The New Classics: Oslo, August 31

Michael Cusumano here for the 30th episode of The New Classics.

It was hard. Absolutely.

Scene: The Bucket List 
Halfway through Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31 we get an extended scene of the protagonist, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), sitting in a cafe and simply listening to the other patrons talk. He appears perfectly ordinary sitting there. Just a guy in a cafe. What we in the audience know, which everyone who meets him on this fateful day does not, is that Anders started the day by filling his pockets with rocks and wading into a lake, attempting suicide a la Virginia Woolf. He couldn't go through with it and spends the rest of the film teetering quietly on the brink...

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The New Classics - The Handmaiden

by Michael Cusumano

Hello, everyone. I'm celebrating my 80th day of quarantine by letting my mind wander to one of the most uproariously debauched scenes in recent years.

Scene: The Reading
We hear about Lady Hideko’s readings a few times before we actually see one in action. Earlier, when she says she is worn out after a performance, we take it as a sign of her weakness. She is so sheltered and delicate a simple reading wipes her out her. When we actually witness one of these performances halfway through Chan-wook Park’s The Handmaiden, we change our tune in a big hurry. The readings are nothing if not impressive displays of stamina...

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The New Classics: The Descent

Michael Cusumano here to discuss the movie scene that scared me more than any other in my adult life.

There are some tried and true rules of horror filmmaking that get trotted out whenever the topic is discussed. There is The Hitchcock Rule about the difference between suspense and surprise, and The Jaws Rule about withholding the monster from view until absolutely necessary. I propose adding a new rule to the list of horror maxims: The Descent Rule, named after Neil Marshall’s 2005 terrifying excursion into the caves of Appalachia: Structure your story so that it’s scary even if the main threat never arrived. 

Scene: The Tunnel
The Descent didn’t invent this principle, of course...

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The New Classics: Nightcrawler

About once a decade we get a film set in the world of television that serves not just as a satire but a warning, asking us to take a look at the glaring problems in the way Americans get their information. Titles like A Face in the Crowd (1957), Network (1976), and Broadcast News (1987). It’s clear to me that that the film to take up this mantle for this last decade was Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014). 

The trend in these stories does not inspire optimism. If the 2010’s spat up Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom to represent it, am I ever terrified to meet the standard-bearer for the 2020’s... 

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The New Classics: Capote

Michael Cusumano here to celebrate a film that is so much more than just another "based on a true story" prestige pic. I have noticed that Bennett Miller’s Capote is often shoved into the biopic genre in a way that diminishes the film’s achievements. 

Lesser biopics bask in the glow of reflected importance coming off their subjects. Significance through osmosis. They value the flush of recognition over insight, and the accumulation of incident over meaning. Capote on the other hand is crafted with a stark, unwavering discipline. It has more in common with a portrait of artistic self-destruction like Black Swan than with Walk Hard inspirations like Ray...

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