Nasty, brutish and short

My disappointment with The Northman on Friday night made me realize I had a thirst for a movie set a thousand years ago that actually immersed me in its world. 

Okay, the 1386 setting of Ridley Scott's The Last Duel is 636 years ago, not a thousand, but I was still only too quick to put it on Saturday night once I found it was streaming on Disney+ -- casually disregarding the advanced mental preparation one usually makes before embarking on a two hour and 35-minute time commitment. 

You may remember (though why would you) that this was my #4 film of 2021. It was not nearly that sort of slam dunk for others. Critics generally supported it, some passionately, but audiences famously did not go see it, though I'm sure some of them ended up loving it as much as I did when they caught up with it on video. Some of them hated it. 

I'd say The Last Duel took a sort of typical second-viewing drop in my estimations, which is, not very much but enough for me to notice it. I still think it's great, and I was already surmising that it will be in the conversation at the end of this decade when I consider candidates for my top 25 films of the past ten years.

Today I want to focus on the appearance of Matt Damon in this film -- which could be one of those character details, along with Ben Affleck's platinum blonde hair, that turn off viewers who already feel predisposed against a movie, kind of like a character dressed up in a fat suit. 

I was going to call this post "Matt Damon's brutish mullet," but the use of the word "brutish" put me in mind of Thomas Hobbes' famous quote about life. Since all three of those adjectives effectively described Damon's character, I went with that title instead.

A far simpler film, made 20 years ago, would have had the man fighting for his wife's honor (Damon's Jean de Carrouges) unambiguously heroic, and the man who violated her (Adam Driver's Jacque Le Gris) unambiguously loathsome. In fact, both men are loathsome, and because de Carrouges is on the right side of the central conflict, we need to know it through his appearance -- though it's pretty damn evident in his behavior as well.

And what an appearance. I think most people agree that Damon is a good-looking man, but they've really uglied him up here. The scar on his cheek is one obvious way, though in reality, it speaks to his courage in battle, which even Le Gris in his own accounting of events does not attempt to dispute. I noticed in Le Gris' account, which comes second, he does not paint a different picture of de Carrouges saving him in battle, so it must have gone down the way de Carrouges depicts it. A simpler movie also might have showed Le Gris remembering it as him saving de Carrouges instead. But I'm getting sidetracked.

The real thing that makes him gross to look at is the hair. I have no idea if a mullet is authentic to the period of time -- just as I have no idea if Affleck's platinum blonde hair was a thing -- but it certainly speaks volumes about this man. He's a real brute with no sense of style whatsoever, whose hair might have been cut by a butcher. 

He's also a "small" man, hence the Hobbesian "short." Damon's only three inches shorter than Driver -- though those are an important three inches metaphorically -- but he's notably petty, constantly worried about personal slights and threats to his honor. He's concerned about whether Le Gris addresses him as "sir," and he's highly litigious, twice trying to sue Affleck's character for transactions related to real estate. What's more, he takes on the titular duel primarily to defend his own honor -- since, as we learn, rape was actually considered a property crime, perpetrated against the man who owns the property rather than the woman who is his property. With de Carrouges, it's all about property.

Even in de Carrouges' own telling of events, he doesn't come across as very righteous, which I think is one of the best things about this movie -- both he and Le Gris characterize their obvious weaknesses as strengths, which speaks to the blindness of men to their own faults from time immemorial. 

It may have been a radical conception of Damon's appearance by the hair and makeup people -- who are obviously doing the bidding of the director and the writers, one of whom is Damon -- but it's a great way to remind us, just by looking at him, not to get it twisted. This man may be fighting a righteous cause in the sense that he's trying to prevent his wife from getting executed -- a foregone conclusion if Damon loses the duel, thereby "proving" that her claim of rape was false -- but his motivations are all wrong-headed, his perspective all backward. When he says he's risking his life for her, she reminds him that he's really risking her life -- for his vanity.

Vanity? Just looking at him, you wouldn't think he had any. 

A theme of finality

I didn't plan for the viewings in my final week at my house to take on any particular theme, but once I noticed one forming on its own, you better bet I'm leaning into it.

Namely, the movies I've watched in the past week are organized around a theme of things ending. At first it was accidental, but for the next two nights it will be intentional.

You can go back as far as last Sunday night if you really want to stretch things. That's when I watched the terrible Dear Evan Hansen, which basically starts with a suicide. (Not Evan's, though I could have done with a lot less of him in the movie.) 

The theme strengthens a little with Tuesday night's viewing of Passing -- if not in the subject matter, then at least in the title. While this very good movie is about Black people attempting to "pass" for white in Harlem of the 1920s, "passing" is of course also a euphemism for dying.

Then on Wednesday night I watched my final film in my Orson Welles series, as you would know from my previous post. The Other Side of the Wind was not only the final film in that series, it was the final film in Welles' career, and it had to be finished by other people after he died.

Finally we get to Thursday, when I watched Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, which I thought was outstanding. I'd like to properly gush about this movie at some other time, but I probably won't considering that it's Christmas and I'm moving. But not only does the movie deal with a duel to the death, it also has the word "last" in its very title.

It was at this point that I noticed the theme, and decided to pre-select my last two viewings in this house tonight and tomorrow night, which are both called, fittingly, Swan Song.

You might remember these films from another previous post about these identically named movies becoming available to me around the same time. The one starring Mahershala Ali has just yesterday become available on AppleTV+, and the one starring Udo Kier is something I rented from iTunes shortly after writing that post. 

Then Monday, we'll be gone.

A lot of films have themes of death and endings, of course, and if I want to go back earlier in the month, I also note that I watched the final films of Humphrey Bogart (The Harder They Fall) and David Gulpilil (My Name is Gulpilil), the indigenous Australian actor who died of lung cancer just last month. So what I'm saying is, you can squint and fit the theme to any week-long viewing period.

But I write this today more as a recognition of the mental state I'm in as I prepare to leave the house where I've watched more movies than any other place in my life.

Sure, I lived a lot longer in my childhood home, but back then, I probably watched two movies a month. I've never lived anywhere else even close to the eight years and four months that I've called this old terrace house in North Melbourne my home.

There are a ton of ways I'm feeling sentimental, but since this is a movie blog, that's where I'm focusing today. 

The first new-to-me movie I watched in this house was State Fair on September 2, 2013. According to my records, I have watched 2,251 movies since then, probably 75% of which were in this house, not to mention hundreds of repeat viewings. That includes my 4000th movie of all time, my 5000th movie of all time and my 6000th movie of all time.

It's probably true that when watching something at home, you remove the memorable environmental factors that color a theatrical screen at a particularly cool cinema, and all that really matters is your TV (or laptop screen, or projector) and your eyeballs. But I definitely remember the room where I saw certain first-time home viewing favorites, and that specific environment definitely contributed in some small way to my overall experience and memory of the film.

We have an outstanding living room in our new house, one that gets tons of natural light, and I'm sure this will be a very memorable location for most of my new viewings. I also expect there to be a TV set up permanently in our garage, which is attached to our house in the new house and doesn't have a leaky roof where it could get rained on.

But 23 Curran Street will remain, at least for most of the next decade, the place where I saw the most movies I've ever seen -- the most good movies, the most bad movies, and everything in between. 

Tonight and tomorrow night I will see it out with my twin swan songs, and then this sentimental old fool can look ahead to the next thing. 

Movies that last an eternity

As you know I've been on catch-up duty since the movie theaters reopened 16 days ago, though I haven't been fulfilling that duty with very much alacrity. Of course there are other things going on in my life right now, like the purchase of a new house, but even still, seeing only two movies in those 16 days is a pretty paltry pace -- especially when I'm trying to make up for lost viewings.

So I'm trying to go tonight, though I haven't mentioned it to my wife yet. But the options available, the ones I most need to watch to stay current on the film conversation, aren't very enticing, especially for a 9 o'clock viewing.

It's not their content, though I have to admit that the latest James Bond is feeling more like a duty than a pleasure to me right now. It's their length.

I've chosen Eternals for the artwork of this post as it perfectly exemplifies the phenomenon I'm talking about today (and goes well with my title for the post), though it's not a serious candidate for tonight's viewing, since I know it's coming to Disney+ before Christmas, and can pick it off then. 

I'm a bit Marveled out at the moment, but the really onerous thing about Eternals is its length: 157 minutes. If Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, my first return to the cinema, wore me out with 25 minutes' less girth, just imagine what the poorly reviewed Eternals will do to me with an extra half-hour of run time tacked on. 

Two other must-haves are better options, given that if I don't get them in the theater I may not get them at all before my deadline for closing off my 2021 list: the aforementioned No Time to Die, and Ridley Scott's latest, starring Adam Driver and Matt Damon, The Last Duel. (Side note: Isn't every duel somebody's "last duel"?)

When would those movies movies get me back out of my seat again, you ask?

No Time to Die: 163 minutes later.

The Last Duel: 153 minutes later.

Oy.

James Bond will probably win out, if only for reasons of practicality. I have a website to think about, and my ReelGood readers -- diminished in number though they may be -- will probably be most interested in a Bond review. It's something we have to do if we are going to be a "website of record" (kind of like The New York Times is a "paper of record"). Besides, the clicks help in whatever nebulous goal I'm trying to achieve.

But damn, that's the longest of the three movies I've mentioned so far, just 17 minutes shy of three hours. I can't even imagine what sort of artificial stimulants I might need to keep me awake for the whole movie, especially since I already know how early I've gotten up this morning (7:30, which is actually late for me), not to mention how poorly I've been napping in the afternoons.

The other options aren't significantly better. Jane Campion's first proper feature since 2009, The Power of the Dog, is a good contender, and has a regional interest to our audience as the director hails from New Zealand. That film's 126 minutes are downright modest compared to the others, but the film still keeps you in your seat for more than two hours. I've already decided to wait until video for a second Adam Driver movie in theaters, Annette, but that one is 139 minutes as well.

In fact, I can't find a single movie playing right now that meets either a reviewing need or a year-end list need that is under two hours.

Does it get any better from here? Not really. Dune, which releases December 2nd, and West Side Story are both 156 minutes. Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley is 139 minutes. Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, clocks in at a typically Andersonian 133 minutes. Even Ghostbusters: Afterlife is over two hours at 125 minutes. And though Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Matrix Resurrections don't have listed running times yet, 140 minutes would figure to be on the modest side for those two.

The only "big movie" still coming out this year that is reasonable in length is Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which has already opened in the U.S. but opens here in a few weeks. Somehow they brought this one in at only 97 minutes. Hallelujah. Too bad I didn't like the first one and may give this one a miss, to use the Australian phrasing.

Just so you aren't confused by why I'm writing this post today, this does not qualify as some sort of shocking revelation. I know movies are long these days. Studios once told directors to cut 20 minutes from a movie because they were worried that audiences would be scared off by the length. Now, following the "more is more" logic used by Netflix on their TV series (for example), studios are happy with that 20 minutes and might even prefer an additional 20 if you've got 'em lying around.

It's just that it feels like all the movies are long. There's no way to find something shorter unless you are going for a genre that has traditionally run shorter, such as comedy or horror, but even those movies run longer than they once did.

The consequence of this is that I have watched a bunch of movies lately where I needed to re-read the plot synopsis afterward to be sure I didn't miss anything. The last movie I saw in the theater, The Many Saints of Newark, was right on two hours exactly, but I started it at 9:15 after a long day, and that meant there were moments I missed as I nodded off. Given that it tackles more than a dozen characters and is trying to scratch an itch that has been building up in fans since The Sopranos ended in 2007, that's probably one that could reasonably have been even longer.

It's continued this weekend even with home viewings. The past two evenings I struggled through viewings of Titane (108 minutes) and Red Notice (117 minutes). Neither of those movies is too long in and of themselves, but life's cumulative exhaustion has left me less equipped to tackle them. And the longer movies I've watched have contributed to that. Even the ones I haven't watched yet are contributing to it in advance out of sheer anticipation.

Solutions? Stop watching movies I guess?

I just have to plow through. But complaining about it here helps, I guess.