10 Pieces of Content I Loved, Liked (or Loathed)
Sam writes about 10 things from the pop culture world that thrilled, tickled, transported, touched, or, perhaps, triggered him — August 2022 Edition
(1) Top Gun: Maverick (again[!!!])
Sorted firmly in the category of bullshit boomer reboot fodder that I generally dislike, TG:M lit my hair on fire (again) with its afterburners (for the second time). For this sophomore viewing, I brought along dad as my copilot, who ranks Top Gun-era Tom Cruise highly in his internal canon—decidedly behind Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, and the 1993 Stallone classic1 Cliffhanger—and he said it was a “10/10”: extremely high praise for the normally laconic Papa Strantz. Cruise, though sort of a parody of himself since jumping on Oprah’s couch and informing millennials about scientology, now exists on our screens solely to thrill audiences with live stunts. His cohort in TG:M happily follows suit. Miles Teller finally lives up to the career-that-was-promised post-Whiplash. Folks, stop reading and go see this flick in IMAX please.
(2) The Bear — MORE, Chef!
Praise from dozens of TV critics have blessed blogospheres about this absolute delight of a show set in a dive-y Chicago beef sandwich shop. Carmen 'Carmy' Berzatto (played by the appropriately restaurant shit-bag-looking Jeremy Allen White), a hotshot Michelin-star NYC chef, inherits his recently deceased (and suicidal) brother Mikey’s shop. The hijinks ensue with a heavy portion of found family story beats. White serves up the best performance I’ve seen or will likely see this year in Carmy’s coiled aggression, unable to articulate his feelings if he could even acknowledge that he *has* feelings. Much has been written about his 7-minute Al-Anon sequence in the finale, but I found Carmy’s moments staring into the middle distance holding a to-go sauce container full of ice water to be peak back-of-house2 and especially heart-wrenching. Ayo Edebiri is also special as the apprentice sous chef Sydney—she is a bonafide star in the making. Mikey’s casting, which I won’t spoil here, is the prisintely-tweezed herbal garnish on top. Season 2 has already been fired and is currently expected to hit our tables sometime in 2023. And finally, Richie. Oh, Richie. “What’s up you fuckin’ replicants3!?” will never NOT make me lol. I know I’ve got a Richie in my life, and I hope you do too!
(3) Movie Pass II: Return of the All-You-Can-Watch (sort of)
This time, instead of $10 for any movie/any day/any time, we’ve got a tiered pricing structure based on peak and off-peak movie times. Seeing the new Avengers on Friday night, for example, may wipe out your credits, but waiting until Tuesday could buy you a few additional A24 showings for the rest of the week. I am blessed to live in a city with AMC *and* Regal, who both already boast subscription services. Color me rooting for Movie Pass but—as a former 2018 subscriber who really enjoyed those too-good-to-be-true few months of cheap movies—properly skeptical.
(4) Prey is the best Predator film & it’s not even particularly close or up for (reasonable) debate…
Director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) wanted to make a film told almost exclusively through action, but because it’s 2022, the only way that pitch gets green-lit is to shoe-horn in some existing intellectual property. This reality means audiences were gifted an extremely talented filmmaker making… wait for it, a Predator movie? Scorsese would never! Prey (ha, get it) is white-knuckled adrenaline action and suspense set in the 1700s Great Plains amongst the Comanche, French fur-trappers, and one tremendous tracking dog named Coco (the goodest of good girls). Amber Midthunder turns in a muscular performance that will justifiably get her a million meetings and hopefully a thousand more lead roles. There’s a torch-lit sequence at night that is particularly thrilling and looks amazing (read: real) in the era of green screen and ILM’s “The Volume.”4 I do regret that the entire film wasn’t spoken in Comanche with subtitled English, but I’m sure the Hulu overlords shot a flaming arrow through that idea. In summary, you could do a lot worse with your night from your living room – this movie is what The Revenant wishes it was.
(5) I watched All That Jazz for the first time ever!
Even though I made it my mission to watch every historic movie worth watching (shoutout IMDB’s Top 250 List + Blockbuster’s unlimited rental pass circa 2006), a few titles nevertheless fell through the cracks. But because I’m a Roy Schneider acolyte, I’m even more surprised that I never cracked open this 1979 semi-autobiographical musical drama written & directed by Bob Fosse. Enter: the Criterion blu-ray.5 This is Schneider’s—who I’ve always found to be the most interesting actor of that second golden-age of Hollywood, more so than Newman, Redford, Hoffman, Hopper, Sutherland, or yes, even Nicholson—career-defining performance as drug-addicted workaholic womanizer Joe Gideon (even though he can’t really dance or sing in a film about dancing and singing). Every morning for Gideon begins with a steamy shower, a tape of Vivaldi and doses of Visine, Alka-Seltzer, and Dexedrine (of the amphetamine variety) before he recites his mantra in the mirror:
Watching a man work himself literally to death isn’t always pleasant, but Gideon’s charisma realized through Schneider keeps us rooting for his show to go on.
(6) House of the Dragon is perfectly good, but will it be great?
HoTD (pronounced, “Hot-D”) is the epitome of back-to-the-basics. Palace intrigue, political angling, guys sitting around tables talking about other fellas sitting around tables talking about whether those fellas will come attack those guys, severe sexual age gaps, a kingdom’s worth of HBO funds spent on computer animation dragons! I legitimately assume that the show-runners Google’d “why do ppl like Game of Thrones??” and outlined season 1 based on the resulting Collider or Screenrant article. But, perhaps most importantly, it's working. Milly Alcock is a force no matter what color her locks are (though Targ-blond suits her). Based on casting, I think we're due for lots of time-line jumping, but they are letting my boy6 Matt Smith7 cook (pun intended), and frankly, that’s all that matters…for now.
(7) I’ve started to miss William Goldman all over again.
William Goldman, “screenwriting star and Hollywood skeptic,” died in 2018, nearly four years ago. Bill Goldman was a die-hard Knicks fan & regularly questioned Tinsel Town’s motives and the power of film well before the streaming era. Oh yeah, he also wrote Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Misery, and The Princess Bride (to name a few). In the midst of being the great living screenwriter, Goldman found time to mentor young writers honing their craft. You may have heard of fledgling Aaron Sorkin crafting his chops under Bill Goldman’s watchful wing. I’ve been reading his non-fiction novels about cinema recently (e.g., Adventures in the Screen Trade, The Big Picture, Which Lie Did I Tell), and I’m not sure what’s more impressive: his screenplays or his insight (and borderline foresight) into the decline of modern cinema. Reading between the lines, on the other hand, and you can feel his love for buttered popcorn and movie floor stickiness just oozing from the page —as if I needed another reason to love the movies. But if *you’re* questioning whether to venture out to your local cineplex or just watch another streamer, just Google one of his essays. R.I.P. to the idol Bill Goldman.
(8) Stranger Things and Metallica.
If you spend at least 40 seconds with me, there’s a 51% chance I’ll clown on Stranger Things during that period. I find the popular Netflix show to be weaponized nostalgia, causing Millennials and Gen Z (and perfectly aged critics) to pine for the 1980s, distorted by half truths like “life was simpler back then…” or “REMEMBER GHOSTBUSTERS!” The most recent season, however, featured a character I don’t care about in a scene I don’t care about riffing “Master of Puppets” by Metallica—a song I *do* care about, which caused generations of kids to search “Metallica” on Spotify and discover/enjoy one of the best thrash songs ever written. Never mind the timeline issues (“how could this dude have learned the song in a few weeks without the benefit of online guitar tabs and” — OKAY SHUT UP, Reddit nerd!), and I know it’s hypocritical, but this is the exact category of nostalgia I can get behind. As G-Magz aptly summarized in the YouTube comments: “Eddie playing Master of Puppets in an alternate dimension while fighting off a hoard of demo bats in the name of Chrissy Cunningham. How much more metal can you get?” Hell yeah, brother.
(9) Where have all the movies gone?
Despite so many movies being COVID-delayed to 2022, I guess studios forgot to schedule blockbusters for end-of-the-season cleanups in August. Perhaps indicative of the times, most of the month’s biggest movies have been exclusive streaming releases with the likes of Hulu’s Predator prequel Prey and Paramount’s Orphan: First Kill. On the other hand, May, June, and July (i.e., Spiderman: No Way Home, Top Gun 2) proved movie theaters no longer had to worry about streaming taking away from box office potential. August 2022’s poorly-marketed and seemingly shitty debuts (uh, Jaws with a lion Beast with Idris Elba) are set to put the year’s box office in an unexpected drought until the end of September. We shall see.
(10) In the Can is Back!
Why am I doing this? Because I really love talking about movies and TV! Please forgive the recent hiatus: I changed jobs twice and moved cross-country from Memphis→Denver→ Houston all in about 7 months. My hope is to get back in the groove here and create a weekly movie podcast and monthly posts. Even without a large audience, I really enjoy this medium, and with passionate content, maybe more folks with similar passions will subscribe and share. Houston is a city with a rich film history (shoutout to Houstonians Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater), so I hope to bring some local Texas flair to this outlet—bring back the River Oaks Theater! But most importantly, I hope to hear from y’all! What are you watching and what would you like me to discuss??Thanks for reading In the Can! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
I will routinely refer to films as “classics” because they are regarded as such in my personal lexicon, though they may not be the traditional discourse. I think the ripped bicep reached its peak form in Cliffhanger, and that’s just the truth, Ruth.
“Back of House” or “BOH” colloquially refers to the kitchen in most restaurants. I used to work in a ton of restaurants, which is why I know this. And yes, I know that saying that you worked in restaurants when people talk about The Bear is like those annoying people who’d read the GoT books while we were all watching the show and lorded over us with their knowledge of the plot.
This small character flourish that Richie, despite calling everyone a “nerd,” is probably the biggest nerd of all (after all, he’s thankful for Phillip K. Dick), is 2% why I love this show.
“The Volume” is ILM's innovative replacement for greenscreen:
Physical media, happily, is making a big come back, so I’ve started collecting Criterion blu-ray titles. The special features and writer/director commentaries are worth the price of admission alone.
I will loosely refer to my favorite actors or famous individuals (identifying as male) as my “dude,” “guy,” or “boy” — I have a running list in my iPhone notes.
Matt Smith also appeared in 2022’s Morbius, which I think he’d prefer we forgot but I never will.