Airplane movie review May 2025
Well, the pope apparently read my screed about not believing that an American could ever be elected, and decided to prove me wrong by stacking the cardinals with his own peeps.
I had a bunch of new movies favorited for this trip (“The Room Next Door“, “Presence“, “Sing Sing“, “Nosferatu“, etc.) but only got around to a few. Maybe “Sinners” will be on the next flight. I also got sidetracked by watching old eps of Archer (from when it was funny) and 30 Rock (it was always funny). It’s been a tough few months.
- A Complete Unknown: I haven’t seen every other Dylan movie out there, so I can’t diss this on the basis of it not being up to the Pennebaker, Scorsese (2!), or Haynes (though watching Cate Blanchett do Dylan is on my watchlist), so for me this worked. Monica Barbaro is great, Boyd Holbrook (that guy from the not-so-great Justified Detroit series) is a good JC, Scoot McNairie impressed more than the other crap I’ve seen him in, Ed Norton is as annoying as I would imagine Peter Seeger would be, and Elle Fanning is not served well at all by the fictionalizing of Suze Rotolo [1]. I’ve always respected Dylan, but didn’t come around to getting more involved in his work until recently. Maybe he was just more mature at 19 than I am at fucking-old, but the older I get, the better I like his work.[2]
- The Outrun: Sairse Ronan playing an alcoholic. Mesmerizing scenery, and shes’s great actor. Liked it, good movie, like “Under the Volcano” or “Leaving Las Vegas“, a good movie that I’ll never watch again.
- Better Man: I had hoped this would be weirder. The concept is good, but in the end it ends up being a long-form version of MTV “Behind The Scenes” with CGI.
[1] My info comes from here. Dylan has apparently long insisted on preserving the privacy of his former lovers and wives. Hint: reader mode
[2] Also some of his albums sound great. I struggle to find new music that doesn’t suffer from the loudness wars. I don’t want to be an old fogie, but when I want that hit of good sound through a good stereo system, most new records don’t got it, so I have to resort to old stuff. [3]
[3] And fuck you I’ve had my hearing checked a number of times. I struggle with voices in a crowded room, but both my audiologist and the Apple hearing test tell me that I’ve still got really good ears even at high frequencies. Despite years of power tools, concerts (fan and musician), gunfire, and assholes.
A complete unknown lisan al gaib
I was listening to a podcast review of one of my airplane movies (now purchased and rewatched [0]), A Complete Unknown. The reviewers’ comment was that they got tired of the music biopic trope of others looking at the rising star with adoring eyes, and it’s true, ACU does that a lot.
I noticed it too – it’s really obvious. It could be them fully leaning into the trope, because tropes are tropes because they work, but I think it’s meant to be a subversion of the trope.
Watch Timothee Chalamet in those scenes, and Dylan in Don’t Look Back, and see how that adoration reflects in his/their face, and consider what it must have been like for Dylan then, and for Chalamet in real life now, with the fame [1] descending upon someone self-aware and bright who can see what’s coming, and what that might do, given their naturally cynical bent. Then think about the other movie Chalamet has starred in, and his role in that, and a scene explicitly calling out [2] the moment a friend becomes a disciple.
There, I made a connection between Dune and Bob Dylan. Both of whom arrived at roughly the same time.
It’s definitely a trope, probably for a reason, and well mocked in the music mockumentary genre. I think the director and the star both knew that, and considered the well-deserved skewering these kind of movies have gotten, but this isn’t La Bamba, and it’s not about the adoration, it’s about watching Dylan/Chalamet and seeing that funhouse mirror reflection of what just happened, and what’s about to happen, in their faces, and how it got to Johnny Cash just a moment before.
I don’t think I’ve seen that in a movie before, and that was really well done.
Tagged movies[0] I wish I had made time to watch it in an IMAX theatre. It was pretty good on my home setup, way better with good sound than on the airplane.
[1] it’s even called out in the letters to Johnny Cash in the movie, how obvious do they have to make it?
[1] in the movie and the book
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