New movies / new snacks

And a most miniature gift guide.

Today we have three new movies, which are of interest but won’t end up on my best of list. The least likely to put you to sleep, though never the measure of a great film, is The Girl with the Needle, which has its large share of flaws. If you’re looking to watch something great in theaters, my recommendation is Bona, a rediscovered and restored gem of Filipino cinema. It is dynamic, easy to fall into, and the ending absolutely rips. That’s a still from the movie above.

Coming soon: The latest greatest Christmas movie, my favorite movies and meals of the year.

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TASTING NOTES

• The bagels from Bagel Joint are squat, puffy, and pliable. I believe they are the rare variety that would satisfy both old-school and new-school bagel enthusiasts. Charlotte Druckman’s deep dive on the subject helped me better understand my bagel ambivalence and clarify the differences. It makes sense that I would like the ones from PopUp, since they’re more like (non-bagel) bread, specifically a baguette.

  • I haven’t had much experience with GF bagels but I found this pleasant enough.

• Té Company’s East village location—across the island on E. 9th street—trades the cozy charm of the original for much more seating. But you still get the same expert service and quality pineapple desserts. What good is a nice if you can’t sit down to enjoy it? A boxed set of cakes & linzers + sachets of oolong make for a nice holiday gift.

• I was underwhelmed with a visit to Hani’s Bakery, which perhaps just isn’t for me.

  • The peanut-butter-jelly cake is classically American. The kind of layer cake you might find at bake sale, but also the kind that turned me off cake for half my life.

  • The halva-pistachio rice krispie treat is a little more inspired. Best for serious fans of sesame, which I’m not. Still, I nibbled it all away.

  • I couldn’t taste much malt in the malted cinnamon buns and pigs in a blanket serve as warning that the snack should remain miniature. Who really wants to eat a whole hot dog outside of a bbq or ballpark? Not me.

• Elbow Bread is next. Maybe you’d like to join me?

• More of an announcement: Glendale’s Mini Kabab takes up residency at Standard Biergarten this weekend c/o Blackbird!!

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GIRL WITH THE NEEDLE

Magnus Von Horn

In this macabre fairytale, the unraveling bleakness of circumstances—Copenhagen, post-World War I—are tempered by the beauty of misty and unsettling b&w cinematography. Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a young factory worker with swollen eyes and a zombie’s gait, is unexpectedly impregnated by the factory owner. After failing to abort her baby, she finds help from a kindly candy store matron who runs a covert adoption agency. The plot hinges on a splashy shocking reveal based on an infamous episode of Danish history and a source of national trauma that you should definitely not look up if you plan to watch the movie and want to feel the full weight of its staggering effects.

Throughout the film Karoline does not come off very sympathetic, despite her dire circumstances. She’s not “unlikable” so much as implacable, like a wall. A self-aware wall. It's almost like she knows the type of film she’s in and what sort of misfortune lies around the corner. Director Von Horn also seems aware of the tragic underpinnings. He paints miseries into the stuff of true crime, visually speaking, and the film wallows in it winkingly. Despite this sweeping portentousness, Von Horn forces us to look at what happens when women's bodies are patrolled.

THE END

Joshua Oppenheimer

A post-apocalyptic climate-change musical set exclusively in a fancy house in a salt mine is less berserk than it sounds. The musical interludes are unmemorable, blandly soaring, (good, if Broadway is very much not your thing; it’s not mine), and nearly extraneous since the competent cast—Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George Mackay— does a more-than-fine job getting their emotions across. I guess the song and dance is a “fun” reprieve from the grim circumstances: the planet has been destroyed, and this wealthy family (father, mother, early 20s son who acts more like 16,) and their friends-cum-servants (doctor, cook butler) are seemingly the last survivors. The father was formerly some oil tycoon and directly (or indirectly as the movie may try to make you feel!) responsible for the hundreds of fires that will burn for centuries.

The lockdown aspects hit close to home and the movie gets at that claustrophobia of being cooped up inside and keeping up hope. How long can you keep getting dressed and how many times can you constantly rearrange your paintings before cracking? The enviably cozy interiors in steely periwinkle and luxury teals are a balm to the family and the viewers. The balance is upset when a young Black woman (Moses Ingram) arrives at their door. They decide not to kill her. The End falls short of the achieving the grandiosity of the themes it admirably takes on— what sacrifices are necessary for survival; what lies do we tell ourselves to convince ourselves of our morality. As the last-family-on-earth spiel winds down, and introduces Ingram, it wavers between sovereign condemnation and farce. The interracial element is particularly goofy and off-putting. There is a to-do about her not knowing how to swim and the gentile white folx teach her how swim in their indoor pool for chrissakes.

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OH, CANADA

Paul Schrader

What was poised to be a takedown of the documentary is deflated a bit by sentimentality. We might call it late style borne of a bigger budget. This rushed homage to Foregone is just as self indulgent as the novel. Elordi is eminently watchable. In Melissa Andersons book it described the reason we watch movies is to watch women, and Elordi fits that bill with his swagger. (You get to see him in a jockstrap as the movie’s final gag, a rosebud moment of sorts, and that in itself is kind of worthwhile) In the book his character feels like he’s from another planet in the world of his wife’s family, his outsider status is rendered in the flesh with his lanky gate and magnified/screen presence. In another context you might call it vanity casting—he’s playing the protagonist who might be Russell Banks who might be Schrader—but when the subject of the film is about self-mythologizing it makes sense entirely. The meta-textual aspects of the book, a diatribe lurching forward and back isn’t as pronounced in the movie, which is a swirling, often sometimes tender, daydream.

Charles Bramesco just did a great interview with Schrader for I-D where they talk about OnlyFans, guns, The Vessel, and men’s fashion.

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A gift Guide, just 4 things

The best olive oil is the least aesthetically pleasing.