Category: Film
*Sound of Freedom*
I enjoyed watching this somewhat controversial production. In terms of quality, think of it as comparable to a very good made-for-TV movie. The political message, that we don’t worry enough about sex trafficking of minors is I think mostly correct, though I would not buy most of the baggage that in today’s world so often comes with that view. The cinematography of Latin America is very good, and interestingly this movie has an easier time feeling “genuinely international” than do most Hollywood productions. The opening scene is set in Tegulcigalpa, Honduras. Here is some useful background on the movie. I am happy to see a film showcasing freedom and presenting slavery as a complete negative.
What I’ve been watching
Poor Things created a visual and stylistic and historical world all of its own. Not a perfect movie by any means, but entrancing throughout. I took the central idea to be why (different kinds of) men are attracted to autistic women, but I do understand no one else saw it that way.
American Fiction I soured on. I guess I don’t get enough jollies from making fun of the Wokies, because the movie didn’t add to my understanding and just made them stupid targets. I can (and do) get that on Twitter any day. Some people will really like this one, but I wouldn’t have minded missing it.
Anselm 3-D is excellent if you know a lot about Kiefer, various German Kriegsauseinandersetzungen, and if you want a look into art production in factory settings. I meet all three of those standards, and then some.
Is Tom Cruise actor GOAT?
Yes says I, and here is Wikipedia for reference. Adam Ozimek (from my email) agrees:
Rewatching Oblivion tonight and it really holds up. Cinematography and CGI that hasn’t aged at all. And Edge of Tomorrow is a sci fi classic for the ages now, made when he was 52.
Those metacritic scores on the recent Mission Impossible films and Top Gun are extraordinary for action blockbusters.
The Scientology stuff is not great for society, but the man tried to and maybe did save movie theaters. And don’t forget this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/05/11/tom-cruise-stands-his-expletive-laden-m-i-7-rant-over-covid-19/5041447001/
And no he hasn’t done a Rain Man style serious role in a while, but he’s shown plenty of range. Did you know how much of his tropic thunder character was his idea? https://youtu.be/a3fKXBNufy4?si=M4YPtGx8PJTHREB3
GOAT I say
Fair enough. I would start with Risky Business, from 1982, which is genuinely funny and vital and which few other actor GOAT contenders can match. A Few Good Men and Interview the Vampire I also find to his credit, all from the first decade of what is (so far) five (!) decades of being a dominant force in Hollywood. Sadly, Jerry McGuire, like Rain Man, turns me off.
Perhaps Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut are his finest achievements? In any case they show he has a strong presence in art house cinema as well. Minority Report is seminal and Vanilla Sky has a McCartney song in the soundtrack.
Cruise has worked with top directors, including Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Mann and John Woo. He makes creative decisions in his movies as well. Cruise has won plenty of awards, has longevity and variety in his repertoire, and still is important for pulling in the gross. He has done many of his own stunts, even at advanced ages. He also has married three actresses — Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes. He has dated Melissa Gilbert, Rebecca De Mornay, Patti Scialfa, and Cher, among others.
One of Cruise’s co-stars, Emily Blunt, described him as “insatiably positive.”
Is he “the last great movie star“? As Hegel once said, the owl of Minerva flies at dusk.
Addendum:
Harrison Ford seems to be the only serious competitor? Cary Grant is a bit too tall, wooden, and British to win, but maybe he comes in third? Jimmy Stewart didn’t have enough dramatic range. Clint Eastwood is amazing, but somehow too much a self-contained bubble? Rock Hudson has degenerated into “Straussian value” in too many of his movies. Who else?
My pick for the best movie of the year, in which I share a bill with Kevin Spacey
Tyler Cowen, economist and author of Marginal Revolutions
May December
I found May December to be the most interesting movie of the year. It examines deep questions about who envies whom, what a meaningful life consists of, what about possession is satisfying, art versus artifice, the nature of celebrity, and how hard it is to live without worrying about what other people think. The stars are Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, and the director is Todd Haynes. The plotline (these are not spoilers) is that a grown woman had sex with a male seventh-grader, was sent to prison, and later ends up marrying him and having his children. Natalie Portman plays the role of a well-known actress who comes by to learn their story, so that she may better play the woman in a movie. The biggest cinematic influence is perhaps Bergman’s Persona, as we increasingly see different ways in which the two women are parallel or “twinned” in their stories. The movie poster reflects this. The highlight is when Natalie Portman explains to a group of teenagers what it is like to do a sex scene in a movie. In an era where Hollywood is supposed to be stale, this one resets the clock.
From The Spectator, there are many other (lesser) picks as well.
2023 CWT retrospective episode
Here is the link, here is the episode summary:
On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and underrated episodes, the origins of the show as an occasional event series, the most difficult guests to prep for, the story behind EconGOAT.AI, Tyler’s favorite podcast appearance of the year, and his evolving LLM-powered production function. They also answer listener questions and conclude with an assessment of Tyler’s top pop culture recommendations from 2013 across movies, music, and books.
And one excerpt:
COWEN: That’s a unique experience. You have a chance to do Chomsky. Maybe you don’t even want to do it, but you feel, “If I don’t do it, I’ll regret not having done it.” Just like we didn’t get to chat with Charlie Munger in time, though he’s far more, I would say, closer to truth than Chomsky is.
I thought half of Chomsky was quite good, and the other half was beyond terrible, but that’s okay. People, I think, wanted to gawk at it in some manner. They had this picture — what’s it like, Tyler talking with Chomsky? Then they get to see it and maybe recoil, but that’s what they came for, like a horror movie.
HOLMES: The engagement on the Chomsky episode was very good. Some people on MR were saying, “I turned it off. I couldn’t listen to it.” But actually, most people listened to it. It did, actually, probably better than average in terms of engagement, in terms of how much of the episode, on average, people listen to.
COWEN: How can you turn it off? What does that say about you? Were you surprised? You thought that Chomsky had become George Stigler or something? No.
Fun and interesting throughout. If you are wondering, the most popular episode of the year, by far, was with Paul Graham.
Censorship of U.S. Movies in China
We introduce a structural econometric model to estimate the extent to which the Chinese government bans U.S. movies. According to our estimates, if a movie has characteristics similar to the median movie in our sample, then the probability is approximately 0.91 that the Chinese government will ban it. During our sample period, 1994-2019, U.S. movies comprised about 28 percent of the Chinese market and sales were about $22.6 billion. However, according to our estimates, if the Chinese government had not banned any U.S. movies, then the latter numbers would have risen to 68 percent and $45.1 billion.
As for what gets banned:
…, two factors that have very high statistical significance are: (i) whether the movie contains occult content, and (ii) whether the movie
receives an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The factors also have very high substantive significance. For instance, suppose two movies, A and B, are identical except that movie A contains occult content, while B does not. Suppose movie B’s probability of being banned is 50%. Then, according to our results, the occult content in movie A causes its probability of being banned to rise to 67%. A similar thought experiment implies that, if a movie has an R rating, then this raises its probability of being banned from 50% to 70%.Three other factors seem to be important but come just short of reaching statistical significance. These are whether the movie contains themes related to (i) anti-communism, (ii) individualism, or (iii) Tibet. A fourth factor is similar. This is whether the actor Richard Gere
appears in the movie.
That is a new paper by XUHAO PAN, Tim Groseclose, and yours truly, forthcoming in the Journal of Cultural Economics.
Best movies of 2023
As usual, they are in the order I saw them (more or less), not ranked ordinally. And sometimes there are reviews behind the link, sometimes by me:
Knock at the Cabin, theology all over this one.
Return to Seoul (NYT review).
John Wick 4, yup.
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
You Hurt My Feelings
Incredible But True
Bottoms, lesbian best friends in high school, not what you think.
Joan Baez: I am a Noise, you don’t have to like her music to like the movie.
Dream Scenario
May December, drenched in Bergman’s Persona. And that is my pick for the best movie of the year.
The Killer (Netflix)
Godzilla Minus Zero. I haven’t even seen this one yet, but I am confident in my judgment.
Updates will be made as is appropriate. Overall, after some big dry spells, it was a pretty amazing year for movies. Maybe not for Hollywood, but for movies. Moviemakers are adapting well to the new circumstances and the new economics. There are many more recommended selections I haven’t had the chance to sample yet, and maybe after I wake up I will put my list of those in the comments section.
What did you all like?
*Napoleon*
You can’t treat it as a normal movie with anything contextualized or explained. Nope. Rather think of it as a crazed male fantasy (the director’s? Certainly not mine) about one particular way of living, presented large and vivid on the screen, with sex scenes too. The fantasy doesn’t even have Napoleon as an especially smart guy, which of course he was. The battles scenes for Austerlitz and Waterloo are some of the best ever filmed. I can’t bring myself to call it “a good movie,” but it was better than expected and I was never tempted to leave.
May December (movie review, no real spoilers)
May December is an excellent movie, with tinges of Bergman’s Persona (just look at the poster at the link) and Girard to boot. It has some of the finest lines (“That’s what adults do”) and scenes (the make-up exchange) of any film this year or maybe even this decade. How about Natalie Portman’s “transformation monologue” toward the end? Or the segment when she explains to high school students what it is like to do a sex scene in a film? Who in this movie has real desire? Which of the two women handles celebrity better? Who envies whom and why? Interestingly, the movie is also pro-natalist. Might it be the best product to come out of Hollywood in 2023?
*Holy Spider*
A very good Iranian movie, the first half feels like David Fincher but in Farsi. It is about a serial killer, so you must be able to tolerate some difficult scenes. The second half takes some brilliant and creative turns, concerning broader Iranian society. I dare not divulge those for fear of spoiling the suspense for you. The movie also bears on the current role of Iran in the Middle East conflict and has a definite Straussian side. Recommended, for those who can. On Netflix.
My Conversation with the excellent Brian Koppelman
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary:
Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions, and his podcast The Moment, which explores pivotal moments in creative careers.
Tyler and Brian sat down to discuss why TV wasn’t good for so long, whether he wants viewers to binge his shows, how he’d redesign movie theaters, why some smart people appreciate film and others don’t, which Spielberg movie and Murakami book is under appreciated, a surprising fact about poker, whether Jalen Brunson is overrated or underrated, Manhattan food tips, who he’d want to go on a three-day retreat with, whether movies are too long, how happy people are in show business, his unmade dream projects, the next thing he’ll learn about, and more.
Excerpt:
COWEN: Thank you. I have some very simple questions for you about the history of television to start with. I grew up in the 1970s and I’ve long wondered, “Why was TV so bad for so long before the so-called Golden Age?” Maybe you could date that to the 90s or the noughties, but why weren’t shows in the 70s and 80s better than they were? Would you challenge that premise?
KOPPELMAN: Well, I also grew up in the ’70s. I was born in ’66. I’m not sure that the hypothesis that it was bad is correct. It certainly wasn’t, in general, as an art form, operating on the level that cinema was operating on or the level that music, in part, was operating on during that time.
But if we look at, say, children’s television, I could argue that Jim Henson and Sesame Street, for what it was and aimed at what it was aimed at, was as important as any television that’s on today. I would say that Jim Henson moved the art form forward. He figured out a use case for TV that hadn’t really been done before, and he created a way of thinking about the medium that was really different.
Then, look, Hill Street Blues shows up in the ’80s and, I think, figures out how to use certain techniques of theater and cinema and novels to tell these TV stories. Like any other business, when that started to connect, then people in the business started to become aware of what was possible.
Yes, it was a function of three channels, to answer your question. Yes, in the main, of course, TV was worse. No doubt about it, but there were high points. I think those high points pointed the way toward the high points that came later. For me, NYPD Blue is the network show that’s fully on the level of any of these shows that came after. David Milch cut his teeth on Hill Street Blues.
There’s a wonderful book by Brett Martin, called Difficult Men, that’s about showrunners. It starts, in a way, with Bochco and Milch in that time period. It’s a great look into how this idea of showrunners created modern television. HBO needing something, all these business reasons underneath it, but how people who came up through, originally, Hill Street were able to go on and start this revolution.
COWEN: In your view, how good, really, was I Love Lucy? Is it just a few memorable moments, like Vitameatavegamin? Or is it actually a show where it’d be good episode after good episode, like The Sopranos?
And from Brian:
I don’t know Wes Anderson. I don’t know him, but I met him once. I love his movies, and I love that his movies are 90 minutes. The one time I met him, we were screening a film. He invited some people who happened to be in town, who he knew were film people, so I got to watch a movie with him. Afterwards, we were just talking about movies, and I said, “These movies of yours — they are 90 minutes,” and he said, “Yes. I found that the concepts I’m interested in don’t really support a journey that lasts longer than that.” He’s an incredibly disciplined filmmaker. I was like, “That makes total sense.”
Recommended, interesting and entertaining throughout.
My Conversation with Harriet Karimi Muriithi
This is another CWT bonus episode, recorded in Tatu City, Kenya, outside of Nairobi. Harriet is a 22-year-old waitress. Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary:
Harriet is a 22-year-old hospitality professional living and working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings. Harriet grew up in the picturesque foothills of Mount Kenya before moving to the capital city as a child to pursue better schooling. She has witnessed Nairobi’s remarkable growth firsthand over the last decade. An ambitious go-getter, Harriet studied supply chain management but and wishes to open her own high-end restaurant.
In her conversation with Tyler, Harriet opens up about her TikTok hobby, love of fantasy novels, thoughts on improving Kenya’s education system, and how she leverages AI tools like ChatGPT in her daily life, the Chinese influence across Africa, the challenges women face in village life versus Nairobi, what foods to sample as a visitor to Kenya, her favorite musicians from Beyoncé to Nigerian Afrobeats stars, why she believes technology can help address racism, her Catholic faith and church attendance, how COVID-19 affected her education and Kenya’s recovery, the superstitions that persist in rural areas, the career paths available to Kenya’s youth today, why Nollywood movies captivate her, the diversity of languages and tribes across the country, whether Kenya’s neighbors impact prospects for peace, what she thinks of the decline in the size of families, why she enjoys podcasts about random acts of kindness, what infrastructure and lifestyle changes are reshaping Nairobi, if the British colonial legacy still influences politics today, and more.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: How ambitious are you?
MURIITHI: On a scale of 1 to 10, I will say an 8.5.
This episode is best consumed in combination with the episode with the village elder Githae Gitinji. The contrast between the two perspectives is startling. And here is my CWT episode with Stephen Jennings, concerning Tatu City itself.
What should I ask Ami Vitale?
Yes I am doing a Conversation with her. From Wikipedia:
Ami Vitale is an American photojournalist, documentary filmmaker, educator and speaker. In 2018, she published a photo book titled Panda Love which captures pandas within captivity and being released into the wild…
In 1994, Vitale joined the Associated Press (AP) as a picture editor in New York and Washington, D.C.[5][6] She self funded her travel through her work with AP and left for the Czech Republic in 1997.
She moved to Prague, Czech Republic, and spent a year covering the war in Kosovo, traveling back and forth to Prague, and spending a month at a time in the war zone. She later traveled to Angola, and then to the second Intifada in Gaza and Israel. In 2000, she received an Alexia Foundation grant to document a small village in the West African nation of Guinea Bissau.
Vitale currently photographs wildlife and environmental stories in order to educate about global conservation issues. She is a visual journalist working as a photographer for National Geographic, a documentary filmmaker, and a cinematographer. Her recent still photography focuses on wildlife conservation in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. As an ambassador for Nikon and a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine, she has documented wildlife and poaching in Africa, covered human-wildlife conflict, and concentrated on efforts to save the northern white rhino and reintroduce pandas to the wild.
She has traveled to more than one hundred countries. Here is her home page, which includes links to her documentaries. Here is her Instagram.
So what should I ask her?
*The Creator* (movie review with spoilers)
This movie was deeper and more philosophical than I was expecting. Imagine a Buddhism that decides the AIs represent the true renunciation of desire, and thus embody the Buddhist ideal. Globally, the AIs ally themselves with the Buddhist nations, now unified under a “Republic of New Asia” banner. Mostly it looks like Vietnam (water buffalo), until snow-capped mountains are needed near the end.
The Buddhists considers the AIs to be kinder than humans. America, however, tries to destroy them all, as part of a misguided quest to bomb the proverbial data centers.
You will find visual quotations from A.I., Robocop, Terminator II, Kundun, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, Firestarter, Westworld, Lost in Space, the Abraham story from Genesis, and more. The special effects were good, and surprisingly understated compared to the usual excess. Scientific consistency, however, you will not find.
In this movie it is Eliezer and the Americans who are the bad guys. I was surprised to see Hollywood make that move.
From the director of Rogue One, a good sign of course, and the soundtrack is by Hans Zimmer. This movie is not perfect, but I am very glad I saw it. The U.S. reviews for it are unreliable, the BBC did OK, Vulture too.
*Landscape with Invisible Hand*
Despite its only middling at best reviews, I found this one of the most original and intriguing movies of the year. The formula “African-American family movie plus Only Fans for space aliens” isn’t exactly exhausted, or for that matter even plausible as the basis for anything. Yet the whole production comes off surprisingly well once you accept the absurdist premise, and it feels freshly cinematic. The movie also has a lot of economics, and self-consciously so, though not exactly in a free market direction. Here is the trailer.