What I'm Watching: Priscilla, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, When Evil Lurks, and More

Walker Scobell, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Disney+

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: For reasons that are succinctly explained here, I’m no longer comfortable asking readers who support me to do so financially through Substack. I have paused the paid subscription function on this newsletter until March 1, 2024. This means that from now until March, paid users will not be charged and new posts will not be paywalled. It’s my understanding that these months will also not count against paid annual subscriptions.

This freeze will give me some much-needed time to research the best alternative platform (my move abroad will take up the majority of my time over the next 6 weeks). In a better world, it also might give the powers-that-be at Substack enough time to grow a backbone – though I’m not holding my breath. If anyone has questions or concerns about this change, or suggestions for alternative platforms, please let me know. Thank you for reading and bearing with me. Also, now’s as good a time as any for me to recommend the movie Green Room.

With all that out of the way, here’s a quick rundown of everything I watched, read, and wrote about this week:

The shows:

• As an erstwhile Rick Riordan fan, I’m thrilled to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians getting the TV show treatment. I only wish the series – which is intriguing and faithful to the books, but already shows some pacing problems in its first two episodes – could escape the weird, fake-looking sheen inherent with some Disney+ series made with StageCraft.
• Did you know Garfield (yes, like the cat comic) has a Christmas special? I didn’t either, but it’s kind of cute. It’s got a grumpy grandma, a farming family that’s uncannily similar to the Schrutes from The Office, and a surplus of musical numbers. As per usual, the best part is Lorenzo Music’s endearingly monotone voice performance as the lazy titular tabby.

The movies:

• The 2018 film Song Lang, which is streaming free on Tubi, is one of the best hidden gems I’ve seen this year. The Vietnamese drama tells the story of two seemingly opposite men (one a loan shark thug, one an opera singer) who cross paths, and it brings their unlikely relationship to life with gorgeous camerawork, delicate writing, and a strong sense of lyricism. Quiet but powerful, Song Lang crafts a cinematic world I could’ve gotten lost in. Director Leon Le is one to watch.
• For the most part I really dug Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s dreamy and textured look at the marriage between Elvis Presley and his wife Priscilla, who he started dating when she was a young teen. I don’t typically feel much emotional attachment to Coppola’s films, but I find myself swept away by the attention to detail and the impressionistic point-of-view. Cailee Spaeny (who I love from Devs – go watch Devs!) holds her own here opposite a towering performance from Jacob Elordi, and my only real qualm was that the scene lighting was total garbage at some points. By film’s end, I had the strange sense that this would make a good double feature with 2021’s Spencer.
• Nobody does it like Kelly Reichardt, and by “it” I mean tell low-key but glorious stories that are capable of slowly changing your heart if you let them. The filmmaker’s latest, Showing Up, isn’t among my favorite of her works, but it’s still a mood for anyone who’s currently in the midst of surviving capitalism and finds themselves listless, grumpy, and over it.
• When Evil Lurks might not be the best horror movie of the year, but it’s certainly among the most malevolent-feeling. The latest from Terrified filmmaker Demián Rugna follows a group of people in a hurry to get ahead of a disturbing evil that seems to be running through their community like a current. As others have pointed out, the film’s internal logic is a bit shaky, but it was still easily able to hold my interest with some of the most jarring horror sequences of the year.
• The eco-thriller How To Blow Up A Pipeline has a great cast and a clever edit, but for some reason I expected more from one of the year’s most-hyped movies. It’s quite good, but it didn’t grab me the way I wish it had.
• The 2014 film Merry Friggin’ Christmas seems like a slam dunk idea: it’s got Joel McHale and Robin Williams (in one of his final roles) doing their best National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation antics, all while working out their family problems. Alas, the movie itself is a lot worse than the elevator pitch. It’s more dumb than fun, and the script is genuinely offensive at some points.
• Mad Men actor John Slattery directs former co-star Jon Hamm in the not-great new crime caper Maggie Moore(s). It’s a dark comedy that’s not funny, a mystery with no mystery, and above all else, a tepid Coen Brothers knockoff.

Odds and ends:

• Now that the Doctor Who Christmas special is out, I can share one of the coolest opportunities I’ve had all year: for IGN, I spoke to the Fifteenth Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, about the show’s evolving lore, David Tennant’s boundless energy, the wide world of fashion, and more.
• Also at IGN, my lovely friend and editor Amelia wrote this incredible piece about Andre Braugher and an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that changed her life.
• For Slashfilm’s first annual movie and TV awards, I had the honor of writing about Killers of the Flower Moon, Succession, Ayo Edebiri, and hate-watching The Idol.
• I also cast a ballot for the website’s top 15 movies of the year.
• My ballot included The Color Purple, but the longer I sit with the movie, the more I take issue with the way it continues to omit vital aspects of protagonist Celie’s life. Great recent pieces from the LA Times and The Huffington Post have both grappled thoughtfully with these shortcomings, and asked why this story in particular seems to always lose something in the translation from page to screen.

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, folks. I hope you’re still in holiday relaxation mode as you read this, and can keep the good vibes going for as long as possible. If you watched or read anything great over the long weekend, drop a line and let me know! You know I always love hearing about what you’re into.