Martin's Musings

In the new film The Fall Guy, a producer character played by Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham describes her formula for making a successful movie. She says you have to surround the meat of the film with “sexy bacon,” those aspects that make the whole thing more attractive.

Here, the sexy bacon is Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, and it’s that pairing that makes this film loosely based on the 1980s TV show so much fun.

Two of the most underrated films of the last 10 years were The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Ready or Not. Both were released late in the summer and were pleasant surprises that successfully blended humor with classic genre appeal (action and horror, respectively). The latter even made my list of my favorite films of 2019 (it ranked #6).

Coincidentally, both films’ creators are back with new releases this week. While their new movies aren’t as good as these other works, they are still worth checking out.

Here are my reviews.

In Luca Guadagnino’s last film, 2022’s awful Bones and All, Timothée Chalamet played half of a young cannibal couple in love and on the run from a society that doesn’t understand them.

Now, Guadagnino’s followup features Chalamet’s Dune 2 costar playing a man-eater of a completely different sort.

In Challengers, Zendaya is Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy at the center of a love triangle involving her husband, Art (Mike Faist, West Side Story), and Patrick (Josh O’Connor, The Crown), who is Art’s former best friend and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.

For 50 years, Steve Martin has been different things to different people: For those of a certain age, he was a “wild and crazy” standup comedian, whose shows and albums broke records in the late 1970s. To others, he’s the star of classic films like The Jerk, Three Amigos!, Roxanne, and All of Me. To others, he’s the star of family-friendly movies like Parenthood, Father of the Bride, and Cheaper by the Dozen. To others, he’s a sophisticated writer of New Yorker articles. To others, he’s a musician and composer, who collaborated with Edie Brickell on the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Bright Star. And to others, he’s the co-creator and star, alongside Martin Short and Selena Gomez, of the Hulu TV show Only Murders in the Building. 

Suffice it to say, the man has invented and reinvented and reinvented himself multiple times throughout his career, adapting to the highs and lows — which is why today, he probably has fans of all ages.

However you know Steve Martin, you’re likely to know him a little better after watching Steve! (martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces, which premieres on Apple TV+ this week. Directed by Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and the Oscar-winning 20 Feet from Stardom), the roughly three-hour doc is broken into two parts: “Then,” which traces Martin’s rise through the standup circuit, and “Now,” which documents many things since then.

It’s the middle of March 2024, but moviemakers seem to have their minds on the 1980s. This week, two films are dropping that hope to recapture the fun of much loved movies from back in the day. 

Are they worth seeing?

Read on to learn what I thought of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Road House.

We’re already at the end of January 2024, and awards season is in full swing. (If you missed them, the Oscar nominations were announced earlier this week.) Unfortunately, I had to wait to see some of the potential contenders till they were released widely, so I decided to wait to share my final reviews of 2023. 

And so, better late than never, and just like I did in the first, second, and third quarters of this year, here’s a (slightly delayed) roundup of what I thought of all the movies I saw in the — let’s call it, second half of the fourth quarter of 2023, in reverse chronological order, with a note about how/where I saw them.

FYI: You won’t see recent wide-release films like All of Us Strangers or Poor Things here; I saw those in the first half of the quarter. For the record, they both earned a spot on my list of the year’s best films.

The third quarter of 2023 sure did have its ups and downs — where the movies were concerned, anyway.

On the one hand, we had the one-two punch of Barbie and Oppenheimer — or Barbenheimer, if you prefer — movies that broke box office records and were actually very good, proving that sometimes, the hype is actually justified.

But on the other hand, there was the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which halted production and limited promotion for nearly all new releases. Some release dates were delayed as a result, and movies that did come out often did so quietly. Thankfully, after nearly 150 days, the writers got a great deal from the studios. Hopefully, the actors will get one, too, and soon.

Over these last three months, I saw 14 movies, bringing my total for the year so far to 50. (I’m counting a collection of four short films as one feature.) I’ve shared my thoughts about most of what I’ve seen on Twitter and/or Instagram (Stories), but I haven’t documented my thoughts about everything. So, just like I did in the first and second quarters of this year, here in one place (and in reverse-chronological order) is a list of all the movies I saw in the third quarter of 2023, how I saw them, and a quick review of each one.

You had to be sleeping under a rock to not have heard about Barbenheimer, the portmanteau made by combining the names of this summer’s two most eagerly anticipated movies: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. 

Other than ambitious filmmakers taking large swings and huge ensemble casts full of recognizable faces, the two films do not have much in common; one is a candy-colored comedy based on a popular toy, and the other is a drama about one of the darkest chapters in American history. But the hype over the last few months turned their release on the same day into a legitimate event. Just check out the memes and social media chatter — not to mention the brand partnerships. In response, fans showed up in droves; the two movies together earned more than $235 million at the box office on opening weekend in the United States and Canada.

If you’re someone who’s still on the fence about seeing one or both of these movies, or you’ve somehow managed to avoid all the buzz, let me cut to the chase and share the good news that they’re both worthy of the hype and worth seeing. That’s a bit of a modern-day miracle given we’re living in times when hyperbole and (undeserved) overpromotion are the norm.

What more do you need to know? Here are my thoughts about both films, in reverse alphabetical order.