The Best Movie of the Year Is "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and Hugh Laurie's New TV Series Is a Dazzling Romantic Mystery
The Best Movies, TV, Music, Books, and Comics April 15-17
I’m very excited about my suggestions for this weekend. Finally, a movie came out about which I have absolutely no reservations. Hugh Laurie has given us a thoroughly delightful romance-mystery-adventure to binge. My music selection is an oldie but timeless in its passion and power. The graphic novel I’m recommending is one of the most entertaining I’ve read in a while. As for the novel, I’ll let that be a surprise.
I’d love to hear from you regarding these suggestions, so leave a comment. And if you enjoy these suggestions, share and like them.
WATCH (movies)
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
This is the best movie of the year. Period. Nothing even comes close.
Don’t be fooled by the poster, which makes it look like it’s a martial arts movie. There’s enjoyable martial arts fighting in it, but that’s besides the point. And don’t be fooled by the sci-fi multiverse razzmatazz in the preview. There’s amazing and original multiversing throughout, but that’s also besides the point.
The point is there’s a Chinese American family trying to live the American Dream but have been so beaten down by the minutia of the daily darkness of existence that they have lost their way. They have forgotten how to love life and how to love each other. Sure, that’s a common theme in lots of melodramas, but literature only shares a handful of themes. It’s up to each art work to make us experience the impact and insight of those common themes so they resonate through our flesh down to the cells and realign our souls.
This movies does all that. For most of the story, the audience is stunned by the creativity, the bold ideas, the audacious humor which ranges from the crude to the sublime (somewhat reminiscent of the excellent Kung Fu Hustle). But the last twenty minutes we are watching through tears of compassion, longing, and relatability. This is how you create modern mythology.
Then again, I thought one of the best movies of last year was Pig with Nic Cage. And even though it won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and earned Cage a second nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor, the Academy slapped it aside with no nominations.
Go see Everything Everywhere All at Once. At the very least, it is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.