Well, here we are. Day 365 of The Distancer. Tomorrow, it will all be done.
I have two pieces of writing out about new releases this week! The first is about the abysmal Tom Holland vehicle Cherry (on Apple TV+), the latest in a line of movies where rising young male actors are doing the most playing addicts. I penned a brief yet impassioned essay for Crooked Marquee on why these movies fail both the performers and the condition itself. Elsewhere on Slant, I interviewed director Ephraim Asili about his electric, experimental political film The Inheritance (available through virtual cinemas).
Since I only have you captive for another day or so, just going to do a big dump of cultural criticism or other articles I think you should read. Feel free to space it out!
The Ringer reporting out of China with music to my ears: “Maybe Everyone Wants to Go Back to Movie Theaters After All?”
For GQ, Scott Tobias breaks down how everything became a gritty reboot in advance of the Sn*der C*t
As someone who prefers to consume music uncritically (I only have so much mental capacity), I really liked this investigation in The New Yorker about a post-genre future for music
In The Atlantic, a plea against cynicism in culture
Just want some entertaining lists? I promise you won’t be let down by New Yorker critic Richard Brody’s list of the 20 best movie performances since 2000 (I guarantee you won’t see several coming) and the Vulture list of the 101 best movie endings (though be warned that spoilers are very obviously discussed)
Now, what you came for…
DAY 365: Young Frankenstein (available on Hulu)
In my humble opinion, there are few things more purely pleasurable to watch than a Mel Brooks comedy. His golden stretch in the ‘70s saw him affectionately spoofing familiar genres, such as the classic monster movies in Young Frankenstein or the Western in Blazing Saddles. (To answer a question no one is asking, yes, the latter movie absolutely could get made today — and if you think it’d get “canceled,” please watch it and ask yourself what you think is funny about it as well as who’s made the butt of the jokes.) The film follows Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frederick Frankenstein — pronounced “Fronkenstein” — after his acquisition of the family’s Transylvanian estate, which slowly leads him to embrace a sordid family history from which he long sought to distance himself. But who’s really here for the story? You want the gags and goofiness, right?
Brooks’ genius lies in the way he seamlessly marries the highbrow and lowbrow. The way he riffs on tropes shows he knows enough to understand how a genre works, but his spoofs are cinematically literate without being exclusionary. You don’t need to have seen the original Frankenstein movies with Boris Karloff (I haven’t!) to be in on the jokes of Young Frankenstein. Brooks trusts that his audiences can figure out what he’s referencing and understand why it’s ripe for parody, either from overuse or just plain silliness.
Yet even if some of the commentary eludes you, don’t worry — Young Frankenstein is packed to the gills with other humor. Not unlike previous recommendation A New Leaf, it doesn’t have the packed joke-per-minute ratio of a contemporary comedy. Good; it’s better that way. There’s a deliberate construction to the humor in the film, even when the joke ends up being something silly. Whether it’s a double entendre or a dialed-up performance, an anachronism or just plain absurdity, we always feel like we’re in the hands of a master. Brooks knows what he’s doing in a way few other comedy directors do, calibrating laughs like a conductor might lead a symphony.
But few things are worse for comedy than trying to overexplain it in words. Just take my word for it and let Young Frankenstein reanimate you!
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall