MOVIE: Being John Malkovich (1999)

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Being John Malkovich Year: 1999 Rating: R Length: 113 minutes / 1.88 hours I have to blame Being John Malkovich (1999) for making me try more films written by Charlie Kaufman than I probably wanted to. While it is a quite peculiar film, it was strange in all the right ways. This movie was saying more than I could comprehend when it hooked me the first time I watched it, but now I can see its deeper meanings having been given the time to see it again with fresh eyes. And perhaps Being John Malkovich was more my introduction to Spike Jonze films, which has been a much better journey. Kaufman's writing is bizarre in ways that annoyed me in Synecdoche, New York (2008) and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) but worked for movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Being John Malkovich (1999). Perhaps it's because the latter two in this list have actual plots. I can appreciate the meta...
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MOVIE: American Fiction (2023)

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American FictionYear: 2023Rating: RLength: 117 minutes / 1.95 hours As an author and a creative, American Fiction (2023) spoke to me in ways that I have yet been able to put into words. Similar to how La La Land (2016) highlighted the sacrifices and compromises we must make to achieve our artistic dreams, American Fiction revealed the difference between high art and lowbrow entertainment. I feel the struggles and concerns of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) are ultimately the same for any creative person who doesn't want to lower their standard just to be successful. While the plot about Monk being frustrated that the manuscript he wrote as a joke ended up being wildly successful is the focus of this movie, I can understand the need for other character development outside this main thread. It doesn't paint Monk as a likable character, which humanizes him and brings him down from the ivory tower of academic literature. Showing these interactions with those he...
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BOOK: Song of Susannah (2004)

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Song of Susannah Year: 2004 Author: Stephen King Length: 822 minutes / 13.70 hours Six books into the Dark Tower series, and I'm glad that things are wrapping up. I felt Wolves of the Calla was only as good as it was because it was clearly a ripoff of The Magnificent Seven (1960). And with so many of the books in this series focusing on the men of the ka-tet, it was nice to get a book that mostly focused on Susannah's experiences. A lot of weird stuff happened in this book, but at least it laid the groundwork for the last entry in the series. Perhaps the weirdest part of this book was its meta-narrative with Stephen King. I was a little surprised this fourth-wall-breaking move worked as well as it did. Then again, King clearly hinted that this was a possibility in the previous book in the series. Author self-inserts usually take the form of the main character living out the author's fantasies....
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MOVIE: See How They Run (2022)

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See How They Run Year: 2022 Rating: PG-13 Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours When it comes to certain actors, I've enjoyed their previous work enough that I'll watch them in anything now. Since Iron Man 2 (2010), I've liked what Sam Rockwell has done, whereas Lady Bird (2017) felt like Saoirse Ronan's breakout role for me. Having both these actors together in the same movie was a guarantee that I'd want to see it. Considering how the trailers made See How They Run (2022) look like a fun little whodunnit comedy, I was looking forward to how these actors would play off each other. Ronan's earnest police detective paired with Rockwell's hardened investigator was a fun match-up for this movie. It's not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but it's cute when it's amusing. That the "lessons" Rockwell's character inadvertently gives to Ronan's up-and-comer end up being the key to solving the case just makes it that much more fun. The other actors that surround this investigative...
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MOVIE: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Year: 2021 Rating: PG Length: 90 minutes / 1.50 hours The documentary format is so ingrained as a genre of film that it can be quite easy to take the same visual style and plot structure and apply it to something that doesn't actually exist. In the case of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021), the audience gets a glimpse into this peculiar little creature named Marcel (Jenny Slate) who lives in an Airbnb with his grandmother—both of which are shells that have shoes and can talk. Equally charming and meta, this film is a cute piece of fluff. While I never saw the short films this movie was based on, they must have been significant enough at the time (roughly a decade ago) for me to feel like this was a familiar piece of media that I had somehow missed from my childhood. The stop-motion style of these small creatures helps to show the challenges they face...
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MOVIE: Chip ‘n Dale – Rescue Rangers (2022)

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Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers Year: 2022 Rating: PG Length: 97 minutes / 1.61 hours Nostalgia can be tricky to balance. There's nostalgia that feels pandering, even to the demographic it's aimed at. Then there's nostalgia that's so meta that only those deep scholars of the source material would get the inside jokes. As a Millennial, I found Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) scratched an itch for balanced nostalgia I didn't even know I had. It's a shame that Disney tossed it onto Disney+ instead of getting a wider theatrical release because the comedy in this movie was top-notch. This movie was so smartly written that I laughed out loud more often than not. All the brief references it hid in plain view, but without drawing a cringey, eye-winking nod to it, was a welcome change to how most movies handle nostalgia reboots. Even modern references like Ugly Sonic were hilarious, mostly because they "went there." Of course, the movie still brought attention to...
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MOVIE: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours One of the best bits in the television show Community was Abed's exploration of Nicolas Cage's career. Is he a genius? Is he a hack? There is an almost equal amount of evidence to suggest either side. When I first saw the trailers for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), I thought the meta take on Nicolas Cage's career would be a fun trip. However, which version of the actor would we get? Genius or hack? The fundamental problem with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is that it doesn't go far enough into the meta. It felt like someone just opened up IMDb and chose the top ten Nicolas Cage blockbusters to name-drop throughout the movie. We don't get Moonstruck (1987). We don't get Leaving Las Vegas (1995). We don't get Adaptation. (2001). As a result, this film mostly focuses on his action-oriented movies, which typically aren't...
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VIDEO GAME: Virtual Virtual Reality (2019)

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Virtual Virtual RealityYear: 2019Rating: TTime Played: ~3 hours The one qualm I have with many VR games is how many of them fail to include any kind of story into their gameplay. It's mostly, "Here's this thing you can do in an immersive environment," and that's it. The ones that have a story (like Shadow Point or Moss) sometimes don't lean into the VR nearly as much—mostly being games that could be played in first- or third-person without VR. Virtual Virtual Reality, though, is the best of both worlds, combining VR interactions with a great story. Placed somewhere between the meta Accounting+ and interactivity of Job Simulator, Virtual Virtual Reality takes the Portal approach to gradual storytelling. There are a lot of parallels that are hard to miss here. At its core, this game's story revolves around a cheery yet malevolent AI who tries to get the player to perform odd jobs for a variety of requestors. However, when you peel back...
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VIDEO GAME: The Stanley Parable (2011)

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The Stanley Parable Year: 2011 Rating: NR Time Played: ~2 hours The Stanley Parable is one of those odd video games that defies definition. Is it a walking simulator? Is it a choose-your-own-adventure? Is it a meta examination of itself? In the end, it truly is a combination of all three, but it's also so much more than that. While most video games have an objective you're trying to accomplish, The Stanley Parable is content with giving you the illusion of free will, then smirking as everything unravels in hilarious fashion. On my first playthrough of The Stanley Parable, I let the narrator guide me all the way to the end of the story. It was an uplifting ending that the narrator's voice prescribed, seeing as he told me what to do the whole time. However, there were no end credits after reaching this ending. Teleported back to the start of my journey, I progressed through this liminal space again, except now I knew what...
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MOVIE: The Player (1992)

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The Player Year: 1992 Rating: R Length: 124 minutes / 2.07 hours Those who are aware of Robert Altman’s other films are sure to recognize the themes that permeated his oeuvre. He always seemed to find a way to satirize something in a way that underscored how broken the system is. From the military in M*A*S*H (1970) to the music industry in Nashville (1975), Altman had a keen eye to bring the ridiculous nature of these anthropological machines into the spotlight. Clearly, his time in the movie industry helped him adapt Michael Tolkin’s novel into The Player (1992). In a weird and meta way, nothing has changed since its early-90’s release. If you’re playing the “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game at home, this film is literally a “who’s who” of actors and movie personalities (many of whom appear “as themselves”). Unfortunately, this film does suffer from its early-90’s aesthetic, often highlighting how far we’ve come in terms of fashion and technology in nearly three...
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MOVIE: Synecdoche, New York (2008)

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Synecdoche, New YorkYear: 2008Rating: RLength: 124 minutes / 2.07 hours I knew going into Synecdoche, New York (2008), that it was a Charlie Kaufman film. I knew his material could get weird (like Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation. (2002)) but movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) had enough heart that I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Except nothing could have prepared me for the madness of Synecdoche, New York (2008). I mean, there are meta films like Adaptation. then there are meta films of a whole different level like Synecdoche, New York. In the end, I think the story suffers due to its insistence on the artistic. I’m all for “smart” films that make the audience think. However, I am not a fan of movies that are so intellectually up their own behind to obscure every piece of meaningful plot and character development behind metaphor and “art.” There is a point where the plot gets so convoluted...
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MOVIE: The Gentlemen (2020)

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The Gentlemen Year: 2020 Rating: R Length: 113 minutes / 1.88 hours I’ve enjoyed a good portion of Guy Ritchie’s filmmaking. While many of his more recent movies rely on franchise appeal (Sherlock Holmes (2009), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) and Aladdin (2019) are of note), I usually associate his style of filmmaking with the British heist film (like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000)). Consequently, I was looking forward to seeing his recent film, The Gentlemen (2020), as it seemed to be a return to the kind of filmmaking that attracted me to Guy Ritchie films in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems Ritchie has been away from his core movies for so long that he’s almost forgotten how to make them. The meta framing with Hugh Grant and Charlie Hunnam was clunky enough that even Hunnam’s character was getting bored with the “telling” in the exposition provided by Grant’s character. Sure, there were a few neat twists here and...
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MOVIE: Deadpool 2 (2018)

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Deadpool 2 Year: 2018 Rating: R Length: 119 minutes / 1.98 hours At what point does the fourth wall stop? I only ask this because there’s a point where an audience member will have to know not only the plot of the film that started the franchise, but the subsequent reactions to the film, the complete history of comic books, and the entirety of the lyrics to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Major-General’s Song” to understand the references. While Deadpool (2016) maintained that sly balance between knowing winks to the superhero genre as a whole and being an actual superhero film, Deadpool 2 (2018) almost went toward both extreme ends in order to maintain its balance. There were plenty of references and little sight gags that will leave true fans of the franchise pausing their Blu-rays for years to come, and I certainly did appreciate some of the meta-humor, but only to a point. Strangely enough, Deadpool 2 felt more like a superhero film than its predecessor, which seems odd as it...
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