Letterboxd litter #9

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off / Raw / Ferdinand / Spider-Man: No Way Home

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Somewhere, in the back of our minds, we all understand that Ferris is in fact the entitled, preening, complacent little shit that Rooney believes him to be.

We know that, after the events of the film, he went to someplace like Vanderbilt or Georgetown or UCLA — probably on Grandpa’s 529 dynasty plan — where he skated through pre-med on C’s alone while getting blasted every weekend and probably knocking up a half-dozen girls, only to eventually bail on the medical career he didn’t really care about in favor of an MBA he equally didn’t care about, and nonetheless ended up making six figures before he turned 40.

Cameron, meanwhile, never made it to college after his father threw him out of the house. He’s now a floor manager for Amazon, twice divorced, and contemplates suicide regularly.

In view of these inarguable facts, then, I suggest that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is best viewed not as a celebration of carefree American youth, but rather a sly satire of our irrational worship of celebrities and consequent indulgence of their bad behavior.

…

Ok maybe that’s a bridge too far. But it seems significant that we’re never given any clear reason as to why the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies and dickheads all adore Ferris Bueller — except that he’s just so charming. (4/5)

Raw (2016)

I recently came across a satirical Facebook page that skewers (sometimes unfairly) various pro-choice slogans by swapping out the word “abortion” for “cannibalism” in them. The idea, obviously, is to critique abortion supporters by comparing their cause to something that most people would find unambiguously reprehensible.

At least, that’s the theory. But the following snippet from Christy Lemire’s review of Raw makes me think even that ham-fisted tactic is no longer extreme enough:

“Raw is absolutely a celebration of female power, of realizing who you are, what you want and how to go after it, albeit with brutally bloody results.”

So uh… slay queen slay, I guess?

If you likewise saw Midsommar as a celebration of female power, you’ll probably agree with Lemire’s take. I, however, wholeheartedly don’t — for the simple fact that I don’t think horror is supposed to be celebratory. See, that kind of contradicts the whole “horror” thing.

Granted, I guess there’s a quibble to be had as to whether either of these films should be categorized as horror. But regardless, their subject matter is horrifying, and Raw in particular has zero pretensions of trying to paint it as otherwise.

At no point did I get the impression that Ducorneau is condoning — let alone celebrating — her heroine’s grisly compulsions. She empathizes with them, profoundly. But she also understands that self-discovery and self-acceptance are worlds apart. Sometimes, learning the truth about yourself is terrifying rather than liberating.

The final scene in particular highlights this distinction so vividly that, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Lemire actually watched the same movie I did. I agree with her that Raw is a powerful film; I broke into a nauseous flop sweat at one point while watching it, which I think is a first for me. It’s extremely competent, extremely transgressive, and has a lot to say.

But no, I don’t think it’s telling the kids that they should go ahead and eat people if that’s their kink. (3.5/5)

Ferdinand (2017)

Another one of those movies that embodies its own hero (or is it vice-versa?). In this case Ferdinand, like Ferdinand, is sweet-natured and sometimes charming, but obscures that by trying to hard.

Often much, much too hard. Take, for example, the awful dance-off scene that’s shoehorned in near the midpoint: an apotheosis of tonally jarring and narratively pointless spectacle, it leaves you with a vague headache and near-total amnesia as to what this movie is even about.

But. Underneath its dense coating of big-budget animation bullshit (e.g. [pardon the unintentional pun btw] its hyperactive and largely uninspired sense of humor, random celebrity casting [Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs and David Tennant are particular head-scratchers] and several truly stale needle-drops), Ferdinand might have some genuine heart.

Which is more than can be said for most of its peers in the candy-coated Dreamworks-knockoff genre. Sure, it does the whole “be true to yourself” shtick for the eight-bazillionth time… but within that is a secondary, more poetic, and arguably more sincere message about the power of beauty and kindness in a world that seldom has patience for either.

So yes, I did in fact get some warm fuzzies at the end, even though most of the movie prior to that point irritated me. At least it eventually has the good sense to listen to its own moral. (2.5/5)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

I wasn’t expecting to care about this movie at all, frankly. For all his charisma, Tom Holland’s version of Spider-Man has so far been more of a Tony Stark-Mini than actual Spider-Man, and I harbor some deep (and very millennial) resentment over how thoroughly Kevin Feige and Co. have managed to coat my favorite superhero in their commercial polyurethane.

Granted, I’ve never cared much about superheroes in general, so calling Spidey my favorite doesn’t mean a whole lot. But it still means something; and as a result I went into this expecting a lot of annoyance, a bit of entertainment and quick forgettability.

Instead, I both loved and hated it.

It’s one of the most fun, emotional and compelling MCU movies I’ve seen, a great showcase of what the franchise (or, rather, industry) does so well. But it also has everything I hate about the MCU, in equal if not greater measure.

The first act bugged the hell out of me with its manic pace and never. ending. stupid. fucking. JOKES (e.g, when Dr. Strange made his entrance with sweats, Sorels and a coffee mug that reads “Oh for [drawing of a fox] sake.” I wanted to slap somebody, anybody).

Seriously boggles my mind how blockbuster studios across the board still don’t get it: misplaced humor will undercut stakes and derail the action. Hwuf.

Anyway. I warmed up to it a lot once the actual story got going, but the thorns kept poking out too.

For example, I can be suckered by nostalgia bait the same as anyone, and this movie suckered me good. But I still resent the emotional manipulation. Far From Home pays affectionate homage to the character’s previous big-screen iterations and has some great meta-fun in the process. But it inevitably absorbs and euthanizes them too, because it must play its part in bringing about the Pax Disneia.

On that note, both the greatest promise and greatest disappointment for me was its treatment of sticky questions about evil, redemption and identity. Despite a brief flirtation with something more messy and even mystical, I fear its true intentions (and, by extension, those of the MCU overall) are depressingly straightforward.

Anyone who’s seen any trailers knows that Far From Home’s central conflict is the sudden irruption of supervillains from parallel universes, thanks to some timey-wimey whatevers gone sideways. Early on, we’re presented with a possible solution to this pickle that’s trite to the point of nausea — but the midpoint twist shrewdly cuts it down, making both Peter (and the audience) feel the cost of its deceptive simplicity in a gut-punching way.

I was hopeful that the movie would commit to this less bourgeois, more challenging interrogation of the bad-guy question. But, sadly, no dice — turns out that fatal first plan was the right one after all! It just needed the secret ingredient of, uh… teamwork.

In fairness, said secret ingredient was way more fun, thought-provoking and poignant than I expected, and just calling it “teamwork” is pretty unfair.

But it failed to fix the fundamental problem: the proposal (so much more prevalent and cloying today than it was even a couple years ago) that “science + niceness = fixed bad guys.” I can’t overstate how repugnant that message is to me — psychologically, metaphysically, ethically, epistemologically, the works.

I fear that, beneath all its pathos and big questions and technical fireworks, Far From Home is basically propaganda in which our corporate monoculture overlords attempt — with unsettling proficiency — to convince us of their benevolence. But I hope I’m wrong, and I’ll definitely watch it again to look more closely.

UPDATE — Watched it a second time. Yup, I was right. (2.5/5)