Movies are still sick
Just in case you forgot.
Good morning.
In case you forgot, movies are incredibly sick.
I just had a friend tell me that he watched Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for the first time recently. He was snowed in with a newborn. What was his verdict? Absolutely sick.
If you recall, I wrote about some sick movies last year. And with the Oscars coming up it seems only fitting to write about some sick movies as well as some movies that are not sick but worth discussing.
A quick note: I have not seen as many Oscar-nominated movies as I’d have liked. This is something I am working on.
But enough preamble. Let’s talk about some movies.
We’ll start with some movies that are not sick for various reasons.
Not Sick
Conclave (2024)
Much to my dismay I can’t say that Conclave is sick. Ralph Fiennes is sick. Stanley Tucci is also sick. This movie overall, however, is not sick.
Flow (2024)
Again, I would have loved to call this movie sick. It is heartwarming, surprisingly funny, trippy in some instances, and an overall wonderful “silent” film. But it is not sick. I checked my watch (actually a Fitbit) once or twice and this movie was less than 90 minutes long.
Gladiator 2 (2024)
I had no idea what was happening or why anything was happening in this movie. This movie was not sick.
Saturday Night (2024)
This movie isn’t sick. It’s barely a movie in fact. But it did make me feel something. It gave me a tugging sense of nostalgia in a way that felt false. The effect was real but it was artificially constructed. Maybe it’s because this movie might actually be about something ending instead of something beginning and if the actual film had spent more time exploring that aspect of the action it could have been a sick movie. It does have some sick performances. Gabriel LaBelle is sick. Andrew Barth Feldman is 100% SICK and amazing in whatever he does. Cory Michael Smith was sick as Chevy Chase as was Dylan O’Brien as Dan Akroyd. This movie isn’t sick, but because of some of the performances it feels very rewatchable.
Pleasantville (1998)
This movie is fun and scratches an itch but it's not sick. It’s a little flimsy—especially when they kind of abandon Reese Witherspoon’s character halfway through. But she is absolutely sick in this movie as is Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen. Also I will forever crush on Marley Shelton.
Interstellar (2014)
This movie was entertaining and I loved the reach of the ending and the general idea it tried to convey even if it was impossible for a concept like that to make actual sense in a major studio science fiction drama. However, I don’t think I can say it was sick.
Babes (2024)
This movie was patently unfunny and the plot worked so hard in so many ways that it didn’t have to. I wanted to like this movie but it stunk. Maybe One of Them Days (2025) will be the movie I was hoping Babes would be.
Career Opportunities (1991)
There are no words to describe how Jennifer Connelley looks in this movie. But this movie is not sick. This is near the end of the line for John Hughes’s singular career. Highly entertaining Letterboxd reviews for this one.
Our Little Secret (2024)
This was a terrible Christmas movie I watched around Thanksgiving. Awful stuff. I’d take Ex-Mas (2023) and its version of bad any day of the week over this.
The Dead Don’t Hurt (2023)
This movie was almost sick, but it was just missing a little something. A wonderful little alt-western though. Viggo Mortensen is sick in this as is Vicky Krieps. Krieps’s filmography is getting quietly formidable: Phantom Thread, Old, Bergman Island, and this? Not too shabby.
Twisters (2024)
Fun movie. Had a blast seeing it in the theater. But falls short of being sick.
Molly’s Game (2017)
I wanted to like this movie and found it entertaining to start but as it went on I found Jessica Chastain’s performance to be insufferable and for Idris Elba’s character to be unintelligible. Not sick.
Anyone But You (2023)
This movie is so bad that it almost comes all the way around to being sick. When one character uttered the immortal line, “Two showers in eight hours?! Go off king, get clean!” I almost convinced myself this movie was sick. But, alas, it stinks.
Sick
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Each time I watch this movie I become more and more convinced that this is one of the best films ever made and perhaps the best encapsulation of the life of an artist that’s ever been put on screen.
After my latest viewing, I read a theory on Reddit that made me see the film in an entirely new light. This beautiful random Reddit user suggested that perhaps the point of the movie is that Bud Grossman is wrong in his assessment of Llewyn’s commercial potential. Maybe Llewyn is just too early for the current market. Llewyn’s work might have had a better chance selling in 1970 or 1971 when singer songwriters were en vogue. Dylan’s timing is just right to sweep in a sea change. Llewyn isn’t Dylan, but maybe he is something else that can flourish in the new world that Dylan brings with him.
Whether or not you buy that reading, it makes the movie all that more interesting. And further shows how much of art is just timing, luck, and persistence in the face of potential failure.
An incredibly sick movie.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
No matter how many times you watch this movie, it gives you no answers. But on every viewing you fall deeply into it’s world and have a hard time resurfacing once the credits roll. This film is bottomless and open to as much or as little as you want to give to it. An essential entry in the canon of sick movies. Also: Sydney Pollack is absolutely out of his mind in this movie. Between his performance in this and Michael Clayton (2007) he defined the standard for “older guy who knows things you never will” performance in movies and will never be topped.
Nobody’s Fool (1994)
People don’t talk about this movie enough. Truly one of the best hang out movies ever made and you can’t ask for a better piece of late-era Newman work. The more time I spend with Newman’s filmography, the more I think that his late work was truly some of the best acting ever in film. He just knew how to embody certain characters and bring them to life in a natural way. No one else delivers lines like late period Newman delivers lines. It’s like he just walked out of a hardware store or an empty deli and pointed out that your shoelace was untied. You never want to be the people he’s playing, but you sure as hell like them.
Ratatouille (2007)
My fiancee and I watched this movie one night in Bordeaux after we’d had a little spat. This is easily the Pixar movie I have watched the most and it might very well be their best work.
Furiosa (2024)
I’m not a Mad Max guy. Didn’t see Fury Road (2015) until last year. I got why people freaked out about it way back when but seemed like one of those “you had to be there” situations.
I kinda like Furiosa better. I felt like there was more of a world—more of a story—to grab onto. Plus Chris Hemsworth chewed the scenery in exactly the frequency that makes my ears perk up.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1997)
Dear lord does everyone look absolutely fantastic in this tense, depressing, and absolutely fucking thrilling and entertaining movie. I hadn’t seen this one in quite awhile but decided to watch it on a plane last year. There’s a reason Matt Damon has had the career he’s had.
A Real Pain (2024)
Wrote about this movie a little bit at the end of last year. I left my local Alamo Drafthouse feeling such jealousy at Jesse Eisenberg. And then, gazing up into the darkness, I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity.
Wicked (2024)
Hear me out on this one! I went into Wicked expecting nothing at all and I left highly entertained. There was something so human and vulnerable about Cynthia Ervo’s performance that just worked for me. And the songs are sick. They are truly sick. Finally, all those posters I saw plastered on subway walls and LIRR station billboards for over twenty years make sense. WICKED IS SICK!
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Had been awhile since I’d watched this one. When all is said and done, I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) will end up as Tarantino’s best movie but this remains one mesmerizing flick. Plus, now when I make coffee every morning I take a sip and lift my mug in the direction of my fiancee and make a little satisfied “hmm” sound like Harvey Keitel (as Winston Wolf) does when he drinks Jimmy’s coffee.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024)
Heard about this movie on a podcast and thought to myself: A small movie set on Long Island on Christmas Eve, you say? That sounds incredibly SICK and EXACTLY like the kind of thing I’ll spend my life trying to create a work of art about—one that feels undeniably true and timeless. Don’t mind if I put it on my Letterboxd Watchlist to view at a later date!
That later date ended up being December 23rd. I watched this movie with my mother in my childhood home on Long Island. And what I saw was a vision of so many of my Long Island Christmas Eves as a boy and teenager in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The movie takes place in no time period. There are signifiers of the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, and even the 2010s and early 2020s. It is Long Island as a persistent feeling—as a place that sees decorative and technological changes but always remains the same.
This is an Altmanesque work. There is overlapping dialogue and you follow actors around scenes but aren’t sure who exactly to pay attention to. Many of the actors are untrained. That’s part of what makes them feel so true to life.
And then there are moments when this movie is like nothing Altman would ever do. There are eerily beautiful shots that are closer to Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016) or Malick’s work.
This movie made me mourn for all the things I deeply love and hate about the place I grew up, a place I’ll never be finished with.
This movie was sick.
Widows (2018)
Never got around to seeing this one when it came out even though I wanted to. Finally watched it by myself one night last year. This movie is note perfect. Every actor in this movie is sick and is acting up a storm (in a good way). But no one acts better, ever, than Daniel Kaluuya. For my money, he’s the best we’ve got right now. Undoubtedly sick.
Janet Planet (2024)
This is a wonderfully quiet little movie that makes me think about lives I’ve never lived. Some part of me always wanted to be raised by an ex-hippy that read a lot of contemporary Latin American fiction, loved Cesca chairs, and listened to, like, Alice Coltrane records. And this movie lets you get a glimpse of what that might’ve been like. A sick and subtle film.
My Old Ass (2024)
One of my favorite recent theater experiences. This was a fun gem of a summer movie. Maisy Stella is a star and I can’t wait to see what she does next. A decidedly sick movie.
Wild Robot (2024)
Another excellent theater experience. Had a blast watching this sick animated feature. You know what else was sick? Looking up the voice cast after the movie and realizing that Pedro Pascal did the voice of the fox. Sick work my Mandalorian friend.
The Social Network (2010)
Knowing what we know now, this might be the best depiction of a historical figure ever committed to film. Each year the portrait that is painted becomes truer and truer. In the running for the best movie of the 21st century. Plus the ending credits needle drop is truly inspired. Sick stuff here on many levels.