Back at the Cinema: "Old" and "Pig"

My take on the two biggest three-letter-films in the box office this month and the mixed-bag experience of going back to theaters.

Cinema is back!¹ At least, I’m back at the cinema. In my part of the country theaters have been open for a while, but until recently, there hasn’t yet been much that I’ve been interested in watching. (I was just not jazzed about Cruella or F9 to say the least). That changed in the last couple weeks; I recently went to see the new Nic Cage vehicle Pig, a few days ago I caught M. Knight Shyamalan’s new film Old, and I’m looking forward to watching David Lowery’s The Green Knight this weekend.

It won’t surprise any of you to learn that I love going to the movies. Getting back in front of the big screen reminds me of just how great it can be. I’m pretty sure (at least for me) something I’ll call theater-bias totally exists- which is to say I tend to really enjoy films I watch in theaters even when the film itself is pretty mediocre.² But going back is also reminding me about what a mixed bag it can be.

In my screening of Pig the opening credits were graced by the snores of the patron directly in front of me (who graciously was woken by the first snorts and squeals of the titular pig). And prior to that, before the literal 20 minutes of spoiler-filled trailers had even started, the friend I went to see the film with and I had to basically yell over Maria Menounos and M&M commercials projected at ear-splitting volume in order to make any kind of small-talk. An environment not at all conducive to me trying to explain to him that the experimental documentary I just started working on is something called an essay film³ and attempting to articulate the nuance of exactly what that is. As for Pig itself I wandered in completely blind knowing only that it contained Nicholas Cage and a pig, that some critics I respect⁴ had more-or-less liked it, and that the poster made it look gritty.

I can report that knowing nothing about Pig before watching Pig is a delightful way to watch Pig, as it’s a film that leans heavily on your unfolding expectations about what it will be and so I’m not going to spoil anything here. All I will say is that I love the way it takes it’s place in the Neo-Revenge⁵ genre that currently seems to be shaping up. Pig was as off-the-rails as I had expected but in a way I didn’t expect. 7/10.

I very much did have expectations going into Old which is to say that at about the 50 minute mark- even after the projection having suddenly cut out for about 10 minutes right when the action was starting to ramp up⁶ and my having to move seats when it became clear that the people beside me were not going to respect the “no phone” policy⁷- I was thinking “This is actually kinda great. I’m not sure why people were hating on it so much.”

By the end (for reasons that I won’t reveal to avoid spoilers) I did come around to what seems to be the general consensus that the film is “goodish” rather than “kinda great” but I will say I had a great time watching this film and there’s a lot here to like, and I can see why it beat both Space Jam: Why is This Even a Thing and Snake Eyes: Let’s Just Slap the GI: Joe Toy IP⁸ on a Ninja Film and Call it a Day in the box office.

Shyamalan is incredibly deft with the camera. This film spends a lot of time in one particular location, and that location doesn’t for a second become boring. The way Shyamalan plays with foregrounding characters that aren’t the focal point of the shot, the edges of the frame, and really vibrant camera motion (zoom and dolly and pan all at once and fast too but somehow in a way that’s precise and not at all messy or distracting) is quite impressive from a formal standpoint. At one particular moment there’s a certain reveal of something you know you’re about to see, but the way it ends up being revealed is not at all how I was expecting and the result is both clever, kinda horrifying, and playful all at once.

That actually ends up being a decent description of what this film is: playfully horrifying. There’s a mixing of very sincere psychological horror with really off-the-wall absurdity that is a vibe I’ve rarely seen conveyed in quite this way.

Anyway, the film is very light on its feet and is constantly moving which makes for a fun and light watch but in the long run it kind of exhausts itself and ends up undermining any part of itself that had teetered towards being truly profound or horrifying. 5/10

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Since we last spoke I’ve released two videos: one that attempts to explore the impossible to answer question of “why exactly are David Lynch films the way they are?” and another about references and influences in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. I’m especially happy with how the David Lynch video turned out (which is spoiler-free by the way), but if either of those sound interesting to you I’d be delighted if you gave them a watch.

Until next time,

TF

1. See where previously cinema had died.

2. I’ve come about this discovery after quite a few instances of walking out of the theater going “hey that was pretty good” and then later upon looking up what other critics said and realizing that generally the response was “hey that was pretty mediocre” and then also reading why they thought the film was mediocre, and realizing that I did in fact agree with those points and that now that I look back on it there are a lot of issues quote-unquote with the film, a point which is further reinforced by the fact that after a few days I’ve spent absolutely zero time thinking about said film (a sure sign of mediocrity). And so I attribute the positive experience despite the films mediocrity overwhelmingly to the fact that when watching something in a theater I think I just get “swept up” in things more often and am therefore generally less objective. (You have to remember I’m not really a critic [in the sense that I’m not a film reviewer] and so am not practiced in the art of effecting the sort of jaded poise I imagine most actual critics must have) And when watching movies at home I often seem more able to immediately ascertain a film’s apparent flaws. Further- this so-called theater-bias is reinforced by the fact that some of my favorite films from my favorite directors are not the ones of theirs that are broadly considered to be “their best” but are often the ones I’ve been able to actually see in a theater (a notable example being my preference for The Irishman somehow over Goodfellas).

3. Fantastic essay films if you’re not familiar and want to explore the genre include Chris Markers Sans Soleil, Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself, or Sophie Fiennes/Slavoj Zizek’s The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology.

4. See Matt Zoller Seitz review of the film for RogerEbert.com which gives it four stars. (although I don’t recommend reading this prior to seeing the film).

5. A term I’m pretty sure I’m coining to try to categorize the the specific type of revenge film that has been popularized largely by the John Wick series. Which is somehow both very ironic/ridiculous and sincere simultaneously and which always seems to involve an element of latent badassery hidden beneath a veneer of pudgy “dad style” masculinity.

6. It took me approximately 120 seconds to realize the screen going black was a projection error and was not in fact some kind of bold maneuver on Shyamalan’s part- which in hindsight may have been giving him too much credit.

7. They were also, by the way, the kind of patrons who walked in 5 minutes late and started loudly unwrapping their various candies during only the quietest moments.

8. Which is, and I hate to use this word, but by my estimation, definitely a problematic IP.