbearing desire for consistency and force every film to look like the same grey indistinguishable blob from one another then what hope does any other film have?

The film’s biggest flaws are not unto its own shoulders, but the family of which it finds itself connected to, which is rather fitting for a film about characters who are being forced to fulfil certain roles for the sake of an all-knowing all powerful being, and if the film could escape that shadow much like the characters attempt to, they might have had something here.