In Slate’s annual Movie Club, film critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow critics—for 2024, Bilge Ebiri, K. Austin Collins, Alison Willmore, and Odie Henderson—about the year in cinema. Read the first entry here.
Greetings from the Emerald City, home of Jeff Goldblum and Richard Pryor:
To quote the late, great Billy Preston, I got a story ain’t got no moral. Dana asked what I noticed myself looking for at the movies. Well, I love noir, so I sought it at successful features like Drive-Away Dolls and Hit Man. I was disappointed not to find it in Love Lies Bleeding, whose final act got far too silly for me to commit.
I also love musicals, and here’s where my story begins.
I missed the NYC critics screening of Wicked because I was doing a Noirvember introduction for Chinatown in Pleasantville, New York. We were going to get someone else to cover it, but Amazon held “fan screenings” for Prime members. I snared a pre-deadline screening at the same Lincoln Center IMAX theater where Kam’s audience had apparently fallen into a K-hole during Megalopolis.
Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of Wicked—I thought the Broadway musical was merely fine—but this was my only chance to review all of “Glicked” or “Wickiator” or whatever the hell they were calling the Wicked–Gladiator II dual release. Because Nicole Kidman’s theater chain has assigned seats, I was forced to sit next to an Elphaba cosplayer covered in green makeup. That makeup got on my sleeve and ruined my shirt. (Elphaba can also defy Tide Pod-y.)
I knew I was in trouble. This was going to be a repeat of the day I saw Cats at this same theater. At that screening, people got up and danced in the aisles during every song. A guy dressed like Mr. Mistoffelees tried to drag me from my seat to dance with him, and hissed at me when I refused. It was bedlam, and I can only imagine the Pasolini-esque orgy of perversions I would have borne witness to had this been “the butthole cut” version.
Thankfully, my Wicked audience was very well behaved. No singing along with Cynthia and Ariana, no dancing, and no pictures of the screen (as far as I could tell). People applauded after every number, however, and one guy screamed “Gaat DAAAAMN!” after a particular high note.
As the credits rolled, I thought, Aw shit, here’s another movie I’m going to be in the minority for not liking. Wicked may have actors who can belt with impressive gusto, but it’s underlit and overlong. Plus, it’s only the first act, yet the entire Broadway musical has a shorter run time! The added length made me meditate on how this is the story of a person of color who is deemed wicked by a gaslit society for standing up for her beliefs. As a result, she succumbs to self-fulfilling prophecy, only to be dispatched by a bucket of water thrown by some random white girl from Kansas who became a gay icon.
No wonder it’s a huge hit and is winning critics’ awards!
My two-and-a-half-star review of Wicked was far from “pop-you-ooh-luhr.” I also took a beating for my two-and-a-half-star review of another award-winning musical darling, Emilia Pérez. That movie answers Dana’s question about where I was surprised to find what I sought. After that repugnant blackface Nina Simone movie, Nina, I never thought I wanted to hear Zoe Saldaña sing again. And yet, I thought she killed it in Emilia Pérez! The musical elements of that movie were great—when the actors sang, it worked like a well-oiled machine. Alas, when they stopped singing, that overstuffed movie left me high and dry.
Alison, the way you feel about Conclave is the way I feel about Challengers. As Kam pointed out, it’s weak sauce in the hot-stuff department. Luca Guadagnino is one of my least favorite directors. His films are pure tedium, almost to the point of unwatchability. They’re a heaping tablespoon of castor oil. In other words, he’s the type of director people expect film critics to love—and they do.
His Queer wanted to be David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch so bad it was laughable. And I’ve never thought straight actors like Daniel Craig going the R-rated version of “gay for pay” were, as that tired narrative goes, brave for doing so. Craig and Drew Starkey looked like father and son, which is not hot, and though they both have scenes where they work wonders with the unspoken, it’s all dashed to hell by that horrible second hour. Not even Lesley Manville starring in the rainforest production of Annie Get Your Gun could save this movie.
Guadagnino did make one movie I loved, Call Me By Your Name, and that film’s star, Timothée Chalamet, is currently playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Chalamet sounds like Dylan, which for me is bad, but Rich Little–worthy impersonation aside, this movie isn’t a movie. It’s actors cosplaying singers, imitating them with varying degrees of success and singing a K-tel collection of songs. I’d estimate 80 percent of this is just songs. There’s no movie here, and what little plot there is should get them sued by the makers of Walk Hard.
Bilge, when I was writing my book, Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras, I kept falling down the rabbit hole of looking at movie ads and movie time listings. Whenever I was in the New York Times archives, I’d look to see if my memory was correct about where I saw the movie in question. I was right about 95 percent of the time. Those ads had some great artwork, but more importantly, they told us where a movie was playing and what it was. We need to bring that back!
The first time I heard of Hundreds of Beavers was when I saw the poster as I walked past the IFC Center. What the hell is that? I thought. Then word of mouth got me to go see it. A guy in a beaver suit sat next to me, but it was midnight and he didn’t shed, so I was cooler with him than I was with Elphaba. I walked out certain I’d seen the best movie of 2024, and I almost had. Nickel Boys beat it. I wouldn’t have known anything had I not seen that poster—and I’m a critic!
Kam asked why we love what we love. My answer is that I was raised on it. I was raised on horror movies, lowbrow comedies, exploitation classics, women’s pictures, bitchy soap operas, and forbidden foreign films that ran uncut on Channel 13 with all the French-lady titties and knees owned by Claire. That channel also introduced me to documentaries.
Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford babysat me through the TV, and Jimmy Cagney taught me how to be tough. Sidney Poitier taught me how to be noble, while Richard Roundtree informed me not to take any shit. Jason and Freddy chopped people up in my adolescence and Jack Nicholson and Robert Mitchum made me understand the laconic protagonist. Bette Davis made me treasure the unlikable lead.
These were my heroes and they were in the types of movies I wanted to see. That’s why I love what I love.
Spread the love, Alison!
Odie
Read all of the entries in Slate’s 2024 Movie Club.
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