I Do Not Understand 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'

Fifteen minutes into I’m Thinking of Ending Things, I guessed the big twist. I was right. That didn't help. I still have no idea what Charlie Kaufman's newest movie is really about.

 

If you're more lost than I am, I can tell you what's "real" and what's "fantasy". That part is easy. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is not some intricate Mystery Box built to surprise you in a single grand reveal. It isn't Fight Club. The details of the story make no sense right from the start. I could clear up some points, but this review is not one of those "I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Ending Explained!" pieces that are so distressingly popular. No, I'm maybe a few steps ahead of you. But I'm no closer to the answer. What is Kaufman trying to say with this movie? I don't know.

I am not really sure what genre I'm Thinking of Ending Things even belongs in. It definitely is not a love story, because the romance is already terminally ill by the time the movie begins. There's plenty of ridiculous moments, including a broad parody of one of the worst Best Picture winners of the last twenty years. But it isn't a comedy. I was terrified watching much of the film, but horror feels wrong too. If it is a tragedy, it has picked a particularly unsympathetic hero. I'm Thinking of Ending Things is two hours of uncomfortable conversation interrupted by moments of extreme existential nightmares. Then the main narrative dissolves completely. Genre is not a useful tool to help understand this piece.

Never mind my utter bewilderment at I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you just want a simple yes or no recommendation, then reading stop now. This movie rules. It is an extraordinary piece of art made one of the true greats of cinema. We are spoiled to have Charlie Kaufman. I say we're spoiled, even as he tortures us with his stories about miserable men and the unattainable women around them. I'm Thinking of Ending Things might be his weirdest film yet. Still, while I am so entranced by the filmmaking craft on display here, I don't know much of anything about this purpose of this movie. Does Charlie Kaufman even like the character he's created here? Is this a plea for sympathy for a man ignored by the world? Or is it telling us the character was better off silent because he had nothing to say in the first place?

Top 10 August 2020 First Watches

Movie theaters are reopening right now. I beg of you not to go to them. I live in a part of the country that is now relatively safe, as things go. Only about a dozen people a day die in New Jersey from Coronavirus. "Only about a dozen" is a fucking sick statement if I've ever made one, we're safe only by relativity. It is bad everywhere. Movie theaters are not safe. They have always been dirty places open to the filthiest members of the public that were never well-cleaned. You really think a place that routinely has sticky floors and cum stains on the seats is hygienic? I say this as somebody who has spent most of his adult life in a movie theater, who loves that place more than his own home: STAY AWAY.

However, at the end of August, I actually did see a new movie in a kind of theater. It was New Mutants, making me one of the very few people to have seen it. However, I saw it at a drive-in in New York state. I was in my car, a safe distance away away from everybody else. The experience was terrible for a number of reasons. Drive-ins suck, as it turns out. The sound is bad, the screen is bad, there's distractions everywhere, and it is hard to find parking. Drive-ins are about the worst way to see a movie. Yet they are better than risking your life to see Tenet at Christopher Nolan's beloved IMAX. 

Again, don't go to the movies. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you have ever listened to me as a critic, do it now. No theaters.

Anyway, August's movie theme was Kaiju Films, that special Japanese style of giant monster cinema. Turns out a large number of classic Sixties and Seventies kaiju films from the great masters of the genre, Toho, are available on HBO Max and Amazon Prime right now. I am a massive kaiju fan, so much so I run an unpopular series of reviews years ago on this blog. I tried to review every giant monster ever made. And failed. Godzilla is my personal favorite superhero. He's been a major part of my life since I was a child watching him fight Gigan and Mechagodzilla on VHS. My mom and my uncle used to watch him on TV in the Seventies in their childhood. So if my family was in Game of Thrones, our sigil would have the King of the Monsters on it. However, it was only last month I finally saw all thirty-five Godzilla theatrical releases. (It will be thirty-six come next year with Godzilla vs Kong, assuming the plague goes away.) 

Still, I konw kaiju films are often boring, have very cheesy effects, and have aged terrible. So this month I have a lot to say about a lot of really not-that-great movies. If ever I have indulged in 100% Glorified My Shit in my writing, it is right now.

E3 (I Guess) 2020 Reactions Part 2: The Good

I was very negative with my first "E3" 2020 Reaction post. But, if this summer's scattered mess of game announcements had actually been a proper E3 Show, it would have been a really bad E3. 2020 is the worst "E3" I've even written about. Imagine an E3 with basically no Nintendo, no Call of Duty, and very few games with solid release dates. I said this last time, but I understand why E3 sucked. The whole world in chaos. Some people can't make rent. So if Microsoft has nothing to show with their new Fable game yet, that's fine. There's bigger problems.

Still Halo Infinite looked bad. And I called it, because it has not been a week and Halo Infinite has been delayed to 2021. It was not ready. Neither were a lot of games this year. Be prepared to wait until 2025 for Fable, that appears to be nowhere near even an alternate universe where it might be done soon. But that's reality. Games are getting delayed. Which is weird because we have no consoles, and I have no idea what will even be available to play on them. Cyberpunk 2077 won't have a PS5 version until next year. Control wants $40 for the PS5 upgrade, and fuck you, Remedy. I'm not paying that! Everything is a mess.

Shit, I've ended up being negative again for two paragraphs and this is the "Good" E3 post. HOWEVER, in this horrible time to live, having "E3-like"conferences was one of the few bright spots of this summer. With the way things are, you cannot really make plans. There's no way to look forward to anything because you have no idea if it will even exist. The NFL thinks there will be a season. They sound like lunatic optimists to me. How do you plan a vacation or a party in times like this? So at least with video games, there was something. Something solid, something almost normal, something that I could be sure is coming out and is exciting. Seeing the PlayStation 5 revealed was one of the few moments of actual solid hope I had this summer. It meant the future could have better things in it. What other hope is there? Kamala Harris as Vice President? You fucking kidding me?

E3 to me is about creating hope. Admittedly it's the stupidest form of hope, consumerist hope. But whatever.. Hope and hype are good to have. It's healthy to want things. You cannot live without some dream of the future. I'm almost glad Breath of the Wild 2 probably won't come out this year, because it's something to fantasize about. I can happily happily dream every day about how much fun Breath of the Wild 2 will be. Everyday Nintendo says nothing is another day the I can fool myself into thinking Princess Zelda will be playable.

Anyway, here are the hopes and dreams that actually arrived during the events I'm calling E3 2020:

"E3"(?) 2020 Reactions Part 1: The Bad and the Weird

The Coronavirus outbreak destroyed many entertainment industries. Theater, movies, sports, all could not happen. Video games, however, were mostly fine. I could still play The Last of Us 2 and Final Fantasy VII Remake along with everybody else, as normal. Gaming, in fact, only blew up further. It made ass, boat, or truck loads of money depending on your preferred cliché. Some companies, like Nintendo, probably wish the plague would never end considering how much they're making.

However, one thing was ruined this year. That was E3. Games media has a unique yearly cycle not shared by other forms of entertainment. There is one week in early June where about 70% of the big announcements of the year all happen. E3 has been in rapid decline for years. Even in a non-plague year, E3 2020 was going to be a weird event that was a pale imitation of the last few E3 conventions, which were themselves pale imitations of the proper megashows of the convention’s golden years. But even if E3 itself might have sucked; it was a focal point. Sony was not going to the show proper, but it was going to have announcements around that time. Now with E3 gone and social distancing ruling the day, the usual rhythm of gaming news was destroyed. All the shows scattered to the four winds. It’s early August and we still do not know the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X prices.

I was not really sure if I should really do my usual E3 Reaction post this year considering there wasn’t actually an E3. Generally I'm in a bad mood about the immediate gaming future too. I have very low hopes for next year and very few big releases seem that exciting to me. I know good games are coming at some point. Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2 will probably release around the time I finally bother to review Part 1. But that wasn't announced. Warner Bros. still has not shown anything for the new Batman game, to my infinite fury. Nintendo slept all summer.

More announcements are coming, sure. But I'm done waiting for what *might* get shown. I'm doing my E3 Reaction Post now. If you have a big game to show, you missed your chance. And in my general bad mood today, I'm going to start off on a bad foot. Here are the games I am not just unexcited for, I am anti-excited for them. Here's all the worst stories of the "E3-ish Season" 2020.

Top 10 July 2020 First Watches

Assuming we all survive to December, I'll write a Top 15 of 2020. That is going to be a weird list for a weird year. It is not just the fact that all the major blockbuster have disappeared. Frankly, I wasn't all that excited for Mulan or Black Widow, and I could wait years for those. It is just that it is much harder to find movies now. The releases are so infrequent and poorly advertised. My 2020 Top List until July was basically just Emma and The Color Out of Space, with maybe The Lodge, Ride Your Wave, and Harley Quinn in the running.

So thank god that in July movies started coming out again. There are three movies on this list that could very well make the Top 15. Spoilers, maybe, but Relic and Palm Springs are both in the running for my Number 1. It felt like movies mattered again. And then nothing's come out for weeks since. What is coming up in August? I'm a movie-guy and I don't know.

Anyway, July's movie theme was Spike Lee Joints. Here's a confession: I've kinda never liked Spike Lee as a director. I think he's extremely talented, a major pioneer in indie filmmaking and African American filmmaking. He is an icon who makes unique movies that are very often way up their own ass. Da 5 Bloods is one of the worst movies I've seen this year. I feel alone in this. Everybody wanted a truly great Spike Lee movie to answer the Black Lives Matter moment, and I think a lot of us forgave things we should not have with that movie. It completely bungles its themes and treats Vietnam as just war, not a country. For a movie that wants so badly to find humanity in men mistreated by the US imperialism machine, it also misses the fact the they were part of that imperialism machine. The violence they did is treated like heroism, and they continue to do violence which the movie mostly celebrates in a very uncritical way. Da 5 Bloods is as much a power fantasy as Rambo and just as unable to see foreigners as people. I did not like Blackkklansman either and feel even more alone on that front.

So I wanted to explore Spike Lee's filmography more. I wanted to better understand what people saw in this guy. I found quite a few of his movies were great. But just as many are train wrecks, like the hatefully bad Jungle Fever, a movie I'm very sorry to have watched. So assuming you want more of a White guy's opinion on a Black artist's work, I guess read ahead. Obviously I will not be the final word on Mr. Lee and never intend to be.