Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because l’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
“I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.
“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around.
“And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
To the dance. It keeps the world spinning correct.
Initially, you think you’re watching a television series about a stalker. Then it’s a show about sexual grooming. By the time you’re done binging the seven-part anthology series, you’re not sure what you just saw. But you’ll never forget it.
The year’s best show so far flew virtually under the radar when Netflix introduced it earlier this month. And a full two weeks after its release, Reindeer managed only nine critic reviews.
But it’s telling that not a single review on RottenTomatoes is negative. While the show may not be everyone’s cup of tea, its writing, craftsmanship and storyline is so riveting there’s no taking your eyes off Richard Gadd, the creator and star of Reindeer.
The film is based on a true story in which Gadd received more than 41,000 texts and 350 emails from a stalker. While Gadd changed the names and some circumstances to protect real people, he nails real emotion on the head.
Gadd plays Donny, a hopeful comedian who works at a British pub and comes across Martha (Jessica Gunning), a woman who claims to be a successful lawyer, but who can’t afford a Diet Coke. Everything about Martha screams loser — except Martha, who appears brimming with confidence. It’s a lovely glimpse at what we consider attractive, and who gets to decide.
Not long after Donny offers a kindness, things go south in a hurry. Where Gadd’s phone blew up in real life, in Reindeer Donny’s email is inundated.
And it’s here, in the show’s portrayal of mental disorder, that it sets itself apart from every other show on TV. The series bristles with misspellings and off-acronyms as Gadd utilizes the manic missives to wondrous effect. When I was a police reporter in Detroit and D.C., we had an offhand rule: If the letter to the editor is written past the margins, the writer is loony.
Reindeer takes place on-screen, but its narrative brilliantly blows by any margins. You can feel the series’ tensile strength straining with each note sent.
As Donny flees the unwanted advances, he finds himself making poor (though understandable) decisions that simply compound the problems in his life.
Halfway through the show, you won’t know who poses the real threat to Donny — including Donny. You pull for characters you’d never expect, turn on those you once thought true.
Kind of like life. Kind of like love.
What a find! It’s hard to lament the death of the big screen when the small one keeps cranking out gems like this.
Some critics will eventually pan Baby Reindeer. But you can bet they never took their eyes off it.
Quentin Tarantino, the last great American film director, surprised Hollywood last night when he backed out of his 10th and supposedly last movie, The Critic.
No reason was given for the departure from the movie, which had already cast Brad Pitt in the titular role of a second-string film critic who wrote for a porno mag (based on a real critic Tarantino read in the 70’s). Critic was to mark his final feature as he eased into his sixties.
It’s a great idea for a flick — especially for Tarantino, who was always a little jealous he didn’t make Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. It’s set in the greatest era of humanity, the 1970s, in the greatest biz in humanity, show, and includes porn. Check, check and check.
Only problem is that The Critic was always meant to be his penultimate film, not the grand exit that became Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. And the hard truth is that whatever he chooses as his cinematic farewell, it faces a steep headwind to overshadow Hollywood. Maybe impossible.
Critic stood to be Tarantino’s most personal film, and that may have led to the director “simply changing his mind,” according to Deadline, which broke the piece.
Personal movies give us a glimpse into the life of the filmmaker. Think American Graffiti and George Lucas; Almost Famous and Cameron Crowe; Dazed and Confused and Richard Linklater. We got to go to cinematic high school with these guys. But none work as swan songs. Just the opposite: The glimpse left us wanting to know more.
By contrast, it feels like Quentin never left high school: All of his movies brim with loud and proud geek proclamations — namely his love of all things Hollywood, from TV to kung fu to blaxploitation.
It’s made Tarantino a legend among millennials, a historian among audiences younger than 50, and a headline among film writers when he says anything of note about his forebears like Coppola, Scorsese and De Palma. Tarantino’s personal film was True Romance (or at least how he’d like to be seen), and he was the writer, not director.
Tarantino told Deadline he’s not interested in re-writing the movie, even though Sony already sank a reported $20 million in pre-production. Perhaps he saw how anti-climactic a small-scale story could compare to his re-writing of the Manson murders and birth of Hollywood’s most daring era.
Tarantino didn’t help himself by announcing (and echoing ad nauseam) that he would leave the industry after his 10th film. He said he didn’t want to become one of those directors who worked well past their prime and now made schlock for a paycheck.
Fair enough, but time will flatten a man. And I’m sure, when Hollywood was hitting the publicity circuit back during its release 2019, another movie, another circuit, another day in the slog, seemed far off.
Now it’s here. Now it’s pushed back.
I think myopia killed The Critic. Tarantino once told me he writes his screenplays longhand, so he can fully immerse in the story. Perhaps he was so immersed in writing Hollywood that he didn’t see what an epic farewell ride he had crafted. How do you craft the perfect “bye” when the “good” was great?
This is not at all a call to finish the 10th movie and be done with it. I want Quentin to go Kubrick on our asses and direct till he drops. And if anyone knows how to make an impression in a theater, it’s Tarantino. His swan song may be as sublime as his debut.
But this “final film” trade buzz was never the stuff of a good Tarantino story. Give us some blood, guts and sexuality not suitable for all audiences, and we’ll happily sit stuck in the middle with you.
