Let’s talk Marvel, Tarantino, F9 and more!

It's an all-Chrisicisms newsletter!

Jul 17, 2021

Thank you all for bearing with the scheduling hiccups over the last few weeks, as life has been a bit crazy. I think we’ve turned a corner and my brain’s been a bit clearer at night, so I think we’re on the right track.

This week, I wanted to take a break from my Summer of ‘96 series to do an all-Chrisicisms version of this newsletter, in which I geek out about some of the pop culture I’ve been enjoying over the last few weeks. There’s been a lot; feel free to leave a comment at the end to let me know what you’ve been enjoying.

‘Loki’ shakes up the MCU

Before we got an abysmal Dark Tower film, I remember discussions about Stephen King’s fantasy series being adapted as a transmedia property, in which the story would unfold both on the big screen and in a connected television series. It never got off the ground, but it was intriguing to talk about, mainly because it seemed so impossible. Could you convince movie stars to also appear on a weekly TV show? Would the film and the series have the same production values? Would audiences follow an overarching story in different media?

It’s a concept that companies have been hoping to refine for years, particularly as they develop streaming services that can be synergistically aligned with film studios, game platforms and more. But it’s a hard nut to crack. Films like The Matrix made a half-hearted attempt at continuing their story through videogames, and TV shows like The X-Files occasionally spun off onto the big screen with stories that only slightly impacted their weekly adventures. But one was never really dependent on the other.

Even Marvel, which touted “it’s all connected” as its tagline for a bit, historically hasn’t shown the same coherence in its television and film projects. “Agents of SHIELD” took place in the same universe as the Avengers films, but largely played in its own sandbox, and the Netflix shows were relegated to a dark, dingy corner of the MCU where folks like Steve Rogers and Tony Stark would never deign to visit.

But with its Disney+ shows, particularly Loki, the MCU might have finally proven that it can weave its universe from cinema into streaming and back.

(SPOILERS TO FOLLOW)

When the Sacred Timeline was shattered at the end of this week’s episode and the multiverses were restored, it set in motion a series of events that will likely have to be dealt with in upcoming films. After all, there’s a reason the next Doctor Strange movie is called The Multiverse of Madness and the third Spider-man movie appears to be populated with characters from MCU-adjacent films. Jonathan Majors, who played a major role in the Loki finale, was already announced to play comic book favorite Kang the Conqueror in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but given Kang’s notoriety in the comics, I assume we could also see him in other films.

This is all huge, and I can’t imagine how the films will explain multiverses and variants to people who haven’t been keeping an eye on Disney+. But maybe they won’t; I think the message now is that the MCU is not a theatrical-only thing. It spans television and film, and if you want to know what’s going on, you have to keep up. It’s fascinating to watch this mode of storytelling take shape, even if I’m not sure how casual viewers will ultimately respond.

Of course, none of that matters if what they’re putting out isn’t good. WandaVision was an aesthetically adventurous and thematically intriguing approach, but its duty to the greater Marvel storyline meant its final episode devolved into a CGI firefight and pulled its punches to keep Vision and Wanda around in some fashion. Falcon and the Winter Soldier made some slightly interesting feints toward discussing race and responsibility, but it leaned on the boring grey-and-blue Marvel aesthetic and its final episodes were a mess of setups and walk-backs that were muddled and inert.

Loki, however, works as a standalone series (especially now that we know a season two is coming). Tom Hiddleston was fantastic, not only in his rapport with Owen Wilson but also in the way Loki arced from villain to sympathetic hero in a way that felt organic. His chemistry was Sophia Di Martino was off the charts, turning what could have been a problematic and icky love story into a clever musing on confronting your own narcissism and learning to love yourself ( literally). The action popped but never overwhelmed, and the series leaned hard into the weirder corners of Marvel lore (alligator Loki! Throg!). In its best moments, it captured the feeling I got from Lost at its peak. This was clever, fun and adventurous TV, and it reinvested me in the Marvel Universe. I can’t wait to see what weird shenanigans await in the multiverse.

Did ‘Black Widow’ change how we watch movies?

I wrote briefly last week that I really enjoyed the latest Marvel feature, Black Widow. Like I have for the last several movies, I saw this in theaters on opening night with my son. We’ve made it a tradition, and it’s one we both look forward to with each Marvel release. I think it’s one of the stronger MCU stand-alone films. I was surprised at both how it thematically engaged (for its first hour, at least) some weighty issues and also how it was more of an ensemble piece than I’d expected. I don’t have much more to say about it in terms of a review, but I am interested in its place in the ever-evolving tug of war between theatrical and streaming.

I wasn’t alone in seeing it on the big screen last weekend. The film had the biggest post-pandemic release yet, bringing in $80 million at the domestic box office. That’s a far cry from Captain Marvel’s $155+ million domestic opening in 2019, but on par with what Doctor Strange did a few years earlier. We’re not totally back to normal, but people are heading back to the movies.

And yet, maybe this is the new normal. Because Disney announced that the movie also brought in $60 million during its premiere access debut on Disney+, meaning many people paid to watch Natasha Romanoff and the Taskmaster fight in the comfort of their own homes, like a super-sized streaming episode. Much discussion ensued about whether this is the final nail in the coffin for theatrical-only event films.

Let’s be clear: This was inevitable, even before COVID shut down theaters. The instant that studios began pursuing their own streaming services to complete with Netflix, this was the end game. When you constantly need new content to attract subscribers, bringing big movies into homes is a major draw. And then, when you consider that’s almost all profit for the studios, who don’t have to also pay back a theater chain, it’s a no-brainer. As I’ve said before, COVID didn’t create the narrow/nonexistent theatrical window; it just accelerated it.

I don’t know that Black Widow showed that theatrical is on the way out, though. The $60 million is a global total, but the movie brought in more than that in the U.S. alone. People still wanted to see a big movie on the big screen. And while $60 million is a big number to bring in on streaming, there are things it doesn’t represent. The $60 million doesn’t account for all the families and parties that watched it together; I’m sure Disney would love to require everyone who sees it shell out a ticket. And $30 gets you access for the film as long as it’s available; it’s more advantageous for the Mouse House to get people to pay for return trips.

I don’t think we’ve quite reached a final determination on what’s going to work best for a world where theatrical and streaming exist in harmony, but we are seeing it’s possible. I don’t think movies debuting at home portends the end of the moviegoing experience, but they do change what movies we’ll choose to see in theaters. And the model that works best — whether that’s an upcharge, video on demand, or subscription inclusion — still remains to be seen. But make no mistake: this model is here to stay. The kinks just need to be ironed out.

F9 isn’t quite out of this world

I haven’t had a chance to write much about my thoughts on F9: The Fast Saga, the latest entry in the Fast and Furious franchise and, to be honest, until I looked at my diary on Letterboxd, I almost completely forgot I’d seen it.

Which is weird, as I’m a Fambly fan, and seeing these movies on opening night is a tradition for my dad, my brother and I. I understand why some people can’t get onboard with the series; it’s a very hard thing to explain to someone that the first four are varying degrees of decent to awful that kick into high gear with the outstanding fifth entry — but that you have to see them all in order to keep track of the complex, time-shifting mythology. But the series’ mix of lunkheaded sincerity and outrageous stunts works on me more often than it doesn’t, and I was eager to see this ninth entry (tenth if you count Hobbs and Shaw, of course).

By now, the series has stopped trying to think of explanations as to why a gang of former street-racing criminals are the only hope of saving the world. Five minutes in, it just plops Dom and company in the jungle to track down a missing government operative and we accept it because that’s what these movies do. There’s the requisite over-the-top car chases and the family soap opera, this time concerning Dom’s mysterious brother, Jacob (John Cena).

I had a good time with F9 but, like I said, it’s evaporated in a way that the others usually don’t. I think Justin Lin’s return leads to some fun action sequences, particularly a climax involving magnets and some fun hand-to-hand fighting. But the series is starting to skirt the dangerous edge of self-parody, acknowledging its own ridiculousness and commenting directly on it, and its become too convoluted for its own good (the movie has an easier time explaining why they need to take a Fiero into space than it does explaining why Han is back). The chases are fun and I have a lot of affection for these characters, so it’s still a relatively harmless time, but this was the first Fast and Furious in ages where I felt my eyes rolling.

I also think the absence of Dwayne Johnson hurts this one just as much as the lack of Vin Diesel hurt Hobbs and Shaw. Diesel brings the dopey earnestness that balances out the series’ over-the-top chaos. But Johnson brings a self-aware badassery and sense of charisma that gooses the action and lends the films energy. When the two (who famously don’t get along) are in the movies, the create a potent combination that elevates it above its dumb-as-bricks sensibility. When one’s gone, the films feel out of step, either too smug and self-satisfied (Hobbs and Shaw) or too muddled and turgid (here). Here’s hoping that The Rock returns for the two final films.

‘Once Upon a Time…” novel brings the best and worst of Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood was one of my favorite films of 2019, a breezy and funny hangout film powered by a great performance by Brad Pitt. Even if my enjoyment of Tarantino’s work waxes and wanes with his films, I can’t deny his skill as a writer. So I was eager to read his novelization of the film, which released earlier this month.

I think it’s safe to say that Once Upon a Time is exactly what you’d expect a Tarantino novel to be, for better and worse. He plays with his established narrative the same way his films play with history; if you think you know where this ends, guess again. Tarantino is less interested in regurgitating the film’s story (although some sequences are reproduced) as he is delving into the inner lives of washed-up actor Rick Dalton and his longtime stuntman, Cliff Booth.

And at that, Tarantino is mostly successful. On the page, Dalton’s insecurity gets more time and Tarantino explores his resentment and frustration as his career heads into the sunset, as well as the alcoholism he’s developed to cope. We also get more information about Cliff, although I have a feeling readers might be split on whether it’s what they wanted. Cliff’s revealed to be a bit of a sadist and a literal murderer, and not just of his wife, as the film implied (and the novel explicitly confirms). If Dalton is more sympathetic here, Cliff’s a bit of a monster who Tarantino portrays as a hero, and he doesn’t have Pitt’s charm to offset his uglier side.

I remember when critic Jeffrey Overstreet briefly experimented with writing film reviews that were also short stories, in which his characters’ wrestled with the themes of the movie at hand (his Before Midnight review is quite good). At times, Tarantino’s novel feels like the best version of that, as he spends 10 pages discussing Cliff’s thoughts on foreign films, or muses on which stars almost got which roles. It’s indulgent, sure, but we’ve seen the movie; I welcome the tangent, and I’d eagerly read a book of film criticism by Tarantino. Some might find that a bit too much, but I find few things more entertaining that listening to QT go off on a tear about cinema history.

The rest of the novel is a mixed bag. As expected, Tarantino’s dialogue is solid and his writing is never less than snappy and sharp. I appreciate that he doesn’t simply rehash a movie I’ve already seen, although he has a tendency to abandon characters and plot threads abruptly just to follow his train of thought wherever he wants it to go (the Manson angle is both a bit more in-depth — and disconcertingly sympathetic — and yet it’s also dropped 100 pages from the end). People who thought his treatment of Sharon Tate was too shallow won’t find much more here, although the chapter where she goes to see herself on screen is still a highlight, just as it was in the film.

But my biggest frustration with Tarantino is that he’s prone to a lack of humanity in his work, and I don’t think he grows much in that area as a novelist. He still seems to get a kick out of violence and he struggles to find much emotion that isn’t directly related to “hey, aren’t the movies great?” There’s a juvenile and graphic approach to sexuality in here that left a bad taste in my mouth, and his use of the “N-word” and homophobic slurs is still plentiful and feels even more gratuitous on the printed page.

Tarantino’s a good writer, and I’d be curious to read another novel by him. But I don’t think he should quit his day job. Cinema better fits the speed with which his mind works, and I think it requires a discipline that keeps him on track, where he can wander with a novel in ways that get grating (this is a repetitive novel in places). And I think his work with talented collaborators often helps dull his more aggravating aspects and blunts the things that frustrate me with him. Once Upon a Time isn’t a chore to read, but I’d rather just watch the movie again.