Fran Magazine: Sunday Dispatch, Sept. 22-28

oops all movies (free sunday dispatch)

This is the Fran Magazine Sunday Dispatch, a weekly culture diary usually for paid subscribers only but this week is free because it’s otherwise quite short. The Sunday Dispatch details what I’ve been watching, reading, playing, and listening to over the past week. Paid subscriptions help stabilize my writing career, but all readers — paid & not — are appreciated. You can also follow me on Instagram or Letterboxd (for free!). Thanks for reading!

Movies only

I am in the middle of four different books and I didn’t watch any television or play any video games this week. Every bit of downtime I had, I spent in bed or at the library up by Lincoln Center on my computer playing solitaire to wind down at the end of a few long days. It feels like the sun hasn’t been out in New York City for more than a week, and last night I checked the weather to learn that we wouldn’t see the sun again until Thursday. As of a week or so ago, we were still having highs in the 80s and now I’m texting friends who are at the beach, “I wish I was at the beach!” Mostly I’m now reckoning with the fact that when I wake up early now it’s usually dark out. Miss me with that!!! Today is otherwise my day of lying in bed and cleaning the apartment and maybe getting back into Elden Ring. There’s one more big week of NYFF stuff and then one smaller week after that.

For The Atlantic, I reviewed Ellen DeGeneres’s last (?) stand-up special, which… if you haven’t seen this clip, it’s a good summation of what’s there. I liked the beginning chunk where it felt like Ellen is not sorry for being mean; I liked it much less when Ellen argues that she was mean because she has ADHD and is brave. It’s possible to be mean and have ADHD and be brave; this isn’t a matter of diagnosis. I also wrote about the Grotesquerie premiere which was weird (no one had seen any screeners, so everyone on the press line was like, “uh, what’s up?” to various talent) and also public figure Donna Kelce was in attendance.¹ I ran a factcheck through on Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, which is out here in New York and the other “coastal” cities and going wider in the next week or so. I also did a good faith synopsis on Megalopolis in which I’ve already spotted on error I have to email my editor about.

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The Verdict, Sidney Lumet (1982)

Watched on the Criterion Channel. A handful of people said to me over the course of the past month: “You have to watch The Verdict! It’s in the courtroom dramas series on Criterion Channel!” If enough people say something to me, I will do it — I’m not strong enough to withstand peer pressure. This is what happened with Elden Ring too. I liked this — though didn’t love. I don’t mind the slowish pacing; I love looking at the interiors through Lumet’s eyes. Charlotte Rampling’s role feels like the odd case where a miscasting works in a movie’s favor — I spent a significant chunk in the movie trying to figure out what her deal is supposed to be, though the script’s answer isn’t very good. I like that Newman’s character never really gets his shit together by the end either, which makes for a refreshing (if not depressing) change of pace in an otherwise addiction-centered film.

Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola (2024)

Watched at the AMC Lincoln Square IMAX. I loved this and I think it’s really good. It doesn’t have to be one or the other! It’s just a Wachowskis movie that’s yellow instead of green. As Nick said to me when we took the train home after, “Nothing like this should have existed in the first place, and it’ll never exist again.”

Margaret, Kenneth Lonergan (Director’s cut, so… 2017)

Rewatched on Amazon Prime. I’d long felt that Phil would love Margaret, but our watching together was dependent on me being able to sit through Margaret again which felt too intense to take on for much of the pats few months. I’d remembered the post-9/11 politics of the film, but not so much the debates on zionism (how this eluded me the first time is hard to say: I think I mostly just sat agape while watching and thinking about the severed leg under the bus the first time around). The Anna Paquin performance is so attuned and specific that is is frequently quite painful for me to watch her move around on the screen. She’s so twitchy and uneasy and mannered in a way that is unnatural for this character who is trying to come off so much older than she is. After I watched the first time a few years ago, I had a lot of fun going back and reading all the interviews and conversations in the Bright Wall/Dark Room Margaret-only issue.

The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders (2024)

Watched at Regal Essex. Once every few years I like to check in on the state of the children’s movie even though I have mostly grown to dislike them and they’ve also become increasingly bad. That I’d just rewatched the Sanders-directed Lilo & Stitch made this one stand out — it’s pretty good, though suffering from a not-quite Disney, not-quite Dreamworks house style that is sometimes beautiful and sometimes Dreamworks face. The film felt really long to me, but maybe only because it ends like four different times. Hearing Matt Berry’s voice come out of an animated beaver really threw me for a loop.

A few more NYFF selections so far

• Eephus, Carson Lund

• Rumours, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson

• Little, Big, and Far, Jem Cohen

• Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross

• Dahomey, Mati Diop

I keep hearing that Nickel Boys has proven divisive, and though I went in quite skeptical — being so-so on the book upon which it’s based and a little baffled by the formalistic choices — I found it totally incredible and successful. I haven’t really talked to anyone who feels otherwise, though I do think the form might be challenging for me. To me, it feels insane that something this genuinely creative is like, an Amazon/MGM release and not something with fifteen production cards ahead of its release. Rumours and Eephus made me laugh and laugh. I thought both the Cohen and Diop docs were pretty dull, all considered, which disappoints me to say. Next week there are some heavy-hitters — the Cronenberg, the Schrader, the Leigh, the Guadagnino, the Almodovar. I regret not being able to prioritize more foreign language titles this year as I’ve been able to do in past years.

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Okay, that’s it! I’m heading back to bed. I hope you’re all reading more and watching more non-festival titles and otherwise out and about more than I’ve been in the past week, where I’ve slowly moved from movie theater to Sweetgreen to movie theater again. What are you reading and listening to? Is anyone traveling anywhere fun? I want to go apple picking...

1. This either means something to you or it doesn’t. Her whole deal — both in the abstract and IRL — made me laugh and laugh (mostly on purpose).