Making Light of Dark Matters
A rundown of recent movie and TV experiences, from a mediocre sci-fi series to a promising trilogy finale and a return to Yorgos Lanthimos' quirky storytelling.
The Apple TV+ series, Dark Matter, wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. It was fine? My wife read the book a couple years back and, while she’s not normally into sci-fi, she enjoyed it a lot and thought I might like it, too. I still haven’t read the book, but we watched the series together anyway, and we both found ourselves thinking the same things, like:
Joel Edgerton is kind of bland and doesn’t really seem to have much chemistry with Jennifer Connelly.
(I think Jennifer’s husband IRL, Paul Bettany, actually would’ve been better casting, and doing so would’ve also maybe made their relationship feel more real? Maybe?)Why in the world was this a series of nine hour-long episodes? This could’ve been a two-hour movie.
But yeah, the show was just fine. Since the book came out in 2017, I’ll give it a pass, but I’m personally a little over multi-verse stuff. I don’t even watch Marvel movies, but it all feels a little played out.
(And now for a Dark Matter fun fact(!): Amanda Brugel, the actress who plays Blaire in this show (I know her best from Kim’s Convenience and The Handmaid’s Tale) was also in a completely unrelated TV show that ran from 2015 - 2017 called Dark Matter!)
At any rate, Dark Matter finished up just in time for Severance’s second season to start up…in January 2025.
A few movies came out recently that I was really quite excited to see. Only one really lived up to any expectations I had, one was almost good but kind of a let down, and the other was I guess a good start to something possibly bigger and better. In reverse order of how I just laid them out (but in the chronological order in which I saw them) (please, let me make this more confusing!):
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (2024)
A couple of feelings about Horizon:
Unlike Dark Matter, which could’ve been a two-hour movie, why wasn’t this a 12-hour limited series of prestige television somewhere? (Horizon is, in theory, going to be four chapters, three-hours each. Chapters 1 and 2 were shot together and were supposed to be released theatrically a couple months apart, but…well, uh…hmmm…) Because…
…Chapter 1 was certainly edited to feel like a few 30-minute vignettes stitched together and jumped between, and…
…absolutely feels like the first part of something bigger and grander.
Overall, Horizon was a good setup, ending on a montage of Chapter 2 material we’ll have to wait even longer to see in full, but who knows if we’ll even ever really get Chapters 3 and 4 as envisioned and intended?
MaXXXine (2024)
I previously regaled y’all with an anecdote about liking X (2022) and loving Pearl (2022) so very much, so I was absolutely looking forward to the last of this trilogy(?), MaXXXine (2024).
The first 2/3 of MaXXXine is actually pretty good and fun. Mia Goth is as good as ever, Kevin Bacon is terrific, the rest of the supporting cast is mostly great, and then the last 1/3 kinda falls apart (some might say it goes completely off the rails, others might say it’s tonally a mess, and then even more others might say something else completely different, like…); my wife, however, kinda liked the ending.
(I do have a ⭐BETTER ENDING⭐ in mind for this movie, but I’ll save that for another time. 😎)
(EDIT: On August 8, 2024, I wrote that ⭐BETTER ENDING⭐, so please go read that. Or don’t. Whatever.)
Regardless, I guess now I know what seeing The Godfather Part III (1990) in the theatres must’ve felt like back then.
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
I’d mentioned before that, over the past few years, Yorgos Lanthimos has become one of my favorite directors. His movies can be a challenge for some, but for me, the reward of watching a Yorgos movie is almost always worth it.
Yorgos’ past couple films, while still unique in their own ways, have gotten away from what some might’ve considered a trademark of his - the odd, stilted line delivery; the verbally strange staccato. In fact, I’d made note of it the second time I saw Poor Things (2023):
Kinds of Kindness (2024) is made up of three loosely connected stories, and it’s all that I hoped it would be - a Yorgos film that delivers a hit of that sweet sweet Yorgos. He’s back to his old bag of tricks, and it mostly works across all three stories.
In the first, a man seeks to break free from his predetermined path. The middle story is about a cop questioning his wife's demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning. The final one is about a woman searching for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide. (That was copy/pasted and slightly edited from the movie’s description on IMDb and not intended to be a spoiler, my apologies if it was taken as such.) My take is that each is ultimately a tale about love and acceptance, or a lack thereof; while I was equally amused by all three stories, I can see how someone might find themselves preferring one story or another more than the others.
The cast remains the same across all three chapters, but their characters are different. I thought everyone was excellent, but the real stand-out for me was Margaret Qualley. Her ability to deliver her lines in such a deadpan manner while giving an equally dedicated, dead-eyed, blank expression completely captivated me.
(And now for a Kinds of Kindness fun fact(!): There are three Yorgoses involved is the making of this film - director Yorgos Lanthimos, editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, and actor Yorgos Stefanakos.)
Anyways, if you’ve seen a Yorgos film before and liked it, then there’s a decent chance that you might like Kinds of Kindness; but if you’ve seen a Yorgos film before and had a negative to reaction it, then this is definitely not for you and it will not make you a fan.
That’s all I have in me at the moment, but I hope that you’re finding something good to enjoy in your life right now. Me? I’m exhausted.
Current Mood: Exhausted
Listening to: The Chemical Brothers - The Sunshine Underground