Hello again! Remember me?
I’m slowly crawling out of the hole I dug myself in fall festival season, and a busy NYFF really took it out of me as I hit the gas in both work and writing. My apologies for leaving newsletter readers such as yourself in such a content desert — I should have anticipated how difficult it would be to introduce a new obligation into my life a month before my busiest season.
Nonetheless, I hope to kick the dust off my feet and overdeliver in October! (Ah, alliteration.) I’ll kick things off with everyone’s favorite, The Upstream. Here are 10 movies new to streaming in October that ought to be on your radar.
Blazing Saddles, HBO Max
If you want to get me off on a rant, open the can of worms by saying that Blazing Saddles couldn’t get made today because people are too politically correct. That just shows me you need to watch Mel Brooks' brilliant Western parody and social satire again and really analyze who the butt of the jokes are. I’m not claiming everything would fly today, but this film absolutely savages the genteel folk who still stand in the way of equality by targeting them in a genre where they still feel safe excluding people who don’t look like them.
Don’t Look Now, Criterion Channel
My tastes in horror movies tend to skew less toward jump scares and more in the direction of brooding, ominous works that use the tools of cinema to create an overarching sense of dread. If that’s your vibe, then you simply can’t do much better than Nicolas Roeg’s classic Don’t Look Now. This tale of a couple slowly unraveling in grief after the death of their child is a masterclass of building a foreboding atmosphere, especially through montages like its all-timer of an opening sequence. (For fans of Edgar Wright looking forward to Last Night in Soho, he curated this title as part of his “Adventures in Moviegoing” series on the platform.)
Duplicity, Amazon Prime
I’m glad there has been a massive groundswell of support in recent years to recognize Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton as the taut masterwork that it is. Now begins my campaign to elevate the status of the writer/director’s follow-up, Duplicity. It’s not quite as accomplished, sure, but this Julia Roberts/Clive Owen romantic thriller about two corporate spies gaming their employers (and perhaps each other) is a pure delight to follow down labyrinthine corridors. I’m a sucker for good espionage plots that leave you guessing at every turn, and Gilroy’s intertwining with the two-faced nature of courtship among rivals puts a clever twist on a familiar tale.
Gunda, Hulu
Every year, I’m cursed with a title on my top ten list that is all but inaccessible for regular moviegoers to see. Last year, that was Gunda, Victor Kossakovsky’s wordless nature documentary that plunges you into the animal kingdom by way of the rhythms of farm animal life. It’s a completely singular look at these creatures, putting us in their mindset without trying to apply human attributes to them. Now, I invite you to experience it as well!
The Holiday, Netflix/Hulu
Everyone should know where they can watch The Holiday at all times — those are just the rules. Two houses, two protagonists, two platforms to watch! As Meg Ryan's fall bleeds into turtleneck (AKA Nancy Meyers) season, cuddle up with this rom-com classic that only gets better with age. 15 years old now!
Maggie’s Plan, Hulu
No one in recent years has quite captured that old Hollywood screwball “comedy of remarriage” feeling quite like Rebecca Miller in Maggie’s Plan. This criminally underseen rom-com stars the radiant Greta Gerwig as the titular heroine who reels in Ethan Hawke’s unhappily married professor John … only to realize she wants to return him to his original owner once he becomes hers. Among many virtues, this movie features an absolutely delightful comedic supporting turn by Julianne Moore. She’s sporting a Swedish accent so bonkers that I can’t help but chuckle a little bit every time she speaks (in a good way).
Rushmore, Hulu
I’ll have more to say about Wes Anderson’s new movie, The French Dispatch, later this month — spoiler alert: I liked it a surprising amount. I’ve generally been less impressed with the name-brand director’s work since Fantastic Mr. Fox when I feel he lost touch with the humanity of his on-screen paper dolls. I much prefer movies like Rushmore, his breakthrough late-’90s sensation, that capture his same sense of aesthetic without losing the pulse of a beating heart inside.
Stalker, HBO Max
I saw the nearly 3-hour long Russian sci-fi movie Stalker at 9 P.M. on a Sunday night — not entirely sure why I tortured myself like that. I’d say I wound up experiencing the film in something like a liminal state, half-awake and half-dreaming, and it was kind of the perfect way to let the vibe wash over me. If you liked the ending of the recent Natalie Portman-starrer Annihilation, then you owe it to yourself to check out this inspiration for the film about three people making a journey toward a mysterious region known as the “Zone.” It demands viewing not to be understood logically but to be felt as it slowly creeps into your subconscious.
Step Brothers, Netflix
As we nervously/excitedly await Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up this holiday season, might I remind you that the movies he made before his prestige period are just as worthy of critical attention and praise? Case in point: Step Brothers, a farce on Bush-era masculine entitlement and arrested development so ridiculous that it demands to be taken seriously. Mark my words, this will one day get a Criterion Collection release and be seen as a defining, skewed portrait of America in the aughts. (And while we’re on the topic of fantastically unhinged supporting female roles, it was Kathryn Hahn all along, etc.)
Warm Bodies, HBO Max
This one goes out to everyone who kinda wants to participate in Halloween “spooky season” but hates scary movies. Warm Bodies is really just a rom-com in post-apocalyptic zombie trappings as romantic feelings for a live girl begin to revive an undead zombie. It’s also an excellent showcase for the immense talents of Nicholas Hoult, who can still be charming as hell while being completely estranged from human emotion. Good actor and a true star if the industry would let him be one!
WHAT I WATCHED
My eyes hurt. Here’s the portrait of a boy who watched 32 films as part of NYFF (and still has two screeners left, to boot) over the course of three weeks. I’ll have a full wrap-up here in the next week or so — one does not simply endure that level of masochistic cinema bingeing without a big written recap.
If you noticed the significance of why I watched The Parent Trap on October 11, we can be friends.
WHAT I HEARD
A few more earworms that bugged me over the course of NYFF. No one seems to click these, so I might just keep these to myself from now on! Maybe you don’t want that much insight into my head. Speaking as the person who has to inhabit it at all hours of the day, believe me when I say … I get it.
A podcast episode I loved recently — this profile of Nicholas Brittell, composer extraordinaire, as read aloud for The Daily. If you’re getting excited about the Succession premiere this weekend, this will get you even more hyped!
WHAT I WROTE
I wrapped my last interview of NYFF earlier this week — I’ll have a grand total of seven pieces out of the festival involving conversations with eleven people, most of which will trickle out this week/month. Two are already live, though, and I’m very proud of them both!
The first interview is with Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, the director of the raucous Titane. She’s a filmmaker who is going to rock the form of film and the language of storytelling, so get on board now while it’s still relatively early. If this is still showing in theaters near you, PLEASE see it this way and let it melt your face off. Not for the squeamish, but if you can handle something extreme … this will surprise and satisfy you.
In what feels like a truly unbelievable turn of events, I had a wonderful conversation with filmmaker Todd Haynes (Carol, Far from Heaven) about his first documentary, The Velvet Underground. It’s of course about the music and personalities of the legendary band, but the film is so much more. I loved getting to unpack this music that means so much to me with someone who was so immersed in it. The doc drops Friday 10/15 on Apple TV+ but opens in a few theaters across the country today — I cannot recommend enough that you see this movie as loudly as you possibly can.
As a side note, this was a very special conversation because Haynes is the first person I ever studied in school that I’ve gotten to interview. I told him this to start the talk because I knew it would be hanging over the chat the whole time if I didn’t. He responded with the following quip: “Oh man, you missed Kierkegaard! He was just here!”
I also reviewed Scenes from a Marriage, the Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain-starring HBO miniseries that just wrapped up on Sunday, over on Decider. I’m somewhat ambivalent about how it relates to its source text, an Ingmar Bergman miniseries from the 1970s, but very interested in how the two actors utilize their training and friendship to great effect on-screen.
Somewhat older, but last month I also interviewed Dan Stevens (best known for Downton Abbey and Beauty and the Beast) about his role as a humanoid robot in the German film I’m Your Man. While this Hunter Harris tweet remains the house position on him overall, I came away with a real appreciation for his craftsmanship as an actor. Good chat!
WHAT I READ
I have been absolutely terrible about reading during fall festival season — my goal is to finish Dune the novel before I see it again in IMAX. Only a few hundred pages to go…
But something longform that I read and loved was this Ringer oral history of That Thing You Do! for its 25th anniversary. It clarified a number of things I really love about this film (available to rent just about anywhere) and introduced many things I didn’t know … especially related to some truly wild alternate castings.
Also, just a reminder — the titular track is still such a banger.
That’s it for today! Be on the lookout for some newsletters to tie the bow on my festival season, including how and when you can see some of my favorite titles. I hope to get back on a regular schedule next week with a post of 10 under-the-radar scary movies to watch before Halloween 🎃
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall